Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The California Majority Report // The Education Coalition Memo Re: New Field Poll Results Show 8 in 10 Voters Oppose Cuts to Public Schools to Help Reduce the State Budget Deficit

The Education Coalition Memo Re: New Field Poll Results Show 8 in 10 Voters Oppose Cuts to Public Schools to Help Reduce the State Budget Deficit

March 24, 2010 @ 1:02 PM

Today, California's Field Poll released more results showing that state lawmakers are out of sync with the majority of California voters, with 8 in 10 voters saying they are opposed to making further cuts to public schools to help reduce the state budget deficit.

Despite the voters' desire to protect our students, state lawmakers have already subjected public schools to 60 percent of the statewide budget cuts, even though education funding only makes up 40 percent of the state budget.

It's crystal clear that voters want to prioritize investing in California's schools, particularly after more than $17 billion has been cut from education over the last two years. Voters also want our state's leaders to keep their promises to our students - but currently, the Governor and lawmakers are considering reneging on the promise they made in July to restore $11.2 billion of the cuts, as required by law under Proposition 98.

In addition, yesterday's Field Poll showed that an overwhelming majority of California voters (60 percent) rate education as a top issue as they are considering whom they will support in this year's Governor's race. Another recent poll from the PPIC showed that 82 percent of Californians oppose reductions in K-12 schools to fix the budget deficit.

Yet, the devastating cuts to our students have left California's schools at the very bottom of all 50 states in staff-to-student ratios, and nearly last in the nation in per-pupil spending. School libraries have been virtually wiped out, while arts, music, sports, advanced placement and other essential programs have been eliminated from the curriculum. In addition, more than 23,000 teachers have received pink slips, along with nearly 10,000 school employees and 1,000 administrators.

California business leaders say the best way to improve our economy is to make sure we have a

University of California - Commission on the Future

UC Commission on the Future

How can the University of California best serve the state in the years ahead and maintain access, quality and affordability in a time of diminishing resources?

The UC Commission on the Future is addressing that question and others as it develops a vision for the future of the state's public research university – one that reaffirms UC's role in sustaining California's economic and cultural vitality, while recognizing that limited state funding will require creativity and new strategies to meet that mission.

The Commission and its five working groups – on the size and shape of UC, itseducation and curriculum, access and affordability, and funding andresearch strategies – are considering, among other issues:

What is the right size and shape of the University going forward? Where should it grow, or should it?
What educational delivery models will both maintain quality and improve efficiency for UC's future?
How can UC maximize traditional and alternative revenue streams in support of its mission?

The first round of recommendations from the working groups will go to the Commission in late March. The working groups will continue to develop and analyze additional recommendations that will be presented to the Commission in June and reviewed by the UC community and the public before the Commission concludes its deliberations and presents a final round of recommendations to Regents in the fall.

Commissioners are drawing on expertise both inside and outside of the University. Ideas and feedback through this site are welcome as the discussion progresses.

News: 'Grossing Up': Equity or Bias? - Inside Higher Ed

'Grossing Up': Equity or Bias?

January 29, 2010

Syracuse University may be on the cutting edge of promoting equity for its gay and lesbian employees. Some of the university's straight employees, however, say Syracuse needs to focus its limited funds on benefits for everyone -- and recognize that it can't be held responsible for the inequity of marriage laws in the United States.

The battle is over "grossing up" -- a human resources term for paying someone on top of salary levels so that the employee takes home the full salary amount. So if someone would owe $10,000 on a $50,000 salary, grossing up would mean paying that person $60,000 (plus whatever tax is needed on the extra $10,000 and so forth) so that $50,000 becomes take-home pay.

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Syracuse plans to pay $1,000 each to its gay and lesbian employees who use the university's domestic partner program to provide health insurance for their partners. While health insurance benefits for employees and their spouses and children are not taxable under federal law, health insurance that an employee receives for a partner who is not a spouse recognized under state law is taxable. So even though Syracuse has tried to be equitable by offering partner benefits, the university's gay employees have pointed out that they were not really being treated the same way as married opposite-sex couples.

Syracuse isn't even fully grossing up, because $1,000 will probably not cover the extra tax that some employees pay. But the proposed benefit -- even though the money involved is likely equivalent to a rounding error in the university's $113 million benefits budget -- has become

The Educated Reporter: Four-day weeks: the practicalities.

Four-day weeks: the practicalities.

by Linda Perlstein

My child is not even 2 and I am already looking forward to his public education starting—not just because he’ll, like, learn stuff, but also because I will save a lot on child care costs. Sorry if that sounds crass, but there you have it.

Were Milo’s school district to go from five days a week to four, though, I could figure out a way to get him cared for on that odd day. Many more people are not that lucky and absolutely depend on public school to keep their children enriched and protected while they work. Technically, I suppose this Illinois House move toward allowing four-day weeks can’t be challenged academically, because the same amount of school hours would be required each year. (Still, it does fly in the face of a continued push for expanded learning time by a former colleague of theirs, last name Obama.)

What mystifies me about this is how these legislators think six-year-olds will spend their, say, Fridays if they are not in school. No matter your politics, you know this is a fact: Most of their parents will be at work. High

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Inside Chicago's school "Renaissance"

Inside Chicago's school "Renaissance"

Duncan/Daley's 2-tiered school system

"We didn't want to advertise what we were doing because we didn't want a bunch of people calling."—David Pickens, former top aide to Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan's favorite slogan this year is, "education is the civil rights issue of our generation." But the current investigation by Chicago's Inspector General, who interviewed Duncan, shows that what the former schools CEO and current secretary of education means by "civil rights" is special back-door admissions for the children of the clout-heavy, into the

State wins latest legal fight over bilingual education system | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

State wins latest legal fight over bilingual education system

By GARY SCHARRER
Austin Bureau

March 23, 2010, 9:41PM

AUSTIN — A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of Texas in a lawsuit challenging the state's bilingual education system, but the court invited those who brought the suit to retry the case.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge's ruling but called the performance of limited English proficient students in Texas “alarming” and ordered the lower court to determine the cause of poor student achievement and how best to fix the problem.

“The court of appeals didn't shut the door on us, but they put some heavy furniture in the way,” said David Hinojosa, a lawyer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the parties in the 2006 case, which was an offshoot of a suit first filed in 1970.

Limited English students perform much better in the early grades than they do in junior high and high school. Last year, for example, 75 percent of limited English proficient (LEP) students met all standards of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills test, known as the TEKS. But only 13 percent of 10th-grade limited English students met all of the TEKS test standards — compared to 57 percent for all 10th-graders and 73 percent for white 10th-graders.

‘Failing all over Texas'

Last year, nearly 800,000 Texas public school students were classified as limited English proficient, about 17 percent of the entire 4.7 million enrollment.

The 5th Circuit threw out a ruling by the late U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, in part, because he did not establish that the Texas Education Agency had failed

Chicago Schools Chief, Now an Obama Aide, Had V.I.P. List for Top Choices - NYTimes.com

In Chicago, Obama Aide Had V.I.P. List for Schools

By TAMAR LEWIN and MONICA DAVEY

Published: March 23, 2010

REPRINTS

When Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, his office kept a log of nearly 40 pages listing the local politicians and business people and others who sought help getting children into the city’s most selective public schools.

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Arne Duncan once kept a list of people seeking top schools.

Times Topic: Arne Duncan

According to an article Tuesday in The Chicago Tribune, which first obtained and reported on the confidential log, those who sought such help included 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, the State House speaker, the state attorney general, the former White House social secretary and a former United States senator.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said Tuesday that the log was a record of those who asked for help, and that neither Mr. Duncan nor the aide who maintained the list, David Pickens, ever pressured principals to accept a child. Rather, he said, the creation of the list was an effort to reduce pressure on principals.

“Arne Duncan asked David Pickens to respond to all of these requests, some of which came from him, some from lots of other people, as a way to try to manage a process that was putting a lot of pressure on principals,” said Peter Cunningham, who handled communications for Mr. Duncan in Chicago and is now assistant secretary of the

Judge orders state employees back to work - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

Judge orders state employees back to work

By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com

Published: Wednesday, Mar. 24, 2010 - 11:31 am

Last Modified: Wednesday, Mar. 24, 2010 - 11:40 am

An Alameda County judge has ordered furloughed state employees in nearly 70 departments to return to a regular work schedule next month, but he spared the state from immediately paying hundreds of millions of dollars in back pay while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeals the ruling.

Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the state's largest civil service union, figures Roesch's decision affects about 53,000 of its 95,000 members.

Judge Frank Roesch's decision this morning underscored his Dec. 31 ruling that Schwarzenegger should not have furloughed

On-time graduation rates still look grim | Philadelphia Public School Notebook

On-time graduation rates still look grim

by Paul Socolar on Mar 24 2010 Posted in Breaking news

The Notebook's upcoming April edition on the city's continuing dropout crisis will report a 56 percent on-time graduation rate for the class of 2009 (students who entered 9th grade for the first time in 2005). Disappointingly, that's down one point from the previous year.

But that citywide on-time graduation rate figure does not capture the vast differences in graduation rates among schools, with percentages at Masterman, CAPA, and GAMP in the high 90s, while South Philadelphia and Kensington Culinary have percentages in the 20s.

At 22 of the District's neighborhood high schools, less than half of what should have been the class of 2009 actually graduated by 2009.

The rates shown here are "cohort graduation rates for the class of 2009, with students attributed to the school where they started 9th grade in 2005.

School	Grad. rate
Masterman	99.1%
Creative And Performing Arts	95.5%