6-11-14 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):

UTLA votes to endorse McKenna in District 1 board race

George McKenna The LA teachers union, UTLA, voted last night to endorse George McKenna for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat in the August runoff election. McKenna, a retired administrator, had no direct ties to the union and in his winning primary campaign struck a note of independence in assessing various issues. But in the end, said Marco Flores, chairman of the union’s political action commit

by Michael Janofsky / 13min 

Hendy-Newbill endorses McKenna in the District 1 runoff

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill Sherlett Hendy Newbill, the Dorsey High teacher who finished third in the District 1 school board race, is throwing her support behind George McKenna in the August runoff. McKenna, a former administrator, was the top vote getter in the June 3 primary, with 43.7 percent of the vote. He will face the runner-up, Alex Johnson, an aide to LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas,

2 16min hide  //  save

Vergara ruling gets mixed reaction from school board

Predictably, the historic superior court decision yesterday in the Vergara case elicited mixed reactions from members of the LA Unified school board. The ruling, which found California laws dictating teacher tenure, seniority rights and dismissal practices unconstitutional, is seen as huge blow to teacher unions and a boost to education reformers. Here is what a handful of board members had to say

2 16min 

New state money helping LAUSD expand services for foster youth

The new state funding formula that is sending more money into LA Unified is enabling the district to expand programs for foster youth, a group of students who have been under-served by the district for years. The LAUSD student population currently includes between 8,500 and 11,600 foster youth, as much as 12 percent of the total foster youth in the state. Starting in the 2014-2015 school year, the

by Yana Gracile / 1h hide  //  save

Analysis: The long wait for the impact — if any — of Vergara

Marcellus McRae, a lawyer for Vergara plaintiffs at a news conference yesterday Now what? Two years after Vergara v California was filed and one stunning Superior Court decision later, the long wait to a final resolution now begins in earnest. Will Judge Rolf Treu’s lower court decision stand? He knocked out five California laws that he viewed as unconstitutional, violating state laws that guarant

by Michael Janofsky / 3h 

Deasy’s revised budget for LAUSD a ‘doggone’ improvement

The LA Unified Board of Education got one step closer yesterday to approving Superintendent John Deasy’s 2014-15 school budget. And unless the six-member board makes radical changes over the next two weeks, his work, which includes plans for divvying up $332 million in new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) monies, will carry the day. Passage would signify a major political triumph for Deasy, wi

by Vanessa Romo / 3h 

Morning Read: Revised bill may hurt kindergarten enrollment

Eligibility for transitional kindergarten threatened under revised bill Nearly half of California’s currently eligible 4-year-olds would lose their eligibility to enroll in transitional kindergarten in 2015 if a bill that passed the Senate last week gets the governor’s approval. The bill would expand transitional kindergarten, a program for children who turn 5 in the first few months of the school

by Aaron Stella / 3h 

6-10-14 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): LIVESTREAM coverage of today’s LAUSD school board meetingThe LA Unified School Board will meet all day today, starting at 9 a.m. with a closed door session. The agenda is here). But the fireworks don’t begin until 1 p.m., when the board will reconvene for its regular board meeting, open to the public, Tha

by mike simpson / 12h 

empathyeducates – Econocide Over-the-Rhine – Cincinnati and Our Cities

empathyeducates – Econocide Over-the-Rhine – Cincinnati and Our Cities:

Econocide Over-the-Rhine – Cincinnati and Our Cities

(Photo: Check Eilerman / OverTheRhine; Edited: JR / TO) “What’s going on?” (Marvin Gaye)
”Like Genocide, So Econocide” (Alice Skirtz) Every once in a while in the sea of intellectual discourse a term surfaces that resonates, that galvanizes the historical moment, that has gravitas. Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” […]

by empathy / 1h hide  //  save

YESTERDAY

Judge Rejects Teacher Tenure for California

Julia Macias, at a news conference Tuesday, was one of nine students who claimed tenure laws left bad teachers in place. Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times Months ago we asked the question; could it be that at present education policies are designed to serve only a […]

by empathy / 17h 

6-11-14 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION:

StudentsFirst Cynicism Truly Boundless

An alert reader shared with me an email she received with the subject line "Demand Better Compensation for Teachers." Turns out, it's just further proof of how cynical the reformsters at StudentsFirst are these days.The email was generated by the site Greatergood.com, a website of the kickstarter crowdsourcing variety, aimed specifically at projects for, well, the greater good. Anybody c

by Peter Greene / 1h hide  //  save

The Kindergarten Cell

This little article has stirred up a small tempestita on facebook and the twitter. "Rethinking the Colorful Kindergarten Classroom" by Jan Hoffman, and the argument that has sprung up with it is one more signpost on our road to education hell.Hoffman is simply passing on some research that says all the colors and pictures and decorations etc etc etc are a distraction for tiny minds, and

by Peter Greene / 1h 

The Teaching Force Is Largely Newbs

In their article "The Greening of the American Teacher," Mercer Hall and Gina Sipley focus in one finding of a CPRE report on shifts in the American teaching workforce. That report is worth a look all by itself, but we'll save that for another day, because Hall and Sipley have some interesting insights to share.The American teacher is now most probably a newb. There are several possible

by Peter Greene / 1h 

6-10-13 Curmudgucation

CURMUDGUCATION: What Do We Do About Bad Teachers?I believe bad teachers exist. I believe that on any given day, in many schools in this country, there's a person standing in a classroom doing a lousy job. I just spent a chunk of bandwidth explaining that I don't believe Find and Fire is the correct policy response to bad teaching. So what do I propose instead?The Heart of the ProblemI'm going to s

by mike simpson / 14h

6-11-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:

Eva Moskowitz Wants 14 More Schools

And so the charter school rent is going to get very, very expensive or NYC:Success Academy Charter Schools officials said Tuesday they were applying to open 14 more schools in New York City, just months after a high-profile battle with Mayor Bill de Blasio over space in crowded city buildings.The network run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz said it wants to grow to meet the demands of tho

by reality-based edu... / 1h hide  //  save

Landlords Say NYC Rents Not High Enough

No, seriously:Panicked landlords are trying to do the impossible — convince New Yorkers that the rent is too damn low.With the Rent Guidelines Board mulling the first freeze in city history, the Rent Stabilization Association — which represents 25,000 landlords — has launched a six-figure ad campaign called, “A rent freeze hurts everyone.”The ad blitz began over the weekend and comes just as the g

by reality-based edu... / 1h 

6-10-14 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School: Diane Ravitch Calls For An Investigation Into Bill Gates' Common Core CoupHow did the richest man in America buy himself the public education system?The story about Bill Gates' swift and silent takeover of American education is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and imposing the Common Core standards on almost every state should

by mike simpson / 14h 

Last Dance of the Lemons | EduShyster

Last Dance of the Lemons | EduShyster:

Last Dance of the Lemons

 The *kids* weren’t the only big winners in California’s Vergara ruling…

Reader: barely had the verdict beenannounced in the landmark legal case Vergara vs. Lemons when the verdict was reached. The Vergara verdict represents a huge win for the kids. My own favorite verdict came swiftly from value investor Whitney Tilson who *stopped the presses* an unprecedented quintuple times in order to announce that Vergara decision was a *grand slam for students* and a *grim day for the Blob.* (Note: if you are regular reader of this blog, you are a de facto Blob member.) Which got me to wondering. Might there be some other beneficiaries of the Vergara victory, besides the kids that is? I’m recommending an extra lemon twist to today’s featured quaff—you’ll need it. 

Public Relations
Perhaps the biggest Vergara victor (other than the kids) was the public relations firm behind the case. Did I say public relations? I meant *issue advocacy that works at the intersection of strategic communications and public policy by collaborating with inspiring partners to create powerful movements that galvanize the public and leave a positive legacy of change.* In fact, Students Matter proclaimed early and often that one of the chief goals of Vergara was to position its PR firm, Griffin Schein, since reborn as We Are Rally, as a leader in the Students Mattering space. So pretty much just like Brown vs. Board of Last Dance of the Lemons | EduShyster:

6/11/2014 – Standards Scolds Get Us Nowhere - Education Is World’s #1 Priority

6/11/2014 – Standards Scolds Get Us Nowhere:

6/11/2014 – Standards Scolds Get Us Nowhere

June 11, 2014 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Education Is World’s #1 Priority … Student Engagement In Schools … More Trafficking Of Teachers … Parents Rebel Against Big Data … Why College Tuitions Increase

TOP STORY

Standards Scolds Are Getting Us Nowhere

By Jeff Bryant

“Support for the Common Core is eroding away, and you have to wonder what the Administration and a significant wing of the education establishment are going to be left with … The Obama administration and others who claim to be advocates for public schools do themselves and their cause no favor by listening to the standards scolds and taking the hardline on enforcing a policy that would never have led to the progress that was promised in the first place … What’s needed instead is a pivot to the issue of education inequality.’”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

U.N. Global Survey: Education Top Priority Despite Wealth

MSNBC

“Education is a top priority among developed and third-world nations alike, beating political freedoms and gender equality, according to a new global poll. Of the more than 2 million people who responded to the “My World” survey, a United Nations project, two out of three identified education as their top priority. Topping the list of other priorities was better healthcare and an honest and responsive government … ‘Education has consistently been a top issue for people around the world, no matter their country, sex, age or socioeconomic status … education is a key driver for development issues,’ said Corinne Woods, director of the UN Millennium Campaign … The survey is an ongoing project using crowdsourcing to better understand global development issues and trends.”
Read more …

More Than Half Of Students ‘Engaged’ In School, Says Poll

Education Week

“School leaders should not neglect the social and emotional factors that help students thrive, and they should empower teachers so that they are more engaged and effective in the classroom, says the “State of America’s Schools” report, a synthesis of polling data and research from the international Gallup organization … A broad focus on testing and new standards can lead schools to neglect the individualized social and emotional needs of students, the report’s authors say … Emotional engagement at school is the noncognitive factor that most directly correlates with academic achievement … A 1-percentage-point increase in a student’s score on the engagement index was associated with a 6-point increase in reading achievement and an 8-point increase in math achievement scores … Gallup recommends that principals address teacher engagement to help students succeed … The share of workers described as ‘not engaged’ among teachers, however, was slightly larger than it was for the general workforce … Among all occupations tracked in the survey, teachers were the least likely to say that their opinions counted at work.”
Read more …

School District’s Use of Worker Visa Program Draws Scrutiny

The Wall Street Journal

“The H-1B visa program allows employers to hire skilled foreigners for hard-to-fill positions … And school districts around the country have used them to hire thousands of foreign teachers … Since 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor has found more than 2,000 H-1B violations by individual schools, districts or boards … In Garland, [Texas] … foreign recruits had been hired not to increase the ranks of Spanish-speaking teachers, as intended, but instead … to enrich a rogue district executive and his associates, who charged immigrants hefty fees for legal and other services … Many of the foreign teachers hired in Garland obtained the promised green card, even as they were allegedly tricked out of thousands of dollars … Employers sponsoring a foreign worker for a green card must prove no Americans are qualified for the job.”
Read more …

Big Brother: Meet the Parents

Politico

” A months-long review by POLITICO of student privacy issues, including dozens of interviews, found the parent privacy lobby gaining momentum … The amateur activists have already claimed one trophy, torpedoing a privately run, $100 million database … Now, parents are rallying against another perceived threat: huge state databases … In the past five months, 14 states have enacted stricter student privacy protections … All told, at least 105 student privacy bills were introduced this year in 35 states … The POLITICO review found ed tech entrepreneurs and school reformers both bewildered by and anxious about the backlash – and struggling to craft a response.”
Read more …

Colleges Are Full Of It: Behind The Three-Decade Scheme To Raise Tuition, Bankrupt Generations, And Hypnotize The Media

Salon

“The price of a year at college has increased by more than 1,200% over the last 30 years… Beginning in the ’80s, university administrators … blamed utility bills … libraries … professors… government regulations … society … Those who wrote about the higher ed price problem kept expecting the Invisible Hand to assert itself and straighten this thing out … Democrats today worship education, while Republicans today worship the market, neither of which faith has brought us close to a solution … The tuition price spiral is part of the larger history of inequality … That is the offer our ever-more expensive colleges extend to their students: in a world of rich and poor, the only choice before you is whether or not you intend to purchase a place among the haves.”
Read more …

OKCBC - Our Kids' Community Breakfast Club - A Self-Sustaining Empowered Community

OKCBC - A Self-Sustaining Empowered Community:

Our Kids' Community Breakfast Club A Self-Sustaining Empowered Community Our Kids' Community Breakfast Club (OKCBC) a community engagement model, is designed to improve the quality of life for kids and their families. The program operates during the time when school is not in session on Saturdays.  The five program components include: Nutritious Breakfast Arts and Crafts Literacy and Math Activities Parent Education Basic Health Screenings OKCBC currently takes place on the fourth Saturday of each month from 10:00am-12:00pm at Oak Park Community Center, located at 3425 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Sacramento, CA. OKCBC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Tax ID 27-3502550 contact@okcbc.org OKCBC - A Self-Sustaining Empowered Community: OKCBC - A Self-Sustaining Empowered Community:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: What are the take-aways from Cantor loss?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: What are the take-aways from Cantor loss?:

What are the take-aways from Cantor loss?

Cantor was too far "left" for the Limbaugh Party and not anti-immigrant enough. 

I'm still trying to get a handle on Cantor's defeat in Va.'s bright red 7th Cong. Dist. The obvious is that Cantor, the most conservative member of the GOP House leadership, was just too far "left" and not anti-immigrant enough for the Limbaugh Party.

It's too bad in a way. Cantor was one of my favorite foils here at Small Talk. It was back in January that Cantor launched a verbal attack on newly-elected N.Y. Mayor Bill de Blasioand went to bat for his hedge-fund school reformer friends in N.Y. I noted then that,

“America is in the midst of an education revolution," [Cantor told] the Brookings Institute, referring to the unfettered growth of privately-run charter schools and school vouchers going to private and church-run schools.The real irony has this self-proclaimed anti-Washington, anti-gummint, local-control advocate trying to bully a city mayor and a local school district.

I love the way these guys always frame themselves as r-r-revolutionaries. Wasn't that the battle cry of the two nazi crazies who murdered the two cops in Las Vegas after coming off the Bundy ranch?

They pinned onto the other officer's body a note saying something to the effect of "this is the beginning of the revolution."

I guess Cantor's revolutionary days are just about over.

While it was only one low turn-out primary in one state (Lindsey Graham beat T-baggers easily in S.C.), it demonstrates the potential power and discipline of the gun-toting racists and anti-government, anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-immigrant groups, who have been Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: What are the take-aways from Cantor loss?:

Controversial data-driven research behind the California court’s decision to reject teacher tenure | Education By The Numbers

Controversial data-driven research behind the California court’s decision to reject teacher tenure | Education By The Numbers:

Controversial data-driven research behind the California court’s decision to reject teacher tenure

Underlying the California court’s decision on June 10, 2014 to reject teacher tenure as unconstitutional is a controversial body of academic research on teacher effectiveness.  The argument that won out was that tenure rules often force school districts to retain their worst teachers. Those ineffective teachers tend to end up at the least desirable schools that are packed with low-income and minority students. As a result, teacher tenure ends up harming low-income students who don’t have the same access as rich students to high-quality teaching.

But for this argument to carry weight we have to be able to distinguish good teachers from bad. How can we prove that California’s low-income schools are filled with teachers who are inferior to the teachers at high-income schools?

The nine plaintiffs, including Beatriz Vergara, who brought suit against the state. This slide, without names, was shown in court.

Dan Goldhaber, a labor economist at the University of Washington, and Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, were two of the expert witnesses who spoke against teacher tenure in Vegara v. California. Both employ quantitative economic analysis in the field of education. They are both big proponents of using value-added measures to determine who is an effective teacher.

In value-added analysis, you  begin by creating a model that calculates how much kids’ test scores, on average, increase each year. (Test score year 2 minus test score year 1). Then you give a high score to teachers who have students who post test-score gains above the average. And you give a low score to teachers whose students show smaller test-score gains. There are lots of mathematical tweaks, but the general idea is to build a model that answers this question: are the students of this particular teacher learning more or less than you expect them to?  

Indeed, researchers using this value-added measure approach have sometimes found low-income schools have a high number of teachers who teach students with below-average test score gains.

Many researchers are questioning whether test-score gains are a good measure of teacher effectiveness. Part of the problem are the standardized tests themselves. In some cases, theControversial data-driven research behind the California court’s decision to reject teacher tenure | Education By The Numbers:

From Common Core, to Vergara, to VAM, Gates Foundation Fingerprints Everywhere - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

From Common Core, to Vergara, to VAM, Gates Foundation Fingerprints Everywhere - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

From Common Core, to Vergara, to VAM, Gates Foundation Fingerprints Everywhere

By Anthony Cody on June 11, 2014 9:14 AM

Someone in the mainstream media finally asked Bill Gates straight out what his role was regarding Common Core. What a concept! Until last week, those of us who pointed out the trail of greenbacks leading to his door were often dismissed as "conspiracy theorists."

Those of us who have been writing about education from a critical perspective have been aware of Bill Gates' big project for several years. I wrote about his growing influence in 2011, in this post: Bill Gates' Big Play: How Much Can Money Buy in Education. It turns out the answer is, "just about everything." This interview by Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post  finally drew back the curtain for the mainstream media, detailing what many have refused to notice. Layton writes:

 The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn't just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards. With more than $200 million, the foundation also built political support across the country, persuading state governments to make systemic and costly changes.

Bill Gates was de facto organizer, providing the money and structure for states to work together on common standards in a way that avoided the usual collision between states' rights and national interests that had undercut every previous effort, dating from the Eisenhower administration.

But Common Core is just one part of Bill Gates' role in education policy in the US. His foundation has its fingerprints on almost every major corporate reform initiative that has taken hold in the past five years.

• Challenges to due process for teachers: The Vergara trial yesterday dealt a blow to due process for teachers in California. One of the witnesses advancing the winning argument was Tom Kane, former director of the Gates Foundation's Measures of From Common Core, to Vergara, to VAM, Gates Foundation Fingerprints Everywhere - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: