Friday, January 11, 2013

January 11th, 2013 | Add a Comment |
By John Fensterwald

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Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday proposed an unfamiliar budget for public education in the state – one with actual increases. His 2013-14 spending plan for K-12 schools includes a revision of his plan to reform the state’s convoluted, inequitable school finance system that lawmakers and a coalition of education groups rejected last year. Passing it would be a priority, Brown said.

Brown wants to increase overall spending for K-12 and community colleges in the 2013-14 fiscal year by 5 percent: $2.7 billion, which translates to $337 per student. Total spending would rise to $56.2 billion next year.

Brown said at a news conference Thursday that passing education finance reform would be a priority.

That growth in revenue, guaranteed by Proposition 98, together with extra money from the passage of Proposition 30 in November, would be split between continuing to pay off late payments to schools – part of the state’s “wall of debt” that Brown is determined to shrink rapidly – and phasing in a new funding system that would steer more money to low-income students, English

More money, more accountability for community colleges - by Kathryn Baron

by Kathryn Baron

Additional reporting by Sue Frey Gov. Brown’s spending plan for community colleges reflects the new focus in the state’s 112-campus community college system on increasing graduation and transfer rates through a combination of technology, smoother pathways to Cal State University and, for students, tough love. His budget would invest an additional $196.7 million in community colleges and leave it...

Perspectives on Governor Brown’s budget - by EdSource staff

by EdSource staff

The following are excerpts from statements issued by education leaders or from comments made in interviews with EdSource K-12 Schools I strongly support the student-weighted formula for determining how much money school districts should receive. Under this proposal, our district will receive new funds that allow us to address our structural deficit. While this may not allow any increases to...

Early childhood funding stays flat in governor’s budget - by Lillian Mongeau

by Lillian Mongeau

After years of funding cuts to early childhood programs, Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget would keep funding levels nearly the same as last year. “There was no restoration of the cuts from recent years, but no additional cuts,” said Rachel Ehlers of the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Brown’s budget allocates $2.2 billion, including designated federal funds, to cover child care and state...

School Tech Connect: I Cannot Write About Education Tonight

School Tech Connect: I Cannot Write About Education Tonight:

I Cannot Write About Education Tonight

by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Furman)

Way too tired. There's a lot going on-- I'd write about it but sometimes when you're fighting City Hall it's better to say nothing.

I'm going to write about technology instead.

It's time for a national conversation about the failure --yes, sadly, failure-- of our nation's packaging industry to design a peel-off-and-pull technology that works.

It has been almost a half century since men walked on the moon and yet today we can't even access the cheese in our own refrigerators. It's hermetically sealed in packaging that teases you with an easy peel, then

Garfield High teachers won't give required test they call flawed | Local News | The Seattle Times

Garfield High teachers won't give required test they call flawed | Local News | The Seattle Times:

Garfield High teachers won't give required test they call flawed

Teachers at Seattle's Garfield High are refusing to give district-required tests known as Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP, saying they are flawed exams that waste time and don't help teachers or students.

By Linda Shaw

Seattle Times education reporter

English teacher Kit McCormick, left, discusses Garfield High School teachers' decision to refuse to give the MAP test to their students, during a Thursday news conference.

ERIKA SCHULTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

English teacher Kit McCormick, left, discusses Garfield High School teachers' decision to refuse to give the MAP test to their students, during a Thursday news conference.

Teacher concerns about MAP tests

In refusing to give MAP tests, Garfield teachers listed nine concerns. Among them:

• They don't know what content the test covers.

• Ninth-graders who receive extra support are tested more than others, even though they are the very students who can't afford to lose classroom time.

• The time needed to give the test, which is administered online, ties up the school's computer lab for weeks.

• The results can be artificially low because many students don't take the test seriously.

• The district purchased MAP under the late Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who was on the board of the company that sells the exam, which teachers consider a conflict of interest.

Still don’t know much about history

Still don’t know much about history:

Still don’t know much about history

Posted by Valerie Strauss on January 11, 2013 at 4:00 am

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Why do so many students find history boring? Here’s why, from David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., and has two sons, ages 7 and 15.

By David Bernstein

When I took high school history in the early 1980s, the job of the history teacher was to provide a steady stream of facts, and the job of the student was to commit those facts to memory. Even though I was deeply interested in public affairs, I found both American and World history boring and irrelevant. But later in life, I came to realize, like so many others, that it was impossible to understand modern politics and the interplay of ideas without some grounding in the subject.

When my son reached middle school, I was curious if teaching history had changed. At first, I was pleasantly surprised. In eighth grade, he had a charismatic teacher who

Why arguing is the best way to learn

by Valerie Strauss

What's the best way for kids to learn? Here's an argument that the answer is arguing. It was written by Annie Murphy Paul, a book author, magazine journalist, consultant and speaker who helps people understand how we learn and how we can do it better. She is a contributing writer for Time magazine, writes a weekly column about learning for Time.com, blogs about learning for a number of websites and contributes to various publications. She is the author of "The Cult of Personality," a cultural history and scientific critique of personality tests, and of "Origins," a book about the science of prenatal influences. She is now at work on "Brilliant: The New Science of Smart," to be published this year. This post appeared on The Brilliant Blog.
Read full article >>

Schools Matter: The move to all-computer testing = start of a boondoggle

Schools Matter: The move to all-computer testing = start of a boondoggle:

The move to all-computer testing = start of a boondoggle

by skrashen

Sent to the Los Angeles Daily News, January 10

The move to all-computer testing (“State schools chief proposes replacing paper Scantron tests with computer-based ones,” January 8) is the start of a huge boondoggle. After every student is connected, the set-up will be declared obsolete and need to be upgraded or replaced. The schools will cheerfully pay up, eager for the "newest" technology, and computer companies will cheerfully accept their money.

I have nothing against private enterprise making an honest profit for providing a needed service or useful product. But in this case there is no evidence that the product is needed or useful. We are about to waste a gigantic

When will testing fever end?

by skrashen

Sent to Education Week, January 10, 2013.

“Testing group picks ‘college readiness’ exam” (January 9) announces yet another test to add to the staggering pile of tests our students must take. When will this end?

Because there is no evidence that adding more tests helps students, and plenty of evidence that increased testing will be very profitable for those who sell the tests and supply the infrastructure for the required on-line testing, the obvious answer is that testing fever will end only when the greed of the standardized-testing-

Florida Lawmaker Proposes Amendment to Require Teacher Salaries Meet National Average | Scathing Purple Musings

Florida Lawmaker Proposes Amendment to Require Teacher Salaries Meet National Average | Scathing Purple Musings:

Florida Lawmaker Proposes Amendment to Require Teacher Salaries Meet National Average

by Bob Sikes

From WTXL in Tallahassee:
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL)–Florida teachers pockets may be getting a little fatter by 2015.

Hoping to put that in the lawbooks..this upcoming legislative session.
Senator Joseph Abruzzo, (D) 25, Palm Beach, Florida proposed a constitutional amendment that would require teacher’s salaries to meet national salary levels.
Abruzzo’s amendment says the state will foot the bill for those higher salaries.
Currently Florida teacher’s average salary is more than $40,000, not quite the average but close.

Why is the Bush Foundation Against Federal Graduation Rankings?

by Bob Sikes

They favor ranking everything else. From the Bush Foundation’s editorial producer, Mike Thomas:

The unfortunate consequence of No Child Left Behind is that some states dumbed down assessments to increase student passing rates.
Could a new federal formula used to rank high school graduation rates do the same for graduation requirements? Dumbing down graduation requirements, after all, would be the easiest way to raise a state’s ranking.
The U.S. Department of Education unveiled its new formula in November.
“By using this new measure, states will be more honest in holding schools accountable and

NYC Educator: It's Not Value-Added! It's Growth Model!

NYC Educator: It's Not Value-Added! It's Growth Model!:

It's Not Value-Added! It's Growth Model!

by NYC Educator

The latest round of negotiations to bring junk science to New York City is about to begin, and boy do they have surprises for us! One is that yes, your Regents exams will indeed be used to determine whether or not you are fit to keep your job. I'd previously been under the impression that since these tests were not designed to determine whether or not we add value, they would not be used for that purpose.

Boy was I wrong! It turns out the city can make up some pre-test, then give the Regents exam at the end of the year, and figure out how well you did. And that's not value-added because there's no complicated mathematical formula attached to it, and no one's fretting over how many high-poverty students you have, or how many ESL students, or how they're disabled. It's just straght scoring.

If anyone watched the Michelle Rhee Frontline piece, you can

Jersey Jazzman: The Fights Teachers Unions SHOULD Have

Jersey Jazzman: The Fights Teachers Unions SHOULD Have:

The Fights Teachers Unions SHOULD Have

by Duke

UPDATE: SB 1. Easy to remember. Easy to say no and Harold Levy seminar. « Fred Klonsky

Back story to the Harold Levy seminar. « Fred Klonsky:

SB 1. Easy to remember. Easy to say no.

by Fred Klonsky

Senate Bill 1.
Democratic Senate President John Cullerton says, “Hang ‘em all and we’ll figure out who is guilty later.”
Senate Bill 1 combines his forced choice pension grab, (Force pensioners to choose between cost of living raises or health care) and Nekritz’s- Oh, everything else bad you can think of.
Thanks to Cullerton, we retirees don’t have to keep remembering what the number of the bill is.
It’s #1.
Easy.
Cullerton’s legal theory is that if you pass ‘em both, the courts will figure out which one is legal.

Teachers in revolt.

by Fred Klonsky

English teacher Kit McCormick, left, discusses Garfield High School teachers’ decision to refuse to give the MAP test to their students, during a Thursday news conference.
Teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle voted to refuse to give the district mandated Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) test to their students.
It’s a first.
The teachers’ statement:

“Our teachers have come together and agree that the MAP test is not good for our students, nor is it an appropriate or useful tool in measuring

Back story to the Harold Levy seminar.

by Fred Klonsky

I posted the invitation to the Harold Levy seminar previously. There is a back story.
On his blog, Schooling in the Ownership Society, Brother Mike provides:

It was Levy, in a NYT piece back in 2009, while working for Citigroup, who offered us his “5 ways to fix schools.” At that time, I wrote,
Levy, who obviously hadn’t yet discovered the 5 ways while he was still in power, now wants to make it “mandatory” that all kids go to college for a year. I suppose he hopes that will keep them out of the job market and off the unemployment line for a while longer and hopes that the feds will pick up the cost of tuition ($8,000 average for state colleges and $25,000 for private). As for those kids who want to take a year off after high school, to work or travel? I suppose we could arrest their parents. How will this “fix” schools? Maybe Levy will tell us later.

Levy helped funnel $500K of DFER money to Shapton.

Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for CA schools - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for CA schools - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools:

Jerry Brown’s budget proposal for CA schools

Thursday, January 10th, 2013 at 4:31 pm in No Comments

AP Photo by Rich Pedroncelli
Today, the governor unveiled his first budget proposal for the 2013-14 fiscal year. The plan would increase K-12 spending levels by $2.7 billion next year.
It would also, as expected, overhaul the funding formula for school districts.
Brown’s proposed funding formula would lift a number of spending restrictions that have long been in place for specific programs, instead granting school boards the latitude to allocate the funds where they see fit.
And here’s the biggest change: Brown’s proposal would give a base amount to school districts for each student

Reinventing Teachers’ Unions Rethinking Schools

Rethinking Schools:

Volume 27, Issue 2

VOLUME 27, ISSUE 2 — WINTER 2012-2013

Reinventing Teachers’ Unions

Are we on the cusp of a new social justice unionism for teachers? Last year, Wisconsin teachers grabbed international attention with a takeover of the state capitol. This fall, the collaborative nature of the successful Chicago Teachers Union strike—and the breadth of parental, student, and community support—heartened and inspired education activists everywhere. What can we learn? Where do we go from here?

Editorial: New Teachers' Union Movement in the Making

By the editors of Rethinking Schools

Lessons in Social Justice UnionismAn interview with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis

How did Chicago teachers win their strike? What is the significance of their victory? What’s next?

– ALSO FEATURED –

“When Are You Going to Come Visit?”Home visits and seeing our students

By Elizabeth Schlessman

A 4th-grade teacher visits her students’ families— all recent immigrants to the United States—and realizes how much she has been missing about their lives.

The Character of Our ContentA parent confronts bias in early elementary literature

By Jennifer Holladay

Her daughter’s homework—a story that legitimizes rape and extols whiteness as the standard for beauty—leads a parent to question the balance between teaching skills and teaching content.

LAUSD & NYC TAKE NOTE, PERDAILY GOES NATIONAL (VIDEO) - Perdaily.com

LAUSD & NYC TAKE NOTE, PERDAILY GOES NATIONAL (VIDEO) - Perdaily.com:

LAUSD & NYC TAKE NOTE, PERDAILY GOES NATIONAL (VIDEO)

by Leonard Isenberg

Take a half hour and watch the following coast-to-coast interview that New York City incarcerated and yet uncharged teacher Francesco Portelos did with me this morning. Also take a moment to check out his blog. In the national teacher witch hunt that has put the teaching profession under siege - a fact that never seems to make it into the corporate controlled mainstream media - we hope the following interview is the first step in consecrating a virtual commons that will help us in the coming weeks to finally create a national awareness of the war on teachers and what it is costing all of us.

Help us to finally create accountability with a Craig's List-like Internet forum for education reform, where educators, students, parents, and all those seeking excellent public education finally organize, expose, and oppose this reign of terror fostered by those seeking a dumbed down and privatize for profit the public education system