2-19-14 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):

Vergara plaintiffs conclude case, with two views on laws’ impact

Frank Fekete, a lawyer specializing in educationn law Plaintiffs called their final witnesses in Vergara v California today, putting on the stand two experts who offered testimony designed to show negative consequences of the state statutes under challenge. It’s a case that could overhaul major parts of state laws that govern teacher dismissal and tenure opportunities. Frank Fekete, a lawyer from

1 by Mark Harris / 2h 

LAUSD to look into principal’s ‘rude public insults’

Via CBS Los Angeles Frustrated parents converged on a Woodland Hills charter school Wednesday over what they described as a failure by the school’s principal to tackle campus issues. Parents of students at Woodlake Elementary Community Charter located at 23231 Hatteras Street say they have complained to principal Jacque Kampschroer about several issues, including increased bullying on campus and “

3 2h 

13 candidates crowd the field for LAUSD’s special election in June

Thirteen candidates — two of whom signed up within minutes of the 5 p.m. City Clerk deadline yesterday — have declared their intention to run for LA Unified School Board in June’s special election, in what appears to be the most crowded race in recent school board election history. The District 1 seat, left open by the death of longtime trustee, Marguerite LaMotte, covers much of South LA, stretch

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UTLA candidates debate big issues — including idea of a strike

Coming our way? Presidential candidates in the race to lead the United Teachers of Los Angeles faced tough questions and a rowdy audience last night, in the second forum of the campaign season. It was the first time all 10 candidates — Alex Caputo-Pearl, the incumbent Warren Fletcher, Bill Gaffney, David Garcia, Saul Lankster, Kevin Mottus, Marcos Ortega II, Innocent Osunwa, Leonard Segal and Greg

1 by Vanessa Romo / 1min 

Morning Read: LAUSD board finds a liaison for open seat

L.A. Unified names caretaker for vacant board seat The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday appointed a former district administrator to oversee the seat left vacant by the death of member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte in December. In a closed-door meeting, the board selected Sylvia Rousseau, a USC professor and former local superintendent in L.A. Unified, to be a liaison to the board until a

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2-18-14 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): ‘Apprentice’ contestant Omarosa bidding for LAUSD board seatBringing unusual visibility to the upcoming LA Unified school board special election, Omarosa Manigault, a TV personality best known for contentious her role on The Apprentice, has told LA School Report she is entering the race. She filed papers

1 by mike simpson / 22h 

Bachelor's degrees from California community colleges on horizon - San Jose Mercury News

Bachelor's degrees from California community colleges on horizon - San Jose Mercury News:

Bachelor's degrees from California community colleges on horizon

By Katy Murphy and Paul Burgarino Staff Writers

California's community college students could soon stay put -- and pay a lot less -- to earn what they thought they would have to go elsewhere to get: a four-year bachelor's degree.

As the demand for college graduates grows, many states are turning to their two-year schools for help -- and California might do the same, allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees that aren't readily available at nearby public universities.

"Now is the time to look at what innovations might be good for the state, and what might actually save us money in the long run," said state Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, whose Senate Bill 850 would authorize the change.

First-year student Xin Xie listens to clinical instructor Evelyn Joyce Bettencourt, right, in the dental hygiene program at Foothill College as she works on student partner, Ashley Mork, during class in Los Altos Hills, Feb. 4, 2014. (Gary Reyes, Bay Area News Group)

The startup would be small scale -- just one program per campus for a select few college districts.

The argument goes like this: Two-year associate degrees are becoming insufficient for some fields, such as nursing and respiratory therapy, but bachelor's degree programs in those areas are scarce. Expanding community college programs would help students complete a bachelor's degree quickly, without the hassle, the expense of transferring to another school and the dreaded delays.

Ruby Guzman waited three years to get into the Contra Costa College nursing program, and now -- on the cusp of an associate degree -- she is waiting again. She and classmates aspiring to transfer to a four-year program are on CSU East Bay's waiting list.

"It just feels like roadblock after roadblock," Guzman said.

Offering bachelor's degrees in nursing at community colleges would ease students' anxiety and position them for more promising careers, said Marshall Alameida, Contra Costa College's director of nursing.

Community colleges in 21 states offer four-year degree programs.

"I'd just like to see California catch up with the rest of the nation," said Linda Thor, chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, where programs are preparing for 

Founding Fathers and Floundering Fathers on Public Education

Founding Fathers and Floundering Fathers on  Public Education

Washington to Franklin, Adams and Jefferson, every one offered his ideas about the state of education and the best ways to build an informed citizenry — from the lowliest mechanic's son to the most exalted Harvard grad. Each called at least implicitly for public education.

Jefferson wrote of his Virginia education plan in a letter to his friend George Wythe, "The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."

George Washington called for a national university in his First Inaugural Address. 

John Adams asked his son in Europe to collect books and ideas for republican schools. He called for public schools as the great equalizer to secure democracy.

James Madison tracked the education efforts in Kentucky and praised innovations and challenging curricula there.

Noah Webster that, "Knowledge, joined with a keen sense of liberty and a watchful Jealousy, will guard our constitutions."

The Northwest Ordinance was written to govern United States territory north of the Ohio River. It read, in part: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Below are a few specific quotes – In the terms they understood each was calling for public education – there is no alternative understanding of these ideas. It was commonly held and understood among all:

Benjamin Franklin:

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country. (roposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, 1749)

John Adams:

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. (Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756)

Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates... to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them. (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. (Defense of the Constitutions, 1787)

Samuel Adams:
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. (Letter to James Warren, Nov 4, 1775)


George Washington
The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail. (Letter to George Chapman, December 15, 1784)
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. (First Inaugural Address)

[W]e ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own. (Letter to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, January 28, 1795)

Thomas Jefferson:
Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves. (Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787)

People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace. (Letter to Joel Barlow, December 10, 1807)

No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its effect towards supporting free and good government. (Letter to Trustees for the Lottery of East Tennessee College, May 6, 1810)

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. (Letter to Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816)

If a nation expects to be ignorant - and free - in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. (Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816)

To all of which is added a selection from the elementary schools of subjects of the most promising genius, whose parents are too poor to give them further education, to be carried at the public expense through the college and university. The object is to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind, which, in proportion to our population, shall be double or treble of what it is in most countries. (Letter to Jose Correa de Serra, November 25, 1817)

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. (Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, August 4, 1818)

All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power. (Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820) Side note: Cabell and his descendents certainly thought he meant public education – The Cabell have used their fortune to support education – two buildings at UVa are named Cabell, the main library at VCU is Cabell Library and similar efforts have been made elsewhere by the family)

The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged. (Letter to Joseph Cabell, November 28, 1820)
The Northwest Ordinance - July 23, 1787

Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Noah Webster - On Education of Youth in America (1790)
It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

James Wilson - Of the Study of the Law in the United States (circa 1790)
Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.

Thomas Paine - Rights of Man, part 2 (1792)
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.

James Madison 
A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support? (Letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822)

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing. (Letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, March 29, 1826)

For more: http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showthread.php?t=22861

5 Reasons Your Portfolio Should be Online | Connected Principals

5 Reasons Your Portfolio Should be Online | Connected Principals:

5 Reasons Your Portfolio Should be Online

by George Couros • February 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

“My prediction is that in the next ten years, resumes will be less common, and your online presence will become what your resume is today, at all types and sizes of companies.” Dan Schawbel, 2011

Having a conversation with teachers and administrators, I asked how many of them still had “paper portfolios”. Surprisingly, it was over half of the room, and many of them had developed it in university, updating it only when job opportunities arose.  I remember actually having a paper portfolio and applying for jobs, and hating the process of dusting off a binder, adding a ton of great information into it, only to walk into an interview and have the person hiring not even look at it.  It was extremely frustrating as I had put a lot of work into it, only to have it ignored, and I never really understood why.

And then I became a principal.

When I would look at applicants for interviews and have a limited amount of time to talk with them and interact, the thought of flipping through a binder with them sitting in the room in front of me, seemed a little ludicrous.  I wanted to spend as much time getting to know them as possible.  At the end of the interview, sometimes they would offer to leave the portfolio with me to peruse at my leisure and they would either come back to pick it up or I would have to mail it (does anyone go to the post office anymore?).  I might have been the exception in my process a few years ago, but this is becoming more of the norm now, not only in education, but all aspects.  A portfolio could be great for the process of an interview, but shouldn’t the things you do help you get the interview in the first place?  Sending mass binders out to 

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team

FCMAT » Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team:

CalPERS decides to speed up rate increases for state

CalSTRS financial reforms could hit districts hard

Education Headlines

Wednesday, February 19, 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.

Desert Sands Unified School Board approves 5 percent raises

The Desert Sands Unified School Board has approved raises for three employee groups, but the mid-valley school district continues negotiation with teachers, its largest group of employees.

CalSTRS financial reforms could hit districts hard

Orange County schools are bracing for a possible spike in pension contributions as the state inches closer to tackling an $80 billion funding shortfall threatening the state’s teacher retirement program.

New computer testing boosts technology in Sacramento area schools

California schools are racing to add computers and improve Internet access in preparation for the debut next school year of state computerized assessments for students.

CalPERS decides to speed up rate increases for state

In a victory for Gov. Jerry Brown and his get-tough approach, the CalPERS board on Tuesday set the stage for a rate increase that will cost the state treasury around $400 million beginning July 1.

Alpine teachers to strike

Teachers in Alpine say they will strike beginning Thursday after talks between the teachers union and the school district broke down Tuesday afternoon.

Public to board: You let the time run out

A deadline for Sweetwater Union High School District board members to fill a vacant seat either by appointment or through a special election has come and gone, leaving community members upset that the seat will remain unfilled for months.

Palo Alto schools superintendent to resign

aying that he needed to take a break, Superintendent Kevin Skelly sent an email to parents and community members on Tuesday, informing them that he will resign at the end of the school year from the Palo Alto Unified School District. Skelly, 53, who has weathered successive controversies in the K-12 district, wrote that he wants to spend more time with loved ones and contemplate on his next move.

Contra Costa County trustees may pursue conversion of superintendent to appointed position

Contra Costa County trustees expect to vote Wednesday on a plan to convert the county schools superintendent from an elected position to an appointed one.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Voter apathy costs Centinela Valley Union High School District

Election turnout has typically hovered around 10 percent of the more than 50,000 registered voters who live in the district, which encompasses the working-class communities of Hawthorne, Lawndale, Lennox, Del-Aire and nearby areas.

District, teachers duel with website surveys at Rowland Unified

Each side has launched its own online survey asking how the district is performing and how it can do a better job.

Bassett Teachers Association asks for three percent bonus, increased work days

The leadership in the Bassett Teachers Association has presented few demands in this year’s negotiations in the hopes of a pay bump next year.

Long Beach area parents choose cyberschooling for their kids

The Copelands belong to the roughly 200 families in Long Beach with children in California Virtual Academies.

Bellflower teachers lock horns with district over pay raise

Hundreds of teachers, students and parents came to the Bellflower Unified school board meeting Thursday night to request a pay raise for educators as negotiations between the district and union stall.

Centinela Valley breaks silence on superintendent's $663K compensation package

The district’s official response took the form of a letter to the editor, signed by school board President Maritza Molina, spelling out the 54-year-old leader’s accomplishments at the district since he arrived six years ago.

Santa Ana dual-immersion charter school gets some breathing room

In January, dual-immersion charter school El Sol Science and Arts Academy of Santa Ana on 1010 N. Broadway opened its first multiclassroom building. Students in second, fourth and fifth grade moved into the new two-story 19,000-square-foot building after winter break on Jan. 13, said Monique Daviss, executive director of El Sol.

Old disciplines, new tech help top elementary school soar

Math movies. Yoga. Thanksgiving e-books. Don’t expect the typical at Stonegate Elementary, where teachers are told to try anything that might kindle the flame of student success.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: UIC STRIKE, DAY 2. BUSES ROLE TO SPRINGFIELD

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: UIC STRIKE, DAY 2. BUSES ROLE TO SPRINGFIELD:

UIC STRIKE, DAY 2. BUSES ROLE TO SPRINGFIELD

Hundreds of classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago were canceled Tuesday as part of the first faculty walkout in the school's history.

While faculty march outside UIC, busloads of teachers, cops, firefighters and other public employees are on their way from Chicago to the state capital this morning to confront legislators over their unconstitutional attack on our pensions.  The mass protest is being organized by the We Are One Coalition.

Real Deal...
I told you Jay Travis was the real deal. Running for State Rep in the 26th, she not just a good talker but will be in Springfield today rallying with thousands of teachers and other public sector workers.

The rally in Springfield comes on the heels of a Chicago Teachers Union report showing that public pensions generate tens of millions of dollars in economic activity across the city, and especially in some of the South Side zip codes that have been hit hardest by the recession, including in parts of the Illinois 26th District. Despite the vital importance of public sector jobs to the families of the 26th District, incumbent Representative Christian Mitchell voted last spring for Senate Bill 1, which slashed the retirement security of state-employed retirees and workers. Jay, who is challenging Representative Mitchell in the March 18 Democratic 

Chris Christie and Chris Cerf: Dismantling Equity in New Jersey’s Public Schools | janresseger

Chris Christie and Chris Cerf: Dismantling Equity in New Jersey’s Public Schools | janresseger:

Chris Christie and Chris Cerf: Dismantling Equity in New Jersey’s Public Schools

Posted on February 19, 2014 by janresseger

Late last week New Jersey Spotlight, an online news service that covers information on issues critical to New Jersey, published an opinion piece by Mark Weber, Looking Closely at the Dangerous Legacy of Commissioner Chris Cerf.  Weber profiles Christopher Cerf, Governor Chris Christie’s appointed state Commissioner of Education.

One of the reasons the piece is so important is that New Jersey had so much to lose when Christie and Cerf imposed what has become known as a “corporate reform” agenda on the state’s public schools.

New Jersey is an extremely segregated state racially and economically with wealthy suburbs of New York City, beach communities along the Jersey Shore, rural truck farming communities, and cities like Newark, Camden, Jersey City and Paterson—cities that are racially segregated with extremely concentrated poverty.  Last fall the Southern Education Foundation—noting that, “The nation’s cities have the highest rates of low income students in public schools.  Sixty percent of the public school children in America’s cities were in low income households in 2011.”—documented that 78 percent of the school children in New Jersey’s cities are low income.

Unlike other states, however, and thanks to the decades-long efforts of the plaintiffs in Abbott v. Burke and their 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 2-19-14

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

Ripped from the pages of the supermarket tabloids: MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN’S DEATH INSPIRED REALITY STAR OMAROSA TO RUN FOR LOS ANGELES SCHOOL BOARD

US Weekly Celebrity News  by OMG! Staff | http://usm.ag/1jdrZoM Omarosa says Michael Clarke Duncan's death inspired her to run for the Los Angeles Unified School District school board. Credit: Maury Phillips/WireImage.com February 19, 2014 AT 3:30PM   ::  Omarosa Manigault is hoping to go from the boardroom to the school board. The provocative star of "The Apprentice" has announced that

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PEARSON FOR PROFIT: You Do the Math

by Alan Singer from the Huffington Post | http://huff.to/1gGvJPt   I received an email from a kindergarten teacher who wrote, "the Pearson-designed assessments for the enVisionMATH curriculum are confusing to children. Teachers have to reformat all of the graphics . . . I find it unconscionable that we pay Pearson to put out shoddy material which assumes too much symbolic understanding on

by smf / 1h 

INDEPENDENT STUDY: Gov. Brown’s new online learning target

by Tom Chorneau, SI&A Cabinet Report | http://bit.ly/1d0tT7m February 19, 2014 (Calif.)  ::  After withdrawing an aggressive plan to enhance online learning in K-12 classrooms last year, Gov. Jerry Brown has returned with a less ambitious proposal – but one that may have broader impact. Brown drew national attention in early 2013 for his embrace of flat rate college courses offered online and

1 by smf / 1h 

2 articles about Sylvia Rousseau: L.A. UNIFIED NAMES CARETAKER FOR VACANT BOARD SEAT IN SECRET SESSION + more than smf’s 2¢

Rousseau will oversee the post left vacant by the death of Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte until it can be filled by an election. Critics say Rousseau's selection in a closed-door meeting lacked transparency By Stephen Ceasar and Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1oS6AFi   Sylvia Rousseau, standing in front of a mural at Crenshaw High School in 2009, will be a caretaker for the

1 by smf / 1min

13 Candidates File For Board District 1 Election

from CITY OF LOS ANGELES CLERK - ELECTION DIVISION by Order of  Filing Date  ||  2/18/2014  5:47 pm Final: MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, DISTRICT NO. 1 DAVID EARLE MOCH  Educator GENETHIA HUDLEY-HAYES  Education Consultant GEORGE MCKENNA  Retired Principal/Superintendent HATTIE B. MCFRAZIER  Retired Educator/Counselor SHERLETT HENDY NEWBILL  Teacher/Mother/Coach

by smf / 24min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 2-18-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LCFF: Promise of CA’s New School Finance Law Hinges On Parentsby Peter Schurmann, New America Media, News Report, http://bit.ly/1fw8d3I Above: From left to right, EdSource Executive Director Louis Freedberg, Children Now Senior Education Policy Director Samantha Tran and SFUSD Office of Family and Community Engagement Coordinator Ruth Grabowski. Posted:

by mike simpson / 19h