5 Bay Area schools off worst-in-state list

5 Bay Area schools off worst-in-state list

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, March 12, 2010

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Two San Francisco high schools were removed from the list of the 5 percent lowest-performing schools in the state Thursday - a welcome reprieve, but one that will cost them up to $6 million each.

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Burton and Thurgood Marshall academic high schools were dropped from the list after a California Board of Education vote Thursday allowing a technical change in how middle and high schools were chosen.

Of the 188 schools originally on the list released Monday, 37 were removed and replaced by 37 other schools, the vast majority in Southern California. The change leaves San Francisco with 10 district schools that are designated as among the worst in the state.

"I am completely euphoric," said Thurgood Marshall Principal Guillermo Morales, adding that his staff members cried when they learned earlier this week that they were on the list. "You take it very personally."

The schools on the state's final list will have to implement one of four drastic reform options: closure, conversion to a charter, replacement of the principal and half the staff, or a massive makeover starting with a new principal.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/11/BAMM1CEGOL.DTL#ixzz0hy5DI1yD

FAME School Gets Extension of Its Charter Despite Audit - NYTimes.com

FAME School Gets Extension of Its Charter Despite Audit - NYTimes.com

FAME School Gets Extension of Its Charter Despite Audit

Brian L. Frank for The New York Times

Shikeba Mehmood, center, takes a break with her friends during recess at the FAME charter school, which serves many Muslim students.

By CAROL POGASH

Published: March 11, 2010

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A Fremont charter school that was the subject of a highly critical state audit will be allowed to operate, despite a continuing review by the Alameda County district attorney’s office.

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Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Maram Alaiwat, the director of FAME, has come under scrutiny.

The Alameda County Board of Education voted 5 to 0 Tuesday night, with two members absent, to extend the school’s charter for five years, regardless of the concerns expressed by the Alameda school superintendent that the school’s director may have engaged in unethical and inappropriate behavior.

Those facts, seemingly at odds, underscore the unusual status of charter schools. Intended as laboratories for educational innovation, they have broad latitude in many of their operations, and the authorities are often unclear or in disagreement about the extent of their oversight powers. The case of the FAME Public Charter School — its formal name is Families of Alameda for Multi-Cultural/Multi-Lingual Education — illustrates the bureaucratic no man’s land occupied by the schools.

Last year, state auditors pinpointed dozens of irregularities, including unusually high compensation of more than $336,663 for FAME’s director, Maram Alaiwat, for whom the school also bought a $75,000 Mercedes. In interviews with The New York Times, former employees have described a climate of intimidation punctuated by capricious firings, and a purchasing process so haphazard that textbook

Students caught in middle of fight | www.simivalleyacorn.com | Simi Valley Acorn

Students caught in middle of fight | www.simivalleyacorn.com | Simi Valley Acorn

Students caught in middle of fight

It was sad to see members of the education community having to hit the streets last week in protest of the state’s budget cuts. We feel their pain and wish the demonstrations weren’t necessary. Unfortunately, as the cuts continue, more protests could be in the works.

Recently, some students have become involved in the Sacramento-bashing, and while we defend the right of anyone in the country to take a stand—especially the young people who we don’t want to be apathetic—we doubt that a 6-year-old wearing a T-shirt with a political message can be taken seriously.

With $17 billion in lost revenue for California’s public schools during the recession, there’s no question that our kids are being impacted. We can only count the ways. But is it right to use students as ammunition in the fight?

When teachers and administrators protest state budgets, they’re fighting to protect their own turf as much as anything. And as the education debate drones on, the “don’t hurt our children” trump card seems to get played over and over again. It’s wearing thin.

By and large, students belong in the classroom, not in the middle of a complicated political fray about which they know little. A student only knows that his favorite teacher might be laid off, not that a long history of financial missteps by both the teachers union and Sacramento has led to the current state of affairs.

The blame for education budget cuts shouldn’t be placed entirely in the legislators’ lap. CalSTRS, the California State Teachers Retirement System, has been taxing the system for years. And the teachers union, until recently, has rarely seen a year without salary and benefit increases of some kind.

If the Democrats and Republicans in Sacramento—and local educators and union leaders—cannot come to terms over how to allocate school funds, that’s one thing, but please leave our young people out of the fight. Students shouldn’t become pawns so that the power brokers can score

American schools will have new standards

American schools will have new standards

March 11, 6:12 PMLA Public Schools ExaminerRosa Nava

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Do you hear that? It's the sound of the federal government and its cavalry of education consultants on its way to rescue the broken American public school system with an arsenal of new national academic standards. The standards described as "challenging" were recently drafted and unveiled by a panel which convened under the auspices of the nation's governors and state superintendents. The American Federation of Teachers has already viewed the draft and, with its early endorsement and full support, will help siphon standards to all states rather swiftly. President Obama approves of the efforts initiated by governors, which includes participation of educators; it won't be long before the new national standards show up in classrooms in grades k-12.

The early draft already made public will be fine-tuned over the coming months and, upon final approval in April, will then be xeroxed to all states for use. Alaska and Texas did not participate in the efforts to establish national standards choosing, instead, to keep theirs as-is. Some states will execute the standards quickly, while others, such as California, may delay implementation because of approval procedures which differ from state to state. States who wish to opt out of the national standards will face no penalties. In other words, no state will be sent to the principal's office.

What do these new, advanced standards look like? Well, they are described as "concepts to be learned" rather than specific goals in a specific curriculum. It all seems familiar and yet the st

Epoch Times - LA Unified School District Subject to Civil Rights Review for English Learner Students

Epoch Times - LA Unified School District Subject to Civil Rights Review for English Learner Students

LA Unified School District Subject to Civil Rights Review for English Learner Students

By Shahrzad Noorbaloochi
Epoch Times StaffCreated: Mar 11, 2010Last Updated: Mar 11, 2010

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The Department of Education stated yesterday that the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would be performing an assessment of the civil rights of English Learner (EL) students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The assessment will be the first official civil rights action that the Department of Education will have undertaken to ensure that schools are complying with federal laws on ensuring the civil rights of students.

The review is meant to assess whether EL students are receiving effective education in EL classes in the LAUSD, a district which is home to a great number English learner students. The main focus of the review will be to evaluate whether current EL development programs in LAUSD schools are effective and provide students with access to core curriculum content in a meaningful way. It will also assess whether communication with student’s parents is sufficient and effective in fostering students’ educational progress.

According to a study published in October 2009 by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (TPRI) at University of Southern California, nearly two-thirds of the entire population in LAUSD were English learners at one point. Of these students, 30 percent were not reclassified into non-EL classes until the eighth grade and 29 percent were never reclassified as English-proficient.

This high rate, the study concludes, cannot plausibly be due to the lack of cognitive skills and ability among these students, stating, “some may assert that cognitive skills or ability are affecting learning outcomes. However, this is not plausible; a rate of 29 percent defies the normal distribution of cognitive skills that education researchers assume in any given population, and research suggests that ELs need five to seven years to learn English with native fluency.”

Federal Education Officials Probe Los Angeles Teaching of English-Learners | USA | English

Federal Education Officials Probe Los Angeles Teaching of English-Learners | USA | English

Federal Education Officials Probe Los Angeles Teaching of English-Learners

Mike O'Sullivan | Los Angeles11 March 2010

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Los Angeles school superintendent Ramon Cortines, 02 Mar 2010

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The US Department of Education has announced an investigation into the teaching of English-language learners in Los Angeles public schools. These students, who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, make up one-third of the LA school population. The investigation is the first of a number of civil rights actions planned for local school systems around the United States.

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Just days ago US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan went to Selma, Alabama, to announce that his department would step up enforcement of federal civil rights laws to ensure that students of all backgrounds have equal access to a good education. The location of the announcement, in the Southern city of Selma, was symbolic. It was the site of a clash between