Choosing Democracy: Sacramento City USD Fails English Learners

Choosing Democracy: Sacramento City USD Fails English Learners

Sacramento City USD Fails English Learners

The Education Committee of LULAC/Sacramento has recommended for over 4 years that the funds allocated to Sacramento City Unified School District specifically to improve the educational achievement of English Learners be used specifically for that purpose.

( see example below of 2018 submission).  Supplemental funds carried over from one year to the next should not be used for projects other than serving English Language Learners.

 

We note with interest the presentation to the Special Board meeting of 3.11.21 on LCAP draft materials.

The district is now preparing its LCAP plan ( Local  Control Accountability Plan) and it is time for us to again make recommendations.  Our recommendations for prior years have been ignored. We request that our proposals for this year be included in the report to the board scheduled for May 5, 2021, and that our requests be included in the documents sent to Sacramento County Office of Education for their assigned task of monitoring the development of LCAP proposals on matters of accountability. 

 

We  note the requirements of LCAP to include community participation in development of the district plan.  We assert the reflections of the district advisory committees are important but inadequate to the requirements of community participation required for the development of LCAP. 

 

The next presentation will be at the SCUSD Board of Education meeting on May 6, 2021. You can participate on line. 

Education Committee.

League of United Latin American Citizens, / Sacramento 

 

 

Legislative summary.  LCFF

 

Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires funding pursuant to the local control funding formula to include, in addition to a base grant, supplemental and concentration grant add-ons that are based on the percentage of pupils who are English learners, foster youth, or eligible for free or reduced-price meals, as specified, served by the county superintendent of schools, school district, or charter school. Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt regulations that govern the expenditure of funds apportioned pursuant to the supplemental and concentration grant add-ons.

 

AB 533 Proposal.

 

This bill would require the State Department of Education to develop, on or before January 1, 2022, a tracking mechanism for school districts, county offices of CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Sacramento City USD Fails English Learners

Choosing Democracy: Teaching Ethnic Studies in Sacramento

Choosing Democracy: Teaching Ethnic Studies in Sacramento

Teaching Ethnic Studies in Sacramento

On March 16, 2021, we invited a panel of teachers from SCUSD to share about the teaching of Ethnic Studies. We invite you to view the powerful presentations, 

Hosted and sponsored by the Black Parallel School Board.

Teachers at work.

e BPSB landing page for the video: https://blackparallelschoolboard.com/teaching-ethnic-studies/

Excellent discussion of the issues. 

Thank you Black Parallel School Board 

Choosing Democracy: Teaching Ethnic Studies in Sacramento

Choosing Democracy: Cesar Chavez Day - Organize

Choosing Democracy: Cesar Chavez Day _ Organize

Cesar Chavez Day - Organize

Cesar Chavez Day 

         

  Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California – one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.   Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez on March 31.

On March 26, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis honored Cesar Chavez and the UFW founders by dedicating the auditorium at the Department of Labor in Chavez’s name. 

The Cesar Chavez celebrations focus on  the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California.  Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers  (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history.  There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.

            Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing  and allied itself  with the churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.

            Today, under the leadership of UFW president Teresa Romero only about 8,000  farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. Wages and benefit in farm labor have again been reduced to the pre union levels.  Unionized workers   are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities.  The UFW has shown unions that immigrants can  and must be organized. Today the UFW is working to pass a new immigration law that would assist farm workers.    

             Chavez and the UFW are best known helping to create instrumental role in passing the  California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975 under then Governor Gerry Brown  which gives workers collective bargaining rights.  The law was made necessary by the assault on the UFW of the Teamsters Union.  While workers are often able to win elections under the ALRB, they seldom can win a contract.  Growers stall and delay until the workers leave the area. 

        César Chavez, Dolores Huerta,  Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican,  Mexican American, Filipino, African- CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Cesar Chavez Day _ Organize

Choosing Democracy: Bretón Vs. the Sacramento Teachers

Choosing Democracy: Bretón Vs. the Sacramento Teachers

Bretón Vs. the Sacramento Teachers

Sacramento Bee opinionnaire  Marcos Bretón offers up one of his frequent attacks on the Sacramento teachers’ union in today’s Bee https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article249152435.html.

It is the usual anti union diatribe filled with paragraphs cut and pasted from prior columns.  He purposes to deal with the issue of opening schools in Sacramento.  If you ignore all the hyperbole, you get down to the dividing issue – when should Sacramento City Unified re open schools.

There is substantive agreement between the district administration and the union except for one issue. 

Should teachers be given vaccines prior to returning to work.  That is the issue.

Bretón has one side; the union argues teachers should have vaccines first.  That's all.  The remainder in innuendo and name calling. 

Below  is an alternate view- with data citations. 

Re: Opening schools

David Dayen, The American Prospect  Feb.15, 2021

Last Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally released a long-awaited set of guidelines for how to safely reopen schools. It really says what the data has said for a while: schools are generally safe when community transmission is low, less safe when transmission is high, and only really safe when following mitigation guidelines, which include masking, social distancing, frequent hand washing and things like not coughing out loud without covering your mouth, sanitation, ventilation, quarantine and isolation for the sick, and contact tracing. Many observers have put the lack of school reopening on teachers and particularly teachers unions, but the polling shows a different story, which plays directly into the above paragraph. If you ask parents whether they want to return their kids to in-person instruction, you see a significant disparity cut by race and class. In general terms, whiter, richer parents are more likely to want to return their kids to school; poorer parents and parents of color do not. And the difference is that, for the whiter and richer parents, their communities have not been as ravaged by COVID, and their schools can actually undertake the mitigation measures.

Black and Latino communities have seen a disproportionate level of death and suffering during the pandemic. Whether community transmission is high right now or not in their area, the accumulated impact makes it feel high. (In truth, community transmission has been high pretty much everywhere in the country since late fall, and only now is coming CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Bretón Vs. the Sacramento Teachers

Choosing Democracy: $225 Million In New Revenue: 10 Facts About the SCUSD Budget

Choosing Democracy: $225 Million In New Revenue: 10 Facts About the SCUSD Budget

$225 MILLION IN NEW REVENUE

10 FACTS ABOUT THE SCUSD BUDGET

Fact # 1:  Since the 2012-2013 school year, the District has run a surplus every year except one:  2017-18 (2012-13 to 2018-19 Projections & 2012-13 to 2018-19 Actuals).  The District was told by the Sacramento County Office of Education it needed to make budget cuts to offset the costs of our contract settlement. Instead Superintendent Aguilar went on a spending spree including $6 million to cash out the vacation of the District’s top administrators.

Fact #2:  In March 2019, the Sacramento City Unified School Board passed resolution No. 3060 “On Fiscal Solvency Plan to Save Our Schools” which included the following:

“District Superintendent, Jorge Aguilar, has agreed to forgo any salary increase allowed under his Employment Agreement until the District receives either a qualified or positive certification as defined in Education Code section 42131, subdivision (a)(1).”

The District still has not had a budget that has received “either a qualified or positive certification as defined in Education Code section 42131, subdivision (a) (1)” and yet Superintendent Aguilar has taken a $34,126 increase in his total compensation.

Fact #3:  The District has the largest reserve fund in its history:  $93 million.  That’s 8 times higher than the 2% reserve required by the state.

Fact #4:  Since the District’s budget was rejected for the first time in August 2018, the first time an SCUSD budget was rejected in its entire history, the SCUSD reserve has INCREASED by than $23 million. (Ending Fund Balance 2018-19 vs Ending Fund Balance 2019-20).

Fact #5:  At its current $89 million (down from the original budget of $101.3 million) the SCUSD budget currently includes $70 million in books and supplies, more than it traditionally spends in this category.  Chief Business Officer Rose Ramos has acknowledged that these extra tens of millions of dollars are parked in books and supplies until the District figures out how to spend the dollars.

Fact #6:  The District, in a transaction approved by the previous school board on the consent agenda on November 5, 2020 and by the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), went forward with the $6 million purchase of unproven portable air filtration units, even after SCTA recommended that the District seek advice from scientific experts.  Since then, the units had to be taken out of classrooms when SCTA and SEIU raised health and safety concerns and demanded their removal.

Fact #7:  The District is receiving $124 million in new revenue from the federal government as a result of two COVID relief packages (here and here).  This does not include the millions more expected to come from the new Biden administration.

Fact #8:  Governor Newsom’s California State Budget, which calls for the highest K-12 spending in California history, will result in $100 million or more in new revenue for SCUSD.

Fact #9:  Even with Chief Business Officer Rose Ramos’ overly conservative calculations, based on the Governor’s January budget, the District should present a POSITIVELY CERTIFIED Second Interim Budget for board approval in March.

Fact #10:  For the District to cut any services to students or to demand $20 million in shifting health care costs onto staff resulting in cuts to take-home pay by as much as 34.6%, or over $17,000 per year, is unconscionable.

Choosing Democracy: $225 Million In New Revenue: 10 Facts About the SCUSD Budget

Choosing Democracy: antiracismdsa: Defend DACA, TPS, the Immigrant Community

Choosing Democracy: antiracismdsa: Defend DACA, TPS, the Immigrant Community

Defend DACA, TPS, the Immigrant Community

By Greisa Martinez Rosas, Javier H. Valdes, and Marisa Franco

The first two weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency brought relief to millions of people across the country, including those who fight for immigrant justice. So far, we have seen several immigration actions by the Biden administration—including the restoration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the end of the Muslim Ban, the creation of task force to reunite children with their families, the announcement of a moratorium on deportations, and the introduction of legislation to provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.

In short, President Biden has started the long process of undoing the damage wrought by the Trump administration and is turning federal immigration policies in a new direction.

President Biden deserves credit for honoring key Day One commitments to our communities. But reversing Trumpism can only be the first step. We don’t want to return to “normal.” We need to build toward a more just future.

We need a presidential administration that is prepared to dismantle cruel and inhumane detention and deportation policies and detention centers and reunite families who have been separated.

The Biden administration needs to keep taking action to dismantle the enforcement system, fundamentally reform the government agencies CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: antiracismdsa: Defend DACA, TPS, the Immigrant Community

Choosing Democracy: Should California Schools Reopen?

Choosing Democracy: Should California Schools Reopen?

Should California Schools Reopen?

It’s been a month since Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced his Safe Schools for All Plan, in which he aims to reopen schools for in-person learning by February or March.

However, with the Feb. 16 deadline to open schools looming, there’s no telling how many districts have actually signed on to adopt the plan. Education leaders and teachers have openly criticized it, and negotiations over details appear to be at a standstill. Parents, eager to get their children back to in-person learning this year, have organized a campaign to safely reopen schools once case numbers decline.

The debate echoes what’s going on across the country, as President Biden’s push to open schools in his first 100 days has been met with caution from teachers’ unions, who want to tamp down expectations that students will be back in classrooms before the end of the school year.

Here’s what we know about the state of reopening schools so far.

Mr. Newsom’s plan is in danger of failing.

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that schools could be opened safely, but the message came with a caveat: It’s safe only if other precautions are made to stop community spread. That means tightening, not loosening, restrictions, as Mr. Newsom did this week.

“Prioritizing schools is going to mean limiting some of those other activities, and deciding that we want to undertake some of those sacrifices to keep schools open, because we’ve decided as a society that schools are important relative to other things,” Dr. Oster said.

The governor’s plan calls for schools to reopen once the rate of infection falls to 25 positive cases per 100,000 county residents.

Although cases in California are declining, hospitalization rates are still higher than they were when the strictest lockdown measures were announced. Currently, most of the state’s population falls under the most restrictive purple tier.

In addition, the plan’s $2 billion grant fund, which breaks down to $450 per pupil, falls short  CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Should California Schools Reopen?

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ordered. Cease and Desist.

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ordered. Cease and Desist.

SCUSD Ordered. Cease and Desist.

Awards Attorney Fees to SCTA

Today (November 2), the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) unanimously upheld a PERB Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) decision that ruled that the Sacramento City Unified School District violated the law and must reimburse SCTA’s attorney fees in defending teachers from SCUSD’s illegal actions.  You can view the decisions here.

According to the decision, SCUSD contended that it did not violate the law or the contract, “even if–as the [Sacramento County] Superior Court, arbitrator, and ALJ all found–it violated the CBA when it refused to arbitrate the salary schedule grievance.” This decision now adds the full PERB to that list who have rejected out of hand the SCUSD contention.

The PERB decision is the latest SCUSD legal loss. 

This case began when the District backtracked from its agreement to implement a new salary schedule, then took the unprecedented step to sue teachers to try to stop the enforcement of the contract. 

PERB has issued more unfair labor practice complaints against SCUSD in the last 3 years than any other school district in California. 

PERB includes in its decsion orders that SCUSD must:

“CEASE AND DESIST FROM:”

“Interfering with the right of bargaining unit employees to be represented by their employee organization.”

“Denying SCTA the right to represent bargaining unit employees in their employment relations with the District.”

The decision also requires SCUSD to take other actions, including:

“TAKE THE FOLLOWING AFFIRMATIVE ACTIONS DESIGNED TO EFFECTUATE THE POLICIES OF THE ACT:”

“Make SCTA whole for losses it suffered as a result of the District’s unlawful conduct . . .”

“post at all District locations where notices are customarily posted, copies of [this Notice including] by electronic means customarily uses by the District to regularly communicate with employees in the bargaining unit.”

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ordered. Cease and Desist.

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

 This is in response to the  Ethnic Studies model curriculum draft posted for public review by the California State Board of Education. 

 

Response by Sacramento League of United Latin American Citizens, Lorenzo Patiño Council, 2862. Sacramento, California.

 

We offer the following critiques. 

 

Chapter 4. Bibliography

 

The proposed bibliography primarily includes theoretical pedagogical publications while lacking content specific materials.   While advocacy pedagogical literature certainly has value, teachers also  need background content.  The bibliography should be expanded to include some content specific recommendations on the history, sociology, and culture of  each of the major groups.  For example, for Mexican American/Latino readings should include Occupied America:  A History of Chicanos, 8^th edition or later by Rodolfo  F. Acuña,  From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the Twentieth-century America, by Dr. Vicki Ruiz,   and Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement .  Sources providing basic historical background are missing from the bibliography.   Similar suggestions would improve the usefulness of the bibliography  as teachers cover several of the other  major ethnic  groups. 

 

Appendix A.  Sample lessons and topics

 

The first model lesson recommends  a lesson on immigration in current Los Angeles.  While this lesson has merit, the sample model lessons should begin with the  forced incorporation of the Mexican people living in the Southwest into the United States  via the Mexican American War of 1846-1848  and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. 

 

Respectfully submitted by the Education Committee of Sacramento LULAC , Lorenzo Patiño Council.  2862.

Adopted by the Council on  Jan. 7,2021

 

Manuel Lares, President of LULAC 2862,

 

Dolores Delgado Campbell. Professor Emeritus. History, American River College, Sacramento, California.

 

Dr. Duane E. Campbell.  Professor Emeritus. Bilingual/Multicultural Education, California State University- Sacramento.  Education and Democracy Institute. 

 

Dr. Susan Nakaoka,  Professor, Division of Social Work,  California State University -Sacramento. 

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Choosing Democracy: Presentation: Sacramento Poor People's Campaign - http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2021/01/presentation-sacramento-poor-peoples.html

Choosing Democracy: Trump Radicalized the Republican Party and His Supporters - http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2021/01/trump-radicalized-republican-party-and.html

Choosing Democracy: Are Children Falling Behind?

Choosing Democracy: Are Children Falling Behind?

Are Children Falling Behind?

What Shall We Do About the Children After the Pandemic

Teresa Thayer Snyder December 12, 2020

Diane Ravitch's BLOG

I sincerely plead with my colleagues, to surrender the artificial constructs that measure achievement and greet the children where they are, not where we think they “should be.”

Students line up to have their temperature checked before entering PS 179 elementary school in the Kensington neighborhood, Sept. 29, 2020 in Brooklyn, AP Photo/Mark Lennihan // Politico

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I am writing today about the children of this pandemic. After a lifetime of working among the young, I feel compelled to address the concerns that are being expressed by so many of my peers about the deficits the children will demonstrate when they finally return to school. My goodness, what a disconcerting thing to be concerned about in the face of a pandemic which is affecting millions of people around the country and the world. It speaks to one of my biggest fears for the children when they return. In our determination to “catch them up,” I fear that we will lose who they are and what they have learned during this unprecedented era. What on CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Are Children Falling Behind?

Choosing Democracy: Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum

Choosing Democracy: Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum

Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum

Ethnic Studies Curriculum SBE

At its November 18–19, 2020, meeting, the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) recommended the revised draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum to the State Board of Education (SBE) following a 45-day public comment period. The IQC incorporated edits, including those recommended by the California Department of Education (CDE), that strengthen the content and honor the four traditional disciplines of African American, Native American, Asian American, and Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x studies and better reflect the diversity of experiences and contributions of groups that have been marginalized and understudied. Additionally, the IQC updated and expanded an existing set of resources—where all sample lessons are housed—to further explore communities and raise the voices of identities whose experiences intersect with the core disciplines of ethnic studies, such as Arab Americans, Armenian Americans, Jewish Americans, and Sikh Americans.

This revised draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is in alignment with state law (Education Code Section 51226.7) and the State Board of Education-adopted guidelines, which can be found on the CDE’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Guidelines web page.

The model curriculum draft has been posted for a final 45-day public review period. State law requires the SBE to take final action on the model curriculum by March 31, 2021.

More information on the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum can be found on the CDE Model Curriculum Projects web page. Individuals or groups may submit public comment on the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum 

DUANE CAMPBELL Choosing Democracy: Teachers’ Strikes -Conditions for Success

Choosing Democracy: Teachers’ Strikes -Conditions for Success

Teachers’ Strikes -Conditions for Success

Teachers’ Strikes -Conditions for Success

 

At the center of the recent teacher insurgency is one particular form of direct action—the strike. The strike occupies a distinctive place in the popular consciousness of teachers and working people more generally, primarily because of its extraordinary visibility, leverage, and power as a tactic but also because of the mythology and romance that is often associated with it. Despite their success in establishing public-sector unionism and collective bargaining (including teacher unionism) in the 1960s, teacher strikes became increasingly ineffective by the mid-1970s and 1980s and had dwindled to a mere handful by the start of the twenty-first century. The success of the teacher insurgency in reestablishing the strike as a powerful tactic is a welcome development, but to maintain and build on that success, we need to be acutely aware of the approaches that best situate teacher strikes to win.

 

…

Far too much of what passes for thinking about strikes in the United States— including teacher strikes—rests on a “field of dreams” theory: Call it, and they will come. We must go beyond such romantic notions, which are recipes for disaster, and consider the different conditions and approaches that have led teacher strikes to victory and defeat, to find a way forward that will continue the success of the strikes of the teacher insurgency.

Complete chapter at 

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-teacher-strike-conditions-for-success

 

---

Leo Casey is Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute, a think talk affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. Over the course of a forty-year career, he has been a rank and file public school teacher, the leader of the union at his school and a Vice President of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers.

This text was adapted from Leo Casey’s book The Teacher Insurgency: A Strategic and Organizing Perspective, out now from Harvard Education Press. 

Choosing Democracy: Teachers’ Strikes -Conditions for Success

Choosing Democracy: No More Children Locked in Cages- Separated from Their Families

Choosing Democracy: No More Children Locked in Cages- Separated from Their Families

No More Children Locked in Cages- Separated from Their Families

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary, putting a defender of the Affordable Care Act in a leading role to oversee his administration’s coronavirus response.

Separately, Biden picked a Harvard infectious disease expert, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And he announced a new role for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.

If confirmed by the Senate, Becerra, will be the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services, a $1 trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.

Biden’s selection of Becerra and Walensky was announced early Monday in a press release from the transition office. People familiar with the decision had confirmed the picks to The Associated Press on Sunday night. Biden also announced other top members of his health care team, though some posts remain unfilled.

Becerra, as the state of California’s top lawyer, has led the coalition of Democratic states defending “Obamacare” from the Trump administration’s latest effort to overturn it, a legal case awaiting a Supreme Court decision next year.

A former senior House Democrat, Becerra was involved in steering the Obama health law through Congress in 2009 and 2010. At the time he would tell reporters that one of his primary motivations was having tens of thousands of uninsured people in his Southern California district.

Becerra has a lawyer’s precise approach to analyzing problems and a calm demeanor.

But overseeing the coronavirus response will be the most  CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: No More Children Locked in Cages- Separated from Their Families