Biden Asks Congress to Double Title I on top of Stimulus Dollars: Why Is All This Money Needed? | janresseger

Biden Asks Congress to Double Title I on top of Stimulus Dollars: Why Is All This Money Needed? | janresseger

Biden Asks Congress to Double Title I on top of Stimulus Dollars: Why Is All This Money Needed?

On March 11, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, COVID-19 relief bill, which will provide $125.4 billion for state K-12 education programs including investments to help kids catch up, provide after-school programs, offer summer enrichment, undertake facilities upgrades and “stabilize and diversify the educator workforce and rebuild the educator pipeline.”

And on April 9, President Biden proposed doubling the annual Title I allocation in the administration’s FY 2022 federal budget proposal. Title I was created in 1965 as a federal supplement to compensate for inadequate state funding for the nation’s school districts that serve concentrations of poor children.  It has been chronically underfunded. Chalkbeat explains: “The proposal would take the Title I program from its current $16.5 billion to $36.5 billion… The budget plan also includes a boost for special education funding… more counselors, nurses, and mental health professionals in schools… more for child care and Head Start… a big increase for the relatively small Community Schools program (schools with wraparound medical and social services for families)… and more money for the Office of Civil Rights.”  Of course, Biden’s budget is just a proposal for now—the first stage in several rounds of negotiations with Congress before a final federal budget will be passed by September 30.

None of us can fully comprehend what all these billions of dollars will mean. Probably some of us wonder whether they are really needed. In fact, those of us who live in school districts able to pass regular local property tax levies might imagine that all American schools probably look like ours—adequately maintained and at least adequately staffed. But in a CONTINUE READING: Biden Asks Congress to Double Title I on top of Stimulus Dollars: Why Is All This Money Needed? | janresseger

New Equity Bill Levels Educational Playing Field + 2021 Model School Attendance Review Board Winners - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

New Equity Bill Levels Educational Playing Field - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

New Equity Bill to Level the Educational Playing Field Advances with Bipartisan Senate Education Committee Support

SACRAMENTO—New legislation designed to lift up some of the lowest-performing school districts in California—sponsored by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and authored by Senator Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara)—received bipartisan approval from the California State Senate Committee on Education today, providing a pathway to help close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color.

Senate Bill (SB) 540, which heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee to be heard later this month, will establish a grant program to provide additional targeted assistance to 10 low-performing school districts with identified opportunity gaps for students of color.

“While there are hopeful signs as more and more students return to classrooms, it is important to remember that the inequities that existed before this crisis have only been deepened by this incredibly challenging time,” State Superintendent Thurmond said. “SB 540 will allow the California Department of Education to invest in 10 of the highest-need school districts through an aggressive three-year funding package that focuses on equity coaching and intervention, professional development, and family engagement strategies. We cannot to let students already at a disadvantage slip further behind because of our failure to invest in these schools.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the educational disparities that exist among school districts. SB 540 begins to address the equity gaps that exist in our education system and provide the proper resources to make sure that students, especially those in low-income and communities of color, do not fall behind,” said Senator Limón.

The equity gaps that have existed in the educational system are systemic and long-standing. Research shows that on average, Black students attend schools that are 48 percent Black, while white students attend schools that are only 9 percent Black. By the time Black children enter high school, they are often more than four academic years behind their white counterparts. Suspensions for African American children are approximately three to five times higher than for white children. In the United States, by age 24, only 78 percent of Latinos and 87 percent of Blacks have earned a high school diploma compared to 94 percent of whites. The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened these disparities.

SB 540 would allocate grants of $1.25 million to each of the 10 highest-need school districts for the 2021–22 fiscal year and the following two fiscal years. This key investment in underserved California students will urgently and immediately provide assistance to recover and help schools build the structures to accelerate learning for students and to support families hardest hit by a global pandemic.

More information on SB 540 can be found on the California Legislative Information bill analysis website.

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

New Equity Bill Levels Educational Playing Field - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces 2021 Model School Attendance Review Board Winners

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today that 20 school attendance review boards (SARBs) have been designated as model programs in California for their attendance strategies during distance learning. The announcement of these Model SARB Awards comes after an unprecedented disruption of in-person attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These 19 school districts and one county office of education created exemplary plans and worked hard to follow through on them to help students stay engaged in their education—all during the unprecedented closure of our schools due to a global pandemic,” said Thurmond. “Many of these same great attendance strategies will also be crucial for student success as even more schools reopen for safe in-person attendance in the near future.”

The Model SARB Award winners, which include 19 school districts and one county office of education, implemented Learning Continuity and Attendance Plans that focused on these four approaches to meeting the needs of students during distance learning:

1. Shifting staff roles and responsibilities to meet the needs of distance learning students.
2. Supporting virtual attendance of pupils with unique needs.
3. Providing for the mental health and well-being of students during distance learning.
4. Pupil and family engagement and outreach.

As an example, Long Beach Unified School District is a Model SARB because its attendance strategies focus on quality interactions with families and students to promote improved attendance. This includes looking at students’ and families’ unique needs and providing personalized supports to remove barriers to attendance. SARB members are assigned follow-up with each referred family to provide materials, asynchronous work assignments, and links to community resources. SARB members also connect with community partners to ensure that families have access to timely and quality services. By working with the family and community as partners for children, Long Beach Unified’s SARB provides families with a supportive and empowering experience.

State Superintendent Thurmond annually convenes the State’s School Attendance Review Board, which brings together key agencies and community partners to score applications submitted by district and county SARBs throughout the state.

The Model SARBs will be recognized publicly and information about their strategies will be shared at the State SARB meeting on April 15, 2021, and at the annual state conference of the California Association of Supervisors of Child Welfare and Attendance on April 27, 2021.

Below is a list of the recognized school districts and county office of education and their Model SARB chairperson:

• Alhambra Unified School District, Lindsey Ma
• Alvord Unified School District, Ian Fish
• Centinela Valley Union High School District, Vanessa Landesfeind
• Centralia Elementary School District, Dr. Stacy Chang
• Corona-Norco Unified School District, John Reynoso
• Fontana Unified School District, Jose Barzaga
• Glendale Unified School District, Dr. Ilin Magran
• Hacienda la Puente Unified School District, Cynthia Cabello
• Jurupa Unified School District, Olga Lidia Alferez
• Kern High School District, Erin Rader
• Lake Elsinore Unified School District, Steve Behar
• Long Beach Unified School District, Claudia Sosa-Valderrama
• Murrieta Valley Unified School District, Katherine Wood
• Pittsburg Unified School District, Dr. ReJois Fraziers-Myers
• Romoland School District, Carmen Kaas
• Sanger Unified School District, Johnny P. Gonzalez
• Santa Ana Unified School District, Jackie Sanchez
• Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools, Rob Egger
• Val Verde Unified School District, Thomas Gronotte
• William S. Hart Union High School District, Erum Velek
  

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces 2021 Model School Attendance Review Board Winners

Why Zip Codes Matter | Diane Ravitch's blog

Why Zip Codes Matter | Diane Ravitch's blog

Why Zip Codes Matter

From the earliest days of corporate reform, which is now generally recognized to have been a failed effort to “reform” schools by privatizing them and by making standardized testing the focal point of education, we heard again and again that a child’s zip code should not be his or her destiny. Sometimes, in the evolving debates, I got the sense that some people thought that zip codes themselves were a problem. If only we eliminated zip codes! But the reality is that zip codes are a synonym for poverty. So what the reformers meant was that poverty should not be destiny.

Would it were so! If only it were true that a child raised in an impoverished home had the same life chances as children brought up in affluent homes, where food, medical care, and personal security are never in doubt.

But “reformers” insisted that they could overcome poverty by putting Teach for America inexperienced teachers in classrooms, because they (unlike teachers who had been professionally prepared) “believed” in their students and by opening charter schools staffed by TFA teachers. Some went further and said that vouchers would solve CONTINUE READING: Why Zip Codes Matter | Diane Ravitch's blog

For Decades America Has Blamed and Punished Public Schools Serving Poor Children: Biden’s Plan Addresses the Underlying Poverty | janresseger

For Decades America Has Blamed and Punished Public Schools Serving Poor Children: Biden’s Plan Addresses the Underlying Poverty | janresseger

For Decades America Has Blamed and Punished Public Schools Serving Poor Children: Biden’s Plan Addresses the Underlying Poverty

For over fifty years sociologists of education have documented the correlation between the ravages of child poverty and challenges for children at school. Hunger, homelessness and the family anxiety that accompanies the struggle to survive make it hard for many students to thrive at school. This is why the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss describes the American Rescue Plan, President Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill signed into law last week, as “a huge new school reform.” And Strauss isn’t writing merely about the $130 billion included in the bill for public schools:

“President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is aimed at helping the country recover from the coronavirus pandemic—but it is another thing, as well: a major federal school reform unlike those we’ve seen in the past few decades. While the new law is aimed at helping families get back on their feet and helping businesses and schools reopen after a year of turmoil, it includes measures that together have the potential to slash poverty among the 12 million students who live in low-income households.”

Strauss reminds us how, over the past quarter century, public education policy has gone wrong—blaming the schools themselves and failing effectively to address children’s needs: “Policymakers have been focused for decades on improving public schools with a culture based on standardized testing, the expansion of charter schools and other ‘school choice’ measures, and, in some places, the demonization of teachers. Child poverty, they said, was an excuse for poor performance by adults. But the testing/choice/big data approach has not closed the achievement gap, and on some measures, it has barely moved… Many schools nationwide have attempted to address the out-of-school lives of students including CONTINUE READING: For Decades America Has Blamed and Punished Public Schools Serving Poor Children: Biden’s Plan Addresses the Underlying Poverty | janresseger