The Death of Public Education ?

The death of public education

Lack of money is killing our schools

By Derrick Z. Jackson

April 6, 2010– +

THE NEWS says we are watching the death of public education before our eyes. Detroit is closing more than 40 schools, Kansas City wants to close more than 40 percent of its school buildings. Other cities have been closing schools over the last decade. Boston avoided closings in its most recent budget deliberations, but still must slash custodial staff and postpone building repairs.

It is no secret that American education is at a great divide, unrivaled in most of the developed world. The United States spends $9,800 per public primary and secondary education student, which is technically high by global standards.

But meanwhile, children of the wealthy are being trained at private schools at more than triple the expenditures. In the Boston area, day school tuition rates are closing in on $35,000.

Our investment in public school teachers is paltry for the wealthiest country in the world. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the United States ranks in some measures behind England, Italy, Japan, Scotland and way behind Germany in starting teacher pay. The average expenditure on college students in the United States amounts to $24,400 per college student, two and a half times more than the $9,800 per-pupil spending in the public schools.

Beneath the numbers is the resegregation of children on the basis of class, race and immigration status. Prison spending soared so much, that by 2007, five states spent as much or more on corrections than on higher education, according to the Pew Center on the States.

In monetary terms, we have given up on millions of children. “I don’t think necessarily that public education is dead, but certain parts of it are dying,’’ said Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University professor who headed President Barack Obama’s education transition team. “The programs of the 1960s and 1970s that helped make education more equitable were mostly eliminated in the 1980s and never put back.

“We’re disinvesting in a significant way. With the huge decline in America of manual labor jobs that are being off-shored or digitalized, the vast majority of jobs are knowledge based. If we do not invest that way, we really can’t survive as a nation. To deeply underfund public education as we are doing does not make any sense.’’

Author of the 2009 book, “The Flat World and Education,’’ Darling-Hammond says neither poverty, nor the diverse nature of the American population are excuses not to educate everyone. Several countries were behind the United States decades ago in education and now have passed us.

She cites the example of Korea, which “in the space of one generation . . . moved from a nation that educated less than a quarter of its citizens through high school to one that now ranks third in college-educated adults.’’

She noted how Singapore, where 80 percent of families live in public housing, was tops in the world in fourth-grade and eighth-grade math assessments in 2003. “When children leave the tiny, spare apartments they occupy in high-rises throughout the city,’’ she wrote of Singapore, “they arrive at colorful, airy school buildings where student artwork, papers, projects, and awards are displayed throughout, libraries and classrooms are well-stocked, instructional technology is plentiful, and teachers are well trained.’’

It is enough to make one consider whether America needs to start from scratch. Whatever we are doing, it is not working. For instance, Darling-Hammond said Obama has an education platform that could rival the last serious education president, whom she considers to be Lyndon Johnson, but “to date has not squarely embraced the idea of equity. He did a great job coming out of the box on higher education, but inequity in elementary and secondary education is continuing to widen.’’

Johnson once said you cannot “take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others.’ ’’ Today millions of American children once again need our help to get to the starting line.

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.

The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/04/06/the_death_of_public_education/

California hopes dim for RTTT

In the article State hopes dim for Race to the Top funds by Laurel Rosenhall in the Sacramento Bee today, she claims that union opposition and poor student tracking system plagued the California application for RTTT.

While this is accurate, it avoids the important questions.  Why was there union opposition?  The writer notes that she contacted the relevant unions but did not receive a call back.

However, the opposition of the unions CTA and CFT was well documented in the hearings on the Romero legislation and in their own publications.  The writer had a professional obligation to publish the arguments.

The unions opposed RTTT because it blamed teachers for problems in the society of poverty and the economic crisis.   They opposed the RTTT legislation because it promoted the use of unreliable and invalid tests  and then would use these test scores to evaluate teachers.  And, they opposed RTTT process because the potential funds were not going into the classrooms where funds are desperately needed, but were to go to consultants to write more reports about what should be done.  RTTT would fund the consultant class, not classrooms.  Why should teachers participate in that?

Thousands of California teachers scheduled for layoffs.

By ROBIN HINDERY 
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's budget crisis could cost nearly 22,000 teachers their jobs this year.

State school districts had issued 21,905 pink slips to teachers and other school employees by Monday, the legal deadline for districts to send preliminary layoff notices.

Not all the threatened layoffs will be carried out. The final tally depends on the state budget to be adopted for the coming fiscal year.

Last year, 60 percent of the 26,000 teachers who received pink slips ended up losing their jobs.

State Education budget is a shell game: Schrag

Yes, it is. He has it right.

Nonetheless, there was a lot of gubernatorial crowing when the governor signed the last of the legislation which, in the words of a Schwarzenegger press handout in January made “California highly competitive for $700 million in federal education funds.”  

But California’s real problem isn’t in charter caps or in barriers to the use of student test scores in evaluating teachers, stupid as those barriers seem. . Even where test scores can legally be used, there’s no certainty that they can be used wisely. Nor are charters any magic bullet: Some are excellent; many are no better than comparable public schools in their student outcomes, and often worse; some are rip-offs.

What’s currently tripping up California in Washington is that the state has been caught in a shell game. While the state acknowledges that the state is spending less per student this year than last (and will probably be spending still less next year), the governor claims that it’s spending an equal portion of its general fund on schools as in the past and thus is not failing in maintenance of effort.

But he can do that only through an accounting gimmick in his proposed budget. In a letter to state officials the federal Department of Education cites letters from California education and civil rights groups pointing out how the proposed budget “seeks to eliminate a State sales tax on gasoline and substitute…an excise tax on gasoline in order to remove revenues from the state’s general fund and effectively render the Proposition 98 [minimum school funding] guarantee inapplicable to those funds.”  

In addition, the feds raise a series of other accounting questions about the state’s application for a new round of federal stimulus funds, funds which are conditioned on the state’s fulfilling the maintenance of effort commitment it made when it got the first round of education stimulus money last year. Until it answers the questions, the feds say, no decision will be made on whether California will get another round of federal stimulus money.

And under that problem lies a more fundamental one: the state’s chromic unwillingness to adequately invest in its schools and its ongoing disinvestment in its colleges and universities. Depending on how you count we’re now somewhere in the forties among the fifty states in what we spend per pupil in our K-12 schools – far below the U.S. average, and even further below most of the major states -- and lower than that if you measure education spending as a percentage of income. How short-sighted and stupid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter Schrag, whose exclusive weekly column appears every Monday in the California Progress Report, is the former editorial page editor and columnist of the Sacramento Bee. He is the author of Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future and California: America’s High Stakes Experiment. His new book, Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America will be published in 2010.

The national standards scam

The National Standards Scam

Panel Proposes Single Standard for All Schools

By SAM DILLON, NY Times. March 10,2010.

“A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation.

The new proposals could transform American education, replacing the patchwork of standards ranging from mediocre to world-class that have been written by local educators in every state.”

 So, the professional edu wonks ( not teachers) have again found the solution.  How nice. The effort will have little effect in California.  California has some of the nation’s highest standards, and lowest test scores in reading and math ( about 47 out of the 50 states depending upon the  year).

This is the politicians ( and their consultants) approach to school improvement and it will not teach a single child in California  to read or do math.

Education rallies around the state

  Over  2000  union faculty, students and their supporters rallied at the California State Capitol in Sacramento today in support of adequate funding for public education , both k-12 and higher education.  the rally was one of more than 40 events across the state asking people to Stand up for Education.  Faculty and students came from U.C. Davis, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley, as well as CSU Sacramento, Chico, and local community colleges.

   George Lakoff,  well known  for his works on framing issues argued for signing petitions for the  California Democracy Act which would reduce the requirement to pass a state budget from the current 2/3 vote to a simple majority.

   Lakoff asserted that the  demonstrations will mean little unless the California Democracy Act gets on the ballot by April 12 and passes in the November election. That is the only way that revenue can be raised to fund California's needs, including education. Lakoff criticized leaders of the California Democratic Party for not getting enthusiastically behind the initiative.

The California Democracy Act is simple. It changes just two words in the Constitution: "two-thirds" becomes "a majority" in two places. That's all. The initiative is one sentence long: "All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote." It's simple democracy. And because it is a ballot initiative, a simple majority can bring democracy by eliminating the two-thirds vote requirements. The initiative has until April 12 to gather over 600,000 signatures of registered voters.  At present the campaign is far behind.   Lakoff argued that an on-line campaign which would  ‘go viral” was needed to push the initiative over the required signatures.

Students, faculty, workers and public education supporters protested  deep cuts to education funding on March 4, 2010.   The California Faculty Association (NEA)  is one of the organizations that participated in  mobilization. CFA represents the faculty on the 23 campuses of the California State University. Public education and public services need adequate funding to meet the urgent needs of people in California and the U.S.

The  2008-2020  economic crisis has forced the cutting of higher education, of k-12 education, and of social welfare systems. What caused this crisis ? It was caused by the greed and avarice of the financial class and aided by y the politicians of both major political parties.

 In 2007- 2008  major banks and corporations looted the economy creating an international meltdown.  Now, they have been rewarded with bail out money.  The crisis was not caused by students, teachers, public employees  nor recipients of social security.   Now we have cuts in parks,  in universities, in nurses, libraries and police protection.   School children did not create this crisis.  Foster care children did not create this crisis.

The  protracted economic decline has had a devastating impact on the California budget- and the budgets of 42 other states.   Revenues have continued to plunge and  legislatures  have been forced to make a series of deep cuts to virtually all of the state's programs, including the university systems.

March 4 Protest

March 4, 2010.

March and Rally  for Education

IT IS UP TO US !

                          

 JOIN THE SACRAMENTO RALLY FOR CALIFORNIA'S FUTURE!  11Am.  North Steps. State Capitol.

Students  and  Faculty, will march to demand a decent  budget for California’s schools and universities. Protests will occur around the state, at universities and work sites at the Capitol in Sacramento.  Please join us.

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 Billion  cut back.  California presently ranks  45th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.  Now, the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a  $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%.  Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed.  They must not be cut more.  We must work together to save public education.

For 2010, the Governor proposes  further draconian cuts in Cal Works, IHSS, Medi Cal and Children’s nutrition  among others-  each of which hurts to poor in our state.   State  budget cuts make the crisis worse. They create more unemployment. The legislature must hear from us.

What caused this crisis?

“The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. “ Dean Baker.  Economist.  The bankers and finance capital caused this crisis- make them pay for it!

The   California Faculty Association (CFA), the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and California Teachers Association (CTA) have endorsed the Day of Action. Flyer by Sacramento Progressive Alliance.  www.sacramentopa.blogspot.com

A rally will also occur in San Francisco.

California majority rule initiative

Initiative campaign for majority rule

This would change the budget for schools and for the universities. Please join. 

The  California Majority Rule campaign is presently circulating petitions to place an initiative on the  California ballot for majority rule- that is for democracy.  And, we invite you to join us.  Author George Lakoff spoke in the last week at the University of California; S.F., Castro Valley, Santa Rosa, the North Berkeley Senior Center, the North Bay Labor Council and other sites recruiting people to join the campaign to qualify the initiative.

California is in deep trouble because it has a anti democratic limits on the legislature.  Lakoff  sent to the Attorney General a ballot proposition for the 2010 ballot called The California Democracy Act,  which simply says,

All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.

It’s just  this one sentence.  It would change two words in the Constitution, turning "two-thirds" to "majority" in two places.

Democracy is the main issue in  here.  More democracy  is required for progress on the budget.  The two-thirds rules have an anti-democratic effect. Our legislature is currently under minority rule. One-third plus one -- only 34% -- of either the Assembly or Senate can and do  block the will of the majority.  

 Readers of the California Progress Report know well that minority rule has produced a  stalemate in the legislature and regressive budgets.   Changing the vote requirement to a majority for budget and revenue will allow  the  budget to  meet the state's needs and be passed on time.

Can this work? It can, with your  support.  Qualifying this initiative requires  a serious campaign making the case for democracy  and allowing the voters to see that minority rule is the root of the problem.

The campaign  needs county and precinct workers, fund raisers, and media workers.  All work is volunteer.

If  your are willing to help, if you want to bring more democracy to California,  go to  www.trivalleydems.com/CA4D.htm.

Duane Campbell,

Sacramento County. Majority Rule Campaign

www.choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com

State Board of Education appointments

Does anyone know more about this?

A key date on the horizon:  FEBRUARY 4TH - 1:30 pm at the Capitol.

Sen. President Pro Tem, Darryll Steinberg has set a hearing to consider the approval of Rae Belisle and Jorge Lopez for State Board of Education positions (appointed in March 2009 by Gov. Schwarzenegger).  Most of the opposition focus has been on Belisle, but Lopez is on record as an opponent of bilingual education and multicultural education, and has trampled on parent rights in Oakland.  His small charter school has shown impressive academic scores, but he openly employs intimidation and humiliation, and should not be a model for others. 

See more:  http://www.ibabuzz.com/education/2009/03/18/oakland-charter-academy-principal-named-to-state-board-of-education/

Blog of the Contra Costa Times;

Jorge Lopez, a former school dropout who directs the high-performing Oakland Charter Academy (shown here at his middle school in Fruitvale), has been appointed to the California Board of Education.

Politicians, pundits, and school reform

Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard

by Anthony Cody, Teacher of the Year

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html

I am a fly on the wall sitting at a table. Seated at a round table are three state governors, one state senator, a Harvard professor and author, and a strange little man who assumes the role of group moderator. The strange little man asks the group to talk about their experiences at the education conference. The ex governor from the South begins to talk about how the traditional school model is not working and the problem of too many teachers who do not understand what they teach. Teachers, he complains, are not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms because they possess, in his words, "only 20th century skills." He does not provide specific examples or elaborate upon his theory but the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement.

A governor from the Midwest first pays homage to the governor from the South. He tells us that his "good friend "is "right on target" about teachers not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms. The governor from the Midwest thanks the governor from the South for presenting "the best talk at the conference." Not to be undone, the governor from the South responds by telling the governor from the Midwest that he "presented the best talk at the conference." When both men are done patting each other's backs, the Midwest governor complains that teachers, particularly math teachers, don't know their subject materials. Again, the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement. All is civil.

The third governor hails from a cold northern state but his words have a scorching tone. "The problem with schools, "he says, "is a lack of accountability. Schools need to be guided by specific core curriculum standards and data-driven assessment." The governor continues his diatribe. "I don't understand why schools are not managed more like businesses." This time the guests nod their heads vigorously, not unlike those small bobble head dolls seen on car dashboards.

The next education expert to speak is the professor from Harvard. He gives a mini lesson about the role of chaos theory in education. His new order of thinking-or New Age way of thinking- argues that seemingly unrelated events occurring in the classroom (the boy coughing, the girl raising her hand, and the teacher writing on the board) when taken together form a pattern of continuity and purpose rather than chaotic or random events. The 21st century teacher must be able to recognize these events as purposeful moments in time and space because education is connected to the rest of the universe. Wow. I will forever wonder if I did something to upset a time and space continuum the next time I admonish a student for not covering his mouth while coughing. Teachers do recognize that order and disorder exist in classrooms and that educating children is often an uncertain endeavor, but we do not have time to reflect on such esoteric thoughts when breaking up a spit ball fight.

ON Leadership, democracy, and schooling

Deborah Meier on leadership, democracy, and schooling.

http://deborahmeier.com/index.htm

Money for California's schools

When teachers argue that school funding should not be cut, we are told by the  Republicans in the legislature that there is not choice, there just is no money.

Well, that is not really true.  Here is where reasonable people would get the revenue.

1.     Repeal the September 2008 and February 2009 tax cuts.  As a part of the Sept. 2008 and Feb. 2009 budget deals, the legislature created huge new corporate tax breaks.  That right.  To respond to a budget crisis, they gave new tax reductions to corporations.  These take effect in 2011 and will make the budget crisis worse.  What is to be done ? Repeal of tax credit sharing to  raise 2009-10 revenues by $80 million, over time, the permanent tax cuts will cost the state $2.0 billion to $2.5 billion.

2.      Reinstate 10 percent and 11 percent tax rates to 1991 levels, adjusted for inflation. The February tax increases disproportionately affect low- and middle-income taxpayers. Reinstatement of the top brackets would restore balance to the state’s tax system and raise $4 billion to $6 billion in additional revenues.

3.     Impose on oil severance tax. California is the only oil producing jurisdiction in the world without a severance tax. A tax of 9.9 percent, such as that proposed by the Governor, would raise upwards of $1 billion dollars.

We, the people, own this oil.  It is under California soil.  Oil companies only take it out.  They should pay to take our oil out of the ground and to sell it to us.  Even arch conservative Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska have oil severance taxes.

The Economic Crisis and School budgets

    The nation  including California is suffering a severe recession.  Twenty Six million  are unemployed and under employed. This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on Wall Street ,ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America, AIG, and others.   Finance capital produced a $ trillion bailout of the financial industry, the doubling of America’s unemployment rate and the loss of 2 million manufacturing jobs in 2008.  Fifteen million people are out of work.  You and I, and college students did not create this crisis.  Finance capital stole the future of many young people.   It is important in developing  responses  to distinguish between the financial bail out (TARP) and the stimulus plan (ARRA, 2009).  Fox News and the Republican Right like to merge these two as one.

            If we don’t find a way to stop Wall Street from controlling  our government, the standard of living of working people will continue to decline and we will continue to have economic crises.  As a minimum, we need to extend unemployment benefits for long term unemployed.

Race to the Top: consultant employment project ?

On Wed. Dec.2,2009, the California Assembly held  a hearing on Race to the Top, chaired by Julia Brownley, Chair of the Assembly Education Committee.

In her testimony,  Jennifer Kuhn of the Legislative Analyst Office testified that

Because California has a severe budget crisis in k-12 education, we recommend that th RTTP funds  be used to

develop plans and strategies for RTTT.  We should not commit funds for  direct service efforts that the state can not sustain.

(Not quite a quote.  I encourage readers to look for the video on line on the California Channel. It was as I could catch it.)

In other words, the LAO  encourages   funding advisors and consultants to talk about what should be done. She argued that money  should not be allocated to program that serve children. Rather, it will be used to plan and build strategies.

This seems like a make work projects for consultants, advisors and charlatans.   One of the consistent problems of schools in the U.S. and California is that too much money is taken from the school budgets to fund other things, such as consultants , program designers and hucksters.  

 The new regulations in RTT Top require that the local unions are required to sign off on their participation.  I argue that unions should not sign off unless the majority of the money go into the classroom not to consultants and planners.

Based upon the requirements of RTTT, it  is not about teaching, it is about building infrastructure and implementing policies that in theory will help teaching and learning.  We have been here before. This is “drive by school reform.”

See the excellent responses to Race to The Top by Monty Neill of Fair Test.

He says it well here.

FairTest website at http://www.fairtest.org/FairTestComments-RTThearing.


Of particular value in the hearing  was the testimony of Roberta Feurger representing PICO in favor of how to increase parent participation.

Duane Campbell, Sacramento

The Right to a great public education; California

We've got to stop cutting public education. To ease the budget crisis, one state after another is taking an ax to higher education. This is cruel and shortsighted.
Cruel because it denies students the right to a decent education. Shortsighted because how will this generation of students get prepared to compete globally or even to clean up the financial mess brought about by Wall Street?
I'm a product of the worst and best public education California has to offer. I grew up in an East Los Angeles housing project in the 1970s and 1980s. I attended overcrowded public schools in the inner city. Like many racial minorities from America's barrios and ghettos, I received an inadequate education.
While I excelled in mathematics, I was never taught to read or write at a competent level throughout my K-12 schooling. To complicate matters, the longest paper assigned to me in high school was two pages long.
I taught myself how to properly read and write while going through college to compensate for my poorly funded K-12 education. But what will happen to those without this same self-drive that I learned from my Mexican immigrant mother? Fortunately, I also benefited from affirmative action and from numerous educational outreach programs and policies like Occident College's Upward Bound - a preparatory program for students from disadvantaged communities.
If not for such programs, I wouldn't have made it to UCLA as an undergraduate. I wouldn't have earned a master's degree in urban planning there. And I wouldn't be pursuing my doctorate at Berkeley.
So I worry about those who grow up in poor neighborhoods without the same educational safety nets that allowed for me to attend some of the best universities in this country. I can't help but be concerned about the plight of my wife's elementary school students in East Los Angeles today.
Those who fight affirmative action and against government-sponsored early educational outreach programs conveniently wash their hands of any responsibility toward those who lack the financial resources and access to human capital to go to college.
And fewer and fewer have those resources, with one state after another raising tuition and other fees. These fee hikes couldn't come at a worse time.
If we care about equality of opportunity, if we are concerned about our ability to compete in the global economy, it's time to give everyone, including those from America's barrios and ghettos, a shot at a great public education.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Alvaro Huerta is a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley and a visiting scholar at UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Readers may write to the author at: Progressive Media Project, 409 East Main Street, Madison, Wis. 53703; e-mail: pmproj@progressive.org; Web site: www.progressive.org. For information on PMP's funding, please visit http://www.progressive.org/pmpabout.html#anchorsupport.
This article was prepared for The Progressive Media Project and is available to MCT subscribers.

Sacramento Multicultural Education Conference : Free

Social justice educator Brian D. Schultz is the keynote speaker for the 16th annual Multicultural Education Conference, 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 14, in Sacramento State’s University Union.
Titled, “Social Justice Through Civic Engagement and Action,” the free conference is sponsored by Sacramento State’s Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department (BMED) and co-sponsored by the Serna Center and Project Citizen. The conference provides an opportunity for university faculty and local educators to promote multicultural education in K-12 public schools in the Sacramento region
Schultz is the author of Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom. A panel discussion by candidates for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction will follow Shultz’ talk. The rest of the day will be filled with 30 break-out sessions on a range of topics including Peace and Conflict Resolution, Technology Integration and Anti-Bias Media Analysis, and Impact of Educational Reform Polices on English Learners.
For more information or to register for the conference, visit www.edweb.csus.edu/bmed, e-mail Maggie Beddow at beddow@csus.edu, or call the BMED Office at (916) 278-5942. For media assistance, call Sacramento State’s Public Affairs office at (916) 278-6156.

Some Californians promote a constitutional convention

That California government is in a financial crisis is not news – but it is in crisis. And, that only 13% of Californians think that the legislature – both Republican and Democrats are doing a good job, indicates a that an opportunity exists to throw the baby out with the bath water. Or, as Rahm Emanuel says, “don’t allow a good crisis to go to waste.”
At an interesting conference, “Getting to Reform: Avenues to Constitutional Change in California,” on October 14, at the Sacramento Convention Center, Prof. Kimberly Nalder, an associate professor of Government at Sacramento State said California voters are like a person who contracts with a personal trainer to lose weight, then says, “but I don’t want to do any exercise and I don’t want to go on a diet.” and then blames the trainer for not producing results. The conference was sponsored by the Center for California Studies at CSU-Sacramento and others.

New Field Poll figures released Wednesday Oct.14, at the conference show that voters think the state needs fundamental reform. And, majorities would favor a constitutional convention to propose revisions.
However, they tend to oppose commonly discussed changes such as reducing the two-thirds voting threshold to pass a state budget or raise taxes, modifying or eliminating term limits and altering the state tax system.
"The rub is, what are we going to reform?" Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said. "With these results, it's going to be a tall order to put a package before voters that they will support."
There are two major groups promoting fundamental change, Repair California a mostly business interests group that plans to place a measure on the ballot for November 2010 calling a convention ( http://www.repaircalifornia.org/), and California Forward ( http://www.caforward.org/), a mostly business interest group –along with the State Building and Construction Trades Unions and other bipartisan advocates- who prefer to change the constitution with a series of concrete proposals rather than a convention. For example, a proposition could be placed on the ballot calling for a majority rule in the legislature rather than the current 2/3 requirement to pass a budget or to raise taxes. The Repair California convention approach assumes that delegates to a convention would be selected rather than elected and the 2/3 vote requirement would be off the agenda of the convention.
A constitutional convention could, for example, change the laws on labor rights or educational rights.
Scholars and advocates at the conference noted that California voters want more services and to pay less taxes, and some hope that a Constitutional Convention will achieve this improbably end. R. William Hauk, of the California Roundtable ( a business lobbying power house), the pre eminent Capitol insider argued that “the sky really is falling,” and that excessive partisanship prevented the legislature from fixing the very real financial problems of the state. This is a position- it should be noted- frequently taken when your side is not winning.
Prof. Amy Bridges of U.C. San Diego gave a historical analysis of the last time a constitutional convention revised the California Constitution in 1879 and Glen Gendzel, of History at San Jose State U. reported on the reform efforts of 1911 which brought us the initiative, the referendum, and the recall processes.
The history was informative, however it failed to note that the 1879 constitution replaced the 1849 constitution, and in so doing it eliminated the protections of bilingualism, of Mexican American political and property rights, and established a regime of White Supremacy. They did note the infamous efforts to ban Chinese immigration. These issues continue to resonate as recently as California Prop. 187 and 227. Proposition 187 itself was somewhat inaccurately described at the conference as having no practical effect because of the federal court injunction. That is partly correct. However, as those of us who were active in the campaign for No on Prop. 187 know, most of the provisions of California Prop. 187 went on to be included in the Immigration Reform and Control act of 1996 and thus apply throughout the nation.
So, for ethnic minorities, the constitutional convention route may be fraught with peril. Noticeably, the conference was almost 90% Anglo with an roughly equal distribution of men and women participants. California’s registered voters are 65% White, 21% Latino, 5.8 % African American, and 8.2 % Asian and other.
There was a significant presence of English speaking media participating on panels so I anticipate that readers will soon see essays based upon the polls and the presentations at the conference. For details on the many aspects of the reform efforts see http://www.ReformCalifornia.org.

The precedings of the conference will be on line at http://igs.berkeley.edu/events/reform2010.html. And will be broadcast on the California Channel.

California Assembly Committee on Race to the Top

Hearing today at the Capitol . The 5th. Extraordinary Session. Assembly Committee on Education considering the Race to the Top Funds of the Obama Administration.
Note; These funds are a part of the American Recovery and Re-investment Act, also known as the stimulus package.
There will be about $5 Billion available. At best California could hope for $1 b. Note, the California Legislature and the Governor cut $6.1 B from the state school budgets this year. Of this. $2.1 was “backfilled” by the federal government stimulus package. Deputy Supt. Of Public Instruction Miller stressed that Race to the top was totally voluntary, unlike NCLB. However, in local districts that have lost up to $35 million dollars, an opportunity to get $5 million back is definitely not voluntary.
It is noteworthy that the same people who made these slashing brutal cuts to education ( the Schwarzenegger admin.) are in charge of deciding how to pursue Race to the Top. Does that make you confident?
The representative from the California Federation of Teachers and Rucker of CTA again made the detailed and appropriate points that the assessment systems being proposed are totally invalid and unreliable. The professional literature on this is overwhelming, but not of interest to Arne Duncan, and apparently Supt. O’ Connell and Governor Schwarzenegger .
Student Data
The California Federation of Teachers believes that student achievement and student growth data may be worthwhile tools in helping to improve school instruction when the data instruments contain information that is useful to the teacher. We do not believe that current standardized tests being administered as part of the No Child Left Behind Act meet those criteria.
School reform will come when we can engage teachers, students and families. We need to engage the teachers in the classroom. It will not come from consultant class. My 35 + years of experience in working with schools convinces me that the political consultants and the bureaucrats may receive the funds, but the solutions will come from dialogues with the teachers, families, and community activists.
The most basic decisions on class size in schools are made by the Governor, the legislature, and the voters. In last year’s budget deal, the legislature and the Governor cut some $6 billion from the k-12 schools forcing lay offs of teachers and increasing class sizes. This cut was forced on California because the Governor and the Republicans would not raise taxes. Many art, music, and career technical teachers will be layed off. Class sizes in high schools will rise to over 40 and the drop out crisis will grow. Did you know that California already ranks 49 out of the 50 states in counselors per student? That is why there are so few counselors in schools. California now has the largest class sizes in the nation. Our Senators and our Assemblypersons voted for this. They argue that they had no choice.
The legislature, enjoys a 16% approval rating from voters. The federal competition for Race to the Top is a distraction from the more basic issues. Until the schools are adequately funded and class sizes reduced to at least the national average- no amount of pubic relations efforts will improve test scores.
At best, the Race to the Top funds would provide $100 per student to work toward reform. The California legislature reduced the per pupil expenditure this year by about $1,400 per student. So, their argument is that reform will come from a competition for $100 per students, but please don’t notice that we have cut $1,400 per student. I guess they think that the public can be distracted from basic realities.


Duane Campbell

Teachers Unions criticize Obama school reform plans

Unions Criticize Obama's School Proposals as 'Bush III'
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 25, 2009

To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag.

Standardized testing, school accountability, performance pay, charter schools -- all are integral to President Obama's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition to spur innovation. None is a typical Democratic crowd-pleaser.

Labor leaders, parsing the Education Department's fine print, call the proposal little more than a dressed-up version of the No Child Left Behind law enacted seven years ago under Obama's Republican predecessor.

"It looks like the only strategies they have are charter schools and measurement," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "That's Bush III." Weingarten, who praises Obama for massive federal aid to help schools through the recession, said her 1.4 million-member union is engaged in "a constructive but tart dialogue" with the administration about reform.

Debate over Race to the Top among Democrats, education groups and others is widespread, with thousands of written comments pouring into the government since late July. It previews the clash to come when Obama and the Democratic-led Congress update No Child Left Behind. The controversial law is certain to be renamed and reworked. But those who want to scrap it entirely might be disappointed because federal education policy has been largely bipartisan for the past two decades.

"Obama's the fourth president in a row who has been in favor of standards-based reform and test-driven accountability," said Jack Jennings, a former Democratic congressional aide and president of the Center on Education Policy. "Obama's very much in a line of four consecutive presidents -- two liberals, two conservatives; two Democrats and two Republicans -- who are all in favor of the same kind of reform."

On Thursday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told interest groups in Washington that the administration hopes to improve the 2002 federal law by raising expectations for students, giving schools more flexibility and tracking classroom gains rather than how far test scores fall short of what he called "utopian goals."

But Duncan reiterated his commitment to testing and accountability: "I will always give NCLB credit for exposing achievement gaps and for requiring that we measure our efforts to improve education by looking at outcomes rather than inputs. . . . Today, we expect districts, principals and teachers to take responsibility for the academic performance of their schools and students."

The standardized testing culture has sunk deep roots in public education under the federal mandate to assess students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. State tests are widely criticized for uneven rigor and quality, but they provide data crucial to many reform efforts. The administration has set aside funding to help develop a new generation of exams as a group of states seeks to write what could become the first nationwide academic standards. But for now, the regular state tests will feed into Race to the Top.

The administration's proposed rules for the grants challenge the education establishment on several fronts:

-- To create systems to track individual student achievement over time and link growth in scores to individual teachers and principals;

-- To use those data in part to evaluate and compensate teachers and principals;

-- To lift limits on independently operated but publicly funded charter schools, which usually are not unionized; and

-- To shake up perennially struggling schools identified through No Child Left Behind.

The proposal could be revised this fall before states apply. No money has been awarded yet. Still, details embedded within the proposal have sent shock waves through the education world.

For example, it defines an "effective teacher" as one "whose students achieve acceptable rates (e.g., at least one grade level in an academic year) of student growth" -- and it requires such growth to be measured through state test scores when applicable. To revive struggling schools, including many Duncan calls "dropout factories," the proposal urges states to sweep out their staff or management, convert them to charter schools or close them entirely, with a fourth option of "school transformation" recommended only when the more aggressive strategies "are not possible." And the proposal declares ineligible for funding any state that prohibits the linkage of student achievement data to teachers and principals for job evaluations.

California might soon repeal a statute that appears to run afoul of that provision. It is one of several states that have in recent months passed or proposed measures to position themselves to secure grants.

The comments on Race to the Top -- more than 3,700 in all, from more than 1,100 sources, according to a government official -- range from scathing to enthusiastic.

The National Education Association, with 3.2 million members, called it a "disturbing" federal intrusion. "We have been down that road before with the failures of No Child Left Behind," the union writes, "and we cannot support yet another layer of federal mandates that have little or no research base of success and that usurp state and local government's responsibilities for public education." Union affiliates from 19 states weighed in, many echoing such views.

The National School Boards Association declared itself generally supportive but worried that the program is "overly prescriptive," with an "overemphasis on charter schools and school takeovers."

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell (R) commended the administration's push for performance pay and charter schools. "Education reform is not a partisan issue," he wrote in a letter to Duncan last month.

In a joint statement, the Center for American Progress, Democrats for Education Reform, the Education Equality Project and the Education Trust called the proposal "a strong and good-faith effort" to fix education problems.

"There hasn't been enough focus by those on the left on innovation and entrepreneurship. It's ironic because it's those traits of America that have pushed this country into world leadership," Cynthia G. Brown of the Center for American Progress said in an interview. Said Brown, who was an assistant education secretary in the Carter administration: "We have to move forward and try some new ways of doing things. We need to do it in partnership with those who teach in our classrooms and those who govern our schools. But we've got to move forward."

Duncan said Thursday that he is prohibited from responding to all of the Race to the Top input as the government prepares its rules. "Great feedback," he called it.

Response to Time on Duncan

Time Magazine published a feature on Arne Duncan. Here is one teacher's response.
Dear Editor,

Gilbert Cruz's feature on Arne Duncan and the Race To The Top program entirely missed the boat, misrepresenting the issues and ignoring years of evidence about what it takes for students to learn. The idea that teachers should be held accountable for the success or failure of their students is neither new nor (amongst teachers) controversial. The controversy surrounds the means by which we evaluate both students and teachers. With Race To The Top, President Obama and Secretary Duncan lay all of the responsibility for students' success or failure squarely on the backs of classroom teachers, while giving them no authority to do anything whatsoever to change the status quo. Today's teachers are regularly forced to use scripted lessons and follow pacing guides that leave no room at all for creativity or professional judgement. If teachers have no power, how can we hold them accountable? Would you hand a firefighter a set of procedures to follow at every fire, regardless of its size, location, or nature? Would you require doctors to use the same treatment with every patient, regardless of the disease? That's what is happening to our teachers and students.

In his effort to blame teacher unions for standing in the way of reform, Mr. Cruz fails to note what an abject failure No Child Left Behind and its era of high-stakes standardized testing have been. States spend billions on tests that are not reliable and are often inappropriate. School districts have responded by narrowing the curriculum so that teachers teach only what is to be tested that year. Many elementary students never touch a history or science textbook. Art and music are things of the past. Physical education is disappearing --And research shows us that these subjects and programs are vital to student achievement.

There is no evidence whatsoever that our testing mania is helping children; there is mounting evidence that it does them terrible harm. Educators are challenging Race To The Top because it's going to make things worse, not better. Once salaries are tied to test scores teachers will compete to work with the best and brightest students, those who are likely to test well. Our students with the lowest test scores and the greatest needs will get the inexperienced and less capable teachers. I have taught English Learners and immigrant children for over twenty years. My students learn a great deal, and make tremendous advances, but they traditionally score poorly on standardized tests because they have yet to master English. But we still keep giving them the same tests we give the English-only students, knowing in advance what the results will be. Who is this helping? And more importantly, who is going to want to work with these students once salaries are tied to test scores?


Charles Finn
Teacher, Oceanside Unified School District

California Senate testimony on Race to the Top

Testimony before the California State Senate on California’s response to the demands of the Duncan Administration Race to the Top.
The Senators asked excellent questions. They probed the real issues.
California Secretary Glenn Thomas made important comments that no teacher was going to be measured by a single test nor a single test score. He asserted that the Race to the Top provided the basic architecture for the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He argued for a growth model , a value added approach to measurement. A major demand is “effective support for struggling teachers.” and a second measure is that the state has a process for restructuring of low performing schools.
An argument was made by Jennie Oropeza of the state Department of Finance that funding under Race to the Top will be used to improve the gathering better data. She argued that providing a robust data system will allow policy makers information to make better decisions. Well, perhaps, but developing further data gathering will not improve teaching one step.

If the state wishes to improve schools – as they should- there is a need to assist and support teachers. Developing a “more robust” testing system does not do this.

Lets take an example. If a person has the flu, a nurse takes the person’s temperature. ( Like taking a test.) Taking the students’ temperature does not treat the disease, it does not even treat the symptoms. It only measures the temperature. That is what we are doing with test scores. We are investing in testing, not in treating the problems.

Marty Hittleman of California Federation of Teachers gave testimony on the limits of current testing. The views are well developed here: http://www.cft.org/index.php/cft-presidents-page/434-cft-comments-on-qrace-to-the-topq.html

There is yet no evidence that the official policy makers understand the problems of testing, of assessment, or with teaching support.

Clear testimony from the Vice President of United Teachers of Los Angeles. And Pat Rucker representative of Calif Teachers Association called for slowing down and developing good schools, not in responding to Race to the Top.

NEA Slams Obama's School Reform Plan

From Class Struggle: by Jay Mahews. Here's a dispatch from my colleague Nick Anderson on the national education beat:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/?hpid=news-col-blog

The nation's largest teachers union sharply attacked President Obama's most significant school improvement initiative on Friday evening, saying that it puts too much emphasis on a "narrow agenda" centered on charter schools and echoes the Bush administration's "top-down approach" to reform.
The National Education Association's criticism of Obama's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" initiative came nearly a month after the president unveiled the competitive grant program, meant to spur states to move toward teacher performance pay; lift caps on independently operated, publicly funded charter schools; and take other steps to shake up school systems.

Excerpts selected by James Crawford. ELL Advocates.{ See post below}

"Achievement is much more than a test score, but if test scores are still the primary means of assessing student learning, they will continue to get undue weight. ...

"[T]he most prominent research organizations in the United States have confirmed that test-based measures of teacher “effects” are too unstable and too dependent on a range of factors that cannot be adequately disentangled to be used for teacher evaluation, much less for teacher preparation program evaluation. ...

"The use of these measures can also create disincentives for teachers to work with the neediest students—such as special education students and English language learners—whose learning might not validly be assessed on traditional grade-level tests. ...

"We need to offer incentives so that our best teachers teach the students most in need of assistance, not necessarily teach the students most likely to score highest on a standardized test."

To download the 26-page document, go to: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/NEA_documents_082109.doc

Race to the top- A failure in Education

The Honorable Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education
Washington, DC

Dear Secretary Duncan,

The $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund presents you with a unique opportunity. By using this program to reward boldness and creativity, you could support a wide range of projects to expand the knowledge base about teaching and learning, fostering valuable innovations in our nation’s schools.

Unfortunately, your proposed priorities for Race to the Top would squander that opportunity by restricting federal funding to a set of preconceived notions about “reform,” which may be ideologically fashionable but are largely unsupported by scientific research.

Our organization is especially concerned by your insistence that standardized test scores be used as part of teacher-compensation systems. In the absence of evidence that such a change would be beneficial, it would be irresponsible – not to mention undemocratic – to force states to bring their laws into conformance with your plan.

As evidence for this mandate, your proposal cites only a handful of economists, far removed from actual classrooms, who were unable to isolate the observable characteristics of effective teachers – “effective” as determined by their students’ test scores. So, the logic goes, why not just evaluate and pay teachers on the basis of those scores rather than on their years of teaching experience or academic credentials?

Perhaps, lacking any background in education, the economists were “observing” in the wrong places and failed to consider the myriad of talents and skills that inspire children to learn. Or maybe their study designs were slanted, consciously or otherwise, to bolster a hypothesis that monetary incentives based on test data are key to improving teacher quality. (Several of the authors are members of the Future of American Education working group at the American Enterprise Institute, which is associated with that position.) Whatever the case, your proposal is based on research that is admittedly inconclusive and on a theory of teacher motivation that remains unproven.

The grant criteria would also place an undue reliance on standardized tests that offer, at best, a blurry snapshot of student progress. For English language learners (ELLs) in particular, such tests are rarely valid or reliable. Because these students cannot fully show what they have learned when assessed in a language they have yet to master, their scores typically lag far behind those of English-proficient peers. If teachers are to be penalized for an “achievement gap” over which they have no control, how many will want to teach ELLs? It is also well established that these children’s progress in speaking, comprehending, reading, and writing English is never a straight-line trajectory.[1] How could any “growth model” fairly accommodate that reality?

During his campaign, President Obama raised hopes that his administration would limit the uses (and abuses) of high-stakes testing. But paying teachers on the basis of test scores can only raise those stakes, at considerable cost to kids.

Surely, Mr. Duncan, you must be aware of the growing body of evidence about the perverse effects of high-stakes testing: narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, stressing basic skills over critical thinking, limiting bilingual instruction, unfairly labeling and sanctioning schools, demoralizing dedicated educators, fostering corrupt practices, encouraging educational triage, and – worst of all – creating incentives to push low-scoring students out of school before test day.[2]

Or perhaps you, like the economists you cite, are unfamiliar with what takes place in actual classrooms after your ceremonial visits are over. So here’s a basketball analogy that you and the President should be able to appreciate.

Suppose that NBA team owners woke up one day and decided they no longer trusted scouts and coaches to rate players. There were just too many unobservable traits that required human judgments to assess: motivation, leadership, flexibility, ability to work as a team, court smarts, and so forth. It wasn’t clear how those characteristics correlated with player effectiveness, as measured by objective performance data. How could the owners tell whether they were getting their money’s worth? So they decided it would be simpler to pay the players based on a single measure: points scored per game.

You can imagine how that would work out. The long jump-shot would be highly valued, while skills like ball-handling, rebounding, and assists would be expendable. Nobody would pass the ball or worry about playing defense. In fact, the players would all be competing against their own teammates in an individual “race to the top.” Winning wouldn’t matter anymore – only point totals. Basketball would be an entirely new game, drudgery to play or watch. But whoever said it had to be fun?

Can you now envision how schooling, a far more complex endeavor than basketball, might be harmed by a pay system that gives significant weight to one crude performance indicator? You yourself have complained about the quality of standardized tests. So how can you propose a central role for such tests in making major decisions about teachers, which, in turn, could have cascading, negative effects on their students?

We encourage you to rethink this approach and consider not only the potential waste of federal funds but, more importantly, the potential damage likely to be done by Race to the Top as presently conceived.

You might also consider the need for a kind of Hippocratic Oath among self-styled school reformers: First, do no harm. Or to put it another way: Until you have solid evidence to support your policies, don’t try to impose them on our schools.

Sincerely,

James Crawford, President
Institute for Language and Education Policy


[1] See, e.g., De Avila, E. (1997), Setting Expected Gains for Non and Limited English Proficient Students, NCBE Resource Collection Series, No. 8, Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

[2] Nichols, S.L., and Berliner, D.C. (2007), Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press; McNeil, L.M., Coppola, E., Radigan, J., and Heilig, J.V., (2008), “Avoidable Losses: High-Stakes Testing and the Dropout Crisis,” Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 16, No. 3; Menken, K., (2008), English Language Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy, Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.

Listen to the Teachers, not the corporate shills

I was giving a speech on the political control of public schooling to a forum here in Sacramento. A teacher in the conference asked, “ I understand your points on NCLB, on multicultural education, and on testing, but what can we do about these things?”
What a great question.

Money buys power in Washington. We need to propose alternatives. There are numerous clear voices to explain the education crisis, the economic collapse and the health crisis. We need to magnify and extend these voices.
The appointment of Arne Duncan was symptomatic of the problems. He represents the kind of corporate/media approach to reform that I feared. The earlier post on history in Chicago was insightful and helpful. Just as corporate money distorts the health care debate and prevents reform, corporate influence distorts the discussion of school realities and school reform.

A major problem with our campaigns for a democratic approach to schooling is that most of the media has been sold a mindset or framework of accountability. Corporate sponsored networks and “ think tanks” such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Bradley Foundation, the Olin Foundation and their access to the media is not likely to change. The domination of the accountability frame within the media and political circles must be opposed. Certainly in the current battle with Arne Duncan he has ceased the high ground with a claim of accountability – it’s a false claim- but it works. Education and explaining will be a constant struggle.
There are many strategies. However, the most important is to share and magnify teacher voices. Politicians make bad decisions – such as the current budget cuts- because they are not listening to teachers voices. Instead they are listening to paid consultants, and “experts” from the corporate establishment.
Newspaper writers and other media writers make the same mistake. They call their favorite “source” which just happens to be a corporate promoter like Arne Duncan, Michele Rhee, or one of the “experts” at elite universities. Note: the elite universities work with few teachers. They are several steps removed from the classroom. You can read more about this on this blog by searching for PACT. Or here: http://sites.google.com/site/assessingpact/
More strategies to come in future days, but the most basic is insist on teacher participation in the development of policies. Get the politicians and the corporate shills out of the classroom. – they have failed our children.
Of course there is much more on this in my book, Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education, (2010) Allyn and Bacon.
Duane Campbell