Monday, May 16, 2011

May Revision Reaction - Year 2011 (CA Dept of Education)

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Responds to Governor's May Revise

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today issued the following statement after Governor Jerry Brown released his May Revision (Outside Source) of the 2011-12 state budget:

"The $3 billion increase in education funding proposed by the Governor is welcome news to schools across the state where students are eager to learn; parents are engaged; and teachers, administrators, and school employees are working day and night to help our students achieve.

"Providing schools the resources they need is our shared responsibility, and the Governor's proposal — after $18 billion in cuts over the last three years — offers us a chance to begin to meet it.

"The May Revision also foreshadows the stark choices we face if Republicans and Democrats cannot reach agreement on a long-term solution to the financial emergency in California's schools.

"The alternative to the Governor's plan is to impose devastating additional cuts that our schools cannot afford — further crowding classrooms, laying off even more teachers, and shortening a school year that is already one of the shortest in the industrialized world.

"I also look forward to working with the Governor and the Legislature to recognize the importance of completing work on the data systems we need to meet federal mandates and promote student achievement.

"World-class public schools and universities were the economic engines that for decades fueled California's success. I urge the Legislature to quickly embrace the Governor's plan to invest in our classrooms and our future."

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Baltimore Freedom Forum: Can Public Schools Be Saved? | Dailycensored.com

Baltimore Freedom Forum: Can Public Schools Be Saved?

Written by Danny WeilEducationMay 16, 2011

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All over the country masses of working people are fighting to save public education from the grips of the privatizers. The educational agenda for the right wing and their economic masters is ‘school vouchers’ and this movement will and is gaining momentum as more and more ‘online schools’ run for profit proliferate the educational landscape and as more and more cities and localities are asked to bail-out the banksters on Wall Street through austerity measures meant to socialize the pain wrought by a system of private profit.

Disaster capitalism now seeks to wield a wrecking ball towards any and all things public and nowhere can this be seen than in the controversy over public education. Both political parties seek to corporatize all of education in the service of Wall Street and the capitalist system and are using charter schools as their opening salvo.

According to the online zine, Voxunion

Corporate Gulf spill oil apologist criticizes teachers for their pensions. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Corporate Gulf spill oil apologist criticizes teachers for their pensions.

by Fred Klonsky

It was just one year ago that David Sykuta, the PR flunky for the Illinois Petroleum Association, was interviewed on television justifying the disastrous BP Gulf oil spill.

Now he’s back.

And amazingly, this shameless hack is complaining that he is “sick and tired of public sector union honchos suggesting I’m not patriotic or caring if I think public employee pension schemes need some changes to survive.”

The same guy who begged for understanding when the worst corporate disaster in US history was taking place,

Can You Handle the Truth? DFEP

Can You Handle the Truth?
Then You Should Be Reading Our Blog

We Don't Pull Punches

Here is a rundown of posts from the past month:

In a much-needed and welcome sign of leadership, Super Mario Cuomo pushed the Board of Regents to reevaluate their recently proposed--and severely asinine--teacher evaluation guidelines. The Governor's letter came on the heels of a highly critical analysis of the draft regs from DFEP NY State Director Elizabeth Ling and DFEP for Teachers' Jocelyn Huber. Get the skinny here.

Also read Jocelyn's recent post on her support of a more professionalized teacher workforce: "We can not allow an interest in revamping the [teaching] profession to devolve into a search for cheaper talent with less professional oversight." More here..

Why can't we all just get along? Larry Grau, DFEP Indiana State Director, weighs in on the need to re-establish common ground around education in Indiana and across the nation. More here..

The Buckeye State: A laughing stock? - It could be if proposed amendments to Ohio's charter school legislation are signed into law. Read more here.from Miesha Headen, DFEP Ohio State director.

Unbelievable - DFEP California's office is in the same building as one of LAUSD's notorious "teacher jails"!!! Read the full story here..

"It's time to get back to the mundane business of actually governing. This will be the test of who is truly committed to the issues as opposed to the politics," said DFEP Wisconsin State Director Katy Venskus in response to the lack of substantial education reform in her home state. More here.

Good things are happening in Colorado. Get the rundown by DFEP Colorado State Director Moira Cullen here.

Read All Our Posts here.

Also of interest:

DFEP Statement of Principles - All Carrot, No Stick

If you have not signed DFEP's Statement of Principles, please please please do so: here. Tip: We are in the mid 900's and shooting for 1000 by the end of June. The 1000th signer gets a DFEP swag bag of logo-laden merchandise.

DFEP in the News

May 15: Ling and Huber op-ed on Teacher Evals in Sunday's New York Post

May 13: DFEP California's Gloria Romero talks teacher tenure on California Public Radio

And, don't forget to check us out on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @coopmike48.

This Week In Education: Best 5 Blogs: The Fury Of Middle-Class Parents

Best 5 Blogs: The Fury Of Middle-Class Parents

by Alexander Russo

A drastic break with failure LAT (column): The students were trying to save an entrenched regime, one that shackles them to failure... High Pay Leads to Layoffs NYT (Winerip): An audit found that the Henry Viscardi School, one of 11 schools of its kind in New York, paid its top executive $1.25 million over two years... Closing more bad charters sooner Jay Mathews: The D.C. Public Charter School Board may soon close the Ideal Academy Public Charter School, more than a year and a half after I told it to... Gates' Education Buying Spree - For

Illinois pension bill. Revealing the deal. It’s aimed squarely at teachers. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Illinois pension bill. Revealing the deal. It’s aimed squarely at teachers.

by Fred Klonsky

Illinois GOP House leader Tom Cross is leading the attack on teacher pensions.

The Springfield State Journal Register is reporting some numbers that will be in the Illinois House pension bill. A bill that will in some way or the other loot teachers’ promised pensions is expected to be formally introduced on Wednesday.

One veteran teacher in our district told me today that many younger teachers think this isn’t about them. Apparently these folks have ignored everything we have said and think this is directed only at retired teachers.

Wrong.

So very wrong.

SJR says that the there will be a proposal for a three-tier system to replace the existing Teacher Retirement

This Week In Education: Philanthropy: The Myth Of The All-Powerful Billionaires

Philanthropy: The Myth Of The All-Powerful Billionaires

by Alexander Russo

#privatemoneypublicschools I came away from this weekend's foundation-funded Columbia Journalism School workshop on the role of private philanthropies in public education eager for more transparency and accountability from funders but even more focused on getting the same from school districts, government agencies with education oversight, and the US Department of Education. Sure I'd love to see the internal evaluations foundations do on their programs (and would love for more humility and better policy choices from education philanthropies in general) but I don't really believe that that there's more transparency and accountability and opportunity for public input (aka democracy) in school districts and government agencies than among funders and the nonprofits who receive grants from them. Nor do I really believe that the richest people in America have free rein to impose any extreme or cockamamie idea they feel like on American schoolchildren. They choose from among ideas that education experts (including academics and practitioners) present to them, from the political mainstream, and have to maintain credibility with districts and elected officials in order to maintain access to public systems -- even as distressed and desperate as many are.

Most of all, I don't believe that there is something inherently sinister, or malicious, or even all that new about philanthropic involvement in public education -- or all that much better about public, for-profit, or nonprofit

The Whole Child Blog « Whole Child Education

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

Setting Priorities for a New Era of Family-School Engagement

May 16th, 2011 by ASCD Whole Child Bloggers

Adapted with permission from “A New Era of Family Engagement,” by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, 2010, The Education Innovator, IX(5), pp. 1–4. Copyright 2005 by the U.S. Department of Education. Originally featured in ASCD Express.

Research studies point to the need for many more comprehensive, strategic approaches to bringing parents and families into partnerships with schools for the purpose of increasing student achievement.

According to the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a leadership collaborative that informs the development and implementation of federal policy related to family, school, and community engagement, there is strong research evidence that “parental beliefs, attitudes, values, and childrearing practices, as well as home-school communication, are linked to student success.”

The Harvard Family Research Project, under the direction of its founder and director Heather B. Weiss, convened a group of key stakeholders in parent and family engagement—including the PTA National Office, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and the New York Community Trust—to create the Working Group. The group tasked itself with assessing the quality of available research in order to inform the emerging policy discussions about education reform under the Obama administration.

“There is a skyscraper full of research showing how parent, family, and community engagement is crucial to

School Tech Connect: Have You Called Yet?

Have You Called Yet?

by effacethefacade@yahoo.com (Tim)

Listen, Illinois peeps. They're going to eat your lunch down in Springfield. Lobbyists aren't going to stop them, the idle threat of withholding endorsements isn't going to stop them, and being mad isn't going to stop them. The only thing that's going to stop them is calling, showing up, protesting, and frankly, finding better Democratic candidates and perhaps union leaders with a little pep.

You've got to call now. It's easy--- nobody's going to interrogate you. Here's a recording of my call to my legislator. She's brand new, and I haven't met her. As you can hear, I have a hard time sounding angry on the phone, but I'm basically ready to blow a gasket with this new pension attack. It just seems that our Democratic friends will accept any Republican narrative as long as it's aimed against teachers.

The office aid had a difficult time with the phone--- that's why I'm laughing at the beginning. Frankly, I also couldn't remember the number of the bill but she knew what I was talking about.

Pension Call by tbfurman

Have you called yet? Great! Now, walk down the hallway and ask ten colleagues if they've called. Odds are, none of them have.

Governor: May Revision Would Boost School Funding « State of Emergency

Governor: May Revision Would Boost School Funding

by Leonard Feldman

In a move that could pave the way to increased funding for schools, Gov. Jerry Brown has released his updated budget plan that he says will shrink the budget deficit and provide more than $1.6 billion in new revenues for public education, with a total boost for education of $3 billion year over year. He also rejected a recently released Republican budget proposal as something that would put California “back in the hole” with gimmicks and game that would leave an ongoing structural deficit. That GOP plan would result in additional cuts of $4.1 billion to education.

The governor’s proposal to increase school funding follows a full week of activities in the state Capitol and around the state by CTA and its allies as part of the union’s declaration of a State of Emergency for schools. The concerted actions, which included the arrest of CTA President David. A Sanchez and 26 others outside the offices of two Republican leaders, focused on blocking mor education cuts and securing support for the governor’s tax extension proposal.

CTA members have been pressing Republican lawmakers in particular to provide the two votes in the state

I'll be in California this Week... - Dana Goldstein

I'll be in California this Week...

by Dana Goldstein

...attending the NewSchools Summit in San Francisco and then heading to L.A., where I'll visit Animo Pat Brownand Crenshaw High to do book reporting.

I hope to blog from the NewSchools conference, which is a one-day extravaganza connecting the big-name ed reformers (Joel Klein, Rhee-sucessor Kaya Henderson, KIPP) with the corporate and foundation donors who fund their work (Mark Zuckerberg, Target, Google, Walton Foundation, Broad Foundation). The big focus this year seems to be on technology: how virtual learning, distance learning, and gaming can be employed in the classroom.

We know from Joel Klein's Atlantic essay that some reformers argue that technology makes it feasible to drastically reduce the size of the teaching force. It'll be interesting to observe how the politics of all this are

Leonie Haimson: Class Bias, Class Size and Online Learning

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director, Class Size Matters

GET UPDATES FROM LEONIE HAIMSON

http://www.classsizematters.org/

Class Bias, Class Size and Online Learning

It's not enough that school districts across the country are laying off teachers right and left and increasing class size to intolerable levels. It seems that the D.C. think tanks are absolutely dedicated towards further encouraging this trend and destroying any efforts to retain equitable class sizes in our public schools.

Last week in the Daily News, Chester Finn of the conservative Fordham Institute attacked the whole notion of class size reduction, proposing that putting kids on computers instead would be more cost-effective and get better results:

Technology holds huge potential to magnify the effectiveness of great teachers and customize the educational experience of more students. New York City is experimenting with this potential, and "hybrid" schools around the country are blending face-to-face instruction with high-quality online instruction. No, technology is no panacea, and it does carry some near-term costs. In the long run, though, it will save money for districts and states while also delivering

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