1-23-14 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

Gov. Brown: THE STATE OF THE STATE …OF PUBLIC EDUCATION + smf’s 2¢ on the Principle of Subsidiarity

A few words on public education from Governor Brown by LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1hP6FFq Gov. Jerry Brown Posted on January 22, 2014  ::  In his State of the State address today, Gov. Jerry Brown spent a few minutes talking about public education in California. Here’s what he had to say: “Last year, I spoke of the

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ADVOCATES WANT TO LIMIT USES OF STUDENT DATA + smf’s 1¢

Annie Gilbertson| Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/LZE2e4 | Maya Sugarman/KPCC January 22nd, 2014, 10:06am  ::  As computerized testing becomes the norm in California schools and many students are using computers to turn in class assignments, tiny bits of data useful to school administrator are captured along with it. An advocacy group is concerned about who else is using that data:

1 by smf / 44min 

SB837: MORE PRESCHOOL THAN CALIFORNIA CAN AFFORD + smf’s 2¢

The 'transitional kindergarten' program championed by state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg would create an expensive new entitlement. LA Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/1eVCt99 SB 837 would create a new program ‘universal transitional kindergarten’ for all 4-year-olds. (Los Angeles Times / January 22, 2014) January 23, 2014  ::  Preschool can do wonderful things for disadvantaged

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L.A. City Hall Takes A Fresh Look At Lausd

By Dakota Smith, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1dVZLNW LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy delivers his State of Schools report to members of the City Council at City Hall, Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker/L.A. Daily News) Posted: 01/21/14, 8:26 PM PST   ::  Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy made a rare appearance before a City Council committee

by smf / 17h 

Twitterpated: SUPERINTENDENT DEASY CROSSES THE FREEWAY AND TESTIFIES AT CITY HALL COMMITTEE MEETING + smf’s 2¢

By L.A. Times reporter Howard Blume, via Twitter 6:01 PM - 21 Jan 2014 :: @HowardBlume: No immediate story forthcoming. Just thought I'd report a bit about this testimony before the city council committee via Twitter. Here's link to critical report--harsh about many L.A. things. School officials said they weren't consulted: http://ow.ly/sOMh9 L.A. schools Supt. Deasy testifies at City Hall

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1-21-14 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: This AM’s School Board Meeting: TWO MONTHS AFTER HE KILLED ONE PLAN, KAYSER HAS HIS OWN TITLE I IDEASby Michael Janofsky, LA SchooLs Report  |  http://bit.ly/KCdvCaby smf / 34min Annette Benimg To Become Face Of Arts Ed For CaliforniaMary Plummer| Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1ePLgsW January 20th, 2014, 6:00am  ::  Actress Annette Bening has si

by mike simpson / 18min 

Educating, Engaging and Mobilizing Parents: A Conversation with Parents for Public Schools Executive Director Anne Foster | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights

Educating, Engaging and Mobilizing Parents: A Conversation with Parents for Public Schools Executive Director Anne Foster | LFA: Join The Conversation - Public School Insights:

Educating, Engaging and Mobilizing Parents: A Conversation with Parents for Public Schools Executive Director Anne Foster

By Anne O'Brien on January 23, 2014

Earlier this month, we at the Learning First Alliance were pleased to welcome our newest member, Parents for Public Schools (PPS). As we work to advance public education nationwide, we recognize the important voice that this organization – and those it represents – brings to the school improvement conversation.



PPS has local chapters throughout the country that work to elevate the role of parents in public schools from passive consumers to active participants. The organization helps accomplish its mission through strategies and programs that educate, engage and mobilize parents. Through its ongoing work, PPS’ parents help raise standards, solve problems and advocate for their community.



Parents for Public Schools Executive Director Anne Foster recently took the time to tell us more about the organization.

Public School Insights (PSI): What is Parents for Public Schools?

Foster: Parents for Public Schools (PPS) is a national organization of community-based chapters working to strengthen public schools by engaging, educating and mobilizing parents.

PSI: Why was the organization formed?

Foster: Parents for Public Schools was started in 1989 in Jackson, Mississippi, by a group of parents. They were committed to supporting public schools and challenging the entire community to do so as well. They were convinced that parents could positively impact public schools, and one of their first acts was to help pass the first bond election in many years, enabling the improvement of the school district facilities. This fledgling movement gained 

The Defiant Parents: Opting Out of Testing : The New Yorker

The Defiant Parents: Opting Out of Testing : The New Yorker:

THE DEFIANT PARENTS: TESTING’S DISCONTENTS

POSTED BY REBECCA MEAD

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Anna Allanbrook, the principal of the Brooklyn New School, a public elementary school in Carroll Gardens, has long considered the period of standardized testing that arrives every spring to be a necessary, if unwelcome, phase of the school year. Teachers and kids would spend limited time preparing for the tests. Children would gain familiarity with “bubbling in,” a skill not stressed in the school’s progressive, project-based curriculum. They would become accustomed to sitting quietly and working alone—a practice quite distinct from the collaboration that is typically encouraged in the school’s classrooms, where learners of differing abilities and strengths work side by side. (My son is a third grader at the school.) Come the test days, kids and teachers would get through them, and then, once the tests were over, they would get on with the real work of education.

Last spring’s state tests were an entirely different experience, for children and for teachers. Teachers invigilating the exams were shocked by ambiguous test questions, based, as they saw it, on false premises and wrongheaded educational principles. (One B.N.S. teacher, Katherine Sorel, eloquently details her objections on WNYC’s SchoolBook blog.) Others were dismayed to see that children were demoralized by the relentlessness of the testing process, which took 

 

Opt-Out/Refusal Guides for each State | United Opt Out National

Opt-Out/Refusal Guides for each State | United Opt Out National: OPT-OUT/REFUSAL GUIDES FOR EACH STATEAll documents are for informational purposes only and do not substitute as legal advice or legal counsel. The information contained in these documents and this website may or may not reflect the most current developments in education policy within our nation or within each state. Information share

by mike simpson / 6h 

Connecticut Teacher Does Not Want Common Core; Weingarten Refuses to Validate the Sentiment | deutsch29

Connecticut Teacher Does Not Want Common Core; Weingarten Refuses to Validate the Sentiment | deutsch29:

Connecticut Teacher Does Not Want Common Core; Weingarten Refuses to Validate the Sentiment

January 23, 2014

On January 17, 2014, veteran Connecticut teacher Elizabeth Natale wrote in theCourant about her disillusion with the pressures of corporate reform upon her West Hartford, middle-school classroom.

In her article, Natale makes it clear that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are part of that disillusion– not only the CCSS assessments– but CCSS itself:

When I started teaching, I learned that dealing with demanding college presidents and cantankerous newspaper editors was nothing. While those jobs allowed me time to drink tea and read the newspaper, teaching deprived me of an opportunity to use the restroom. And when I did, I was often the Pied Piper, followed by children intent on speaking with me through the bathroom door.

I loved it!

Unfortunately, government attempts to improve education are stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help children. The Common Core standards require teachers to march lockstep in arming students with “21st-century skills.” In English, emphasis on technology and nonfiction reading makes it more important for students to prepare an electronic presentation on how to make a paper airplane than to learn about moral dilemmas from Natalie Babbitt’s beloved novel “Tuck Everlasting.” [Emphasis added.]

Natale is clear in her position that CCSS is part of a package of reforms that needs to 

What States Have Pulled Out of their Common Core Assessment Consortium? | Truth in American Education

What States Have Pulled Out of their Common Core Assessment Consortium? | Truth in American Education:

What States Have Pulled Out of their Common Core Assessment Consortium?

Filed in Common Core Assessments by Shane Vander Hart on January 23, 2014 • 0 Comments

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We wanted to provide a complete list in one location of all the states that have pulled out of either Smarter Balanced or PARCC, as well as, states that are considering it.

States that have pulled out of their Assessment Consortium:

1. Utah (Smarter Balanced) – http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile/54627081-68/utah-state-standards-consortium.html.csp 
2. Oklahoma (PARCC) – http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/oklahoma-pulls-out-of-parcc/ (the Tulsa World article is no longer on the website).
3. Georgia (PARCC) – http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/georgia-decides-against-offering-common-core-stand/nYzDr/
4. Alabama (Smarter Balanced & PARCC – they were an advisory state) –http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2013/02/alabama_withdraws_from_both_te.html
5. Indiana (PARCC) – http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-assessments/pence-pulls-indiana-out-of-parcc/  andhttp://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2013/07/29/gov-pence-signals-intent-to-withdraw-from-common-core-consortium-parcc/  As of December PARCC still had them 

FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Thursday, January 23, 2014

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

Freedburg: Gov. Brown reemphasizes local control of state’s public schools

Education Headlines

Thursday, January 23, 2014

FCMAT provides links to California K-12 news stories as a service to the industry. However, some stories may not be accessible because of newspapers' subscription policies.

Report: Fresno Unified health board saved $100m since 2006

Fresno Unified has saved more than $100 million since 2006 in health care costs and kept employee costs nearly flat as statewide costs spiked, members of the district's health management board said Wednesday.

Natomas trustee fined for not reporting free meal

Natomas Unified School District board member Lisa Kaplan has joined a list of California school officials who have been fined for receiving free meals from a bond advisory firm without disclosing them, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Pulling Mountain View School from closure list, Simi Valley district to look at other cost cuts

Mountain View School, the only campus that remained targeted for closure in Simi Valley, will stay open.

Tracy Unified targets April to hire superintendent

Tracy Unified school board members hope to have a new superintendent hired by April to allow time for a smooth transition with retiring Superintendent James Franco, who announced his intentions in November effective at the end of the school year.

Cayucos superintendent announces run for head of county schools

Cayucos Elementary School District Superintendent Jim Brescia officially announced his candidacy for San Luis Obispo County schools superintendent Wednesday, a day after he received an endorsement from the current office holder.

Alpine teachers moving toward strike

The 91 teachers who staff five campuses are officially poised to go on strike. At the same time, a movement is afoot to yank local children from the Grossmont Union High School District in an attempt to add a high school to Alpine’s cash-strapped public education system.

SDUSD budget: big deficit with some good news

Amid the $75 million deficit to next year’s San Diego Unified School District’s $1.1 billion operating budget is good news: lower class sizes in the earliest grades; high school graduation coaches; and new math textbooks for secondary schools.

What should schools spend money on? They’re asking you B

Over the next few months, districts will be seeking your opinion on how schools should spend their money. The extra taxes you pay under Proposition 30 require community input in budgeting.

Local agriculture education programs may lose funds under governor’s budget

State funding for agriculture education has been dropped from the governor’s proposed budget, eliminating an estimated $4.1 million dollars that goes directly to agriculture-related programs for thousands of students in California.

Brentwood school district to pay $8 million in child abuse settlement

School district leaders announced Wednesday that Brentwood Union School District has settled a second child abuse lawsuit with an $8 million payout.

Transgender students get new options in California

School districts in California are grappling with a newly enacted, first-of-its-kind law that spells out rights for those students who don't identify as being the gender of their birth.

Nothing certain, but Chico school budget brighter

Just days after an interim financial report suggested Chico schools could be facing tight budgets down the road, a much brighter projection came forward.

Freedburg: Gov. Brown reemphasizes local control of state’s public schools

In his State of the State speech on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown made it clear again where he thinks the action should be when it comes to school reform – at the local level.

Baron: Brown touts education accomplishments, priorities in upbeat State of the State

Gov. Jerry Brown highlighted his education accomplishments in an upbeat State of the State on Wednesday that marked the final address of his current term and laid out priorities for the coming year and his likely reelection campaign.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Positive behavior support pays off

Positive behavior and character reinforcing programs are gaining popularity - and apparent results - in Mother Lode schools.

Julian Crocker, San Luis Obispo County superintendent of schools, to retire

After 16 years supporting San Luis Obispo County's school districts and advocating for public education, county schools Superintendent Julian Crocker announced Tuesday that he will retire when his term ends next January.

Concerns mount about number of school nurses in Long Beach

Long Beach Unified students are being put at risk because of a lack of funded nursing positions, according to the district’s head nurse.

Sacramento City Unified holds school spending forum

Sacramento-area school districts are soliciting ideas on how to spend new state money intended to aid disadvantaged students.

Denair district, union reach deal; contract will end fears of takeover

Denair Unified School District and its teachers have reached a deal, ending fears of a state takeover, district and union spokesmen said Tuesday.

California schools compete for $250 million in job training grants

California's economy and retiring baby boomers are stoking a growing demand for trained workers the state hopes to fill by handing out $250 million in grants for job training programs at the high school and community college level.

The charter school tipping point

The San Diego Unified School board recently shot down a proposed charter school, opening the door to questions about how many charter schools are 

Colorado Moms Push Bill to Delay Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Colorado Moms Push Bill to Delay Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Colorado Moms Push Bill to Delay Common Core

By Anthony Cody on January 23, 2014 11:10 AM

Guest post by Colorado Moms

Like so many states in the union, Colorado's 2014 Legislative Session is largely focused on education. The session opened with the introduction of eight education bills...and now there is one more. Senator Vicki Marble has presented the Colorado Mom's Bill to delay the implementation of Common Core and PARCC testing on behalf of a group of parents from her district and throughout the state of Colorado.

Our History

We are moms, from all across Colorado, with different backgrounds and political beliefs, coming together, in most cases, as strangers, because we oppose Common Core. This bill has nothing to do with political affiliation and everything to do with our children.

Why Common Core and PARCC alarmed us and our reaction

The state of Colorado is known for having top quality public schools and school of choice.  When we found out that school choice would be threatened by the adoption of CCSS and PARCC, we knew we had to do something.  For most of us, the first few weeks after we learned about CCSS were spent researching and wrapping our heads around this sly and nefarious monster that had crept into our children's school under the guise of college and career ready.  Hour and hours of digging, reading RTTT applications, MOU's, emails back and forth filled sleepless nights.  We knew we had to take action, but what could these moms who have jobs and families to care for do to 

New Infographic: The Cycle of School Closures | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

New Infographic: The Cycle of School Closures | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

New Infographic: The Cycle of School Closures

Posted on: Wednesday January 22nd, 2014

Mass school closures have become a popular, "quick fix" for policymakers trying to address struggling schools and budget crises – despite the lack of evidence that closures save money or even improve opportunities for students. Instead, school closures are both a symptom and a cause of perpetuated inequality, and they leave students of color and students from low-income families without access to the educational resources they deserve. To break the Cycle of School Closures we must end the underfunding of our schools and invest in proven alternatives that help every student and every school succeed.

This is how the Cycle of School Closures works: 
[Click here for a larger version. Don't forget to share this on Facebook and Twitter!]

Want to take action? Here's what to do:

• Read up on the alternatives. You can't improve schools by closing them – here is what we should be doing instead to support and turn around struggling schools.
• Find out if there's a local organizing group in your community fighting school closures. Contact theJourney for Justice coalition and Alliance for Educational Justice.
• Share this infographic on Facebook and Twitter. And view and share our previous infographics, "Debunking the Myths of School Closures" and "The Color of School Closures."

1/22/2014 – Let Teachers Lead Common Core - National Opportunity to Learn Campaign

1/22/2014 – Let Teachers Lead Common Core: 1/22/2014 – Let Teachers Lead Common CoreJanuary 22, 2014 Subscribe THIS WEEK: School Funding Fights … End Of A Civil Rights Era … Online Schools Take Funds … Schools Teaching Creationism … Free Public College For All TOP STORY Why Common Core Advocates Should Let Teachers Lead It By Jeff Bryant “Perhaps the most tumultuous issue for the year ahead is the

by mike simpson / 20h