Brown vetoes bill intended to place more emphasis on test scores | EdSource

Brown vetoes bill intended to place more emphasis on test scores | EdSource:

Brown vetoes bill intended to place more emphasis on test scores

Sending a strong message endorsing the school accountability system adopted by the State Board of Education, Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have placed more emphasis on standardized test scores in measuring school and district performance.

In a message issued Saturday in vetoing Assembly Bill 2548, Brown credited the state board for creating a “thoughtful and integrated federal, state and local accountability system” after spending two years listening to public opinion. The board has adopted a process for annually reviewing and improving the system, he wrote, adding, “It is unnecessary and premature to impose additional requirements at this time.”

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, who authored the bill and is a former school board member, expressed disappointment with Brown’s veto. “My legislative colleagues and I are still convinced that we need to focus more on closing achievement gaps and making the information about school performance more accessible and usable for parents,” she said in a statement.

The new accountability system, which the state board adopted earlier this month, shifts from California’s near-total reliance on test scores to measure how well schools and districts are doing to one based on a half-dozen measures, including non-academic measures.

Under the new accountability system, test scores on math, English language arts and, eventually, science will be included as key indicators of performance. Others will be rates of high school graduation, student suspensions and chronic absenteeism; how effectively English learners have learned English; and how prepared students are for pursuing college and careers. Districts will receive assistance if ethnic, racial and other students subgroups performed poorly in one or more of the measures.

Districts will also be held accountable for creating their measures of parent engagement, school climate and the rollout of the state’s new academic standards.

Legislators laid out multiple measures of accountability three years ago in the Local Control Funding Formula. They reaffirmed that intent in overwhelmingly approving Weber’s bill.

But the bill also said that more weight should be given to test scores when deciding which low-performing districts and schools should be singled out for Brown vetoes bill intended to place more emphasis on test scores | EdSource:

 

Texas school warns teachers might be armed | NOLA.com

Texas school warns teachers might be armed | NOLA.com:

Texas school warns teachers might be armed

The sign is large and unabashedly direct, like the state's collective attitude. It's white, nailed to two sturdy wooden posts, and offers a bold-lettered warning.

This year, our teachers might be packing heat, it says, and they're not afraid to use it.

In this town, in this state, in 2016, it still looks a lot like the wild, wild West.

The sign is new this school year and stands outside the Medina Independent School District, home to 300 kindergarten to 12th grade students in a small, rural town about an hour northwest of San Antonio. The school isn't under any particular threat, school board member James Lindstrom told CNN, and there have been no recent instances of violence worth noting.

The sign came about, he said, because of the "general environment nationally."

Guns in schools - from pre-K classrooms to university lecture halls - has been just one in a long list of contentious topics that often arise during the national gun rights debate simmering across the country. After 20 children and six adults were fatally shot by a gunman armed with assault weapons at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, gun advocates, and even some government officials, claimed the massacre could have been prevented if the school personnel inside had been carrying guns.

A national movement to arm teachers followed.

Most recently, in the same state the Medina ISD calls home, lawmakers made it legal for teachers and students to carry concealed weapons in university classrooms, outraging some campus groups, particularly at the University of Texas at Austin, where students have launched several colorful protests over the last year.

Just this week, singer Ray LaMontagne canceled a concert on the UT-Austin campus over the campus-carry law.

In Medina, however, the school's warning sign and potential gun-toting teachers hasn't seemed to unnerve many parents.

Texas town allows teachers to carry concealed guns at school

In remote Harrold, Texas, the school board voted to let teachers bring guns to school.

"Schools have been a target for, for lack of a better word, crazy people," Jillian Sides, whose two sons attend the school, told ABC affiliate KSAT 12. "I'm perfectly fine with it."

News station KENS 5 interviewed community members at the Medina high school football game and got a round of similarly enthusiastic endorsements:

"I think it's great," one woman said.

"I think it's a good idea," a man in a cowboy hat remarked. "I have no problem with our teachers being armed."

"I thought, well it's good that our kids can be protected," a third woman said.

Genie Strickland, to KSAT 12, put it this way: "I think you've got to do whatever you've got to do."

In full, the sign reads, "Attention, please be aware that the staff at Medina ISD may be armed and will use whatever force is necessary to protect our students."

District Superintendent Penny White wouldn't say if or how many teachers were actually carrying firearms in the building. The sign only indicates they "may" be armed.

"We don't divulge anything about our safety plan, because it would compromise the plan," White told KSAT 12.

Her hope, she told the TV station, is that potential bad guys might "think twice" before entering her school to harm someone. The school is rural and remote, she said, about 20 to 25 minutes away from the nearest law enforcement agency in Bandera - the county seat and "Cowboy Capital of the World."

"You never know if there's a transient or someone who has zeroed in on harming a child," White told KSAT 12.

The board of trustees decided to erect the sign after a year of discussion, the superintendent said.

By Katie Mettler 

(c) 2016, The Washington PostTexas school warns teachers might be armed | NOLA.com:

Arne Duncan talk at Smith College draws anti-charter school protesters

Arne Duncan talk at Smith College draws anti-charter school protesters:

Arne Duncan talk at Smith College draws anti-charter school protesters

NORTHAMPTON — Former U.S. education chief Arne Duncan was greeted by a packed auditorium Wednesday evening, as well as opponents of a question on the Nov. 8 ballot that would lift the state’s cap on charter schools.

Duncan, who resigned in January after serving since 2009 as secretary of education, now is a managing partner at the education advocacy group Emerson Collective.

He was in Northampton to deliver the inaugural Jane Grossman Cecil ’50 Memorial Lecture at Smith College’s Weinstein Auditorium. He delivered anecdotes about his career in education during a 30-minute talk, which led to a question-and-answer session.

Earlier, Duncan met with students on campus.

Duncan’s appearance drew a crowd of more than 100 listeners, as well as about20 protesters from Save Our Public Schools, a grassroots organization that opposes Question 2 on the Massachusetts ballot.

If the measure passes, up to 12 new charter schools could open annually. These are schools that have an independent charter and receive public money from the home districts of students who choose to attend them.

The protesters stood quietly in the back of the auditorium, sporting signs that read “Save our public schools” and “Vote No on 2” and “Students are not a cash crop.”

Save Our Public Schools members said their underlying concern is that charter schools absorb public money while benefiting only a small portion of students.

Duncan spoke to the issue when he was questioned by one member of the audience about his support for charter schools.

In Massachusetts, “there’s this big tension between public and charter schools, so I’m wondering where this idea of change happening from the inside fits into your idea of charter schools?” a woman asked Duncan.

“I want to make sure the facts are clear — charter schools are public schools, so it’s not charter versus public,” Duncan responded. “Charter schools are publicly funded. I’m very agnostic, I’m very pragmatic. I just think we need more good schools in America. There’s nothing about the name ‘charter’ that tells me anything about quality.”

Duncan reasoned that there are “excellent” charter schools and underperforming charter schools, just as there are the same mix of traditional schools.

“I’m absolutely in support of high-performing charter schools,” he said. “I think we need to replicate and learn from them … I think this tension is about adults, not kids. We need to make sure every kid has a chance to be successful.”

Barbara Madeloni of Northampton, who is president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, was among those with Save Our Public Schools. She stood outside the auditorium after Duncan’s talk to engage with potential voters about Question 2.

Madeloni suggested that Duncan’s rationale regarding charter schools as public schools is misguided.

“Public funds going into private hands does not make (charter schools) public,” Madeloni said. “There’s no democratic oversight — local school committees (and) town councils... have no say on whether a charter school can open in their community, and there’s no local accountability for what happens in the school.”

She continued, “We thought this was an opportunity to educate people here at Smith and the guests listening to the secretary about this question, and why it’s reckless and why we need to vote no.”

Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.Arne Duncan talk at Smith College draws anti-charter school protesters:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CTU members Maria Cosme, left, and Nancy Serrano count ballots (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune) 

CTU Pres. Karen Jennings Lewis on CTU's strike vote

"But here's the deal — and this is the truth, period, the end — I don't have to work under this contract. They do. So it seems like, to me, that the people that have to work under the contract should have the most ability to say yes or no to things." --Chicago Tribune

Jesse Sharkey 

"I fully expect that by (this) week we'll have successfully authorized a strike, and then it will be up to the delegates to talk about where that leaves us and what makes sense for a deadline. We're looking to move this toward a conclusion. All of our options are on the table, including a strike deadline."  -- Tribune

Pres. Barack Obama

And so this national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are.  It helps us better understand the lives, yes, of the President, but also the slave; the industrialist, but also the porter; the keeper of the status quo, but also of the activist seeking to overthrow that status quo; the teacher or the cook, alongside the statesman. -- At the Dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Cultur

Bruce Springsteen on Trump

"It's a rich environment unfortunately for a demagogue." -- Swedish talk show

Monica Navarrete of Lawrenceville, Georgia

"I told him I'm going to vote for him and Hillary so my parents can stay here longer." -- Politico

Trump on using nuclear weapons

[MSNBC, March 30, 2016] Trump said he wasMike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

With A Brooklyn Accent: R.I.P Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez- Great Athletes Who Perfomed with JOY.

With A Brooklyn Accent: R.I.P Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez- Great Athletes Who Perfomed with JOY.:

 R.I.P Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez- Great Athletes Who Perfomed with JOY.

Today, for the seond day in a row, I woke up with tears in my eyes.
I just learned that the great golfer, Arnold Palmer, age 87 had passed away.

On the face of it, Arnold Palmer would seem to have little in common with the great young pitcher Jose Fernandez, age 24, who had died tragically in a boating accident the day before.

One played golf, the other baseball, one died of natural causes, the other in a boating accident; one revolutionized the sport he played; the other was just starting a career with infinite promise.

Yet these two remarkable athletes, from such different backgrounds and with such different histories had one thing in common- they loved the sport they played, played it at the highest level, and did so with a joy and exhuberance that inspired everyone around them

Talent is one thing, determination and hard work another, passion for what they do is third- all great athletes have those traits.

But to perform at the highest level with the sheer unadulterated JOY in their sport- that is truly special.

Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez both did that and that is what will be remembered about them as much as their incandescent talent.

Let me close with something personal None of us are here forever. I am 70. The clock is ticking and at times I find myself thinking about how I want to be remembered

And as I contemplate the passing of these two great athletes, their example is the one I would like people to think of in how they remember me:

"Whatever else you say about Mark Naison, say he loved what he did and he TAUGHT WITH JOY!"

When the best among us leave, let their lives be a guide to those still here.With A Brooklyn Accent: R.I.P Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez- Great Athletes Who Perfomed with JOY.:

Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia Opportunity School District Will NOT Expand Learning Opportunity | janresseger

Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia Opportunity School District Will NOT Expand Learning Opportunity | janresseger:

Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia Opportunity School District Will NOT Expand Learning Opportunity

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s statewide Opportunity School District, a state takeover plan for so-called “failing” schools, will appear before Georgia’s voters in November. His plan will become part of the state constitution if voters approve it. The timing is bad for Deal, however, because public opinion and expert opinion seems to be turning against the kind of scheme he has proposed.  More and more evidence is accruing that statewide “achievement” school districts do not improve student achievement; neither do statewide “opportunity” districts expand learning opportunities. Let’s hope voters are paying attention!

Jack Hazzard, a professor emeritus at Georgia State University, explains exactly how Governor Deal’s state takeover Opportunity School District will work: “The misguided Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, has pushed through an amendment to the Georgia Constitution (if approved by the electorate) to enable a czar within the Governor’s office to name 20 schools per year from around the state that are considered ‘failing schools’ based on the state’s use of high stakes testing. Using an arbitrary cutoff score of 60 on Georgia’s school evaluation measure, the state has identified a list of schools around Georgia that they believe are chronically failing.  The Georgia plan is essentially a ‘turnaround’ strategy of school reconstitution. There is a quartet of plans out there including transformation (fire the principal followed by changing around the school and testing the heck out of students to see if it worked), turnaround (fire the principal and… 50% of the teachers, and then test the heck out of the students), restart (bring in a charter school), and closure (a devastating measure, as Chicago can attest)… According to Senate Bill 133, which authorized an amendment to be placed on the November ballot, the state will use the ‘restart’ model, and turn all ‘chronically failing’ schools into charter schools.”

Today’s statewide “takeover school districts” are an expanded version of the old fashioned state takeovers, in which the state seized a bankrupt or low-scoring school district and imposed an overseer to clean things up. To my knowledge, these old-fashioned state occupations of existing school districts have not ever turned things around. The emergency austerity managers for the poorest school districts in Michigan are the latest examples. Newark, New Jersey’s public schools have been under state control for over twenty years, and Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia Opportunity School District Will NOT Expand Learning Opportunity | janresseger:

BRIDGEGATE: How Chris Christie turned the relics of 9/11 pain into “goody bags” |

BRIDGEGATE: How Chris Christie turned the relics of 9/11 pain into “goody bags” |:

BRIDGEGATE: How Chris Christie turned the relics of 9/11 pain into “goody bags”

How Chris Christie abused the sacred relics of 9/11 site to advance his ambition and splatter himself and his toadies with the profanity of indifference to incalculable, unimaginable pain.

What happened on September 11, 2001 happened with cruel, irrevocable finality to the 3,000 dead and to the thousands more whose lives were shattered by the loss of children, parents, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters. It happened, too, less directly and personally, to a nation that entered into a new world of fear and horror—we all owned the consequences. But now, we are learning from a federal courtroom in Newark, there was a small, very small, number of very small people who saw 9/11 differently—who saw it as a way of advancing their own ambitions and the political fortunes of just one man.

“The only person who mattered was Governor Christie.”

The only person who mattered was…Christie.

The words are from David Wildstein, Christie’s sycophant and factotum, who began his testimony Friday with a calm recitation of his political duties as a man with a made-up, $150,000 a year job for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PA).

Wildstein, who already has pleaded guilty to federal charges involving the 2013 shutdown of the George Washington Bridge, said much more, of course, but there is a lot said in this trial that doesn’t really count for very much.

The words about how Christie was the only person who mattered—they are important. And so are the words about how the governor insisted that favors be done for already committed and prospective political allies whom he wanted to help him become president of the United States by winning a blowout re-election as New Jersey governor in 2013.

The other words that count, words that hurt, include Wildstein’s depiction of favors touching on 9/11 relics as “goody bags” that can be given to mayors and other poltiicians. Pieces of the building that was a pyre for the not-quite-dead, American flags that really weren’t flying above the scene of the horrors until Christie ordered them raised over it.

While parents still seek the remains of their chiildren, Chris Christie uses pieces of the building as “goody bags.”

This man—“the only person who mattered”—cynically exploited the emotions generated by the worst single civilian slaughter in the history of the United States—so other politicians could have flags on their shelves and pieces of steel beams on their desks–and warm, fuzzy feelings about endorsing Christie for re-election in BRIDGEGATE: How Chris Christie turned the relics of 9/11 pain into “goody bags” |:

David Coleman: Promising to Address SAT Problems When Cornered | deutsch29

David Coleman: Promising to Address SAT Problems When Cornered | deutsch29:

David Coleman: Promising to Address SAT Problems When Cornered

Reuters has been releasing articles related to the newly-designed SAT ever since someone anonymously sent over 400 SAT questions to the news agency on August 03, 2016.

Reuters has since reported on the August 26, 2016, FBI raid of former SAT exec Manuel Alfaro’s home as part of an investigation of the Reuters item release; Reuters also released a special report on September 21, 2016, concerning the “wordiness” of SAT math problems– an issue that Reuters notes could “reinforce race and income disparities”– and which was raised in College Board internal documents in 2014 yet apparently ignored.

And, of course, there are the well-known issues of SAT’s recycling its tests and items so that test takers in countries such as China and Macau are able to game the SAT test-taking system.

The question is, why hasn’t College Board’s wonder boy president, David Coleman, addressed these years ago?

The answer apparently lies in his finally being put on the spot in real time in a professional meeting combined with Reuters’ access to SAT insider info.

In short, Coleman has been cornered.

Now, in September 2016, Coleman has stated publicly that he will (finally?) address the wordiness of the newly-designed SAT’s math problems as well as the test/item recycling that obviously fuels overseas cheating on the SAT.

Again, Reuters reports (September 23, 2016):

David Coleman, chief executive of the College Board, said the New York not-for-profit organization wants to simplify the word problems on the new SAT’s math sections to eliminate “superfluous words.” His remarks Thursday, at a conference of colleges and guidance counselors, came a day after a Reuters report detailed how the College Board’s new test contained math problems that are much wordier than internal specifications called for.

Coleman said the College Board also aims to reduce its practice of recycling SAT questions used on prior exams. Reuters articles earlier this year revealed how test-preparation companies in Asia are systematically harvesting old questions and having their students practice on them. When those questions 

David Coleman: Promising to Address SAT Problems When Cornered | deutsch29:

Election 2016: What Teachers Can and Cannot Do | Huffington Post

Election 2016: What Teachers Can and Cannot Do | Huffington Post:

Election 2016: What Teachers Can and Cannot Do

A little enforced New York City regulation requires that teachers remain politically neutral when performing official duties. In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ruled that public school teachers could not wear political buttons in the classroom. The teachers’ union challenged the ban but it was upheld by Federal District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan. Kaplan declared it was up to individual school districts to determine whether buttons in the classroom interfered with learning. However, he warned “school officials may not take a sledgehammer to freedom of expression.” A similar ban on political buttons in San Diego schools was upheld by California courts in 1996.

Courts have often given unclear guidelines in rulings on a teacher’s first amendment rights. However, what is clear is that school districts have flexibility in enforcing their policies - within limits. In 1972, a New York court sided with a teacher who was suspended for wearing an armband protesting against the Vietnam War. The court held that the teacher’s actions did not interfere with educational interests. In 2008, courts overturned an attempt by the University of Illinois to stop employees from attending political rallies and from displaying political campaign bumper stickers on campus.

In Pickering v. Board of Education (1968), the United States Supreme Court ruled that school employees have Constitutional protection when they are speaking about issues of a public nature. In that decision the court overturned a school district’s decision to fire a teacher for commenting on school expenditures in a letter to a local newspaper.

Last week a foreign language teacher in Smithtown, New York was “administratively reassigned” after she posted on her Facebook page, “This week is Spirit Week at Smithtown HS West. It’s easy to spot which students are racist by the Trump gear they’re sporting for USA Day.” While I do not believe her remarks are appropriate, the teacher did not express her views in her classes and is not accused of making remarks at school. As of this time there has been no formal disciplinary action by the school district and no court case.

Social media remains a minefield for teachers with no clear guidelines. An article by Michael Simpson, Assistant General Counsel for the National Education Association, documented a series of teacher firings for online posts.

In 2013 the New York City Department of Education (DOE) issued guidelines for “recommended practices for professional social media communication between DOE employees, as well as social media communication between DOE employees and DOE students.” Of course, the guidelines were not really recommendations. DOE supervisors were designated as responsible for monitoring and providing feedback on employee use of professional social media sites.

The guidelines also included “recommendations” for “Personal social media use” for “non work-related social media activity.” They include:

• DOE employees should not communicate with students who are currently enrolled in DOE schools on personal social media sites.

• DOE employees are encouraged to use appropriate privacy settings to control access to their personal social media sites.

• The posting or disclosure of personally identifiable student information or confidential information via personal social media sites, in violation of Chancellor’s Regulations, is prohibited.

• Personal social media use, including off-hours use, has the potential to result in disruption at school and/or the workplace, and can be in violation of DOE policies, Chancellor’s Regulations, and law.

The last recommendation is the one that concerns me and should concern the teachers’ union. Saying something has the potential to disrupt, even if it does not actually cause a disruption, is an open-ended assertion of authority over a teacher’s right to free expression.

To help teachers navigate treacherous waters, in 2015 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued an updated version on the free speech rights of teachers developed by its Washington State branch.

According to the ACLU’s interpretation of the Constitution and the law, “Generally, the First Amendment protects your speech if you are speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern. However, if you are speaking in an official capacity (within the duties of your job), your speech will not have the same protection. What you say or communicate inside the classroom is considered speech on behalf of the school district and therefore will not be entitled to much protection. Certain types of speech outside the school might also not be protected if the school can show that your speech created a substantial adverse impact on school functioning.” They warn if as a teacher “You post a ‘joke’ on Facebook about your students being lazy” it is not protected speech even though you are making it in your private capacity.

In addition, “School districts have the authority to control course content and teaching methods. You are generally considered to speak for the school district when you are in your classroom. Therefore, your speech in the classroom does not have much First Amendment protection. This can be a murky area, however. Some courts have ruled that schools cannot discipline teachers for sharing words or concepts that are controversial as long as the school has no legitimate interest in restricting that speech and the speech is related to the curriculum. In general, you should exercise caution so as not to give the appearance that you are advocating a particular religious or political view in the classroom.” The same goes for classroom displays.

While “The Supreme Court has ruled that students can wear armbands to school as an expression of their political views and that their right to free speech can only be limited if the speech would cause “substantial and material disruption” . . . The right Election 2016: What Teachers Can and Cannot Do | Huffington Post:

Nearly all Ohio middle schools flunk 8th-grade reading test | The Columbus Dispatch

Nearly all Ohio middle schools flunk 8th-grade reading test | The Columbus Dispatch:

Nearly all Ohio middle schools flunk 8th-grade reading test

Under a new system that was designed to raise the bar to ensure that kids are prepared for college and jobs when they graduate, Ohio apparently is experiencing a middle-school reading crisis.

Almost 96 percent of Ohio’s traditional public schools and more than 97 percent of charter schools failed the state standard for eighth-grade reading, meaning that too few of their students were deemed proficient on the just-released state report cards. With fewer than half of Ohio eighth-graders testing at proficient or above, it was the worst category of any of the proficiency tests for students in the third through eighth grades.

The previous year, more than half of traditional public schools and more than a quarter of charters met the state’s standard for eighth-grade reading, which required at least 68 percent of eighth-graders in a school to be proficient in reading. In the meantime, the test changed and so did the bar for passing: Now, at least 74 percent of students must test as proficient for a school to pass.

But even under the old measure, 9 in 10 schools would have failed this year.

Among 68 central Ohio middle schools administering the test, the median drop, year over year, was about 24 percentage points. Five dropped more than 40 percentage points: Columbus City Schools’ Berwick Alternative K-8, Preparatory School for Girls and Sherwood Middle School; South-Western’s Norton Middle School; and Westerville’s Heritage Middle School.

Projections reviewed by the state Board of Education in June show that the Ohio Department of Education knew what was coming, that slightly more than half of eighth-graders would be proficient in reading. The actual proficiency rate was worse: 47 percent.

“The expectation from the board was that, for all these assessments, there would be lower levels of performance than there was previously,” said board member C. Todd Jones.

Jones is confident that, given time, educators will dig themselves and their students out of the hole.

But many local school officials say the new numbers don’t make sense.

“It can’t be that 96 percent of the school districts in Ohio all did an equally bad job of teaching that content and that grade level,” said Jennifer Wene, chief academic officer at Worthington schools. “Or another way to say it: 96 percent of the teachers in Ohio who teach grade 8 (reading) are ineffective.”

A Dispatch review of state testing records showed that 819 district middle schools out of 856 received a failing grade on eighth-grade Nearly all Ohio middle schools flunk 8th-grade reading test | The Columbus Dispatch:

L.A. Magnets Outscore Charters on 2016 Tests - On California - Education Week

L.A. Magnets Outscore Charters on 2016 Tests - On California - Education Week:

L.A. Magnets Outscore Charters on 2016 Tests

Both magnets and charters are schools of choice, and it is more appropriate to compare these schools than to compare charters to Los Angeles Unified School District traditional neighborhood schools.  When these schools of choice are compared, magnets outperformed charters by large margins (11-21 percentage points) at every grade level on the English Language Arts (ELA) and Math sections of 2016 Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests.

 Percent Met or Exceeded Standards

2016 SBAC English Language Arts	Magnets	Charters
Grade 3	57%	42%
Grade 4	58%	43%
Grade 5	62%	47%
Grade 6	56%	37%
Grade 7	57%	39%
Grade 8	60%	42%
Grade 11	76%	65%
All Grades	61%	45%

Percent Met or Exceeded Standards

2016 SBAC Math	Magnets	Charters
Grade 3	60%	47%
Grade 4	53%	37%
Grade 5	44%	31%
Grade 6	45%	25%
Grade 7	47%	26%
Grade 8	47%	26%
Grade 11	46%	33%
All Grades	48%	31%

This year's release (available here) by LAUSD's Office of Data and Accountability allows a much more detailed comparison of charters and magnets than was previously possible, including what kinds of students go to each type of school and how well they perform.

Consider English Learners (ELs).  These students comprised 19% of charter school test takers and only 5% of those from magnet schools.  ELs is the only sub-group in which charters outperformed magnets.  On the English Language Arts assessment, ELs at charters outperformed ELs at magnets by five percentage points (11% to 6%), and on the L.A. Magnets Outscore Charters on 2016 Tests - On California - Education Week:

Teacher signs strike vote in hospital bed, a day after baby born | Chicago Sun-Times

Teacher signs strike vote in hospital bed, a day after baby born | Chicago Sun-Times:

Teacher signs strike vote in hospital bed, a day after baby born

Erin Franzinger Barrett, a CTU member and teacher at Telpochcalli Elementary School, casts her strike vote from her hospital bed a day after giving birth via C-section to her premature baby daughter. | Provided photo

Some teachers complained about last week’s union strike vote.

But Erin Franzinger Barrett, a special education teacher at
Telpochcalli Elementary School, couldn’t be stopped.

Not by labor. Or a hospital stay. Or a C-section that brought her daughter, Xiobhan, into the world three and a half weeks earlier than expected.

State law, which governs strike law for Chicago’s teachers, counts the vote of anyone who does not vote in a strike authorization poll as a no.

That wasn’t going to fly with her or her husband and fellow teacher, Xian Franzinger Barrett, who’s also active in the Chicago Teachers Union. They took part in the one-day April 1 teacher walkout, during which she posted a photo of herself, with her growing belly in a red T-shirt, on Facebook captioned, “Baby’s first strike.”

So a day after baby Xiobhan was born, Franzinger Barrett asked the union to deliver the paperwork to her west suburban hospital room, and she signed her name from her hospital bed. Xian, currently a substitute teacher at Saucedo Elementary School, sat across the room from her and did the same.

Their baby girl — the reason they both say they voted to strike — lay in a nursery bassinet, with anti-jaundice lights on her and a “baby ski mask on so it doesn’t hurt her eyes.”

“I would like my daughter to be able to go to a Chicago public school someday,” the mother said. “I would like her to be able to go to the school where I work, which is on my block, It’s an absolutely wonderful neighborhood school.

“If we don’t get a good contract, if we keep losing power and losing power to the mayor and the Board and the people who make decisions who have no business messing with the lives of children in Chicago, there won’t be schools,” she said.

| “To lose your job and your benefits right before the birth of your child — now we know your premature child — it’s really hard,” he said. | Provided photo

Her husband, has been laid off three times from CPS teaching jobs, and he suspects that the social justice work he has done with his students has made him an easy target. The last layoff was the toughest because it came this summer, as the couple prepared to welcome a child.

| Xian Franzinger Barrett holds his newborn daughter, Xiobhan. “To lose your job and your benefits right before the birth of your child . . . it’s really hard,” he said. | Provided photo

“To lose your job and your benefits right before the birth of your child — now we know your premature child — it’s really hard,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. The people who screwed up the finances of the district didn’t show up every day at Gage Park or Brighton Park or Julian and teach kids remarkably well,” he said.

“I think we need to think really hard about what we fight for in this strike,” he added.

The results from three days of voting last week will be announced as soon as Monday. The CTU reported that about 2,000 members didn’t vote in December’s strike authorization vote, when 88 percent of its membership approved a possible walkout. State law also requires the union to get 75 percent of its eligible voting members to say yes.

CTU leadership says they don’t want to strike. Negotiations are set to intensify this week with the Board of Education. The union also will hold a special meeting Wednesday for the House of Delegates, the union’s governing body, to talk about the next steps. Setting a strike date falls to the delegates.

The Board of Ed has said it wants to give teachers the most generous possible raise the cash-strapped system can afford.

Teacher signs strike vote in hospital bed, a day after baby born | Chicago Sun-Times: