Understand the Teacher Layoff Deal: A Reader’s Guide - Voice of San Diego: Education

Understand the Teacher Layoff Deal: A Reader’s Guide - Voice of San Diego: Education:

Understand the Teacher Layoff Deal: A Reader’s Guide

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  Photo by Will Carless

  Union President Bill Freeman (center) stands alongside San Diego Unified students and discusses the deal with the district.

Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2012 5:04 pm | Updated: 5:07 pm, Thu Jul 5, 2012.

• By WILL CARLESS

So, the San Diego Unified School District and its biggest labor union, the San Diego Education Association, have a deal.

The tentative agreement finalized last week will prevent more than 1,000 teacher layoffs, but could also result in the school year being shortened by as much as three additional weeks.

The deal’s a big one. Not just because it gets the district out of its latest financial bind, but also because it marks a significant change in direction for a powerful union that for years has been unwilling even to talk about helping the district out.

To understand the deal itself, its possible impacts, and why it marks such a historic moment for district-union relations, we’ve created this handy three-step guide:

Step One: What The Deal Says about the Union’s New Approach

The tentative agreement was approved overwhelmingly by educators last week, and it marked 

Was Philadelphia’s Superintendent Search a Dog and Pony Show? | Chalk and Talk

Was Philadelphia’s Superintendent Search a Dog and Pony Show? | Chalk and Talk:

Was Philadelphia’s Superintendent Search a Dog and Pony Show?

by Lisa Haver

The SRC still lacks transparency, and should be replaced with a locally elected school board.      

When it comes to transparency, the School Reform Commission is still not making the grade.  

Commissioner Wendell Pritchett, in a recent School Reform Commission meeting, declared that principals are “the most important people” in the Philadelphia School District.  PSD administrators have also argued that having a good teacher is the most important factor in a child’s success in school.  Baffling, then, that the SRC commissioners made a deliberate decision to exclude teachers and principals from the Superintendent Selection Committee.

It seems clear now that the nine community meetings held last winter by the SRC were designed to present the illusion that the public actually had anything to say about this important decision. The agenda for these meetings allotted almost 90 

Follow the Money in Philadelphia « Diane Ravitch's blog

Follow the Money in Philadelphia « Diane Ravitch's blog:

Follow the Money in Philadelphia

by dianerav

One man and one foundation decides what’s good for Philadelphia. One sharp-eyed investigative reporter learned the details.
That foundation–the William Penn Foundation–used to be concerned about equitable funding for the children and public schools of Philadelphia.
No longer.
The William Penn Foundation brought in the Boston Consulting Group to develop a plan to redesign the 

Schools Matter: The Astonishing Increase in Testing

Schools Matter: The Astonishing Increase in Testing:

The Astonishing Increase in Testing

by skrashen

Sent to the New York Times, July 6, 2012

There is little reason to celebrate waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (“No Child’ Law Whittled Down by White House,” July 6).
NCLB’s “obsessive focus on test results” will be much worse under new regulations: The new Common Core Standards calls for an astonishing increase in testing. 
NCLB requires standardized tests in math and reading at the end of the school year in grades 3-8 and once in high school. This will be expanded to testing in more subjects (social studies, science and maybe more), and in more grade levels. There will also be interim tests given during the year and there may be pretests in the fall to measure growth through the school year. 
This means about a 20-fold increase over NCLB, more testing than has ever been seen on this planet. 
There is no evidence that all this testing will improve things. In fact, the evidence we have now strongly suggests 

Largest California College May Soon Be Shut Down:

Largest California College May Soon Be Shut Down

July 5, 2012

California's largest college may lose its accreditation and be forced to close its doors if it does not address a number of major issues.

As reported by SF Gate, City College of San Francisco, which serves 90,000 students across its nine campuses and hundreds of instructional sites, has until March 15 to address 14 major problems that have been identified by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. In a 66-page report, the commission found issues such as weak leadership at all levels and failure to manage and react to reduced funding. According to ABC7 News, most of the issues were money-related; for instance, lack of budget planning, forecasting and managing buildings. SF Gate also reported that the college spends 92 percent of its budget on salaries and benefits.

According to San Jose Mercury News, Barbara Beno, president of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, wrote that funding is "inadequate to support the mission of the college as it is currently conceived."

SF Gate pointed out, however, that Beno did not say that reduced state funding was the cause of CCSF's problems as many other California colleges have lost millions of dollars in recent years and 

‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com

‘No Child Left Behind’ Whittled Down Under Obama - NYTimes.com:

‘No Child’ Law Whittled Down by White House

By MOTOKO RICH

Published: July 6, 2012

In just five months, the Obama administration has freed schools in more than half the nation from central provisions of the No Child Left Behind education law, raising the question of whether the decade-old federal program has been essentially nullified.

On Friday, the Department of Education plans to announce that it has granted waivers releasing two more states, Washington and Wisconsin, from some of the most onerous conditions of the signature Bush-era legislation. With this latest round, 26 states are now relieved from meeting the lofty — and controversial — goal of making all students proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Additional waivers are pending in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

“The more waivers there are, the less there really is a law, right?” said Andy Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

While No Child Left Behind has been praised for forcing schools to become more accountable for the education of poor and minority children, it has been derided for what 

More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty « School Finance 101

More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty « School Finance 101:

More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty

by schoolfinance101

I’m a little late in pouncing on this one. JerseyJazzMan beat me to the punch with some relevant points.  A short while back, the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed by Deborah Kenny, CEO of New York based charter chainHarlem Village Academies. Kenny’s op-ed purported to explain why charter schools are successful.  Of course, we could spend all day on that contention alone, since it is relatively well understood that charter results have been mixed at best. Indeed, I have explained in my published work and in blog posts that the track record for certain charter chains and in certain settings seems stronger than in others.
Here is how Deborah Kenny explained why charters succeed (implicitly where traditional public schools do not):

Critics claim that charter schools are successful only because they cherry-pick students, because they have smaller class sizes, or because motivated parents apply for charter lotteries and non-

 

Daily Kos: Workingman's Constitution

Daily Kos: Workingman's Constitution:

Workingman's Constitution

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is the title of this important New York Times op ed by William Forbath, who teaches history and law at the University of Texas.
Forbath points out that in both the opinion for the Court by John Roberts on ACA and the dissent by the other four conservatives, there is a vision of America, and a "doctrinal and rhetorical" line of attack against the policies of the New Deal and the Great Society.
And yet, that is almost certainly a misreading of the intent of Founders such James Madison, and ignores a broad sweep of our history.
Let me start with Forbath's opening paragraph:

WORK and opportunity, poverty and dependency, material security and insecurity: for generations of reformers, the constitutional importance of these subjects was self-evident. Laissez-faire government, unchecked corporate power and the deprivations and inequalities they bred weren’t 

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A big push for unity at the NEA meeting

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: A big push for unity at the NEA meeting:

A big push for unity at the NEA meeting

by Mike Klonsky

(F. Klonsky pic)

I'm back at it after a nice getaway to blazing hot Lake Geneva (109 degrees). That's Wisconsin, not Switzerland for those who don't know me.  Got a chance to spend time in the cool lake waters and to catch up a bit on my reading. 

Brother Fred is also back from an equally hot D.C. and the NEA Representative Assembly, a great exercise in union democracy -- and we all know how messy that can be. You can read Fred's blog to get a great first hand account of the RA goings on. His last few posts are especially important.

Overall, this year's RA was significant in many ways. Set against the backdrop of the continued assault by the one-percenters, on teachers, their unions and public education in general, the assembly of more than 9,000 teachers was able to find consensus around some important resolutions. Not so much around others -- not 

Zoinks! Louisiana legislator thought state voucher program for religious education meant only for Christian schools | Pam's House Blend

Zoinks! Louisiana legislator thought state voucher program for religious education meant only for Christian schools | Pam's House Blend:

Zoinks! Louisiana Legislator Thought State Voucher Program for Religious Education Meant Only for Christian Schools

by Pam Spaulding

Today in fundie dumb@ssery, for sure. Louisiana State Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Watson), like many bible-thumpers who believe your tax dollars should fund their “Christian” indoctrination centers schools, originally supported Governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher program to send students to schools run by religious groups included non-Christian faiths, specifically Islam. Oh noes!

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.
Hodges, who represents District 64 on the northwest side of the parish, and another freshman lawmaker in the local delegation, Clay Schexnayder from Dist. 81 in the southwest, voted with the 

Missouri Education Watchdog: Missing The Point In Carson's Comment

Missouri Education Watchdog: Missing The Point In Carson's Comment:

Missing The Point In Carson's Comment

by Anngie

Indiana Representative Andre Carson is receiving heat for his comments regarding education in a May 26th speech. The video has been posted on Breitbart's Big Government site and has received the vitriol of the right lashing out against this statement,

“America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged and where the foundation is the koran.”

PopoutGiven Carson's history with Islam, the is pushback understandable. He converted to Islam in the early 20's under the tutelage of Imam Muhammad Siddeeq who is a former assistant to Louis Farrakhan and also counseled Mike Tyson. Though he tries to distance himself from Nation of Islam leaders like Farrakhan, the remnants of strings can still be seen on him.  Many will recall that he is the one who emphatically claimed that 

Hechinger Report | California school lunches missing the mark for nutrition standards

Hechinger Report | California school lunches missing the mark for nutrition standards:

California school lunches missing the mark for nutrition standards

by Eleanor Yang Su

Cafeteria worker Sophia Villareal gets student’s names as kids get their at Brockton Elementary School Monday, June 29, 2012 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Photo by Richard Hartog/California Watch)

California Watch

In fall 2008, state regulators began a routine analysis of the school lunches served in Wheatland, a rural community an hour north of Sacramento.
Reviewers found typical cafeteria fare – chicken nuggets, hamburgers, spaghetti with breadsticks and a salad bar. But the nutritional levels were among the worst in the state, raising red flags for high fat content, low fiber and excessive sodium.
Federal regulations limited fat to 30 percent of lunch calories, but some Wheatland School District students received meals that had 51 percent of their calories from fat and contained more than 50 grams of fat.
Wheatland officials say they have since made improvements, but their struggles and violations are part of a 

George Will’s Surprising Take on the Chicago Battle « Diane Ravitch's blog

George Will’s Surprising Take on the Chicago Battle « Diane Ravitch's blog:

George Will’s Surprising Take on the Chicago Battle

by dianerav

George Will is confused about who is right and who is wrong in the battle between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Teachers Union.
And that’s a good thing, because one would expect this doughty conservative to stand firmly, loudly, and uncompromisingly in opposition to the union.
But he didn’t.
Granted, he doesn’t know that CTU is part of the American Federation of Teachers, not the National Education Association. And he doesn’t know that the name of the NEA was settled in 1857, not just recently to deceive people and “blur the fact that it is a teachers’ union.”
Granted, he thinks the auto industry was fatally wounded by its unions, not by its shortsighted managers, who

Let’s Hear It for Stability

by dianerav

Corporate reformers love the idea of creative disruption. They think that closing schools and opening schools is a bold, innovative stroke.
It’s never their own children who lose their school.
It’s never their own community.
They never ask those involved, because when they do, the people say a loud “No.”
People have many reasons to care about a community school, not just its test scores.
But corporate reformers would like everyone to shop for their school the way they shop for shoes, with no loyalty,

The Only Egg in NYC’s Basket Is Broken

by dianerav

After ten years of mayoral control of its public schools, New York City has only one strategy to “reform” the schools: Closing existing schools and replacing them with many new small schools.
You would think that after ten years with one person in charge, holding the unlimited power to do whatever he wants, the schools would now all be successful–that is, if he actually had a good idea about how to improve the schools.
But no, the game of closing schools continues, meaning that every year a new group of schools will be single out for a shutdown. As readers of this blog know, the New York City Department of Education (i.e., Mayor Bloomberg) decided to shut down 33 schools this year. When powerful politicians in Queens complained loudly,

The Scarlet Letter in New Orleans

by dianerav

I received an email from an educator in New Orleans who read my post about the proposal by a management consultant to require low-performing charter schools to  post their grades on the wall and on their clothing. The informant said  that the proposal to the Algiers Charter Schools Association was not merely theoretical. It was already imposed at the McDonogh #32 charter school. He or she sent me two photographs: One showed the school’s letterhead, declaring it has a grade of F, the other showed a public banner with the school’s F grade and its goals for improvement boldly displayed.
I think most educators would consider this practice of public shaming to be a barbaric remnant of another century, not even the 20th century.
What next? Dunce caps for the children? Public dunking for the teachers? Enforced silence for all? No breakfast 

Twenty Miles: The impact of poverty and language barriers on educational performance - Wait, What?

Twenty Miles: The impact of poverty and language barriers on educational performance - Wait, What?:

Twenty Miles: The impact of poverty and language barriers on educational performance

by jonpelto

A recent story in the Weston-Redding-Easton patch explained that Weston, Connecticut “is the second wealthiest school district in the United States.”

The story is a reminder that just a few months ago, one of the corporate organizations supporting Governor Malloy’s “education reform” package claimed that poverty was not a factor in school performance.

Instead of recognizing the impact poverty and language barriers actually have on educational outcomes, the “education reformers” claimed that if we just hold teachers 

Who will pay the price for what is happening in Bridgeport….

by jonpelto

First there was the announcement that there was a $12 million deficit in Bridgeport’s school budget.

Then the central office was “re-organized” and some programs were changed and the deficit, they said, was down to $3.5 million.

Governor Malloy’s administration then offered to cover that problem in return for allowing Malloy’s Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, to choose who runs Bridgeport’s schools.  The City and illegal Board of Education jumped at that offer so the budget problems are gone… or are they?

“Reforming” Connecticut’s schools are a top priority.  In fact, what little additional funding the State of Connecticut is making available to Bridgeport must be used for “reform” 

Big money aids Washington state charter bid - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

Big money aids Washington state charter bid - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:

Big money aids Washington state charter bid

by Valerie Strauss

Three times the voters of Washington state have rejected charter schools — in 1996, 2000 and 2004 — but a new bid to win approval has big money behind it.
Today is the deadline to turn in petitions to get a charter initiative on the November ballot, and the people behind the effort have had plenty of money to use — donated to the cause by, among others, Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
Read full article >>

Why the Gates Foundation is so puzzling

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University and author of the bestselling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” This first appeared on her blog.
Read full article >>

The difference between live and taped lectures

by Valerie Strauss

This was written by Arthur Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

By Arthur Camins
Some intended learning sticks with us, some slips away into oblivion and most hovers somewhere in between. The determinants are nuanced and complex. In all of the current enthusiasm for so-called flipped classrooms and the wonders of the Khan Academy’s online lectures these distinction are often overlooked.
Read full article >>

No Child Left Behind Waivers Granted To More Than Half Of U.S. States

No Child Left Behind Waivers Granted To More Than Half Of U.S. States:

No Child Left Behind Waivers Granted To More Than Half Of U.S. States

by Joy Resmovits

The states of Washington and Wisconsin will be allowed to wiggle out of No Child Left Behind's rigorous test requirements, joining two dozen other U.S. states that have already agreed to waivers that require them to adopt the Obama administration's education agenda instead, the U.S. Education Department will announce today.

The new waivers mean more than half the states have now won exemptions from the 2002 law, a signature initiative of George W. Bush's presidency that required standardized testing of students and a system of punishments based on the test scores.

While advocates credit the law for exposing test score gaps between different groups of students, even the law's original cheerleaders acknowledge its "failing" schools label is too broad, the tutoring remedies it mandates rarely boost student achievement, and the 2014 goal that 100 percent of U.S. students be deemed "proficient" in 

I Feel A Great Disturbance In The Force.southbronxschool.com

http://www.southbronxschool.com:

I Feel A Great Disturbance In The Force

by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)

I really hope I am not coming across as beating a dead horse. If I am, I apologize, but something is really bothering me.

Right now a friend of mine is sitting in the new fangled Rubber Room accused of corporal punishment. Just one allegation. A bullshit allegation. That is all I can share presently. As of now, I can't disclose any more details.

Now here is where it might seem as if I am beating the proverbial dead horse. As many readers of my blog know I started out writing this blog in August 2008 to keep a journal as to the goings on at my school, PS 154 in the Bronx. I wrote extensively about an assistant principal at the time that I named Numb Nuts. Several months ago I shared his name, Derrick Townsend on the blog, and the fact I went on FOX 5 to out him as a serial physical abuser of students. Back in April when Chaz was being lambasted in the Daily News, I compared the hypocrisy of the DOE vis a vis 

Los Angeles Unified School District, Proposition 39, Co-location Issues & Charter Schools | K-12 News Network

Los Angeles Unified School District, Proposition 39, Co-location Issues & Charter Schools | K-12 News Network:

Los Angeles Unified School District, Proposition 39, Co-location Issues & Charter Schools

by admin

To my great surprise, LAUSD has pushed back on a judge’s ruling that the district give facilities to charter schools seeking more space in existing public schools. Of the judge’s order, which would affect up to 45 charter schools, Superintendent of Los Angeles public schools John Deasy and the LAUSD school board say

… that it would require L.A. Unified to displace students from their neighborhood schools, forcing them to be bused elsewhere, and would dramatically skew class-size ratios in favor of charter students.
Under the order, the ratio of elementary school students to class size would be 24 to 1 on the district side of the school but 15 to 1 on the charter school side, said LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. Facilities such as computer labs, parent centers and specially designated classrooms