LAUSD board president Steve Zimmer talks about getting back to basics | Education | Jewish Journal

LAUSD board president Steve Zimmer talks about getting back to basics | Education | Jewish Journal:

LAUSD board president Steve Zimmer talks about getting back to basics

Steve Zimmer was first elected to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board in 2009 after coming to town as a Teach for America trainee and then teaching for 17 years. Now he helps guide the nation’s second-largest public school system, serving nearly 700,000 students as the newly elected board president and representative for District 4, which encompasses a vast and varied swath of the city that includes Tarzana, Encino and other portions of the San Fernando Valley, as well as Venice, Mar Vista and Hollywood.

The 45-year-old Hollywood resident and New York native, who davens at Temple Beth Am on La Cienega Boulevard and spends the High Holy Days at B’nai David-Judea Congregation in Pico-Robertson, recently took time in his 24th-floor downtown office to talk about the recent school board election, the new technology plan and what it’s going to take to bring families back to LAUSD. Here is an edited version of that conversation.

Jewish Journal: Do you miss the classroom? 

STEVE ZIMMER: Every day. That’s why I was just out. Stephen Wise Temple does some of our Freedom Schools, a program with the Children’s Defense Fund. We were able to connect them with some very high-poverty schools in the Valley. I was just there this morning. So I do try to be in a classroom or school or around kids or families in some way every day, because this building can be very far removed from the children and families we impact. I think of myself as a teacher, a counselor, on special assignment.

JJ: You represent a huge area of Los Angeles. How did this come to be?

SZ: The district was created through obscene political gerrymandering. No more obscene than any other district; mine just happens to be a piece of bizarre art.

JJ: And how do you represent these various areas fairly?

SZ: You have to be balanced. I represent all. But there is no question in my mind who needs the school district more. Equity questions are not personally difficult for me. I’m not interested in fairness, so to speak, because this system has not been fair to poor children at all. But … there is a challenge to balance how much time and effort we spend addressing the needs of families living in severe poverty every day.

JJ: Are there particular issues unique to your San Fernando Valley constituents and schools? 

SZ: I think that there are. Diversity in the Valley, especially in the portion of the Valley that I serve, is one of the most unique opportunities in this generation to embrace authentically diverse schools. Woodland Hills in particular is a community that has a vast diversity — I think of Taft High School. I have two high schools that are literally the United Nations: Fairfax and Taft.

In the West Valley, we have the advantage of a certain level of stability, a baseline of stability both in our schools and in our economy and housing. That is not true in other areas of Los Angeles. Because we have a stability baseline, we can take public education and authentically diverse public education to a whole new level, really a kaleidoscope celebration of different cultures.

JJ: In recent years, LAUSD’s enrollment numbers have consistently been going down. What can be done to reverse this trend? 

SZ: Unless families believe that their neighborhood LAUSD school is going to be the conduit through which their family can achieve the American dream, they aren’t going to choose LAUSD. We have to offer instructional pathways that have the quality and the attraction value that will lead families to choose us. So: magnet programs for across the district, instructional designs that are specialized that are very attractive, dual-immersion programs, STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] programs. …

I believe in choice, but I am very, very wary. I am very cognizant of the damage that competition has done to our schools. And we became obsessed with data instead of being data-informed. When a system becomes so obsessed with competition that they view children through their potential to score versus their overall humanity, the dehumanization of that public school system is not something that is attractive to parents, is not something that is warm and inviting. And our public schools, to my great regret, have become test score-obsessed. A lot of charter schools have, too.

JJ: How do we change that? 

SZ: It’s about balance, about returning us to the purpose and objective of public education as it relates to families — to meet and fulfill the American dream. That is not a test-driven process. So I believe we reverse that by returning to our roots.

JJ: Is that view shared by your colleagues on the board?

SZ: Right now, we share an understanding that the cost of cutthroat competition in the public education system is greater than the real gains for some children.

JJ: You’re a big proponent of universal preschool. But Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines wants to get rid of the district’s half-day preschools and instead offer full-day preschool, significantly reducing the overall number of preschool spots.

SZ: Vexing question. Very deep. We’re going to do everything we can to use money the state has allocated to replace seats that this plan adjusts. There is actually a gain in hours but a loss in seats. Children coming to our kindergarten classes where there are severe school readiness gaps, these equity needs are going to be addressed. The problem is, from a facilities perspective and literally a numbers perspective, if we are going to address the equity issue, there is going to be some temporary seat loss, especially in communities where people can afford private options.

JJ: The recent school board election felt very much like a vote that was  either pro- or anti-charter school. Is that how it feels on the board?

SZ: I think there is a difference between support for existing charter schools that parents have chosen [and new charter schools]. I respect and support those choices as long as the charter is doing very well, and I mean very well.

JJ: Why a different bar for charter schools?

SZ: Because that’s why charters are supposed to exist: either to provide something better, or unique and innovative. Otherwise there’s no compelling reason to authorize them.

JJ: Do you think there’s any chance to roll back the charter trend? 

SZ: We have the most charters of any school district in the nation. We have incredibly high levels of saturation. If choice is so important, the California Charter Schools Association agenda and the Walton Family Foundation and other foundations’ agendas to situate more and more charter schools within the LAUSD boundary is not about children. It’s not about choice. It’s not about innovation. It’s about a very different agenda of bringing down the school district, an agenda to dramatically change what is public education. It’s about altering the influence of public sector unions. I just happen to disagree with that agenda. But folks should be explicit about what their agenda is. 

I’m actually very proud we have some of the highest-performing LAUSD board president Steve Zimmer talks about getting back to basics | Education | Jewish Journal:

Poor teachers: Who is to blame? | My Island View

Poor teachers: Who is to blame? | My Island View:

Poor teachers: Who is to blame?

I posed an #Edchat Topic recently based on a number of studies I have been reading about that are claiming millions of dollars are being spent, or wasted, on professional development, while very few teachers are benefitting from it. Again the age-old story of doing things the same old way but expecting different results defeats us as a profession. The method of doing professional development for educators has largely not changed over the decades. It may be time to re-examine a few things.

Pedagogy vs. Andragogy

I have addressed this in several earlier posts, but it needs to be re-stated until people finally begin to understand that there are differences in how adults effectively learn, andragogy, compared to the motivations in learning by children, which is pedagogy. Pedagogy is what most educators are familiar with because it was taught to them to enable them to teach kids. It is how kids learn best. The natural thing for an educator to do when he or she is teaching a professional development course however is to go with what he or she knows. The result is that professional development is taught to adults as if they were children learners. How effective is that result going to be?

Collaboration vs. Lecture

Key factors in adult learning, or the intrinsic motivations for adults to learn are ownership of the learning to meet personal needs and being able to use tomorrow what’s learned today. As a whole adults are better with collaborative learning since it gives them control to direct the learning to what they need to know. It also exposes them to things they may not be aware of through the experiences of Poor teachers: Who is to blame? | My Island View:

Supreme Court holds state in contempt over school funding | Breaking News | KOMO News

Supreme Court holds state in contempt over school funding | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News:

Supreme Court holds state in contempt over school funding

SEATTLE (AP) - The Washington Supreme Court is holding the Legislature in contempt for its lack of progress on fixing the way the state pays for public education, but it is holding off on punishments until after the 2015 legislative session, according to an order issued Thursday.

If lawmakers do not complete their plan for fixing the way the state pays for public schools by the end of that legislative session, the court promised to reconvene and impose sanctions and other remedial measures.

Possible sanctions include fines for the Legislature or individual lawmakers, or having the court rewrite the state budget.

In a statement signed by Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, the court said the justices were not impressed by the state's presentation at a hearing in Olympia, explaining the Legislature's lack of progress toward paying all the costs of basic education.

"The court has no doubt that it already has the Legislature's 'attention,'" she wrote, echoing comments from the state's lawyer from last week's hearing. "But that is not the purpose of a contempt order. Rather, contempt is the means by which a court enforces compliance with its lawful orders when they are not followed."

The Supreme Court ruled in January 2012 in what is known as the McCleary decision that Washington's system of education funding is unconstitutional. They gave the Legislature until the 2017-18 school year to fix the problem.

A coalition of teachers, parents, students and community groups sued the state. The Washington Education Association paid most of the cost of the lawsuit.

The coalition's attorney, Thomas Ahearne, said Thursday's order was as good as he could hope for since the 2014-15 school year already has begun and a special legislative session probably wouldn't help kids this year.

"It wipes out all the excuses that legislators tell themselves why they don't have to do anything," Ahearne said.

The order says that if the Legislature does not finish its work, the court and attorneys will talk after the session about what kind of punishment to impose. Sanctions suggested by Ahearne and the Supreme Court holds state in contempt over school funding | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News:

Got Art? How Much Art Do Students Get in School?

Got Art? How Much Art Do Students Get in School?:

Got Art? How Much Art Do Students Get in School?

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.

Georgia O’Keeffe

The new school year is starting and I’d like to hear how much art students get? Do children in preschool do art? Kindergartners—how much art will they find between Response to Intervention and reading rigor? Is art scheduled once a day? Once a week? Rarely? How much art do elementary students receive—really?

Does your child’s school have a room dedicated to the arts and a fully qualified art teacher? How much access have teachers to art equipment and resources? Does the art room have a kiln? A potter’s wheel?

It’s nice to have local art museums send artisans to schools to show their craft, or discuss with children the beauty of the arts. But they should not be seen as qualified art teachers in public school.

Also, blended art is not really enough art. Some art involved with other subjects is fine, of course. But it makes the arts an afterthought. The arts should also stand alone as a Got Art? How Much Art Do Students Get in School?:

WNYT.com - Common Core protesters hit goal of 200,000 test refusals

WNYT.com - Common Core protesters hit goal of 200,000 test refusals:
Common Core protesters hit goal of 200,000 test refusals

ALBANY – Parents and teachers fighting the Common Core hit their goal to get 200,000 students across the state to opt out of this year’s controversial exams.

The state released the official numbers Wednesday along with test results.

While opt out numbers skyrocketed across the state, test scores didn't look a whole lot different compared to the last two years and parents are feeling frustrated.

“I was surprised. I was hoping they had done a lot better,” said Andy O’Toole, whose kids are in grades six and eight.

Statewide results show slight improvements in English with 31.3 percent of students grades three through eight scoring proficient, compared to 30.6 percent in 2014 and 31.1 percent in 2013.

Students made bigger leaps in math with 38.1 percent of students grades three through eight scoring proficient, compared to 36.2 percent in 2014 and 31.1 percent in 2013.

“It is frustrating because I’ve seen that the teachers are very dedicated, I see the students trying very hard on the tests and yet they don’t seem to do well,” said O’Toole.

But, new state education commissioner MaryEllen Elia is remaining optimistic.

“Certainly the transition to new learning standards is not easy and success isn’t instantaneous,” she said in a conference call with reporters after the scores were released.

“I would like to see gains faster, but again it wasn’t beyond my expectations at this point,” said Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard.

The Albany School District is lagging behind the state. Only 14 percent of students scored proficient in math, up from 12 percent last year. Fifteen percent scored proficient in English Language Arts, compared to 14 percent a year ago.

“I’m optimistic they went up, but they are still much lower then I’d like to see them, less than half of the state which is disappointing for Albany,” said Mary Beth Farr, a mother in the district.

The ‘opt out’ movement gained steam this year with 20 percent of eligible students sitting out across the state. That's four times more than last year.

Wyngaard is echoing the commissioner's call to stop the movement next year.

“You can’t hold yourself accountable to a standard without measuring results,” she said.

Click here to see test results and opt out numbers for your district.

WNYT.com - Common Core protesters hit goal of 200,000 test refusals:

K.J. lawsuit update: SN&R challenges mayor on attorney-client privilege claim

Sacramento News & Review - K.J. lawsuit update: SN&R challenges mayor on attorney-client privilege claim - Editorial - Opinions - August 13, 2015:

K.J. lawsuit update: SN&R challenges mayor on attorney-client privilege claim

Earlier this summer, Mayor Kevin Johnson sought an injunction from the court. He wanted a judge to stop the city of Sacramento from releasing emails and records pertaining to the National Conference of Black Mayors to SN&R. The mayor named his own city and this paper as defendants. The public’s response: Yikes!

Welcome to business as usual at City Hall 3.0.

Johnson, of course, had no ground to sue this paper. The editorial staff here at SN&R enjoys a legal right to do newsgathering. It’s our job as journalists, and it’s protected under California and U.S. law. The mayor and his attorneys should know this. Yet K.J. went ahead and sued us, anyway. It’s crazy.

Originally, there were fewer than 100 emails that K.J. considered shielded because of attorney-client privilege. But, on the heels of an afternoon in court in early July, that number ballooned to nearly 500. The city said that it was flagging additional emails out of an “abundance of caution.”

It may be of little surprise, then, that the city was a smidge too cautious.

Johnson’s attorneys at Ballard Spahr recently provided SN&R with a list of all the emails and documents Sacramento News & Review - K.J. lawsuit update: SN&R challenges mayor on attorney-client privilege claim - Editorial - Opinions - August 13, 2015:

Big Education Ape: Kevin Johnson and Co. could face ethics test in 2016 - Sacramento News & Review http://bit.ly/1h6NdJs

Big Education Ape: Mayor Johnson’s attorney releases list of ‘private’ emails | The Sacramento Bee http://bit.ly/1h6NjAC

Big Education Ape: K.J. attorneys admit vast majority of 'privileged' emails in SN&R lawsuit not privileged after a... http://bit.ly/1LSbIF7

Big Education Ape: K.J.'s former adviser reveals email and elections wrongdoing inside mayor's office - Sacramento ... http://bit.ly/1h6Ntba

You Get What You Pay For: Taxes and the Public Schools | janresseger

You Get What You Pay For: Taxes and the Public Schools | janresseger:

You Get What You Pay For: Taxes and the Public Schools

Slashing income taxes will not grow your state’s economy, but it will very likely destroy your public schools.  If your state rolls back income taxes, your public schools will inevitably have fewer guidance counselors, and class sizes will be bigger—that is unless you can pass extra taxes locally to make up for the cuts in state revenue.  It is an old maxim: You get what you pay for.

Here is the warning that came in mid-May from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “More than a dozen states have cut personal income tax rates in recent years in hopes of spurring their economies in the aftermath of the Great Recession.  Five states—Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin—enacted especially large cuts in the last five years.  In all five states, leading policymakers claimed that the tax cuts would produce stronger economic growth.  For example, after signing the cuts in his state, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback claimed, ‘Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.’  None of these big tax-cutting states have seen their economies surge since enacting the tax cuts.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report continues: “Four of the five states that enacted the largest personal income tax cuts in the last few years have had slower job growth since enacting their cuts than the nation as a whole… States with the biggest tax cuts in the 1990s grew jobs during the next economic cycle at an average rate only one-third as large as more cautious states… Kansas, which enacted the most aggressive personal income tax cuts of recent years, has nearly drained its operating reserves to pay for the tax cuts.  It now faces hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to funding for schools and other priorities already damaged by the recession.”  It’s a race to the bottom among the tax-slashing states: “Because states must balance their budgets, they must pay for tax cuts by cutting state services, raising other taxes, or both  Those actions slow the economy, offsetting the economic benefit of the tax cuts.”

Chris Suellentrop, a writer for the NY Times Magazine, shifts the point of view by showing us this story through the distorted ideological lenses of members of the Kansas legislature and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.  Things look different in Topeka, if you hang out in the halls of a statehouse where conservative Republicans dominate both houses and where Governor Brownback doggedly insists that Kansas’s economic future hinges on a “march to zero” income taxes.

Here is what Suellentrop learns by talking to his uncle, the vice-chair of the Tax Committee in the Kansas House of Representatives: “‘People are leaving Kansas,’ he told me. The state has no mountains and no beaches, and thousands of jobs that were lost during the Great Recession, especially in Wichita’s aircraft industry, never returned.  The march to zero, which includes an already-passed provision that exempts the owners of 330,000 businesses and farms in Kansas from income tax, was designed… to turn Kansas into a different sort of tourist attraction. As he and his fellow conservatives see it, it’s an ‘open for business’ sign, one they hope will draw free enterprise to the state, perhaps akin to the way the national debate over the expansion of slavery once drew young abolitionists from New England to the plains.  You Get What You Pay For: Taxes and the Public Schools | janresseger:

Evaluation system is 'irrational,' teacher argues in court | POLITICO

Evaluation system is 'irrational,' teacher argues in court | POLITICO:

Evaluation system is ‘irrational,’ teacher argues in court

Bruce and Sheri Lederman. (Jimmy Vielkind/POLITICO New York)

ALBANY—A Long Island elementary school teacher argued before a judge Wednesday that part of the state's teacher evaluation system is based on a "statistical black box" and should be thrown out.

Sheri Lederman, who teaches fourth grade in Great Neck, said it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the state to knock her 2013-14 rating from "highly effective" to "effective" after an algorithm showed that according to standardized tests, her students not not registered as much "growth" as similar students around the state.

The case has drawn interest from education policy makers and teachers groups as New York continues to fight over the best way to evaluate teachers. In March, the Legislatureamended its evaluation law to require “independent” observations of educators and perhaps to give heavier weight to performance on Common Core-aligned standardized tests. Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed for tougher measures after 96 percent of teachers were evaluated as "highly effective" or "effective" under the original framework passed in 2012.

Sheri Lederman said after the 90-minute hearing, with her husband and attorney Bruce by her side, that the standardized evaluations are unnecessary and that they unfairly pressure and stigmatize classroom teachers. In the courtroom, Bruce Lederman made a narrower argument: The growth measures that account for 20 percent of a teacher's evaluation are “irrational,” he said, because they are based on a curve and lead to a “'Survivor'-type competition” that violates the law.

MORE ON POLITICO

• Stringer gives de Blasio mixed review on Legionnaires'
• Hobart and William Smith ‘confident that they acted properly’ in Title IX case
• POLITICO New York Health Care: Legionnaires’ sniping continues; going after synthetic marijuana

“It may be that the governor wants to jar teachers and shake up the union, but the law that was passed does not allow that,” Bruce Lederman said.

The state Education Department currently rates student growth not within a teacher's crop, but using a projection of where they should be based on students' prior test scores, socioeconomic backgrounds and whether they have any known learning disabilities.

Lederman argued that this modeling does not allow for an apples-to-apples comparison of a teacher's students and should be invalidated. He also said it was impossible for teachers to understand at the beginning of a school year, an argument that a state lawyer disputed.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough pressed him on whether a better model could be applied, and Lederman suggested simply administering a test on the first and last day of school on the curriculum for a given year would suffice. The judge leveled the same question at Colleen Galligan, an assistant attorney general representing the State Education Department and its leaders.

“This is an accurate measure because what we need to do is compare, relatively, how [Sheri Lederman]'s students did relative to similar students,” Galligan said. “When Evaluation system is 'irrational,' teacher argues in court | POLITICO:

Choosing Democracy: Initiative to Restrict Teacher Retirement is Filed

Choosing Democracy: Initiative to Restrict Teacher Retirement is Filed:

Initiative to Restrict Teacher Retirement is Filed

Seth Sandronsky 

On Tuesday California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris released the full title and summary text for the Public Employees Pension and Retiree Healthcare Benefits Initiative Constitutional Amendment. The title is a mouthful, but the initiative’s wording is just six sentences long.

Its first two lines read: “Eliminates constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree healthcare benefits for current public employees, including those working in K-12 schools, higher education, hospitals and police protection, for future work performed. Adds initiative/referendum powers to Constitution, for determining public employee compensation and retirement benefits.” 

Crucially, Harris omits mention of “empowering” voters — a main selling point that had been advertised by former San Jose mayor Chuck Reed, former San Diego City Councilman and Tea Party member Carl DeMaio, and four others. In June this group submitted their proposed ballot initiative to Harris as the Voter Empowerment Act of 2016. Harris’ new title weakens their cause, whose use of the word “empowerment” sought to tap into the politics of resentment. Reed and DeMaio have been trying to appeal to some private-sector workers who largely lack the defined-benefit retirement pensions that state and local public-sector workers have.

“We’re not surprised the Attorney General has taken a negative approach to our initiative,” Reed told Capital & Main by phone. “But the people can read it for themselves.”

Dave Low, the chairman of Californians for Retirement Security, which opposes Reed and DeMaio’s pension-cutting efforts, was displeased with the summary’s failure to specifically name the occupations in harm’s way.

“We strongly disagree with the Attorney General’s elimination of the specific mention of teachers, nurses, police and firefighters in the title and summary,” he said in a statement. “They are the bulk of the public servants whose retirement security and death and disability benefits would be abolished by this heavy-handed measure. The inclusion of these professions in a previous version of this measure had already passed legal muster, even after multiple appeals by Chuck Reed.”

Reed and his colleagues need 585,407 valid voter signatures to qualify for the November, 2016 state ballot. “We have a long way to go before we get there,” he admitted.

“This type of extreme measure will be unacceptable to California voters and is doomed to fail,” Low said.

Reposted from Capital & MainChoosing Democracy: Initiative to Restrict Teacher Retirement is Filed:

Marie Corfield: What if the media treated teachers like football players?

Marie Corfield: What if the media treated teachers like football players?:

What if the media treated teachers like football players?

It's not hard these days to wake up and wonder if I'm living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Whether it's women's health or voting rights or climate change deniers or Donald Trump or those pesky education 'reformers', life these days feels a lot like that episode, Stopover in a Quiet Town, where the couple is stranded in a strange town only to find out that they are really only dolls in a child's model train set.

Today's surreal moment comes once again courtesy of The Star Ledger. Jersey Jazzman, Ani McHugh (aka TeacherBiz) and I have taken NJ's largest newspaper to task over their shoddy and inept coverage of all things public education more times than I can count. For a definitive accounting of how the Ledger has cow-towed to the education 'reform' movement, check out this piece co-authored by the three of us. If you want more info, just Google any of our names with the Star Ledger and/or Tom Moran and you'll find all our postings.

They are but a sample of the larger, complicit silence of mainstream media on all things education 'reform'. If it weren't for the plethora of education bloggers led by Diane Ravitch, the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss and others, and the parent/educator-led grass roots movements that have sprung up as a result of their publishing the facts, American public education would have been dead and buried long ago.

"So Marie, what is it this time?", you ask. 

Well... As anyone who even tangentially follows politics knows, on August 2nd, Gov. Christie announced on CNN that he wanted to punch teachers in the face because, to him, we are the Devil incarnate. I wrote about it here including a link to the video.

One would think that a sitting governor with a penchant for crude and debasing remarks about women—especially teachers—saying he wants to punch three minority women in the face (NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia, Latina, and Vice President Becky Pringle and Secretary Treasurer Princess Moss, African Americans) and calling the nation's largest teachers union "the single most destructive force in public education in America" would garner some attention from the largest newspaper in said governor's state the next day. But no. This is what we got:

 

It wasn't until August 4th, two days later, that the Ledger ran a piece buried on page 4: 

Sorry about the poor quality, but trust me, the story on the right is about the video.

FYI... this wasMarie Corfield: What if the media treated teachers like football players?:

Don’t Let John Kasich Near The U.S. Department Of Education

8/13/2015 – Don’t Let John Kasich Near The U.S. Department Of Education:

Don’t Let John Kasich Near The U.S. Department Of Education

THIS WEEK: Teacher Shortages … Revolt Against Testing … Increased Scrutiny Of Special Ed … Why Reading To Kids Is Good … Jeb Bush’s Education Legacy

TOP STORY

John Kasich Doesn’t Belong Anywhere Near The U.S. Department Of Education

By Jeff Bryant

“Some Very Serious People have decided Governor John Kaish of Ohio is the latest personality to emerge from the field of presidential candidates in the Republican Party as a genuine bona fide consideration … On the economic policy front, Kasich has very little to brag about … But one policy area in particular that every state governor owns lock stock and barrel is education … The effect Governor Kasich has had on public education policy in Ohio is especially atrocious.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

Districts Facing Teacher Shortages Look For Lifelines

Education Week

” With a new school year approaching, districts around the country are issuing urgent pleas for teachers to come work for them. The words on many people’s lips are ‘teacher shortage,’ and in some places, they have the ring of crisis to them … Districts in California, Arizona, and Indiana, among many other states, are also facing high-profile recruitment challenges … Significant drops in teacher-education enrollment in many states … many experts chalk up to the Great Recession and ensuing cutbacks … Others have charged that poor teacher working conditions, such as low salaries and test-driven school cultures, are nudging existing and potential educators toward other professions … Teaching licenses are not always easily portable, due to differing state requirements and procedures.”
Read more …

20% of New York Students Opted Out Of Standardized Tests, Officials Say

The New York Times

“Twenty percent of New York State’s third through eighth graders sat out at least one of New York’s standardized tests this year … a sign of increasing resistance to testing as more states make them harder to pass … Just 31% passed reading tests and 38% passed math. Both results were slight improvements from last year, and far below the passing rates under the easier, pre-2013 tests … The large increase in students opting out coincided with a push by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to make teacher ratings more dependent on test scores, a move unpopular with teachers’ unions and many parents.”
Read more …

U.S. Probe Into Georgia Special Ed Program Could Have National Impact

The Washington Post

“The Justice Department has accused Georgia of segregating thousands of students with behavior-related disabilities, shunting them into a program that denies them access to their non-disabled peers and to extracurricular activities and other basic amenities, including gymnasiums, libraries and appropriately certified teachers … The department’s legal tack in the Georgia case is a sign that it is expanding an important civil rights approach into the education arena, a move that is likely to have implications nationwide … The department focused on the state’s failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a much more powerful civil rights tool … The ADA, which just turned 25, requires schools to provide people with disabilities with an education and with educational opportunities that are equal to that of their non-disabled peers. It also prohibits the unjustified segregation of people with disabilities.”
Read more …

Brain Scans Show Why Reading To Kids Is Good for Them

Health Day

“Brain scans reveal that preschoolers whose parents read to them regularly show more activity in key areas of their brains … Experts already urge parents to have a regular story time with their kids, starting at birth … But the new findings … offer hard evidence of that theory … The more often children had story time at home, the more brain activity they showed while listening to stories … The difference was seen in a brain region involved in so-called semantic processing – the ability to extract meaning from words. There was ‘particularly robust’ activity, the researchers said, in areas where mental images are formed from what is heard.”
Read more …

The Big Jeb Bush Charter School Lie: Why His Florida Education ‘Miracle’ Is Hogwash

Alternet

Jeff Bryant writes, “As the ranks of Florida charter schools have swollen, the pathway out of poverty these schools were supposed to provide now looks more like a detour to exploitation and profit-making. In fact, the big change Jeb Bush promised is not so much a model for other states to adopt as it is a glaring warning sign for them to heed … A combination of corrupt leadership and lack of regulation … inevitably led to numerous scandals that local media sources soon began reporting around the state … No doubt there are examples of good charter schools and students who have benefitted from attending them. But any argument that Florida’s whole education system been improved by introducing more charter schools is tenuous at best … On the issue of verifiable ‘good’ coming from Bush and his education agenda as whole, there are plenty of education scholars who continue to question his effectiveness.”
Read more …

8/13/2015 – Don’t Let John Kasich Near The U.S. Department Of Education: