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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Christopher Mahoney: Kids to California Lawmakers: Spend a Day in a Public School

Christopher Mahoney: Kids to California Lawmakers: Spend a Day in a Public School
Christopher Mahoney

Christopher Mahoney

Director of the San Carlos Charter Learning Center

Posted: April 12, 2010 03:22 PM






It is now the Dark Ages for California public schools. While some wealthy districts in the state can choose to spend close to $23,000 per child, the majority of those relying on state funding are limited to a paltry $5,000 per-child allotment. And so in most places, classrooms are overflowing, exceeding 40 kids in a room in secondary schools and 30 kids in grades K-5. For this reason, a group of children, parents, teachers and administrators is calling upon all California state lawmakers to spend a day in a public school. We would like the people making decisions about educational spending to see the devastating impact of their choices firsthand.

Some will say that the economic crisis has had an impact on all aspects of California's economy, so schools should take a hit along with other sectors and state workers. But public education is to our society what research and development are to any company. Regardless of how difficult the economic climate is, companies continue to fund research and development so they can remain competitive. If we systemically shortchange a generation of kids in California, then California's economy will drop to second-rate status, crippling the state for decades to come. Think about it: Why are we choosing to spend more money on prisoners than on the future of California?

What affects California affects all of the United States. California's output stands at $1.9 trillion annually; it has by far the nation's most dominant state economy. Past investment in public schools yielded the brainpower and skills that powered this success. Conversely, California's diminishing commitment to the schools will have a negative impact on the entire country. This will be irreparable for at least a generation.

I believe in free-market competition within public education. The cornerstone for the future of the public schools will be innovation and an entrepreneurial approach to operations. But we can't make public education successful if California's lawmakers don't have a clear understanding of what is taking place in the schools every day. This is why May 15- 17,

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Analysis: Teacher Pensions Underfunded by $900 Billion - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Analysis: Teacher Pensions Underfunded by $900 Billion - Teacher Beat - Education Week

Analysis: Teacher Pensions Underfunded by $900 Billion

By Stephen Sawchuk on April 13, 2010 12:02 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Teachers' pension plans are underfunded to the tune of an eye-popping $933 billion, according to an analysis released this morning by the Manhattan Institute, a think tank. That's close to three times more than official state government estimates of these defined-benefit plans' liabilities, the paper states.
The authors attribute the gap to accounting rules for public pensions that permit actuaries to "discount" future obligations based on estimates of how the investments will fare over time. Unlike in private-sector plans, they aren't required to take into account how risky those investments are, and generally assume a strong stock performance. (Private pensions, the authors state, are often discounted at rates close to the yield of high-quality corporate bonds.)
If the market doesn't perform as desired, states will have to meet the gap between projections and actual benefit costs by raising taxes and, potentially, by scaling back other education services to meet the pension obligations. Think larger classes, fewer teachers, and less money for instruction.
The report adjusts the calculations of teacher-pension plans' present liabilities on
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LULAC Opposes Merit-Pay Bill for Teachers in Florida - Learning the Language - Education Week

LULAC Opposes Merit-Pay Bill for Teachers in Florida - Learning the Language - Education Week

LULAC Opposes Merit-Pay Bill for Teachers in Florida

By Mary Ann Zehr on April 13, 2010 11:50 AM | No Comments
Thirty percent of teachers in Miami-Dade public schools stayed home today to protest a proposed law that would create a merit-pay system for teachers and get rid of tenure for teachers hired in the future, according to the Associated Press.
If Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, signs the bill, teachers' merit raises would be based on how much their students' scores on standardized tests improved, according to the AP.
Florida's chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a Latino advocacy group, opposes the bill because the organization says it would hurt teachers of English-language learners, according to a blog at the Orlando Sentinel. LULAC argues in a resolution that the bill would unfairly punish
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Overrun by Charters � The Quick and the Ed

Overrun by Charters � The Quick and the Ed

Overrun by Charters

April 13th, 2010 | Category: Educational Choice



DC’s local NPR station aired an interesting piece yesterday about one neighborhood in DC that is feeling overrun by charter schools. The neighborhood currently has seven charter schools located in it, including one that might be closed because of poor academic performance. The residents aren’t very happy about the concentration of charter schools–there are traffic issues, noise and trash from students to contend with, and occasional violence.
At a hearing of the DC Public Charter School Board, one resident demanded of the DCPCSB, “if the board considers other charter school applications, particularly in our neighborhood, we expect–repeat, we expect–that no more charter schools be located in the community.”
This raises an interesting question as the number of charter schools continues to expand in the city–whose job is it to ensure that schools are locating in the neighborhoods where they are needed and, alternately, are not over-concentrated in other parts of the city?
As the NPR piece states, school location is one consideration in the application process, so the DCPCSB is clearly paying attention to where a proposed charter school is planning to locate. And public hearings offer residents an opportunity to speak out. But is that sufficient? Charter school applications can be approved before a school finds a suitable facility (which is difficult), meaning that a school’s ultimate location may differ from it’s original proposed location.
The facilities challenge also means that market forces (i.e., where there is demand for a charter school) are insufficient to regulate school locations–school location isn’t just about student demand, it’s also about finding a building, transportation,

Assessing the “Race to the Test” Guidelines

by Bill Tucker
Last July I set out five “must-dos” for the administration’s $350 million “Race to the Test” competition. Ten months later, here’s my evaluation of the work in progress:
  • Use Assessment to Drive Support for “Fewer, Clearer, and Higher” Standards:Integrating the assessment conversation can strengthen both educator and political support for the common core. There is widespread agreement on the need to improve assessment, so the connection between improving assessment and “fewer, clearer, higher” should be explicit. If you want to assess more deeply and at a higher level of cognitive challenge, you’ll likely need more extended performance-like tasks (like NAEP Science 2009 or PISA). These take more time to assess and can be expensive — in other words, you need fewer. Clearer is also critical — if the standards cannot be clearly defined within the curriculum, then we end up with generic tests and weaker instruments.
Grade: A — Even skeptics agree that the standards are off to a promising start. Key to assessments is for
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UC Berkeley bloated, wasteful, consultants say

UC Berkeley bloated, wasteful, consultants say


UC Berkeley bloated, wasteful, consultants say

Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Brant Ward / The Chronicle
The Campanile on the UC Berkeley campus.
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For a world-class university studded with Nobel laureates and innovative research, UC Berkeley manages its finances a bit like a sloppy undergrad, a new report suggests.
The campus could save about $75 million a year by streamlining purchases, concentrating job duties and laying off "redundant" managers, according to consultants hired last fall to help the school become a leaner operation.
"This kind of change is hard," said campus Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary, who is overseeing the Operational Excellence Project. "We will get pushback in certain quarters. But the fact that the state has so consistently disinvested in our organization ... most people really appreciate the need to change."
Yeary said UC Berkeley's plan is not only to push the state for more education funding - which has dropped by half since 2002 to $232 million in inflation-adjusted dollars - but to do a better job with the money the university already has.
The campus has five big areas of bloat, according to Bain & Co., the Massachusetts consulting firm being paid $3 million to identify waste.
The biggest, say the consultants, is too many managers. The human resources


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/13/BAIH1CTI5M.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea#ixzz0kzstvCMH
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Education Week: NEA Plan for Rewriting NCLB Departs From Obama's

Education Week: NEA Plan for Rewriting NCLB Departs From Obama's


NEA Plan for Rewriting NCLB Departs From Obama's

By Stephen Sawchuk




The National Education Association has put forward its most detailed recommendations to date for the overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in what a union official calls a new approach for the federal law.
“We think there is a real opportunity for policymakers to change the framework of what’s in the statute,” said Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy and practice for the 3.2 million-member union. “I don’t think there was an appetite for doing that during the last time around. It probably doesn’t mean every single word [in ESEA] is going to change, but we’re using this as a way to start a discussion.”
The union’s close engagement in the law—even as the legislative window for moving a bill this year begins to close—stands in contrast to the rewrite that resulted in the current version of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in 2002. Teachers’ unions were widely considered to have been left out of that reauthorization. ("Unions' Positions Unheeded On ESEA," Nov. 6, 2002.)
“Even if they bring something to the Hill and it’s rejected, they have to keep fighting for it, for their constituency,” said Jack Jennings, the president of the Washington-based Center on Education Policy, a research group. “Activist teachers especially feel strongly and they want to get into detail on
Advocates Weigh Obama's Commitment to Early Ed.
Excitement cooled after a high-profile early-education proposal failed to gain traction, but hopes now turn to ESEA reauthorization. (April 12, 2010) | Comments (2)
Thousands of Miami-Dade Teachers Absent in Protest
Thirty percent of the district's teachers did not show up to school in response to a proposed law that would establish a merit pay system and do away with tenure for new teachers.
(April 13, 2010, AP)
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Report: California's spending transparency online lacking but 'emerging' | California Watch

Report: California's spending transparency online lacking but 'emerging' | California Watch

Report: California's spending transparency online lacking but 'emerging'

by Chase Davis
Although California earns low marks for its efforts to make state spending transparent on the Web, its work in recent years to make information about contractors and other state expenses searchable online earned it a place among the "emerging" states in the field, according to a study released this morning by the Public Interest Research Group.
The study lists California among 25 states whose efforts have improved in recent years and are poised to improve even more as the transparency movement continues to picks up steam nationwide. Seven states, including Illinois and Texas, were dubbed by the study to be leaders in the field. The other 18 states, which include Massachusetts and Washington, were considered lagging.
California scored points for its Web site disclosing contract expenditures, which was created last year by an executive order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A bill further bolstering state transparency was passed in
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NorthJersey.com: Teachers take off the gloves

NorthJersey.com: Teachers take off the gloves
Teachers take off the gloves
Friday, April 9, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY APRIL 10, 2010, 9:48 AM
BY PATRICIA ALEX
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER

Bergen County representatives of the state teachers union have ratcheted up the campaign against Governor Christie's agenda in a fiery memo that encourages members to "get some dirt" and "go public," and adds the education commissioner to the "attack list."

Gov. Chris Christie answers questions from students in classroom 306 at Montclair High School on March 30.
STAR LEDGER FILE PHOTO
Gov. Chris Christie answers questions from students in classroom 306 at Montclair High School on March 30.

But it's the memo's closing "prayer" that is sure to ignite controversy:

"Dear Lord … this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. … I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."

The memo, sent to locals in the county earlier this week and obtained by The Record on Thursday, is signed by New Jersey Education Association field representatives, including Joe Coppola, president of the Bergen County Education Association.

Coppola said the "prayer" was a joke and was never meant to be made public.

"Obviously, it's inappropriate," he said. "I would never wish anybody dead."

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Our views: Veto school bill (April 13) | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY

Our views: Veto school bill (April 13) | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY

Our views: Veto school bill (April 13)

Start over on sweeping education reforms

Gov. Charlie Crist should veto Senate Bill 6, the one-size-fits-all merit-pay plan for Florida teachers.


Not because merit pay plans are necessarily harmful to education. Plans designed with flexibility to fairly reward effective teachers can increase accountability and learning.
And not because the current system for firing ineffective teachers doesn’t need some fixing. It does. But SB 6 falls far short on setting up a fair reward system and punitively strips teachers of job protections.
A veto from Crist can force state lawmakers who refused to make needed changes to the bill, despite vocal opposition from the public, to go back to the drawing board and get it right.
The outcry came from many teachers, but also from conservatives such as Brevard County school board members Amy Kneessy and Andy Ziegler. Eleven Republican House members voted against SB 6, rightly fearing it would cause major new problems for schools.
Brevard’s GOP House delegation all voted yes, turning a deaf ear to constituents’ concerns the bill would do real damage to the classroom.
That’s regrettable.
For his part, Crist can expect harsh attacks from his own party and negative fallout for his U.S. Senate campaign if he wields the veto pen.
He shouldn’t let political considerations interfere with doing what’s right.
A veto from Crist should be the start of discussions over education reforms, with everyone at the table, including educators.
Problems that must be addressed in new reform proposals include:
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