Jack O’Connell: California’s Alarming Dropout Rate and the Support Our Children Need
In this week’s Democratic weekly radio address, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Executive Director of the P16 Council José Ortega highlight California’s alarming high school dropout rate. They also call for the support needed to ensure our children are well-educated and our economy is competitive.
Hello, this is State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.
This year, for the first time using student level data, California was able to report with much more accuracy information about the number of students who either dropped out or graduated from high school.
Implementing a system that revealed the truth about our dropout problem was a very important first step. Now we must face the alarming news that one in four students is dropping out of our California public high schools.
These high school dropouts will struggle to find employment, let alone find a job in which their true potential flourishes.
What's even more troubling is that the dropout rate is even higher among our African American, Hispanic, and low-income students. This achievement gap is a crisis. The loss of potential for students who do not finish school is simply staggering. And it is a major loss to our state’s economy.
To keep California’s economy competitive, we need the jobs a well-educated workforce attracts.
According to the California Dropout Research Project, each yearly wave of dropouts will cost California $46 billion through increased spending and reduced taxes.
These alarming dropout rate numbers are in part a legacy of our state's embarrassingly low per-pupil funding.
Among the fifty states, we consistently rank among the lowest ten.
So when California's State Board of Education recently mandated Algebra 1 for every single 8th grader, I and educators up and down our state were deeply concerned.
California's educators are rightly working hard toward the day when all of our students in 8th grade are truly prepared to succeed in Algebra 1.
But as of today, less than one in four 8th graders enrolled in General Mathematics is even proficient on standards that are taught in 6th and 7th grades.
Now in light of this fact, and our 24 percent dropout rate, it’s clear that in order to improve our students’ education, we need to increase the support of our schools.
Bringing California's per-pupil funding up to par with the rest of the United States is crucial to achieving our educational goals.
Attracting the 8,000 new algebra teachers we will need is going to require competitive recruiting strategies including increased salaries.
Our schools must be repaired and well-maintained if we're going to help our kids focus on their education.
Textbooks, after-school programs, school counselors: these were the basics previous generations needed to excel in school; our kids deserve no less.
Additionally, harnessing the power of today's information technology for educational purposes is an opportunity we simply can't afford to miss.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that the investments made in education benefit everyone in our society.
To sustain California's business innovation, our arts, culture and scientific achievement there is no substitute.
This has been State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, thank you for listening.
From: The California Progress Report.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Do the math
Do the math: Algebra mandate's a formula for failure
By Jack Stewart and Bob Balgenorth - Special to The Bee
California eighth-graders currently rank 44th among the states in math achievement. But despite this embarrassing showing, California has just become the first state to require every eighth-grader in public school to enroll in Algebra 1. While the goal is admirable, its application is flawed.
Even as middle school math scores plummet, the California state Board of Education, urged on by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, voted 8-1 to require every eighth-grader, ready or not, to take algebra.
Never mind that many sixth- and seventh-graders in California haven't even mastered basic math skills – or that we have a critical shortage of qualified math teachers – or that this mandate will cost billions of dollars.
Worse, we're spending money we don't have on a program that's not even proven to succeed. An investment of this magnitude should be based on data, not blind hope. After all, this money could be used to fund proven programs – such as career technical education – or look to fund promising concepts like preschool for all.
If the logic of teaching algebra to students who cannot do basic math escapes you, you're not alone. "It's going to be a firestorm in our state," says state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who strongly opposes the plan. "We're setting every school up for failure."
Board member James Aschwanden, the only dissenting vote, agrees: "Not all children are developmentally ready to take algebra in eighth grade." If poor math achievement is the problem, is the new algebra mandate the answer? Let's do the math.
According to figures released this week by the Department of Education, about one in four California students drops out of high school – and the numbers are higher in many schools serving poor and minority students. Forcing students to take algebra in the eighth grade without adequate preparation will likely increase dropouts.
California already has too few qualified math teachers – and the problem is worse in schools serving poor and minority communities. Lacking instructors, students in these schools will be least prepared for the new requirement and will suffer disproportionately as a result.
For years, reform advocates have argued that our education system should be run more like a business – where challenges and solutions are scrutinized, cost-benefit analyses performed and decisions based on facts. We agree. Businesses also tend to invest their precious capital wisely, to ensure the biggest bang for their buck.
Conversely, the state Board of Education is spending billions of dollars on a mandate that is not only unproven but also widely unpopular – even our state schools chief expects it to fail. This is no way to run a business, or a taxpayer-funded education system.
The unintended result? Programs like career technical education – which have proved successful at increasing graduation rates and preparing students for well-paid, highly skilled technical jobs – will lose more funding and curricular space to accommodate the new mandate.
In addition, tens of thousands of students will not be allowed to enroll in CTE or other electives in middle school if they haven't mastered algebra. This lack of student enrollment will kill the remaining CTE programs.
Tragically, even fewer students will graduate with the technical training needed by California businesses – and with fewer CTE options, more students will opt out of school.
Eighth-graders already have the opportunity to take Algebra 1 as an elective. But if all eighth-graders are required to enroll, students who are already struggling will have even less time to master the basic skills they need.
We must set high academic standards for the next generation. But these standards should be well thought out and achievable. The new algebra mandate is neither. The governor and the Board of Education need to revisit this ill-considered decision before they do real harm to our public schools.
Bob Balgenorth is president of the California Building and Construction Trades Council. AFL-CIO.
The co-chair: Get Real.
Labels: Algebra, California, math
By Jack Stewart and Bob Balgenorth - Special to The Bee
California eighth-graders currently rank 44th among the states in math achievement. But despite this embarrassing showing, California has just become the first state to require every eighth-grader in public school to enroll in Algebra 1. While the goal is admirable, its application is flawed.
Even as middle school math scores plummet, the California state Board of Education, urged on by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, voted 8-1 to require every eighth-grader, ready or not, to take algebra.
Never mind that many sixth- and seventh-graders in California haven't even mastered basic math skills – or that we have a critical shortage of qualified math teachers – or that this mandate will cost billions of dollars.
Worse, we're spending money we don't have on a program that's not even proven to succeed. An investment of this magnitude should be based on data, not blind hope. After all, this money could be used to fund proven programs – such as career technical education – or look to fund promising concepts like preschool for all.
If the logic of teaching algebra to students who cannot do basic math escapes you, you're not alone. "It's going to be a firestorm in our state," says state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who strongly opposes the plan. "We're setting every school up for failure."
Board member James Aschwanden, the only dissenting vote, agrees: "Not all children are developmentally ready to take algebra in eighth grade." If poor math achievement is the problem, is the new algebra mandate the answer? Let's do the math.
According to figures released this week by the Department of Education, about one in four California students drops out of high school – and the numbers are higher in many schools serving poor and minority students. Forcing students to take algebra in the eighth grade without adequate preparation will likely increase dropouts.
California already has too few qualified math teachers – and the problem is worse in schools serving poor and minority communities. Lacking instructors, students in these schools will be least prepared for the new requirement and will suffer disproportionately as a result.
For years, reform advocates have argued that our education system should be run more like a business – where challenges and solutions are scrutinized, cost-benefit analyses performed and decisions based on facts. We agree. Businesses also tend to invest their precious capital wisely, to ensure the biggest bang for their buck.
Conversely, the state Board of Education is spending billions of dollars on a mandate that is not only unproven but also widely unpopular – even our state schools chief expects it to fail. This is no way to run a business, or a taxpayer-funded education system.
The unintended result? Programs like career technical education – which have proved successful at increasing graduation rates and preparing students for well-paid, highly skilled technical jobs – will lose more funding and curricular space to accommodate the new mandate.
In addition, tens of thousands of students will not be allowed to enroll in CTE or other electives in middle school if they haven't mastered algebra. This lack of student enrollment will kill the remaining CTE programs.
Tragically, even fewer students will graduate with the technical training needed by California businesses – and with fewer CTE options, more students will opt out of school.
Eighth-graders already have the opportunity to take Algebra 1 as an elective. But if all eighth-graders are required to enroll, students who are already struggling will have even less time to master the basic skills they need.
We must set high academic standards for the next generation. But these standards should be well thought out and achievable. The new algebra mandate is neither. The governor and the Board of Education need to revisit this ill-considered decision before they do real harm to our public schools.
Bob Balgenorth is president of the California Building and Construction Trades Council. AFL-CIO.
The co-chair: Get Real.
Labels: Algebra, California, math
Thursday, July 17, 2008
McCain Lays Down The Educational Gauntlet
Filed under: Education by Leo Casey @ 11:57 pm
In his speech last week to the national convention of the American Federation of Teachers, Barack Obama was clear and unequivocal in his opposition to using public money for vouchers for private schools. At that time, Obama made it clear that he supported public school choice — the ability of students and their families to chose which public school they would attend. In taking this stance, Obama reiterated what is a longstanding position of his — he had made the same point to the National Education Association convention earlier in July, and had explicitly disowned attempts by pro-voucher partisans to spin comments he made in a primary campaign interview into support for private school vouchers.
Today, John McCain chose the occasion of a speech to the august civil rights organization, the NAACP, to take on Obama — and teacher unions — on this very point. McCain said:
In remarks to the American Federation of Teachers last weekend, Senator Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as, “tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.” All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?
Over the years, Americans have heard a lot of “tired rhetoric” about education. We’ve heard it in the endless excuses of people who seem more concerned about their own position than about our children. We’ve heard it from politicians who accept the status quo rather than stand up for real change in our public schools. Parents ask only for schools that are safe, teachers who are competent, and diplomas that open doors of opportunity. When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school. Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.
Let us leave to the side McCain’s intellectually dishonest attempt to wrap the issue of private school vouchers in the mantle of public school choice: there are, of course, very sound policy reasons why Obama, the NAACP and teacher unions all draw a vital distinction between private school vouchers and public school choice, opposing the former and supporting the latter. But the real political import of McCain’s statement lies elsewhere — it is an attempt to force a political wedge between Obama and teacher unions, based on the raw power calculus that an Obama campaign without vigorous teacher and union support would be a far more vulnerable opponent.
To accomplish this goal, McCain has returned to the old Republican Dole and D’Amato playbook of attacking teacher unions. In an American trade union movement that has been decimated in recent decades, teacher unions stand out as a powerful exception, with most of the K-12 educational sector organized in either the NEA or the AFT. It is teacher unions that stand between the Republican right and the privatization of public education and the further dismantling of American public life. Like his predecessors, McCain understands this political reality. Teachers and unionists need to understand it as well, and organize for this election in a way that send a message every bit as powerful as the crushing defeats of Dole and D’Amato.
Leo Casey. Leo blogs on Edwize. The Blog of the New York AFT.
California moves toward honest drop out numbers
California high school dropout rate near one-quarter, report says
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, July 17, 2008
A new high school dropout report released Wednesday shows significantly higher rates of students leaving public school in California than reported in previous years.
According to the California Department of Education, one in four high-schoolers – 24.2 percent – failed to graduate or move into another program to continue their education. The estimates were derived from data from the 2006-07 school year.
By contrast, the state claimed a 13.9 percent four-year dropout rate for the prior year.
The difference is due to a more accurate system for keeping track of students, said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. Under the system, students were given a unique identification number that enabled the state to better track their whereabouts in the education system.
It proved an eye-opening effort.
In the past, dropout counts were self-reported by schools and districts. In many places, the figures were considered serious undercounts, especially when compared with the rates of freshmen who actually graduated with their classes four years later.
The Grant Joint Union High School District, for example, reported an 18 percent four-year dropout rate in 2005-06.
Yet, that same year, the district (which recently merged into a new district called Twin Rivers) graduated only 1,232 students – fewer than half of the 2,547 ninth-graders enrolled four years earlier.
For years, such disparities ran up and down the state, leading to calls for reform of the dropout reporting system. Laws passed in 1995 and 2002 paved the way for a more accurate system, but financial and bureaucratic barriers prevented it until this year.
"Thank God we've finally moved in this direction," said Delaine Eastin, who was state superintendent from 1995 until 2003 and advocated for a better tracking system. "It's too little too late, though, for some of these students, these real-life people."
Under the new system, the Grant district showed a 36.2 percent dropout rate – double its prior year's and one of the highest district rates in the Sacramento region.
The Sacramento City Unified and San Juan Unified districts, by contrast, ran just below the Sacramento County rate of 26.5 percent and slightly above the statewide rate.
"We knew it was high, but this is a startling number," said Frank Porter, superintendent of the Twin Rivers Unified School District, which absorbed Grant and three other districts July 1.
Porter said he was grateful for more reliable statistics: "It will give us a more accurate baseline," he said, noting that Twin Rivers is taking steps to keep more students in school.
The announcement Wednesday that a fourth of California high-schoolers – more than 127,000 teenagers – quit school prematurely left many disturbed.
Rates run even higher for African American and Latino students. And although younger students are not accounted for in the four-year rates, the report shows thousands dropping out as early as seventh and eighthgrades.
"It's plain unacceptable," said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "These are young people who are largely uneducated and unprepared for the high-wage jobs in the new economies of California."
Mary Shelton, associate superintendent at Sacramento City Unified, agreed too many students leave early. She cautioned, though, that the rates listed for individual high schools may overstate dropouts because of mobility factors.
Hiram Johnson High School, for example, had a 35.4 percent dropout rate. But the school also has a huge transfer rate because families move so much.
"It's like a revolving door," Shelton said. "Last year half the kids transferred in or out in the course of the year."
O'Connell said the new system was designed to make better sense of transfers.
In the past, he said, when students left schools saying they were switching to another campus, their schools counted them as transfers, not dropouts, without checking if the students actually re-enrolled elsewhere.
With the new student tracking system, the state was able to determine whether such transfers took place.
If not, such students were deemed "lost transfers" and counted as dropouts. They were a big factor in the uptick in dropout rates.
"Twenty-four percent of students dropping out is not good news," O'Connell said, noting that the more accurate data should lead to greater accountability and more focus on helping students complete school.
Wednesday's report said 8.2 percent of students were considered neither dropouts nor graduates because they moved to a private school, earned a high school equivalency certificate, left the state or died, among other things.
Alan Bonsteel, a Marin physician long critical of the state's dropout counts, said the numbers still are not accurate because they fail to account for middle school dropouts and students who move to other states, countries or private schools or leave school for other reasons.
"We're still undercounting," said Bonsteel, president of California Parents for Educational Choice, a nonprofit that advocates for charters and vouchers.
According to the Department of Education, an even more accurate tally will be available when the state launches a longitudinal data system in 2009-10.
It will enable the tracking of individual students over time, rather than producing derived rates based on a single year's data.
Go to: Sacbee
Note. Average numbers are deceptive. Since California schools vary dramatically, you need to look up the scores on the specific schools
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, July 17, 2008
A new high school dropout report released Wednesday shows significantly higher rates of students leaving public school in California than reported in previous years.
According to the California Department of Education, one in four high-schoolers – 24.2 percent – failed to graduate or move into another program to continue their education. The estimates were derived from data from the 2006-07 school year.
By contrast, the state claimed a 13.9 percent four-year dropout rate for the prior year.
The difference is due to a more accurate system for keeping track of students, said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. Under the system, students were given a unique identification number that enabled the state to better track their whereabouts in the education system.
It proved an eye-opening effort.
In the past, dropout counts were self-reported by schools and districts. In many places, the figures were considered serious undercounts, especially when compared with the rates of freshmen who actually graduated with their classes four years later.
The Grant Joint Union High School District, for example, reported an 18 percent four-year dropout rate in 2005-06.
Yet, that same year, the district (which recently merged into a new district called Twin Rivers) graduated only 1,232 students – fewer than half of the 2,547 ninth-graders enrolled four years earlier.
For years, such disparities ran up and down the state, leading to calls for reform of the dropout reporting system. Laws passed in 1995 and 2002 paved the way for a more accurate system, but financial and bureaucratic barriers prevented it until this year.
"Thank God we've finally moved in this direction," said Delaine Eastin, who was state superintendent from 1995 until 2003 and advocated for a better tracking system. "It's too little too late, though, for some of these students, these real-life people."
Under the new system, the Grant district showed a 36.2 percent dropout rate – double its prior year's and one of the highest district rates in the Sacramento region.
The Sacramento City Unified and San Juan Unified districts, by contrast, ran just below the Sacramento County rate of 26.5 percent and slightly above the statewide rate.
"We knew it was high, but this is a startling number," said Frank Porter, superintendent of the Twin Rivers Unified School District, which absorbed Grant and three other districts July 1.
Porter said he was grateful for more reliable statistics: "It will give us a more accurate baseline," he said, noting that Twin Rivers is taking steps to keep more students in school.
The announcement Wednesday that a fourth of California high-schoolers – more than 127,000 teenagers – quit school prematurely left many disturbed.
Rates run even higher for African American and Latino students. And although younger students are not accounted for in the four-year rates, the report shows thousands dropping out as early as seventh and eighthgrades.
"It's plain unacceptable," said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "These are young people who are largely uneducated and unprepared for the high-wage jobs in the new economies of California."
Mary Shelton, associate superintendent at Sacramento City Unified, agreed too many students leave early. She cautioned, though, that the rates listed for individual high schools may overstate dropouts because of mobility factors.
Hiram Johnson High School, for example, had a 35.4 percent dropout rate. But the school also has a huge transfer rate because families move so much.
"It's like a revolving door," Shelton said. "Last year half the kids transferred in or out in the course of the year."
O'Connell said the new system was designed to make better sense of transfers.
In the past, he said, when students left schools saying they were switching to another campus, their schools counted them as transfers, not dropouts, without checking if the students actually re-enrolled elsewhere.
With the new student tracking system, the state was able to determine whether such transfers took place.
If not, such students were deemed "lost transfers" and counted as dropouts. They were a big factor in the uptick in dropout rates.
"Twenty-four percent of students dropping out is not good news," O'Connell said, noting that the more accurate data should lead to greater accountability and more focus on helping students complete school.
Wednesday's report said 8.2 percent of students were considered neither dropouts nor graduates because they moved to a private school, earned a high school equivalency certificate, left the state or died, among other things.
Alan Bonsteel, a Marin physician long critical of the state's dropout counts, said the numbers still are not accurate because they fail to account for middle school dropouts and students who move to other states, countries or private schools or leave school for other reasons.
"We're still undercounting," said Bonsteel, president of California Parents for Educational Choice, a nonprofit that advocates for charters and vouchers.
According to the Department of Education, an even more accurate tally will be available when the state launches a longitudinal data system in 2009-10.
It will enable the tracking of individual students over time, rather than producing derived rates based on a single year's data.
Go to: Sacbee
Note. Average numbers are deceptive. Since California schools vary dramatically, you need to look up the scores on the specific schools
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Know Nothing Party
From: The Daily Kos
GOP, the Know-Nothing Party
by smintheus
Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 06:58:54 PM PDT
Republicans have been in a lather since Barack Obama commented that American children should learn a foreign language in school. It demonstrates the extent to which they've become the party of ignorance.
Responding to a voter in GA who'd like more bilingual education, Obama said:
"Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.
You know, it’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], ‘Merci beaucoup.’ Right? You know, no, I’m serious about this. We should understand that our young people, if you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job. You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they’re 5, or 6, or 7 than when they’re 46, like me."
Hard to argue with that. It's obvious too that learning a foreign language helps you to understand your own language better. It also brings perspective on how to think, speak, and write. While thinking critically about ideas you learn to communicate them more precisely.
Predictably, right-wingers flew into a rage at Obama's un-American call for better language skills. For example, John McCormack at the Weakly Standard labeled language education as snobbery and elitism. John Derbyshire called Obama's suggestion "idiotic" because "not many human beings can learn another language", as his own failures prove. He combines that with characteristic condescension:
In fact, below some cutoff point, which I'd guess at around minus one standard deviation in IQ (that would encompass sixteen percent of the population), education beyond the three R's is a waste of time, and foreign-language instruction a total waste of time.
Many right-wingers just skipped what Obama actually said and declared that he wants to forcibly indoctrinate their children in Spanish, or make Spanish the official language of the US. Fox News knew what Republicans wanted to hear. Neil Cavuto brought on the Philly-cheese-steak bigot Joey Vento to denounce Obama: "This man is a sick man. He is a scary man."
Even before it embraced creationism and made attacks on science a guiding principle, the Republican Party had proudly turned itself into the party of ignorance and anti-intellectualism. But Obama's call for children to learn more languages (which he stands by) has given the GOP an opportunity to link two of its favorite cudgels, ignorance and bigotry against immigrants. Truly the modern heir to the Know-Nothing Party.
Poll
How un-American are you?
I speak 1 language.
I speak 2 languages.
I speak 3 languages.
I speak 4 languages.
I speak 5-7 languages.
I speak 8 or more languages.
GOP, the Know-Nothing Party
by smintheus
Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 06:58:54 PM PDT
Republicans have been in a lather since Barack Obama commented that American children should learn a foreign language in school. It demonstrates the extent to which they've become the party of ignorance.
Responding to a voter in GA who'd like more bilingual education, Obama said:
"Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.
You know, it’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], ‘Merci beaucoup.’ Right? You know, no, I’m serious about this. We should understand that our young people, if you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job. You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they’re 5, or 6, or 7 than when they’re 46, like me."
Hard to argue with that. It's obvious too that learning a foreign language helps you to understand your own language better. It also brings perspective on how to think, speak, and write. While thinking critically about ideas you learn to communicate them more precisely.
Predictably, right-wingers flew into a rage at Obama's un-American call for better language skills. For example, John McCormack at the Weakly Standard labeled language education as snobbery and elitism. John Derbyshire called Obama's suggestion "idiotic" because "not many human beings can learn another language", as his own failures prove. He combines that with characteristic condescension:
In fact, below some cutoff point, which I'd guess at around minus one standard deviation in IQ (that would encompass sixteen percent of the population), education beyond the three R's is a waste of time, and foreign-language instruction a total waste of time.
Many right-wingers just skipped what Obama actually said and declared that he wants to forcibly indoctrinate their children in Spanish, or make Spanish the official language of the US. Fox News knew what Republicans wanted to hear. Neil Cavuto brought on the Philly-cheese-steak bigot Joey Vento to denounce Obama: "This man is a sick man. He is a scary man."
Even before it embraced creationism and made attacks on science a guiding principle, the Republican Party had proudly turned itself into the party of ignorance and anti-intellectualism. But Obama's call for children to learn more languages (which he stands by) has given the GOP an opportunity to link two of its favorite cudgels, ignorance and bigotry against immigrants. Truly the modern heir to the Know-Nothing Party.
Poll
How un-American are you?
I speak 1 language.
I speak 2 languages.
I speak 3 languages.
I speak 4 languages.
I speak 5-7 languages.
I speak 8 or more languages.
Monday, July 07, 2008
State budget and schools
Accountability
The school systems in most of our cities in California are currently at a crisis point. Schools can continue as they are. A segment of society will be well-educated, another segment will continue to fail. The economic crisis for working people and people of color will continue to grow (Mishel, Bernstein, Allegretto, 2007). Alternatively, schools can be transformed into places where education is a rich, compelling, and affirming process that prepares all young people to make thoughtful contributions to their community in economic and civic terms.
Reforming the schools requires money. And, the Legislature is currently deadlocked. Their issue is how much to cut this year . Frederick Douglass spoke to this issue in 1849 when he wrote the following:
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physically one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. (Douglass, 1849/1991, p. vii)
WE need to invest in California schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, no compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the freedom to learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society.
The struggle for education improvement and education equality is a struggle for or against democratic participation. The struggle for multicultural education, based in democratic theory, is an important part of the general struggle against race, class, and gender oppression.
Schools serving urban and impoverished populations need fundamental change. These schools do not open the doors to economic opportunity. They usually do not promote equality. Instead, they recycle inequality. The high school drop out rates alone demonstrate that urban schools prepare less than 50 percent of their students for entrance into the economy and society. A democratic agenda for school reform includes insisting on fair taxation and adequate funding for all children. Political leaders in California have not yet decided to address the real issues of school reform. We cannot build a safe, just, and prosperous society while we leave so many young people behind.
The conservative/ media emphasis on accountability is a distortion. We know which schools need improvement, and we know how to improve them.. Teachers and parents together face a political choice. Shall we continue to call for high standards without providing the necessary resources for all schools to have a reasonable chance to attain such standards? Shall we continue to punish schools and their staffs for low test scores, even when we know that the tests are poor instruments for measuring learning and that their construction guarantees the failure of many students? Is increased competition and privatization the answer for schools when it has not been the answer in other sectors of our society, particularly for low income and diverse people?
The problem is to provide the resources, including well prepared teachers with adequate support, needed to make the current schools successful. We face a choice between providing high-quality schools only for the middle and upper classes, and underfunded, understaffed schools for the poor. Or, we can also choose to work together to improve schools that are presently failing.
Duane Campbell
The school systems in most of our cities in California are currently at a crisis point. Schools can continue as they are. A segment of society will be well-educated, another segment will continue to fail. The economic crisis for working people and people of color will continue to grow (Mishel, Bernstein, Allegretto, 2007). Alternatively, schools can be transformed into places where education is a rich, compelling, and affirming process that prepares all young people to make thoughtful contributions to their community in economic and civic terms.
Reforming the schools requires money. And, the Legislature is currently deadlocked. Their issue is how much to cut this year . Frederick Douglass spoke to this issue in 1849 when he wrote the following:
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physically one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. (Douglass, 1849/1991, p. vii)
WE need to invest in California schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, no compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the freedom to learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society.
The struggle for education improvement and education equality is a struggle for or against democratic participation. The struggle for multicultural education, based in democratic theory, is an important part of the general struggle against race, class, and gender oppression.
Schools serving urban and impoverished populations need fundamental change. These schools do not open the doors to economic opportunity. They usually do not promote equality. Instead, they recycle inequality. The high school drop out rates alone demonstrate that urban schools prepare less than 50 percent of their students for entrance into the economy and society. A democratic agenda for school reform includes insisting on fair taxation and adequate funding for all children. Political leaders in California have not yet decided to address the real issues of school reform. We cannot build a safe, just, and prosperous society while we leave so many young people behind.
The conservative/ media emphasis on accountability is a distortion. We know which schools need improvement, and we know how to improve them.. Teachers and parents together face a political choice. Shall we continue to call for high standards without providing the necessary resources for all schools to have a reasonable chance to attain such standards? Shall we continue to punish schools and their staffs for low test scores, even when we know that the tests are poor instruments for measuring learning and that their construction guarantees the failure of many students? Is increased competition and privatization the answer for schools when it has not been the answer in other sectors of our society, particularly for low income and diverse people?
The problem is to provide the resources, including well prepared teachers with adequate support, needed to make the current schools successful. We face a choice between providing high-quality schools only for the middle and upper classes, and underfunded, understaffed schools for the poor. Or, we can also choose to work together to improve schools that are presently failing.
Duane Campbell
Monday, June 30, 2008
Cong. Miller and NCLB
I was talking with some friends who live in Congressman George Miller (D. Contra Costa) district. Miller is important since he is the Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee which is the starting point for the revision of No Child Left Behind re-authorization. Cong. Miller has held a series of town hall meeting in his district. However, as reported, these town halls were controlled and limited. Well informed teachers were limited from participation. Here Congressman Miller could have listened to those who do the work rather than the conservative advocacy organizations that dominate testimony in Washington, D.C.
One alternative is to use teachers unions- the NEA and the AFT to force open the discussion. This week’s national convention of the NEA should produce some major press.
It was no small feat for teacher based opposition to stall the re-authorization of the NCLB last year. Originally it was assumed that NCLB would easily be re-authorized. But with intense participation pressure was brought to bear. Now, the re-authorization will be considered in by a new Congress and a new President.
Our opponents are a series of right wing groups, funded by conservative foundations such as the Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. They create advocacy groups and “research” groups, such as the Fordham Center to foster a conservative- no new taxes- view of schools. They sponsor conferences and testimony to hold on to the current failing NCLB focus on testing and standards. These organizations use marketing methods, including particularly the “framing” of the issue strategy of focusing on accountability and testing.
The public needs to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, no compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the Freedom to Learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society. We participate in rebuilding the schools by insisting that our government, our legislatures adequately fund the schools.
Democrats must challenge those social forces acting to preserve the present inequalities and injustices in our society. Schools are sites for the struggle for or against more democracy in our society. In schools, teachers and parents can participate in creating a more democratic society. Where do you think Mr. Miller stands? If you have reports from attending the Miller town hall meetings, please send them to me.
Campd227@pacbell.net
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
One alternative is to use teachers unions- the NEA and the AFT to force open the discussion. This week’s national convention of the NEA should produce some major press.
It was no small feat for teacher based opposition to stall the re-authorization of the NCLB last year. Originally it was assumed that NCLB would easily be re-authorized. But with intense participation pressure was brought to bear. Now, the re-authorization will be considered in by a new Congress and a new President.
Our opponents are a series of right wing groups, funded by conservative foundations such as the Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. They create advocacy groups and “research” groups, such as the Fordham Center to foster a conservative- no new taxes- view of schools. They sponsor conferences and testimony to hold on to the current failing NCLB focus on testing and standards. These organizations use marketing methods, including particularly the “framing” of the issue strategy of focusing on accountability and testing.
The public needs to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, no compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the Freedom to Learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society. We participate in rebuilding the schools by insisting that our government, our legislatures adequately fund the schools.
Democrats must challenge those social forces acting to preserve the present inequalities and injustices in our society. Schools are sites for the struggle for or against more democracy in our society. In schools, teachers and parents can participate in creating a more democratic society. Where do you think Mr. Miller stands? If you have reports from attending the Miller town hall meetings, please send them to me.
Campd227@pacbell.net
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
Friday, June 27, 2008
AFL-CIO endorses Obama
Why the AFL-CIO Endorses Barack Obama
By John J. Sweeney
If ever working families needed change we can believe
in, it is now.
America's promise to working families has been broken
by the deliberate corporatization of our economy. The
basic needs and dreams of our families have been sold
to the highest corporate bidders—Big Oil, Big Pharma,
the insurance industry, the giant mortgage lenders and
the speculators.
With 80 percent of the public saying our country is
headed in the wrong direction, it's time to turn
around America.
This primary season, we were blessed with a committed
and talented group of working family champions running
for the presidency. Each would have brought special
strengths on our behalf to the White House. AFL-CIO
unions embraced and campaigned mightily on behalf of
former Sen. John Edwards and Sens. Chris Dodd, Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
But now the AFL-CIO's autonomous unions, representing
10.5 million working men and women from every walk of
life, have come together to pledge our energy, our
hearts and our grassroots strength to electing Barack
Obama.
The reasons are many.
As the son of a single mother, as a Chicago community
organizer and Illinois state senator, Obama saw
firsthand and addressed the struggles of working
families. And in his years in the U.S. Senate, he has
earned a 98 percent record of voting on behalf of
working families.
On the greatest priorities of America's union movement
and the millions of working people we represent,
Obama's record and proposals ensure he is the right
choice.
Good Jobs and Wages: Obama proposes an "aggressive
strategy to create good, middle-class jobs," including
hundreds of thousands of jobs in the renewable energy
sector. He opposed the Bush administration's move to
take overtime pay rights from some 10 million workers.
He strongly supports Davis-Bacon wage protections and
project labor agreements and voted repeatedly to
increase the minimum wage.
Health Care: Obama's plan would provide health care
for all, lower costs, improve quality and ensure no
one could be denied care because of a pre-existing
condition or illness.
Employee Free Choice Act: Obama is committed to
ensuring that workers can choose to gain a union voice
on the job and bargain with their employers for better
wages, benefits and working conditions—without
employer harassment or intimidation. He co-sponsored
and voted for the Employee Free Choice Act and
promises to sign it into law as president.
Fair Trade: Obama wants to end tax breaks for
companies that ship jobs overseas and will oppose new
trade agreements unless more steps are taken to
protect American jobs and the environment.
Fair Taxes: Obama's tax proposal would give families
making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year an average
tax cut of $1,042, compared with the $319 proposed by
rival John McCain.
Retirement Security: Obama opposes privatizing Social
Security and has a solid record of supporting Social
Security and Medicare, as well as opposing cuts in
benefits. He also has fought to lower the cost of
prescription drugs for seniors.
An Economy That Works for All: Obama says working
families' current economic hardships were not
"inevitable." They resulted from irresponsible
economic policies by the Bush administration that gave
tax breaks to the rich while cutting working family
priorities. Obama consistently has fought tax cuts for
the wealthy and program cuts for working families.
As president, Barack Obama can lead the change working
families need.
Find out more about Barack Obama and his positions on
key working family priorities at www.MeetObama08.org.
Then help us spread the word.
Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political
Education (COPE) Political Contributions Committee,
www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or
candidate's committee.
By John J. Sweeney
If ever working families needed change we can believe
in, it is now.
America's promise to working families has been broken
by the deliberate corporatization of our economy. The
basic needs and dreams of our families have been sold
to the highest corporate bidders—Big Oil, Big Pharma,
the insurance industry, the giant mortgage lenders and
the speculators.
With 80 percent of the public saying our country is
headed in the wrong direction, it's time to turn
around America.
This primary season, we were blessed with a committed
and talented group of working family champions running
for the presidency. Each would have brought special
strengths on our behalf to the White House. AFL-CIO
unions embraced and campaigned mightily on behalf of
former Sen. John Edwards and Sens. Chris Dodd, Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
But now the AFL-CIO's autonomous unions, representing
10.5 million working men and women from every walk of
life, have come together to pledge our energy, our
hearts and our grassroots strength to electing Barack
Obama.
The reasons are many.
As the son of a single mother, as a Chicago community
organizer and Illinois state senator, Obama saw
firsthand and addressed the struggles of working
families. And in his years in the U.S. Senate, he has
earned a 98 percent record of voting on behalf of
working families.
On the greatest priorities of America's union movement
and the millions of working people we represent,
Obama's record and proposals ensure he is the right
choice.
Good Jobs and Wages: Obama proposes an "aggressive
strategy to create good, middle-class jobs," including
hundreds of thousands of jobs in the renewable energy
sector. He opposed the Bush administration's move to
take overtime pay rights from some 10 million workers.
He strongly supports Davis-Bacon wage protections and
project labor agreements and voted repeatedly to
increase the minimum wage.
Health Care: Obama's plan would provide health care
for all, lower costs, improve quality and ensure no
one could be denied care because of a pre-existing
condition or illness.
Employee Free Choice Act: Obama is committed to
ensuring that workers can choose to gain a union voice
on the job and bargain with their employers for better
wages, benefits and working conditions—without
employer harassment or intimidation. He co-sponsored
and voted for the Employee Free Choice Act and
promises to sign it into law as president.
Fair Trade: Obama wants to end tax breaks for
companies that ship jobs overseas and will oppose new
trade agreements unless more steps are taken to
protect American jobs and the environment.
Fair Taxes: Obama's tax proposal would give families
making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year an average
tax cut of $1,042, compared with the $319 proposed by
rival John McCain.
Retirement Security: Obama opposes privatizing Social
Security and has a solid record of supporting Social
Security and Medicare, as well as opposing cuts in
benefits. He also has fought to lower the cost of
prescription drugs for seniors.
An Economy That Works for All: Obama says working
families' current economic hardships were not
"inevitable." They resulted from irresponsible
economic policies by the Bush administration that gave
tax breaks to the rich while cutting working family
priorities. Obama consistently has fought tax cuts for
the wealthy and program cuts for working families.
As president, Barack Obama can lead the change working
families need.
Find out more about Barack Obama and his positions on
key working family priorities at www.MeetObama08.org.
Then help us spread the word.
Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political
Education (COPE) Political Contributions Committee,
www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or
candidate's committee.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education Reform
There's an interesting full-page ad in today's Washington Post and New York Times, entitled "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education": http://www.boldapproach.org/bold_approach_full_statement.pdf. It's signed by a list of luminaries, including several Clinton Administration appointees, but also people like Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, and Richard Rothstein , Lawrence Mishel, William Julius Wilson and others.
While criticizing NCLB for focusing solely on school improvement, the statement calls for a greater emphasis on addressing out-of-school factors like children's health, as well as early-childhood education, and a saner approach to accountability. "Broad" it certainly is. Not very many specifics. But I suspect it will have a significant impact in reframing the debate over NCLB reauthorization -- from how to "fix NCLB" to a comprehensive discussion of the federal role in education. Assuming that the Democrats retain control of Congress (whether or not they win the White House), I expect that these will be the parameters of the debate next year.
This is a positive development, in my view, and it's consistent with other efforts now under way. One involves the Forum on Educational Accountability (http://edaccountability.org/), the coalition of 140-odd education and civil rights groups whose Joint Statement the Institute has endorsed. It's now working on more detailed papers.
Perhaps most important is work by the Forum on Education and Democracy, which released a paper a few weeks ago ("Democracy at Risk") that does offer quite a few specifics about the federal role: http://www.forumforeducation.org/foruminaction/index.php?page=31&item=430.
While criticizing NCLB for focusing solely on school improvement, the statement calls for a greater emphasis on addressing out-of-school factors like children's health, as well as early-childhood education, and a saner approach to accountability. "Broad" it certainly is. Not very many specifics. But I suspect it will have a significant impact in reframing the debate over NCLB reauthorization -- from how to "fix NCLB" to a comprehensive discussion of the federal role in education. Assuming that the Democrats retain control of Congress (whether or not they win the White House), I expect that these will be the parameters of the debate next year.
This is a positive development, in my view, and it's consistent with other efforts now under way. One involves the Forum on Educational Accountability (http://edaccountability.org/), the coalition of 140-odd education and civil rights groups whose Joint Statement the Institute has endorsed. It's now working on more detailed papers.
Perhaps most important is work by the Forum on Education and Democracy, which released a paper a few weeks ago ("Democracy at Risk") that does offer quite a few specifics about the federal role: http://www.forumforeducation.org/foruminaction/index.php?page=31&item=430.
Monday, June 09, 2008
NCLB and English Language Learners
School has 'tough dilemma'
Successful language program is a drag on campus' scores
By Kim Minugh - kminugh@sacbee.com
Last Updated 1:14 am PDT Monday, June 9, 2008
Nine buses lumber up to Will Rogers Middle School each morning, carrying sleepy-eyed children who have spent as much as an hour on the road.
They are the children of immigrant families from Argentina, South Korea, Mexico and Ukraine – enrolled at the Fair Oaks school for an opportunity to quickly learn the language of their new country.
Will Rogers is one of the San Juan Unified School District's (near Sacramento) language centers, offering specialized lessons to any seventh- or eighth-grader who isn't fluent in English.
This year, almost one-fourth of the school's English-language learners have become fluent enough to shift into mainstream classes – some after just a year.
But Will Rogers is failing under No Child Left Behind.
Because of its high concentration of non-English speakers, its scores on standardized English tests have come up short six years in a row, landing the school in the final stages of what the federal government calls "Program Improvement."
San Juan administrators find themselves in a quandary: Either continue a program they feel successfully serves English-language learners – and suffer the penalties of low test scores – or disband the program.
"It's a tough dilemma," said Vice Principal Karen Baum. "Technically, the district could get us out of Program Improvement by just not making us a (language) center. … Would that be the best thing for the kids? I don't know."
San Juan Unified officials will try to answer that question next year when they review the district's programs for English-language learners, including the language center model, said Tamra Taylor, the district's director of Program Improvement schools.
Taylor said the district will not "cower" from No Child Left Behind. The fate of the language center rests on what is best for English-language learners, she said, not pressure from the government.
"We pay attention to the law, we don't break the law, we try to make growth," she said. "But our impetus is not that there's a federal mandate called Program Improvement. Our impetus is there's an achievement gap, and we want to close it."
Schools are labeled Program Improvement when they fail to meet federal targets for two years in a row. Schools that continue to fall short of federal benchmarks for more than two years face additional sanctions and ultimately can be taken over by the state.
Culture of support
When Principal Monty Muller started at Will Rogers 18 years ago, the language center had only 40 students. Today, enrollment ranges from 160 to 280, and students speak 40 languages.
Grouping those students in language centers allows the district to save money on staffing, technology and other costs.
But perhaps the biggest advantage, administrators and teachers say, is a culture of support for students facing struggles in and out of the classroom.
Baum said many of her students are angry at their parents for bringing them to the United States against their will. Some act out.
Others have trouble focusing on school because their families are in turmoil while adjusting to a new country.
At the language center, teachers and administrators help students work through those emotional issues.
"I think it gives kids a feeling of comfort … and a feeling of safety," said teacher Michelle Bebout. "It gives them a million opportunities to relate to somebody."
Dariya Korzhuk, who came from Ukraine three years ago, appreciates being at a school full of other students like her – even if they don't share the same background.
"You already know how they feel because it's the same as you," the 13-year-old said.
Even after being in the United States two years, Korzhuk said she felt "shy to talk" when she came to Will Rogers.
"If I say something wrong, people would make fun," said the seventh-grader. "Now, I don't care. I know English."
Proper language required
During a recent lesson, Bebout asked her seventh-graders to write a letter to incoming students, giving them advice on how to succeed at Will Rogers and in her class.
She explained the instructions slowly, going over tough words and asking questions to make sure her students understood them.
Bebout paused when one student used the word "stuff" and talked to the class about the difference between slang and formal language.
"You are not employed by (Yo!) MTV Raps," she said, referring to the former hip-hop cable TV show. "What kind of language will you be avoiding?"
"Wazzup," the students shouted.
She wrote it on a whiteboard as students called out other forbidden words – "Cuz," "Shorty."
That language is OK for text-messaging, she told them. But Bebout wants her students to get in the habit of using proper language.
In a classroom across the hall, English teacher Laura Troppmann buzzed around the room in jeans and flats.
Her students were designing an imaginary camp for young children. The lesson was based on "The Acorn People," a book they'd read about physically disabled students who attended a camp without proper accommodations.
Troppmann has been at Will Rogers eight years, but this is her first year teaching English learners. She said there have been some unexpected challenges.
Her lesson about "The Acorn People" began with an explanation of what camp is; many of her students had never been.
When she asked them to design brochures for their imaginary camps, they stared back, blankly. No one knew what a brochure was.
"They're not dumb. They're brilliant," Troppmann said. "They just don't have the background."
Expectations unrealistic?
Critics of No Child Left Behind complain that the law's expectations for English learners are unrealistic and that punishing entire schools for those students' struggles is unfair.
The federal law holds schools accountable for their overall test scores as well as for the scores of groups of typically underperforming students – like non-English speakers or ethnic minorities. A whole school can be penalized if one group repeatedly falls short, like at Will Rogers.
As California's immigrant population grows, and the above scenario becomes more common, even No Child Left Behind advocates like Taylor question the law's deadline for all students to be proficient in math and English.
"Can all kids be proficient by 2014? Let's get real," she said. "Especially if someone just got to the country and doesn't speak the language."
Standardized test scores don't show everything, she said. Especially at schools like Will Rogers.
Since 2002, the school has grown according to the state's measures – its Academic Performance Index score jumped 77 points to 715 (the state's goal for schools is 800).
In California, non-English speakers are tested yearly, and their English fluency is scored on a scale of one to five. Some of Will Rogers' students are jumping as many as two or three levels in one year, Baum said.
"I don't consider them a school that is failing," Taylor said.
Eighth-grader Lucas Sugliano, who didn't know any English when his family arrived 3 1/2 years ago from Argentina, is now considered fluent.
He remembers greeting people by saying, "bye" instead of "hi."
"I mostly learned English here" at Will Rogers, he said. "Difficult English. Hard words and better phrases."
In the fall, Sugliano will enter high school as what one of his classmates calls a "regular student."
Successful language program is a drag on campus' scores
By Kim Minugh - kminugh@sacbee.com
Last Updated 1:14 am PDT Monday, June 9, 2008
Nine buses lumber up to Will Rogers Middle School each morning, carrying sleepy-eyed children who have spent as much as an hour on the road.
They are the children of immigrant families from Argentina, South Korea, Mexico and Ukraine – enrolled at the Fair Oaks school for an opportunity to quickly learn the language of their new country.
Will Rogers is one of the San Juan Unified School District's (near Sacramento) language centers, offering specialized lessons to any seventh- or eighth-grader who isn't fluent in English.
This year, almost one-fourth of the school's English-language learners have become fluent enough to shift into mainstream classes – some after just a year.
But Will Rogers is failing under No Child Left Behind.
Because of its high concentration of non-English speakers, its scores on standardized English tests have come up short six years in a row, landing the school in the final stages of what the federal government calls "Program Improvement."
San Juan administrators find themselves in a quandary: Either continue a program they feel successfully serves English-language learners – and suffer the penalties of low test scores – or disband the program.
"It's a tough dilemma," said Vice Principal Karen Baum. "Technically, the district could get us out of Program Improvement by just not making us a (language) center. … Would that be the best thing for the kids? I don't know."
San Juan Unified officials will try to answer that question next year when they review the district's programs for English-language learners, including the language center model, said Tamra Taylor, the district's director of Program Improvement schools.
Taylor said the district will not "cower" from No Child Left Behind. The fate of the language center rests on what is best for English-language learners, she said, not pressure from the government.
"We pay attention to the law, we don't break the law, we try to make growth," she said. "But our impetus is not that there's a federal mandate called Program Improvement. Our impetus is there's an achievement gap, and we want to close it."
Schools are labeled Program Improvement when they fail to meet federal targets for two years in a row. Schools that continue to fall short of federal benchmarks for more than two years face additional sanctions and ultimately can be taken over by the state.
Culture of support
When Principal Monty Muller started at Will Rogers 18 years ago, the language center had only 40 students. Today, enrollment ranges from 160 to 280, and students speak 40 languages.
Grouping those students in language centers allows the district to save money on staffing, technology and other costs.
But perhaps the biggest advantage, administrators and teachers say, is a culture of support for students facing struggles in and out of the classroom.
Baum said many of her students are angry at their parents for bringing them to the United States against their will. Some act out.
Others have trouble focusing on school because their families are in turmoil while adjusting to a new country.
At the language center, teachers and administrators help students work through those emotional issues.
"I think it gives kids a feeling of comfort … and a feeling of safety," said teacher Michelle Bebout. "It gives them a million opportunities to relate to somebody."
Dariya Korzhuk, who came from Ukraine three years ago, appreciates being at a school full of other students like her – even if they don't share the same background.
"You already know how they feel because it's the same as you," the 13-year-old said.
Even after being in the United States two years, Korzhuk said she felt "shy to talk" when she came to Will Rogers.
"If I say something wrong, people would make fun," said the seventh-grader. "Now, I don't care. I know English."
Proper language required
During a recent lesson, Bebout asked her seventh-graders to write a letter to incoming students, giving them advice on how to succeed at Will Rogers and in her class.
She explained the instructions slowly, going over tough words and asking questions to make sure her students understood them.
Bebout paused when one student used the word "stuff" and talked to the class about the difference between slang and formal language.
"You are not employed by (Yo!) MTV Raps," she said, referring to the former hip-hop cable TV show. "What kind of language will you be avoiding?"
"Wazzup," the students shouted.
She wrote it on a whiteboard as students called out other forbidden words – "Cuz," "Shorty."
That language is OK for text-messaging, she told them. But Bebout wants her students to get in the habit of using proper language.
In a classroom across the hall, English teacher Laura Troppmann buzzed around the room in jeans and flats.
Her students were designing an imaginary camp for young children. The lesson was based on "The Acorn People," a book they'd read about physically disabled students who attended a camp without proper accommodations.
Troppmann has been at Will Rogers eight years, but this is her first year teaching English learners. She said there have been some unexpected challenges.
Her lesson about "The Acorn People" began with an explanation of what camp is; many of her students had never been.
When she asked them to design brochures for their imaginary camps, they stared back, blankly. No one knew what a brochure was.
"They're not dumb. They're brilliant," Troppmann said. "They just don't have the background."
Expectations unrealistic?
Critics of No Child Left Behind complain that the law's expectations for English learners are unrealistic and that punishing entire schools for those students' struggles is unfair.
The federal law holds schools accountable for their overall test scores as well as for the scores of groups of typically underperforming students – like non-English speakers or ethnic minorities. A whole school can be penalized if one group repeatedly falls short, like at Will Rogers.
As California's immigrant population grows, and the above scenario becomes more common, even No Child Left Behind advocates like Taylor question the law's deadline for all students to be proficient in math and English.
"Can all kids be proficient by 2014? Let's get real," she said. "Especially if someone just got to the country and doesn't speak the language."
Standardized test scores don't show everything, she said. Especially at schools like Will Rogers.
Since 2002, the school has grown according to the state's measures – its Academic Performance Index score jumped 77 points to 715 (the state's goal for schools is 800).
In California, non-English speakers are tested yearly, and their English fluency is scored on a scale of one to five. Some of Will Rogers' students are jumping as many as two or three levels in one year, Baum said.
"I don't consider them a school that is failing," Taylor said.
Eighth-grader Lucas Sugliano, who didn't know any English when his family arrived 3 1/2 years ago from Argentina, is now considered fluent.
He remembers greeting people by saying, "bye" instead of "hi."
"I mostly learned English here" at Will Rogers, he said. "Difficult English. Hard words and better phrases."
In the fall, Sugliano will enter high school as what one of his classmates calls a "regular student."
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Bill Moyers, Media Democracy
Highly recommended. Bill Moyers on Democracy and the Media.
I am unable to copy the embeded script. Follow the link.
http://www.freepress.net/conference
I am unable to copy the embeded script. Follow the link.
http://www.freepress.net/conference
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Recount : Florida 2000
‘Recount’ Gets It Right, Even if America Didn’t
By Brad Friedman
This review was originally posted on The Brad Blog.
I don’t mind admitting it. For an Election Integrity journalist, HBO’s Recount is pure pornography.
So it was with great anticipation that I sat down on Sunday night to watch the film as it premiered, along with the “Diebold Document Whistleblower” (and my new colleague at VelvetRevolution.us) Steven Heller and his wife, and Robert Carillo Cohen, one of the filmmakers of HBO’s landmark documentary, the Emmy-nominated Hacking Democracy which enjoyed a re-airing earlier in the day, as the cable net set the stage for its newest democracy thriller/heart-…
As it turns out, HBO seems to have gotten just about all of it right from a factual standpoint. At least from the perspective of someone who followed those extraordinary 36 days incredibly closely both during and since, as the country hung in limbo as if, yes, dangling by a chad. There was quite a bit of nuance packed in to the two fast-paced hours, even down to the dirty machinations of Florida’s corrupt and soulless Rep. Tom Feeney who played a minor, but key role in both the film and the stolen election.
Getting it right, or close to it, is apparently no small feat, since even the New York Times, the “paper of record”, was unable to do so even in their review of the film, seven years after they covered the actual events, and six years after they correctly wrote, “If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards...Mr. Gore would have won.”
Never mind history though, now for the Times it’s the revisionistic: “Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state had been re-tallied.” (For the record, the Times was right six years ago, here’s the evidence [PDF], and wrong last week.)
While time has done few favors for the Times, the historical distance, and time-compression of the two hour film, managed to capture the thrilling, exhausting and disappointing back and forth, up and down roller coaster of the original saga --- while identifying the players who deserve much of the thanks for the failure to count every vote accurately, as per the voters’ intent, or even at all --- in what was finally democracy lost.
Among the players targeted for failing to ensure the proper administration of democracy: then-Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, who the film identifies as having almost single-handedly allowed hundreds of military ballots to be counted for George W. Bush despite any evidence whatsoever that any of them were actually cast prior to the close of polls on November 7th, 2000.
While I had been aware of the Gore campaign foolishly rolling over to the cynical and opportunistic GOP attempts to bully them, by painting them as anti-troop --- based on their eventually-abandoned premise that all counted ballots should actually be legal ones --- I hadn’t drawn a direct bead on Lieberman for blowing that call.
If the filmmakers were accurate in that depiction, then it looks like one of John McCain’s biggest supporters in 2008 had been undermining Democratic White House ambitions long ago.
Given the film’s familiar outcome, no small amount of credit is due the filmmakers who were able to succeed in having a room of jaded (understatement) election buffs still rooting for the good guys to pull it out this time around. (Without giving too much away, they didn’t. Gore was still named the loser, despite having received more votes in Florida in 2000 than Bush [PDF], even after tens of thousands of legal minority voters were excluded from voting at all, merely because their names sounded something like others who had purportedly been convicted of a felony at one time or another.)
The result: a taut, often hilarious, consistently engaging, still-maddening and sick-making political thriller. History would thank you for watching it. Again and again.
By Brad Friedman
This review was originally posted on The Brad Blog.
I don’t mind admitting it. For an Election Integrity journalist, HBO’s Recount is pure pornography.
So it was with great anticipation that I sat down on Sunday night to watch the film as it premiered, along with the “Diebold Document Whistleblower” (and my new colleague at VelvetRevolution.us) Steven Heller and his wife, and Robert Carillo Cohen, one of the filmmakers of HBO’s landmark documentary, the Emmy-nominated Hacking Democracy which enjoyed a re-airing earlier in the day, as the cable net set the stage for its newest democracy thriller/heart-…
As it turns out, HBO seems to have gotten just about all of it right from a factual standpoint. At least from the perspective of someone who followed those extraordinary 36 days incredibly closely both during and since, as the country hung in limbo as if, yes, dangling by a chad. There was quite a bit of nuance packed in to the two fast-paced hours, even down to the dirty machinations of Florida’s corrupt and soulless Rep. Tom Feeney who played a minor, but key role in both the film and the stolen election.
Getting it right, or close to it, is apparently no small feat, since even the New York Times, the “paper of record”, was unable to do so even in their review of the film, seven years after they covered the actual events, and six years after they correctly wrote, “If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards...Mr. Gore would have won.”
Never mind history though, now for the Times it’s the revisionistic: “Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state had been re-tallied.” (For the record, the Times was right six years ago, here’s the evidence [PDF], and wrong last week.)
While time has done few favors for the Times, the historical distance, and time-compression of the two hour film, managed to capture the thrilling, exhausting and disappointing back and forth, up and down roller coaster of the original saga --- while identifying the players who deserve much of the thanks for the failure to count every vote accurately, as per the voters’ intent, or even at all --- in what was finally democracy lost.
Among the players targeted for failing to ensure the proper administration of democracy: then-Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman, who the film identifies as having almost single-handedly allowed hundreds of military ballots to be counted for George W. Bush despite any evidence whatsoever that any of them were actually cast prior to the close of polls on November 7th, 2000.
While I had been aware of the Gore campaign foolishly rolling over to the cynical and opportunistic GOP attempts to bully them, by painting them as anti-troop --- based on their eventually-abandoned premise that all counted ballots should actually be legal ones --- I hadn’t drawn a direct bead on Lieberman for blowing that call.
If the filmmakers were accurate in that depiction, then it looks like one of John McCain’s biggest supporters in 2008 had been undermining Democratic White House ambitions long ago.
Given the film’s familiar outcome, no small amount of credit is due the filmmakers who were able to succeed in having a room of jaded (understatement) election buffs still rooting for the good guys to pull it out this time around. (Without giving too much away, they didn’t. Gore was still named the loser, despite having received more votes in Florida in 2000 than Bush [PDF], even after tens of thousands of legal minority voters were excluded from voting at all, merely because their names sounded something like others who had purportedly been convicted of a felony at one time or another.)
The result: a taut, often hilarious, consistently engaging, still-maddening and sick-making political thriller. History would thank you for watching it. Again and again.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The California budget, schools, and a bridge to nowhere
The Budget; education; and selling us a bridge to nowhere.
The California budget is a mess- at least a $15 Billion deficit.
About half of California’s schools are in a mess: California’s students rank 48th. out of the states in 4th. grade reading on the NAEP, 47th. in 4th. grade math, and 43rd. in 4th. grade science. California ranks 48th. in 8th. grade readingon the NAEP, 45th. in 8th. grade math, and 42nd in 8th. grade science.
That is, our schools are in crisis, particularly our schools serving Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged students. And, after 20 years of “school reform,” there has been no real progress.
So what is proposed in the Governor’s budget. Well first they propose to cut $4.1 billion from the schools. This will increase class size, eliminate counselors and lead to teacher lay offs. The Governor would also will cut health care to some seniors, the disabled, and children.
While cutting and slashing, the Governor also proposes spending at least 9 million additional dollars for a new video based test for new teachers (TPA or PACT). This new test has no relationship to the crisis in school achievement of California’s failing schools. It does, however, provide career advancement for test writers and professors at Stanford and elsewhere, provide them with coffee, donuts and catered food while they meet, and keep them from having to work with real teachers in real classrooms to deal with the problems students in real schools.
It is a bridge to nowhere. A boondoggle. The state might as well fund research on developing rain forests in the Iowa prairie. And, unless the California Assembly Budget Committee acts, it is a boondoggle that you and I will pay for.
It is a bridge to create a test that is not needed and will not improve teaching nor learning, but a few bureaucrats and three college professors want it. So, while we don’t have money for class size reduction, summer school, and safe schools, we have money for this. Excuse me- I thought that we had a budget crisis and a school crisis, but I haven’t heard of a test crisis.
You may have heard the story of the drunk who lost his/her keys in the dark alley. He couldn’t see well enough to find the keys. So, he went down the block to where there was a street light and searched there. Along came a friend and offered to help. After a few minutes the friend asked, Where again did you lose the keys?
The drunk replied, back there in the dark alley. The friend asked- if you lost the keys in the dark alley, why are you looking here at the corner? The drunk replied, because there is not enough light to see in the dark alley.
The proposed funding of Teacher Performance Assessment during a state budget crisis is like turning on the street lights in the next block. That is not where the school crisis is- and you won’t find the keys to quality education there.
Duane Campbell
The California budget is a mess- at least a $15 Billion deficit.
About half of California’s schools are in a mess: California’s students rank 48th. out of the states in 4th. grade reading on the NAEP, 47th. in 4th. grade math, and 43rd. in 4th. grade science. California ranks 48th. in 8th. grade readingon the NAEP, 45th. in 8th. grade math, and 42nd in 8th. grade science.
That is, our schools are in crisis, particularly our schools serving Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged students. And, after 20 years of “school reform,” there has been no real progress.
So what is proposed in the Governor’s budget. Well first they propose to cut $4.1 billion from the schools. This will increase class size, eliminate counselors and lead to teacher lay offs. The Governor would also will cut health care to some seniors, the disabled, and children.
While cutting and slashing, the Governor also proposes spending at least 9 million additional dollars for a new video based test for new teachers (TPA or PACT). This new test has no relationship to the crisis in school achievement of California’s failing schools. It does, however, provide career advancement for test writers and professors at Stanford and elsewhere, provide them with coffee, donuts and catered food while they meet, and keep them from having to work with real teachers in real classrooms to deal with the problems students in real schools.
It is a bridge to nowhere. A boondoggle. The state might as well fund research on developing rain forests in the Iowa prairie. And, unless the California Assembly Budget Committee acts, it is a boondoggle that you and I will pay for.
It is a bridge to create a test that is not needed and will not improve teaching nor learning, but a few bureaucrats and three college professors want it. So, while we don’t have money for class size reduction, summer school, and safe schools, we have money for this. Excuse me- I thought that we had a budget crisis and a school crisis, but I haven’t heard of a test crisis.
You may have heard the story of the drunk who lost his/her keys in the dark alley. He couldn’t see well enough to find the keys. So, he went down the block to where there was a street light and searched there. Along came a friend and offered to help. After a few minutes the friend asked, Where again did you lose the keys?
The drunk replied, back there in the dark alley. The friend asked- if you lost the keys in the dark alley, why are you looking here at the corner? The drunk replied, because there is not enough light to see in the dark alley.
The proposed funding of Teacher Performance Assessment during a state budget crisis is like turning on the street lights in the next block. That is not where the school crisis is- and you won’t find the keys to quality education there.
Duane Campbell
Monday, May 12, 2008
California ranks first- in failing schools
School districts start to face sanctions under landmark law
By JULIET WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Saturday, May 10, 2008; 1:06 PM
THERMAL, Calif. -- At Las Palmitas Elementary School, nestled between rundown homes and fields of grapes, peppers and dates in Southern California, 99 percent of students live in poverty and fewer than 20 percent speak English fluently.
Las Palmitas and other schools in the Coachella Valley Unified School District are just the type policy makers had in mind when Congress passed the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 to shed light on the disparities facing poor and minority children.
Nineteen of the district's 21 schools _ including Las Palmitas _ have not met the federal law's performance benchmarks for four years. Now the entire district faces sanctions for the first time.
"We have hardworking, dedicated, trained teachers like everybody else. They've got to teach a language, they've got to teach the content, and they've got to counter poverty," said Foch "Tut" Pensis, the district's superintendent. "We are the poster child for NCLB."
California has 97 school districts that failed to meet their goals under the law for four years, more than twice as many failing districts as any other state so far. Kentucky has the next highest number facing sanctions, with 47.
Nationwide, 411 school districts in 27 states now face intervention.
Over the next few years, hundreds more districts are destined to enter the next phase that California already has begun. The state has ordered districts to undergo everything from reporting how they are implementing the federal law to having a team of specialists assess every aspect of their operations. In the most extreme cases, California districts could be subject to a state takeover.
How California and the other states will turn around those struggling districts is unclear.
"No one, on a large scale, has figured out how to solve the achievement gap," Pensis said. "Everybody's looking for that answer."
If they need better teachers and administrators, it's not apparent where they will come from. Some federal money is available, but it's unlikely it will be enough to cover all the failing districts.
Many states already are losing revenue due to the sliding economy. California's budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins this summer is projected to be anywhere from $15 billion to $20 billion.
No Child Left Behind sought to shine a light on inequality in the nation's education system, where schools have been accused of setting lower expectations for poor and minority children. Nationwide, black and Hispanic students consistently lag behind their white and Asian peers in performance, a chasm referred to as the achievement gap.
The law also set tough goals for districts to demonstrate steady improvement.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says California is taking the right steps. It is the first state to take widespread action against all its districts that have failed to meet the achievement target set by No Child Left Behind.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O'Connell, proposed the sliding scale of punishment for the 97 districts _ which are responsible for educating nearly a third of California's 6.3 million students.
Their approach reserves severe measures, such as replacing administrators or a takeover by the state, for districts that have shown the least improvement.
"He is the first governor to kind of embrace this law, to take it on himself, to be acting for it, and in keeping completely with the spirit of No Child Left Behind," Spellings said in an interview.
By taking action now, California can collect $45 million from the federal government. The districts facing the most severe sanctions each will receive $250,000 in federal money to pay for intervention teams and to start following their suggestions.
They will need to hire turnaround experts, new principals and coaches, and many more teachers to replace those judged to be ineffective. Where the districts will find those top-quality educators is unknown. California expects to face a shortage of as many as 100,000 qualified teachers in the next decade, even without changes to its existing school system.
"I think it's going to take leadership, commitment and expectations," she said. "It's just like with the kids: If you think you have a bunch of kids who can't get to grade level, that's what you have. If you think you have superstars, that's what you have."
With half the black and Hispanic students in the country dropping out before graduation, anything less than aggressive action to turn around the failing districts is unacceptable, Spellings said. Under some of the states' current improvement plans, it would take some districts more than 100 years to bring students' reading and math skills to grade level.
"The accountability _ all the testing, all the data, all the stuff we do _ are meaningless unless we have real consequences for failure," Spellings said.
(This version CORRECTS that state has already called on districts to fulfill various requirements).)
By JULIET WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Saturday, May 10, 2008; 1:06 PM
THERMAL, Calif. -- At Las Palmitas Elementary School, nestled between rundown homes and fields of grapes, peppers and dates in Southern California, 99 percent of students live in poverty and fewer than 20 percent speak English fluently.
Las Palmitas and other schools in the Coachella Valley Unified School District are just the type policy makers had in mind when Congress passed the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 to shed light on the disparities facing poor and minority children.
Nineteen of the district's 21 schools _ including Las Palmitas _ have not met the federal law's performance benchmarks for four years. Now the entire district faces sanctions for the first time.
"We have hardworking, dedicated, trained teachers like everybody else. They've got to teach a language, they've got to teach the content, and they've got to counter poverty," said Foch "Tut" Pensis, the district's superintendent. "We are the poster child for NCLB."
California has 97 school districts that failed to meet their goals under the law for four years, more than twice as many failing districts as any other state so far. Kentucky has the next highest number facing sanctions, with 47.
Nationwide, 411 school districts in 27 states now face intervention.
Over the next few years, hundreds more districts are destined to enter the next phase that California already has begun. The state has ordered districts to undergo everything from reporting how they are implementing the federal law to having a team of specialists assess every aspect of their operations. In the most extreme cases, California districts could be subject to a state takeover.
How California and the other states will turn around those struggling districts is unclear.
"No one, on a large scale, has figured out how to solve the achievement gap," Pensis said. "Everybody's looking for that answer."
If they need better teachers and administrators, it's not apparent where they will come from. Some federal money is available, but it's unlikely it will be enough to cover all the failing districts.
Many states already are losing revenue due to the sliding economy. California's budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins this summer is projected to be anywhere from $15 billion to $20 billion.
No Child Left Behind sought to shine a light on inequality in the nation's education system, where schools have been accused of setting lower expectations for poor and minority children. Nationwide, black and Hispanic students consistently lag behind their white and Asian peers in performance, a chasm referred to as the achievement gap.
The law also set tough goals for districts to demonstrate steady improvement.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says California is taking the right steps. It is the first state to take widespread action against all its districts that have failed to meet the achievement target set by No Child Left Behind.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state's elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O'Connell, proposed the sliding scale of punishment for the 97 districts _ which are responsible for educating nearly a third of California's 6.3 million students.
Their approach reserves severe measures, such as replacing administrators or a takeover by the state, for districts that have shown the least improvement.
"He is the first governor to kind of embrace this law, to take it on himself, to be acting for it, and in keeping completely with the spirit of No Child Left Behind," Spellings said in an interview.
By taking action now, California can collect $45 million from the federal government. The districts facing the most severe sanctions each will receive $250,000 in federal money to pay for intervention teams and to start following their suggestions.
They will need to hire turnaround experts, new principals and coaches, and many more teachers to replace those judged to be ineffective. Where the districts will find those top-quality educators is unknown. California expects to face a shortage of as many as 100,000 qualified teachers in the next decade, even without changes to its existing school system.
"I think it's going to take leadership, commitment and expectations," she said. "It's just like with the kids: If you think you have a bunch of kids who can't get to grade level, that's what you have. If you think you have superstars, that's what you have."
With half the black and Hispanic students in the country dropping out before graduation, anything less than aggressive action to turn around the failing districts is unacceptable, Spellings said. Under some of the states' current improvement plans, it would take some districts more than 100 years to bring students' reading and math skills to grade level.
"The accountability _ all the testing, all the data, all the stuff we do _ are meaningless unless we have real consequences for failure," Spellings said.
(This version CORRECTS that state has already called on districts to fulfill various requirements).)
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Education for All May 9, Sacramento
May 6, 2008 MEDIA ADVISORY
TEACHER CARAVAN FROM SAN DIEGO, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO TO SACRAMENTO: STOP THE BUDGET CUTS!
Teachers, Students, and Parents will be available for interviews
Spanish speakers available
On Thursday, May 8, 2008, members of the Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) will lead a protest caravan to Sacramento, California. Teachers will meet in Chicano Park (San Diego, CA) at 3:30pm and the caravan will leave at 4:00pm. Teachers in Los Angeles will also meet at the Governor's office in Downtown LA at 5:00pm. Other caravans will leave Oxnard, the three caravans will then converge in downtown San Francisco where they will unite with Bay Area teachers for a press conference that begins at 10:30am, on Friday May 9th. The caravans, part of a statewide effort, will continue to Sacramento, where there will be a massive teacher rally on the grounds of the State Capitol Building at 3:00 pm.
The purpose of the A.R.E. Caravan will be to express to all government and public school officials our indignation and opposition to the current massive cut backs facing the public schools. Through the caravan, A.R.E. hopes to inform our communities that Mexican-Latino educators are united in their opposition to the cutbacks in both school funding and the elimination of courses that truly work towards educating children. We also intend to expose the hypocrisy of government officials who publicly 'desire' to improve test scores yet vote to deny the funding necessary to provide a quality education for all students.
Above all, the proposed cutbacks will more dramatically impact and deny children of poor and working class communities their right to a quality education. It is no secret that the cut backs will specifically hurt Mexican-Latino and African American children who historically have been neglected by racist policies and government officials. It's a shame that the government can cut funding for education, yet increase spending on the state prison system.
A.R.E. will not stand idly by, while our children's future is being destroyed. The caravan will be just one of many acts of resistance on our part to the on-going attacks on public education and the teaching profession.
Please Contact Eduardo Enrique Ochoa via
e-mail kikiochoa@sbcglobal.net or by phone
(619) 252-7891 for more information regarding the
San Diego Press Conference
Please Contact Miguel Zavala via
e-mail mzavala@ucla.edu or by phone
(626) 617-0401
also: on May 9. Focus group on the California History Social Science Framework. 3 PM. State Dept. of Education.
See prior post.
TEACHER CARAVAN FROM SAN DIEGO, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO TO SACRAMENTO: STOP THE BUDGET CUTS!
Teachers, Students, and Parents will be available for interviews
Spanish speakers available
On Thursday, May 8, 2008, members of the Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) will lead a protest caravan to Sacramento, California. Teachers will meet in Chicano Park (San Diego, CA) at 3:30pm and the caravan will leave at 4:00pm. Teachers in Los Angeles will also meet at the Governor's office in Downtown LA at 5:00pm. Other caravans will leave Oxnard, the three caravans will then converge in downtown San Francisco where they will unite with Bay Area teachers for a press conference that begins at 10:30am, on Friday May 9th. The caravans, part of a statewide effort, will continue to Sacramento, where there will be a massive teacher rally on the grounds of the State Capitol Building at 3:00 pm.
The purpose of the A.R.E. Caravan will be to express to all government and public school officials our indignation and opposition to the current massive cut backs facing the public schools. Through the caravan, A.R.E. hopes to inform our communities that Mexican-Latino educators are united in their opposition to the cutbacks in both school funding and the elimination of courses that truly work towards educating children. We also intend to expose the hypocrisy of government officials who publicly 'desire' to improve test scores yet vote to deny the funding necessary to provide a quality education for all students.
Above all, the proposed cutbacks will more dramatically impact and deny children of poor and working class communities their right to a quality education. It is no secret that the cut backs will specifically hurt Mexican-Latino and African American children who historically have been neglected by racist policies and government officials. It's a shame that the government can cut funding for education, yet increase spending on the state prison system.
A.R.E. will not stand idly by, while our children's future is being destroyed. The caravan will be just one of many acts of resistance on our part to the on-going attacks on public education and the teaching profession.
Please Contact Eduardo Enrique Ochoa via
e-mail kikiochoa@sbcglobal.net or by phone
(619) 252-7891 for more information regarding the
San Diego Press Conference
Please Contact Miguel Zavala via
e-mail mzavala@ucla.edu or by phone
(626) 617-0401
also: on May 9. Focus group on the California History Social Science Framework. 3 PM. State Dept. of Education.
See prior post.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Cinco de Mayo: Sorry Mexicans- you don't exist
California Education to Latinos: Sorry, we forgot that you exist !
After 20 years of using a California History-Social Science Framework which is ahistorical and misses the significant contributions of Mexicans, Latinos, and Asian to U.S. and California history, the State Board of Education will hold hearings on whether the current framework should be revised. I hope that you have an opinion.
California has the largest population of any state, with more than 6,286,000 students in school in 2006 California students make up more than 11 percent of the United States total. California, along with some 16 other states, adopts textbooks for the entire state instead of district by district. This makes the California adoption the largest single textbook sale in the nation. Succeeding in market is an important goal for textbook publishers. Many publishers write and edit their books in a targeted attempt to win control of the large and lucrative California and Texas markets. In an effort to increase their profits, publishers promote and try to sell throughout the nation books developed in California and Texas.
The election of 1982 began 16 years of conservative, Republican control of the California governorship. Governors appoint the members of the State Board of Education. The conservative control changed the history–social science, language, and reading curricula and textbooks for the state, and influenced textbook decisions throughout the United States.
The 1987 draft of the History-Social Science Framework (a guide for teachers and textbook selection still in use today ) excluded an accurate history of Latino and Native American settlement of the Southwest and did not cover the substantial Asian history in the West (see Almaguer, 1994). By electing to concentrate on a melting pot, consensus point of view, the History-Social Science Framework assumed that telling the history of European immigrants adequately explains the experiences of Mexicans, Native Americans, and Asians.
The Framework does not describe the displacement and destruction of Native American, Mexican, and Mexican American communities from 1850 to 1930 throughout the Southwest, including in Los Angeles and San Diego. The authors—among them, educational historian Diane Ravitch—failed to note that the present mosaic of Southwest culture was created by the subjugation and domination of previously existing groups, both Native American and Mexican American.
The California document won the praise of conservative reform advocates around the nation. Honig and Ravitch and numerous funded advocacy organizations such as the Brookings Institute cited it in their writings and speeches as a positive example of the kind of multiculturalism they supported.
In California, committees and the State Board of Education select texbooks for all the students in public schools. The U.S. history books submitted for the 1990 California adoption, and readopted in 1998 and 2005, were required to be based on the Framework. The 1987- 2005 document expanded African American, Native American, and women’s history coverage but were totally inadequate in their coverage of Latinos and Asians—both significant population groups in the development of history of the West. The only significant change between the 1985 and the 2005 adopted Framework was the addition of a new cover, a cover letter, and a photo of Cesar Chavez. Latinos make up 48.1 percent of California’s student population and Asians make up 8.1 %. Coverage of Native Americans in fourth-grade books was embarrassingly Euro-centric. The books do not accurately describe the interactive and interdependent nature of the African, European, Native American, Latino, and Asian communities. (For a detailed analysis of this curriculum conflict, see Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995. For an opposing view, see Gitlin, 1995.) Above Excerpt from Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. (2004)
Focus group: Friday, May, 9,2008. Sacramento.
An agenda for the focus group meetings are posted at the CDE Web site athttp://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
California schools: Students First?
In the recent report Students First: Renewing Hope for California’s Future by the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence ( Nov.2007) the committee notes that California’s students rank 48th. out of the states in 4th. grade reading, 47th. in 4th. grade math, and 43rd. in 4th. grade science. California ranks 48th. in 8th. grade reading, 45th. in 8th. grade math, and 42nd in 8th. grade science.
This is not a problem of our unique demographics. California White students rank 29th. in 4th. grade reading when compared to White students in other states, Black students rank 29th. when compared to Black students in other states, and California Latino students rank 43rd. when compared to other Latino students.
That is, our schools are in crisis, particularly our schools serving Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged students. And, after 20 years of “school reform,” there has been no real progress.
So, what does the Legislature, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and the state’s Schools of Education do about this crisis?
They create a new video based test for new teachers (TPA or PACT). This new test no relationship to the crisis in school achievement. It will cost over $10 million per year. It does, however, provide career advancement for test writers and professors at Stanford and elsewhere, and keep them from having to work with real teachers in real classrooms to deal with the problems of real schools.
The Commission on Teacher Preparation has advises, and the Legislature has bought the notion that the testing-accountability model which hasn’t worked for the last 20 years in the k-12 system should be applied to teacher preparation. ( Fuller, 2007)
Duane Campbell
Professor of Education
Calif. State U-Sacramento
This is not a problem of our unique demographics. California White students rank 29th. in 4th. grade reading when compared to White students in other states, Black students rank 29th. when compared to Black students in other states, and California Latino students rank 43rd. when compared to other Latino students.
That is, our schools are in crisis, particularly our schools serving Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged students. And, after 20 years of “school reform,” there has been no real progress.
So, what does the Legislature, the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, and the state’s Schools of Education do about this crisis?
They create a new video based test for new teachers (TPA or PACT). This new test no relationship to the crisis in school achievement. It will cost over $10 million per year. It does, however, provide career advancement for test writers and professors at Stanford and elsewhere, and keep them from having to work with real teachers in real classrooms to deal with the problems of real schools.
The Commission on Teacher Preparation has advises, and the Legislature has bought the notion that the testing-accountability model which hasn’t worked for the last 20 years in the k-12 system should be applied to teacher preparation. ( Fuller, 2007)
Duane Campbell
Professor of Education
Calif. State U-Sacramento
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sacramento Bee and news about NCLB
Well. The Sacramento Bee has shown itself at its best and at its least insightful in the same edition.
In the Sunday Bee, April 27,2008,
Reporters Laurel Rosenhall and Phillip Reese write a valuable article, “Second Change to make grade; schools reclassify students, meet U.S. standards.” It is interesting reading. It shows that schools have approached students to renegotiate their ethnicity in order to pass the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The reporters did their job.
They did not, however, explore the closely related issues of how arbitrary cut scores usually lead to this kind of statistical manipulation. That story you will find in the excellent resource: Collateral Damage: How High Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s schools, ( 2007. Nichols and Berliner). The problem is called Campbell’s Law , named for well respected social scientist and philosopher Donald Campbell ( no relation).
It argues, “ the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.”
Campbell’s law applies. Since NCLB, and state laws require using one time tests to measure school achievement, the testing has corrupted the processes of determining who is Black, who is White, who is an English Language Learner.
Now conservatives, and poorly informed liberal media, will chuckle and assume that they know better. But, the don’t. And, they will focus on the abnormality of shifting a few kids rather than the more important issue of how high stakes testing corrupts the entire education system by controlling curriculum, underfunding schools, and dozens of closely related issues. These are well laid out in the Nichols and Berliner book.
Covering only the reclassification of students, which is important, and not covering how NCLB and high stakes testing produces this and many other corruptions is the media equivalent of Fox news showing the 30 second clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wrights sermons and not showing the 15 minute full sermons. It is out of context and thus distorting.
While the Bee reporters did a positive service with their story- even though it has a limited context- the Bee editorial board wrote an essay High Expectations which uses as a foil the incident at Madison Elementary School Principal Jana Fields. Again, what the Principal was doing was seeking to effect the overly simplistic use of test data- to make decisions. She probably handled it poorly. So, the Bee lectures her as if it was obvious that African American kids should not be talked to separately. That is not thinking. Most educators working in the field know of the effort known as The Village Nation- covered on Oprah no less- where African American kids in California were taken aside and talked to straight up by African American faculty about the poor test scores. Educators, including the Superintendent of Public Instruction, praise this case. The Bee editors, however, assume that they know better.
This kind of test prep is problematic. A case can be made on both sides. Was it better to have the Sacramento Kings Cheerleaders speak to an integrated audience at Kennedy High. I am certain the kids were looking at these cheerleaders as math mentors not rather attractive young women.
In the case of Madison Elementary it probably was a poor idea, in part because very young kids can not sort out the messages. Having one ethnic group, or one gender group meetings and discussions works better with high school students. And it should only be used when there is a proper relationship established for such discussions. But it is not, as opined by the Bee editors, self evident that having a separate meeting to discuss low test scores is always a bad idea.
The editors say, “ Yet research consistently shows that what works is high expectations for all students. Focusing on subgroups does not work. “ I know of no research supporting this statement. Please provide it.
Yes, there is data for high expectations for all. But, for example, you need to focus on English Language learners- that is a subgroup. And, there is no research that I am aware of showing that- for example- having an all girls math class does not work.
I think that you have misstated the case.
The editors are correct to state, “ All kids need adults and teachers who believe in their potential.”
In the Sunday Bee, April 27,2008,
Reporters Laurel Rosenhall and Phillip Reese write a valuable article, “Second Change to make grade; schools reclassify students, meet U.S. standards.” It is interesting reading. It shows that schools have approached students to renegotiate their ethnicity in order to pass the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The reporters did their job.
They did not, however, explore the closely related issues of how arbitrary cut scores usually lead to this kind of statistical manipulation. That story you will find in the excellent resource: Collateral Damage: How High Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s schools, ( 2007. Nichols and Berliner). The problem is called Campbell’s Law , named for well respected social scientist and philosopher Donald Campbell ( no relation).
It argues, “ the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.”
Campbell’s law applies. Since NCLB, and state laws require using one time tests to measure school achievement, the testing has corrupted the processes of determining who is Black, who is White, who is an English Language Learner.
Now conservatives, and poorly informed liberal media, will chuckle and assume that they know better. But, the don’t. And, they will focus on the abnormality of shifting a few kids rather than the more important issue of how high stakes testing corrupts the entire education system by controlling curriculum, underfunding schools, and dozens of closely related issues. These are well laid out in the Nichols and Berliner book.
Covering only the reclassification of students, which is important, and not covering how NCLB and high stakes testing produces this and many other corruptions is the media equivalent of Fox news showing the 30 second clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wrights sermons and not showing the 15 minute full sermons. It is out of context and thus distorting.
While the Bee reporters did a positive service with their story- even though it has a limited context- the Bee editorial board wrote an essay High Expectations which uses as a foil the incident at Madison Elementary School Principal Jana Fields. Again, what the Principal was doing was seeking to effect the overly simplistic use of test data- to make decisions. She probably handled it poorly. So, the Bee lectures her as if it was obvious that African American kids should not be talked to separately. That is not thinking. Most educators working in the field know of the effort known as The Village Nation- covered on Oprah no less- where African American kids in California were taken aside and talked to straight up by African American faculty about the poor test scores. Educators, including the Superintendent of Public Instruction, praise this case. The Bee editors, however, assume that they know better.
This kind of test prep is problematic. A case can be made on both sides. Was it better to have the Sacramento Kings Cheerleaders speak to an integrated audience at Kennedy High. I am certain the kids were looking at these cheerleaders as math mentors not rather attractive young women.
In the case of Madison Elementary it probably was a poor idea, in part because very young kids can not sort out the messages. Having one ethnic group, or one gender group meetings and discussions works better with high school students. And it should only be used when there is a proper relationship established for such discussions. But it is not, as opined by the Bee editors, self evident that having a separate meeting to discuss low test scores is always a bad idea.
The editors say, “ Yet research consistently shows that what works is high expectations for all students. Focusing on subgroups does not work. “ I know of no research supporting this statement. Please provide it.
Yes, there is data for high expectations for all. But, for example, you need to focus on English Language learners- that is a subgroup. And, there is no research that I am aware of showing that- for example- having an all girls math class does not work.
I think that you have misstated the case.
The editors are correct to state, “ All kids need adults and teachers who believe in their potential.”
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
California University Budgets
Old news: Like most other major state programs, California's public universities and colleges are up against devastating budget cuts in the coming year, and probably longer. Those cuts will drive up fees, force larger classes and eliminate courses, services and programs.
What hardly anyone is discussing, either among the regents or the trustees – nor was it mentioned at a briefing by the Campaign for College Opportunity last week – is the need to increase state revenues to bring taxes at least to the rates they were in 2003.
The governor continues to perpetuate the belief that California's real budgetary problem is excessive spending, not inadequate revenues, a belief that's a core mantra of the state GOP and Grover Norquist's "starve the beast" theology.
To do that the governor uses a chart – probably his favorite – showing spending is climbing more steeply than revenues. But as the recent UC "Cuts Report" (universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/ reports/cuts.report.04.08.pdf) points out, "the chart has a number of flaws: is not corrected for inflation, for population growth, for growth in any agency's client base or legal mandate, or for the great variation in growth among different agencies."
More important, the chart omits the fact that $6 billion a year – far and away the biggest part of that alleged spending increase – is in fact the result of Schwarzenegger's cut in the vehicle license fee. Because he rolled back that fee by two-thirds, the state has had to backfill to local governments the money the levy would have raised. Were it not for the car tax cut, the state would probably have no need to cut any spending, either for K-12 schools or higher education or anything else.
And that's not counting the corporate tax loopholes that the Legislature handed out in the past decade and that, in tax reformer Lenny Goldberg's immortal words, make the tax code like a roach motel: Once the loopholes creep in, they never come out.
…But so far, there's still far too much silence from the universities' leaders on the choices: quality schools, colleges and parks in a state to which productive and creative people are attracted, or the no-new-tax mantra and life on the cheap.
Edited
Peter Schrag: Sacramento Bee April 23, 2008
http://www.sacbee.com/schrag/story/882328.html
What hardly anyone is discussing, either among the regents or the trustees – nor was it mentioned at a briefing by the Campaign for College Opportunity last week – is the need to increase state revenues to bring taxes at least to the rates they were in 2003.
The governor continues to perpetuate the belief that California's real budgetary problem is excessive spending, not inadequate revenues, a belief that's a core mantra of the state GOP and Grover Norquist's "starve the beast" theology.
To do that the governor uses a chart – probably his favorite – showing spending is climbing more steeply than revenues. But as the recent UC "Cuts Report" (universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/ reports/cuts.report.04.08.pdf) points out, "the chart has a number of flaws: is not corrected for inflation, for population growth, for growth in any agency's client base or legal mandate, or for the great variation in growth among different agencies."
More important, the chart omits the fact that $6 billion a year – far and away the biggest part of that alleged spending increase – is in fact the result of Schwarzenegger's cut in the vehicle license fee. Because he rolled back that fee by two-thirds, the state has had to backfill to local governments the money the levy would have raised. Were it not for the car tax cut, the state would probably have no need to cut any spending, either for K-12 schools or higher education or anything else.
And that's not counting the corporate tax loopholes that the Legislature handed out in the past decade and that, in tax reformer Lenny Goldberg's immortal words, make the tax code like a roach motel: Once the loopholes creep in, they never come out.
…But so far, there's still far too much silence from the universities' leaders on the choices: quality schools, colleges and parks in a state to which productive and creative people are attracted, or the no-new-tax mantra and life on the cheap.
Edited
Peter Schrag: Sacramento Bee April 23, 2008
http://www.sacbee.com/schrag/story/882328.html
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