California budgets and schools

by Duane Campbell

On January 9, California  Governor Brown proposed a budget for the 2014/2015 fiscal year.  It will be subject to changes until July 1 when it should pass and become the state budget.

The California Budget Project describes one of the major issues for schools.

1.     The Governor’s proposed budget eliminates outstanding obligations to K-12 school districts and increases funding for the state’s new education funding formula. Specifically, the Governor’s proposed budget:

o   ·  Eliminates $5.6 billion in outstanding debt owed to schools. The Governor’s proposed budget provides more than $2.2 billion in 2014-15, and $3.3 billion in 2012-13 and 2013-14 combined, to repay previously deferred payments to K-12 school districts, which reached $9.5 billion at the end of 2011-12.

o   ·  Provides $4.5 billion to continue implementation of the state’s new education funding formula. As part of the 2013-14 budget agreement, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) restructured the state’s education finance system. The LCFF provides school districts a base grant per student, adjusted to reflect the number of students at various grade levels, as well as additional grants for the costs of educating English learners, students from low-income families, and foster youth. The Governor’s proposed budget provides $4.5 billion to fund LCFF grants for K-12 school districts and charter schools in 2014-15, and $25.9 million to fund LCFF grants for county offices of education – all of which include cost-of-living adjustments.

What does this mean for you and I.  First, this is not a gift.  These allocations are required repayments to the schools for debts owed under Prop. 98.

How will this budget be allocated? Most of this is up to the individual school districts and boards of education.  As you know school budgets were devastated by the economic crisis and these “deferred payments” made it worse.  Now, how to rebuild.

California High School Graduation Rates Rise

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces Continued
Improvement in State's High School Graduation Rate

SACRAMENTO—Graduation rates among California's public school students are climbing and dropout rates are falling, with the biggest gains being made among African-American and Hispanic students, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.

Overall, nearly eight out of 10 students, or 78.5 percent, who started high school in 2008-09 graduated with their class in 2012. That is up 1.4 percentage points from the year before (Table 1). Among African-American students, 65.7 percent graduated with their class in 2012, up 2.9 percentage points from the year before. Among Hispanic students, 73.2 percent graduated with their class, up 1.8 percentage points from the year before (Tables 2 and 3).

"There are great things happening in California's schools every day, and the upward climb of our graduation rate bears that out," Torlakson said. "While I am glad to announce that we are moving in the right direction, the fact remains that we must keep moving to ensure that every California student graduates ready to succeed in the world they will find outside our classrooms."

Along with the rise in the graduation rate, there is a dip in the dropout rate. Of the students who started high school in 2008-09, 13.2 percent dropped out. That's down 1.5 percentage points from the 2011 dropout rate (Table 1). Among African-American students, 22.2 percent dropped out, down 3.1 percentage points from the year before. Among Hispanic students, 16.2 dropped out, down 2.1 percentage points from the year before (Tables 2 and 3).

Senator Steinberg recognizes School Dropout Problem

Steinberg Unveils Measure to Enhance Industry and Education Partnerships in Student Career Pathways

SB 594 – The Dropout Reduction and Workforce Development Bond Act of 2013

(Sacramento) – Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg has announced the Dropout Reduction and Workforce Development Bond Act of 2013, which will provide more career-oriented curriculum and training for California students by enhancing the connections between schools and industry. Through these new business-school partnerships, students will have more opportunities for career training leading toward middle class jobs, while business and industry will benefit from growth in California’s skilled workforce.

SB 594 would provide three new tools to finance the development of career pathways through these public-private partnerships. Programs serving economically disadvantaged students in school districts with high dropout rates will be given priority for funding.

“Too many of our students are dropping out because they don’t see any connection with what they’re learning in school and the careers they want to pursue. At the same time, many in our high growth industries complain that there’s a shortage of skilled workers,” said Steinberg. “When we recently visited Long Beach Unified, students told us that with career academies and small learning communities they were more engaged and focused on their studies. We want a pragmatic way to get industry and business involved in education, combining academic rigor and career relevance. Encouraging their investment will pay off with more success for our students and a stronger workforce in our state.”

Youth civic engagement - when Chicano History is ignored

    An interesting  and valuable publication was released today, “Opportunities and Challenges for Youth Civic Engagement”, by the  California Civic Engagement Project of the Center for Regional Change at U.C. Davis and funded by the California Endowment, among others.  The Civic Engagement Project describes itself as  a “new, nonpartisan data repository  and research initiative for the State of California.

Thanks for the good work.  If these organizations are indeed interested in improving youth engagement, they should look at the 48% of  public school youth who are Latino or descendents of Latinos.   As CCEP Policy Brief #1 says,  “ the proportion of state registration that is Latino and Asian has remained far below the proportions of these groups in the state’s overall population. “  Now, that is not new news.  

 Public schools, more than any other institution, reach these students.  Unfortunately due to past decisions and current budget restraints, the public schools are not usually  promoting civic engagement.   How does that happen?

 When the 48.72 % of students who are Latino , and the 11.5 % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of history,  for many their sense of self is  marginalized.   Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school and their success at school. School marginalization contributes directly to low level civic engagement.   It contributes to an nearly 50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students.  An accurate history  would provide some students with a  a sense of self, of direction,  of purpose. History and social science  classes  should help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives.   Instead, the current history textbooks tell a fairy tale of what happened here in the Southwest.

Diane Ravitch Talks School Reform, the Chicago Strike, and the

Diane Ravitch Talks School Reform, the Chicago Strike, and the
http://prospect.org/article/diane-ravitch-talks-school-reform-chicago-strike-and-testing-vampire

Diane Ravitch.

Do you think there is a crisis in American education?

No. I think the crisis in American education is that there is a concerted effort to destroy it. That is a crisis—that’s a genuine crisis. Is there a crisis of academic achievement? No.

First of all, the test scores are the highest they’ve ever been in history on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is a no-stakes test. The scores of white kids, black kids, Hispanic kids, and Asian kids are the highest ever in history. What you hear from Bill Gates and [former chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools] Michelle Rhee and all the others is we’re in a period of decline, all the schools are obsolete, the test scores are flat. Nonsense. They have been going up steadily for 40 years and they are the highest they’ve been in history.

Number two, the graduation rates today are the highest in history. Number three, the dropout rates are the lowest in history.

Is there a crisis in American education? Yes: We have all these Wall Street-funded foundation people running around saying we have to get rid of public education and saying all these phony things about our schools.

Trampling out the story of Cesar Chavez

Trampling out the story of Cesar Chavez and the UFW.

by Duane E. Campbell

            In California in 2012 the k-12 school population is 48.72 %  Hispanic, the great majority of whom are Mexican Americans, the California Dept. of Education estimates the state drop out rate for Hispanics at 32 % having changed little for over a decade, where farm workers and their families generally have lower wages and fewer work benefits than they did in 1974, where only two Mexican Americans appear in the state approved text books, Frank Bardacke thinks that the important issue for labor historians is to de construct the “Cesar Chavez myth” – really?  

            Frank Bardacke’s Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. (2011, Verso). is the view of a well- informed observer  who  worked in the lettuce fields near Salinas for six seasons,  then spent  another 25 years  teaching English to  farm workers  in the Watsonville, Cal.  area.

California High School Dropout Rates

 SACRAMENTO—Graduation rates among California's public school students are climbing and dropout rates are falling, with the biggest gains being made among English learners and the state's largest minority groups, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today. (at www.cde.ca.gov)

More than three quarters, or 76.3 percent, of students who started high school in 2007 graduated with their class in 2011. That is up 1.5 percentage points from the 2010 graduation rate. Larger gains were seen among Hispanic and African American students at 2.2 and 2.3 percentage points respectively, with the biggest increase being among English learners at 3.8 percentage points. The graduation rate for socioeconomically disadvantaged students climbed nearly 2 percentage points, from 68.1 to 70 percent.

"Every graduate represents a success story in one of the most effective job and anti-poverty programs ever conceived, our public schools," Torlakson said. "These numbers are a testament to the hard work of teachers and administrators, of parents and, most of all, of the students themselves. While they are a great illustration of all that is going right in California schools, they should also remind us that schools need our support to continue to improve so that every student graduates prepared for college, a career, and to contribute to our state's future."

Beyond the 76.3 percent graduation rate and the 14.4 percent dropout rate, the remaining 9.3 percent are students who are neither graduates nor dropouts. Some are still enrolled in school (8.6 percent). Others are non-diploma special education students (0.4 percent), and some elected to pass a high school equivalency exam.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr12/yr12rel65.asp

The long march for equal opportunity in education

 The long march through the institutions has ended for the Bilingual /Multicultural faculty and students at CSU Sacramento.  On Sat, May 19, the Bilingual/Multicultural Education Department at CSU-Sacramento graduated its final class.  A movement that began in the  Mexican American Education Project of 1969-1974 came to a close.  See history here:

https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/mexican-american-education-project

 I retired in 2008 and had little role to play in the decision to abandon this  civil rights project.  In the 15 year history of the department we graduated thousands of new bilingual teachers and educational leaders who, under the prior hegemonic system, would have been sorted out.  These graduates have gone into teaching and schools and influenced thousands of students.   Under the new system, they will again often be discarded. The drop out rate for Chicano students remains near 50%.

The students are still there.  The students of California still need bilingual and multicultural teachers.   Students who are descendents of Mexican and Chicano families now make up almost 48% of public school students.

There were budget cuts, but a united faculty could have retained the department if they so chose.  Instead, a new generation of faculty chose to abandon this institutional base that had been created by their predecessors.

For more history see; https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project/history-of-bilingual-education-dept-at-sac-state

An injury to one is an injury to all.

This post dedicated to the memory of Hugo Chacon and Dr. Tom Carter. 

Worse Off Today than in the Sixties ? Mexican Americans in Schools

Who Gives a Damn?

By   Rodolfo F. Acuña

Teresa Wiltz in America’s Wire writes that despite claims of increased educational opportunities for minorities that the performance of black and Latino teenagers remains the same or lower than 30 years ago.  In fact, the math and reading performance of black and Latino high school seniors equal that of 13-year-old white students – so much for the post racial society.

Educators and liberal politicos point the finger at low expectations, inequality of resources, less qualified teachers, the income inequality, teacher bias, and inexperienced teachers. They throw in the tracking of black and brown students into remedial class while whites are put into university bound classes.

Further, minority students are more likely to be given "A’s" for work that would receive a "C" in a rich school giving the illusion that they are being educated.  Society would not tolerate this record in a football team at any level, or for that matter if we had fewer weapons of mass destruction than 30 years ago. 

However, in my view, the major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.  

The truth be told, educators pay less attention today to Mexican Americans than it did 50 years ago. In the sixties educators and reporters at least talked about it.  The late Los Angeles Times’ columnist Ruben Salazar attacked the dropout problem and the failure of the schools to devise a relevant curriculum, as well as the failure to recruit and train effective Mexican American teachers.

The True Cost of High School Dropouts

        By, Henry M. Levin and Cecilia E. Rouse

ONLY 21 states require students to attend high school until they graduate or turn 18. The proposal President Obama announced on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address — to make such attendance compulsory in every state — is a step in the right direction, but it would not go far enough to reduce a dropout rate that imposes a heavy cost on the entire economy, not just on those who fail to obtain a diploma.

In 1970, the United States had the world’s highest rate of high school and college graduation. Today, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, we’ve slipped to No. 21 in high school completion and No. 15 in college completion, as other countries surpassed us in the quality of their primary and secondary education.

Only 7 of 10 ninth graders today will get high school diplomas. A decade after the No Child Left Behind law mandated efforts to reduce the racial gap, about 80 percent of white and Asian students graduate from high school, compared with only 55 percent of blacks and Hispanics.

California High School Drop Out Rates

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today that nearly three out of four California students who started high school in 2006 graduated with their class in 2010, with slightly more than 18 percent dropping out rather than completing their K–12 educations.

The graduation and dropout rates continue to show a significant achievement gap between students who are Hispanic, African American, or English learners and their peers. The 74.4 percent statewide graduation rate and 18.2 percent statewide dropout rate—as well as rates calculated for counties, districts, and schools across California—were for the first time based on four-year cohort information collected about individual students using the state’s California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS).

“For far too long, the discussion about graduation and dropout rates has revolved around how the results were obtained. Now, we can focus on the much more important issue of how to raise the number of graduates and lower the number of dropouts,” Torlakson said.

Pedro Noguera Address to the Save Our Schools March

Dropout prevention

Grad Nation: A Guidebook to Help Communities Tackle the Dropout Crisis - a resource that echoes many of the strategies NEA advocates - is available online from America’s Promise Alliance, one of NEA’s national dropout prevention partners.

The user-friendly guidebook is an excellent resource for NEA state and local affiliates that want to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school, prepared for college, work and life.

Grad Nation contains research-based guidance for addressing a community’s dropout crisis, links to additional online resources, and ready-to-print tools such as informational handouts to build support for community action, forms and tables to help organize and analyze local data, and charts to guide local decision making. 

School propaganda from the Governor's office

California has a Secretary of Education as well as a Superintendent of Public Instruction.  The Superintendent organizes the state educational programs and implements state mandates.  The Secretary of Education is an advisor to the Governor. The current Secretary is Bonnie Reiss, about the 5^th. Secretary under Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Secretary Reiss has a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee of Tues. June 29, responding to an earlier column by Dan Walters about the state’s persistent high drop out rate.  The letter is a classic piece of propaganda.

You begin with the statement, “schools with effective teachers and effective principals do well and those with ineffective teachers and ineffective principals do not. “  She is correct.  But, in the service of propaganda, this statement tells only a part of the story.  It says something you agree with in order to introduce the propaganda message.  She then goes on to say, “It is time for California to join the national education reform movement  and change state law to move away from our current failed system that is based solely on teacher seniority.”  That is the propaganda piece.

Lets see. There are schools with high levels of drop outs, and schools with very low level of dropouts.  The high drop out schools tend to be in poverty areas and the low drop out schools tend to be in upper middle class areas.  Both groups of schools have precisely the same teacher seniority requirements.  That is, there is no evidence that teacher seniority leads to the high drop out crisis in California.

I have  taught in public schools and university teacher preparation programs for over 40 years and written books on this subject.  Lets look a little deeper.

California has had a chronic drop out problem since at least 1969 and the drop outs are concentrated in low income schools. The problem has not been improved.  In the last two years the Governor has cut $16 billion from school budgets, will that make matters better or worse?   As the Robles-Wong v California lawsuit asserts California spends $2131 less dollars per student than the national average.  (www.fixschoolfinance.org) Significant budget cuts increase class size. Large class sizes mean that many  2,3^rd, 4^th, graders are not learning to read well- even with good teachers.  These students will be your future drop outs.

California dropout crisis

CDE Report Shows Scant Movement on California Drop Out Rates

Yesterday State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell today released the annual report on dropout and graduation rates for the 2007-08 school year.
In 2007-08, 68.1 percent of public school students in California graduated, up from 67.7 percent last year. The adjusted four-year derived dropout rate for the same school year is 20.1 percent, down from 21.1 percent last year.
“I am heartened that the graduation rate is up slightly, but California’s dropout rate is still unacceptably high,” said O’Connell. “If we look deeper into the data, we see alarmingly high dropout rates among African American and Hispanic students. There are long-term economic repercussions from not graduating for the student, for their communities, and for our statewide economy. These data provide even more evidence of the challenge and the moral imperative of closing the achievement gap as well as increasing graduation rates among all students.”
Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) commented on the report:
“The high dropout numbers reported today by Superintendent O’Connell illustrate that California’s most important work is ensuring that millions of students don’t simply fall through the cracks by dropping out of school. Even in these challenging fiscal times, we must do more for these students – especially in Latino and African-American communities where the crisis is demonstratively worse and where there are economic justice implications for our entire society. The way that California can build a just and thriving economy over the long-term is to provide education and training that inspires students to plan for careers in the state’s growing job sectors.”

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee comments, “the Department of Education numbers are highly controversial among outside researchers, with some contending that the true rate is as high as one-third, with some urban school districts losing 50 percent or more of those who enter the ninth grade.”
Meanwhile Senator Gloria Romero, Chair of the Senate Committee on Education descries the minimal dropout rate reduction and argues that education failure needs data reporting overhaul such as her authored legislation SB 651.
“We don’t need another report to tell us that we are failing miserably to educate the future citizens of California,” said Senator Romero (D-East Los Angeles). “We need to completely transform how we engage students to stay in school and to excel. We need better measures predicting dropout trends instead of gloomy statistics that just measure the body count. And we certainly need to increase our graduation rates far more than a measly .4 percent to meet the economic challenges of tomorrow,” she said.
The California Department of Education (CDE) release described in detail the report.
Duane Campbell response.
So, what should be done?
All Romero's bill does is ask for another report.
We know what causes dropouts. the problem is that the legislature refuses to fund the programs that would reduce drop outs.

Too many working-class students have been trained for defeat. Sitting in classes completing endless worksheets to prepare for poor quality exams confirms a cynical belief that schooling and education make little real difference in life. On the other hand, social participation—and school-to-work opportunities along with digital media empowers students and provides a means to break out of these defeatist patterns. Work in community agencies gives students a realistic view of the processes of change. Adult community activists serve as mentors to students and encourage them to complete their education. Students begin their transition to the world of work and return to school more mature and focused on improving their own education.
Interaction with life, work, racism, and poverty will convince many students of the value of education. Students gain a sense of social responsibility when they participate in projects that actually contribute to the health of their own communities.

California Drop out crisis

New Report Underscores Education Reform Needs

Senator Gloria Romero
Current High-School Dropout Rate Means 1 in 3 Students Will Fail
Today we again highlight the need for reform in California’s education system based on a report released yesterday by the California Dropout Research Project stating one in three high-school students will drop out of school before graduating.
It is simply unconscionable that we can project a failure rate in educating future generations. I’m not willing to wait one more year—and loose another 140,000 students—to enact serious reforms. We must make changes now that will enable kids to succeed in school and put California back on a path to real and long-term economic recovery.
According to the report in California, students abandon middle and high schools at the rate of 140,000 per year—equlivant to the populations of Pasadena, Elk Grove or the entire County of Napa—and cost taxpayers $46 billion annually in crime, social welfare, health, public assistance and other taxpayer costs. Even in the best of times, the high costs of dropouts to the state are a drain but, today starting new engines of economic growth are the rallying cry of all state and national governments eying recovery.
California’s needs an education system that produces more skilled high-school graduates today more than at any other time in our past.
In fact, for every $500 of wealth that households headed by a high-school dropout accumulate, households headed by high-school graduates possess approximately $5,000. This means that there would be an additional $74 billion in collective wealth in the United States if every household were headed by an individual with at least a high-school diploma, according to a 2008 report by the Alliance for Excellent Education.
The Public Policy Institute of California predicts there will be twice as many high-school dropouts in California in 2025 as there will be jobs to support them. Meaning twice as many high-school dropouts will have no hope for employment. This evidence underscores the importance of early intervention and prevention.
In March the Senate Committee on Education held an informational hearing with the objective of viewing education initiatives through the lens of economic recovery. The hearing and outlined the steps needed to ensure that a skilled workforce, representative of the state’s diversity, industry and need, will be ready to fuel the next stage of economic growth in the state. Further, this year I along with Senator Steinberg have also co-authored SB 651 that would use data to assist educators in developing better public accountability and a stronger focus on dropout prevention.
California’s economic development strategy must focus on growing human capital, and human capital starts with education. Education is the single most important factor in ensuring a capable and competent society in which every member has the opportunity to succeed.
A recent report by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy and the California Educational Opportunity Report, Education and Access (IDEA) and All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD), found widespread correlation to renewed attention of the relationship between educational investment and the state’s economic health. The “achievement gap” represents the difference between what California public school students achieve today versus what they will require to gain work in a global economy.
To that end, Senate Democratic members have introduced a package of legislation “Jobs of Tomorrow” which asserts the real link between education and the economy. These bills seek to enhance California’s education system through:
• SB 675 (Steinberg) – Clean Technology and Renewable Energy Job Training, Career Technical Education, and Dropout Prevention Act of 2010
• SB 471 (Romero and Steinberg) – Education: stem cell research
• SB 515 (Hancock) – Career technical education
• SB 43 (Alquist) – Health professions
• SB 725 (Hancock) – Regional occupational centers or programs: California Apprenticeship Preparation Program
• SB 651 (Romero and Steinberg) – Drop out tracking
• SB 747 (Romero) – Career technical education- aerospace
Posted on April 14, 2009
___________________________________
Response

Only the Dropout tracking bill by Romero and Steinberg has much to day about dropouts.

What could the legislature do to reduce the extreme California dropout rate?
1.Pass a responsible budget for K-12 education. You have not done this in over twenty years. Provide funds for adequate counselors in the schools. ( all the other states have counselors). We should get to about 1 counselor for each 300 students in high school. Since Prop.1 California has fewer than 1 counselor for each 550 students. The result. The only students receiving counseling are the college bound students. There are practically no counselors working toward dropout prevention.
2. Provide adequate number of social workers for the schools. Both mental illness and gang membership begin by about grade 7-8. We need social workers in these schools. ( Other states have them). A large part of the dropout problem is caused by home and community crises. We need social workers to assist students with these crises.

Instead of these practical responses, your voting record produces more students per class and more useless tests of teachers- such as the TPA and PACT Assessments. See prior posts on PACT. You can use the search bar above.

California's alarming drop out rate

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.

You may listen in English or Spanish. A full transcript follows.

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.

Drop outs: Is the legislature listening?

High dropout rate puts California's future in peril

By Betty T. Yee - The Bee

California is failing our next generation as the doors shut for our young people to have a shot at a good quality of life.

Few would disagree with the notion that the state's competitive edge depends on a highly educated, highly skilled work force. However, California's investment in public education is woefully inadequate to meet this challenge, failing to provide the necessary support to reduce the high school dropout rate and to fulfill the promise of college for every eligible student.

This week, state educators predicted 24 percent of California students will drop out during high school. The dropout rates are alarming for African American and Latino students – 42 percent and 30 percent, respectively. While these figures are based on the most accurate student attendance data collected by the Department of Education, they certainly are not the first indication that California's public education system is in crisis.

According to the California Dropout Research Project in its August 2007 study, one out of every four adults in 2005 had not graduated from high school. Approximately 120,000 students do not attain a diploma by age 20 each year. And with each annual cohort of dropouts, California taxpayers foot the exorbitant bill for these young people – to the tune of $46 billion, or 2.9 percent of the annual gross state product, over their lifetimes – because they are more likely to be unemployed and pay no taxes, resort to criminal activity and rely on publicly funded programs for basic subsistence and health care.

On average, high school graduates earn more than high school dropouts, about $290,000 more over a lifetime; they also pay $100,000 more in federal, state and local taxes. High school graduation also contributes to a reduction in crime: by 20 percent for violent crimes, 11 percent for property crimes and 12 percent for drug-related crimes. A high school graduate is 68 percent less likely to be on any public assistance program than a high school dropout.

It's a no-brainer – not investing in strategies to reduce the number of high school dropouts does not save us money, but in fact costs California taxpayers exponentially more to address the consequences of low educational attainment.

The picture gets bleaker when one looks at public education in our urban core. In the America's Promise Alliance report released last month, almost half of all public high school students in the United States fail to graduate and are eight times more likely to land in prison. The report cites only 57.1 percent of public high school students in the city of Los Angeles graduate.

Our investment in public education has also failed on the commitment in the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education to provide college access to every eligible student. The race is on: According to the California Business Roundtable and the Campaign for College Opportunity in its April 2006 study, one in three new California jobs by 2022 will require an associate degree, bachelor's degree or higher, up from one in four jobs today. Coupled with the retiring college-educated baby boomers, the number of new jobs that will require college degrees is equal to the population of San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose combined.

California's economy is heavily focused in specialized, knowledge-based occupations and industries, with technical services, education and health care topping the industries in need of the largest number of highly educated workers. Small increases in the number of highly educated workers yield significant economic benefits: a 1 percent increase in the share of population with a bachelor's degree and a 2 percent increase with an associate degree or some college result in the creation of 174,000 new jobs and $1.2 billion more in annual state and local tax revenues.

The data are clear: College access is key to producing the large numbers of engineers, teachers and nurses to meet California's work force demands, generate additional much-needed tax revenue and keep the state's competitive edge. We already have seen the hemorrhaging of manufacturing and information sector jobs to other states and countries, and can ill afford any further high-paying job losses. Additionally, we must not forget the need for vocational educational programs to address the ongoing needs for highly skilled trade and craft workers, technicians and service workers.

The studies cited above should serve as a wake-up call for state policymakers about the critical need to increase our investment in public education in California. Moreover, policymakers should compel every single Californian to shoulder the responsibility for averting this statewide economic crisis by fairly spreading the burden for contributing to the cost of public education and other government services based on income.

Our global economy is changing rapidly. We are running out of time to save our state.

If California is to maintain its place among the world's top 10 economies, we must increase our investment in public education now: Our industries demand it, our tax system depends on it, and our children deserve it.

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California drop out rate crisis

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

Teachers dropping out too

From the Los Angeles Times
Teachers dropping out too
A study blames working conditions. Higher pay isn't the answer, it says.
By Howard Blume
Times Staff Writer

April 27, 2007

As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers.

But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.

Few teachers quit so dramatically, but leave they do. In California, teachers are departing the profession in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer — but simply offering them more money won't solve the problem, according to a report released Thursday.

The real issue is working conditions, which are the flip side of a student's learning conditions, said Ken Futernick, who directs K-12 studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento.

His study, which was based on a survey of nearly 2,000 California teachers, maps a growing crisis that fundamentally affects student learning.

The study also casts doubt on commonly pursued remedies both for the teacher shortage and student achievement in general.

Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support — all play a role in burning out teachers.

"They're not just driving teachers crazy; they're driving teachers out of the classrooms," Futernick said.

Stephenson is among the 35% of L.A. Unified teachers who quit within five years, according to school district data.

And as in most other cases, salary wasn't the primary factor.

In fact, L.A. Unified's data lists salary as the No. 9 reason why new hires leave. No. 1 is "moving." But also cited are "lack of support from administrator," "student discipline policy" and "unmotivated students."

Those results are consistent with Futernick's findings: "When teaching and learning conditions are poor, we discovered that many teachers see their compensation as inadequate. When these teaching and learning conditions are good, not only do teachers tend to stay, they actually view their compensation as a reason for staying."

The findings suggest that when teachers unions advocate primarily for salary, they have it somewhat wrong. On the other hand, Futernick said, administrators are clearly misguided when they focus single-mindedly on getting rid of "bad teachers."

That issue pales in importance to teacher retention. Moreover, at a struggling school, "one is hard-pressed to know the good teachers from the bad. Such a place is not conducive to good teaching," he said.

At high-minority and high-poverty schools, teacher turnover typically runs at 10% annually.

"If this churning is going on, you can be sure you have a dysfunctional school," Futernick said. "As long as we think of these schools as combat zones, we'll never solve the retention problem and we'll never close the achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their black and Latino peers.
"I told everybody I would teach as long as it was fun," said Barbara Millman, who left her teaching job at a school in San Pedro for the severely disabled at age 63. "They kept squeezing more kids into a class and trying to get by with less assistants. I felt the kids were not getting the kind of attention they needed and that we also were not valued as experts."

Other states, including Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, use teacher survey information in ways that California does not, Futernick said. North Carolina, in particular, has adopted workplace standards that protect teachers from unnecessary interruptions, paperwork and meetings.

Such standards seem a universe apart from the experience of a former Los Angeles middle school teacher who said she taught at a rodent- and roach-infested campus where students read at a second-grade level and frequently wandered the grounds because no one made them go to class.

"It got to the point where my morale was so low, and I cared so little that I would show up 15 minutes late, with my students waiting outside. No one ever said a word to me. I was still a star," said the former teacher, who asked not to be named because she has returned to the school system for a job outside the classroom.

She had to leave the classroom because "I saw myself turning into the others. What we attract are the martyrs and the lazy, and the conditions perpetuate it."


howard.blume@latimes.com

For the report, go to http://www.calstate.edu/ teacherquality/retention.

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(INFOBOX BELOW)

Why teachers leave

Top 10 reasons cited by California teachers who quit or planned to quit teaching, or who planned to transfer out of their current schools, because of job dissatisfaction:

Percent saying each reason affected decision

Bureaucratic interference: 57%

Poor support from district: 52%

Low staff morale: 45%

Lack of resources: 42%

Unsupportive principal: 42%

Poor compensation: 41%

Too little decision- making authority: 405

Too little time for planning: 36%

Accountability pressures: 35%

Lack of teamwork: 35%

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Note: Responses are from 220 current and former California teachers who participated in a 2005 online survey by the California State University Center for Teacher Quality.

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Source: California State University Center for Teacher Quality

Los Angeles Times