Gov. Brown agrees not to hold back money from California schools next year | EdSource

Gov. Brown agrees not to hold back money from California schools next year | EdSource

John Fensterwald

About half of K-12’s new money will go toward funding the Local Control Funding Formula, which distributes additional money to districts based on their percentages of low-income students and English learners. It has been Brown’s priority since its passage in 2013, and the additional $1.36 billion for next year will raise the formula to 97 percent of full funding. That’s defined as the amount needed to restore funding for all school districts to pre-recession 2007 levels, although most districts, with high numbers of students targeted for extra money, are already funded well above that amount.

$41 Billion Spent on California Schools - Where is the Money Going?

BY ELISE BUIK, ANTONIA HERNÁNDEZ AND BRUCE FULLER

Special to The Bee

Gov. Jerry Brown promised four years ago to lift all schools and narrow yawning gaps in learning among California’s rainbow of students, a stubborn inequity that limits our workforce and fractures civil society.

But in her children’s schools, Guadalupe Luna sees little trace of Brown’s ambitious reform.

“I’m frustrated and angry to know that the money is not getting to high-needs students” as Brown pledged, Luna said.

She’s taking legal action with fellow parents to block the Long Beach school board from diverting $40 million away from struggling students. Little money can be found, the plaintiffs argue, for “school uniforms and better training for teachers,” or tutoring for kids already falling behind.

WITH MONEY FOR LOW ACHIEVERS GOING TO JANITORS, TEACHER SALARIES AND MIDDLE-CLASS SCHOOLS, A BILL MOVING THROUGH THE LEGISLATURE WOULD SHINE A BRIGHTER LIGHT ON SCHOOL-BY-SCHOOL SPENDING. YET THE GOVERNOR’S TOP ADVISERS WON’T SUPPORT IT. WHY NOT?

Bewildering really, after Brown has rained $41 billion on local school chiefs over the past four years, beseeching them to elevate lagging pupils.

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antiracismdsa: Help Pass the California Sanctuary Bill SB 54

antiracismdsa: Help Pass the California Sanctuary Bill SB 54: Sacramento area Assemblymen Cooper and Cooley are not reliable votes yet.  Your phone calls have made the difference in getting SB 5...

California Today: A C.E.O.’s Challenge: Adopt a School - The New York Times

California Today: A C.E.O.’s Challenge: Adopt a School - The New York Times

School Funding Crisis - But, not in California

The crisis described below is real in many states.  It is not a crisis in California because the voters- not the legislature, passed Proposition 30 and then Proposition 55.

Jeff Bryant,

This week’s disturbing news that Oklahoma schools are so poorly funded some of them may move from five days a week to four got a lot of people’s attention, including my colleague Richard Eskow, who called this an example of “the Republican party’s sickness of the soul.” Unfortunately, the illness is highly contagious.

The contagion stems from revenue shortfalls in states that counted on money that never materialized – at least 29 states, according to Education Week. Although unemployment rates have generally declined in these states, and economies have improved since the Great Recession, lawmakers in many of these states also decided to enact tax cuts and to do nothing about stagnating wages, so income tax and sales tax revenuesflattened or even dipped.

Governors in these states say education finance is a priority – at least according to an annual survey of them. The poll, conducted by the Education Commission of the States, asked 42 governors about their education-related priorities. School finance was at the top, with 32 wanting to improve K-12 education through funding. But obviously, these state leaders forgot the revenue side of the equation. Oops!

DeVos, Charters, and Corporate Theft

by Jeff Bryan, 

Betsy DeVos wants to give your tax dollars to private schools and businesses and tell you it’s an education “transformation.”

That’s the main theme of an address she gave this week to a conference held by the organization she helped found and lead, the American Federation for Children.

Declaring “the time has expired for ‘reform,'” she called instead for a “transformation… that will open up America’s closed and antiquated education system.” Her plan also opens your wallet to new moochers of taxpayer dollars.

By the way, AFC, according to SourceWatch, is a “conservative 501(c)(4) dark money group that promotes the school privatization agenda via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other avenues.” It also grew out of a defunct PAC connected to DeVos called “All Children Matter” that ran afoul legally in Ohio and Wisconsin and still owes Ohio $5.3 million for breaking election laws.

So DeVos had a supportive crowd for her speech, but what should the rest of us think of it?

The transformation she calls for seems to rest on the premise that, “It shouldn’t matter where a student learns so long as they are actually learning.” But what does she mean by “learning”? And what should the public expect about how its funds are being spent?

In the Fields of the North - David Bacon

Why Do Billionaires Want Charter Schools ?

Eli Broad and Edyth 

Harold Meyerson:

The billionaires, apparently, we shall always have with us — even when we decide how to run the state-funded schools where they rarely send their own kids.

In the Los Angeles school board elections earlier this month, a number of billionaires, including Eli Broad, Netflix founder Reed Hastings and two Walton family siblings, poured millions into the campaigns of two charter-school advocates. These billionaire-sponsored candidates defeated two badly outspent opponents who took a more cautionary stance on expanding charters, lest they decimate the school district’s budget. In total, pro-charter groups outspent teacher unions, $9.7 million to $5.2 million. (In the 2016 state legislative campaigns, the charterizers outspent the unions by a far larger margin, $20.5 million to $1.2 million.)
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Though a number of the billionaires who’ve involved themselves in the charter cause are conservatives and Republicans, the actual election battles they join almost always pit Democrat against Democrat — in part because nearly all big cities are now overwhelmingly Democratic. In California, where Republicans’ numbers have ebbed past the point of power, the lion’s share of billionaires’ legislative campaign contributions have gone to more centrist Democrats, who not only are reliable votes on charter issues but also often oppose environmental and other measures advanced by their more progressive colleagues.
Charter billionaires have settled on a diagnosis, and a cure, that focuses on the deficiencies of the system’s victims, not the system itself.


Of all the issues billionaires could choose, why charters, and why now? One reason commonly adduced is that they’ve noticed something troubling: Public school graduates lack the skills necessary for employment. Many of those needed skills, however, are the kind that students acquire in vocational educational programs, not at charter schools.


That there are huge problems in the education of low-income students is beyond dispute — but this is hardly a recent development. The real recent development is the rising share of such students as the middle class has waned.

If the Waltons, say, decided to redirect more of their fortune to raising Wal-Mart workers’ wages, that in turn might enable hundreds of thousands of families to have more economically secure and stable lives, which could have a greater effect on student performance than charterization.

The Trump /DeVos Budget for Schools

President Trump’s and Secretary of Education DeVos’ education budget was unveiled this week. It’s devastating news for public schools. Rethinking Schools stands firmly against these unprecedented attacks on public education and we need your support to continue our fight against privatization—and to support and improve public schools.     Public schools remain the only educational institutions that have the potential and obligation to serve all students. Yet Trump’s education budget shows how this administration puts corporate interests over the needs of students and communities. The budget gives to charter and voucher schools—and steals from public school children: Gives $500 million more for charter schools (up 50% from current funding), $250 million to expand and “study’ voucher schools, and  $1 billion more to encourage school “choice” within districts. Cuts $1.2 billion for after-school programs that serve 1.6 million children, most of whom are poor, and $2.1 billion for teacher education and class-size reduction. Cuts $490 million for college work-study programs.  Cuts $700 million in Perkins loans for disadvantaged students. Cuts funding for mental health services, anti-bullying initiatives, physical education, and science and engineering instruction. Slashes $168 million for career and technical education and eliminates $96 million for adult literacy. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Fight the Trump/DeVos agenda by making a donation to Rethinking Schools so that we can expand our work and strengthen the educational justice movement.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz: Trump's Budget Takes a Sledgehammer to What R...

How President Trump’s Proposed Budget Is Bad for Californians and for the Economy - California Budget & Policy Center

How President Trump’s Proposed Budget Is Bad for Californians and for the Economy - California Budget & Policy Center

Trump, DeVos Budget Proposal for Public Education

We need your help. When Betsy DeVos was nominated to be secretary of education, we sounded the alarm because of her role in Michigan and Florida as an anti-public education and pro-voucher lobbyist—what I call a “public school denier.” The public agreed with us, but the White House and GOP-led Senate ignored the outcry of millions of Americans from across the country and confirmed her appointment—using a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence. The budget DeVos and the Trump administration issued today reaffirms our concerns—big-time. 


We feared DeVos was ill-prepared to be education secretary, and now, after seeing this budget, we know she doesn’t care. The Trump-DeVos budget is manifestly cruel to children and catastrophic to public schools, while being a windfall for those who want to profit off of children or make education a commodity.

That is why we are reaching out to everyone, regardless of your job title, where you live or your political party. We need your help in taking on the Trump-DeVos budget and its consequences.

Write to Betsy DeVos and oppose this cruel and catastrophic budget today.

Just look at what the DeVos budget proposes: 

• While Trump and DeVos chose private schools for their children, with small class sizes, they want to eliminate the federal funding that helps America’s public schools lower class sizes.
• While Trump and DeVos can afford whatever their children and grandchildren need or want, and while Ivanka Trump got $19 billion for her parental leave project, the budget completely zeros out all current federal programs that keep millions of poor children safe and well-fed in after-school and summer programs.
• Trump says there is nothing more important than being a teacher, but he eliminates the loan forgiveness program that helps students pursue teaching careers, eliminates funding for teacher preparation and educator support, and guts most other programs that alleviate student debt or make college more affordable.
• Trump says vocational education is the way of the future yet slashes career and technical education funding.
• DeVos promised not to hurt children with special needs, but the budget cuts one-quarter of the Medicaid funding that now pays for essential school-based services like physical therapists, feeding tubes and other medical equipment, and health screenings. 

And what do they fund with all these cuts? This budget provides tax cuts for the wealthy and redirects funding for expanded charter schools and vouchers. It spends $250 million on further research for vouchers even though the most recent studies, including one on the D.C. voucher program by DeVos’ own Education Department, show that vouchers hurt kids. And it diverts $1 billion from Title I funding—including $550 million in direct Title I cuts—to fund an Arne Duncan-like Race to the Top-style program.

Tell Betsy DeVos that our children deserve better. She must stop her crusade for private, religious schools and failed voucher programs and fully fund public education.

Federal and state funding is vitally important for our public schools to help children. Just ask the people in Van Wert, Ohio, who spent a day hosting DeVos and me. DeVos saw examples of great public schools in this rural area that voted big-time for Donald Trump. She saw the importance of early childhood education, observed hands-on learning in robotics classes, and learned about after-school programs, including a senior project that helps provide backpacks filled with food for the weekend to kids who receive free and reduced-price lunch. 

38,000 ATT Workers Go on Strike!

The Strike is over for now. The CWA workers have gone back to work.  Watch for future announcements. 

CWA union members have been working closely with DSA on organizing efforts across the country. 38,000 CWA folks at AT ;T have been working without a contract. This has gone on far too long. Now AT;T workers in 36 states and Washington, DC are on strike.

DSA's national Steering Committee endorses this strike. DSA local groups and individual members are joining striking workers at picket lines across the country. Click here to RSVP for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Downloadable DSA solidarity signs are available here and here.

Members who can't join a picket line are encouraged to email AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and tell him to settle now.

UPDATE: DirecTV employees are joining the potential strike as well. Now 40,000 workers are ready to stand up for their livelihoods — and their dignity.

Join the CWA picket lines at the locations below and support our comrades fighting for better wages and better livelihoods!

• 1743 ARDEN WAY
  SACRAMENTO, CA 95815
• 2228 FAIR OAKS BLVD
  SACRAMENTO, CA 95825
• 3591 TRUXEL ROAD
  SACRAMENTO, CA 95834
• 5550 SUNRISE BLVD STE 100
  CITRUS HEIGHT, CA 95610

Read DSA National's statement here.

To find other/additional picket lines, click here.

Trump’s Education Budget Feeds School Privatization At The Expense of Students

Trump’s Education Budget Feeds School Privatization At The Expense of Students

More on LA School Board Take Over by Corporate Billionaires

A Big Win for Corporate Advocates of Charters. Mike McPhate School board campaigns are often sleepy affairs, not the sort of electoral battle that generates widespread attention and outside donations. But this week’s election for the Los Angeles Unified school board was something of an epic proxy fight. Some saw it as a battle over the influence of the teachers’ union. Others cast it as a fight against the education agenda of President Trump and Betsy DeVos and the expansion of charter schools.

After Tuesday’s results, the seven-member school board that governs the nation’s second largest public school system will be dominated by supporters of charter schools who may move to increase the number of publicly funded but privately run schools across the city.

The election drew in some $14 million — making it among the most expensive school board races in the country’s history — and a host of high-profile endorsements. In the end, the candidates who portrayed themselves as supporters of dramatic changes won out, leaving the teachers’ union and its supporters angered and worried about the future. Steve Zimmer, the school board president who lost to the challenger Nick Melvoin, was so angered by the defeat that he refused to make the customary congratulatory call. Mr. Zimmer called the results “devastating” and said he would never run for office again.

Billionaires with Agenda to Privatize Public Schools Buy LAUSD School Board Election for $10 Million - California Teachers Association

Billionaires with Agenda to Privatize Public Schools Buy LAUSD School Board Election for $10 Million - California Teachers Association

In his first interview after declaring victory in the LA Unified school board election, Nick Melvoin vowed to protect parents’ choices in education and to move the district beyond the charter school versus traditional school narrative.

“I would like the first thing we try to tackle to be moving beyond this what we call the school, who governs the school and respect parents’ choices and respect educators’ choices,” he said soon after his acceptance speech Tuesday night as he paused from greeting supporters to talk to LA School Report.

Melvoin delivered an upset victory in Tuesday’s election, unseating a school board president, something that hasn’t happened in at least two decades. Together with Kelly Gonez who won in District 6, they will be part of the strongest reform majority that the board has seen. Melvoin defeated Steve Zimmer in the District 4 race with about 57 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results.

Other top priorities include a unified enrollment system and transparency in the district’s finances and facilities. He said he would work to reform the co-location process in which charter schools share campus space with traditional schools. He also wants to push for more autonomies for district schools like those granted to charter schools.

Melvoin’s brief acceptance speech didn’t include charters, but in the interview afterward he professed his support for independent charter schools, which are publicly funded and run by nonprofit organizations. LA has more charter schools than any other district in the nation, with about 16 percent of LA schoolchildren enrolled in independent charters.

Melvoin had the backing of deep-pocketed philanthropists who have supported charter school growth, including Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, Eli Broad, and former LA Mayor Richard Riordan.

– Helping Foreign-born Kids Cope with Fears

– Helping Foreign-born Kids Cope with Fears

Bernie, the Billionaires, and the School Board

Bernie, the Billionaires, and the School Board: The pro-charter candidates in Tuesday’s Los Angeles election are backed by the Walton family, Michael Bloomberg, and Eli Broad. Their opponents are backed by Bernie Sanders, in the priciest school board race in U.S. history.

Who Are the Out-Of-Town Billionaires Wading into a City School Board Race? @alternet

Who Are the Out-Of-Town Billionaires Wading into a City School Board Race? @alternet: The LA school board race may be the most expensive in the country with out-of-town billionaires – including the Walton family – trying to defeat progressive Steve Zimmer. Some of America’s most powerful corporate plutocrats want to take over the Los Angeles school system but Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and feisty school board member, is in their way. So they’ve hired Nick Melvoin to get rid of him. No, he’s not a hired assassin like the kind on “The Sopranos.” He’s a lawyer who the billionaires picked to defeat Zimmer.