FCMAT » Cali Education Headlines Tuesday, March 11, 2014

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Gov. Brown again takes aim at testing overload in schools | EdSource Today

Education Headlines

Tuesday, March 11, 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.

Alpine teachers, district 'getting back on track'

Healing and reconciliation have officially begun in Alpine.

As scrutiny intensifies, Centinela Valley school board will hold public meeting Tuesday

Amid heightening scrutiny from school officials and lawmakers across California, the Centinela Valley school board tonight will hold its second meeting since the furor over Superintendent Jose Fernandez’s employment contract erupted in early February.

Rialto Unified has not started search for Cebrun's replacement

Harold Cebrun will remain the superintendent of Rialto Unified for almost three more weeks, and the search has not yet begun for his successor.

Officials: No active chemicals found on Kings County school bus

 The children who got sick last month while riding in a school bus in rural Kings County apparently didn't get sprayed with dangerous pesticides, county officials said Monday.

Dutch educators take tips from San Diego schools

Although international rankings show United States schools below their European equivalents, a group of Dutch educators are in San Diego this week to learn some teaching techniques from their American equivalents.

Denair Unified looking to reduce teachers at charter school, hire chief business officer

The Denair Charter Academy, serving mostly at-risk high school students, would lose 12 hourly teachers next year under a proposal to be voted on tonight at a special meeting. The Denair Unified School District board also will convene Thursday night for its regular meeting, expecting to hire a permanent chief business officer.

Modesto City Schools votes to to send layoff notices, end elementary library course

Modesto City Schools will send out pink slips to eliminate the equivalent of 29 full-time teaching and counseling positions, which could create a domino effect of shifting jobs but likely will result in few actual layoffs.

Freedburg: Gov. Brown again takes aim at burdening students with tests

Governor Brown took aim at excessive testing in the schools – an ongoing theme of his governorship – and warned lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington not to burden teachers with more demands than they are already experiencing in forceful remarks at the California Democratic Convention in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Fensterwald: San Jose Unified, teachers to ask State Board for waiver from tenure law

In the ongoing trial, Vergara vs State of California, lawyers for the state and the California Teachers Association have been defending the state’s two-year probation for teachers as a sound law that protects teachers’ and students’ interests.

Adams: State attorney general backs legislation to fight truancy

State Attorney General Kamala Harris and a team of legislators Monday introduced a package of bills to battle chronic student absenteeism, in yet another sign of the growing reexamination of school attendance and discipline policies.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Lodi Unified starts security upgrades

Lodi Unified risk manager Jill Davis and other district office employees are in the testing stage of a $20,000 technology upgrade that will grant access to most offices in the three-story building only to those who work there.

Tam High embroiled over teacher firings and new teaching methods

The dismissal of three teachers at Tamalpais High School has ignited a bitter controversy on the Mill Valley campus and called into question new Tamalpais Union High School District teaching methods that claim to "transform schools into innovative learning environments."

Pomona Unified has buyer for first piece of surplus property

A more than 3-acre parcel in southern part of the city that has been in the hands of the school district will soon have a new owner.

Centinela Valley schools lag in academic performance despite paying superintendent $663K

The tiny Centinela Valley Union High School District employs one of the most expensive superintendents in the state of California, if not the nation. But the district’s test scores — while on the rise — remain the lowest among all 80 school districts in Los Angeles County.

Embattled Rialto Unified superintendent to retire

Bringing six months of uncertainty to an end, the Rialto Unified school board accepted the retirement of embattled superintendent Harold Cebrun on Friday, saving the district 18 months of salary — $360,900 — that they would have owed him if he were fired.

Gaston, Fresno High construction almost done

Bubble-gum pink insulation foam now covers what soon will be walls at Rutherford B. Gaston Middle School in southwest Fresno. The school's concrete floors are now polished, the windows are in their frames, but there still are a few months left of work on the $36.7 million project before next school year.

Read more here:http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/03/08/3811840/gaston-fresno-high-building-almost.html#storylink=cpy

Attorney urges appeal of Corona del Mar expulsions

Arguing that the expulsion agreements signed by 11 Corona del Mar students accused of cheating were fraudulent and coerced, an attorney is urging the Orange County Board of Education to listen to the appeals of at least two students implicated in the cheating scandal.

Candidates vying to lead UTLA reflect recent teacher woes

The 10 candidates running for president of United Teachers-Los Angeles seek to lead a dispirited and divided teacher corps with common grievances but who lack consensus on how to move forward.

News group's fight to obtain district documents heading to court

The jury trial for former Woodside Elementary teacher Joseph Martin -- who has been charged with 150 counts of molestation involving 14 former students while he taught at the Concord campus in the Mt. Diablo school district -- has been postponed until May. But, the Bay Area News Group lawsuit seeking district records related to an internal report about suspicions of abuse raised in 2006, along with any other relevant documents, is set to be heard March 19 in Contra Costa County Superior Court.

Education Research Report: Marketers Are Busy in Schools

Education Research Report: Marketers Are Busy in Schools:

Marketers Are Busy in Schools

Schoolhouse commercialism continues virtually unabated, despite the harm it does, and neither federal nor state lawmakers are moving to further control the practice, according to a new report released today.

The pervasiveness of commercialism in education has become so broad, its threat so great, and its reported benefits so minor that the report’s authors call on policymakers to ban any such activity unless an independent, disinterested body can certify that it does not harm children’s education.

The recommendation is contained in Schoolhouse Commercialism Leaves Policymakers Behind – The Sixteenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism: 2012-2013. The report is published today by the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education.

This year’s report, by Professor Alex Molnar along with Faith Boninger, Joseph Fogarty, and Ken M. Libby, is the latest produced by Professor Molnar, who has been studying schoolhouse commercialism for more than two decades. Molnar, Boninger and Libby are all affiliated with the CU Boulder. Fogarty is principal of Corballa National School in County Sligo, Ireland

At the root of the threat commercialism poses to education is its very nature, the authors write. Commercialism is “a value system that promotes profit above all other concerns and that seeks to transform all relationships into commodities that can be exchanged for money,” they point out. Consequently  it “poses profound threats to the well-being of children and the civic purposes of public education.”

Given the threats of its harm, lawmakers and other policymakers, including school officials themselves, might be expected move forcefully to rein it in, they write – yet they have not done so. The authors suggest a combination of reasons for that: fierce corporate opposition to such legislative or regulatory restrictions, and lack of concern, particularly on the part of the education sector 

Home-rule flexibility for Dallas ISD could mean ignoring some of required Texas state curriculum | Dallas Morning News

Home-rule flexibility for Dallas ISD could mean ignoring some of required Texas state curriculum | Dallas Morning News:

Home-rule flexibility for Dallas ISD could mean ignoring some of required Texas state curriculum

By Jeffrey Weiss
JWeiss@dallasnews.com
10:16 am on March 11, 2014 | Permalink

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So yesterday, I asked the folks at Support Our Public Schools what kinds of changes might be considered if their push to turn Dallas ISD into a home-rule district succeeded. One of the items on the “food for thought” list was: “Flexibility with curriculum —  Allows schools to customize to the learning needs of their students.” I asked what that might mean.

The answer is that, according to SOPS, a home-rule district could ignore many of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements, aka the TEKS. These are the specific and sometimes very detailed course requirements course hashed out by the State Board of Education — and criticized by some as being “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Here’s how SOPS spokesperson Jennifer Pascal explained it:

Home Rule school districts are subject only to the graduation requirements listed in the Texas Education Code Section  28.025.

Home Rule school districts are exempt from the rest of Section 28.  Section 28 establishes the TEKS.

This means that Home Rule school districts are exempt from the TEKS, however, Home Rule school districts are still subject to state accountability rules.

This means Home Rule school districts are subject to the STAAR Test in math and reading in grades 3 – 8, and a few other subjects throughout K – 12.

Home Rule school districts would follow the TEKS in the few grades and subjects that 

Gov. Brown again takes aim at testing overload in schools | EdSource Today

Gov. Brown again takes aim at testing overload in schools | EdSource Today:

Gov. Brown again takes aim at testing overload in schools

March 10th, 2014 | Add a Comment | 
By Louis Freedberg

Governor Brown took aim at excessive testing in the schools – an ongoing theme of his governorship – and warned lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington not to burden teachers with more demands than they are already experiencing in forceful remarks at the California Democratic Convention in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Students, Brown said, already have “tests coming out their ears.”

“California is recognizing that the genius of each child is not how they bubble in an A, B, C and D,” he said, to the cheers of the crowd, in contrast to the heckling he received from anti-fracking activists toward the end of his 12-minute speech. As he did in his State of the State speech in January, he paraphrased William Butler Yeats by declaring that “education is not filling a pail, it is lighting a fire in the soul and spirit of every child.”

His remarks came a day after what amounted to a major victory for California when U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he would not fine the state for refusing to administer the California Standardized Tests for one last time this spring as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Law.  Instead, California had opted to administer field tests this spring of the Smarter Balanced assessments in English language arts and math based on new Common Core standards adopted by 45 states, including California. Just last September, Duncan had threatened to withhold 

UPDATE: CURMUDGUCATION: Bad Threats + When Is Your Last Teaching Day of School?

CURMUDGUCATION: Bad Threats:

Bad Threats

I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too!

It's a lesson from Teacher Basics 101. Don't make a threat if you can't live with the consequences.

Do not tell your students that if they don't hand in the homework, you'll fail them for the year. Don't tell your students that everybody runs a four-minute mile or everybody's off the team. And never, ever tell an unruly class that if you hear "one more peep," everybody gets a detention.

The Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools have no teaching experience to their collective names, and so they've been breaking the Bad Threat rule with abandon, and children are paying the price.

There are two parts to a bad threat.

Part I is the expectation.

We've heard plenty about the "soft bigotry of low expectations." And Michael Gerson wasn't entirely wrong-- we have a history of all too often writing off students because of poverty or race or chaotic home life or not-so-brightness. Too often we really have held our most challenged students to no expectation at all.

But for the soft bigotry of low expectations, we have substituted the hard tyranny of ridiculous 

Essay-Grading Software & Peripatetic Penguins

Education Week has just run an article by Caralee J. Adams announcing (again) the rise of essay-grading software. There are so many things wrong with this that I literally do not know where to begin, so I will use the device of subheadings to create the illusion of order and organization even though I promise none. But before I begin, I just want to mention the image of a plethora of peripatetic p

by Peter A. Greene / 22min 

When Is Your Last Teaching Day of School?

Years ago, the Tax Foundation hit upon a great tool for illustrating how large our individual tax load is-- Tax Freedom Day. Starting from January 1, how many days would Americans (or residents of your state, if you break it down that way) have to work just to pay off taxes.In a small piece of PR serendipity, Tax Freedom Day falls in April in most states. By some mid-April day, all Americans have

by Peter A. Greene / 30min 

3-11-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter:

Yes, let's drop the SAT essay. While we're at it, let's drop the SAT.

Sent to the NY Times, March 11 Re: "Can writing be assessed?"  March 10.There is no point in testing writing form, i.e. the use of conventional writing style, grammatical accuracy.  Research consistently tells us that writing form comes from reading, not from writing and not from study.Writing itself is a powerful tool for solving problems and making yourself smarter.  This requires ma

by skrashen / 3min 

Breaking News: Diane Ravitch Has Breaking News about Randi

Acting as Randi Weingarten's unofficial press agent, Diane Ravitch faithfully catalogs Randi's continued bobbing and weaving to preserve her standing with the billionaires who made her, while maintaining her job as President of AFT.  Tough task, especially since the teachers who pay Randi's $400,000 salary are fed up with the corporate union that Weingarten has built and the policies it promotes a

2 by Jim Horn / 13min hide  //  save

The Charter School Advantage is Built on Discrimination and Inequity

Heilig writing from Express-News:. . .The achievement gap is real, and it must be fixed. But I don't believe charter schools writ large have found the magic elixir. Charters are diverse, with many models. In recent years, so-called corporate charters have swept into San Antonio, dazzling the media with high test scores and college-going rates. These franchises include KIPP, IDEA, Great Hearts, BAS

2 by Jim Horn / 37min 

3-10-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter: Support Chicago Boycott of ISATSupport Chicago Teachers’ Test Boycott: Call and Sign PetitionChicago teachers, joined by parents and students, are boycotting the Illinois ISAT tests at several schools. The district is threatening teachers with loss of certification, and bullying and intimidating parents and students who have opted out or wish to opt out of the ISAT.They need your s

by mike simpson / 23h