Thursday, April 28, 2011

Did you know that California ranks 49th in the nation in its staff-per-student ratio?

EdSource | Staff-Per-Pupil Ratios in California 2008-09

Staff-Per-Pupil Ratios in California 2008-09

April 2011

In 2008–09, California ranked 36th in the country in per-pupil expenditures. The state’s modest per-pupil expenditures combined with high labor costs (for example, average teacher salaries in California were the third highest in the country in 2008–09) result in schools not being able to hire as many people.

Ratio of Staff to 1,000 Pupils by Position, Fall 2008-09

	California Rank in U.S.	U.S. Ratio	California Ratio	% of U.S. Ratio
Total Staff to Students	49	128.4	93.3	73%
All Professional (certified) Staff to Students	50	73.2	52.4	72%
Total District Staff (including classified staff)	36	6.6	5.5	83%
District Officials/Administrators Only	45	1.3	0.6	50%^*
Total School Staff (including classified staff)	49	97.8	71.3	73%
Certified School Staff Only	50	73.7	54.6	74%
School Principals & Asst. Principals	48	3.2	2.3	71%
Guidance Counselors	51	2.2	1.2	56%
Librarians	51	1.1	0.2	17%
All Teachers	50	65.4^†	48.0^†	73%
Elementary Teachers (grades 1-8)	34	52.1	48.3	93%
Secondary Teachers (grades 9-12)	51	82.9	43.8	53%

* Because unrounded numbers were used to calculate percentages, they might not match calculations based on the rounded numbers above. Using rounded numbers can particularly skew the results when the numbers are relatively small, such as for “district officials/administrators.”

† These numbers translate into a student/teacher ratio of 20.8 students to 1 teacher for California and 15.3 to 1 for the entire United States. Only Utah has a higher student/teacher ratio than California.

Notes: (1) The District of Columbia is included. (2) The numbers in this table are based on fall enrollment data and include pre-K public school students and their teachers. NCES estimated that there were 70,497 pre-K students and 3,749 pre-K teachers in California in 2008–09. If the pre-K students and teachers are not included, California’s student/teacher ratio is still 20.8. (3) The “total staff to students” row includes all district and school staff plus those who fall under the NCES category “All Other Support Staff.”

DATA: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2008–09, 1/24/11

Does Cross have the votes? « Fred Klonsky's blog

Does Cross have the votes?

by Fred Klonsky

Members of the Park Ridge Education Association met yesterday with State Senator Dan Kotowski who represents Park Ridge and the north west suburbs.

Kotowski is supportive of teachers and seemed surprised that our members did not agree with what our union leadership had done in negotiations around SB7.

That the leadership of the three teacher unions, the IEA, the IFT, and the CTU would agree to surrender basic contractual bargaining rights like seniority protection and strike notification without the consent or knowledge of the rank and file membership probably surprised him as much as it angered us.

But we did not linger long on that topic.

Our immediate concern was what the General Assembly might do to active and retired teacher pensions before

Help us reform NCLB now!

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This week we released our Parents Across America Blueprint for Revising NCLB.

Valerie Strauss featured the Blueprint on the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet with the comment: “If only President Obama would read this!"

Send a message to the President and Congress by signing our petition now!

Our blueprint includes the following reforms:

* Improving schools by means of evidence-based solutions backed by parents and other stakeholders, including class size reduction and more parent involvement in decision-making.
* Fewer standardized tests, elimination of high-stakes exams, and the right of parents to have their children opt out of these exams.
* Sufficient and equitable resources in all public schools, so that every child has the chance to receive a high-quality education.

We oppose:

* Vouchers, charter takeovers and other forms of school privatization that take resources from the schools attended by most students and put them into private hands, with little oversight.
* Policies that expand the use of testing in our schools, or use test scores to punish schools, teachers or students.
* Closing schools as an "improvement" strategy.
* Forcing states or districts to compete for federal funds. A quality education should be a right, not a race.

Please send a message to Obama, and to Congress, in support of the Parents Across America blueprint for reform by signing our petition.

Then follow up with a visit or a phone call to their offices. The bullet points above could be your talking points.

For their contact information, go to http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Ownership Society News

Ownership Society News

by Mike Klonsky

Vicki Phillips, director at Gates Foundation, said the partnership with Pearson was part of a “suite of investments.” -- New York Times

Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel warns city's arts community: "You don't live in a sacrifice-free zone" --Tribune

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The old (1974) Browns Ferry nuclear facility in northern Alabama remained "safely shut down" after it lost power following devastating storms in the area, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Valley Authority said Thursday's.Tornadoes actually knocked out power to three nuclear reactors in Alabama. But don't worry. NRC says nukes are stable. -- Reuters Oh yes, and TVA is adding satellite telephones and small portable generators

A parent’s point of view | Defend Wisconsin #WIUNION

A parent’s point of view | Defend Wisconsin

A parent’s point of view

by Defend Wisconsin

Before February, you could go to any school playground and hear parents discussing their kids, the weather, and maybe a little gossip. Once the Budget Repair Bill was introduced, though, talk got a little more serious – politics and the future of their children and their teachers.

“Prior to this series of events I was largely apathetic about politics but now I find myself unable to watch television other than the news,” said Brittany, a Madison public school parent. “Seeing how wrong one bad election can go has me feeling passionate about getting out the vote in a way I have never been before.”

“In the recent election I made sure to vote and encourage others to vote, as well,” Brittany said. “While financially I was unable to contribute, I shared information from progressive groups with people who were able to make contributions to campaigns and recall efforts.”

Brittany said that all the parents she talked to supported the teachers’ unions, because the unions helped good teachers stay in Wisconsin and good college students become teachers.

“Most of us were involved directly in protesting whenever we could,” Brittany said. “We also built a network

Your World News launches website | Dailycensored.com

Your World News launches website

Written by Danny WeilMediaApr 28, 2011

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In the ongoing fight against injustice, imperialism, and plunder (to name a few social maladies), access to information is a critical battle within this struggle. This is why the US corporate media, and their political partners, go out of their way to limit the range of Americans understanding of critical global issues. They do this by way of flat out omission and/or the blatant misleading of news and information. The US corporate media is no ally to those who are social justice advocates—-the corporate media is beholden to their corporate mistresses. This is why truly independent and progressive media is essential if we are to engage the masses critically. Without this kind of engagement, it is that much more difficult to organize and mobilize them to demand social change that benefits the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized. This is why we created and developed the Your World News Media Collective—to help combat the government induced apathy.Your World News does not simply hide behind keyboards and computer screens. Your World News is a collective of activists who use the media as a tool to educate, galvanize, mobilize and, yes, organize communities towards tangible social justice centered work. We make every attempt to get out into the streets, with our boots on the ground, in and effort to join/create with movements, organize, protest, rally, as well as to help create steps towards eradicating social injustice. This media collective a tool, not the end all be all. There is no substitute for becoming actively

Schools Matter: Weekend Readings

Weekend Readings

by Kenneth Libby

Bruce Baker has an important post about using free and reduced lunch measures in education studies.
Ed Fuller writes about the characteristics of students entering "high-performing" charter networks in Texas (KIPP, YES, IDEA). Bonus: he even follows Bruce's advice (above) on disaggregating by free lunch and reduced lunch!
Steve Hinnefeld covers the education happenings in Indiana in this recent post, "Indiana General Assembly to public schools: Drop dead". With the Wisconsin shenanigans, attention to all kinds of craziness in New Jersey, and Illinois deforms, the Hoosier state has not been in the spotlight. But it should - big (bad) things are happening there, and Hinnefeld covers it marvelously.
The Eduwonk writes about a new KIPP study - but forgets to include a disclosure stating that his consulting shop, Bellwether Education Partners, advises KIPP.
It turns out the Gates and Broad Foundations aren't just funding the neoliberal outfits - they're alsoshelling out millions to Jeb Bush's advocacy org, the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Jeb's org is an associate member of the State Policy Network - the same network that coordinates right-wing attacks on public schools with regularity.

Diane Ravitch: Standardized Testing Undermines Teaching : NPR

Ravitch: Standardized Testing Undermines Teaching

by NPR STAFF

Diane Ravitch is a historian of education and the former United States Assistant Secretary of Education. She currently teaches at New York University.

April 28, 2011

Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch was once an early advocate of No Child Left Behind, school vouchers and charter schools.

In 2005, she wrote, "We should thank President George W. Bush and Congress for passing the No Child Left Behind Act ... All this attention and focus is paying off for younger students, who are reading and solving mathematics problems better than their parents' generation."

But four years later, Ravitch changed her mind.

"I came to the conclusion ... that No Child Left Behind has turned into a timetable for the destruction of American public education," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I had never imagined that the test would someday be turned into a blunt instrument to close schools — or to say whether teachers are good teachers or not — because I always knew children's test scores are far more complicated than the way they're being received today."

No Child Left Behind required schools to administer yearly state standardized tests. Student progress on those tests was measured to see if the schools met their Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals. Schools missing those goals for several years in a row could be restructured,

Louisiana Students March On Baton Rouge, Demanding Accurate Science Classes | Change.org News

Louisiana Students March On Baton Rouge, Demanding Accurate Science Classes

by Megan Cottrell · April 28, 2011

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Louisiana high school student Zack Kopplin has one goal: torepeal the Louisiana Science Education Act. Quite the opposite of its name, the bill, passed in 2008, gives public school teachers the ability to teach creationism in their science classes.

Even beyond issues of separation of church and state, Kopplin, a senior, understands the practical impact of the bill on his fellow students.

"When Louisiana students apply to college, people won't know if that student was taught creationism in their science classes," says Kopplin. "Maybe they'll think they don't have the science background to get into college."

Today, Kopplin and his supporters will march on the state capitol in Baton Rouge, demanding that the law be repealed and that accurate, research-based science education be the only curriculum taught in Louisiana classrooms. He's enlisted the help of state senator Karen Carter Peterson, and started a petition on Change.org to rally Louisiana supporters.

But getting this law overturned is no easy task, especially when it was enacted with the help of a well-

Singapore’s surprising ‘desired’ education outcomes (including ‘a zest for life’) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Singapore’s surprising ‘desired’ education outcomes (including ‘a zest for life’)

by Valerie Strauss

It’s hard to go a few days without hearing somebody in the education world talk about how U.S. public schools are in trouble compared with some high-flying systems in countries including Finland, South Korea and Singapore.

In fact, Education Secretary Arne Duncan just said it again, on Wednesday, at a forum at a Montgomery County high school about the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. He said he’s been “spending more and more time

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