Los Angeles dropouts from high school

From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. Mayor Sees Dropout Rate as 'Civil Rights Issue'
By Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writer

March 2, 2006

The high school dropout problem is "the new civil rights issue of our time," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared Wednesday in a speech that drew a line from the efforts to desegregate the South a half-century ago to today's struggles over the performance of Los Angeles students, who are predominantly Latino.

Acknowledging that there is wide disagreement about how many students are leaving L.A. schools, Villaraigosa told a conference on dropout issues that "whatever that number is, we are in a crisis."

The mayor, who is campaigning to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District, insisted that he wasn't "throwing stones" at the school system, many of whose top administrators were in the audience at the Leadership Forum on High School Dropouts at USC. But his speech contained plenty of brickbats.

"Make no mistake: There's a culture of complacency in this school district that's got to change," Villaraigosa said.

Schools Supt. Roy Romer, who was not present for the speech, gave his own talk later, defending the district even as he said he welcomed the mayor's "aggressive" approach to the district.

Ticking off the school system's accomplishments during his tenure — the nation's largest school-construction program, a sharp rise in standardized test scores in elementary schools — Romer said: "That's not complacency, folks. That's change!"

He added: "We have real challenges going forward. But to deny what we have accomplished together would be foolish." He said the reforms the district has set in place would take years to roll out.

The dropout issue has been at the center of local school reform discussions since last March, when a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University calculated that only 45% of students were graduating in four years from Los Angeles schools. The rate was even lower for Latino students, and much higher for white and Asian American students. African Americans were close to the districtwide average.

The school district cried foul, saying its figures showed that roughly 70% were graduating, a figure that has since risen. The district uses a different formula to calculate its graduation rate, one that the Harvard researchers and other critics say is deeply flawed.

In his repeated calls to take over the district, which is run by an elected school board, Villaraigosa has said more than half of the district's students drop out. District officials have protested, saying recently that the dropout rate had declined to 24.6% for the 2004-05 school year.

Villaraigosa said it doesn't matter; any of the figures being discussed is too high. Charging that more than 60% of Latinos and African Americans were failing to graduate, the mayor said, "These are numbers that should put a chill down your spine…. We have numbers that are every bit as insidious as the National Guard blocking the door in Little Rock" — a reference to the efforts by Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus in 1957 to stop black students from integrating all-white schools.

Villaraigosa is not the first person to frame the dropout problem as a civil rights issue. It has been a major thrust of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and of other academic and public policy initiatives.

Gary Orfield, head of the Harvard project, told the standing-room-only conference that turnout for the event was evidence that the issue was being taken seriously, especially in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Unified recently proposed a series of changes designed to keep students in school, several of which matched recommendations made by scholars at the conference.

There is widespread agreement, for instance, that schools need to make more personal connections with students, that they need to keep better track of attendance, and that they need to do a better job of enlisting the help of parents.

Several of the L.A. Unified proposals are aimed at accomplishing those goals.

A new survey of dropouts, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, bolsters some of the arguments behind the reforms, as well as the higher academic standards that California schools are mandating.

The national survey of 467 high school dropouts, scheduled for release today, found that a majority of those surveyed thought they would have worked harder if their schools had higher expectations of them, and that the most common reason given for dropping out was that "classes were not interesting."

"The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" also reached some conclusions that challenge orthodox assumptions. For instance, nearly 90% of the dropouts reported that they had passing grades when they left school.

Orfield, who is considered one of the foremost scholars on the dropout issue, said that figure sounded wrong "by orders of magnitude."

"All the research suggests that academic failure is one of the basic forces" behind dropping out, he said, adding that high school dropouts are not always reliable informants.

John Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises, a Washington-based public policy firm that conducted the survey, said the researchers had confirmed with the schools that the majority of the dropouts had been passing their classes.

The survey was conducted among former students from schools in 25 cities, suburbs and small towns across the country. The respondents were not a nationally representative sample, the researchers said.

One year's class of high school dropouts will cost California $38.5 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes, another Washington-based public policy group estimated Wednesday.

"This is a very conservative estimate," said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education.

Anti intellectualism and professionalism

Very interesting essay in the American Prospect on anti intellectualism and the roles of professionals.

No benefit found in English-only instruction

No benefit found in English-only instruction
- Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Teaching overwhelmingly in English, as mandated by 1998's Proposition 227, has had no impact on how English learners are faring in California, a state-mandated study released Tuesday has found.
The ballot measure, approved by 61 percent of the state's voters, promised that immigrant children and others who don't speak English at home would assimilate much faster if all their classes were taught in English.
It fueled an emotional debate about how best to educate the state's growing population of immigrant children. California educates one-third of the nation's English learners.
Using test data, the five-year, $2.5 million study found little difference between students who were taught in English-immersion classrooms and those enrolled in bilingual programs.
"We've looked at the available data extensively over the past five years, and we don't find any compelling evidence for the premise underpinning 227: that a major switch to English-immersion would be a panacea for English learners," said Amy Merickel, co-author of the study. The study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research and WestEd, independent, nonpartisan research agencies, on behalf of the California Department of Education.
Researchers studied students' proficiency in English and in other academic subjects in state tests conducted from 1997 through 2004.
Silicon Valley software entrepreneur Ron Unz, who bankrolled the Proposition 227 campaign, said he considered the study worthless.
"I think it's garbage, and it's extremely expensive garbage," he said. "If you want to know if rocks fall upward or downward and you spend enough money, you can find someone to say 'Sometimes they fall upward.' "
Unz said his own analysis of state test scores for the four years after Proposition 227 passed found that English learners in bilingual classes did not improve at all, while those in English immersion programs tripled their performance.
Merickel said that because the state data provides only annual snapshots such an assessment doesn't show whether individual students are progressing over time. By definition, students who do well in a bilingual program and master English, are replaced by new English learners, she said.
To track the progress of individual students over time, Merickel and her colleagues looked at longitudinal test results from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which educates more than half the state's 1.7 million English learners.
Coming on the heels of Proposition 187, which banned public services for illegal immigrants, and Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in public programs, the English-only measure brought race politics and the national debate on immigration into the classroom.
"We've been arguing about the wrong thing for a long time, and the needs of California's English learners are getting lost in that debate," Merickel said.
In line with the findings of several recent studies, including reports in 2004 and 2005 from the Public Policy Institute of California and the state Legislative Analyst's Office, the researchers said that how California educates English learners will play a significant role in the state's future.
"Given that English learners are such a large, growing and vital component of California's future, embracing the challenge of learning how to be more successful with this large population of students is essential to our state and national well-being," the authors wrote.
Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a professor of education and head of the immigration project at New York University, said all students need much more sophisticated skills and the higher level of language skills needed for the job market of the future take longer to acquire.
"The data show very, very strongly that you learn English in two ways: one is you need good linguistic models, good teachers ...," he said. "And the better your foundation in your first language, the better you'll do in the second language."
The study's authors found that English learners have done better academically since the passage of Prop. 227. But all California students improved in the same period, and the performance gap between English learners and native English speakers has changed little.
The researchers noted that Prop 227's implementation coincided with other educational reforms -- including the federal No Child Left Behind Act, new state standards and assessments for English learners and new state funding for English language instruction -- making it hard to gauge which factors contributed to student success.
Many teachers and administrators told the researchers Prop. 227 was useful, however, in focusing attention on how -- and how well -- English learners are taught in California.
The study's authors identified nine schools across the state that were successfully educating English learners and interviewed their principals to find out the secrets to their success. The principals said what matters most are the quality of instruction, a school-wide commitment to teaching English learners and careful planning and assessment -- not the language of instruction.
The state education department's manager for language policy, Veronica Aguila, said the state will highlight effective practices. She also said officials will continue ensuring that districts tell parents they can demand that their school provide bilingual instruction, as several Bay Area districts do.
About 8 percent of current California students are in bilingual programs, down from 27 percent before Proposition 227 went into effect in fall 1998.

Previous findings
California state auditor's report, June 2005
-- Limited monitoring holds English learners back and makes it hard to assess performance statewide.
-- State tests don't reveal which programs best help English learners.
Public Policy Institute of California report, April 2005
-- No evidence that changes under Proposition 227 boost English learners' achievement.
-- Students in bilingual programs improve more slowly than those in English-only programs but they also tend to be poorer and less prepared.
California legislative analyst report, February 2004
-- About half of English learners who start California public school in kindergarten become proficient, but more than half of those who start later never do.
E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1 
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/22/MNGSUHCJF51.DTL

©2006 San Francisco Chronicle

The Battle in the States: ie. California

Forget D.C. the Battle is in the States
By Nathan Newman and David Sirota February 20, 2006
Speaking to a packed room of 2,000 state legislators and business lobbyists gathered in Grapevine, Texas, last fall, George W. Bush thanked the crowd for its work on behalf of the conservative agenda. He wasn't talking about work they'd done on Capitol Hill, but about their collaboration to push the corporate agenda forward in statehouses across the country. The meeting was the 32nd annual gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership association for conservative lawmakers. As its chairman, Georgia State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, said of the president's speech: "It was like the governor of a state talking to his legislative leaders."

This is the critical point: The highest echelons of the conservative movement and corporate America treat state legislators not as members of 50 different institutions, but as a single set of leaders who can be mobilized on a national basis.

Recognizing this reality, the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) was formed in fall 2005 to create a counterforce to the right in statehouses across the country. Supported by groups like MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, along with unions like SEIU, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers, PLAN is working with state legislators across the country to move both a united agenda and strategic plan to take on ALEC and its allies throughout the country.

The conservative march through the states
The need to challenge the right-wing movement in the states is clear. ALEC claims more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members--roughly one-third of all state legislators--and has become one of the critical fulcrums of conservative power in the United States. Backed by many of the largest corporations in the country--including Exxon Mobil, Coors Brewing, Pfizer and Phillip Morris--ALEC is networked into conservative think tanks and allied political operations such as the Heartland Institute and the corporate-backed American Tort Reform Association. At the center of this network, ALEC helps draft and promote legislation that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, slashed medical care for the poor, and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state.

In 2004 alone, 1,108 ALEC model bills were introduced and 178 were enacted into law, a legislative assault that ALEC and its conservative allies have been repeating year after year. Given the prominence of its legislative supporters--34 state speakers of the house, 25 state senate presidents, 31 state senate leaders and 33 state house leaders are ALEC members--this success is hardly surprising.

Sadly, in the face of this daunting right-wing machine, many progressive leaders and activists remain fixated on Capitol Hill and the White House, leaving state legislators, local political organizations and unions to battle ALEC all alone. The problem is compounded by a national media that barely covers these state struggles. Even the most sophisticated national political commentators typically see fights for control of state legislatures as important only insofar as they impact redistricting of federal congressional races. Except for the occasional media spasm around a particularly virulent state legislative proposal that hands out pork to a corporation or restricts civil rights, the overall march of conservative legislation in the statehouses gets relatively little attention from progressive activists fixated on "serious" politics at the federal level.

Yet the battle for our states is incredibly serious. The conservative strategy is to use the state political arena to leverage control of national policy, and unless progressives get focused and view the battle for the states as crucial to America's political future, no amount of change at the federal level will allow us to take our country back.

Why state policy matters
Most progressives fail to realize that state governments collectively have as much--and in some cases, more--power over the issues they care about as the federal government. State and local revenues are about equal to federal tax revenue, and in an era of "flexibility" and "waivers," federal money is increasingly handed over to the states with few strings attached. In explaining conservatives' focus on state legislation, ALEC's Medicaid specialist James Frogue observed, "Innovations and reforms in Medicaid will come from the states. They will not come from D.C."

Most federal civil rights, consumer and employment laws only modify the baseline of rights established by state governments. In fact, only a tiny minority of legal struggles are pursued under federal statutes. Instead, state courts handle roughly 17 million civil cases every year, including contract, tort and real property disputes, the outcome of which turn overwhelmingly on state, not federal, law. Through state law and liability rules, the states regulate trillions of dollars of commerce.

Similarly, while there were 170,535 federal prisoners in 2004, that number is dwarfed by the 1.9 million prisoners in state and local prisons and jails. The criminal sentencing decisions that have decimated a generation of young people in minority communities were made in statehouses, not on Capitol Hill. And one of the least-understood areas of increasing state power is that wielded by public pension funds, which now control $2.7 trillion in financial assets and can shape financial markets with their investment decisions--a fact that the right is all too aware of as they launch campaigns to privatize those pensions.

With all this power in the hands of the states, conservatives recognize that with a coordinated strategy, a movement can govern the nation from the statehouses. States have been vulnerable to this right-wing takeover because most state legislatures are made up of poorly paid, part-time lawmakers with few--if any--staff to research or evaluate the laws they are asked to approve. The lack of resources means there are few staffers in legislatures who can challenge the expertise presented by ALEC and other conservative operatives, or uncover the hidden payoffs for corporate interests contained in legislation. Thus ALEC provides a stealthy, tax-exempt front for corporate interests to sell their ideas directly to statehouse leaders across the country.

At the most obvious level, ALEC gives a "public interest" sheen to the raw special pleading of Big Money before state legislatures. Here are just a few of these recent corporate campaigns:

Backed by the oil industry, ALEC has lined up legislators to lower taxes on gasoline and to undermine regulations aimed at curbing the carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming.
Backed by the drug companies, ALEC has mounted a full-scale campaign to defeat initiatives by cities and states to promote importing lower-priced select medicines from Canada.
Backed by low-wage employers, ALEC has promoted legislation to block local governments from raising local minimum wages or even requiring government contractors to pay a fair wage to their employees.
Backed by the telephone companies, ALEC has worked to bar or hamstring cities that have sought to build cheaper or even free Internet services for their residents.
Backed by the insurance companies, ALEC has been promoting a campaign to stop state insurance commissioners from requiring insurance companies to meet the same accountability and auditing rules that were imposed on publicly-traded corporations in the wake of the Enron debacle.
And ALEC has been advocating cracking down on seniors who shelter income in a home while using Medicaid to finance long term care, a campaign that would force seniors to buy "reverse annuity mortgages," a new financial instrument promoted by ALEC's financial services industry funders.
The right's strategic agenda
Still, if the right-wing movement in the states only amounted to a series of individual profit-driven campaigns, the threat posed by ALEC would merely be one of a slick, well-funded public relations operation, albeit a nasty and effective one.

But the real danger from ALEC and its associated organizations comes from conservatives' aim to structurally undermine the very capacities of government that restrain corporate power and to fuel campaigns that fracture progressive alliances and political power.

Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and arguably the premiere right-wing strategist, has famously described the conservative goal as cutting government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Key to that objective is cutting tax revenues and using constitutional limits on state taxing powers to make it politically impossible to fund social needs through government action. This strategy serves not just to limit progressive policy but, by creating a limited pool of funds, pits progressive groups against each other in a fight for resources.

Conservatives also aim to shut down the enforcement of business regulations across the states. The very success of state attorneys general in bringing tobacco and financial firms to heel has led to a backlash to limit the power of attorneys general. And where citizens have the ability to enforce regulations in the courts, the right has been gutting those citizens' legal powers. For example, one of the first acts of Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration was forcing through restrictions on the state labor code's Private Attorney General Act, which had given advocates greater power to enforce the state's labor laws.

In the last few years, no issue has consumed corporate America more than shutting the courtroom door to plaintiffs injured by corporate malfeasance under the campaign of "tort reform." Damage awards have been limited and judges have increasingly been granted the right to exclude evidence of corporate wrongdoing by limiting plaintiff witnesses. This is done through the banning of so-called "junk science," with an often-politically connected judge (rather than the jury) getting to decide which witnesses are credible. The end result of this campaign is to make it nearly impossible for poor plaintiffs to get a day in court or to prevent a judge from overturning any judgment in their favor.

Another key strategy for the corporate right is privatization, a strategy that both undermines labor standards for government services and opens the labor market to corporate profiteering. The conservative-induced budget crises in many states have served to help this process along. In 2002, ALEC co-wrote a report with the Manhattan Institute that made privatization a key solution for balancing state budgets. They proposed that Medicaid be replaced with private Medical Savings Accounts and public schools be funded with vouchers. Similarly, prison management would be privatized. Name an area of government and conservatives are seeking to hand its operations over to corporate allies who, in turn, can eliminate labor unions and use the profits to fund more campaign contributions to their political machine.

A special case of privatization has been the recent assault on state employee pension funds. In 2005, Alaska passed legislation ending guaranteed pensions for all newly hired state employees in favor of individual accounts, and legislators in California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia are heading in the same direction.

The most obvious goal is to cut benefits for union workers by ending guaranteed benefits--using exactly the same rhetoric of "choice" that President Bush employed to sell his Social Security privatization scheme at the federal level. But what really enrages conservatives are decisions by trustees of these pension funds to use their shareholder voting power to challenge corporate abuses, such as the pension funds in Ohio, New York and California that voted to divest in firms involved in privatization. And of course, there is the direct payoff to the financial services firms who will end up administering the millions of private accounts in a privatized state pension system and collecting the billions of dollars in fees.

Defunding the left
The shift in control of financial assets from public trustees to private corporations highlights the most pervasive and dangerous goal of the right's campaign in the states: defunding progressive institutions and thereby leaving corporations--and a few religious conservative allies--as the only forces with significant resources in politics.

Take the 2003 legislation passed in Texas that reserved family planning dollars, including those from the federal government, exclusively for healthcare providers that do not offer abortion services or referrals. This kind of proposal, coupled with "gag rules" and "abstinence only" legislation, not only shifts abortion policy, but strips resources from the broader pro-choice community. Similarly, the push for "faith based initiatives" shifts resources from nonprofits embedded in social justice networks to conservative organizations engaged in active conservative politics.

State-based "Right to Work" campaigns were conservatives' original weapons to cut off union dues, one of the primary sources of funding for political campaigns that oppose conservatives day-in and day-out. The present round of attacks is labeled "paycheck protection"--a nice-sounding term for crippling union workers' ability to donate political contributions through workplace deductions.

The whole right-wing attack on the civil justice system also has the effect of cutting the fees for employment and other trial lawyers, who have been strong sources of political funding for progressive causes. Passing tort reforms nationally, Grover Norquist argued back in 1999, takes "a $5-10 billion a year bite out of trial lawyer fees" and shuts down the progressive "get-out-the-vote effort, funded with money from trial lawyers."

By operating at the state level, Norquist et al have successfully avoided the glare of media attention and the full political focus of progressives. It's as if the right is tunneling under the foundation of progressives; by the time the ground--and financial resources--give way, it'll be too late to save the house.

How progressives fight back
So how should progressives respond to this coordinated assault on every level of progressive policy?

The key is to fight back, coordinate our own battles, think as strategically as ALEC and its allies and win back power at the state level. As People for the American Way said in a 2003 report about ALEC: "Progressives need a collaborative and equally coordinated effort to successfully counter ALEC's influence, expose its corporate and right-wing ties, and defeat dangerous proposals launched by this 'common enemy.'"

While many grassroots efforts have continued across the country since that report, progressives have not established the coordinated response that is needed to beat back the right. To do so, we must take three steps.

First, we need to develop a deep national network of progressive legislators supported by grassroots organizations. We have to establish partnerships between national organizations, grassroots activists and state legislators in each state to find state-specific ideas that represent home-grown progressivism. Not only will these networks help bring progressive-minded people together, but they also will serve as a hotbed of information exchange so progressive legislators can equip themselves with all of the information they need to promote progressive bills.
Second, we need to promote a set of popular issues that define the progressive state agenda in the minds of voters. This could include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care, promoting family issues like paid family leave and pre-K education for all children, protecting free speech in the workplace as well as the political realm, and developing an energy independence policy that creates jobs in each state.
Third, we must develop a set of policies that beat back the right-wing attack and turn the tables on conservatives. We should use legislation strategically to highlight the hypocrisy of groups like ALEC and put conservative legislators in the uncomfortable public position of voting either the interests of their corporate patrons or the desires of their constituents.
For instance, recent legislative initiatives in states ranging from Virginia to Michigan to preserve public lands and stop sprawl divide sprawl developers from a broader population that wants both livable communities and green areas for recreation. Similarly, targeting taxpayer subsidies specifically to entrepreneurial businesses that provide a living wage, as progressives have done in a number of cities, challenges conservatives to justify their fealty to low-wage companies. Supporting paid family leave and expanded child care for working parents forces legislators to confront empty "families values" rhetoric.

Ultimately, each strategic issue will reinforce the others, undercutting opposition coalitions while adding new allies to the progressive side, exposing the hypocrisy of the conservative agenda while clarifying the progressive program, and, step-by-step, entrenching progressive power in ways that the right wing will find harder and harder to dislodge.

Progressives need to use every tool of grassroots mobilization to build unity among our side's state legislators and deploy both strong policies and innovative strategies to beat the conservatives at their own game. Our overarching strategy: find the best public policies and champion them with effective and cohesive messaging. That is what the new Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) is all about. It's time to finally end conservatives' dominance of state policy. It is time for progressives to govern from the states.

This article is being published by In These Times in conjunction with the release of PLAN's report, "Governing the Nation from the Statehouses."

Nathan Newman is the policy director for the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN).

David Sirota is the co-chair of PLAN, and a senior editor at In These Times.

State needs to do more to keep teachers

Report: State needs to do more to keep teachers from quitting

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
Published 12:15 am PST Wednesday, February 15, 2006

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A moderate salary raise for new teachers boosts the chances they'll stay in the profession, but mentoring programs and training are even more effective, according to a new report.
Providing just $4,400 more in annual pay increases the chances an elementary teacher would stay by 17 percent, according to the report released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Teachers who were part of the state's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program were 26 percent more likely to stay in teaching, according to the study, "Retention of New Teachers in California." The program costs the state about $3,370 per teacher.

The Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which co-sponsors the beginning teacher program, has found similar results, said its director, Mike McKibbon.

"It makes an enormous difference in setting up the first two years as place to learn and grow and get better, rather than the way we used to do it, which was kind of a rite of passage," McKibbon said.

Still, money plays a role. The report said teachers in better-paid districts were less likely to leave their jobs or transfer to another district.

The policy institute said nearly a quarter of new hires in California leave the profession within five years, a rate that will make it even harder to fill an anticipated teacher shortage of 100,000 in the next decade.

Unless the state does something to reduce the departures, about one-fourth of new hires will simply be replacing other recently hired teachers who have left public schools. That will leave fewer experienced, highly qualified teachers, the report says.

The report's authors used data that tracked teachers who earned their California teaching certification during the 1990s.

The support program for beginning teachers received about $88 million in state funding this year and has been supported by Democrats and Republicans, McKibbon said.

"To their credit, they've seen beginning teachers as a place for investment," he said.

Other programs to integrate teachers also have shown promise, such as internships in hard-to-staff schools and a program that moves teachers' aides into programs where they can earn a teaching credential. That program has about 2,500 students this year, McKibbon said.

Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he was not surprised that the study found mentoring and tutoring programs to be effective.

"I'm convinced that teachers generally are not in the profession for money, and I think the more strengthening we can do, the more mentoring from seasoned teachers, the better," Scott said.

Earlier this month, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said he will sponsor legislation to spend $53 million for teacher coaches in the state's lowest-performing schools.

He also encouraged financial incentives to recruit teachers to work in those schools and said the state should reopen teacher-recruitment centers that were closed during budget cuts several years ago.


####

Another thing the politicians could do is to stop blaming teachers for the failures of the Governor and the legislature to adequately fund the schools. When you finance the schools at 44th. in the nation, you are going to get achievement at about 44 in the nation. Then politicians, who have done nothing, particularly Republicans, trash the schools.

The State of California Schools: O'Connell

Here is the Superintendent's view of the state of California schools.
Worth reading.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/yr06stateofed.asp

Press spin and distortions on reading scores: the Bee

I don’t know who is writing his material for him, but based upon

Stanley Crouch’s piece “Bush shines on education,” (Sacramento Bee, 1/28/06) it looks to me as if the Bush administration is again paying for promotional editorial pieces.
To make his case he claims,” According to NAEP, between 2003 and 2005 the nation’s fourth-graders posted the best reading and math scores in the test’s history.”

While NAEP data does show a small improvement in math data, here is what they say about their reading data:
In fourth grade:

“fourth-graders’ average score was 1 point higher and eighth-graders’ average score was 1 point lower in 2005 than in 2003. Average scores in 2005 were 2 points higher than in the first assessment year, 1992, at both grades 4 and 8.
Between 1992 and 2005, there was no significant change in the percentage of fourth-graders performing at or above Basic, but the percentage performing at or above Proficient increased during this time.”

The is simply no reason to believe that reading scores are improving because the points scores went up by 2 points.
Only a press agent or a con person would make this claim.

Crouch goes on to credit George Bush’s support for “scientifically ways” of improving reading based upon the work of Dr. Reid Lyon. While Lyon’s work has become the national mandate, this is ideology posing as science.
(For more on this see Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science, by Denny Taylor, 1998) In short it is a fraud.

The so called “scientific approach” which is another name for phonics has been the state adopted and implemented approach in California since 1996. This is how all students are taught.
Lets look at California data on the NAEP:
These are NAEP’s own results:

“In 2005, the average scale score for fourth-grade students in
California was 207. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (206), and was higher than their average
score in 1992 (202).
California's average score (207) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (217).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 fourth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 6 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 44
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (21
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (19
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 50 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (50
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (48
percent).

And, at 8th. grade:

Overall Reading Results for California
In 2005, the average scale score for eighth-grade students in
California was 250. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (251), and was not significantly different
from their average score in 1998 (252).
California's average score (250) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (260).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 eighth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 5 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 45
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (22
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (21
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 60 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (61
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (63
percent).


So, in California, where this ideological approach has been used for almost eight years, there is no significant improvement in reading scores. California continues to rank about 47th. out of the 50 states and two jurisdictions (Washington D.C) . There is no evidence to support the claim of a Bush miracle. And, no evidence to support the claim that
“scientific” based reading has improved achievement.

Crouch does make one correct interpretation of the data. In the most recent tests minority students are improving their scores and “closing “ the achievement gap.
Here again from the NAEP’s own descriptions of the event.

“In 2005, male students in California had an average score that was
lower than that of female students by 10 points. In 1998, the
average score for male students was lower than that of female
students by 6 points.
In 2005, Black students had an average score that was lower than
that of White students by 24 points. In 1998, the average score for
Black students was lower than that of White students by 30 points.
In 2005, Hispanic students had an average score that was lower
than that of White students by 25 points. In 1998, the average
score for Hispanic students was lower than that of White students
by 30 points.
In 2005, students who were eligible for free/reduced-price school
lunch, an indicator of poverty, had an average score that was lower
than that of students who were not eligible for free/reduced-price
school lunch by 23 points. This performance gap was narrower
than that of 1998 (32 points).
In 2005, the score gap between students at the 75th percentile and
students at the 25th percentile was 49 points. In 1998, the score
gap between students at the 75th percentile and students at the
25th percentile was 46 points. “

So, Black students lag behind white students by 24 points, but that is 5 points better than in 1998. And Hispanic students score on overage 25 pints lower than whites, but that is a 5 point improvement over 1998. That is, the gap has declined, but these students remain over two years behind in reading. You find the same information on drop outs.
The press agents use this information to claim success, but a 24 point reading gap is a disaster. Recall, these same agents used a 2 point score increase to claim that reading scores were up.

Crouch claims that Lyons has been a leader in reading. He has been a leader in getting good press from George Bush’s admin.
See this article:

AFTER OBSERVING IT IN THE BIRMINGHAM SCHOOLS FOR A YEAR,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PROFESSOR FRAN PERKINS CALLED VOYAGER’S CURRICULUM "THE BEST EXAMPLE OF THE WORST READING PROGRAM FOR YOUNG CHILDREN" SHE'D EVER SEEN. DETRACTORS SAY THAT VOYAGER HAS INDEED BECOME A MAJOR SUCCESS
STORY IN THE ANNALS OF EDUCATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, BASED NOT ON
PRODUCING A SUPERIOR PRODUCT BUT ON ITS FOUNDERS’ ABILITY TO ATTRACT
WELL-FUNDED AND WELL-CONNECTED INVESTORS AND TO HIRE TOP EDUCATORS AWAY
FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS THAT THEN BECOME ITS CLIENTS.
HTTP://WWW.FWWEEKLY.COM/CONTENT.ASP?ARTICLE=3561

When politicos make poorly informed school rules

THE VANISHING CLASS
Los Angeles Times
A Formula for Failure in L.A. Schools
Because they can't pass algebra, thousands of students are denied diplomas. Many try again and again -- but still get Fs.

By Duke Helfand, Times Staff Writer

Each morning, when Gabriela Ocampo looked up at the chalkboard in her ninth-grade algebra class, her spirits sank.

There she saw a mysterious language of polynomials and slope intercepts that looked about as familiar as hieroglyphics.



She knew she would face another day of confusion, another day of pretending to follow along. She could hardly do long division, let alone solve for x.

"I felt like, 'Oh, my God, what am I going to do?' " she recalled.

Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again — six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.

Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.

Her story might be just a footnote to the Class of 2005 except that hundreds of her classmates, along with thousands of others across the district, also failed algebra.

Of all the obstacles to graduation, algebra was the most daunting.

The course that traditionally distinguished the college-bound from others has denied vast numbers of students a high school diploma.

"It triggers dropouts more than any single subject," said Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer. "I think it is a cumulative failure of our ability to teach math adequately in the public school system."

When the Los Angeles Board of Education approved tougher graduation requirements that went into effect in 2003, the intention was to give kids a better education and groom more graduates for college and high-level jobs. For the first time, students had to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry or an equivalent class to earn diplomas.

The policy was born of a worthy goal but has proved disastrous for students unprepared to meet the new demands.

In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44% flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds.

In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students — enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham.

Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.

The school district could have seen this coming if officials had looked at the huge numbers of high school students failing basic math.

Lawmakers in Sacramento didn't ask questions either. After Los Angeles Unified changed its policy, legislators turned algebra into a statewide graduation requirement, effective in 2004.

Now the Los Angeles school board has raised the bar again. By the time today's second-graders graduate from high school in 2016, most will have to meet the University of California's entry requirements, which will mean passing a third year of advanced math, such as algebra II, and four years of English.

Former board President Jose Huizar introduced this latest round of requirements, which the board approved in a 6-1 vote last June.

Huizar said he was motivated by personal experience: He was a marginal student growing up in Boyle Heights but excelled in high school once a counselor placed him in a demanding curriculum that propelled him to college and a law degree.

"I think there are thousands of kids like me, but we're losing them because we don't give them that opportunity," said Huizar, who left the school board after he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council last fall. "Yes, there will be dropouts. But I'm looking at the glass half full."

Discouragement, Frustration

Birmingham High in Van Nuys, where Gabriela Ocampo struggled to grasp algebra, has a failure rate that's about average for the district. Nearly half the ninth-grade class flunked beginning algebra last year.

In the spring semester alone, more freshmen failed than passed. The tally: 367 Fs and 355 passes, nearly one-third of them Ds.

All those failures and near failures have left a wake of discouraged students and exasperated teachers.

Fifteen-year-old Abraham Lemus, the son of Salvadoran immigrants, finally scraped by with a D after his mother hired a tutor. But he recalls how he failed the first time he took the course. "I was starting to get suicide thoughts in my head, just because of math," he said.

Shane Sauby, who worked as an attorney and stockbroker before becoming a teacher, volunteered to teach the students confronting first-year algebra for a second, third or fourth time. He thought he could reach them.

But, Sauby said, many of his students ignored homework, rarely studied for tests and often skipped class.

"I would look at them and say, 'What is your thinking? If you are coming here, why aren't you doing the work or paying attention or making an effort?' " he said. Many would just stare back.

Sauby, who now teaches in another district, failed as many as 90% of his students.

Like other schools in the nation's second-largest district, Birmingham High deals with failing students by shuttling them back into algebra, often with the same teachers.

Last fall, the school scheduled 17 classes of up to 40 students each for those repeating first-semester algebra.

Educational psychologists say reenrolling such students in algebra decreases their chances of graduating.

"Repeated failure makes kids think they can't do the work. And when they can't do the work, they say, 'I'm out of here,' " said Andrew Porter, director of the Learning Sciences Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The strategy has also failed to provide students with what they need most: a review of basic math.

Teachers complain that they have no time for remediation, that the rapid pace mandated by the district leaves behind students like Tina Norwood, 15, who is failing beginning algebra for the third time.

Tina, who says math has mystified her since she first saw fractions in elementary school, spends class time writing in her journal, chatting with friends or snapping pictures of herself with her cellphone.

Her teacher wasn't surprised when Tina bombed a recent test that asked her, among other things, to graph the equations 4x + y = 9 and 2x -- 3y = -- 6. She left most of the answers blank, writing a desperate message at the top of the page: "Still don't get it, not gonna get it, guess i'm seeing this next year!"

Teachers wage a daily struggle in classes filled with students like Tina.

Her teacher, George Seidel, devoted a class this fall to reviewing equations with a single variable, such as x -- 1 = 36. It's the type of lesson students were supposed to have mastered in fourth grade.

Only seven of 39 students brought their textbooks. Several had no paper or pencils. One sat for the entire period with his backpack on his shoulders, tapping his desk with a finger.

Another doodled an eagle in red ink in his notebook. Others gossiped as Seidel, a second-year teacher, jotted problems on the front board.

"Settle down," Seidel told the fifth-period students a few minutes after the bell rang. "It doesn't work if you guys are trying to talk while I'm trying to talk."

Seidel once brokered multimillion-dollar business deals but left a 25-year law career, hoping to find a more fulfilling job and satisfy an old desire to teach. Nothing, however, prepared him for period five.

"I got through a year of Vietnam," he said, "so I tell myself every day I can get through 53 minutes of fifth period…. I don't know if I am making a difference with a single kid."

Seidel did not appear to make a difference with Gabriela Ocampo. She failed his class in the fall of 2004 — her sixth and final semester of Fs in algebra.

But Gabriela didn't give Seidel much of a chance; she skipped 62 of 93 days that semester.

After dropping out, Gabriela found a $7-an-hour job at a Subway sandwich shop in Encino. She needed little math because the cash register calculated change. But she discovered the cost of not earning a diploma.

"I don't want to be there no more," she said, her eyes watering from raw onions, shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant.

Could passing algebra have changed Gabriela's future? Most educators would say yes.

Algebra, they insist, can mean the difference between menial work and high-level careers. High school students can't get into most four-year colleges without it. And the U.S. Department of Education says success in algebra II and other higher-level math is strongly associated with college completion.

Apprenticeship programs for electricians, plumbers and refrigerator technicians require algebra, which is useful in calculating needed amounts of piping and electrical wiring.

"If you want to work in the real world, if you want to wire buildings and plumb buildings, that's when it requires algebra," said Don Davis, executive director of the Electrical Training Institute, which runs apprenticeship programs for union electricians in Los Angeles.

Algebra, with its idiom of equations and variables, is more abstract than the math that comes before it. It uses symbols, usually letters, to represent numbers and sets of symbols to express mathematical relationships.

Educators say algebra offers a practical benefit: Analytical skills and formulas enable people to make sense of the world. Algebra can help a worker calculate income taxes, a baseball fan determine a pitcher's earned-run average and a driver determine a car's gas mileage.

"It's the language of generalization. It's a very powerful problem-solving tool," said Zalman Usiskin, director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.

Rationale for Algebra

Although experts widely agree that algebra sharpens young minds, some object to making it a graduation requirement.

"If you want to believe you're for standards, you're going to make kids take algebra. It has that ring of authenticity," said Robert Balfanz, an associate research scientist with the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "But you're not really thinking through the implications. There may be no good reason why algebra is essential for all high school students."

Compulsory algebra is a relatively new idea in the faddish realm of education reform.

Until recently, high schools offered a range of programs. Students seen as academically able were placed in college-prep classes. Others were funneled into vocational courses in which they learned such skills as auto mechanics and office technology.

It was an imperfect system in which some bright students, particularly minorities, could find themselves trapped in classes that steered them away from higher education.

Then, about a decade ago, the pendulum began to swing as the state decided to raise academic standards for high school graduation.

The concept of algebra for all also was meant to elevate the level of U.S. high school students, whose math performance has long trailed that of peers in other industrialized countries where algebra is introduced at earlier grade levels.

Eager to close this competitive chasm, education and business leaders in California sought to re-engineer the state's approach to math. They produced new math standards they believed would foster a "rising tide of excellence."

This meant teaching algebra earlier, as soon as eighth grade for some students, even if instructors questioned whether younger students could handle abstract concepts.



"We didn't regard any of this as extreme," Stanford University mathematician James Milgram said recently, defending the 1997 math standards he helped write. "We need competent people in this country. We're on our way to [becoming] a second-rate economic power."

Legislators joined the charge in 1999, creating a high school exit exam with algebra questions, which takes effect this spring. They then enacted the law requiring algebra for graduation, starting with the Class of 2004, to prepare students for the exam.

To its staunchest advocate in the Legislature, algebra stood for higher expectations and new opportunities.

"We have a problem with a high dropout rate. You don't address it by making it easier to get through and have the meaning of the diploma diluted," said state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), who wrote the algebra graduation law. "It should be a call to action … not to lower standards but to find ways to inspire. Our future depends on it."

'I Give Up'

Whether requiring all students to pass algebra is a good idea or not, two things are clear: Schools have not been equipped to teach it, and students have not been equipped to learn it.

Secondary schools have had to rapidly expand algebra classes despite a shortage of credentialed math teachers.

The Center for the Future of Teaching & Learning in Santa Cruz found that more than 40% of eighth-grade algebra teachers in California lack a math credential or are teaching outside their field of expertise; more than 20% of high school math teachers are similarly unprepared.

Recruitment programs and summer math institutes for teachers have been scaled back or eliminated because of budget cuts.

"It's a real collision of circumstance, and students are now having … to bear the brunt of public policy gone awry," said Margaret Gaston, executive director of the Santa Cruz research center.

High school math instructors, meanwhile, face crowded classes of 40 or more students — some of whom do not know their multiplication tables or how to add fractions or convert percentages into decimals.

Birmingham teacher Steve Kofahl said many students don't understand that X can be an abstract variable in an equation and not just a letter of the alphabet.

Birmingham math coach Kathy De Soto said she was surprised to find something else: students who still count on their fingers.

High school teachers blame middle schools for churning out ill-prepared students. The middle schools blame the elementary schools, where teachers are expected to have a command of all subjects but sometimes are shaky in math themselves.

At Cal State Northridge, the largest supplier of new teachers to Los Angeles Unified, 35% of future elementary school instructors earned Ds or Fs in their first college-level math class last year.

Some of these students had already taken remedial classes that reviewed high school algebra and geometry.

"I give up. I'm not good at math," said sophomore Alexa Ganz, 19, who received a D in math last semester even after taking two remedial courses. "I think I've been more confused this semester than helped."

Ganz, who wants to teach third grade, thinks the required math courses are overkill. "I guarantee I won't need to know all this," she said, perhaps not realizing that if she were to teach in a public school, she could be bumped as a newcomer to upper grade levels that demand greater math knowledge.

Administrators in L.A. Unified say they are trying to reverse the alarming failure rates of high school students by changing the way math is taught, starting in elementary schools.

The new approach stresses conceptual lessons rather than rote memorization, a change that some instructors think is wrong. New math coaches also are training teachers and coordinating lesson plans at many schools.

The simplest algebraic concepts are now taught — or are supposed to be taught — beginning in kindergarten.

These changes appear to be paying off, at least in elementary grades. L.A. Unified's elementary-level math scores have risen sharply over the last five years, although middle schools and high schools have yet to show significant progress.

Searching for a solution in its secondary schools, L.A. Unified is investing millions of dollars in new computer programs that teach pre-algebra, algebra and other skills.

Officials are considering other costly changes, including reducing the size of algebra classes to 25, launching algebra readiness classes for lagging eighth-graders and creating summer programs for students needing a kick-start before middle school or high school.

Some schools have taken matters into their own hands.

Cleveland High, four miles from Birmingham, places ninth- and 10th-graders who get a D or F in algebra into semester-long classes that focus on sixth- and seventh-grade material and pre-algebra. Students then return to standard algebra classes.

Eighteen percent of Cleveland's 10th-graders were proficient in algebra on state tests last spring, compared with 8% at Birmingham and 3% districtwide.

Sacramento Bee Journalism

From Dan Weintraub's web log.
Gary Delsohn, who has been covering the governor for the Bee's Capitol Bureau, is quitting to go to work for Schwarzenegger, as a speechwriter.

No comment needed.

Weintraub actually makes a good proposal on schools

A modest proposal
It hasn't received a huge amount of attention since no one is screaming about it, but the increase in education spending in the governor's budget proposal comes to a cool $600 per student in K-12, or an 8 percent increase over the current year. I offer a modest proposal here for how that money might be best spent.

I say we give half of it to the districts to cover general cost increases and give the rest to the teachers to decide how to spend. Really. Why not authorize each classroom teacher to spend $300 per student more in whatever way they think would best improve the education of those children? Even better, I'd take that money and give it all to the teachers who are teaching kids in the bottom half of the socioeconomic spectrum, where the achievement gap is the largest. Since half of the total increase would be going to half the kids, that would bump the amount back up to $600 for each of those kids.

If we did that, a teacher with 30 such kids in say, inner city Los Angeles, would get a chit worth $18,000. I say let them decide how to spend it. They could hire a fully credentialed teacher to work in their classroom for half the day doing small groups and one-on-ones with the toughest kids. Or they could hire a couple of aides to help out. Or they could hire someone to do intensive after-school tutoring. Or they could use it for the finest supplies, new computers, better books. You name it. I'd even be willing to let the teachers pocket some or all of the money as a salary bonus for working with tough-to-teach kids. My only rule would be they would have to write a report detailing how they spent the money and post it it on their classroom door for all the parents to see.

Does anybody doubt that this would be more effective than what the governor is proposing to do, which is give about two-thirds of the money in a general cost-of-living increase and divvy up the rest among targeted initiatives like his after-school program, teacher recruitment and training, arts and music programs and physical education?

After we empower the teachers, my next step would be to audit the results and find out whose decisions brought the greatest gain in achievement. Then publish a list of best practices for teachers to consider the following year.


Posted by dweintraub at 11:31 AM
this blog has often enough criticized Weintraub for (like politicians) being out of touch with teachers. We should recognize when he actually makes a reasonable proposal, or as he calls it, a modest proposal.

NEA on NCLB: Not much to celebrate

Not Much To Celebrate on Fourth Anniversary of 'No Child Left Behind'
NEA President Reg Weaver Evaluates Bush Administration's Education Policy
WASHINGTON -- National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver issued the following statement on the fourth anniversary of the so-called No Child Left Behind's adoption:

"Four years of President Bush's signature education policy is sufficient to weigh facts, examine data and understand this so-called 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) Act through the experiences of millions of education professionals across America. If we distill these into one observation, it is that the anniversary marks four years of winning rhetoric and failing substance. From its inception, NCLB has been overemphasized, under funded and sugarcoated at the expense of public school children.

"New data illustrates our conclusion. It shows that more schools failed to achieve 'adequate yearly progress' (AYP) under NCLB in 2005-06 than ever before. Schools that earned high ranks, honors and distinctions for achievement and improvement under their own states' models of standards and accountability failed under the Administration's federal mandate, which leaves those schools, their students, their parents and instructors discouraged, not empowered. In remarks earlier this week in Maryland, President Bush finally agreed with NEA in declaring that 'one size doesn't fit all.'

"If Congress previously has accepted none of the blame for this policy of artificial inadequacy, it cannot avoid it now. In the final hours before its December recess, Congress adopted cuts of more than $1 billion to NCLB, sentencing even more of America's schools to failure on the fast track in 2005-06. The choice represented the most blatant disregard for the futures of the nation's children to date by our leaders.

"While many members of Congress have praised the so-called No Child Left Behind Act in their stump speeches, they clearly have little regard for it in this budget. When it came time to match money with rhetoric, Congress voted to cut funding in support of NCLB by $1 billion, which brings funding below the level provided THREE years ago.

"NEA has sought to fix and fund the policy, issuing recommendations to aid the Administration in eliminating statutory flaws and establishing legislative funding priorities, all for the sake of America's children for four years now. Our data-driven recommendations remain on the table while public school children across the nation fall farther behind. NEA has joined with 66 other national organizations in calling for 14 specific improvements to the law. We strongly encourage others to look at the facts and tell Congress that our children need more than rhetoric."

Data illustrating state-by-state federal funding losses due to recent budget cuts, AYP failures under NCLB, and the joint statement from the 67 groups may be found at www.nea.org.

Jan. 11, 2006

# # #

Teachers needed to improve schools

S. PAUL REVILLE
Bring teachers to the table
By S. Paul Reville | January 3, 2006

WHEN MASSACHUSETTS adopted the Education Reform Act of 1993, the state committed to creating a rigorous system of standards, assessments, and accountability. The accountability function was intended to identify performance problems, provide assistance, and ultimately sanction poor performance if it could be remedied with help. The state is now considering what the ''help" should be. Which approaches to turning around school performance are most successful? Which are practical and affordable?

As the volume of schools identified as ''in need of improvement" ratchets upward under the idealistic assumptions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the urgency for the state to act intensifies. It is morally and educationally unsound for authorities publicly to label poor performance without a plan and the capacity to intervene.

Intervention planning is challenging work. There is little evidence of dramatically successful ''turnaround" strategies anywhere in the country. Policy makers in virtually every state are grappling with the question of what to do with their failing schools. Research evidence is limited. State takeovers have not been successful, except on financial matters. Most state departments of education, as is the case in Massachusetts, have limited capacity, personnel, and expertise to address the complex issues of school performance.

Naturally, the policy discussion migrates away from state bureaucracies. In Massachusetts, conversations on interventions and poor performance have focused on management prerogatives, turnaround partners, and chartering or privatizing failed schools. These strategies, like many others, have little or no research evidence to support their effectiveness.

Conspicuously absent in the debate on intervention has been the role and voices of teachers and teacher unions, arguably the front line troops in any ''turnaround" strategy. There seems to be a belief in some policy circles that school improvement can be accomplished in spite of teachers rather than with them.

Some of the assumptions embedded in the prominent strategies, management prerogatives, turnaround partners, chartering, and privatization imply that teachers are the problem rather than part of the solution, that the source of expertise on fixing school problems is external rather than internal or that current leadership is highly competent. Although each of these assumptions is sometimes true, none is always or typically correct.

Teachers and, certainly, unions don't have all the answers either. They are also sometimes the source of problems, but it is folly to shape school intervention and turnaround plans without extensively consulting teachers on policies and practices.

A common flaw of educational policies is that they take a ''one size fits all" approach to solving problems or meeting challenges. Not all failing schools fail for the same reasons. Therefore, not all successful school interventions will look alike. Our intervention policies will need to take into account the substantial variation in context: communities, leadership, curriculum and teaching, resources, students, demographics, mobility and a host of other factors. Our intervention policies will need to be strong but flexible and responsive to local circumstances. Above all, we will need policies and practices that those charged with implementing see as worthwhile and likely to succeed.

However, it's not just some policy makers' neglect or management bias that keeps unions from the intervention policy table. Union leaders are sometimes ambivalent about participating in solving the problems of the accountability system for fear of being seen as collaborators with a system of assessment and accountability which some of their members still actively reject. However, enlightened leaders across the country increasingly see that, however flawed, the system of accountability is here to stay and teachers have a vital role to play in improving that system. These leaders know that unions need to be at the table.

In addition to including teachers in policy formulation, we would do well to craft state intervention policies that increase the capacity of the state Department of Education to provide real assistance and tools, like formative assessment data, leadership training, extra time, and professional development, to our most challenged schools and districts. We should also view our policy efforts as experimental. We don't have much evidence to support any of the most prominently mentioned strategies, but this doesn't absolve the state of the obligation to get involved in helping educators improve teaching and learning in the Commonwealth's most challenged schools.

S. Paul Reville is president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.


© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Wientraub knows what is best for schools

The Bee's pundit who has an expertise on everything has this to say.

"January 06, 2006
Standing firm
Good for school Supt. Jack O'Connell, who announced today that he is standing by the state's high school exit exam, requiring students in the class of 2006 to pass the test in order to receive a diploma. O'Connell, a Democrat, came under intense pressure from his usual friends and allies who wanted him to water down the requirement. But he did the right thing and stood firm. Independent studies have documented that the exit exam is a fair and reasonable requirement. More important, it's been shown that the exam has motivated the schools to do much more to reach out, assist, and tutor students who are at risk of failing. In the past, those students were shuffled along and given a meaningless diploma, then shoved out into a world in which they were unprepared to work or compete. Now they are getting help. O'Connell recognizes this. And he has the guts to say so, even to people who don't want to hear it."

See the earlier postings on exit testing.
There are posted here many experts on testing and many teachers. Or, you can line up with the pundits.
"Independent studies" which studies? Look at the review of the research by the ASU Archives. No positive efffect effect for testing.
Look at the research by Mc Niel & Valenzuela in Texas. No positive effect.
But, those who do not work in school are certain that testing will improve schools. They do not see the results of their programs.
The last three decades have witnessed the development of corporate dominated school reform. It leads to high school exit exams. It does not work.
See Jean Anyon, Radical Possibilities: (2005)
Also see below how media opinions are purchased.
Duane Campbell

Governor may propose new money for public schools

Schools in line for more aid

Governor tries to mend rift with education advocates.

By Clea Benson -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, January 4, 2006

In a conciliatory gesture, the Schwarzenegger administration said Tuesday the governor wants to begin paying back state funds that education advocates say he promised to schools but never delivered.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time Tuesday also offered some detail about the schools piece of a proposed bond package he plans to unveil in his State of the State speech Thursday.

"Our bond that we propose will have money for building more schools, thousands of more schools, 40-some-thousand more classrooms, modernizing 140,000 other classrooms and so on," he told reporters while he visited a Sacramento River levee that had been eroded by recent storms. "So we really want to move aggressively forward to make sure we do everything we can for education."

Education Secretary Alan Bersin said the governor's proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 will address the rift that developed last year when schools advocates said the state improperly withheld billions of dollars guaranteed to schools under the terms of Proposition 98, the state law setting minimum levels of school funding.

The proposed budget will include an additional $1.67 billion to pay back about a third of the money education advocates say is owed, Bersin said.

Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for education will include $54.3 billion for kindergarten through community colleges, an overall increase of $4.3 billion over the current year's budget, Bersin said. The Republican governor is scheduled to present his complete budget Tuesday.

Education leaders believe the state owes schools $4 billion more than the governor is planning to propose, but they said they were treating his position as a positive opening move in budget negotiations.

"It's a start," said Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association.

"It's better than where we were last year at this time."

That reaction contrasted starkly with the anger education leaders expressed last year after learning schools would be getting billions less than they expected.

Weintraub again

In his blog for today the Bee's Dan Weintraub says:

A Weblog by
Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

December 30, 2005

Higher ed subsidies
The president of Miami University of Ohio shares my take on the inefficiency of higher ed subsidies and has a radical solution to address it.

I encourage you to read this post. While commenting on tuition rates the central arguement is for substantial privatization of public universities.

What Should We Teach the Children?

“First, the educational reforms of the (current) era, back to basics, the pursuit of excellence, the revival of history were driven by educational, political, and economic forces outside of education. This was largely a response to a manufactured crisis, based upon faulty thesis and flawed assumptions, driven by those in power and in control of considerable financial resources from both governmental and private sources. New Right and neo conservative reformers were well organized, highly motivated, visible, articulate, and well funded. In part, the political trends culminating in the conservative restoration originated in the reaction to the perceived excesses of reforms of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Second, the conservative restoration was built upon pervasive myths about American schooling and the creation of a mythical golden age. “ P. 171.
The Social Studies Wars: What Should we teach the children? Ronald W. Evans.
2004. Teachers College Press.

The Press: The Enemy Within

Well worth reading.
The Press: The Enemy Within

By Michael Massing
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18555

from 'The New York Review of Books'

Volume 52, Number 20 · December 15, 2005

How the media is purchased

Op-eds for sale
A columnist from a libertarian think tank admits accepting payments to promote an indicted lobbyist's clients. Will more examples follow?
A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients. Doug Bandow, who writes a syndicated column for Copley News Service, told BusinessWeek Online that he had accepted money from Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 articles over a period of years, beginning in the mid '90s.

"It was a lapse of judgment on my part, and I take full responsibility for it," Bandow said from a California hospital, where he's recovering from recent knee surgery.

After receiving BusinessWeek Online's inquiries about the possibility of payments, Cato Communications Director Jamie Dettmer said the think-tank determined that Bandow "engaged in what we consider to be inappropriate behavior and he considers to be a lapse in judgment" and accepted his resignation. "Cato has an excellent reputation for integrity, and we're zealous in guarding that," Dettmer said.

Bandow has written more than 150 editorials and columns over the past five years, each identifying his Cato affiliation. His syndicated column for Copley News Service is featured in several hundred newspapers across the country. Bandow's biography on the Cato Institute Web site says he has also appeared as a commentator on all the major television broadcast networks and the cable news channels.

MULTIPLE TRAVAILS. A former Abramoff associate says Bandow and at least one other think-tank expert were typically paid $2,000 per column to address specific topics of interest to Abramoff's clients. Bandow's standing as a columnist and think-tank analyst provided a seemingly independent validation of the arguments the Abramoff team were using to try to sway Congressional action.

Bandow confirms that he received $2,000 for some pieces, but says it was "usually less than that amount." He says he wrote all the pieces himself, though with topics and information provided by Abramoff. He adds that he wouldn't write about subjects that didn't interest him.

Abramoff was indicted in Florida in August on wire-fraud charges in relation to his purchase of a Florida casino-boat company. He faces trial in January in that case.

Separately, a Senate committee and a Justice Dept. task force are investigating allegations that Abramoff defrauded some of his clients -- a handful of American Indian tribes that had gotten wealth from running casino-gaming operations on their reservations. Abramoff's business partner, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty in November to conspiring to corrupt public officials with gifts, including political contributions, and defrauding clients, and is cooperating with the ongoing probe.

Read the full article at : Business Week online.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2005/nf20051216_1037_db016.htm

Bush speak vrs. reality

"Bush’s excuses for the illegal eavesdropping are indeed risible. The Times didn’t mention it, but of 19,000 requests for eavesdropping the Federal Intelligence Security Court has received from the Executive Branch since 1979, only five have ever been refused. Bush claimed again on Monday that this flagrant flouting of the FISA law was necessary because fighting “terrorists” needed to be done “quickly.” Yet, as the Times reported, the secret court can grant approval for wiretaps “within hours.” And the excuse Bush offered this morning that this illegal subversion of FISA was necessary to prevent 9/11-style terrorism is equally laughable. As the ACLU pointed out in a study of FISA two years ago, “Although the Patriot Act was rushed into law just weeks after 9/11, Congress's later investigation into the attacks did not find that the former limits on FISA powers had contributed to the government's failure to prevent the attacks.”

From the blog of Doug Ireland.

Stupid corporate opinion and Crash Course: a review

Whittle, C. (2005). Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education. New York: Riverhead Hardcover.
288 pp.
$24.95 ISBN 1594489025
Reviewed by Jim Horn 
Monmouth University
November 24, 2005
If you support the notion that publicly run, publicly controlled, public education is the imperfect, yet essential, public business that may be our best institutional tool for realizing a democratic republic in America, then you are likely to find plenty to disagree with in Chris Whittle’s vision (or is it a nightmare?) for turning schools into companies, companies that are to be paid for with tax dollars. With $400 billion annually at stake, the public schools are, by far, the juiciest prize for a new type of corporate welfare known as the EMO (education management organization). Chris Whittle’s new book, Crash Course. . ., lets us look down the sights as he takes aim at his biggest target yet.
Those, on the other hand, who favor a privatized education solution to all that is wrong, or imagined wrong, with American schools, will likely find Chris Whittle’s Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education a ground-breaking piece of wishful thinking. With the popularity of vouchers now on the same slope as recent presidential poll data, Whittle attempts to sculpt a vision for a hybrid American school, a new alternative to the “public school monopoly” that conservatives have railed against for the past 25 years. In this bravado new world of educational corporate welfare that Whittle projects out to the year 2030, the public school will remain public, in that public dollars pay the bills for personnel, transportation, food service, maintenance, and, of course, the contracting fee to Edison, Inc. or its MacSchool counterparts—yet private, in that education corporations organize, manage, hire principals who hire teachers, consult, assess, make merit pay recommendations based on those assessments, and, of course, get paid with public dollars that, in turn, make a 10% profit for the shareholders for the company. If this doesn’t sound good enough to get you to spend the $25 for this kind of visionary thinking, then add to this emerging educational utopia the need to increase class size, severely reduce the number of teachers, turn students into part-time clerical workers; and I am sure that you will agree that Whittle’s book will be required reading, at least by every reform industry lobbyist on K Street who is sure to get goose bumps at Whittles’ recurring focus on the 400 billion dollars that Americans spend on K-12 education every year.
What qualifies Whittle for such a far-reaching educational vision? For starters, he has a history of entrepreneurial education endeavors. Since the early 90s, he has effectively burned through several hundred million dollars in various failed ventures, including a scheme to offer textbooks with the same colorful Skittles and Snickers ads that became the hallmark of Whittle’s first big educational venture, Channel One. As a result of the Channel One success by a hometown boy with an expanding local payroll, Whittle Communications, in the late 1980s, was able to acquire a prime location in Knoxville for a palatial “publishing campus” downtown. Labeled derisively by locals as Whittle City, it was, nonetheless, resplendent with Italian marble, set in soft florescence, and exuding an Ivy League façade; and all of it ended up on the auction block only months after it was completed.
That venture proved to be Whittle’s first big flameout, forcing the sale of Channel One to cover the bills and leaving Whittle with a 7 million dollar estate in the Hamptons and something known then as the Edison Project, an outfit whose education privatization advisors prominently included Lamar Alexander, another local boy who was making a splash at the time as Bush 1’s Secretary of Education. By 1995 Whittle had turned that idea for a mass-market alternative to public education into Edison Schools, Inc., opening his first four Edison Schools in various locales around the country. By 1999 Whittle was ready to go public with the company, even though Edison posted a net loss of $50 million in the previous year. To make a long story short, by 2002 the stock was in free fall, moving from nearly 38 dollars a share to its low of 15 cents. By the following year, in a sweetheart deal that is even shocking by today’s standards of corporate crony politics, Whittle had found a benefactor in the State Pension Fund of Florida. With the support of Jeb Bush, the pension fund, whose largest constituency, ironically, happens to be public school teachers, not only bought out the failed company but also allowed Whittle to retain control, doubled his salary while offering him new stock options, provided loan extensions to repay debts, and gave more loans to keep the outfit afloat. (One can only guess what the Governor knew, or thought he knew, about the future movement of corporate welfare schools that would justify such an investment.) Part of the answer, or at least part of the gamble, may be found in the futuristic froth that characterizes Whittle’s current contribution to the literature of corporate socialism….

….There are several problems with this DoD analogy, but the most glaring one involves who will be allowed to propose and bid on the next “strike fighter” of education. Even with the renowned inefficiency of government as a documented fact, it does not seem to have occurred to Whittle that the federal government would never entertain bids for a new airplane from, let’s say, doughnut makers or funeral directors, regardless of how well these folks make and/or market their goods and services. Even the DoD (when it takes bids) goes to the people who know something about building airplanes, ones that can get off the ground and that can stay in the air, not just ones that look good, are fun to sit in, or make a big noise. Whittle would have Dunkin’ Donuts given equal consideration as Boeing, or let’s say Bill Gates’ thoughts on education heeded as readily as that of Stanford professor, Linda Darling-Hammond—or John Dewey, for that matter.

I encourage you to read the entire review and the book.
The review is at: http://edrev.asu.edu/reviews/rev442.htm

NCLB fails Blacks, Latinos in Urban Schools

D’s AND F’s FOR ‘NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND’

By Chris Levister

Nearly four years into the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) the nation’s urban school districts have shown little benefit from the law which mandated annual reading and math tests for all students in grades 3 through 8. But the most worrisome trend is that most urban schools are making no progress in reducing the achievement gap between white and minority students. That’s the word from eleven large urban school districts including Los Angeles.



Between 2003 and 2005 most 4th and 8th graders in the eleven cities that were studied made o nly negligible progress in math and reading. And most continue to perform well below the national average according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, often referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card.”

The report gives urban cities including Washington D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles D’s and F’s stating urban districts continue to fall very short of the Bush administration’s signature education policy. The report claims student scores remain virtually flat in cities like San Diego, Houston and Boston.

“Our children have been hijacked and shackled by bad policy and bad politics,” says Marian Wright Elderman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund. Elderman who has accused the administration of stealing her successful child achievement concept, is both worried and angry.

“This nation has squandered away four years and billions of dollars in education funding. Our children have been tested to death, forced to regurgitate and at the end of the day they haven’t learned to do basic reading and math or much less learned to think. It’s a national shame,” said Elderman.

“Parents in communities where districts are financially strained were promised that this law would close the achievement gaps,” said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, a union of 2.7 million members and often a political adversary of the administration. “Instead, their tax dollars are being used to cover unpaid bills sent to Washington for costly regulations that do not help improve education.”

“I’m very worried.” Shelia Ford, vice chairman of the National Assessment governing board which oversaw the nonpartisan study says everybody should be worried when you consider that big city schools have the highest concentrations of poor and minority children.

“The level of reading and math levels of below basic and basic achievement is just not acceptable. This is not what we want for our children. This is not what we were promised.”

“The report is extremely troubling,” said Utah state Rep. Margaret Dayton, a Republican who led her state’s fight against NCLB. “The federal government should not be dictating 100 percent of the state’s policy just because they are providing 7 percent of the funding. Do the math.”

When the Assessment Board did the math the trend showed in the last two to three years achievement gaps between Blacks, Latinos and whites has stayed the same. And in cities like Los Angeles the gap is widening.

That’s really bad news for the Bush administration because during that period of time the White House insisted that under NCLB the gap is closing.

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings told a conference for conservative lawmakers that the law is “good policy and good politics. She agreed the latest assessment is disappointing but argues urban school systems need to work harder. “We had hoped for more progress however, progress doesn’t happen overnight. This is not a mandate it is a partnership with states to close the achievement gap, hold schools accountable and ensure all students are reading and doing math at grade-level by 2014. American’s still see NCLB as a benefit, not an issue,” she said.

Elderman says Spellings and the Bush administration need to be more forthcoming about the impact that NCLB is having especially o n inner city minority students. “This report clearly states NCLB is not meeting the needs of our young people. This law has failed our youth and our expectation as a nation.”

The question that we all need to ask now says Elderman, is are kids really doing better today than they were without the law?
From BlackVoicesNews

Buying school reform?

Buying School Reform

California School Reform .
Peter Schrag titles his column of December 14, 2005, in the Sacramento Bee, “Buying School reform: its time to make a deal.”
There are some useful insights in the column and some strange promotions.
Schrag calls California Secretary of Education Alan Bersin, ‘the smart and thoughtful former San Diego school superintendent.” Well he is the former superintendent. However readers should be reminded that he was driven out of San Diego by popular opposition to his high handed, arrogant imposition of programs without involving teachers. See earlier posts in this blog about Bersin’s past. Bersin is the exemplar of applying the business model in pubic education, having a leader of school systems who has never taught nor worked in the profession. Alan Bersin failed to lead the San Diego schools toward reform. The chief policy advisor to the governor does not know how to improve school achievement- it is obvious. He failed to do so. (See post of May 29,2005)
According to Schrag, one of Bersin’s goals is to, ‘create a simper teacher credentialing process that would reduce the emphasis on ed-school pedagogy programs and replace it with a single test, a three-year mentoring program and teaching performance assessments.” Let us assume that this is an accurate description.
This policy direction again shows the arrogance of making policy when you know little about the subject. This would be expected from Bersin, from Schwarzenegger advisor Margaret Fortune, and is consistent with the long advocacy of Peter Schrag.
This proposal indicates that the Schwarzenegger approach will now shift from Teacher bashing ( Prop. 74) to School of Education bashing. Like teacher bashing this direction leads no where. It is not based upon evidence nor well informed opinion, only prejudice and scape goating.
To become a teacher in California you need to have a B.A. in some field ( science, math, social science, liberal studies) and to complete a teacher preparation program. These programs require 32- 36 units ( one year) of study. Of the one year, half is in student teaching or an internship. Thus, the “ed-school pedagogy programs” equal one semester of work.
So, the proposal is that the problem with teacher preparation is one semester of work. There is no evidence to support this. Look at the studies of teacher preparation. See the previous post. Where does this proposal come from? The proposal comes from people who have not been teachers and have not been in these programs, but they are certain that they know what will improve teaching ( like in Prop. 74). It is not that persons outside of education can not have a good idea. However, there has to be some evidence that their ideas have merit and relevance. This particular proposal has no evidence supporting it.
The second part of the proposal is that this one semester of preparation be replaced with an exam. Well, there are no exams which measure these issues. And, person’s well versed in testing such as James Popham will explain that our current testing and measurement systems are not equipped to measure the items, the interests, the motivation, and the pedagogy that would replace the semester of study.
The third part of the proposal is a three year internship. At present we have a one-semester internship called student teaching under the direct supervision of a practicing teacher. We have had internships for years where the teacher works on her own with only slight supervision. California is presently eliminating these internships because they fail. And, they aggravate the problem of low income students having the least prepared teachers.
If it is time to make a deal, policy makers will have to start with reasonable information supported by evidence not tired old prejudices supporting by anecdotes. That is what we defeated in Prop. 74. Do you want to go through this again?
Duane Campbell
For a brief review of teacher preparation see:
http://edutopia.org/php/interview.php?id=Art_832&key=039
and see: http://www.edsource.org/edu_tea.cfm

Least prepared teachers

New Report Raises Warning Over Assignment of Least Prepared Teachers and
Resurgent Teacher Shortage in a High Stakes Education Environment
(Sacramento) With the help of teachers entering the profession as interns California has reduced the number of underprepared teachers by half, but the vast majority of intern teachers are assigned to low achieving schools serving poor and minority students, according to a new two-year study of teaching in California released today by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. The report also warns that the state is facing a shortage of tens of thousands of teachers within the next decade.
The Status of the Teaching Profession 2005 reveals a serious maldistribution of teaching interns. According to the report, eighty-five percent of new teachers who enter the classroom as interns are assigned to schools where more than sixty percent of the students are minorities. Only three percent of intern teachers work in schools with few minority students.
“The least prepared, least experienced teachers are assigned to schools serving primarily African American and Latino children, many of them from poor families,” said Margaret Gaston, Director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. The chronic assignment of the least prepared teachers to certain groups of students raises serious questions about the equity and fairness of the state’s effort to resolve its teacher shortage.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, whether or not a state is making a good faith effort to reach the highly qualified teacher goals of NCLB will be determined, in part, by examining “the steps taken to ensure that experienced and qualified teachers are equitably distributed among classrooms with poor and minority children and those with their peers.”
“The findings of this report make clear that to resolve the teacher shortage and address the inequities in teacher assignment, California’s policymakers must put into place a permanent system that reliably delivers fully qualified and effective teachers to every classroom. By acting now, the state can take a strong step toward reaching the rapidly approaching deadline to meet the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act,” Gaston added.
The Status of the Teaching Profession 2005 also warns of a building teacher shortage at a time when the state is challenged to meet high-stakes federal requirements. California will need to replace at least 100,000 teachers, a full one-third of the teacher workforce, as baby boomer teachers retire over the next ten years. These retirements, along with declining enrollment in teacher preparation programs, are projected to boost California’s teacher shortage back up to approximately 27,000 teachers as soon as the 2007-08 school year, and to nearly 33,000 teachers by 2014-15.
“According to the No Child Left Behind Act, all students are required to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. But we project that California will be short tens of thousands of teachers just as the stakes for students and schools will be the highest,” said Patrick Shields, Director of the Center for Education Policy at SRI International and the principal researcher for the report. “Unfortunately, it is exactly the kids who are most in need of an experienced teacher that are the least likely to get one, a prospect the coming teacher shortage will only increase.”
The report notes that students in schools measured as the lowest achieving by the state’s academic performance index (API) are five times more likely to face underprepared teachers than students in the highest performing schools, and are far more likely to face a string of underprepared teachers.
“For 6th graders in California’s lowest-achieving schools, the odds of having had more than one underprepared teacher are three in ten; for 6th graders in the highest achieving schools, the odds drop to one in fifty,” said Gaston.
“California does not have an adequate teacher pipeline in place to provide a constant supply of fully prepared and effective teachers to every school,” said Harvey Hunt, Senior Policy Advisor to the Center. “Without one, it’s hard to see how we will meet the needs of students or the requirements of NCLB. The state’s policymakers urgently need to begin a new conversation about how to ensure that all California students have the teachers they need and deserve.”
The report's call for involvement of California's policy leaders in strengthening the teaching profession has been taken up in the State Senate. Under the leadership of President Pro Tem Don Perata, Senator Jack Scott (D-Pasadena), chair of the Senate Education Committee, is already developing omnibus legislation to address the issues in the report.

http://www.cftl.org/aboutus_pressroom_relview.php?release=dec05leastprep.php

Charter Schools and teacher unions

Who's Afraid Of Teacher Voice? Charter Schools And Union Organizing

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=101&ItemID=9230