School fees have long been rampant and families had little way to challenge them. Even after San Diego Unified pledged to stamp out illegal fees, some schools persisted in charging them.
Now parents and kids could have a way to fight back — and school districts could take a financial hit if they keep hitting up parents. Under a legal settlement, families could soon get a new way to protest when schools stick them with fees for textbooks, workbooks or the cheerleading team.
The new rules could emerge from a legal settlement after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state in September over school fees. Civil rights groups argued illegal charges were so common that California hadn't protected the right to a free public education.
Scott Himelstein is the president of San Diegans 4 Great Schools, a group that is campaigning to change how the San Diego Unified school board is selected. He is guest blogging about its initiative and why he believes it would reform the school district.
These are his views, not mine, so if you have comments, questions or counterarguments, please post them directly to the blog or email Scott himself at scott@sd4greatschools.org. He'll be posting responses and updates later in the day. We'll also have a blogger with an opposing viewpoint tomorrow. -- EMILY ALPERT
San Diegans 4 Great Schools is supporting an initiative to reform the San Diego school board so student achievement, not politics, is the top priority.
If you check out the right side of my blog, you will find two different but related posts from two of my ed blogger colleagues.
JD2718 reposts from Schools Matter about California’s parent trigger.
The parent trigger is a dangerous new tactic by the Reformers intended to undermine public schools, teacher unions and parent choice. In a most cynical move, it is being done in the name of parental empowerment.
At least one of the ironies in this sad, though predictable, development among the corporate ed thugsters, is that the parents’ choices among the four school turnaround alternatives in Compton, or elsewhere, were derived from a select committee of insiders at Gates’s U. S. Dept. of Ed., and none of these turnaround alternatives has ever been voted
Geoffrey Canada Said to Have Rejected Chancellor Job NYT: Mr. Bloomberg tried to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the prominent Harlem education leader and a friend of the mayor, to be chancellor... Poll: Education backed, but not new school taxes AP: The public verdict is in and overwhelming: The better the education people get, the stronger the U.S. economy will be, a poll shows. But don't count on folks to support higher taxes to improve schools... Villaraigosa takes on teachers union LA Times: With a hard-hitting speech that branded the city's teachers union as an unyielding obstruction to education reforms, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa set the stage this week for a new battle over control of the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest... Report Picks Apart Race to Top Scoring EdWeek: One state they focus on is Illinois, which received 35 out of 45 points in the category of local education agency commitment, four fewer points than it received in round one. Other states, such as California, Ohio, and Maryland, appeared to be treated more leniently by their reviewers in that category, despite varying degrees of buy in... Comparing Teacher Effectiveness in High- and Low-Poverty Schools EdWeek: Simply attempting to import teachers with great credentials into high-poverty schools probably won't make a long-term difference. Instead, "measures that induce highly effective teachers to move to high-poverty schools and which promote an environment in which teachers' skills will improve over time are more likely to be successful."...
. . . . School districts have been moving away from integrated classrooms that could yield these
Chicago’s policy of flunking third-, sixth- and eighth-grade students who do poorly on state exams disproportionately harms black and Latino students, charges Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) which has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Students who are held back get discouraged and drop out, said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of PURE.
The threat of retention has pushed low-achieving students to work harder to raise achievement, said Elaine Allensworth, chief research officer at the University of Chicago‘s Consortium on Chicago School Research. But there is a down side.
“We saw and still see students held back two or three years and entering high school really old,”
Alfie Meadows, a twenty-year-old philosophy student at England’s Middlesex University, spent three hours in surgery last night after a police beating left him with bleeding on the brain.
Meadows, a participant in yesterday’s fee protests, was part of a large group that had been “kettled” — rounded up indiscriminately and confined by police. When he attempted to leave the kettle with a group of friends — including two sympathetic professors — he suffered a blow to the head from a police baton.
There is no indication that Meadows attacked police or engaged in any acts of violence. There had been an announcement earlier that peaceful protesters would be allowed to leave the kettle if they approached police
TERRE HAUTE — At Deming Elementary on Thursday, state Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett apologized to all the “good teachers” whose hard work has gone unrecognized in the push for educational reform and accompanying rhetoric.
“I am sorry to our good teachers who feel like they have been lumped in with bad teachers,” he said. To those who believe they’ve been unfairly criticized, “I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
About 200 people, including teachers, school administrators and some community members, attended a session with Bennett titled “After School with Dr. Bennett.” Those attending came from several school districts.
Deming was selected as a host for demonstrating outstanding academic growth, and Bennett
REDWOOD CITY -- Roosevelt Elementary School third-grader Caroline Taylor enjoys going to the school library to read books.
But she's not able to do that as much these days because school budget cuts have reduced library hours.
"I don't like that I can't go to the library at lunch and recess anymore," the 8-year-old said. "It kind of upsets me."
Such cuts in school services prompted her family to join a lawsuit demanding that California provide sufficient and equitable funding for public education.
On Thursday, the Taylors, other parents and civil rights advocates showed up at Roosevelt for one of three rallies statewide supporting the grass-roots coalition Campaign for Quality Education's suit, which an Alameda County Superior Court judge is scheduled to hear today. The judge could rule whether the suit and a similar complaint,
The executive director of the state teachers union criticized Thursday the panel considering changes to the Maryland public employees' pension system, saying the process is "offensive" and "rushed."
David E. Helfman, executive director the Maryland State Education Association, said the panel is driven by a desire to quickly cut $400 million to $500 million from the plan rather than by "solid thinking" about the best ways to cure the system.
Helfman's members have much at stake: The influential Public Employees' and Retirees' Benefit Sustainability Commission is considering reducing benefits, increasing employee contributions or scrapping the system and moving to a 401(k)-type plan. Teachers make up about 60 percent of the state's retiree pool.
Casper R. Taylor Jr., a former speaker of the House of Delegates who chairs the eight-member commission, denied that the panel is on a short-term cost-cutting mission.
"I have never heard anybody use the word 'target' or speak to me about targets," he said. Rather, the commission's goal is to create a retirement system that is "fiscally sound and sustainable."
The commission is required by law to issue a report by Dec. 15. Taylor said he is confident the group will meet the deadline.
Maryland's pension system has 65 percent of the funds needed to pay the $33 billion it owes to retirees — and costs are
ICEF Public Schools Chief Executive Caprice Young said Thursday the group remains $2.5 million shy of its $12.5 million goal by February.
ICEF, which serves 4,500 students, ran into trouble when the state deferred its payments. The move forced the
US Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended in coming Chancellor Cathie Black yesterday, saying her lack of educational credentials won't be an im pediment to running the city's enormous school system.
"She, like anyone else, has a learning curve," said Duncan, during a visit to a GED program in Midtown with Mayor Bloomberg.
"She's smart; she's committed; she's going to have a great team . . . I think she has the potential
Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE), a nonprofit organization comprised of persons with children in the Chicago Public Schools, has filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights this week. The concern is with the CPS’s correlation of the state mandated standardized tests to the failing of students.
The required tests are administered at all public schools in Illinois in grades 3, 6, 8, and once during the secondary education years. PURE’s concern is with CPS' failing of students in the elementary and middle school grades: 3rd, 6th, and 8th. The group contends that the Chicago Schools’ policy of failing any student who performs poorly on the state tests is disproportionately harmful to Black and Latino students.
This is the second time the group has filed a complaint against CPS. Eleven years ago, some issues were
