4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-23-14

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

“WE TRUST THAT THE BOARD OF EDUCATION INTENDS TO EXECUTE ITS DUTIES IN A TRANSPARENT AND EQUITABLE MANNER”: Letter of reappointment of Stuart Magruder to the Bond Oversight Committee

from the AIA/LA “ When the passage of Proposition 39 in 2000 led to the provision of the Education Code that required that the Board of Education appoint all BOC members, we and the other stakeholders agreed to the Memorandum of Understanding between the District and the BOC that, while the formal appointment would be done by the Board as a receive and

by smf / 1min 

‘If you don’t like the criticism, fire the critic 3!”: L.A. UNIFIED BOARD REFUSES TO REAPPOINT MEMBER OF OVERSIGHT PANEL + smf’s 2¢

by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/1pjc8aO School board member Tamar Galatzan, shown here with Supt. John Deasy last year, was one of the staunchest supporters of the original iPad plan. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) May 22, 2014, 901 PM  ::  The Los Angeles Board of Education this week acted against a critic of its controversial iPad program by refusing to reappoint

by smf / 16min 

“If you don’t like the criticism, fire the critic 2!”: OUSTED OPPONENT OF LA SCHOOLS iPAD FIGHTS TO REGAIN SEAT ON OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE

ALSO SEE: “If you don’t like the criticism, fire the critic!”: SCHOOL BOARD BLOCKS APPOINTEE CRITICAL OF iPADS | http://bit.ly/1sU4iVd BASED ON ED REPORTER HOWARD BLUME's TWITTER FEED, A MAJOR STORY IS COMING FROM THE LA TIMES: @howardblume: ●Next week's meeting of school bond oversight committee has new agenda item: Stuart Magruder, the nominee Board of Ed

2 by smf / 15h 

MAY 21

“If you don’t like the criticism, fire the critic!”: SCHOOL BOARD BLOCKS APPOINTEE CRITICAL OF iPADS

Posted on  LA School Report by Vanessa Romo | http://bit.ly/1sU4iVd May 20, 2014 4:00 pm  ::  What is normally a routine, no-questions-asked formality for the LA Unified School Board hit a snag today. Board Member Tamar Galatzan opposed the reappointment of Stuart Magruder, an outspoken critic of the use of bond money for iPads, from the School Construction Bond Oversight Committee (BOC). The

by smf / 2d 

L.A. Unified Hires Respected D.C. Principal To Lead Arts Education

Long-rumored hire to fill never-advertised job  is agreed-to in secret closed Board of Ed session, Third time (at least) is the charm for bringing art educator Rory Pullens to L.A. HOWARD BLUME | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1i3GXLA The leader of one of the nation’s top arts high schools has accepted a position in charge of arts education for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Rory

by smf / 2d 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 5-21-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: “If you don’t like the criticism, fire the critic!”: SCHOOL BOARD BLOCKS APPOINTEE CRITICAL OF iPADSPosted on  LA School Report by Vanessa Romo | http://bit.ly/1sU4iVd May 20, 2014 4:00 pm  ::  What is normally a routine, no-questions-asked formality for the LA Unified School Board hit a snag today. Board Member Tamar Galatzan opposed the reappointment

by mike simpson / 8min 

The dramatic inequality of public-school spending in America:

The dramatic inequality of public-school spending in America

• BY EMILY BADGER

• May 23 at 9:00 am

An Apple Inc. iPad sits on a desk used in a second-grade classroom at Park Lane Elementary school, in the Canyons School District, in Sandy, Utah, U.S. on Monday, May 20, 2013 (George Frey/Bloomberg)

During fiscal 2012, New York City's school district, the largest in the country with nearly a million students, spent more money on each one of them than any other large public school system in the country. New York spent $20,226 per pupil, according to updated Census data released Thursday on the finances of the country's public schools.

That's twice as much as was spent on children in the Prince William County public elementary and secondary schools outside of D.C. ($10,090, below the national average of $10,608). Among school districts with more than 40,000 students, New York's total even farther surpasses what's spent on children in El Paso, Tex. ($8,209), Brevard County, Fla. ($,7801) and the biggest school districts in Utah (all below $6,200).

Per-pupil spending alone doesn't tell us everything about the quality of education in any given school district, although a shortage of money certainly says a lot. Underfunded districts, as The Post's Valerie Strauss wrote this week, inevitably struggle to afford special-education staff, smaller classes, better computers and teacher development, among many other things.

But this latest Census snapshot underscores the reality that a public education may imply vastly different resources depending on where you get it (and what local tax revenues look like). These numbers -- note that they're not adjusted for differences in cost of living -- do not include spending on capital outlays or paying down long-term debt. They do include money spent on teacher salaries, instruction and support services. By state and region, the variation is broad:

In this latest accounting, the nine states in the Northeast all rank among the top 15 states by per-pupil spending. Of the 20 states spending the least, 18 are in either the South or West.

To drill down to the school district-level, these are the per-pupil rates in the highest-spending school systems with more than 40,000 students. Seven of the top 18 are in The dramatic inequality of public-school spending in America:

Ravitch: Common Core Is Bankrupting the Country « Bill's Eye

Ravitch: Common Core Is Bankrupting the Country « Bill's Eye:

Ravitch: Common Core Is Bankrupting the Country

Thursday, May 22nd, 2014

Diane Ravitch is not a fan of the new school standards known as Common Core, and she’ll tell you why on this Sunday’s One to One show.

Ravitch, a distinguished education historian and research professor at New York University, was in Kentucky recently to receive the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Education.

The Common Core standards are goals for what K-12 students should know and be able to do in English/literacy and math at each grade level. Kentucky was the first state in the nation to adopt Common Core, and 43 other states have followed suit.

Ravitch won the Grawemeyer for her 2010 book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education.” She is critical of the testing associated with Common Core:

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday is a strong proponent of Common Core. He told the Education Writers Association in Nashville this week that states implementing the Common Core standards should “keep improving” them.

In my conversation with Ravitch, she says Common Core is bankrupting the country.

Watch One to One, Sunday at 1 p.m. on KET.Ravitch: Common Core Is Bankrupting the Country « Bill's Eye:

5-23-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:

Science Fairs: Yay or Nay?

by Melissa Westbrook / 59min 

Friday Open Thread

Naturally, in Seattle, the first "summer" holiday and it's raining. At the Columbus College of Art and Design, two anonymous students create art for all to enjoy. Something to show the artist in your home.New names to look for in, say 2019, in SPS classrooms:And once again, Game of Thrones rules. There were 1135 Aryas, 241 Khaleesis and 67 Daeneryses born in 2013.  As well, for girls the

by Melissa Westbrook / 5min 

5-22-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum: State Releases Audit of Seattle Schools' Federal ProgramsState Auditor Troy Keller released his office's report on SPS's "financial statements and compliance with federal laws and regulations."It's a lengthy report but that is because it contains page after page of district financial reports.  It makes for interesting reading if you have the time.   Page

by mike simpson / 21h 

Oregon Teachers' Union Supports Opting Out, Calls for Congressional Hearings on Testing - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Oregon Teachers' Union Supports Opting Out, Calls for Congressional Hearings on Testing - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Oregon Teachers' Union Supports Opting Out, Calls for Congressional Hearings on Testing

By Anthony Cody on May 23, 2014 10:36 AM

unitedoptout.com/

Today we have the fourth report this month contributed by teacher union activists, who have followed democratic processes in their unions to engage in active resistance to high stakes testing. Two weeks ago the Chicago Teachers Union rejected the Common Core. The same week, teachers representatives in the Connecticut Education Association also voted to push back against the Common Core and support the Network for Public Education's call for Congressional hearings. And yesterday we learned that representatives of the Massachusetts Teachers Association had passed resolutions fighting the abuses of high stakes tests. These stories reflect the experiences and viewpoints of the teachers who wrote them. One swallow does not make a spring, but today, the fourth swallow has arrived from the state of Oregon, and it appears spring is here. 

Guest post by Kathleen Jeskey.

A few weeks ago at the Oregon Education Association Representative Assembly, the largest gathering of teacher representatives in the state, Oregon's teachers gave an emphatic thumbs down to high-stakes testing in general and the new tests scheduled to be will be rolled out next year by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium  in particular. One resolution stated that "...the Smarter Balanced Assessment and other mandatory high stakes testing are detrimental to students." Another stated "...Assessment outcomes that accompany the Common Core State Standards (such as the Smarter Balanced Assessment) disrupt student learning. Tremendous amounts of time and resources are dedicated to test preparation and administration and ... decisions regarding assessment content are held in secrecy."

Among the new business items introduced were one stating,

That OEA shall

1) Support the rights of parents/guardians to collaborate with teachers to determine appropriate options for assessment of students' proficiency if opting out of statewide standardized assessments. OEA will advocate for their right to do so without retaliation.

2) Encourage its local affiliates to work alongside students and parents and leadership groups 

Oregon Teachers' Union Supports Opting Out, Calls for Congressional Hearings on Testing - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

5-23-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):

Happy Memorial Day!

29min 

Stoner parents win, LAUSD removes co-located charter

CWC Mar Vista Charter School Parents of students at Stoner Elementary School, who have been fighting to get the co-located Citizens of the World  Charter School Mar Vista (CWC) off their campus, have succeeded in their quest. A letter from LA Unified has informed them the charter “will not be co-locating” on the campus next year, a decision that effectively ends CWC’s presence at the Del Rey campu

by Michael Janofsky / 2min 

LAUSD miscalculated plan for affordable housing for teachers

Sage Park Affordable Housing Six years ago the LA Unified School Board approved a program to build affordable “workforce housing” for teachers to live closer to schools where they work. But now, with one project nearing completion and two others in the planning stages, the district concedes that it has absolutely no control over who gets to live there, defeating the purpose of the project. “Legall

by Vanessa Romo / 51min 

Johnson extends fundraising lead in bid for school board seat

Alex Johnson Alex Johnson has opened what is likely an insurmountable fund raising lead over the six other candidates running for the open LA Unified school board. With the June 3 special election just 11 days away, he has raised $208,625 through the reporting period that ended last Saturday, according to the LA City Ethics Commission. It’s nearly twice the $105,090 that the next closest candidate

2 45min 

Morning Read: In race for school chief, money is close

Top candidates for state schools chief in close money race The top contenders to be the state’s public schools chief are neck-and-neck in campaign funds leading into the June primary, according to finance reports filed Thursday. Current state superintendent Tom Torlakson has just under $200,000 in the bank for the final stretch of the campaign. Torlakson, a Democrat who is running for his second t

5min 

5-22-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District): Morning Read: Racial tensions rise at Watts middle schoolRacial tensions are rising at Watts middle school Fanning racial tensions at a Watts middle school, several African American parents asserted Wednesday that Latino administrators are unfairly targeting their children and unofficially suspending them

by mike simpson / 21h 

Philly Student Dies With No Nurse on Duty. Organizers Call for Officials to Resign | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity

Philly Student Dies With No Nurse on Duty. Organizers Call for Officials to Resign | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

Philly Student Dies With No Nurse on Duty. Organizers Call for Officials to Resign

Posted on: Friday May 23rd, 2014

Jackson Elementary parents give statement to
the press. Photo via Philly.com

For the second time this school year, a Philadelphiastudent died after falling ill at school. Due to budget cuts, neither school had a full-time nurse on duty to provide appropriate medical attention to the students. Now, organizers in Philadelphia are calling for the resignation of city officials unless they can provide the full school funding necessary to put a nurse in every school. 

On Wednesday, May 21, a 7-year-old student at Jackson Elementary in South Philadelphia died. The school only has a nurse on site on Thursdays and every other Friday.

While it's unclear if having a nurse on site that day might have made the crucial difference, too many schools are similarly doing without full-time medical professionals and the situation is endangering students across the city: Last September, 6th-grader Laporshia Massey died from complications of an asthmas attack at school. Again, there was no school nurse on duty to assess the seriousness of her symptoms and get her the medical attention she needed. 

In a column for The Notebook, Helen Gym of Parents United for Public Education urged city Superintendent William Hite and the School Reform Commission to "take a stand now – or resign."

We are not engaged in the practice of education anymore. We are engaging in a sick social experiment where we strip every imaginable resource from young children and adults, then sit back and watch what happens. We blame young adults at Bartram when chaos erupts, we mull ridiculous questions about whether nurses matter in a life or death situation. But we don’t fundamentally question the structure District leadership and the SRC have designed, endorsed, and sold [...]

It's time for "accountability" from those who so often demand it from others. The true powers behind them – the governor, the mayor and City Council – have delayed, bickered, blustered, 

Philly Student Dies With No Nurse on Duty. Organizers Call for Officials to Resign | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity:

For the First Time, Public Education Revenue Decreases in 2012, Census Bureau Reports - Education - Newsroom - U.S. Census Bureau

For the First Time, Public Education Revenue Decreases in 2012, Census Bureau Reports - Education - Newsroom - U.S. Census Bureau:

For the First Time, Public Education Revenue Decreases in 2012, Census Bureau Reports

Public elementary and secondary education revenue declined in fiscal year 2012 for the first time since 1977, when the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting public education finance data on an annual basis. According to new Census Bureau findings released today, public elementary and secondary school systems received $594.5 billion in total revenue in fiscal year 2012, down $4.9 billion (0.8 percent) from fiscal year 2011.

Today's findings come from Public Education Finances: 2012. These statistics provide figures on revenues, expenditures, debt and assets (cash and security holdings) of the nation's elementary and secondary public school systems. The report, released annually, includes detailed statistics on spending — such as instruction, student transportation, salaries and employee benefits — at the national, state and school district levels.

State governments were the leading source of revenue ($270.4 billion), closely followed by revenue from local sources ($264.6 billion); almost two-thirds (65.3 percent) of revenue from local sources came from property taxes. Public school systems received $59.5 billion in revenue from the federal government, a decrease of $14.2 billion (19.2 percent) from the previous fiscal year.

The 50 states and the District of Columbia spent $10,608 per student on public elementary and secondary education in 2012, the same amount as 2011. All nine states in the Northeast were ranked among the 15 states with the highest spending per pupil (not including capital outlay or expenditure on long-term debt) in 2012. Out of the 20 states with the lowest spending per pupil, 18 were in the South or West.

The top spenders per pupil were New York ($19,552), the District of Columbia ($17,468), Alaska ($17,390), New Jersey ($17,266) and Connecticut ($16,274).

For the third year in a row there was a decline in total expenditures, which decreased to $593.8 billion, a $2.5 billion (0.4 percent) decrease from the previous year.

For the first time, these statistics can be found in American FactFinder, one of the Census Bureau's data research tools.

Other highlights:

• Of the 100 largest school systems by enrollment in the U.S., the following had the highest spending per pupil in FY 2012: New York City School District ($20,226), Boston City Schools ($19,720), Baltimore City Schools ($15,287), Anchorage School District in Alaska ($14,963), Montgomery County Schools in Maryland ($14,873) and Howard County Schools in Maryland ($14,747).
• Of the 100 largest school systems by enrollment, six of the top 14 with the highest spending per pupil in 2012 were in Maryland.
• Of the $593.8 billion in total expenditure for public school systems, $524.0 billion is comprised of spending for day-to-day operation of schools and school districts. Expenditure for instruction amounted to $316.6 billion (53.3 percent) of total spending, while expenditure for support services amounted to $179.8 billion (30.3 percent).
• Instructional salaries, the largest expenditure category for public elementary and secondary education, totaled $206.7 billion in 2012 (34.8 percent of total spending).
• The states spending the least per pupil in 2012 were Utah ($6,206), Idaho ($6,659), Oklahoma ($7,466), Arizona ($7,559) and Mississippi ($8,164).
• Debt for public elementary and secondary school systems decreased by 0.1 percent from $407.0 billion in 2011 to $406.5 billion in 2012.
• States that had the highest percentage of their total public school system revenue coming from federal funding (of the statewide education revenue) were Louisiana (18.1 percent), Mississippi (17.8 percent), South Dakota (16.4 percent), Alaska (14.8 percent) and North Carolina (14.3 percent).
• Conversely, states that had the lowest percentage of their total school revenue coming from federal funding were New Jersey (5.2 percent), Connecticut (5.2 percent), Maryland (6.3 percent), Massachusetts (6.3 percent), and New York (6.4 percent).

-X-

The data used in the tabulations came from a census of all 15,171 public school systems. As such, they are not subject to sampling error. Although quality assurance methods were applied to all phases of data collection and processing, the data are subject to nonsampling error, including errors of response and miscoding. For more information, visit the Census Bureau's website at http://www.census.gov/govs/school/

This Is Not a Test | EduShyster

This Is Not a Test | EduShyster:

This Is Not a Test

The interview with the José Vilson

EduShyster: Your new book, This is Not a Test, has as its subtitle *a new narrative on race, class and education.* I inhaled the book over the course of a weekend, but I couldn’t figure out what the new narrative was. And then it finally dawned on me that you, José Luis Vilson, are the new narrative.

José Vilson: That would be it. There’s a lack of nuance in all facets of what we talk about when we talk about education. So I took a different approach. I tried to address education through narrative and stories, which I think is way more powerful than just coming out and saying *I don’t like this crap.*

ES: At the heart of the book is your critique of an approach to education that overemphasizes standardized testing and what that means, particularly for children of color who had a different, unjust kind of education long before the current brand of reform came down. But let’s just say that people who are expecting a standard take on standardized testing are in for something of a surprise.

JV: It needed to be said, and I think it needed to be said in a particular way. I tried to find a way to tell this story that wouldn’t end up turning everybody off, but also didn’t sound like anybody else. Sonya Sanchez is one of the people who is always in my ear when I’m writing, saying: *New words. We need new words and new ways of saying things. There’s already been a Martin, there’s already been a Malcolm. We need new voices. Their time was their time and our time is our time.* 

ES: Speaking of new words, you used one I’d never heard before: tenebruous.

JV: I love dictionaries and I’d been saving that word. I thought, you know, if I ever write a book, I’m going to use the word *tenebruous.* And when it came up I was like *yes*!

ES: You’re not going to tell us what it means, are you?

JV: Nope. Folks will just have to buy the book.

ES: This Is Not a Test is full of surprises—not just about your personal story—but the way the