Union tries personal tactics on some UC regents

Union tries personal tactics on some UC regents

Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, March 14, 2010

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Jamie Rector / Special to The Chronicle

Martha Garibay (left) and Hilda Sandoval (center), union members who work in food services at UCLA, protest at the home of UC Regent Eddie Island in Santa Monica on Friday.

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Dozens of custodians, gardeners, bus drivers and cooks from the University of California snooped around picturesque Fort Baker in Sausalito the other day, trying to figure out where investors from Blum Capital Partners were holding an annual meeting.

They spied the group entering a building. Rushing in, they squeezed past the stunned financiers and marched around a meeting room chanting, "Dick Blum, you can't hide! We can see your greedy side!"

Blum, the company's chairman and a UC regent, is one of several high-profile university leaders to encounter the dramatic, in-your-face tactics of UC's lowest-paid workers.

The individualized protests began last fall after the regents unveiled a cost-cutting strategy that did not spare workers earning less than $40,000 a year.

The tactic stands in contrast to the mass protests March 4 that poured from school and university campuses up and down the state as demonstrators sought to bring the plight of public education to as wide an audience as possible.

The UC workers believe their more personal strategy is succeeding. But UC officials say such "strong-arm tactics" backfire by alienating leaders who are doing their best during rough economic times.

The employees staged a candlelight vigil at the Beverly Hills home of Regent Joanne Kozberg. They brought morning coffee and pastries to the Los Angeles home of Regent Monica Lozano, head of the finance committee. They knocked on the door of Regent Charlene Zettel in San Diego. And they leafleted at a gala for the After-School All-Stars hosted by Regent Paul Wachter and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - then donated $1,000 to the charity.

"Our strategy is to approach key regents who have power and influence to change policy," said Rik Sandoval, a cook at UCSF.

Fight over cuts

Workers say that one year after UC signed a contract meant to lift as many as 9,000 service workers out of poverty, more than 3,000 of them remain in the same desperate

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/13/BA551CDONA.DTL#ixzz0iAKI3mde

Local: In The Mission : State's Low-Performing Schools Can Expect Drama, $$s and Longer School Days

Local: In The Mission : State's Low-Performing Schools Can Expect Drama, $$s and Longer School Days

State's Low-Performing Schools Can Expect Drama, $$s and Longer School Days

Mission Loc@l
By Lydia Chávez
In what appears to be the most dramatic set of challenges in decades, five of the 10 San Francisco schools eligible for millions of dollars in new funding must close, replace half their staffs or convert to charter schools by late August, according to U.S. Department of Education guidelines.
California officials this week announced the three options and an initial list of 188 state schools eligible for the intervention grants. A fourth and less disruptive option is the so-called transformation model. It requires reforming instruction and replacing a principal that has been on the job for more than two years.
While a school's fate will be determined at the district level, Washington's rules prevent districts from taking the easiest route.
Districts such as San Francisco with nine or more Tier I or Tier II schools may opt for the milder transformation model in no more "than 50 percent of those schools."(Tier I, II and III are designations that refer to poverty, funding and performance levels. If you want tier details, click here. )
"We're trying to respond to the new information and the new requirements in the most meaningful way," said Dee Dee Desmond, the executive director for Reform & Accountability for the San Francisco Unified School District.
Desmond said that in the past, San Francisco has developed a reform strategy that encouraged
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inthemission/detail?&entry_id=59076#ixzz0iAJbcOPn

Tim Hunt: Mad about budget cuts? Point the finger at Sacramento - Inside Bay Area

Tim Hunt: Mad about budget cuts? Point the finger at Sacramento - Inside Bay Area

Tim Hunt: Mad about budget cuts? Point the finger at Sacramento

By Tim Hunt
Contributing columnist

Posted: 03/14/2010 12:00:00 AM PST

The Ides of March will be an ugly day for too many California educators. March 15 is the deadline set by the state education code for school districts to notify teachers they may not have a job in the fall. Given the continued sorry state of the state budget, layoffs will abound as districts do what is necessary to bring their budgets into balance.

The state Legislature has been wrestling to close a $6 billion gap in revenues in the current fiscal year while facing another $14 billion shortfall starting July 1.

The unfortunate and unintended consequence of Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes in 1978, is that control of local school budgets has been thrusted into the fiasco that is Sacramento politics.

Education funding consumes almost 40 percent of the state budget — there's no way to bring it into balance without cutting education funding.

So Livermore trustees have decided to eliminate 67 positions, and Pleasanton board members voted to cut 32 teaching slots. It's the same story across the state. State revenues have fallen from a high of $104 billion to an estimate of $84 billion this year, a number that is expected by the nonpartisan legislative analyst to remain flat for the next two years.

The governor and his co-conspirators in the Legislature have failed to effectively deal with this problem since the Governator came into office. He set up a blue-ribbon commission that

delivered recommendations to change the taxation system last fall — a report that gathered nothing but dust instead of the focused attention it deserved.

So don't beat up the local school trustees who are doing what they need to do in a thankless job. Direct your ire at Sacramento. But, save some for the politicos in Washington, D.C., who are spending at a stunning rate — the difference, of course, is that Washington can print money.

BACKWARD LOGIC: You have to wonder just what the policymakers in the White House are thinking.

2010 census: Young people have most at stake

2010 census: Young people have most at stake

Jacob Simas

Sunday, March 14, 2010

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Courtesy Photo

Josh Ramos (from left), Maher Yakub and Josue Rojas work on a census-themed mural in San Francisco.

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This month, the U.S. Census Bureau will be mailing out its questionnaire to every household in the country in preparation for April 1 - National Census Day.
The census is, in essence, a numerical and demographic snapshot of an evolving national populace, undertaken each decade since the first count in 1790.
The government uses the data for political apportionment (determining voting district lines and the number of seats each state occupies in the House of Representatives) and for the disbursement of federal funds for vital services - such as health care, public education, job training, infrastructure and emergency preparedness - to the tune of roughly $400 billion per year. It stands to reason that the stakes for an accurate census count are high.
Yet, given the extra hardships caused by the economic crisis - education cutbacks, foreclosures, joblessness - the census has taken on added importance. Perhaps it is more important than in 2000, when an estimated undercount of 1 million people caused California to lose out on billions of federal dollars.
In San Francisco alone, public officials and community advocates maintained that the city was undercounted by at least 100,000 in the last census, resulting in a loss of about $300 million over the past decade that otherwise would have supported city services.
Although history shows us that California's response rate to the census questionnaire has been on par with that of neighboring states (73 percent of Californians filled out the census questionnaire in 2000), the communities most in need of federal dollars at a local level are those who are the most likely to be undercounted. The Census Bureau has a name for these areas: Hard to Count Communities. According to its own analyses, Hard to Count Communities tend to be poor, ethnic and overwhelmingly young.
Ironically, one could argue that young people stand to lose the most from an undercount. It will be 10 years before teenagers today - middle and high school students - have another opportunity to be counted. Within that time, many of them might want to go to college. Many might need to participate in after-school programs. They might need foster care or child care for their own young ones. Many might be faced with being the primary caregiver for an ailing family member. The scenarios go on and on.
What if they don't get counted? How many Pell grants will there be to go around? Will there even be enough teachers in their overcrowded classroom to inspire them? Will there be enough slots in the after-school program? Will they have the option of receiving

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/13/ING01CD7H3.DTL#ixzz0iAIm3NpE

Teachers’ pink slips painful but familiar - SignOnSanDiego.com

Teachers’ pink slips painful but familiar - SignOnSanDiego.com

Teachers’ pink slips painful but familiar

Critics say morale, education damaged

BY BRUCE LIEBERMAN, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

MAUREEN MAGEE, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2010 AT 3:57 A.M.

DAVID BROOKS / UNION-TRIBUNE

Teacher Linda Herschmiller, who got a layoff notice this month, led her kindergartners through Friday’s reading lesson at Johnson Elementary in El Cajon.

In her four years as a teacher, Linda Herschmiller has come to rely on the predictability of her profession. October means literacy assessments. December is marked by winter vacation. And March is synonymous with layoff notices.

Herschmiller, a kindergarten teacher at Johnson Elementary School in El Cajon, is among hundreds of teachers in the county — and nearly 22,000 teachers inCalifornia — to receive pink slips this month as school districts struggle with budget deficits brought on by the state’s fiscal mess.

Once an extreme measure, pink slips have become the norm for many school districts that must offset hefty deficits year after year. By law, tentative pink slips must be mailed by March 15. Although most are rescinded, it is a practice that many say is taking a toll on the morale of teachers, the dignity of the profession and the quality of public education.

“I have been laid off every year that I have taught — and every time it is devastating,” said Herschmiller, a seasoned “temporary teacher” since 2006 who cannot accrue the seniority she needs to secure tenure. “Part of what attracted me to teaching was the stability. That, and the chance to teach and help children who live in

Lawmakers near budget deal. Education funds await fate | Charlottesville Daily Progress

Lawmakers near budget deal. Education funds await fate | Charlottesville Daily Progress

Lawmakers near budget deal. Education funds await fate

MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

House Appropriations Committee budget conferees and staff work in the Appropriations Library at the General Assembly Building in Richmond.

By Tyler Whitley and Jeff E. Schapiro Media General News Service
Published: March 13, 2010

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RICHMOND — House and Senate negotiators are inching toward a compromise budget-balancing plan, promising to have a deal on lawmakers’ desks for today’s overtime finale to the 2010 General Assembly.

The Republican-dominated House of Delegates and Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate quit at mid-afternoon Saturday, having agreed to a one-day extension of the annual legislative session.

With additional time, budget conferees returned to work, edging toward agreement on spending over the next two years for public education, social services and law enforcement.

As of Saturday evening, the fate of a budget amendment that would take $2.8 million in education funding from Charlottesville and give it to Albemarle County beginning next fiscal year was still not known.

The measure was introduced by Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, in an attempt to account for the city and county’s revenue-sharing agreement when calculating state funding levels for education. The local agreement has resulted in annual exchanges of county tax revenue to the city for nearly 30 years, in exchange for the city not having annexed county land.

This year, Charlottesville received more than $18 million from its yearly payment.

But, the money is counted toward Albemarle County’s wealth instead of Charlottesville’s, something Bell has sought to change. If the amendment is included in the state’s final budget and it is passed, the result would be more state funding for the county and less for the city every year.

There have been reports that the amendment will not make it into the final budget, but that could not be confirmed Saturday.

State team set for big Race to the Top show | INDenverTimes.com

State team set for big Race to the Top show | INDenverTimes.com

State team set for big Race to the Top show

By Todd Engdahl on March 13, 2010 · 1 Comment · ShareThis

The full team that will pitch Colorado’s Race to the Top application in Washington next Tuesday has been named and will make a trial run on Saturday at an event organized by the Aspen Institute.

According to Education Week, “a select group of states— Colorado, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Tennessee are among them—have been invited by the nonprofit Aspen Institute to do a dry run of their presentations.” Institute officials wouldn’t confirm the list, but a state official told EdNews that Colorado is participating.

The real oral exam comes Tuesday afternoon, when the delegation will have a 90-minute session with the examiners who scored Colorado’s written application. And, following that, the 16 R2T finalists will have budget meetings with U.S. Department of Education officials.

The format of those meetings isn’t clear, but one report suggested state delegations might be asked to talk about what they’d cut if they don’t receive their full requests. Colorado has asked for $377 million. Previous federal guidance suggested that states of Colorado’s size might receive only $60 to $175 million.

Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien is leading the state’s Race to the Top effort.

State presentation teams are limited to five people. Colorado’s will include Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, education Commissioner Dwight Jones, Associate Commissioner Rich Wenning, Assistant to the Commissioner Nina Lopez and Linda Barker, director of teaching and learning for the Colorado Education Association.

O’Brien, who will leave office in January, was president of the Colorado Children’s Campaign for 16 years before her election in 2006.

Jones, named commissioner is June 2007, previously was superintendent of the Fountain-Fort Carson schools and a vice president of Edison Schools.

Wenning has been a key figure in crafting the state’s R2T application and also in building the state’s SchoolView.org online data system and developing Colorado’s new district accountability system. He’s a former executive of the Colorado League of Charter schools, a consultant to the Denver Public Schools and a senior vice president at New American Schools.

Lopez, who has coordinated American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs at CDE since last May, was also a key figure in the state’s application and is vice chair of the new Educator Effectiveness Council. She formerly was a vice president at the Children’s Campaign and worked at the League of Charter Schools and the Donnell-Kay Foundation. She co-chaired the education committee for Gov. Bill Ritter’s transition team. Lopez is on the board of KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy.

Barker, a former Montana teacher of the year, works on teaching and learning policy issues for the CEA, the

Obama Calls for Sweeping Overhaul in Education Law - NYTimes.com

Obama Calls for Sweeping Overhaul in Education Law - NYTimes.com

Obama Calls for Sweeping Overhaul in Education Law

The Obama administration on Saturday called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape divisive provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.

By announcing that he would send his education blueprint to Congress on Monday, President Obama returned to a campaign promise to repair the sprawling federal law, which affects each of the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools. His plan strikes a careful balance, retaining some key features of the Bush-era law, including its requirement for annual reading and math tests, while proposing far-reaching changes.

The administration would replace the law’s pass-fail school grading system with one that would measure individual students’ academic growth and judge schools based not on test scores alone but also on indicators like pupil attendance, graduation rates and learning climate. And while the proposal calls for more vigorous interventions in failing schools, it would also reward top performers and lessen federal interference in tens of thousands of reasonably well-run schools in the middle.

In addition, President Obama would replace the law’s requirement that every American child reach proficiency in reading and math, which administration officials have called utopian, with a new national target that could prove equally elusive: that all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career.

“Under these guidelines, schools that achieve excellence or show real progress will be rewarded,” the president said in his weekly radio address, “and local districts will be encouraged to commit to change in schools that are clearly letting their students down.”

Administration officials said their plan would urge the states to achieve the college-ready goal by 2020.

The No Child law, passed in 2001 by bipartisan majorities, focused the nation’s attention on closing achievement gaps between minorities and whites, but it included many provisions that created what Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Friday called “perverse

Obama Calls for an Educational Overhaul

President Barack Obama promised to rewrite the nation's sweeping and controversial education law known as No Child Left Behind with a plan to prepare students for life after high school and to place better teachers at the blackboards. (March 13)

Internal Affairs: Big money rules California's political landscape - San Jose Mercury News

Internal Affairs: Big money rules California's political landscape - San Jose Mercury News

Internal Affairs: Big money rules California's political landscape

By the Mercury News

Posted: 03/14/2010 12:00:00 AM PST

Follow the money and wind up in familiar places

So who's really running the show in California? If money speaks the loudest, it's six corporations, four business associations, three Indian tribes and two labor unions.

A new report from the Fair Political Practices Commission — California's elections watchdog — mines years of campaign and lobbyist reports and turns up this nugget: Over the past decade, 15 special-interest groups have spent more than $1 billion in an all-out bid to influence the state's affairs.

They spent that money to sink ballot initiatives and boost candidates. They fed it directly to political parties' war chests. (Democrats came out slightly ahead of Republicans.) And they spent hundreds of millions wining and dining lawmakers and other state officials.

Almost a fifth of the cash came from one group: the politically powerful California Teachers Association ($211.8 million). The teachers union was followed by an affiliate of the Service Employees Union International ($107.5 million), a pharmaceutical industry group ($104.9 million) and two deep-pocketed Indian tribes ($83.6 million and $69.3 million).

Rounding out the top 15 are some other big names, such as Pacific Gas & Electric, Chevron, AT&T and Philip Morris. (For the full report, go to www.fppc.ca.gov/reports/Report38104.pdf.)

If you don't think

all that money really means something, then consider this result: Indian tribes spent $125 million on six ballot measures that involved the lucrative gambling industry. And they got their way on all but one.

Big money, the report notes, doesn't just give leverage to a particular cause or candidate, but it also can drown out other, less-funded causes and candidates.

"The conclusion is inescapable," reads the report's executive summary. "A handful of special interests have a disproportionate amount of influence on California elections and public policy."

And that means some special interests might be more special than others.

Definitionizing undersuccessed scholartoriums

The opposite of English is Educratese: the jargon-filled, turgid and oblique prose favored by education administrators. Schools with too many lagging students are said to be in "program improvement." Brunch is a

Lots of tough talk at state GOP convention

Lots of tough talk at state GOP convention

In a midterm election year when angry voters are turning on Democrats and turning out at Tea Party protests, California Republicans are talking up volatile issues that have historically resonated in hard times, including getting tough on environmental regulations and undocumented immigrants and their children.
But even in the overwhelmingly conservative venue of the state GOP convention in Santa Clara this weekend, some Republicans expressed concern that efforts by candidates to revive the thrust of Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration measure, and roll back California's landmark climate change legislation may hurt the party's long-term outreach to Latino and independent voters in the nation's most populous state.
The attempt to find a rallying point for the widespread angst about the economy proved to be a tough balancing act for the GOP during Saturday's sessions, especially as it tries to expand its voter base. Only 31 percent of California voters are registered with the GOP, and no congressional district has a majority of Republicans.
California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is challenging front-runner Meg Whitman for his party's gubernatorial nomination, was the most vivid example of the lengths to which candidates will stretch to win the party's right flank. He called for an end to all taxpayer-funded services to undocumented immigrants, including denying their children public education and health care.
"We're just out of money ... and one of the reasons the state's in trouble is because of illegal immigration," said Poizner, who argued California spends up to $10 billion annually on services for illegal immigrants.
"I'm going to be the truth teller in this campaign. As governor I'm going to stop illegal immigration once and for all," Poizner said to loud cheers from the audience Saturday
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/13/MNI91CFEOE.DTL#ixzz0iAFrH9Fi

The Big Idea -- it's bad education policy - latimes.com

The Big Idea -- it's bad education policy - latimes.com

The Big Idea -- it's bad education policy

One simple solution for our schools? A captivating promise, but a false one.

By Diane Ravitch

There have been two features that regularly mark the history of U.S. public schools. Over the last century, our education system has been regularly captivated by a Big Idea -- a savant or an organization that promised a simple solution to the problems of our schools. The second is that there are no simple solutions, no miracle cures to those problems.

Education is a slow, arduous process that requires the work of willing students, dedicated teachers and supportive families, as well as a coherent curriculum.

As an education historian, I have often warned against the seductive lure of grand ideas to reform education. Our national infatuation with education fads and reforms distracts us from the steady work that must be done.

Our era is no different. We now face a wave of education reforms based on the belief that school choice, test-driven accountability and the resulting competition will dramatically improve student achievement.

Once again, I find myself sounding the alarm that the latest vision of education reform is deeply flawed. But this time my warning carries a personal rebuke. For much of the last two decades, I was among those who jumped aboard the choice and accountability bandwagon. Choice and accountability, I believed, would offer a chance for poor children to escape failing schools. Testing and accountability, I thought, would cast sunshine on low-performing schools and lead to improvement. It all seemed to make sense, even if there was little empirical evidence, just promise and hope.

Today there is empirical evidence, and it shows clearly that choice, competition and accountability as education reform levers are not working. But with confidence bordering on recklessness, the Obama administration is plunging ahead, pushing an aggressive program of school reform -- codified in its signature Race to the Top program -- that relies on the power of incentives and competition. This approach may well make schools worse, not better.

Those who do not follow education closely may be tempted to think that, at long last, we're finally turning the corner. What could be wrong with promoting charter schools to compete with public schools? Why shouldn't we demand accountability from educators and use test scores to reward our best teachers and identify those who should find another job?

Like the grand plans of previous eras, they sound sensible but will leave education no better off. Charter schools are no panacea. The nation now has about 5,000 of them, and they vary in quality.