Tuesday, January 19, 2010

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

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Board Budget Committee

SCUSD Board Budget Committee

Next Meeting:
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 Agenda
5:30 PM
5735 47th Avenue, Indiana Room
Budget Updates
Meeting Schedule

Committee Members:

Board Member Donald Terry, Chair
Board Member Diana Rodriguez
Board Member Jerry Houseman
Chief Business Officer Patricia A. Hagemeyer
Budget Director Gerardo Castillo

Board Budget Committee Meetings:

	Agenda	Minutes
January 20, 2010	Agenda
December 15, 2009	Agenda	Minutes
December 7, 2009	Agenda	Minutes
November 2, 2009	Agenda	Minutes

Education Research Report: Identification of Children and Youth With Disabilities

Education Research Report: Identification of Children and Youth With Disabilities:

"Identification of Children and Youth With Disabilities

Presenting a national description of identification patterns across time and outcomes for children with disabilities, a new study reports that the percentage of children in each age group who were newly identified or continuing to receive early intervention and special education services increased from 1997 to 2005.

'Patterns in the Identification of and Outcomes for Children and Youth With Disabilities' uses existing data collected by the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies to present information on infants and toddlers (birth through age 2), preschool-age children (ages 3 through 5), and school-age children and youth (ages 6 through 21) served under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Released by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, the purpose of the report is to provide background context for studies of program implementation and effectiveness occurring under the National Assessment of IDEA."

The Educated Guess � Common core and STEM: in conflict? (cont.)

The Educated Guess � Common core and STEM: in conflict? (cont.):

"The Obama administration’s push for uniform, common-core standards for math could end up conflicting with the president’s call for more college students majoring in STEM: science, technology, engineering and math.

At least that’s the view of an emeritus professor of math at the University of Maryland and of one of the original creators of California’s math standards. At a panel discussion at a math conference in San Francisco last weekend, both criticized the high school graduation standards for college and career readiness that were published last fall by the national organizations leading the common-core initiative.

Jerome Dancis, the emeritus professor, said that college-ready means that students wouldn’t need remediation for a college math course in arithmetic and Algebra. But that doesn’t make the student prepared for a STEM major, which demands fluency in pre-calculus, he said.� Dancis worries that students will arrive on campus thinking they’re ready for STEM, when, having taken only an anemic Algebra II course in line with the common-core standards, they’re not."

Diane Ravitch: What Randi Really Said and Meant

Last week, the nation's press reported something that most teachers found unbelievable: Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that teachers should be evaluated by their students' test scores.

Teachers hate this idea because they know that teachers are not solely responsible for their students' scores. The students bear some responsibility, as do their families, for whether students do well or poorly on tests. District leaders bear some responsibility, depending on the resources they provide to schools. Teachers also are aware that the tests are not the only measure of what happens in their classrooms and that even the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said that we need better tests. There is a fairly sizable body of research demonstrating that test scores are affected by many factors beyond the teachers' control.
I was surprised too when I read the headlines and the press accounts.

But when I read Randi's speech on the AFT website, I discovered that the media stories were wrong. In fact, Randi offered a far more complicated and nuanced proposal than what was widely reported.

She laid out a far-ranging plan for evaluating teachers, which I suspect most teachers would find fair and reasonable. Here is what she said:

First, states should set out clear professional standards that describe clearly what teachers should know and be able to do. Then, to determine whether teachers meet these standards, districts should use "multiple means of evaluation," including classroom observations, self-evaluations, portfolio reviews, appraisal of lesson plans," and a variety of other tools, including student test scores. But the scores should be based on "valid and reliable

A New Path Forward for Public Education

Randi Weingarten
President, American Federation of Teachers

Posted: January 15, 2010 05:52 PM

For American children to thrive in the 21st century, our system of public education must change from the old factory model to a new paradigm that will prepare students for today's knowledge economy. In a speech this week in Washington, I proposed a way to change this--a new path forward for our public education system, defined by excellence, fairness, shared responsibility and mutual trust. I detailed the American Federation of Teachers' comprehensive new framework for reform, which is designed, as one commentator said, "to replace the conflict-ridden approach of the past decade."

Teachers go to school every day wanting to make a difference in the lives of their students. I know this from my own experience as a high school teacher, from the incredible skill and dedication I have observed in the countless classrooms I have visited, and from AFT members' own stories attesting to their commitment to their students' success. Teachers enter this profession, as one member said, because they want to see the light of discovery in children's eyes.

The path I propose includes new ideas about teacher development and evaluation, as well as a fair and effective approach to due process. It calls for teachers to have the tools, time and trust they need to do their jobs. And it addresses the need to transform the labor-management relationship in public education into one in which teachers, administrators and all members of the wider school community have a shared responsibility and a shared commitment to ensuring all students get a great education.

All of these elements are inextricably connected. Some reports and commentaries about my speech have focused on one element or another of my proposals, missing the point that the key to success for this new approach is that its parts build upon one another and must be implemented together.

First, I have proposed a new template for teacher development and evaluation. With rare exceptions, teacher evaluation procedures are broken--cursory, perfunctory and superficial. Despite their deficiencies, such evaluations often form the basis for many consequential decisions, such as whether a teacher is deemed to be performing satisfactorily, receives tenure, or is dismissed for what is determined to be poor performance. Such an approach does nothing to help promising teachers improve or to help good teachers become great.

voiceofsandiego.org | News. Investigation. Analysis. Conversation. Intelligence. - Bright and Early: The Education Newsblitz

Here's hoping that everyone had a reflective Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- and survived the strange incident of water falling from the sky. Your newsblitz today is loaded with articles and opinions on a little thing that Obama calls Race to the Top:

We profile an unusual man with an unusual job: Phil Stover, who is at the helm as San Diego Unified tries out a new way of budgeting. As a longtime consultant, he's credited with sparing millions from its operational departments, but his new role as interim chief special projects officer has raised questions for critics who wonder whether he's qualified. He's also just a really interesting character, a consultant who's lived in a Mission Valley hotel room for the last three years as his role here as steadily expanded.

And in case you missed it this weekend, we chatted with Pam Hosmer, who oversees programs for runaways, hospitalized students and other kids with rare needs in San Diego Unified, aboutthe unique challenges for homeless students.

EdFund President Receives CCCSFAAA Lifetime Membership Award — The Rancho Cordova Post

EdFund President Receives CCCSFAAA Lifetime Membership Award — The Rancho Cordova Post:

"The California Community Colleges Student Financial Aid Administrators Association (CCCSFAAA) awarded EdFund President Sam Kipp the group’s prestigious Lifetime Membership Award at the annual CCCSFAAA Conference in December.

The award is presented to individuals with a long history of service to the association and to the financial aid community as a whole. EdFund’s president since 2005 and an executive director of the California Student Aid Commission from 1986-1995, Dr. Kipp was praised for his enduring commitment to educational opportunity, meeting students’ needs, providing essential support services, and working with the financial aid community.

“Not only does Sam have a thorough knowledge of federal and state aid programs, their history and intent, but he has a thorough knowledge of the student loan industry in this country and the important and changing role of guaranty agencies. He understands, and more importantly cares about, the needs of community college students in this state,” says CCCSFAAA President Brad Hardison."

Elk Grove Citizen : News

Elk Grove Citizen : News:

"Summer school will not be offered at local high schools this year due to budget cuts, but seniors who lack the credits to graduate this year could join an experiment.

The Elk Grove Unified School District staff wants to offer these students a chance to make up their classes via the Internet. They could retake their needed courses on their home computers and submit their schoolwork to teachers.

If all goes according to district plan, online education could be offered to credit-deficient high school students this month.

Several trustees praised the online education plan during their Jan. 5 meeting.

“I think this is certainly the way to go,” said Trustee William Lugg whose grandson takes high school online courses at home in Colorado.

There are also district plans to launch a full-time, “virtual school” or online education program for grades kindergarten through 12 this summer where students can take online courses at home anytime in the day or night, while regularly working with a teacher through cyberspace."

This Week In Education: Media: Washington Post's "Best Blog 2010" Hits & Misses

This Week In Education: Media: Washington Post's "Best Blog 2010" Hits & Misses:

Media: Washington Post's "Best Blog 2010" Hits & Misses

Thanks to Jay and Valerie for including This Week In Education in their best blogs of 2010 list. Great choices, you two; you're not half bad yourselves. Now let me return the favor by correcting and criticizing all your picks:

I liked the inclusion of Public School Insights (led by "Baron" Claus von Zastrow) but I'd add the EdNews Colorado, Voice of San Diego (Emily Alpert), Philly Notebook, and GothamSchools as particularly promising beat / theme blogs (with real reporters and everything).

I'd also add Politics K12 at EdWeek for its coverage of all things Duncan (though I worry about them getting cozy with their sources). Other current favorites: Larry Ferlazzo, the Knowledgeable Sourcerer, Perimeter Primate. I do a roundup of best blog posts every day. You know who you are.

I don't think Linda Perlstein's been at it long enough to call her Educated Reporter a best blog -- and I wonder about journalist types who blog without reading (and linking to) other education blogs (though I do like that she reads Gawker). Other promising but largely untested entrants include GOOD's new education page (led by former TWIE contributor Amanda Millner-Fairbanks). We shall see.

Things on this topic I've said before: Blogs are dead in the age of

District secondary schools open enrollment till Feb. 11 - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

District secondary schools open enrollment till Feb. 11 - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

"Elk Grove Unified School District officials have opened enrollment at seven district middle schools and seven high schools.

Sixth- and seventh-grade students in the district have until Feb. 11 to apply for enrollment at Harriet Eddy, Edward Harris, Samuel Jackman, Joseph Kerr, Elizabeth Pinkerton, James Rutter or T.R. Smedberg middle schools.

District students in eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th grade can apply for enrollment at Cosumnes Oaks, Elk Grove, Florin, Laguna Creek, Monterey Trail, Sheldon and Valley high schools."

National Journal Online -- Education Experts -- Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed?

Will AFT Teacher Evaluation Effort Succeed?

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten stirred education circles with a recent speech in which she called for a new template for evaluating public school teachers, including changes to the procedures for dismissal, formally known as due process. "Too often due process becomes glacial process," Weingarten acknowledged. "We intend to change that." The AFT tapped a top-notch attorney, Kenneth Feinberg, to oversee the effort to revise due process. In addition, Weingarten has reached out to key groups -- including the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the American Association of School Administrators, among others -- to create a forum for improving relationships between labor and management.

What did you think of the proposed teacher evaluation model? If the AFT succeeds at generating consensus among the relevant national players, can it effect change at the local level? What is the significance of the fact that the National Education Association has remained silent in the wake of this announcement?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

Should Parents Dictate School Reforms?
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed education reform legislation on Jan. 7 that will give unprecedented power to parents whose children attend the worst-performing public schools. Under a provision known as the "parent trigger," if 50 percent of parents at a given school sign a petition, the school board must choose among several options, including closing the campus, converting to a charter, or replacing the principal and other administrators. Advocates of the controversial measure hope that it will make the state more competitive for Race to the Top money, in addition to improving education; opponents, such as the California Teachers Association, are concerned that the approach is too punitive.

Is the parent trigger a good idea? Did California make the right choice by adopting it, or should the state rely on other school improvement strategies?

-- Eliza Krigman, NationalJournal.com

A Waldorf-inspired public charter school in Oakland? Not likely. | The Education Report

A group of educators says if the Oakland school district permits them to open a charter school in East Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood this fall, they will blend the unorthodox pedagogy of a traditionally private Waldorf School with methods used in public schools for low-income children and English learners.

It’s unlikely to happen, at least this year. Oakland Unified’s charter schools office is recommending against the opening of the Community School for Creative Education (for the second time). The reasons behind the denial are outlined in a 50-page report posted on a committee agenda for tomorrow night.

The Community School for Creative Education wouldn’t be the first public school built upon the Waldorf model, an approach to learning developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1919 that places much emphasis on the child’s imagination and overall development (and which doesn’t require children to read until the end of third grade, the same year OUSD officials say they expect all kids to be able to read).

Still, the model doesn’t have much of a history in low-income communities with large numbers of English-language learners – a fact that seemed to worry Oakland’s charter schools coordinator, David Montes de Oca and others on the panel who reviewed the charter proposal.

The Educated Guess: LA Unified to pilot 2-year kindergarten

The Educated Guess:

LA Unified to pilot 2-year kindergarten

"In most states, children must turn five by June 1 or Sept. 1 to enter kindergarten in the fall. To its disadvantage – and against the advice of many educators – California has a late starting date of Dec. 1, with kids as young as four years and nine months starting kindergarten.

Recognizing that many children that young are not developmentally and emotionally ready for elementary school, Los Angeles Unified will start a two-year kindergarten next fall on a limited basis. There will be one program in each of the district’s eight districts.That’s a sound idea, but it’s also a more expensive alternative to what others have proposed for years: pushing up the cutoff date to Sept. 1 and plowing the initial cost savings into pre-school for low-income children.

The current s"

Marchers demand end to Philadelphia school violence | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/19/2010

Marchers demand end to Philadelphia school violence | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/19/2010:

"About 250 people staged a loud, traffic-stopping march through Center City yesterday, demanding an end to violence in Philadelphia schools.

Old and young, male and female, black, white, brown, and Asian, the demonstrators sought to celebrate and emulate the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday was observed in Philadelphia and across the nation yesterday.

'If Dr. King had a choice of where he would be, he would be right here with you,' the Rev. LeRoi Simmons said as people gathered outside the School District offices on North Broad Street, preparing to march to the Arch Street Methodist Church."

Education | Gregoire proposes enhanced preschool | Seattle Times Newspaper

Education | Gregoire proposes enhanced preschool | Seattle Times Newspaper:

"OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday that she wants all preschools for children ages 3 and 4 to be certified by the state.

Gregoire said that under her proposed 'All Start' preschool program, certification would ensure that all preschools would operate under the same standards set by the Department of Early Learning.

'It's important to note that today, we have no standards for preschool programs,' Gregoire said at a new conference, joined by Bette Hyde, director of the state Department of Early Learning.

Also, Gregoire added, preschool teachers are not required to undergo background checks."

The education gap hits home - NYPOST.com

The education gap hits home - NYPOST.com:

"A single mother living in Harlem knows the plusses and minuses of charter schools firsthand -- because she has one son in a public school and another in a charter school.

'I love both my sons equally and think they deserve the same opportunity for a good education,' Quintasha Bullock said. 'So I'm disappointed that [lawmakers in Albany] will only let one of my boys go to charter school.'

Her 7-year-old, Quinzaire, 'was lucky enough' to get into Promise Academy 1, a charter school, this year, she said.

But her other son, Nashon, 11, attends PS 46 in Harlem."

Patrick trumpets sweeping bill to overhaul education - The Boston Globe

Sitting on a child’s stool at the Children’s Museum, Governor Deval Patrick signed a sweeping education bill yesterday that will greatly increase the number of charter schools, grant superintendents the power to overhaul failing districts, and make the state eligible for up to $250 million in federal stimulus money.

“We are standing up for children,’’ Patrick said before an upbeat gathering of educators, politicians, pupils, and parents. “We are showing those hungry minds in our classrooms that we believe in them.’’

The governor trumpeted the bill as a once-in-a-generation achievement designed to narrow the performance gaps that still plague many pupils from poorer households, despite the state’s stellar showing on standardized tests. “We can tolerate it no longer,’’ Patrick said.

The legislation, which required compromise with a passionate array of entrenched interest groups, should serve as a template for debate on other major issues, the governor said. Now, he added, the responsibility for reform shifts from Beacon Hill to the communities and classrooms where the day-to-day business of teaching occurs.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010