Education Protection Account, Fiscal Year 2015-16 - Principal Apportionment (CA Dept of Education)

Education Protection Account, Fiscal Year 2015-16 - Principal Apportionment (CA Dept of Education):

Education Protection Account, Fiscal Year 2015-16

Distribution of 2015-16 Education Protection Account (EPA) funds to local educational agencies in accordance with Proposition 30, The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012.

Second Quarterly Apportionment

Certified December 10, 2015

• Apportionment Letter - 10-Dec-2015
• Second Quarterly Entitlement and Payment Schedule - LEA detail (XLS) 
  Detail of EPA entitlement and payment amounts by LEA.
• Second Quarterly Payment Schedule - County detail (XLS) 
  Summary of EPA payment amounts by county.

First Quarterly Apportionment

Certified September 11, 2015

• Apportionment Letter - 11-Sep-2015
• First Quarterly Entitlement and Payment Schedule - LEA detail (XLS) 
  Detail of EPA entitlement and payment amounts by LEA.
• First Quarterly Payment Schedule - County detail (XLS) 
  Summary of EPA payment amounts by county.

Questions:   PASE/CADR | pase@cde.ca.gov | 916-324-4541

Last Reviewed: Thursday, December 10, 2015

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked questions regarding the Education Protection Account.

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Education Protection Account

1. What is Proposition 30?
2. What is the Education Protection Account (EPA)?
3. Are EPA funds appropriated through the annual Budget Act?
4. What entities will receive a share of the K–12 EPA funds?
5. Does an LEA need to submit an application to the state to receive EPA funds?
6. How is EPA funding calculated?
7. Will the EPA proportionate share percentage for a fiscal year change over the course of the year?
8. When will EPA entitlements be allocated?
9. Revenue limit or charter school general purpose funding changes at each Principal Apportionment certification as a result of ADA, property tax, and other adjustments. Does this mean the EPA entitlement will change also?
10. The EPA amount received is a reduction to state aid made under the principal apportionment. When will the state apply these reductions?
11. How much will an excess tax district or COE receive?
12. How will an EPA entitlement for a charter school fully funded through in-lieu taxes be calculated?
13. What ADA was used to calculate the minimum funding amount pre-LCFF?
14. What data (revenue limit, local revenue, and ADA) is used to calculate EPA funding under LCFF?
15. Is the $200 per ADA EPA minimum funding in addition to the $120 ADA constitutional guarantee?
16. Does a school district meet the definition of “basic aid” or “excess tax” as defined in the Revenue and Taxation Codeor EC, if as a result of the EPA calculation all the state aid the district would have received as revenue limit state aid pursuant to EC  Section 42238 is now received through the EPA?
17. Where can I find information on EPA entitlements and apportionments?
18. Is there a schedule of the specific dates when EPA payments for the 2015–16 fiscal year will be made?
19. Must the EPA entitlement be allocated proportionately to the programs whose ADA generates the LEA’s revenue limit funding?
20. Are there reporting requirements?
21. Will the California Department of Education (CDE) provide a template that LEAs can use for reporting EPA revenues and expenditures?
22. Proposition 30 requires that the use of EPA funds be determined by the governing board at an open public meeting. Does this meeting need to be a separate meeting only for the discussion of EPA funding?
23. When should the open public meeting for discussing the use of EPA Funding be held?
24. Are there any restrictions on the use of EPA funds?
25. Has the CDE issued accounting guidance on how to account for EPA funds?

Education Protection Account, Fiscal Year 2015-16 - Principal Apportionment (CA Dept of Education):

Hoverboards and the Every Student Succeeds Act

Hoverboards and the Every Student Succeeds Act:

Hoverboards and the Every Student Succeeds Act

Last night on NBC news, I waited to hear about the Senate’s overwhelming passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Perhaps I missed it, or they are waiting to say something about it now that President Obama has signed the bill into law.

Instead, one of the news items Lester Holt told us about involved the new gadget called Hoverboards. Hoverboards look fun. If you are good at surfing or skateboarding it might be for you. If you are a klutz like me you should probably stay away.

The problem is many Hoverboards catch on fire. Crackle, crackle…up in smoke!

And so goes the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Figuratively speaking, like the Hoverboard exploding in flames, this new bill looks destined to end public schools. It will finish what NCLB started. Even the name, Every Student Succeeds Act, sounds eerily familiar to No Child Left Behind. And when you read what the new bill entails it is deceptive.

It looks good to some people—like both union leaders Lily and Randi. They seem to consider it a gift to finally get rid of NCLB. Do they really believe states won’t still Hoverboards and the Every Student Succeeds Act:

The Rhino in the Room: Time to End Disruptive Reform - Living in Dialogue

The Rhino in the Room: Time to End Disruptive Reform - Living in Dialogue:

The Rhino in the Room: Time to End Disruptive Reform

By John Thompson.

The Washington Post’s Emma Brown provides an excellent overview of the “the elephant in the room,” which is the real reason why the inequitable distribution of teaching talent helps undermine inner city schools. Brown borrows that phrase from David Sapp, director of education advocacy and legal counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has filed lawsuits related to teacher churn and the resulting heavy use of substitutes. Sapp correctly says,

There are a narrow set of schools where this happens all the time, and until that gets really unpacked and resolved, there’s only so much that can be done to close the achievement gap.

Neither will we address the teacher quality gap until we tackle the rhinoceros in the room, corporate school reformers who have adopted their weird vision of “teacher quality” as a silver bullet for reversing the effects of generational poverty and discrimination. Ironically, just a few days later, the TNTP’s Dan Weisbergillustrated the reality-free nature of accountability-driven reform. He cited the opening of high-challenge schools with large numbers of substitutes as “low hanging fruit,” which could be easily solved by central offices speeding up their hiring process. Although Weisberg later contradicted himself when he acknowledged that there are rational reasons for top teachers fleeing inner city schools, he made it sound like it would be easy to recruit and retain teachers in the most challenging schools. In other words, rhinoceroses like Weisberg who still support test, sort, reward, and punishment, are still ignoring the complex truth Emma Brown chronicles.

After billions of extra dollars have been invested by Weisberg’s funders on their theory that individual teachers should be held accountable for reversing the legacies of poverty and oppression, Brown cites Matthew Kraft and John Papay, who find that urban school districts hire 1 in 6 of their teachers after the school year begins. She then went down a list of districts and their numbers of classrooms without teachers. It culminates with Detroit which needs 135 teachers, more than 5% of its teaching positions, and which only has 90 substitutes.

Brown then cites a former-central office administrator in North Carolina turned principal who tells the hard The Rhino in the Room: Time to End Disruptive Reform - Living in Dialogue:

CURMUDGUCATION: Eight Years Under the Ax

CURMUDGUCATION: Eight Years Under the Ax:

Eight Years Under the Ax

While the rest of the world was celebrating the passage of an ESEA (only eight years or so late! yay!) or looking at NEPC's brutal-but-necessary report on the charter gravy train, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was releasing the results of its three-month study of state funding for education over the last almost-decade. 

The first part of the story is familiar. Back around 2008, the Great Recession hit. Although, let's not say "hit" and give it a fancy name as if it were some random act of nature and not a predictable and avoidable economic collapse caused by reckless greedheads on Wall Street. Instead of a Great Recession that somehow happened, maybe we could instead refer to that time that Wall Street screwed over every American in a series of criminal and stupid acts so huge that they have yet to be paid for their misbehavior in the slightest. Let's call it that.

But I digress. Wall Street tanked the economy, resulting in a big bunch of cutbacks as every state tried to deal with a sudden lack of money. That part of the story we already knew.

The second part of the story, which you may have suspected, is that once states got in the habit of slashing education budgets, the just kept on doing it even after the economy began to recover. CBPP does not bury the lede on this one:

Most states provide less support per student for elementary and secondary schools — in some cases, CURMUDGUCATION: Eight Years Under the Ax:

Public School Funding Declined Since 2008 | Al Jazeera America

Public School Funding Declined Since 2008 | Al Jazeera America:

Public school funding has declined in most states since 2008, report says

Great Recession has had long-term effect on school funding, putting education quality at risk, new study funds

Public schools in most of the United States are receiving less state funding now than seven years ago, putting at risk the quality of education for many students, a new report shows.

The study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that at least 31 states provided less funding per student in the 2014 school year than in 2008.

In at least 15 states, the funding for K-12 education is down 10 percent or more.

“Our country’s future depends crucially on the quality of its schools, yet rather than raising K-12 funding to support proven reforms such as hiring and retaining excellent teachers, reducing class sizes, and expanding access to high-quality early education, many states have headed in the opposite direction,” the report said.

After the Great Recession hit in 2008, many states cut funding to education and other services. The report spotlights the high number of states that have still — eight years later — failed to restore funding even to 2008 levels.

One reason for this trend is that during the recession many states made funding cuts without also increasing revenues, such as by raising taxes or fees, said Michael Leachman, director of state fiscal research for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and one of the report's authors.

“Too many states took an approach that relied too heavily on cuts only and not a more balanced approach that included some cuts and some revenue increases,” Leachman said. “That’s part of why we have the problem that we do.”

In an attempt to make up for the state education cuts, many local districts around the country increased funding for their schools, such as by hiking property taxes.

Local funding for schools increased in at least 27 states since 2008, but it rarely made up for state funding cuts.

And not all local districts stepped up: In at least 18 states, local government funding for schools also decreased over this period, the report showed.

Overall, total local funding nationally, for states where comparable data exists, fell between 2008 and 2014, compounding the effect of state funding cuts.

Public schools in the U.S. get nearly all of their funding from local and state government. Only 9 percent of their money comes from the federal government.

In some states, school funding cuts over the past several years have been drastic.

Arizona slashed its funding for K-12 education by 23.3 percent from 2008 to 2014, leaving it up to local governments to try to cover the gap. Combined, state and local funding for Arizona public schools is down by 15.7 percent from Public School Funding Declined Since 2008 | Al Jazeera America:

WHITE HOUSE REPORT: The Every Student Succeeds Act | whitehouse.gov

WHITE HOUSE REPORT: The Every Student Succeeds Act | whitehouse.gov:

WHITE HOUSE REPORT: The Every Student Succeeds Act

Last week, the White House released a fact sheet praising House passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) with strong bipartisan support and calling on the Senate to do the same. Today, as President Obama signs that bill into law, the White House is releasing an analysis of progress made in elementary and secondary education since the President took office and how ESSA will cement that progress. The full report is available HERE.

Every Student Succeeds Act: A Progress Report on Elementary and Secondary Education

A core element of strengthening the middle class is building stronger schools. Over the past seven years, President Obama has invested more in our schools, provided flexibility from one-size-fits-all mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, and supported school reforms across the country. Today, as President Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act, he is releasing a report that summarizes the progress the country’s schools have made since 2008, including:

•          Adopting higher academic standards in nearly every state, putting our schools on par with their international competitors and our children on track to graduate from high school ready for college and career.
•          Reaching the highest high school graduation rate on record at 81 percent, with the highest gains among students of color.
•          Investing billions of dollars in high-quality early education to help our youngest learners succeed.
•          Reaching more than halfway to the President’s goal of training 100,000 excellent STEM teachers, ahead of schedule.
•          Expanding access to high speed Internet to 20 million more students.

The legislation that President Obama will sign today, which Congress passed with strong bipartisan support, will help our schools build on this progress. Specifically, it will:

•          Ensure states set high standards so that children graduate high school ready for college and career.
•          Maintain accountability by guaranteeing that when students fall behind, states target resources towards what works to help them and their schools improve, with a particular focus on the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, high schools with high dropout rates, and schools where subgroups of students are struggling.
•          Empower state and local decision-makers to develop their own strong systems for school improvement based upon evidence, rather than imposing cookie-cutter federal solutions like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) did.
•          Preserve annual assessments and reduce the often onerous burden of unnecessary and ineffective testing on students and teachers, making sure that standardized tests don’t crowd out teaching and learning, without sacrificing clear, annual information parents and educators need to make sure our children are learning.
•          Provide more children access to high-quality preschool,giving them the chance to get a strong start to their education.
•          Establish new resources to test promising practices and replicate proven strategies that will drive opportunity and better outcomes for America’s students.

The Challenge

President Obama believes that every student deserves a world-class education. We have some of the best schools and best universities in the world – but too often our students are not prepared to compete in the global economy. Since the beginning of this Administration, the President has emphasized that we need a great teacher in every classroom and a great principal in every school. Further, this Administration has stressed that we must ensure that we are doing a better job helping all our students master critical thinking, adaptability, collaboration, problem solving and creativity – skills that go beyond the basics for which schools were designed in the past.

America’s educators, students, and families have made historic progress in raising student outcomes across the nation in recent years, including reaching the highest high school graduation rate and lowest dropout rates in our history, and narrowing achievement and graduation rate gaps. States and school districts that have led the way with deep commitment to positive change – including Tennessee, Kentucky, the District of Columbia, and Denver – are seeing meaningful gains in student achievement.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that President Obama signs today builds upon the significant success of the President’s education policies and represents an important step forward to improve our education system. It replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, which was too often a burden rather than a help to achieving these goals. As President Obama has said, “The goals of No Child Left Behind were the right goals: Making a promise to educate every child with an excellent teacher -- that’s the right thing to do, that’s the right goal. Higher standards are right. Accountability is right… But what hasn’t worked is denying teachers, schools, and states what they need to meet these goals. That’s why we need to fix No Child Left Behind.”

Progress Made Since 2009

Over the last seven years, we have seen some of the most rapid, significant improvement of America’s education system in decades. And, more importantly, it’s put the building blocks in place for generational change. We’ve seen tremendous progress:

•          Our high school graduation rate is the highest ever, at 81 percent, and is on-track to rise again this year. Moreover, graduation rate gaps for minority, low-income, and disabled students are closing.
•          For the last two years, our high school dropout rate has been at a historic low, following steady decreases. The greatest progress has been among minorities. The dropout rate among Hispanics is half of what it was in 2000. Rates for black and low-income youth have been cut by more than a third. According to outside experts, the number of “dropout factories” has been cut nearly in half since 2008.
•          The number of students who do not complete high school on-time has dropped by a quarter in just four years – from about 1 million students in 2008 to 740,000 students in 2012.
•          College enrollment for black and Hispanic students is up by more than a million students since 2008.

Administration Action to Improve Education

Under the Obama Administration, we’ve seen tremendous efforts to improve education from cradle to career, with substantial progress made.

• Quality Preschool: The Obama Administration has invested billions of dollars to help provide high-quality early education opportunities so that more children are successful when they enter kindergarten, and more than 30 states have boosted their own investments in early learning.
• Higher Standards: Today, nearly all students have access to higher standards than they did a few years ago. 48 states and the District of Columbia have taken action to hold all students to challenging academic standards that will prepare them to graduate from high school prepared for success in college and the workforce.
• Fewer, Better Assessments: The Obama Administration has supported states in their hard work to move America past the traditional multiple choice test and toward assessments aligned to college- and career-ready standards and focused on critical thinking, problem solving, and writing. At the same time, the Administration is helping states and school districts to push back on unnecessary or low-quality tests and test preparation.
• Strong Teachers in Every Classroom: Every student needs and deserves a strong teacher, but minority and low-income students are less likely to have effective teachers than their peers. The Department of Education has launched a number of efforts to support great teachers and teaching, including proposed regulations that will strengthen teacher preparation, and the Teach to Lead initiative, created jointly with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, to help teachers to take control of their profession and their career paths. In addition, the Teacher Incentive Fund, Supporting Effective Educator Development Grant program, and updated teacher equity plans Excellent Educators for All are initiatives that support states and districts to train, attract, and keep effective educators in high-need schools.
• Competitive Programs to Improve Schools: President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative offered strong incentives to states willing to enact systemic reforms that would improve teaching and learning in America’s schools. Race to the Top was the most significant reform of public education in a generation. With an initial investment of $4 billion – less than 1 percent of annual K-12 education funding – Race to the Top catalyzed meaningful change for more than 10 million students and 700,000 teachers across over a dozen grantees, and for many more in states that did not receive funds. Race to the Top helped states increase their capacity to implement innovative solutions to improve educational outcomes by establishing high standards; supporting great teachers and leaders; using data and technology to improve instruction; and turning around the lowest performing schools – solutions that have since spread nationwide. Even in states that did not win awards, the work to develop an application and establish the conditions for positive change unleashed incredible initiative and creativity at the local level.
• Investing in Innovation: The Administration’s Investing in Innovation (i3) program has helped develop a culture of evidence-based decision-making in public schools by expanding interventions that accelerate student achievement and that prepare every student to succeed in college and in their careers. The more rigorous the evidence an organization has supporting its intervention, the larger the grant award it can potentially receive. Originally, the $650 million i3 fund offered support to districts, nonprofit organizations, and institutions of higher education to research, replicate, and scale-up promising practices that improve educational outcomes. The Department awarded 49 grants in the competition, but nearly 1,700 applicants applied – by far the largest number of applicants in a single competition in the Department's history. Now, nearly 150 i3 grantees are working in every state in the country, impacting over 2 million students.
• Creating Promise Neighborhoods: Since 2010, the Administration’s Promise Neighborhoods program has sought to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by investing $270 million in more than 50 of our nation’s most distressed communities, representing over 700 schools. These efforts are helping to build a pipeline from early learning to high school and beyond for our highest-need students by creating comprehensive, wrap-around educational support services and strong, vibrant school environments. Moreover, 1,000 national, state, and community organizations have signed-on to support and partner with Promise Neighborhoods to ensure these initiatives are effective and long-lasting.
• More than Halfway to Reaching the President’s Goal to Prepare 100,000 Excellent STEM Teachers: In his 2011 State of the Union address, the President called for a new effort to prepare 100,000 STEM teachers over the next decade with strong teaching skills and deep content knowledge. Answering the President’s call to action, more than 230 organizations formed a coalition called100Kin10. These organizations have made more than 350 measurable commitments to increase the supply of excellent STEM teachers, including recruiting and preparing more than 43,000 teachers in the first five years of the initiative. In addition, in 2014 the Department of Education announced more than $175 million over five years in STEM-focused grants under the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant program, which will support more than 11,000 new STEM teachers in high-need schools. In total, the President’s Educate to Innovate campaign has resulted in over $1 billion in direct and in-kind support for STEM education.
• Expanding Access to the Technology Students Need to Succeed and Cutting the Digital Divide in Half: Since President Obama launched his ConnectED initiative in 2013, we have cut the connectivity divide in schools in half. Now, 20 million more students have access to high-speed Internet, which they need in order to utilize modern digital learning tools. Today, 77 percent of school districts meet minimum standards for high-speed broadband, compared to 30 percent in 2013. More than 3 million students from all 50 states are also benefitting from the $2.25 billion in independent private sector commitments of hardware, digital content, software, wireless service, and teacher training commitments. And thousands of district leaders have received training to support their commitment to making their schools “Future Ready.”
• Making College More Affordable: Our historic investments in student aid for college, a far simpler Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and the new College Scorecard are helping to give all students the opportunity to go to college by providing them with the right tools for success.

The full progress report on elementary and secondary education is available HERE.

The fact sheet on ESSA issued last week after House passage is available HERE.

WHITE HOUSE REPORT: The Every Student Succeeds Act | whitehouse.gov:

The Decline of the Great American Middle Class - Wait What?

The Decline of the Great American Middle Class - Wait What?:

The Decline of the Great American Middle Class

Whether driven by benign-neglect or outright disdain, the “advanced capitalist system,” along with the nation’s two-party, “incumbency” form of government continues to undermine the country’s Middle Class and hold down those without the resources to live full and fulfilling lives.

As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a professor of Economics at Columbia, recently noted,

“The world’s quintessential middle class society is on the way to becoming its first former middle class society.”

According to a new Pew Research Center report,

“In early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households combined…marking the first time in the center’s four decades of tracking this data that the size of the latter groups has transcended that of the first.

[…]

Fully 49% of U.S. aggregate income went to upper-income households in 2014, up from 29% in 1970. The share accruing to middle-income households was 43% in 2014, down substantially from 62% in 1970.

[…]

And middle-income Americans have fallen further behind financially in the new century. In 2014, the median income of these households was 4% less than in 2000. Moreover, because of the housing market crisis and the Great Recession of 2007-09, their median wealth (assets minus debts) fell by 28% from 2001 to 2013.

[…]

Meanwhile, the far edges of the income spectrum have shown the most growth. In 2015, 20% of American adults were in the lowest-income tier, up from 16% in 1971. On the opposite side, 9% are in the highest-income tier, more than double the 4% share in 1971.

[…]

The hollowing of the American middle class has proceeded steadily for more than four decades. Since 1971, each decade has ended with a smaller share of adults living in middle-income households than at the beginning of the decade.

Previous observations about the decline of the middle class and growing chasm between the super wealthy and everyone else, on this blog and elsewhere, has generated complaints about the inappropriateness of discussing what they claim to be a call for “class warfare.”

But it is long past time for the nation to drop that defense and for our elected officials to recognize that if we continue to refuse to discuss inequality, equity and fairness, we most certainly will be talking about class warfare, but we will be talking about it in the context of The Decline of the Great American Middle Class - Wait What?:

'Parent Revolution' pushes bad charter school rhetoric - NonDoc

'Parent Revolution' pushes bad charter school rhetoric - NonDoc:

Parent Revolution’ pushes bad charter school rhetoric

Students exit the F.D. Moon Academy after school on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Oklahoma City. (William W. Savage III)

Even among Oklahoma City residents, not that many outsiders venture into the neighborhood around F.D. Moon Elementary School. My three incredibly satisfying decades of educational and mentoring relationships with poor children of color began with students at the old Moon Middle School and the basketball courts at the Foster Center.

But, two years ago, I was stunned to find a local church sanctuary full of corporate school reformers from Adelanto, Calif., who were pushing market-driven plans for taking over Moon and other Oklahoma City schools. They were from the “Parent Revolution,” using a “parent trigger” to close traditional public schools and replace them with charters.

These Californians seemed sincere about wanting to help some children. I don’t know what to say about the “Billionaire Boys Club,” which funds them and the mass takeovers of neighborhood schools across the nation. Financed by the Gates, Walton and Broad foundations, these competition-driven “reformers” are well-armed with the best scorched-earth political spin that the elites can buy. Their videos promised “transformational” change, rescuing students from the OKCPS and the teachers’ unions.

Parent Revolution harms communities

The Parent Revolution’s public relations soundbites were demonstrably false. They had taken over a traditional public school, turning it into a charter school, and, in doing so, they ripped its community apart.

For years across the country, parents fought parents. According to the investigative reporter Yasha Levine who covered the Adelanto charter school fight, “At times, locals say, the ‘Parent Revolution’ volunteers’ tactics were so heavy-handed in gathering signatures that they crossed the line into harassment and intimidation.”

Now, the Adelanto-based Desert Trails Preparatory Academy’s charter has been non-renewed. The San Bernardino Sun reports, “The district had offered instead to work collaboratively with Desert Trails … but Desert Trails repeatedly declined those offers.”

Parent Revolution comes to OKC

As is true across the nation, “venture philanthropists” quietly descended on Oklahoma City, peddling their theories. They seek to “blow up” local school boards, unions, education schools and other institutions that they condemn for only producing incremental gains in student performance. They want to kick down the old education barn in the faith that “disruptive innovation” will replace it with a new type of school — to be identified later.

Meanwhile, some would impose a behaviorist “No Excuses” pedagogy, while others would make big bucks from the often-criticized but highly profitable online learning industry. If these outsiders had their way, some Oklahoma City students would find themselves in 'Parent Revolution' pushes bad charter school rhetoric - NonDoc:

Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers

Dear Teacher Education "Leaders" | BustED Pencils

Dear Teacher Education "Leaders" | BustED Pencils:

Dear Teacher Education “Leaders”

As I am sure you know by now, ESSA passed the Senate and is headed for the President’s signature.  Not good news for teacher education.

If you’re confused by that statement please take some time to read Ken Zeichner’s piece in the Washington Post.  The new realities facing “traditional” teacher education are frightening.

Question: Can we now admit that it is time to build a movement of teacher education leaders?

Or should we just assimilate and simply adorn ourselves as Deans for Impact?

Now that fast track “academies” for teacher licensing are part of the federal legislation, it won’t be long before my under educated governor and his ALEC tattooed stooges vigorously start dismantling “traditional” teacher education and start appointing their Dear Teacher Education "Leaders" | BustED Pencils:

New Education Law Returns Education Policy to States, Ignores Equity as Federal Priority | janresseger

New Education Law Returns Education Policy to States, Ignores Equity as Federal Priority | janresseger:

New Education Law Returns Education Policy to States, Ignores Equity as Federal Priority

Yesterday the Senate passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, the newest example of pretending that reality will match a bill title’s rhetoric.  We have turned the corner from the negative No Child Left Behind to the positive Every Student Succeeds, but what Congress just passed will definitely not ensure that every student succeeds.

The new law passed after years’ and years’ of trying (Reauthorizations were attempted without any consensus reached in 2007, 2010, and 2013.) leaves the machinery of test-and-punish pretty much in place. The bill keeps the testing, and it says that states must do something to “turnaround” the bottom-scoring schools.  What to do is left up to the states. One positive is that there is no longer a federal mandate to rank and rate teachers using students’ test scores.

Last week after the House vote to affirm the Every Child Succeeds Act, Jeff Bryant at the Educational Opportunity Network wrote, Go Ahead, Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It.  That sums things up pretty well.

Here is a very quick, broad-stroke summary of what this over-a-thousand-page bill will do.  In it Congress mandates that schools test students in grades 3-8 and once in high school.  States are still required to disaggregate the data and rate and rank schools based on students’ test scores.  States are required to consider other factors beyond test scores in their ratings, but test scores must remain the most important factor.  States are required to identify the lowest-New Education Law Returns Education Policy to States, Ignores Equity as Federal Priority | janresseger:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Anyone buying Rahm's 'I'm sorry' (for whatever) speech?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Anyone buying Rahm's 'I'm sorry' (for whatever) speech?:

Anyone buying Rahm's 'I'm sorry' (for whatever) speech?

“No citizen is a second-class citizen in the city of Chicago. If my children are treated one way, every child is treated the same way. There is one standard for our young men.” 

 "These facts defy credibility." -- Rahm Emanuel prepared remarks

Aside from a handful of Rahm's puppy-dog aldermen, I'm not sure who's buying his sorry-for-whatever speech.



One standard for Rahm's children and every child? Really? Tell that to the kids whose schools have been closed across the south and west sides, while Rahm's kids attend the chi-chi, progressive Lab School, free from dad's test-and-punish school reform.

Yesterday protest.  -- Fred Klonsky pic

The mostly young protesters in the streets yesterday, certainly weren't buying it. And for good reason. Rahm's not expressing sorrow for anything he's done. He's "sorry" -- no, outraged -- at the sins of others. After all, said the mayor, I was just "following a time-honored practice" which in this case, "you could clearly say we were adding to the suspicion and distrust.”



Time-honored practice, indeed.



According to S-T's Fran Spielman:

The cathartic speech before aldermen, who offered their own apology, Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Anyone buying Rahm's 'I'm sorry' (for whatever) speech?:

Picture Post Week: Subprime Chartering | School Finance 101

Picture Post Week: Subprime Chartering | School Finance 101:

Picture Post Week: Subprime Chartering

A short while back, I explained how, in our fervor to rapidly expand charter schooling and decrease the role of large urban school districts in serving their resident school-aged populations, we’ve created some particularly ludicrous scenarios whereby, for example – charter school operators use public tax dollars to buy land and facilities that were originally purchased with other public dollars… and at the end of it all, the assets are in private hands!  Even more ludicrous is that the second purchase incurred numerous fees and administrative expenses, and the debt associated with that second purchase likely came with a relatively high interest rate because – well – revenue bonds paid for by charter school lease payments are risky. Or so the rating agencies say.

So how much of this debt is accumulating? And when does it come due? Who is issuing this debt? Are we looking at a charter school subprime bubble? Here are some snapshots:

Most revenue bond debt incurred on behalf of charter schools is either unrated, or BBB- or BB+ rated. The unrated debt is saddled, on average, with coupon rates around 6.9% in recent years, marginally higher than rates attached to BBB- or BB+ bonds.

Picture Post Week: Subprime Chartering | School Finance 101: