By TOVIN LAPAN -- Santa Cruz Sentinel
02/15/2011
State Assemblymen Gil Cedillo and Luis Alejo are trying to find the elusive answer to a question posed by poet Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred?"
Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, has introduced the California Dream Act, which would give undocumented students access to financial aid, three times in the state Legislature. It has passed three times, and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it all three times.
In January, Cedillo, along with principal co-author Alejo, D-Watsonville, announced he would bring a new incarnation of the bill to the Assembly floor this session. Alejo, a freshman assemblyman, has thrown his support behind the bill after meeting numerous undocumented immigrants over the years who were excellent students but did not have the means to attend college, he said.
While some state law makers hope the Dream Act, in the words of Hughes, dries up "like a raisin in the sun," proponents are encouraged by Gov. Jerry Brown's comments supporting the bill during his 2010 campaign.
"There are only so many dollars going into education," said state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, who is on the Senate Committee for Education. "To fund those here illegally at the cost of those here legally is not good policy."
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that every year 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools, and 40 percent, 26,000, of those are in California. While California's Latino population is at the forefront of the debate, students from Asia and the Pacific Islands make up 40 percent of the U.S. undocumented student population, according to the Asian Pacific Coalition at UCLA.
"There is money. Thousands of dollars in Cal Grants are not being utilized by students every year," Alejo said. "We have a whole initiative going on right now to promote Cal Grants so more students will apply."
Huff is not swayed by Cedillo's strategy of splitting the bill into two portions - one providing access to privately administered aid and the other to state-funded Cal Grants - saying there is a finite amount of money to go around, especially with large cuts to higher education looming.
Facing a $25.4 billion state budget deficit, Brown has suggested cutting $500 million each from UC and CSU, and $400 million from community colleges.
"We would have to create thousands of new jobs to support the expenditures from this bill, so even if you agree with the principal it doesn't make budgetary sense," Huff said.
To qualify for the Dream Act students must file for AB 540 status, the 2001 bill that offered in-state tuition to undocumented students, children of military personnel and others who attended California high schools for at least three years. Under the law, undocumented immigrants must agree to apply for legal status as soon as they are eligible.
"These are smart, hard working kids on a path to naturalization," said state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who is on the education committee. "It's a simple question for me. Do I want them in the classroom, or do I want them hanging out on a street corner?"
UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal says undocumented students, many of whom were brought to the country at a young age by family, are "an innocent group of people who work very hard," and would like the prohibitions lifted.
"The universities need the right to raise money for these students. That's the easiest thing to have happen. The regents could approve that," he said. "Second is to allow some of our return to aid money - we hold back a third of paid tuition to use for students who can't afford tuition - to be used for these students. And the third thing is to make those students eligible for Cal Grants. The California Dream Act would accomplish that."
If approved, California would be the third state to offer financial aid to undocumented students after Texas and New Mexico.
All of the legislators interviewed agreed the federal government must work on comprehensive immigration reform, so states do not continue with piecemeal initiatives.
AT A GLANCE
CALIFORNIA DREAM ACT
The state legislation has been previously proposed by Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, three times. The current incarnation is split into two bills, AB 130 and AB 131. The first bill would allow students who meet the in-state tuition requirements to apply for and receive specified financial aid administered by California's public colleges and universities. The types of aid these students would be eligible for include: Board of Governors Fee Waiver and Institutional Student Aid, a student aid program administered by the attending college or university. The second bill would allow students who meet the in-state tuition requirements to apply for and receive Cal Grants.
SOURCE: California State Legislature, www.legislature.ca.gov/port-bilinfo.html
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Online courses: Task force wants to allow fees
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of California community college students take online classes that require them to pay an access fee to a commercial publisher on top of their registration fee for the course.
Students have complained that this practice forces them to pay twice for the same course and violates the state's college fee law because they can't download, print or keep the electronic texts and materials they've paid for. Some say they are not aware of the mandatory fee until after they've signed up for a class.
Now, rather than recommend the fee be halted or refunded, a state task force studying the issue wants to change the law to specifically allow such online fees. The college system's Board of Governors can change Title 5 governing college fees without Legislative approval.
The debate over appropriate fees for online courses comes as more colleges are relying on off-the-shelf, Web-based classes from publishers that create - and own- the curriculum.
"Instructional delivery systems have changed, so we're making sure that our language is changed," said Barry Russell, vice chancellor of academic affairs with the college chancellor's office in Sacramento, which oversees the state's 112 community colleges.
Task force members
Russell served on the 31-member task force, which met Monday. It included nine vendors representing five publishers that sell online courses, eight faculty members, a handful of college experts in online education, top brass from the college system and one student.
The chancellor's office created the Instructional Materials Fees Task Force last month in response to a Chronicle story about student anger over a $78 fee for an online class at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Students had to pay the mandatory fee to a publisher, Pearson, on top of their $85 registration fee.
"This is a matter that needs to be settled in court - it's illegal," said Fred Rassaii, a Foothill student who complained to campus administrators in April. They rejected his complaint.
"You could swallow the fee if it went to the state, but it's going to private corporations," he said.
Rassaii and others say it's wrong that students have no choice but to pay the fee if they want to take the class. The fee has been compared to the cost of a textbook. But Rassaii said students can choose whether to buy a book, yet are barred from the course if they don't pay the publisher. Even in traditional classrooms, some instructors now require students to do homework online, which can require a fee to an online publisher. Again, students have no choice.
"The homework is worth 20 percent of your grade," Rassaii said.
Same as a workbook
Shaine Johnson, the only student on the task force, said the group concluded that what students get for the fee is comparable to buying a workbook that they use once.
"The technology advanced faster than the law," said Johnson, a student at Los Rios Community College in Sacramento. He is interning at the chancellor's office and was tapped for the task force.
Johnson said that when students register at Los Rios, extra charges are clearly noted.
Told that Foothill students felt blindsided by the fees, he said students should have all the fee information up front.
Kevin Feliciano, president of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges and a student at Ohlone College in Fremont, said too many students are unaware of extra fees.
"The true cost of an education should be transparent, honest and not done to line the pockets of textbook publishers," he said, adding that the student government will consider a resolution on the fees at its meeting in September.
Meanwhile, the plan to change the law and allow the fee is not yet a done deal.
Once a recommendation is finalized, Chancellor Jack Scott will review it before sending it to the Consultation Council, an advisory board of faculty, staff and others. After that, the Board of Governors will take the final vote.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of California community college students take online classes that require them to pay an access fee to a commercial publisher on top of their registration fee for the course.
Students have complained that this practice forces them to pay twice for the same course and violates the state's college fee law because they can't download, print or keep the electronic texts and materials they've paid for. Some say they are not aware of the mandatory fee until after they've signed up for a class.
Now, rather than recommend the fee be halted or refunded, a state task force studying the issue wants to change the law to specifically allow such online fees. The college system's Board of Governors can change Title 5 governing college fees without Legislative approval.
The debate over appropriate fees for online courses comes as more colleges are relying on off-the-shelf, Web-based classes from publishers that create - and own- the curriculum.
"Instructional delivery systems have changed, so we're making sure that our language is changed," said Barry Russell, vice chancellor of academic affairs with the college chancellor's office in Sacramento, which oversees the state's 112 community colleges.
Task force members
Russell served on the 31-member task force, which met Monday. It included nine vendors representing five publishers that sell online courses, eight faculty members, a handful of college experts in online education, top brass from the college system and one student.
The chancellor's office created the Instructional Materials Fees Task Force last month in response to a Chronicle story about student anger over a $78 fee for an online class at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Students had to pay the mandatory fee to a publisher, Pearson, on top of their $85 registration fee.
"This is a matter that needs to be settled in court - it's illegal," said Fred Rassaii, a Foothill student who complained to campus administrators in April. They rejected his complaint.
"You could swallow the fee if it went to the state, but it's going to private corporations," he said.
Rassaii and others say it's wrong that students have no choice but to pay the fee if they want to take the class. The fee has been compared to the cost of a textbook. But Rassaii said students can choose whether to buy a book, yet are barred from the course if they don't pay the publisher. Even in traditional classrooms, some instructors now require students to do homework online, which can require a fee to an online publisher. Again, students have no choice.
"The homework is worth 20 percent of your grade," Rassaii said.
Same as a workbook
Shaine Johnson, the only student on the task force, said the group concluded that what students get for the fee is comparable to buying a workbook that they use once.
"The technology advanced faster than the law," said Johnson, a student at Los Rios Community College in Sacramento. He is interning at the chancellor's office and was tapped for the task force.
Johnson said that when students register at Los Rios, extra charges are clearly noted.
Told that Foothill students felt blindsided by the fees, he said students should have all the fee information up front.
Kevin Feliciano, president of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges and a student at Ohlone College in Fremont, said too many students are unaware of extra fees.
"The true cost of an education should be transparent, honest and not done to line the pockets of textbook publishers," he said, adding that the student government will consider a resolution on the fees at its meeting in September.
Meanwhile, the plan to change the law and allow the fee is not yet a done deal.
Once a recommendation is finalized, Chancellor Jack Scott will review it before sending it to the Consultation Council, an advisory board of faculty, staff and others. After that, the Board of Governors will take the final vote.
Battle over online class fees moves to Capitol
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Efforts to quickly legalize student access fees for community college cyber-classes - fees that are banned by state law but which may be rampant across California campuses - have hit a snag in the state Capitol.
Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the state Senate, has strongly criticized a recent recommendation by a community college task force to change state law to permit such fees, which are charged by publishers capitalizing on the explosive popularity of online courses.
The problem, he told community college leaders, is that the group met behind closed doors, was heavily weighted with publishers, and failed to disclose conflicts of interest.
In his letter last week, the Sacramento Democrat also warned Community College Chancellor Jack Scott and Scott Himelstein, president of the community college Board of Governors that hasty legalization of such fees could open the door to "predatory publisher practices at the expense of students and families." He called for "a full vetting" of the issue with proper public notice and participation.
Open resources
Echoing Steinberg's concerns are advocates of free online curriculum - known as open educational resources - and the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst.
"We want to know how widespread this (fee) practice is," said Paul Steenhausen, a community college specialist at the Legislative Analyst's Office. "This is something the Legislature will review."
Enrollment in online courses has soared in the past decade. In 2000, 115,000 California community college students took at least one such class, but last year more than 600,000 took online courses, according to a report by Steenhausen. While community college enrollment grew by just 1 percent a year in that time, online enrollment climbed by 19 percent a year, the report found.
Now the fee controversy puts California at a crossroads about how to proceed: Should the state make it easier for publishers to provide sometimes costly, off-the-shelf cyber classes, or should lawmakers encourage a greater reliance on free or low-cost curriculum, often developed by professors for broad distribution online?
Pearson, a big publisher that sells online classes to 3 out of 4 California community colleges - says students and faculty strongly benefit from its courses, which provide instant quiz grades and academic feedback, "freeing instructors to spend less time grading and more time working directly with their students," the company said responding to inquiries from The Chronicle.
But advocates of free online instructional materials also have powerful proponents. They say that textbooks in the public domain are increasingly necessary as the costs of college - and books - rise ever higher.
The U.S. Department of Education endorses free curriculum as a matter of policy, and this year began requiring community colleges that rely on federal grant money earmarked for developing online curriculum to offer it at no cost to students.
Push for lower fees
In California, former state Senate leader Dean Florez heads a foundation called 20 Million Minds, which works to lower the cost of college texts through the use of open educational resources. It's across the street from the state Capitol, and Florez hasn't hesitated to tell his former colleagues that it's a bad idea to let publishers charge for access.
"As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation," he said. Permitting the fees "has the potential to create a very, very bad precedent."
"It's not just about academic affordability or fee stability. It's bigger. It's the potential for open educational resources to be put into the mix," Florez said.
The fee controversy came to light in June after The Chronicle published a story about student anger over a $78 fee for an online math class at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills. To enroll, students had to pay the fee to Pearson on top of their $85 registration fee to the college, effectively doubling the price of the course.
College officials defended the publisher's fee as a legitimate charge for instructional materials. Yet state law prohibits such fees unless students can keep the materials they've purchased.
Students said they couldn't download, store or print the electronic textbook they paid for, and that their access code had an expiration date. Jason Jordan, a senior vice president at Pearson, confirmed that students "can't download it and keep it. It's a purely Web-based application."
Fred Rassaii, a Foothill student who first complained to campus officials about the fee in April, believes every student who has paid such a fee - perhaps thousands statewide - is owed a refund.
'Multibillion-dollar fleecing'
"Students are being robbed," he said. "It's not limited to California. We're talking about a multibillion-dollar fleecing of American students."
Rassaii called Steinberg's effort "a good start."
Foothill College was once a hub of advocacy for free courseware - and many professors still use it. Hal Plotkin, a former trustee of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, was a huge proponent and now serves as a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Education.
Although the Obama administration has taken no position on the fee issue, Plotkin said he was "greatly heartened" to see Steinberg's letter, which also urged the college leaders to consider "other online educational resources that may be lower in cost or free to students."
Chancellor Scott and Board President Himelstein have not yet replied to the letter.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Efforts to quickly legalize student access fees for community college cyber-classes - fees that are banned by state law but which may be rampant across California campuses - have hit a snag in the state Capitol.
Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the state Senate, has strongly criticized a recent recommendation by a community college task force to change state law to permit such fees, which are charged by publishers capitalizing on the explosive popularity of online courses.
The problem, he told community college leaders, is that the group met behind closed doors, was heavily weighted with publishers, and failed to disclose conflicts of interest.
In his letter last week, the Sacramento Democrat also warned Community College Chancellor Jack Scott and Scott Himelstein, president of the community college Board of Governors that hasty legalization of such fees could open the door to "predatory publisher practices at the expense of students and families." He called for "a full vetting" of the issue with proper public notice and participation.
Open resources
Echoing Steinberg's concerns are advocates of free online curriculum - known as open educational resources - and the state's nonpartisan legislative analyst.
"We want to know how widespread this (fee) practice is," said Paul Steenhausen, a community college specialist at the Legislative Analyst's Office. "This is something the Legislature will review."
Enrollment in online courses has soared in the past decade. In 2000, 115,000 California community college students took at least one such class, but last year more than 600,000 took online courses, according to a report by Steenhausen. While community college enrollment grew by just 1 percent a year in that time, online enrollment climbed by 19 percent a year, the report found.
Now the fee controversy puts California at a crossroads about how to proceed: Should the state make it easier for publishers to provide sometimes costly, off-the-shelf cyber classes, or should lawmakers encourage a greater reliance on free or low-cost curriculum, often developed by professors for broad distribution online?
Pearson, a big publisher that sells online classes to 3 out of 4 California community colleges - says students and faculty strongly benefit from its courses, which provide instant quiz grades and academic feedback, "freeing instructors to spend less time grading and more time working directly with their students," the company said responding to inquiries from The Chronicle.
But advocates of free online instructional materials also have powerful proponents. They say that textbooks in the public domain are increasingly necessary as the costs of college - and books - rise ever higher.
The U.S. Department of Education endorses free curriculum as a matter of policy, and this year began requiring community colleges that rely on federal grant money earmarked for developing online curriculum to offer it at no cost to students.
Push for lower fees
In California, former state Senate leader Dean Florez heads a foundation called 20 Million Minds, which works to lower the cost of college texts through the use of open educational resources. It's across the street from the state Capitol, and Florez hasn't hesitated to tell his former colleagues that it's a bad idea to let publishers charge for access.
"As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation," he said. Permitting the fees "has the potential to create a very, very bad precedent."
"It's not just about academic affordability or fee stability. It's bigger. It's the potential for open educational resources to be put into the mix," Florez said.
The fee controversy came to light in June after The Chronicle published a story about student anger over a $78 fee for an online math class at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills. To enroll, students had to pay the fee to Pearson on top of their $85 registration fee to the college, effectively doubling the price of the course.
College officials defended the publisher's fee as a legitimate charge for instructional materials. Yet state law prohibits such fees unless students can keep the materials they've purchased.
Students said they couldn't download, store or print the electronic textbook they paid for, and that their access code had an expiration date. Jason Jordan, a senior vice president at Pearson, confirmed that students "can't download it and keep it. It's a purely Web-based application."
Fred Rassaii, a Foothill student who first complained to campus officials about the fee in April, believes every student who has paid such a fee - perhaps thousands statewide - is owed a refund.
'Multibillion-dollar fleecing'
"Students are being robbed," he said. "It's not limited to California. We're talking about a multibillion-dollar fleecing of American students."
Rassaii called Steinberg's effort "a good start."
Foothill College was once a hub of advocacy for free courseware - and many professors still use it. Hal Plotkin, a former trustee of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, was a huge proponent and now serves as a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Education.
Although the Obama administration has taken no position on the fee issue, Plotkin said he was "greatly heartened" to see Steinberg's letter, which also urged the college leaders to consider "other online educational resources that may be lower in cost or free to students."
Chancellor Scott and Board President Himelstein have not yet replied to the letter.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Highly rated instructors go beyond teaching to the standardized test
Some Southern California teachers are finding ways to keep creativity in the lesson plan even as they prepare their students for standardized tests.
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
July 11, 2011
Even as the annual state testing season bore down on her this spring, fourth-grade teacher Jin Yi barely bothered with test prep materials. The Hobart Boulevard Elementary School teacher used to spend weeks with practice tests but found they bored her students.
Instead, she engages them with hands-on lessons, such as measuring their arms and comparing that data to solve above-grade-level subtraction problems.
"I used to spend time on test prep because I felt pressured to do it," said Yi, who attended Hobart in Koreatown herself and returned a decade ago to teach. "But I think it's kind of a waste of time. The students get bored and don't take it seriously and it defeats the purpose."
Yi's approach seems to work: She is rated "highly effective" in a value-added analysis by The Times based on her students' standardized test scores in English and math. She also ranks among the Los Angeles Unified School District's top 100 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in English in that analysis.
Who says students need "drill and kill" exercises to raise their test scores?
The pressure to improve student test performance in California and across the country often meets with disdain from teachers who say they are compelled to throw out creativity and "teach to the test." The phrase is usually code for teachers who are forced to abandon creativity and focus exclusively on areas tested — reading, writing and math. That, critics say, shortchanges students of such other important subjects as art, history and even science in some grades.
A.J. Duffy, former president of United Teachers Los Angeles, for instance, dismisses the weeks before spring testing as "Bubbling-In 101," a reference to class time spent teaching students how to select correct answers.
Visits with Yi and other successful teachers around Los Angeles County, however, suggest that innovative teaching and rich classroom experiences need not be sacrificed in the quest for better test scores. But it's not easy to have it all. Several teachers interviewed said they spend hours of extra planning time and hundreds of dollars to create more interesting lessons. They say they must be supremely organized and strict enforcers of classroom rules. And some quietly skirt official district schedules to run with their own approaches.
Next door to Yi, Hobart fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith has cut down L.A. Unified's prescribed reading program from three hours a day to 75 minutes, saying his students can work on reading comprehension, vocabulary and other skills through other subjects. That opens up time to learn physics by building model roller coasters and rockets and to grasp history with Ken Burns documentaries. His students work on long-term art projects, perform Shakespeare and learn musical instruments.
"To teach all of the lessons they want us to teach using the official district schedule is impossible — it can't be done," said Esquith, who is rated "highly effective" by the Times and has won numerous national teaching awards. "Teachers have to finagle the schedule."
Esquith and Yi also bemoaned the increasing focus on testing and sympathized with frustrated colleagues.
At Los Angeles Elementary School in the Pico-Union neighborhood, fourth-grade teacher Maria Duarte lamented the loss of time to teach science — her favorite subject and one that she said most interests her students. Over the years, the time for that subject has dropped from 2.5 days a week to 1.5 days a week in favor of language arts and math. One casualty was a popular experiment growing radishes that Duarte said taught critical thinking and research skills.
Duarte was also rated highly effective in the Times analysis. Under value-added, a student's past test performance is compared with his or her current progress to measure whether teachers added — or subtracted — value to their students' academic growth.
"Painfully, I decided I had to let that go," Duarte said of the experiment. "There's just not enough time — or we need to think of better ways to use our time."
In Monterey Park, eighth-grade teacher Janice Pirolo said she no longer has time to delve deeply into the curriculum or stray much from it. When she does, she falls behind.
When her school, Monterey Highlands, received funding to visit the Japanese American National Museum, Pirolo prepared her students by teaching them about the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. She also spent time on Martin Luther King Jr. before the national holiday named for the civil rights leader .
But none of that is part of eighth-grade social studies standards, and Pirolo fell behind. For a month before the testing in May, she abandoned the textbook entirely to focus exclusively on test prep. As a result, she got through only the textbook's fourth chapter by year's end.
"We have stopped reading the textbook, sadly … but you live and die by the test," said Pirolo, a 34-year veteran who teaches social studies and language arts.
The nation's enhanced focus on testing began under the 2001 No Child Left Behind federal education law, which attempted to hold school districts accountable for student progress through mandatory annual tests. The law, which is under review in Congress, requires that by 2014 all students meet 100% proficiency levels in math and English — a target no one expects schools to meet.
Many educators see an upside to the national focus on student achievement, as measured by test scores, and have unapologetically instilled intensive preparatory programs. Alvarado Intermediate School in Rowland Heights conducts a concentrated test-prep program before the state exams, using assessment data to identify students who need to strengthen specific skills. The sessions are held after school to preserve electives, such as computers, art and music. Attendance is mandatory, with detention for those who miss and prizes for those who participate.
Principal Ying Tsao said she supported the move toward state standards and regular assessments. In earlier times, she said, teachers might skew toward language arts, say, while ignoring math.
Bruce Clark, Los Angeles Elementary principal, said testing has robbed educators of some flexibility, but he said the benefits of higher student achievement are worth it.
Not that there's no time for fun. Clark sheepishly said he "sold out" and held pep rallies to excite his students about the tests. Duarte motivates her students with a party and movie, bringing in treats to entice them to do well. Monterey Highlands has "March Math Madness" every year to pump up students with math-related scavenger hunts and "problem of the week" contests. To kick off the testing this year, Principal Joe Cash donned an apron and chef's hat to serve pancakes at a school breakfast — while asking math questions(How many pancakes does Johnny eat if he gets two pancakes each of the three times he comes up?).
Los Angeles Elementary aims to avoid last-minute cramming by requiring 15-minute skills sessions at the start of the day throughout the year, featuring questions similar to those on the state test. Duarte prepares her students at the beginning of the year with intense work on Greek and Roman roots of words and multiple-meaning words — areas of student weakness identified by testing data.
A different model is the UCLA Community School, a pilot school launched last year by the university and L.A. Unified in Koreatown. Teachers there are free to develop their own assessments. Kate Beaudet uses an individualized reading test that she said is more sophisticated, allowing her to pinpoint a child's actual reading level and areas of weakness.
Beaudet and two colleagues, who joined the staff from other L.A. Unified schools, said district testing requirements had taken weeks of instructional time, skewed teaching toward what was tested and led many teachers to rely heavily on worksheets.
"Teachers only want to teach reading, writing and math, because that's what's assessed," said Beaudet, who teaches a second-and-third-grade class.
To prepare for state exams, Beaudet incorporated practice questions into work she did all year with literary genres, a third-grade reading standard. Using a test reading passage from an African folk tale, she read the book with her students and helped them analyze the elements and write their own test questions — which both conveyed needed skills and boosted their confidence, she said.
At Hobart, Yi figures she has spent up to $1,000 a year designing more creative lessons than those offered by L.A. Unified. The district's fourth-grade reader presents only one chapter of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," C so Yi bought copies of the whole book to enable her students to read the entire story. She also bought materials so students could make stuffed rats.
Meanwhile, the project helped Yi's students practice a state standard: to read a set of directions and answer questions about them. She also wrote related vocabulary and comprehension questions. And Yi said that being able to read entire books has instilled in many a love of literature.
Not all teachers are willing to go to such lengths. Some of her colleagues have simply used test prep books all year, Yi said. But that's not for her.
"I enjoy challenging myself to think of better, different and fun ways to teach," she said. "I love to see the light of learning go on."
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
July 11, 2011
Even as the annual state testing season bore down on her this spring, fourth-grade teacher Jin Yi barely bothered with test prep materials. The Hobart Boulevard Elementary School teacher used to spend weeks with practice tests but found they bored her students.
Instead, she engages them with hands-on lessons, such as measuring their arms and comparing that data to solve above-grade-level subtraction problems.
"I used to spend time on test prep because I felt pressured to do it," said Yi, who attended Hobart in Koreatown herself and returned a decade ago to teach. "But I think it's kind of a waste of time. The students get bored and don't take it seriously and it defeats the purpose."
Yi's approach seems to work: She is rated "highly effective" in a value-added analysis by The Times based on her students' standardized test scores in English and math. She also ranks among the Los Angeles Unified School District's top 100 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in English in that analysis.
Who says students need "drill and kill" exercises to raise their test scores?
The pressure to improve student test performance in California and across the country often meets with disdain from teachers who say they are compelled to throw out creativity and "teach to the test." The phrase is usually code for teachers who are forced to abandon creativity and focus exclusively on areas tested — reading, writing and math. That, critics say, shortchanges students of such other important subjects as art, history and even science in some grades.
A.J. Duffy, former president of United Teachers Los Angeles, for instance, dismisses the weeks before spring testing as "Bubbling-In 101," a reference to class time spent teaching students how to select correct answers.
Visits with Yi and other successful teachers around Los Angeles County, however, suggest that innovative teaching and rich classroom experiences need not be sacrificed in the quest for better test scores. But it's not easy to have it all. Several teachers interviewed said they spend hours of extra planning time and hundreds of dollars to create more interesting lessons. They say they must be supremely organized and strict enforcers of classroom rules. And some quietly skirt official district schedules to run with their own approaches.
Next door to Yi, Hobart fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith has cut down L.A. Unified's prescribed reading program from three hours a day to 75 minutes, saying his students can work on reading comprehension, vocabulary and other skills through other subjects. That opens up time to learn physics by building model roller coasters and rockets and to grasp history with Ken Burns documentaries. His students work on long-term art projects, perform Shakespeare and learn musical instruments.
"To teach all of the lessons they want us to teach using the official district schedule is impossible — it can't be done," said Esquith, who is rated "highly effective" by the Times and has won numerous national teaching awards. "Teachers have to finagle the schedule."
Esquith and Yi also bemoaned the increasing focus on testing and sympathized with frustrated colleagues.
At Los Angeles Elementary School in the Pico-Union neighborhood, fourth-grade teacher Maria Duarte lamented the loss of time to teach science — her favorite subject and one that she said most interests her students. Over the years, the time for that subject has dropped from 2.5 days a week to 1.5 days a week in favor of language arts and math. One casualty was a popular experiment growing radishes that Duarte said taught critical thinking and research skills.
Duarte was also rated highly effective in the Times analysis. Under value-added, a student's past test performance is compared with his or her current progress to measure whether teachers added — or subtracted — value to their students' academic growth.
"Painfully, I decided I had to let that go," Duarte said of the experiment. "There's just not enough time — or we need to think of better ways to use our time."
In Monterey Park, eighth-grade teacher Janice Pirolo said she no longer has time to delve deeply into the curriculum or stray much from it. When she does, she falls behind.
When her school, Monterey Highlands, received funding to visit the Japanese American National Museum, Pirolo prepared her students by teaching them about the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. She also spent time on Martin Luther King Jr. before the national holiday named for the civil rights leader .
But none of that is part of eighth-grade social studies standards, and Pirolo fell behind. For a month before the testing in May, she abandoned the textbook entirely to focus exclusively on test prep. As a result, she got through only the textbook's fourth chapter by year's end.
"We have stopped reading the textbook, sadly … but you live and die by the test," said Pirolo, a 34-year veteran who teaches social studies and language arts.
The nation's enhanced focus on testing began under the 2001 No Child Left Behind federal education law, which attempted to hold school districts accountable for student progress through mandatory annual tests. The law, which is under review in Congress, requires that by 2014 all students meet 100% proficiency levels in math and English — a target no one expects schools to meet.
Many educators see an upside to the national focus on student achievement, as measured by test scores, and have unapologetically instilled intensive preparatory programs. Alvarado Intermediate School in Rowland Heights conducts a concentrated test-prep program before the state exams, using assessment data to identify students who need to strengthen specific skills. The sessions are held after school to preserve electives, such as computers, art and music. Attendance is mandatory, with detention for those who miss and prizes for those who participate.
Principal Ying Tsao said she supported the move toward state standards and regular assessments. In earlier times, she said, teachers might skew toward language arts, say, while ignoring math.
Bruce Clark, Los Angeles Elementary principal, said testing has robbed educators of some flexibility, but he said the benefits of higher student achievement are worth it.
Not that there's no time for fun. Clark sheepishly said he "sold out" and held pep rallies to excite his students about the tests. Duarte motivates her students with a party and movie, bringing in treats to entice them to do well. Monterey Highlands has "March Math Madness" every year to pump up students with math-related scavenger hunts and "problem of the week" contests. To kick off the testing this year, Principal Joe Cash donned an apron and chef's hat to serve pancakes at a school breakfast — while asking math questions(How many pancakes does Johnny eat if he gets two pancakes each of the three times he comes up?).
Los Angeles Elementary aims to avoid last-minute cramming by requiring 15-minute skills sessions at the start of the day throughout the year, featuring questions similar to those on the state test. Duarte prepares her students at the beginning of the year with intense work on Greek and Roman roots of words and multiple-meaning words — areas of student weakness identified by testing data.
A different model is the UCLA Community School, a pilot school launched last year by the university and L.A. Unified in Koreatown. Teachers there are free to develop their own assessments. Kate Beaudet uses an individualized reading test that she said is more sophisticated, allowing her to pinpoint a child's actual reading level and areas of weakness.
Beaudet and two colleagues, who joined the staff from other L.A. Unified schools, said district testing requirements had taken weeks of instructional time, skewed teaching toward what was tested and led many teachers to rely heavily on worksheets.
"Teachers only want to teach reading, writing and math, because that's what's assessed," said Beaudet, who teaches a second-and-third-grade class.
To prepare for state exams, Beaudet incorporated practice questions into work she did all year with literary genres, a third-grade reading standard. Using a test reading passage from an African folk tale, she read the book with her students and helped them analyze the elements and write their own test questions — which both conveyed needed skills and boosted their confidence, she said.
At Hobart, Yi figures she has spent up to $1,000 a year designing more creative lessons than those offered by L.A. Unified. The district's fourth-grade reader presents only one chapter of "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," C so Yi bought copies of the whole book to enable her students to read the entire story. She also bought materials so students could make stuffed rats.
Meanwhile, the project helped Yi's students practice a state standard: to read a set of directions and answer questions about them. She also wrote related vocabulary and comprehension questions. And Yi said that being able to read entire books has instilled in many a love of literature.
Not all teachers are willing to go to such lengths. Some of her colleagues have simply used test prep books all year, Yi said. But that's not for her.
"I enjoy challenging myself to think of better, different and fun ways to teach," she said. "I love to see the light of learning go on."
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
California’s Middle Class Determining Public School Futures
Education News
April 27, 2011
As more middle class families choose alternatives to California's private schools, public schools are being affected.
Continuing reductions in education budgets in California are increasingly sending middle class parents to explore alternative arrangements, the Mercury News reports. With the shortening of the school year, increase in class sizes and program cuts at public schools, some private schools are seeing record applications this year. Calvary Christian Academy in San Jose, even plans to reopen this August because of the increased demand after closing its doors several years ago.
After a decade of falling enrollment, in part due to the bursting of the internet bubble and a general economic downturn, interest in private education seems to be on the rise. Some schools are reporting a 25% rise in applications. Harry McKay, head of the School at St. Andrew’s Episcopal in Saratoga, said 40% more people applied or inquired about applying this year than the last. Although this year’s statewide private school enrollment numbers are only 8% compared with 10% in 2001, counties like Santa Clara report that the number of public school students is growing at a slower rate than the population growth since the 2000s.
According to the article, California parents have traditionally preferred public education for their kids while also supporting increased taxes and bonds to fund it. However, if the trend is reversing, this could have a devastating social, economic and political effects on the state, says UCLA professor Gary Orfield.
When middle-class families are the mainstay of public schools, they lend stability, raise standards, pursue accountability and anchor city neighborhoods. “The severe decline in public education will make the entire state less attractive to middle-class families and good teachers in general.”
The experience of San Jose parent Loren Daugherty seems to bear this out. Daugherty enrolled her daughter at Valley Christian private school after a favorite teacher at her public kindergarten had been laid off in the latest rounds of cuts. Daugherty was also afraid that with large class sizes, any kind of personalized attention was no longer possible:
“Teachers are pulled in so many directions, they weren’t being supported enough.”
Last Tuesday, at a public hearing on the teacher furloughs next year, more San Jose United parents threatened to withdraw from public schools if the district increased the class sizes.
That’s not what the district wants to do, spokeswoman Karen Fuqua said. If parents would invest the private tuition they pay — from $5,000 to $30,000 a year — in the district instead, class sizes wouldn’t have to be raised, she said.
April 27, 2011
As more middle class families choose alternatives to California's private schools, public schools are being affected.
Continuing reductions in education budgets in California are increasingly sending middle class parents to explore alternative arrangements, the Mercury News reports. With the shortening of the school year, increase in class sizes and program cuts at public schools, some private schools are seeing record applications this year. Calvary Christian Academy in San Jose, even plans to reopen this August because of the increased demand after closing its doors several years ago.
After a decade of falling enrollment, in part due to the bursting of the internet bubble and a general economic downturn, interest in private education seems to be on the rise. Some schools are reporting a 25% rise in applications. Harry McKay, head of the School at St. Andrew’s Episcopal in Saratoga, said 40% more people applied or inquired about applying this year than the last. Although this year’s statewide private school enrollment numbers are only 8% compared with 10% in 2001, counties like Santa Clara report that the number of public school students is growing at a slower rate than the population growth since the 2000s.
According to the article, California parents have traditionally preferred public education for their kids while also supporting increased taxes and bonds to fund it. However, if the trend is reversing, this could have a devastating social, economic and political effects on the state, says UCLA professor Gary Orfield.
When middle-class families are the mainstay of public schools, they lend stability, raise standards, pursue accountability and anchor city neighborhoods. “The severe decline in public education will make the entire state less attractive to middle-class families and good teachers in general.”
The experience of San Jose parent Loren Daugherty seems to bear this out. Daugherty enrolled her daughter at Valley Christian private school after a favorite teacher at her public kindergarten had been laid off in the latest rounds of cuts. Daugherty was also afraid that with large class sizes, any kind of personalized attention was no longer possible:
“Teachers are pulled in so many directions, they weren’t being supported enough.”
Last Tuesday, at a public hearing on the teacher furloughs next year, more San Jose United parents threatened to withdraw from public schools if the district increased the class sizes.
That’s not what the district wants to do, spokeswoman Karen Fuqua said. If parents would invest the private tuition they pay — from $5,000 to $30,000 a year — in the district instead, class sizes wouldn’t have to be raised, she said.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
New Calif. Gov. Shakes Up Education Policy
We shall see how the change in leadership helps CA children. Gotta stay hopeful.
-Patricia
By Michele McNeil | Ed Week
January 14, 2011
Against the backdrop of another smothering budget crisis, California Gov. Jerry Brown has quickly moved to put his stamp on the state’s public schools by shaking up the state board of education and entrusting its members with more power.
In some of his first moves, the newly elected Democrat eliminated the position of education secretary—an advisory post separate from the state’s elected schools chief—and canned seven members of the state board, replacing them with former school superintendents, a teachers’ union activist, and a well-known Stanford University education professor.
Mr. Brown, who served as governor for two terms starting in 1976, replaced, among others, Ted Mitchell, the president of NewSchools Venture Fund; and Johnathan Xavier Williams, the founder of a charter school organization in Los Angeles. Also jettisoned was Ben Austin, a director at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit called Parent Revolution. That group is helping parents take advantage of a new state “parent trigger” law that gives them unprecedented power to turn around their own failing schools. ("'Parent Trigger' Law's Use in California Draws Controversy, National Attention," Jan. 12, 2011.)
Read on...
-Patricia
By Michele McNeil | Ed Week
January 14, 2011
Against the backdrop of another smothering budget crisis, California Gov. Jerry Brown has quickly moved to put his stamp on the state’s public schools by shaking up the state board of education and entrusting its members with more power.
In some of his first moves, the newly elected Democrat eliminated the position of education secretary—an advisory post separate from the state’s elected schools chief—and canned seven members of the state board, replacing them with former school superintendents, a teachers’ union activist, and a well-known Stanford University education professor.
Mr. Brown, who served as governor for two terms starting in 1976, replaced, among others, Ted Mitchell, the president of NewSchools Venture Fund; and Johnathan Xavier Williams, the founder of a charter school organization in Los Angeles. Also jettisoned was Ben Austin, a director at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit called Parent Revolution. That group is helping parents take advantage of a new state “parent trigger” law that gives them unprecedented power to turn around their own failing schools. ("'Parent Trigger' Law's Use in California Draws Controversy, National Attention," Jan. 12, 2011.)
Read on...
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Report reveals uptick in graduation, dropout rates
Report reveals uptick in graduation, dropout rates
2010-12-17 / Schools
Study analyzes high school students in California
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has released the annual report on dropout and graduation rates for the 2008-09 school year.
In 2008-09, 70.1 percent of public school students in California graduated from high school, up from 68.5 percent last year.
The adjusted four-year derived dropout rate for the same school year is 21.7 percent, up from 18.9 percent last year.
The graduation rate among Hispanic students is 59 percent, a 4.9 percentage point increase since last year. Among African American students the graduation rate is 59.6 percent, a 1.4 percentage-point increase.
The estimated dropout rate among Hispanics is at 26.9 percent and among African Americans it is 36.9 percent. The percentages for both subgroups are up by approximately 3 percentage points, mirroring the percentage increase in the statewide results.
Right now the California Department of Education is collecting the student-level exit data for the class of 2010.
All public school students were assigned non-personally identifiable codes called Statewide Student Identifiers by June 2005 that follow the child throughout his or her academic career.
The use of SSIDs increases accountability for districts to find students who stop coming to school.
SSIDs also help districts identify students who were considered a dropout from a school they left but who were actually enrolled in a different district.
The data also allows the department of education to identify students who have been reported by a school district as transferring to another California school district but who cannot be found subsequently enrolled. These students are now properly counted as dropouts rather than transfers.
The dropout rates are calculated for high school students, grades nine through 12. Significant numbers of students dropped out of school during the middle school years.
Although dropouts for middle school grades are counted, middle school dropout rates have never been calculated.
CDE staff is working on developing the rates for middle schools that will be released at a later date.
Traditional high school dropout rates will tend to be lower than the state rate and graduation rates will be higher because many students at risk of dropping out are placed in countyrun dropout recovery or educational option programs. So if students drop out, this would be attributed to the county-run or educational option program, rather than to the traditional high school.
These programs would often have inflated aggregate dropout rates because the aggregate dropout calculation is based on a single day of enrollment. These schools have very high rates of students moving into and out of the system.
Therefore, dropout-rate calculations are not posted for schools that are operated by county offices of education because of constraints in interpreting these calculations with highmobility students.
To view the complete data, go to http://dq.cde.ca.gov/Dataquest.
2010-12-17 / Schools
Study analyzes high school students in California
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell has released the annual report on dropout and graduation rates for the 2008-09 school year.
In 2008-09, 70.1 percent of public school students in California graduated from high school, up from 68.5 percent last year.
The adjusted four-year derived dropout rate for the same school year is 21.7 percent, up from 18.9 percent last year.
The graduation rate among Hispanic students is 59 percent, a 4.9 percentage point increase since last year. Among African American students the graduation rate is 59.6 percent, a 1.4 percentage-point increase.
The estimated dropout rate among Hispanics is at 26.9 percent and among African Americans it is 36.9 percent. The percentages for both subgroups are up by approximately 3 percentage points, mirroring the percentage increase in the statewide results.
Right now the California Department of Education is collecting the student-level exit data for the class of 2010.
All public school students were assigned non-personally identifiable codes called Statewide Student Identifiers by June 2005 that follow the child throughout his or her academic career.
The use of SSIDs increases accountability for districts to find students who stop coming to school.
SSIDs also help districts identify students who were considered a dropout from a school they left but who were actually enrolled in a different district.
The data also allows the department of education to identify students who have been reported by a school district as transferring to another California school district but who cannot be found subsequently enrolled. These students are now properly counted as dropouts rather than transfers.
The dropout rates are calculated for high school students, grades nine through 12. Significant numbers of students dropped out of school during the middle school years.
Although dropouts for middle school grades are counted, middle school dropout rates have never been calculated.
CDE staff is working on developing the rates for middle schools that will be released at a later date.
Traditional high school dropout rates will tend to be lower than the state rate and graduation rates will be higher because many students at risk of dropping out are placed in countyrun dropout recovery or educational option programs. So if students drop out, this would be attributed to the county-run or educational option program, rather than to the traditional high school.
These programs would often have inflated aggregate dropout rates because the aggregate dropout calculation is based on a single day of enrollment. These schools have very high rates of students moving into and out of the system.
Therefore, dropout-rate calculations are not posted for schools that are operated by county offices of education because of constraints in interpreting these calculations with highmobility students.
To view the complete data, go to http://dq.cde.ca.gov/Dataquest.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Redefining the Federal Role in Public Education
Rep. Mike Honda Represents the 15th Congressional District of California in the U.S. House
Huffington Post
November 18, 2010
One of the challenges confronting education policy makers is staying connected to the grassroots. This is not only important for political purposes, but, most importantly, for policy implementation. What sounds great in the cloakrooms on Capitol Hill, or the conference rooms of D.C. policy shops, sometimes does not work on the ground. As a former high school teacher and principal, I am particularly sensitive to this dynamic, which is why I got back into the community again last week, visited schools across the nation, and spoke with some of the folks who are making it happen.
My journey started at home, in California's 15th district, wherein I shared my vision for education equity with Lincoln High School and National Blue Ribbon KIPP Heartwood School students, and with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. The second and third legs of the trip took me to New Jersey, to address a conference on equity hosted by the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, and New York City, to meet with Geoffrey Canada and see the remarkable work being done at the Harlem Children's Zone.
My whirlwind tour left me both inspired and concerned. We need to do more to address what the President and others have called the Civil Rights issue of our time. Education is not only one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time, but it is also one of the greatest competitiveness issues, making it one of the greatest long-term economic issues, and by extension, one of the greatest national security issues we are faced with today.
The urgency of this eludes us, however, which it is why it is up to each of us to do the pick-and-shovel work of building the political will to motivate our country to recognize this crisis, and act. Let me kick-start that conversation by sharing my vision, what I am doing to build that political will, and what I think we need to do in order to create real equity.
Currently, the United States is confronting two achievement gaps that threaten the future of our communities. The first achievement gap separates our communities by class and ethnicity. This attacks the very principle upon which our nation was founded: A promise of equal opportunity for all. Public education is the tool through which our society strives to deliver on this promise. When public education is inequitable, the foundation of our democratic society is compromised.
The second achievement gap is between the United States and other developed countries. Despite the United States spending more per-pupil than any other developed nation, we rank poorly compared to other developed countries because our achievement in reading, science and math has declined significantly over the last 30 years. This threatens our competitiveness and our security because in the global economy, education is the enabler of opportunity and the enhancer of long-term financial stability and prosperity. The only way the United States remains a world leader in the 21st century is to ensure that the most competitive economy is built by the most highly skilled, innovative and agile workforce.
The first achievement gap threatens the authenticity of the American Dream by denying each child equal access to reach and realize his or her fullest potential. The second achievement gap represents an attack on the American Dream itself because it threatens the viability of a middle class.
In order to address both these gaps, we must distinguish between equity and parity. In California, for example, while all schools may, in theory, be created equal, not all schools are treated equally. California ranks the highest in the country in per-pupil spending disparity: One school district spends more than four times what the lowest district spends. Consequently, any state-wide funding cut results in disproportionate and adverse effects among low-income communities and high-needs students.
California's disparities are representative of funding disparities across the nation. Our highest spending American school district spends 9.12 times more per pupil than the lowest-spending district. My district in the Silicon Valley region, for example, contains one school district that spends nearly twice as much per student than an adjacent, similarly-sized district. Unsurprisingly, the better-funded district has higher teacher salaries, lower student-teacher ratios, higher standardized test scores and higher graduation rates than the neighboring district, which struggles with half the funding.
Federal funding, in response, tries to close these kinds of gaps and bridge these disparities by supplementing local budgets with additional federal dollars. The thinking here is that it will result in equal per-pupil spending across the system. This is not equity because it fails to take into account the specific needs of each child, including the need to address the achievement gap that exists before the child enters school. Poor and minority students often require additional resources to address needs that originate outside the classroom. By equalizing funding, then, we have only achieved a parity of resources, not equity of opportunity.
Only by addressing the individual needs of each child, regardless of cost per pupil, can we attain equity. This will require precision in the way we finance public education and the way we calculate the level of resources we direct towards each child.
Inequity in education has historical roots. At its inception, the Federal Government lacked the capacity and the authority to take responsibility for public education. Before the Constitution was drafted, the 13 colonies operated under the Articles of Confederation, created by the Second Continental Congress. The Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of the states. Any state had effective veto power over any proposed change.
In addition, the Articles gave the weak federal government no taxing power. It was entirely dependent on the states for its money and had no power to force delinquent states to pay. In fact, Rhode Island, fearing that the Convention would work to its disadvantage, boycotted the Convention in the hopes of preventing any change to the Articles. When the Constitution was subsequently presented to the Confederation, Rhode Island refused to ratify it. To placate the states, the Tenth Amendment ceded broad authority to the state governments.
Consequently, as regions of the country developed their own public education systems, disparities opened up. These disparities have become more pronounced and localized as states used local property taxes to finance their own schools. It was not until the Civil Rights Movement that the Federal Government became actively involved in financing education through the ESEA Act of 1965 and IDEA Act of 1975, in order to level the playing field. The Supreme Court, in its 1973 decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, effectively removed federal courts from school finance. To this day, federal dollars represent less than 10 percent of public education funding. State governments provide the bulk of the funding, so they are mostly immune to federal efforts to reform education policy.
The current crisis in state budgets has created a historic opportunity to change this paradigm. State governments, mired in long-term fiscal trouble, are willing to accept the requirements the federal government has imposed in order to receive desperately needed aid.
Paradigmatic change is already happening. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has altered the political landscape through competitive grant programs like Race To The Top, that provide state and local governments with funding if the recipient agreed to some form of educational reforms. More than 30 states have changed laws around the issue of teacher evaluation. The impending reauthorization of ESEA has taken the process a step further: 37 states have agreed to the Common Core standards for curricula to ensure they will qualify for future federal funding. The groundwork has been laid for an increased federal role in education. We need to build on these accomplishments to ensure that federal dollars can continue to be leveraged to produce local successes after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding runs out.
We need to continue to redefine the federal role in public education. The implications to our democracy, our civil rights, and our role as a world leader, require it. This leaves us with two interconnected questions: First, how do we reform the system of financing public education? Second, what policies should the federal government pursue in order to leverage this expanded role?
In order to attack the problem of reforming school finance and redefining the federal role in public education, I formed the National Commission on Education Equity and Excellence. The Commission is housed in the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, and will bring together some of the foremost experts on education from across the political spectrum in order to conduct a national dialogue on school finance and equity that reaches the needs of each child. It is only by talking with educators, parents, students, advocates, school board members, counselors, principals and superintendents invested in each student's achievements and civil rights that we can understand what is needed to make public education work in every community. The intent of No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top was well-intentioned, but one of many key problems in both cases was Washington lawmakers' failure to hold the kind of dialogue needed to understand the incredible tools at the federal government's disposal to help states, districts and schools succeed.
This time, we will not make the same mistake. Our national dialogue will ferret out not only new systems of finance, but new policies that will create equity for each child. The great thing about where we are now is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Innovation is critical, but it should not come at the expense of ignoring 50 years of research on what works.
We know the game changers. We not only know which children will drop out of school, we know which schools they attend. We know when and where the achievement gap opens and we have the tools to close it. We know that teachers are the most important factor in a child's education, but we also know that for best results, students need more class time and a whole range of support services. We know the power of data and we know how to train teachers to use it. We know where job growth is happening in our economy and we know that a background in STEM and a college diploma are what our children need to achieve their fullest potential. Above all, we know that the single commodity that children bring to school each day is time, and that we must properly value it.
We know these things work and we know how to accomplish them. We need to develop a new system of finance that empowers local community leaders, advocates, businesses, nonprofits, educators, parents and students to join forces to devise a unique approach that works for their community.
Going forward, I see my work as two-fold. First, I will continue to build the political support for the Equity Commission and to encourage this crucial dialogue so that we can build the will to act. Second, I will propose and fight for legislation that addresses the critical game-changers and uses the tools of the Federal Government to empower communities to educate their children.
We often hear that there is no silver bullet in education. This is correct. There is no single policy that will close the achievement gap for poor and minority students, but there is an array of policies that if implemented effectively will help us achieve our vision of equity for each child. The international achievement gap will also close as we employ all the tools in our toolbox to ensure that each and every child is successful.
We have a long struggle ahead of us but we are able to say right now, maybe for the first time, that the tide is starting to turn. For the first time we are looking at all these questions through a lens that makes all these seemingly complicated issues startlingly clear: What is best for each child? By answering this question, we begin to address one of the greatest civil rights issues, one of the greatest competitiveness issues, one of the greatest long-term economic issues, and one of the greatest national security issues we are faced with today.
Huffington Post
November 18, 2010
One of the challenges confronting education policy makers is staying connected to the grassroots. This is not only important for political purposes, but, most importantly, for policy implementation. What sounds great in the cloakrooms on Capitol Hill, or the conference rooms of D.C. policy shops, sometimes does not work on the ground. As a former high school teacher and principal, I am particularly sensitive to this dynamic, which is why I got back into the community again last week, visited schools across the nation, and spoke with some of the folks who are making it happen.
My journey started at home, in California's 15th district, wherein I shared my vision for education equity with Lincoln High School and National Blue Ribbon KIPP Heartwood School students, and with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. The second and third legs of the trip took me to New Jersey, to address a conference on equity hosted by the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, and New York City, to meet with Geoffrey Canada and see the remarkable work being done at the Harlem Children's Zone.
My whirlwind tour left me both inspired and concerned. We need to do more to address what the President and others have called the Civil Rights issue of our time. Education is not only one of the greatest civil rights issues of our time, but it is also one of the greatest competitiveness issues, making it one of the greatest long-term economic issues, and by extension, one of the greatest national security issues we are faced with today.
The urgency of this eludes us, however, which it is why it is up to each of us to do the pick-and-shovel work of building the political will to motivate our country to recognize this crisis, and act. Let me kick-start that conversation by sharing my vision, what I am doing to build that political will, and what I think we need to do in order to create real equity.
Currently, the United States is confronting two achievement gaps that threaten the future of our communities. The first achievement gap separates our communities by class and ethnicity. This attacks the very principle upon which our nation was founded: A promise of equal opportunity for all. Public education is the tool through which our society strives to deliver on this promise. When public education is inequitable, the foundation of our democratic society is compromised.
The second achievement gap is between the United States and other developed countries. Despite the United States spending more per-pupil than any other developed nation, we rank poorly compared to other developed countries because our achievement in reading, science and math has declined significantly over the last 30 years. This threatens our competitiveness and our security because in the global economy, education is the enabler of opportunity and the enhancer of long-term financial stability and prosperity. The only way the United States remains a world leader in the 21st century is to ensure that the most competitive economy is built by the most highly skilled, innovative and agile workforce.
The first achievement gap threatens the authenticity of the American Dream by denying each child equal access to reach and realize his or her fullest potential. The second achievement gap represents an attack on the American Dream itself because it threatens the viability of a middle class.
In order to address both these gaps, we must distinguish between equity and parity. In California, for example, while all schools may, in theory, be created equal, not all schools are treated equally. California ranks the highest in the country in per-pupil spending disparity: One school district spends more than four times what the lowest district spends. Consequently, any state-wide funding cut results in disproportionate and adverse effects among low-income communities and high-needs students.
California's disparities are representative of funding disparities across the nation. Our highest spending American school district spends 9.12 times more per pupil than the lowest-spending district. My district in the Silicon Valley region, for example, contains one school district that spends nearly twice as much per student than an adjacent, similarly-sized district. Unsurprisingly, the better-funded district has higher teacher salaries, lower student-teacher ratios, higher standardized test scores and higher graduation rates than the neighboring district, which struggles with half the funding.
Federal funding, in response, tries to close these kinds of gaps and bridge these disparities by supplementing local budgets with additional federal dollars. The thinking here is that it will result in equal per-pupil spending across the system. This is not equity because it fails to take into account the specific needs of each child, including the need to address the achievement gap that exists before the child enters school. Poor and minority students often require additional resources to address needs that originate outside the classroom. By equalizing funding, then, we have only achieved a parity of resources, not equity of opportunity.
Only by addressing the individual needs of each child, regardless of cost per pupil, can we attain equity. This will require precision in the way we finance public education and the way we calculate the level of resources we direct towards each child.
Inequity in education has historical roots. At its inception, the Federal Government lacked the capacity and the authority to take responsibility for public education. Before the Constitution was drafted, the 13 colonies operated under the Articles of Confederation, created by the Second Continental Congress. The Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of the states. Any state had effective veto power over any proposed change.
In addition, the Articles gave the weak federal government no taxing power. It was entirely dependent on the states for its money and had no power to force delinquent states to pay. In fact, Rhode Island, fearing that the Convention would work to its disadvantage, boycotted the Convention in the hopes of preventing any change to the Articles. When the Constitution was subsequently presented to the Confederation, Rhode Island refused to ratify it. To placate the states, the Tenth Amendment ceded broad authority to the state governments.
Consequently, as regions of the country developed their own public education systems, disparities opened up. These disparities have become more pronounced and localized as states used local property taxes to finance their own schools. It was not until the Civil Rights Movement that the Federal Government became actively involved in financing education through the ESEA Act of 1965 and IDEA Act of 1975, in order to level the playing field. The Supreme Court, in its 1973 decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, effectively removed federal courts from school finance. To this day, federal dollars represent less than 10 percent of public education funding. State governments provide the bulk of the funding, so they are mostly immune to federal efforts to reform education policy.
The current crisis in state budgets has created a historic opportunity to change this paradigm. State governments, mired in long-term fiscal trouble, are willing to accept the requirements the federal government has imposed in order to receive desperately needed aid.
Paradigmatic change is already happening. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has altered the political landscape through competitive grant programs like Race To The Top, that provide state and local governments with funding if the recipient agreed to some form of educational reforms. More than 30 states have changed laws around the issue of teacher evaluation. The impending reauthorization of ESEA has taken the process a step further: 37 states have agreed to the Common Core standards for curricula to ensure they will qualify for future federal funding. The groundwork has been laid for an increased federal role in education. We need to build on these accomplishments to ensure that federal dollars can continue to be leveraged to produce local successes after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding runs out.
We need to continue to redefine the federal role in public education. The implications to our democracy, our civil rights, and our role as a world leader, require it. This leaves us with two interconnected questions: First, how do we reform the system of financing public education? Second, what policies should the federal government pursue in order to leverage this expanded role?
In order to attack the problem of reforming school finance and redefining the federal role in public education, I formed the National Commission on Education Equity and Excellence. The Commission is housed in the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, and will bring together some of the foremost experts on education from across the political spectrum in order to conduct a national dialogue on school finance and equity that reaches the needs of each child. It is only by talking with educators, parents, students, advocates, school board members, counselors, principals and superintendents invested in each student's achievements and civil rights that we can understand what is needed to make public education work in every community. The intent of No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top was well-intentioned, but one of many key problems in both cases was Washington lawmakers' failure to hold the kind of dialogue needed to understand the incredible tools at the federal government's disposal to help states, districts and schools succeed.
This time, we will not make the same mistake. Our national dialogue will ferret out not only new systems of finance, but new policies that will create equity for each child. The great thing about where we are now is that we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Innovation is critical, but it should not come at the expense of ignoring 50 years of research on what works.
We know the game changers. We not only know which children will drop out of school, we know which schools they attend. We know when and where the achievement gap opens and we have the tools to close it. We know that teachers are the most important factor in a child's education, but we also know that for best results, students need more class time and a whole range of support services. We know the power of data and we know how to train teachers to use it. We know where job growth is happening in our economy and we know that a background in STEM and a college diploma are what our children need to achieve their fullest potential. Above all, we know that the single commodity that children bring to school each day is time, and that we must properly value it.
We know these things work and we know how to accomplish them. We need to develop a new system of finance that empowers local community leaders, advocates, businesses, nonprofits, educators, parents and students to join forces to devise a unique approach that works for their community.
Going forward, I see my work as two-fold. First, I will continue to build the political support for the Equity Commission and to encourage this crucial dialogue so that we can build the will to act. Second, I will propose and fight for legislation that addresses the critical game-changers and uses the tools of the Federal Government to empower communities to educate their children.
We often hear that there is no silver bullet in education. This is correct. There is no single policy that will close the achievement gap for poor and minority students, but there is an array of policies that if implemented effectively will help us achieve our vision of equity for each child. The international achievement gap will also close as we employ all the tools in our toolbox to ensure that each and every child is successful.
We have a long struggle ahead of us but we are able to say right now, maybe for the first time, that the tide is starting to turn. For the first time we are looking at all these questions through a lens that makes all these seemingly complicated issues startlingly clear: What is best for each child? By answering this question, we begin to address one of the greatest civil rights issues, one of the greatest competitiveness issues, one of the greatest long-term economic issues, and one of the greatest national security issues we are faced with today.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Teaching interns illegally rated as qualified
Notable quote by Hilary McLean: "Some of the students who need the most experienced teachers have the least access to them," McLean said. "We need to take steps to ensure they have access. This ruling may be a factor."
I'm curious how California intends to move beyond symbolic statements to actions and investment in efforts that prepare politically aware teachers for our high-needs schools. Might be kinda hard when billion dollar cuts are starving the state's education system.
-Patricia
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
(09-28) 14:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- California has violated federal law by classifying thousands of inexperienced, noncredentialed teachers as "highly qualified" and assigning them to schools with heavily low-income and minority enrollments, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was a victory for impoverished families in Richmond, Hayward and Los Angeles who filed suit in 2007. They claimed their schools were saddled with disproportionate numbers of untrained interns because of federal and state regulations that flouted federal law.
The appeals court ruled 2-1 against the families in July 2009, saying the federal No Child Left Behind Act leaves such decisions largely up to the states. On Monday, after reviewing further arguments, the same panel reversed itself, reinterpreted the law and ruled 2-1 against the government.
The ruling doesn't require school districts to fire interns or bar them from teaching core subjects. But it requires districts in California - and potentially other states - to change their assignment policies so that the least-prepared teachers are not routinely placed in the neediest schools, said John Affeldt, a lawyer for the families.
Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell, said the ruling might help to narrow the achievement gap in California schools.
"Some of the students who need the most experienced teachers have the least access to them," McLean said. "We need to take steps to ensure they have access. This ruling may be a factor."
She said California had about 5,000 interns among its 306,000 teachers in 2008-09, a 27 percent decrease from the previous year.
According to evidence provided by the plaintiffs and cited by the court, 62 percent of the interns teach in the poorest half of California schools, and 41 percent teach in the 25 percent of the state's schools with the highest concentration of minority students.
The dispute involved a provision of No Child Left Behind that allows only "highly qualified" teachers to instruct students in core academic subjects. The law says a teacher must obtain "full state certification" to be highly qualified.
Rules adopted by the Bush administration in 2002, and replicated two years later by the California Board of Education, allowed interns to be considered highly qualified if they were in state-approved programs and were making progress toward certification.
Affeldt, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said the Obama administration has endorsed those rules in the current lawsuit.
But the appeals court said the regulations conflict with the law by putting interns who are making progress toward certification in the same category as teachers who have obtained full credentials.
Federal and state regulation "impermissibly expands the definition of 'highly qualified teacher,' " said Judge William Fletcher in the majority opinion. He acknowledged that the law allows California to redefine "full state certification" to include interns but said there was no evidence that the state would do so.
Judge Dorothy Nelson, author of the July 2009 ruling that upheld the regulations, changed her position and joined Fletcher's opinion. Judge Richard Tallman dissented.
The ruling can be viewed at links.sfgate.com/ZKIX.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/27/BALM1FKJOB.DTL#ixzz120ktogiu
I'm curious how California intends to move beyond symbolic statements to actions and investment in efforts that prepare politically aware teachers for our high-needs schools. Might be kinda hard when billion dollar cuts are starving the state's education system.
-Patricia
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
(09-28) 14:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- California has violated federal law by classifying thousands of inexperienced, noncredentialed teachers as "highly qualified" and assigning them to schools with heavily low-income and minority enrollments, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was a victory for impoverished families in Richmond, Hayward and Los Angeles who filed suit in 2007. They claimed their schools were saddled with disproportionate numbers of untrained interns because of federal and state regulations that flouted federal law.
The appeals court ruled 2-1 against the families in July 2009, saying the federal No Child Left Behind Act leaves such decisions largely up to the states. On Monday, after reviewing further arguments, the same panel reversed itself, reinterpreted the law and ruled 2-1 against the government.
The ruling doesn't require school districts to fire interns or bar them from teaching core subjects. But it requires districts in California - and potentially other states - to change their assignment policies so that the least-prepared teachers are not routinely placed in the neediest schools, said John Affeldt, a lawyer for the families.
Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell, said the ruling might help to narrow the achievement gap in California schools.
"Some of the students who need the most experienced teachers have the least access to them," McLean said. "We need to take steps to ensure they have access. This ruling may be a factor."
She said California had about 5,000 interns among its 306,000 teachers in 2008-09, a 27 percent decrease from the previous year.
According to evidence provided by the plaintiffs and cited by the court, 62 percent of the interns teach in the poorest half of California schools, and 41 percent teach in the 25 percent of the state's schools with the highest concentration of minority students.
The dispute involved a provision of No Child Left Behind that allows only "highly qualified" teachers to instruct students in core academic subjects. The law says a teacher must obtain "full state certification" to be highly qualified.
Rules adopted by the Bush administration in 2002, and replicated two years later by the California Board of Education, allowed interns to be considered highly qualified if they were in state-approved programs and were making progress toward certification.
Affeldt, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said the Obama administration has endorsed those rules in the current lawsuit.
But the appeals court said the regulations conflict with the law by putting interns who are making progress toward certification in the same category as teachers who have obtained full credentials.
Federal and state regulation "impermissibly expands the definition of 'highly qualified teacher,' " said Judge William Fletcher in the majority opinion. He acknowledged that the law allows California to redefine "full state certification" to include interns but said there was no evidence that the state would do so.
Judge Dorothy Nelson, author of the July 2009 ruling that upheld the regulations, changed her position and joined Fletcher's opinion. Judge Richard Tallman dissented.
The ruling can be viewed at links.sfgate.com/ZKIX.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/27/BALM1FKJOB.DTL#ixzz120ktogiu
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