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Friday, February 19, 2010

Elk Grove Citizen : 10 percent layoffs loom for school district

Elk Grove Citizen : News

10 percent layoffs loom for school district


By Citizen staff
Published: Thursday, February 18, 2010 9:11 AM PST
Last year, the Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) sent out 220 full-time employee  (FTE) pink slips on March 3. Many employees, however, kept their positions as funds came from the state and other sources.

This year, with the district’s $42 million budget shortfall, 600 FTE pink slips will be sent out on March 15.

EGUSD Superintendent Dr. Steven Ladd’s staff and cabinet adjourned Friday afternoon after three days of meetings to cope with the ongoing financial crisis of their district.

The EGUSD administration had expected to make more adjustments in expenditures from another shortfall of $13 million from the state for the school year 2010-11. But last week it was announced there may be an additional  $5 million funding loss.

How many more FTE pink slips will be issued is unknown.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal includes a negative .38-percent Cost Of Living Adjustment.  That equates to another budget cut of about $24 per student for EGUSD for the 2010-2011 school year. The district has 60,000 students.

In addition, the governor’s budget further proposes a $1.5 billion cut to K-12.  While his proposal indicates that the $1.5 billion would come out of school district administrative costs, financial experts agree that after years of budget reductions, the target of the cut will likely change.

In addition, the governor also proposed eliminating the sales tax on gasoline, and changing it 
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Schools Matter: The Wrong Cuts

Schools Matter: The Wrong Cuts
The wrong cuts
Published in the Herald Times (Bloomington, Indiana)
Feb. 19, 2010
To the editor:
The proposed budget cuts in education (“MCCSC: Teaching, librarian and coaching jobs cut, no summer school, Aurora to be moved,” Feb. 12) are typical of what is going on nationwide, and are a tragedy that need not happen.
In order to save $4.5 million, MCCSC is eliminating crucial and important programs, while the state continues to spend education dollars on expenditures that harm students.
For example: The plans include eliminating librarians while research shows that the presence of credentialed school librarians is related to increased reading scores.
At the same time, Indiana has a high school exit exam that costs the state about $450 million per year, over $400 per student. 
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Consultant: shut down CALPADS now The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess
Consultant: shut down CALPADS now

Posted in CALPADS
CALPADS, the new comprehensive student data system on which huge hopes for school and student improvement are riding, is hobbled by serious problems.
Acting on a consultant’s report bluntly critical of state managers and of IBM, the system vendor, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has shut CALPADS down for two months and ordered all efforts focused on fixing it. The hiatus will put data collection from the state’s 1,000 districts months, if not a year, behind schedule. O’Connell had little choice but to act quickly. After studying the system for a month, Sabot Technologies of Folsom predicted a  “high probability of system failure should the project continue on the current path”  as a result of  “anomalies, errors and defects throughout” the system.
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By John Fensterwald on February 18th, 2010

Full Circle Fund’s Rx for schools

Posted in Education Excellence Committee, Revenue and taxes, Student spending, Teacher Development
Members of the Full Circle Fund, a Bay Area philanthropy made up of socially active leaders and entrepreneurs, has joined the call for giving school districts more autonomy and taxing authority.
Granting local voters the power to pass a limited surcharge of the property tax rate  is one policy recommendation of “EACH: A Vision for California’s Future.”The 11-page policy platform is the product of nine months of work by the 60-member Education Circle, one of four study groups within the Full Circle Fund.
A property surcharge would directly challenge of the limits imposed by Proposition 13.  It also could create equity problems – and likely lead to a lawsuit – since rich communities would more readily pass such a measure. So the Education Circle also urges establishing a state matching fund as an incentive for  low-wealth communities to raise revenue. The platform also urges bringing up California’s level of funding to the “national norm” and includes a useful graph  that compares states’  per student spending relative to its teachers’ salaries.
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U.S. education chief praises Georgia inquiry �| ajc.com

U.S. education chief praises Georgia inquiry �| ajc.com:

"U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan applauded Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday for taking a tough stance on cheating and said the federal government is offering to help, if asked."


But Duncan gave no indication federal education officials would punish Georgia if some test scores turn out to be fraudulent. States report tests results as part of legal requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act, which governs some federal funding.



The test score scandal also isn’t likely to affect the state’s chance at a lucrative federal Race to the Top grant, he said.
“I think the governor has really stepped up proactively to get to the bottom of this,” Duncan said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I wish more states would look at this kind of thing.”
Duncan’s comments came a week after state officials announced an analysis of erasure marks on student answer sheets implicated one in five schools statewide in potential test tampering.
The state school board ordered local officials to investigate 191 schools with the most classrooms exhibiting suspicious erasures.
Another 178 schools with fewer classrooms in question must adopt new test security measures, such as increasing monitoring or rotating teachers during this spring’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. Students in grades one through eight take the yearly exam.
The Atlanta district has the most schools under scrutiny, 58. That is 69 percent of elementary and middle schools.
The district is unusual in Georgia for using a complex reward syste
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Pennsylvania School Accused of Spying on Students at Home

Pennsylvania School Accused of Spying on Students at Home:

"If accusations made by a suit filed against Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District on behalf of Harriton High School student Blake Robbins are true, we can't imagine a single valid defense for the school system's actions. According to the court documents, Robbins was disciplined last November by assistant principle Lindy Matsko for 'improper behavior in the home.' As evidence of this misconduct, Matsko produced a photo, secretly taken by the webcam on Robbins's laptop, which had been -- like those of all other Harriton High students -- issued to him by the school.

Let's ignore the fact that the student was disciplined for extracurricular actions, already a rather absurd concept. (Imagine if your child was given detention for failing to eat her vegetables and talking back to you.) The school is not accused of tracking student's"
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Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.



Bipartisan move to rewrite No Child Left Behind

President Obama. (AP).
YOUR TURN
quotation mark
Those aren't just cuts. They are mutilations to core services that Virginia is well renown for."
TwoSons, 2:05 P.M. » In private, Virginia governor pushes deep budget cuts | Weigh in












The six standards of school quality

My guest is George Wood, principal of Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio, and executive director of The Forum for Education and Democracy, a nonprofit organization ithat s a collaboration of educators from around the country

By George Wood
Years ago, I learned that if you want to communicate with people, it’s best to avoid jargon.

It was my fourth year as principal, and I’d decided to add a portfolio requirement for graduation. After two years of study, meetings, and hearings, we were ready to move forward and decided to share the plan with the entire community. Feeling creative, we decided to put the entire proposal in a booklet and mail it to every district resident.

Then, mistakenly, we decided I would write the booklet.
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Down with parent power

I have been exchanging emails with Gabe Rose, communications director of something called the Parent Revolution in my home state, California. Rose and his organization are part of a movement that has, to my open-mouthed amazement, persuaded the state government to give parents the power to close or change the leadership of low-performing public schools.
It sounds great. It has many parents excited. It could shake up the state educational establishment, including the education department, school boards and teacher unions. They could use some shaking up.
Yet I can't shake my feeling it is a bad idea, a confusing distraction that will bring parents more frustration, not less, and do little to improve their children's educations.
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Capitol Hill neighbors wary of proposed charter

One of the 13 groups seeking to open a new public charter school in the fall of 2011 is drawing questions from its prospective Capitol Hill neighbors--both for a lack of candor and the financial backing it is receiving from the International Graduate University (IGU), which has had its license revoked by the District.
University High Public Charter School wants to lease space at IGU, on D Street SE, for a college preparatory program targeted to at-risk youth. It proposes partnering with the Community College of the District of Columbia to give students exposure to college-level courses by their junior year. The D.C. Public Charter School Board, which authorizes the publicly-funded, independently operated schools, will review all the applications at public hearings on March 15 and 16.
Capitol Hill residents have been frustrated by their inability to get information from University High's executive director, Terry Shelton, a former treatment team coordinator at Oak Hill Youth Center and probation officer for D.C. Superior Court.
During a bizarre two-hour meeting at IGU Wednesday evening, Shelton would not disclose the members of the group's founding board, although they are listed in the application on file with the charter board. The founding group includes Virginia Elizabeth Hayes Williams, mother of former mayor Anthony Williams, and William Stancil, managing attorney for Neighbohrood Legal Services.
The application also names Wilma Gaines, a former DCPS principal, as interim principal.
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Delaware schools: Moyer Academy loses charter | delawareonline.com | The News Journal

Delaware schools: Moyer Academy loses charter | delawareonline.com | The News Journal:

"DOVER -- The State Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to close Maurice J. Moyer Academy charter school in Wilmington.

State education officials said the school, which opened in September 2006, failed to meet three of the 14 criteria necessary for charter renewal: student performance goals, hiring of enough highly qualified teachers and development of a curriculum that met state standards. Nor was Moyer's leadership able to provide a clear plan to improve performance going forward, Dan Cruce, Delaware's deputy education secretary, told the board.

Moyer currently has 484 students enrolled in grades six through 12. It will lose its charter at the end of this school year.

'I'm devastated,' Theo Gregory, Moyer's director, said just after the meeting. 'I can't believe this.'

Moyer is only the second charter school to be denied renewal since the General Assembly approved Delaware's charter law in 1995. Marion T. Academy Charter School was denied in 2008 after state officials cited poor student performance at the Wilmington K-8 school. Two others have relinquished their charters, Richard Milburn Academy in July of 2000 and Georgetown Charter School in March of 2002."
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Ramon Cortines resigns from Scholastic board | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Ramon Cortines resigns from Scholastic board | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times


L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines resigned Thursday from the board of Scholastic Inc., a position that paid him compensation worth more than $150,000 last year.
Cortines’ dual role with the company and the district received scrutiny in the wake of an articleon that subject last week in The Times. In defending his position with Scholastic in a recent interview, Cortines said he avoided any issue at the district involving the leading educational publishing company. And his senior staff said this recusal included any decision involving academic intervention programs.
Scholastic provides the district’s primary reading intervention program for high schools. And, as of this year, Scholastic’s program also became a key component for middle schools. The company has earned more than $5.2 million from the L.A. Unified School District since Cortines joined the school system as its No. 2 administrator in April 2008. He became superintendent in December 2008.
Cortines is paid $250,000 a year by L.A. Unified.
The superintendent’s brief letter to Scholastic's president and chief executive officer, Richard Robinson, read as follows:
“Per my telephone conversation with you and attorney Andy Hedden on Thursday, February 18, 2010, this correspondence serves as a formal notice of resignation from the corporate board at Scholastic Corporation. A hard copy of this correspondence has been mailed to you.”
Copies of the letter were sent to members of the Board of Education and school district general counsel David Holmquist.
Board members had been placing no pressure on Cortines to resign from Scholastic last week, but it’s 
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Melinda French Gates - Education reform, one classroom at a time - washingtonpost.com

Melinda French Gates - Education reform, one classroom at a time - washingtonpost.com:

"Sitting on the desk of the secretary of education are dozens of ideas bold enough to finally start solving our country's education crisis. They are contained in applications by 40 states and the District of Columbia for grants from the Race to the Top fund, a $4.35 billion piece of the stimulus package designed to dramatically improve student achievement.

Congress established strong guidelines to guarantee that states spend Race to the Top money on audacious reforms. Many states responded with equal fortitude, submitting proposals to radically improve how they use data or to adopt college- and career-ready standards -- concepts that used to be considered third rails in the world of education. Never before has this country had such an opportunity to remake the way we teach young people."
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Assemblyman disputes cost of free student MetroCards - NYPOST.com

Assemblyman disputes cost of free student MetroCards - NYPOST.com:

"Someone needs to take an accounting class.

The MTA and the assemblyman who oversees the agency have a $214 million disagreement over how much it costs the system to transport 500,000 students for free every school day.

The dispute was set off by the MTA's plan to eliminate free student MetroCards starting in September.

The agency says the city and state have not increased their contributions to the program as costs went up.

But Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) charged in a letter yesterday that it barely costs the MTA a dime to transport the students.

'They're using these kids as pawns,' Brodsky charged, saying MTA officials told him they would still run the same number of buses and subways with or without the free fares.

MTA officials said it would rake in an additional $214 million a year by charging the kids.

Meanwhile, students and teachers rallied yesterday in lower Manhattan to keep the free fares.

If Valerie Bynaar, a Philip Randolph HS student, had to pay the full amount, 'that would be another $1,000 a year for my mother -- it means I won't get new clothes for the new school year,' she said."
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Teacher Seniority Rules Resisted Amid Layoffs - WSJ.com

Teacher Seniority Rules Resisted Amid Layoffs - WSJ.com:

"Teacher seniority rules are meeting resistance from government officials and parents as a wave of layoffs is hitting public schools and driving newer teachers out of classrooms.

In a majority of the country's school districts, teacher layoffs are handled on a 'last in, first out' basis. Critics of seniority rules worry that many effective and talented teachers who have been hired in recent years will lose their jobs.

Unions say that seniority rules are the only objective way to carry out layoffs, and that they protect teachers from the whims and bias of managers, who might fire effective teachers they don't like.

This year, because of cuts in state aid to New York City, the city could be facing a loss of about 8,500 teacher jobs out of a total of 80,000. The last time the nation's largest school system laid off a teacher was 1976.

If New York City is forced to lay off some of the more than 30,000 new teachers it has hired in the past five years, it is 'going to be catastrophic,' said Joel Klein, chancellor of the city's school system. 'We're going to be losing a lot of great new teachers that we hired' in recent years, the chancellor said."
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Haitian Students Hit Placement Roadblock - NY1.com

Haitian Students Hit Placement Roadblock - NY1.com

Most New Yorkers may not know it but city schools have already become a refuge for hundreds of students who have escaped the devastation in Haiti -- a transition that's proving to be anything but smooth. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.
Chesna Gelin, 17, has had many reasons to cry since her house in Port-au-Prince, Haiti fell down around her last month, but she says the latest was how hard it's been to enroll in a New York City school.
"It was very, very sad. I even cried," said Gelin.
The Department of Education says 219 Haitian students have enrolled in city schools since the earthquake -- a process that should take five days at most.
It often takes longer for high schoolers since they have to go to an enrollment center to get placed. As a result, schools can refuse to take them for a variety of reasons, which means back to the enrollment center to start the process over.
"When you have immigrant students who still need to learn English, who are coming in mid-year, there aren't many spots for them, there aren't very good programs to begin with, and now we are going to have a number of students coming -- some now, some later, some down the road -- and the system still isn't equipped to deal with them," said Guisela Alvarez of Advocates for Children of New York.
Chesna joined her father in New York on January 26th. But she still hasn't started school. She waited hours in an enrollment center three times during the past three weeks before she was assigned to a school that said it had no room until next fall.
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Educational Symposium: Educating African-Americans for The 21st Century: 'A Call to Action' - Education and Schools News - Send2Press Feb 18, 2010

Educational Symposium: Educating African-Americans for The 21st Century: 'A Call to Action' - Education and Schools News - Send2Press Feb 18, 2010

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 18 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Inward Journeys Consulting, an educational consulting company founded by Dr. Chris Harrison and NNeka Harrison, Ed.D. (ABD) is hosting an educational symposium titled Educating African-Americans for the 21st Century: "A Call to Action." This symposium will be held on Saturday, April 24, 2010 at Mills College (in Lisser Hall) in Oakland, Calif.

Academic preparation for the 21st Century is essential for African-Americans to successfully compete in the global marketplace. This seminar will address key topics and issues in education, motivate attendees to take action, and provide direction for educators, parents, school leaders, and other concerned community-stakeholders on how to improve the quality of education for African-Americans.

Inward Journeys Consulting is honored to host its Co-Founder and COO, Dr. Chris Harrison, as the keynote speaker. Dr. Chris Harrison, who is a native of Oakland, Calif., is a graduate of Oakland Public Schools, Morehouse College, and the Mills College School of Education. He is a man on a mission and is known as a passionate educator who is committed to raising the bar for the delivery of quality education to African-American and other students of color. Over a 14-year span, Dr. Harrison has developed expertise as a classroom teacher, researcher, educational administrator, curriculum developer, and professional development trainer. Dr. Harrison is the co-author (with his wife NNeka) of "How to Help Your Child Achieve Academic Success in School: Educating Your Child During the Elementary, Middle, & High School Years."

Accomplished and committed guest speakers who are leaders and practitioners in education have also partnered with Inward Journeys Consulting for this event. Attendees will also be graced with a special message from the former California Superintendent of Public Instruction, Delaine Eastin.

Each attendee will receive handouts, freebies, and have the opportunity to interact with community vendors who will provide information, books, CDs, and other resources related to education.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION:
When registering for this symposium titled, Educating African-Americans for the 21st Century, registrants will have the option to pay online by credit card or check. Registrants will also have the option to complete their registration information online, print out a confirmation page, and mail a check (with a copy of their confirmation page) to the following address: Acteva, c/o Inward 
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02.18.2010 - 'Faculty need to participate directly in remaking the State of California,' says Academic Senate chair

02.18.2010 - 'Faculty need to participate directly in remaking the State of California,' says Academic Senate chair

BERKELEY — A law professor specializing in ethics, criminal law, and legal and political philosophy, Chris Kutz has served since August 2009 as chair, and before that as vice chair, of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate. Faced with an alarming budget crisis, the Senate has become a hub for faculty deliberation and activity on an array of important decisions — "some of them reversible," he says, "some not" — concerning the character and structure of the campus and the UC system. He sat down recently with NewsCenter writer Cathy Cockrell to share his perspective on the challenges of shared governance in a time of unprecedented change.
Q. What was your initial agenda as Senate chair? Have you had to switch course as the campus's financial situation has deteriorated?
Chris KutzAcademic Senate Chair Chris Kutz teaches in the Jurisprudence & Social Policy Program and directs the Kadish Center for Law, Morality & Public Affairs, both at Berkeley Law. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at Berkeley and his law degree at Yale. (Peg Skorpinski photo)
A. When I agreed to take the job two years ago, I thought we would be dealing with very different issues. I had been co-chair of a task force on large-scale industrial partnerships like the BP/Energy Biosciences Institute. I thought the Senate would be thinking a lot about private funding in relation to our public mission. We have, in fact, but in a very different context. Not "How do we maintain our autonomy in a shower of private dollars?" but "How do we get some of those dollars to replace the public ones that are disappearing?"
I was also eager to try to make the Senate a more efficient governing body, by taking greater care in how we ask for and use the extraordinarily limited resource of faculty time and deliberation. We have made a little headway here, in trimming back on standing committees so that we can ask more faculty to serve on specific "task forces," for example those dealing with athletics or the budget.
It became clear last year that the funding of intercollegiate athletics was going to be a big issue. Athletics would have been an issue even without the budget crisis, but the huge budget shortfall has given it steam, even though it accounts  for a fairly small fraction of the campus's budget. Athletics — while it's significant and needs attention — has more symbolic than financial impact.
One thing I was not ready for is the degree of anger in the community. You cut people's salaries, hike their tuitions, or threaten layoffs, and they get angry.
Q. How has that anger manifested?
A. It has manifested, for example, in the Nov. 5 faculty meeting about the funding of athletics, in which tempers were very short. I'm greatly concerned about the poor state of our labor relations, which I think is hindering UC politically. We need to mount a unified front politically in support of higher education — represented workers, non-represented workers, and faculty, together. We have a common institution and a common future.
Q. What is the Academic Senate's central challenge at this time, in your view?
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