Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA

Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City schools ‘running out of cash and ... running out of time,’ board is warned

Michael Fine from the state's financial crisis team and David Gordon from the county office of education address the Sacramento City Unified School Board on cutting costs in their district on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019 in Sacramento. 

By José Luis Villegas

With a possible teacher strike, an approved motion for layoffs and a potential state takeover looming over the Sacramento City Unified School District, the county superintendent delivered a grim message at a Thursday night school board meeting.

“Your district is running out of cash, and you in the district are running out of time,” David Gordon said.

Gordon and an independent fiscal manager repeated their warnings of an imminent state takeover and what that would look like for the district.

“With insolvency and under a state administrator, all of the cuts you need to make now will still have to be made – and then some,” Gordon said. Because the district would have to make large loan payments to the state to close its budget gap under receivership, the result would be “even greater program cuts” and diminished services to students, he said.

In its audit of Sacramento City Unified late last year, the state-created Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team warned the district that if it failed to address its $35 million deficit, it faces a state takeover in six months. The report said the district was likely to run out of money by November.

Gordon said the board and Superintendent Jorge Aguilar were working to identify cuts, but that the plan is incomplete.

He stressed that the district and its labor groups would have to work together to achieve the level of budget reductions needed. “It’s imperative that all employee groups come to the table now, and be part of the solution to avoid cash insolvency and the need for a state loan,” he said.

FCMAT’s chief executive Mike Fine, who presented his fact-finding report warning the district of insolvency last year, reiterated those sentiments.

“You’re not going to make progress until everyone can sit down and rebuild that relationship that’s been hurt over a long period of time,” he said. 

Four of the five labor unions have been working with the district. But the Sacramento City Teachers Association is at odds with the district over its salary adjustment schedule, and has signaled deep mistrust over its labor agreements. Earlier this month, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered a return to the arbitration table after negotiations were halted when the district filed a court motion last year.

The district’s budget was disapproved twice last year. If its proposed cuts cannot be met soon, it CONTINUE READING: Sacramento City Unified school board hears budget warnings | The Sacramento Bee

Big Education Ape: Tell the Sac City School Board to Put Students First - Action Network #Unite4SACKids #WeAreSCTA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED #SCTA #CTA - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/tell-sac-city-school-board-to-put.html

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos #Unite4OaklandKids #WeAreOEA #WeAreCTA #strikeready #REDFORED

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos

“Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos
On day one of the strike, teachers, students and community members speak from the picket line.

THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, WENT ON STRIKE THIS MORNING—the latest in a series of increasingly militant work stoppages by educators across the country.

In January, teachers in Los Angeles, California, won a historic strike, securing smaller class sizes, a nurse in every school, a reduction in standardized testing, a 6 percent pay raise for teachers and a plan for the School Board to vote to call on the state to cap charter school growth.

The teachers union in Denver, Colorado, won its first strike in 25 years last week, while educators in West Virginia walked out earlier this week, halting proposed legislation that would have allowed tax dollars to pay for private-school tuition.

Today, the 3,000-member Oakland Education Association (OEA) is on strike after 95 percent of its members voted on February 4 to authorize the work stoppage. The union says it has picket lines up at all 86 educational campuses in Oakland.

The Oakland teachers strike is as much about defending public education as it is about teacher pay.

United under the slogan, “Fighting for the schools our students deserve,” the union is calling for smaller class sizes, more support services for students (nurses, counselors and librarians), and an end to neighborhood school closures.

Currently, 24 Oakland public schools are slated for closure, the majority of them in poor and working-class communities of color.

The school closures are directly related to the rise in charter schools. According to a report by In the Public Interest, charter schools in Oakland are currently costing the district $57 million dollars per year.

The union is also calling for a living wage for teachers who are increasingly being priced out of Oakland. According to a recent op ed by the union’s president, Keith Brown, a starting teacher would have to spend 60 percent of their salary to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland. Unsurprisingly, the district is CONTINUE READING: “Out Here Because I Love Teaching”: The Oakland Teachers Strike, In Photos

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation
Assembly vote could come as early as next week. If it passes, Newsom expected to sign it.

t the urging of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a bill that will require charter schools to be more accountable and transparent is making its way swiftly through the legislature and may be the first of several bills seeking to tighten oversight of charter schools.

Senate Bill 126 would require that California charter school boards comply with the same open meeting, conflict-of-interest and disclosure laws as district school boards, including holding public board meetings, opening records to the public upon request and ensuring board members don’t have a financial interest in contracts on which they vote.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino and Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach. It passed the state Senate Thursday with a 34 to 2 vote and will go to the state Assembly for a vote as early as next week. If it passes, the law will go into effect Jan. 1.

The bill met no opposition from the California State Charter Schools Association, although it did not formally support it.

Leyva said she was able to get Senate Bill 126 through with little resistance because all parties, including representatives of the charter school association and teacher CONTINUE READING: California charter schools facing new oversight under fast track legislation | EdSource

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close

For more than a decade, most public schools in New Orleans were overseen by state bureaucrats, 80 miles away in Baton Rouge. That changed last summer, when a state law passed in 2016 took the majority of the city’s schools back from the state-run Recovery School District to the locally elected school board — and its superintendent, Henderson Lewis, Jr. — for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

It is a different district than the one the Orleans Parish School Board ran before the storm.  Nearly every school in the city is now a publicly funded, privately run charter school. This summer, New Orleans is slated to become the first major city in the country without any traditional, district-run charter schools. And Lewis has more power than superintendents from earlier eras. Under the 2016 law, he can now decide without Orleans Parish School Board approval, to close schools considered troubled or failing, barring a supermajority veto vote from the seven-member board. In November, he decided that five New Orleans schools  would close this spring.

As of the state’s fall enrollment count, 1,127 students were enrolled in those five schools.

Two district-run schools — Harney elementary and Cypress Academy — were recently taken over from their charter boards due to financial and governance problems. They are slated to close this spring.

Another, the historic McDonogh 35 Senior High School — which opened in 1917 as Louisiana’s first public high school for black students — will continue to operate. But it will be “phased out” after being passed from district to contractor control this summer. The contractor is also opening a charter school there this fall.

”Closure is a very difficult and unpleasant decision that is part of the landscape in New Orleans. It’s part of what it means to be a charter school.”
—Caroline Roemer, Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools

The three remaining schools set for closure are all charters. They were returned from the Recovery School District last summer and are considered academically failing. Three have been rated F by the state for three years in a row or more, based largely on student performance in state standardized tests. Lewis decided not to renew their charter contracts, effectively closing them.

“It’s hard to explain to your child why they have the “F” rating,” Alex Lafargue said. His nine-year-old son, Alongkoin Lafargue, CONTINUE READING: Class dismissed: How and when New Orleans schools close | The Lens

John H. Jackson: We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers

It may be hard to distinguish in the current political climate where the line of decency is—but one thing is clear, Donald Trump, Jr.’s recent attack on teachers crossed it.  At the president’s February 11 border wall rally in El Paso, Trump, Jr. stirred up the crowd:

“I love seeing some young conservatives because I know it’s not easy. (Crowd applauds and shouts.) Keep up that fight. Bring it to your schools. You don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth.”

The son of the president urging rally goers to bring their “fight” to schools is concern enough.  The language does not seem like an empty threat when you reflect on escalating white nationalist violence, and the horrific incidences of violent attacks in schools.  

The broader concern is that America’s public school teachers—who come from diverse backgrounds and have political attitudes that cover the spectrum—are increasingly being vilified for political purposes, rather than being appreciated for the vital role they play caring for and educating our children. 

Our public education system is one of the most critical institutions supporting our democracy.  The chants of “USA, USA” that filled the hall may purport to make Trump Jr.’s rallying cry seem like mainstream America—but it is anything but. As three teachers—one from the U.S. and two international colleagues said, “This is a message you would expect in an authoritarian regime, not at a rally for the U.S. president.”  

Educators around the world are denouncing Trump Jr.’s statement.  We must join them.

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Tell your friends and colleagues to speak out against this attack. This is no time to be silent:

 

We Must Denounce Trump Jr.'s Attack on Teachers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

Oakland, Los Angeles And More To Come: Why Teachers Keep Going On Strike

The current wave of teacher walkouts started a year ago this week, when educators across West Virginia were out of the classroom for nine days. The movement spread to five more states before the school year was over.

New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that almost a half a million U.S. workers were off the job in strikes or lockouts during 2018, and nearly 400,000 of them were teachers. It was the biggest year for work stoppages since 1986.

This year, individual districts — such as Denver and Los Angeles — have picked up where states left off. Teachers in Oakland, Calif., were on the picket lines Thursday and Friday, and Sacramento, Calif., teachers could be next.

Educators say they're angry. They don't like how states and school districts treat them and their students. A lot of the frustration comes down to money, but dignity and respect are touchstones, too.

Why are teachers striking?

Teachers earn less than other workers with comparable experience and education — a gap that's widened in recent years. More than a million teachers aren't covered by Social Security. An NPR/Ipsos poll conducted last April found that 59 percent of teachers have worked a second job, and 86 percent say they've spent their own money CONTINUE READING: Why Are Teachers Going On Strike In Oakland, Los Angeles And Denver? : NPR

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main

West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again
Meanwhile, Oakland teachers break out the picket signs and LAUSD discovers the joys of transparency.

“Yes, West Virginia, there is a teachers union, and it’s still fighting mad.” That was the message for Mountain State lawmakers this week when thousands of West Virginia teachers and school workers walked off the job to kill a privatization bill reputedly written in retaliation for last year’s historic nine-day teachers strike. Only hours into the Tuesday-Wednesday walkout, the state’s House of Delegates voted 53 to 45 to indefinitely table Senate Bill 451, which had linked a teacher pay raise to the gutting of job security and a first-time legalization for West Virginia of charters and private school vouchers. “Instead of trying to treat a symptom with garbage legislation that isn’t even vetted or proven to work,” Logan County teacher Kristina Gore told New York magazine, “let’s brainstorm some legislation to fix the real problem — the social conditions in which our children live.”

All eyes now turn to the East Bay, where over 3,000 Oakland Unified educators walked off the job today, following the recommendations issued last Friday by a neutral fact-finding panel, which agreed with key union bargaining positions but was unable to break the deadlock. “Years of underfunding, the unregulated growth of the charter school industry and district neglect [have] starved our schools of the necessary resources,” OEA president Keith Browncharged at a Saturday press conference. In addition to a 12 percent raise over three years, the union is asking for class size reductions, more support staff and is opposing extreme austerity measures that could shutter up to 24 OUSD neighborhood schools.

That OUSD chopping block was the subject of Tuesday’s almost Dickensian Oakland school board meeting in which a procession of tearful parents, students, teachers, activists and education leaders pleaded with trustees to spare programs targeted for cuts. School libraries, the district’s restorative justice and foster youth programs, and its Asian Pacific Islander Student Achievement services have all been slated for deep reductions in the current, $21.75 million round of budget cuts. The final vote comes February 25.

A murky scheme to transform Los Angeles Unified into a“portfolio” or “network” school  CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Teachers Flex Muscle Again | Capital & Main

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

 The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Video: Watch Oscar Nominated “A Night At The Garden” – About 20,000 Americans Celebrating Nazism

by Larry Ferlazzo / 33min

You’ll want to watch this short Oscar-nominated film (and you might want to show it to your students) about a pro-Nazi 1939 rally at Madison Square Garden. A Night At The Garden has a lot of potential for classroom use. You can also read about the lone protester who tried to disrupt it at The Washington Post’s When Nazis rallied in Manhattan, one working-class Jewish man from Brooklyn took them o

Two Top-Notch Articles For Understanding What’s Happening In Education Today

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h

geralt / Pixabay There is obviously a lot of teacher unrest these days in education and, this week, two excellent articles have been published to give overviews of its cause and potential solutions (as well as challenges to those answers). First, NPR’s piece, Oakland, Los Angeles And More To Come: Why Teachers Keep Going On Strike provides a good national overview. Then, Ed Source’s article, Cali

YESTERDAY

This Week In Web 2.0

by Larry Ferlazzo / 9h

In yet another attempt to get at the enormous backlog I have of sites worth blogging about, I post a regular feature called “The Week In Web 2.0.” (you might also be interested in The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2018 – So Far ). I also sometimes include tech tools or articles about them that might not exactly fit the definition of Web 2.0. You might also be interested in: SIX TOOLS

Pins Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

I’m fairly active on Pinterest and, in fact, have curated 17,000 resources there that I haven’t shared on this blog. I thought readers might find it useful if I began sharing a handful of my most recent “pins” each week (I’m not sure if you can see them through an RSS Reader – you might have to click through to the original post). You might also be interested in My Seven Most Popular Pins In 2018

Five Most Popular Posts Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

Here’s the latest edition of this regular feature . These are the posts appearing this blog that received the most “hits” in the preceding seven days (though they may have originally been published on an earlier date). You might also be interested in IT’S THE TWELFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG – HERE ARE THE FORTY ALL-TIME MOST POPULAR POSTS and THE TWENTY MOST POPULAR POSTS FROM THIS BLOG – 2018.

New History Channel Video: “Life Aboard a Slave Ship”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

KlausHausmann / Pixabay I’m adding this new – and horrifying – History Channel video to the resources on slavery at our class’ U.S. History blog:

This Seems So Cool – Have Your Students Design A Message To Aliens & Possibly Have It Sent To Space!

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

O12 / Pixabay The #NewAreciboMessage is an effort by astronomers to enlist students and teachers to design a message to be sent to help contact possible aliens: The main goal of this activity is to educate the youth on Radio Astronomy techniques and Exoplanetary cutting-edge science, presenting the uniqueness of the Arecibo Observatory capability and raising the awareness of the possible risks in

UPDATE: Oakland Teachers On Strike Today

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

succo / Pixabay Here’s the latest on today’s Oakland teacher’s strike, just down the road from us: ‘I can’t afford to live here’: Oakland teachers strike in city changed by tech wealth is from The Guardian. Distrust is a central issue in Oakland teachers’ strike is from EdSource. Oakland school strike: Teachers picket, classrooms empty and no end in sight is from The San Francisco Chronicle. Teac

New TED-Ed Video & Lesson Is On Bayard Rustin

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

WikiImages / Pixabay In TED-Ed’s newest lesson and video: Learn about the life of Bayard Rustin, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, a gay rights activist, and one of Martin Luther King’s closest advisors. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Teach About African-American History

Malcolm X Was Assassinated 54 Years Ago Today – Here Are Related Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay Malcolm X was assassinated 54 years ago today. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning & Teaching About Malcolm X . 54 years ago today, #MalcolmX was assassinated. I’m holding his daughters close to my heart and praying for their strength. Love to you, my friend, @ilyasahShabazz . pic.twitter.com/s90HwmUYIh — Be A King (@BerniceKing) February 21, 2

Scholars Appropriately Rip Research Saying Grade Retention Good For ELLs

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay Ridiculous research came out earlier this month saying that English Language Learners can benefit from being retained in third grade. I didn’t share it on this blog at the time because it was obviously ridiculous – overwhelming research has documented the damaging effects of grade retention (see The Best Resources For Learning About Grade Retention, Social Promotion

“How Should Schools Respond to Discipline Disparities Affecting Black Girls?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 15h

How Should Schools Respond to Discipline Disparities Affecting Black Girls? is a special edition of Classroom Q & A at Education Week Teacher. Today’s introduction is written by Dr. Terri N. Watson, who is also guest-editing the series. Feel free to leave responses in the comments section there or here….

Video: “What is the difference between a migrant and a refugee?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

12019 / Pixabay UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, just published this animated video. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day .

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007