Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Inequitable school funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’ - The Washington Post

Inequitable school funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’ - The Washington Post:

Inequitable school funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’



Funding for public education in most states is inadequate and inequitable, creating a huge obstacle for the nation’s growing number of poor children as they try to overcome their circumstances, according to a set of reports released Monday by civil rights groups.
Students in the nation’s highest-spending state (New York) receive about $12,000 more each year than students in the lowest-spending state (Idaho), according to the reports, and in most states school districts in wealthy areas spend as much or more per pupil than districts with high concentrations of poverty.
In addition, many states were spending less on education in 2012 than they were in 2008, relative to their overall economic productivity, according to the reports.
The two reports – the Education Law Center’s fourth annual report card on school finance and a companion piece co-authored with the Leadership Conference Education Fund – are meant to help galvanize policymakers and activists to take on longstanding school funding disparities.
“School funding decisions are one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund. “The evidence from across the country is clear and compelling: Our nation must dramatically change the way that educational resources are distributed so that there is true equity in America’s classrooms.”
Henderson pointed to a little-known 1973 Supreme Court case as one reason for why inequitable funding has been such a difficult problem for activists to tackle.
In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, justices ruled that it was legal to base state school funding formulas on local property taxes, even though doing so resulted in unequal resources. The court also ruled that there is no federal constitutional right to an education.
Henderson called the decision a “triumph of states’ rights over human rights,” Inequitable school funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’ - The Washington Post:
Source: "Is School Funding Fair?" by the Education Law Center

The Truth Behind Your State's High School Grad Rate : NPR Ed : NPR

The Truth Behind Your State's High School Grad Rate : NPR Ed : NPR:

The Truth Behind Your State's High School Grad Rate 



 STATE: 

GRADUATION RATES IN CALIFORNIA



NATIONAL RANK (2013)PERCENTAGE POINT CHANGE (2011-2013)201120122013
30th+476%79%80%

WHAT DIPLOMAS DOES YOUR STATE OFFER?

California offers two types of diploma. Twenty-one states offer more than one.2 Different diplomas have varying credit requirements — so high achieving students can earn more rigorus diplomas and underperforming students can graduate without reaching normal academic standards.

DIPLOMADESCRIPTION
California High School DiplomaMinimum
California Readiness Curriculum a-gOpt-in: Honors/College-Prep

HOW HARD IS IT TO GET A DIPLOMA IN CALIFORNIA?

California requires students to pass the California High School Exit Examination in order to graduate. Often, there are workarounds if students cannot pass the exam.

COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS

California has a college and career ready diploma, butstudents must opt-in to it. “College and career ready” is a measure of rigorous diploma requirements developed by the policy organization Achieve.
ALAKAZARCACOCTDEDCFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY
 

ALGEBRA II

California does not require students to take Algebra II in order to graduate. Experts say the class is essential: If you had to identify one requirement that shows rigor — it's Algebra II. But, in many states, students are not automatically enrolled or may opt into less-difficult courses.
ALAKAZARCACOCTDEDCFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY

HOW DO STUDENTS PERFORM? LET'S LOOK AT THE ACT AND SAT.

ACT

In California, 29% of graduating students took the ACT exam in 2014. The ACT testing organization uses the results of these exams to publish its own, independent analysis of college readiness.

CALIF. AVERAGE SCORE (OUT OF 36)ACT BENCHMARK SCORE³ (OUT OF 36)% MEETING BENCHMARK
English21.81871%
Reading22.32251%
Math22.82257%
Science21.72343%

SAT

In California, 60.3% of graduating students took the SAT exam in 2014. 42.3% met College Board's benchmark score of 1550.4 (Out of 2400.) The College Board is the organization that administers the SAT.

FROM CALIFORNIA MEMBER STATIONS

Follow the story to Oakland with Zaidee Stavely of member station KQED.

Notes

1 Idaho, Kentucky and Oklahoma were granted a reporting extension. Graduation rates for these states are incomplete.
2 Diplomas also refer to courses of study and/or pathways available to students.
3 ACT calculates benchmarks by measuring how students perform in their first year of college. Learn more »
4 SAT's benchmark is also a measure of how students perform in their first year of college. Learn more »




 The Truth Behind Your State's High School Grad Rate : NPR Ed : NPR:

The Washington Teacher: Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools Too Little Too Late to Impact Plight of Teachers

The Washington Teacher: Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools Too Little Too Late to Impact Plight of Teachers:

Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools Too Little Too Late to Impact Plight of Teachers


Written By Candi Peterson, WTU General Vice President

Somebody dropped the ball. Who’s to blame for the eight years we waited for an independent evaluation of mayoral control? Well accountability is reserved only for us peons (teachers, school personnel, principals, vice principals and; central office staff). Right? Not for mayors and other elected officials.

Under a 2007 law, known as PERAA (Public Education Reform Amendment Act) gave control of DC Public Schools to the Mayor (Former Mayor Adrian Fenty) as well as other changes in school governance. The purpose of the law was to give leaders more flexibility in making changes in light of the school systems history of failed fix it plans and floundering student achievement.

The reform law required the mayor to submit an independent annual evaluation of our public schools annually on academic achievement,personnel policies and business practices. The law also included an option to skip annual assessments and deliver a five year independent assessment by September 15, 2012. Obviously that deadline was not met.

There was much ado on the road to selecting independent evaluators. In 2009, Fenty eliminated funding for an independent evaluation. Then there were two evaluator names that initially surfaced including Frederick Hess, of American Enterprise Institute and Kenneth Wong, of Brown University who were proponents of mayoral control and made many uncomfortable about their objectivity including former Chairman Vincent Gray, who raised concerns, to his credit.

Eventually funding was restored for the independent evaluation in 2009. A total of $325,000 was included in the DC government budget to hire the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct the evaluation. NRC is one of four non-profit organizations that operate under the National Academies. It was estimated that DC government would provide 20 percent of the funding, with NRC raising the remaining cost from private donations.

The road to this independent assessment has been a rocky one. Let's count the three mayors who presided while we waited for a glimpse of this assessment. Let's see first there was Adrian Fenty, then Vincent Gray and now Muriel Bowser.

At long last, members of the evaluation committee reported their findings and recommendations on June 3, 2015 at a public round table at the Committee on Education held at the Council of the District of Columbia. Tweets were rampant on June 3rd from inside DC City Council chambers as the committee unveiled its report.

The report findings are in excess of 300 pages and for purposes here, I will try to dissect this information in The Washington Teacher: Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools Too Little Too Late to Impact Plight of Teachers:



Google: rauner sociopath | Reclaim Reform

Google: rauner sociopath | Reclaim Reform:

Google: rauner sociopath

rauner sociopath 1


Google the following: rauner sociopath.

Even Google knows that Illinois billionaire Gov. Bruce Rauner is a sociopath – by definition. He continues to steal from autism programs in particular to pay for his choice of pro-Rauner folks. This is NOT an insult. What is a sociopath by definition?
noun, Psychiatry.
1. a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
Rauner appointed Secretary of Education Beth Purvis as “his” Czar of Education to be paid a record high quarter of a million dollars a year. In the 2015 “Illinois Is Broke” state, where will this special level of salary come from?
Three weeks after Purvis’ contract was signed, the governor’s office announced that the Department of Human Services was strapped for cash, and sliced $26 million in services including for autism, epilepsy and burials for the indigent. The cuts, later known as “the Good Friday Massacre,” caused some programs to completely shut down.
“I had no idea that we’re paying the governor’s education staff out of the Department of Human Services budget,” state Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago.
– The Chicago Sun Times
This isn’t the first time that Rauner has singled out autism as undeserving.
Gov. Bruce Rauner reinstated his defeated opponent’s [Gov. Pat Quinn (D)] 
Google: rauner sociopath | Reclaim Reform:



Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 6/7/15



SPECIAL NITE CAP 

CORPORATE ED REFORM





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