Top Stories and Commentary for Thursday, September 18, 2008

EdWeek

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, frustrated by a budget plan he intends to veto, says California’s political leadership has been operating in the same state of denial as Wall Street speculators who are now watching their financial empires crash around them. Five years into his term as governor, he acknowledged Tuesday that he has had little success in changing that culture, despite his promises for radical reform. "This is one area I have to say that we have failed the people of California. We have not yet fixed the budget system," Schwarzenegger said, maintaining that he still intends to meet his key objective before he leaves office in 2010.

Exit Exam: One local high school has developed a simple successful approach.
By Cynthia E. Griffin/Our Weekly

The educational approach at City Honors High School in Inglewood is nothing really radical. There are no exceptionally sophisticated computer programs training students. There are no thousands of extra dollars paid to tutors, coaches and other academic boosters. There is no bottomless pool of veteran teachers with decades of experience under their proverbial belts helping lead the charge. And physically, a look at the campus brings to mind the moniker “bungalow city.” Yet, despite all these seemingly simple parameters, the recently released results of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), showed that African American Students at City Honors outperformed their counterparts in four local school districts (Compton, Centinela Union Valley, Culver City and Los Angeles) and kept pace with students at one other (Beverly Hills).

Editorial/Black Voice News

Another report on education in California has been released by the Department of Education and once again African American and Latino students are below the statewide average. The High School Exit Exam results show all students passed at a 90.2% rate in the 12th grade while Blacks passed at an 80.1% and Latinos at 85.8%. Whites and Asians in the same grade passed at 95.8% and 95.5% respectfully. In the 10th grade Black students passed at a dismal 46.3% and Latinos scored at 52.4% well below 65.1% for all students in the 10th grade. Usually the middle class Black student does better than the lower economic White student but in this report White students did better.

The learning-disabled shouldn’t have to achieve the same scores as everyone else to pass the state exit exam.
Opinion by Dennis Bass/Los Angeles Times

George Skelton provides a well-thought-out report of the challenges facing teachers and special education students in his Sept. 15 column, "Testing of special ed students should be re-examined." As a high school special education teacher, I have a deep concern for my students who take the California high school exit examination. I am not sure that another government study is in order or another piece of legislation needs to be passed to address this issue and open wider doors for our special-needs students to complete high school. I have kept track of my students for the last few years and noted their scores on the exit exam with more than a little consternation.

Ruling could strain migrant students.
By Stephen Wall/Contra Costa Times

The days of heavily subsidized tuition for thousands of California college students who are illegal immigrants could be coming to an end. A state appellate court has declared unconstitutional a 2001 law that allows illegal immigrants to pay the same college tuition fees as legal residents and U.S. citizens. The unanimous ruling by the three-justice panel was issued Monday. It could force many undocumented students at the state’s public colleges and universities to drop out of school because they can’t afford to pay higher tuition rates. "I’m struggling to pay for everything as it is," said Hector Gonzalez, a 23-year-old Cal Poly Pomona student who entered the country illegally with his parents when he was 3.

New York Times

BAY MINETTE, Ala. — The school system in coastal Baldwin County — 60 miles by 25 miles of Alabama farmland framed on two sides by waterfront towns — was short on teachers, especially in courses such as math and science. So short, in fact, that district officials went around the world last year, with expenses paid by a teacher recruiting firm, and brought back Michel Olalo of Manila and 11 other Filipinos to teach along the shores of the Gulf Coast and Mobile Bay and in the communities in between. That raised some eyebrows in Baldwin County, where nine out of 10 people are white, just one in 50 is foreign-born and, as the county’s teacher recruiter Tom Sisk noted recently, ‘’Many of our children will never travel outside the United States.'’

By Alyson Klein/Ed Week

John McCain and Barack Obama said last week that they would both support efforts to bolster community service if they win the White House. But they disagreed on just how much of a role the federal government should have in encouraging citizens—including young people—to get involved. Speaking at a forum on the topic at Columbia University, Sen. McCain said that while the government can encourage community service, some of the best community work is done by non-profit organizations. “The essence of volunteerism starts at the grassroots level, does not start necessarily at the federal-government level,” the Arizona Republican said.

Also Noted for Thursday, September 18, 2008:

The company, which has succeeded on much smaller campuses, will try to transform a large, deeply troubled school by raising scores, increasing safety and graduating more students.
By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Locke High School opened last week under new management, and things look strikingly different. Students are wearing uniforms. Private security guards have joined staff security aides to keep students on the Watts campus — and gang members out. Lunch is courtesy of a private caterer. Freshly planted olive and pepper trees line the quad. Even the teachers are mostly new. For the first time in the Los Angeles Unified School District, a traditional school is being run by an outside organization, Green Dot Public Schools. The move is a seminal experiment in whether a charter operator can transform a large, troubled urban school, whether Green Dot can replicate what it has done in small schools nearby — that is, raise scores, increase safety and graduate more students.

Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers union have reached an impasse in their latest contract talks and are calling in an outside mediator, after the district declined to offer a salary increase, district and union officials said Wednesday. Once a state board officially confirms that an impasse exists, a mediator will be called in by October to help the talks. District officials said United Teachers Los Angeles wants a 6 percent raise despite the LAUSD facing $427million in budget cuts. The district noted that a 6 percent raise was given to teachers in the 2006-07 school year. Superintendent David Brewer III said he is glad to see the talks move to mediation.

Blog by Caroline Grannan/San Francisco Examiner

A new study of the five Bay Area KIPP schools by the respected research firm SRI International confirms what we already knew: KIPP students overall perform well academically, usually outperforming their peers in other schools. But it also confirms what those who look beyond the test scores have found: Those KIPP (two in San Francisco, one in Oakland, one in San Jose, one in San Leandro) schools suffer from very high student attrition. Sixty percent of the students who enter the Bay Area KIPP schools in fifth grade leave before the end of eighth grade (page ix of the study, repeated in several places throughout).

Blog by John Fensterwald/San Jose Mercury News

KIPP charter schools in the Bay Area don’t “cream” students from the surrounding neighborhoods, and most significantly outperform surrounding district schools on the state’s standardized tests. KIPP schools aren’t immune from the problems facing urban districts, including student attrition and teacher turnover, but school districts can learn from their achievements. That’s the gist of a three-year study , commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation, of the much heralded and sometimes unfairly criticized charter middle schools. Based in San Francisco, KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) now has 50 schools nationwide, including two in San Francisco and schools in West Oakland, San Lorenzo and in KIPP Heartwood in the Alum Rock area of San Jose, a school I have written about since it opened in 2004.