Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Tracking Education Stimulus Spending | EdMoney.org

EdMoney.org.

My colleagues at EWA have launched a new website, EdMoney.org, devoted to tracking stimulus spending on education and helping journalists and the public make sense of the issue. Eventually the site will offer lots of searchable data on spending in individual schools and districts. Until then you will find helpful links and posts on the latest in how the money is being used.

With billions spent, how is the economic stimulus reaching America’s schools? EdMoney tracks spending in public schools across the country to find out.

Letter of Support for Child Nutrition Programs - Year 2010 (CA Dept of Education)

Three State Agencies Urge National Lawmakers to Reauthorize Federal Nutrition Programs for Low-Income Families

SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced today he has joined forces with California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Kimberly Belshé and California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura to urge Congress to reauthorize the federal Child Nutrition Programs.

"Secretaries Belshé and Kawamura and I want to emphasize to members of Congress that these programs are vital in our efforts to prevent childhood obesity, increase academic achievement, and stave off the insecurity that families face in getting enough nutritious food," O'Connell said. "Often these child nutrition programs provide the only food some children consume each day."

"There has been an increased demand for food and nutrition programs in this economic downturn that has affected California's most vulnerable populations," added Belshé. "School meals, snacks, and wholesome foods provided through these Child Nutrition Programs are critically important to ensuring the health and well-being of millions of children in our state."

"Our three agencies support measures that increase access to these programs as well as promote improvement in the nutrient content of the food, especially with more wholesome, California-grown products," said Kawamura.

Federal Child Nutrition services include the National School Lunch Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, School Breakfast Program, Special Milk Program,

Summer Food Service Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition Program assists low-income and nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, postpartum women, infants, and children. WIC participants may gain access to nutritious food, nutrition education, counseling, screening, and referrals.

O'Connell, Belshé, and Kawamura sent a joint letter to the chairpersons and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; and the House Education and Labor Committee. Those committees were responsible for extending the two programs for a year as Congress deliberates their reauthorizations. The state leaders urged committee members to consider California's priority recommendations to increase access and promote improvements in the nutrient content of the programs' meals, snacks, and supplemental foods. The recommendations include:

Requiring meals be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans;
Requiring additional servings of fruits and vegetables;
Re establishing funding for the Nutrition Education and Training Program;
Providing funding for School Gardens, Farm-to-School, Farmers' Markets, and Salad Bar Programs;
Adjusting the meal reimbursement rates and revising income eligibility requirements to reflect the differing costs of living across the country;
Providing free meals to all children with family incomes at or below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level;
Increasing the certification period for children to one year to be consistent with infants and breast feeding women;
Expanding categorical eligibility between Child Nutrition and WIC programs;
Expanding the At Risk Supper Pilot program to California; and
Providing funding to improve technology and innovation for fiscal management and other needs.

For more information on the federal Child Nutrition and WIC programs, please visit School Meals (Outside Source) and WIC (Outside Source). To see a copy of the letter sent to Congress members, please visit Recommendations for Improvement to the Child Nutrition & Women, Infant & Child Programs (PDF; 145KB; 2pp.).

Education Week: January 14, 2010

JANUARY 14, 2010

Vol. 29, Issue 17

TABLE OF CONTENTS

OPEN HOUSE! FULL ACCESS TO THE SITE UNTIL JANUARY 21.

FOR THE MEDIA

Quality Counts 2010 Press Release (PDF)

WEB EXTRAS

State Report Cards Map

This interactive map offers a quick way to examine State-by-State grades and summary data.

State Highlights Reports

Looking for detailed state data? The State Highlights Reports assemble findings on each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia and compare individual state data to national data.

Grading Calculator: Calculate Your Own Grade

Your turn. Manipulate grades for states based on weighting schemes of your choice.

FROM PRINT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Holding States, Nation to Educational Account

This year’s special theme—the national debate over common academic standards—is complemented by extensive information on each state’s curriculum resources, assessments, and academic standards, drawn from the research center’s annual state survey.

OVERVIEW

Resurgent Debate, Familiar Themes

Backers of the latest high-profile push for common standards believe it can succeed where previous national-standards efforts have failed, partly because it comes at standards from a different direction.

A National Yardstick for Gauging Math Progress

Leading voices worry that, when it comes to math, the United States is far behind where it needs to be to remain competitive in a 21st-century global economy.

TABLE Math Progress Index PDF

FEATURE STORIES

Teaching, Curricular Challenges Looming

Educators nationwide would have to exchange long-held practices for newer ones if all 50 states were to adopt a set of common content standards.

Marketing Scramble Ahead Amid a Shifting Landscape

Publishers in the education realm are gearing up for the shift in the marketing landscape likely to come if and when states adopt common academic standards, with curriculum and assessment changes sure to follow.

Making Standards a Classroom Reality

A Massachusetts school vaults a high set of bars to ensure that instruction across all core subjects is closely aligned with the state's standards.

College and the Workforce: What 'Readiness' Means

As the standards movement has evolved, one of its key questions has shifted. Instead of simply asking what students should know, educators and policymakers are now asking what students need to master to be prepared for the demands of college and career.

Vying for Advantage in Coming Political Battle

The political sensitivities that have scuttled virtually every previous attempt at common academic standards are very much on the minds of those leading the effort this time around.

COMMENTARIES

First, Do No Harm

If the authors of the national common-core standards don’t encourage or require content coherence and cumulativeness, writes E.D. Hirsch Jr., they will have done little to improve the unacceptable stasis in American education.

Debunking the Case for National Standards

National standards are not only unnecessary, writes Alfie Kohn, they’re also based on the premise that "our teachers cannot be trusted to make decisions about which curriculum is best for their schools."

We've Always Had National Standards

The two greatest risks of the current effort to set common standards are that they will be so prescriptive they will be resisted, or they will be so vague that they can easily be ignored, writes Diane Ravitch.

Differentiate, Don't Standardize

Rather than a focus on national standards, writes Stanford professor Nel Noddings, more attention should be paid to problems that are truly pressing, such as reducing the number of high school dropouts.

STATE OF THE STATES

Holding All States to High Standards

The 14th edition of Education Week's Quality Counts continues the report's tradition of tracking key education indicators and grading the states on their policy efforts and outcomes.

TABLE Chance for Success PDF

TABLE The Teaching Profession PDF

TABLE School Finance PDF

TABLE Standards, Assessments, and Accountability PDF

Methodology

Sources & Notes

Quality Counts is produced with support from the

Send a Nurse to Haiti - Donate NOW | California Progress Report

Send a Nurse to Haiti - Donate NOW

Posted on 18 January 2010

CPR Staff Report

In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, numerous worthy charitable efforts are raising funds for relief supplies and personnel to assist the stricken island nation.

One of particular note is the RN Response Network of the Oakland, California-based National Nurses United/California Nurses Association.

Within hours after the disaster struck, the nurses’ union began recruiting registered nurses eager to volunteer to provide life-saving emergency medical care to victims.

10,000 registered nurses have signed up to travel to Haiti. The RN Response Network has experience with recruiting and deploying nurse volunteers to disaster areas, including the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the recent fires in the Los Angeles area.

The RN Response Network needs your help now to cover the cost of travel, shelter and food for these nurses.

The RN Response Network has made an urgent appeal for charitable donations to provide the logistic support to turn this remarkable outpouring of nurse volunteers into action on the ground in Haiti. Rapid deployment of these health professionals will save countless lives.

Link here to donate, or by calling 1-800-578-8225 or by mailing a check made to California Nurses Foundation, 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland Ca, 94612 Donations are tax deductible.

Disability Rights Advocates Mobilizing Against Governor’s Proposed Budget Cuts | California Progress Report

Disability Rights Advocates Mobilizing Against Governor’s Proposed Budget Cuts | California Progress Report:

"In response to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proclamation, issued January 8, of a state fiscal emergency, the State Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, chaired by Sen. Denise Ducheny (Democrat – San Diego) released Thursday a series of public hearings through early February that will focus on the Governor’s budget spending reduction proposals that need early action from the Legislature by March 1, 2010, in order to take effect June 1, 2010.

Most of the other proposals by the Governor that would take effect during the next State budget year that begins July 1, 2010, will be heard later – likely March through April and early May, during what used to be the normal state budget subcommittee process.

Representatives from the Governor’s Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office, the non-partisan agency that works for the Legislature in reviewing and providing analysis on budget issues, will be at each of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee hearings. Brief public testimony and comments will be taken at the Senate budget hearings – though persons can submit written comments and testimony before, during and after the hearings."

The Governor’s School Budget: The Race To Mediocrity | California Progress Report

On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials signed California’s grand, ambitious, 550-page application for federal Race to the Top (RTTT) education funding. It came just a week after the governor submitted a budget plan for the coming year that’s so riddled with holes, misrepresentations and improbabilities that you’d never know they applied to the same state.

The application for RTTT funding boasted that despite the California’s fiscal crisis, the “State has made education funding a priority over the last several years.” But it does not tell the federal reviewers that California is among the lowest three or four states in the nation in what spends per pupil in school funding, and perhaps the lowest and that it’s done almost nothing to change it. .

And while the application insists that California had made education a top spending priority, its own application shows the steep decline in spending for K-12 schools and higher education from roughly $48 billion in 2007-8 to roughly $40 billion in succeeding years. But it uses those numbers to show that as a percentage of the total state budget (from $105 billion to $85 billion) it’s slightly up

What it doesn’t tell the feds is that despite the scandalously low funding of its schools and colleges, California has resolutely refused to increase revenues, even in good times. On the contrary, the same governor who signed that application on Friday and put out a press release boasting of intentions to achieve “historic education reforms to empower parents and transform under-performing schools,” cut taxes on his first day in office, at a cost of $6 billion annually and with one small desperation-driven exception has stoutly resisted all tax increases in the years since.

It does not tell the officials at the U.S. Department of Education who’ll pick winners and losers among state applicants for a piece of the $4.3 billion in federal RTTT funds that his budget – and the education funding it does provide -- rests on blue-sky expectations of revenue, including $6.9 billion from Washington, that it’s unlikely ever to get.

Those expectations represent far and away the biggest chunk of the governor’s “solution” in closing the state’s $20 billion deficit. The governor vows that if he doesn’t get all the money he wants from Washington, he’ll totally wipe out some of the health, welfare and other social services programs that he’d already cutting to the bone. But those cuts – plus his proposed raid on a major state program for young children – would affect the chances of closing the state’s achievement gaps almost as much, if not more, than cutting school spending.

Sacramento City Unified School District: We want to hear from you! SURVEY

Sacramento City Unified School District

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