A weekly edition summarizing themes in education news provided by
UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.

Themes in the News for the week of January 4-8, 2010

Hoping to qualify the state to receive federal ‘Race to the Top’ funds, California lawmakers passed legislation designed to empower parents and lead to meaningful school reforms. On Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to sign the bills into law. The new laws allow parents of children in the state's 1,000 lowest-scoring schools to apply to have their children enrolled in schools in other districts. And they allow parents “to overhaul up to 75 chronically underperforming schools each year by collecting signatures from a majority of parents” (Sacramento Bee). The challenge for the law is whether parents—acting individually and with school and community organizations— can access the resources and clout to press for substantive changes. Or will parents compete among themselves—school-by-school—for the scarce education funds that the state and federal governments make available?

Ben Austin, executive director of Los Angeles based Parent Revolution told the Christian Science Monitor: “This is a groundbreaking and historic new policy. We think this is a 21st century roadmap to transform public education in America … around what’s good for kids, and not for grownups” (Christian Science Monitor). Parent Revolution “has close ties to Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school management organization based in Southern California. Charters are public schools that operate independently of many district rules and are mostly nonunion” (Los Angeles Times).

“Is it a dawning of a new era of parent power?. . . It really depends on how many parents can be organized to take action here, how well informed they can be about their choices and how much pressure they can put on their school boards," according to Stanford Education Professor, Michael Kirst (Sacramento Bee).

The Christian Science Monitor reports, “Some critics question the rush to embrace certain measures – like charter schools and turnaround measures for failing schools – that have little basis in research.” Others note that the new reforms don’t amount to much change from the Bush-era ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ (NCLB). Under NCLB, students in schools with the lowest test scores must be allowed to transfer to a different school within their district. Also, “many districts, such as Sacramento City Unified, have an open-enrollment process that lets parents choose a school for their child outside their neighborhood.” However, one important distinction is that these new bills take “open enrollment” a step further by allowing designated students to transfer to a better school outside their district (Sacramento Bee).

Whether parents are able to move their children into new schools also will depend on rules established by “receiving” school districts. SB X5 4 requires districts to “adopt specific, written standards for acceptance and rejection of applications for enrollment subject to specified conditions and a specified priority scheme for applicants” (Around the Capitol). As Beverly Hills’ recent decision to rescind out of district permits suggests, some districts may be reluctant to accept students from outside their boundaries and hence create standards that lead most open enrollment applicants to be rejected (Los Angeles Times). Further, the California School Boards Association worries that “the bill does not provide enough real protection against “cherry picking,” the process of recruiting and accepting the best students from neighboring districts” (California School Boards Association).

Other skeptics, even if they are well-wishers, raise questions about whether schools (from individual charters to entire districts) can mobilize to accept shifts in student enrollments as students move to different schools across neighborhoods and across school districts. For example, Debbie Look, Director of Legislation with the California State Parent Teacher Association was concerned that funding mechanisms don’t exist to transport students in high-poverty areas to a better school in another district (Sacramento Bee).

Torie England, principal of F.C. Joyce Elementary in North Highlands, says it's tough to get parents engaged in difficult economic times. “Most of her students come from families that struggle with basic necessities. Many are homeless, sleeping in cars or staying with friends. Lots of her students live in single-parent homes with moms working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Other children are in foster care or have parents who don't speak English” (Sacramento Bee).

Jeff Freitas, an advocate for the California Federation of Teachers, said the measures would divide parents and teachers at schools. While some students could transfer to other campuses, Freitas said, "you are leaving students behind with no reform for that school”” (Los Angeles Times).

“We've got to strengthen the quality of all schools rather than allowing parents to search from among fairly mediocre alternatives in a lot of communities,” said UC Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller (Sacramento Bee). According to Fuller, “We're creating the illusion of choice among schools that are collapsing among less and less state support” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Top Stories and Commentary for Friday, January 8, 2010

Giving parents their choice of schools. Making sure teachers are qualified. Forcing bad schools to improve. All are tackled in the huge school reform package signed into law Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and approved with lightning speed by state lawmakers this week, to give California a shot at winning $700 million in the national education competition called Race to the Top. The application deadline is Jan. 19. But to anyone who has spent time in a school over the past decade, such reforms will sound familiar: They have been part of the federal No Child Left Behind Education Act that has strictly governed school accountability since 2001. California's new Race to the Top plan "sounds very similar to No Child Left Behind," said Mike Kirst, education professor emeritus of Stanford University. "What's different is that NCLB relies on top-down enforcement from the state and federal governments," while the new plan requires parent participation to fix low-scoring schools. (more...)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited a Los Angeles middle school Thursday to celebrate legislation that sets the course for future school reforms and improves the state's chances at qualifying for federal money to carry them out. The signing ceremony occurred at Bethune Middle School in Florence, which officials cited as successfully serving the low-income minority students who stand to benefit most from the new laws. The legislation was approved in the state Assembly and Senate earlier this week despite vigorous opposition from statewide teachers unions and other groups. The bills are intended to increase California's eligibility for as much as $700 million in federal Race to the Top grants, which the Obama administration is using to advance favored reforms. (more...)

Higher education leaders say they are delighted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided that restoring funding to colleges and universities should be a top priority in California but expressed skepticism Thursday about the governor’s proposed constitutional amendment that would tie increased higher education funding to privatizing prisons. “The issue has finally come to the fore,” said CSU Channel Islands President Richard Rush. “This is the first time in my memory that a governor has said higher education should be a priority.” In his State of the State address Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said his proposed 2010-11 budget, to be released today, will call for substantial cuts to a variety of state programs but said, “We can no longer afford to cut higher education.” (more...)

Earlier this week, Alyson blogged about the tension between states and districts over Race to the Top participation. The more school districts that sign an MOU agreeing to participate in a state's reform plan, the more points a state gets in the competition. And participating school districts, in return, would enjoy a slice of their state's award. But many districts aren't sure exactly what they're committing to do, and even wonder if it's a binding agreement. Well, the U.S. Department of Education weighed in on this during two technical planning seminars last month, when state teams asked whether local districts can drop out from participating after a state wins a grant. (more...)

One day before the deadline for commitments to Race to the Top, state education officials were again encouraging ambivalent school districts to sign on. The California Teachers Association, for the first time, was explicitly encouraging union locals not to. And that could spell trouble for the state’s application. State officials said they needed signed memorandums of understanding by Friday, so that they could finish the budget for the Race to the Top proposal by Jan. 19, when it’s due in Washington. Nearly 800 superintendents and charter school leaders, in charge of more than 60 percent of state’s students, had indicated they would participate in the program, if California wins a piece of the $4.3 billion competition. But fewer school boards will likely end up voting to participate. (more...)

Change is coming to Ventura County schools, regardless of whether school districts sign a Memorandum of Understanding for the state of California’s Race to the Top application to the federal government for a one-time infusion of $700 million. In bills passed by the Legislature this week, among the changes, districts with failing schools will be required to take aggressive steps to turn their schools around and students enrolled in the state’s worst 1,000 schools would be allowed to transfer to higher-performing schools. But millions of federal dollars to assist with reforms will not be coming to school districts that pass up the opportunity to sign the MOU due to the state today. The state wants to have all the MOUs in today to meet its Jan. 19 deadline to have its application in to the federal government. (more...)

More:

Great teachers aren't born -- they evolve. They must have certain things starting out, of course: a passion for knowledge and a love of working with children, to cite two. But it then takes years of study and practice to master the art of teaching. The recent focus on evaluations as the overriding problem with teacher quality ignores the arc of an educator's career. Yes, honest feedback and assessment is crucial. But if we truly want to have an impact on teaching and learning, more effective evaluations alone aren't enough. Teachers need better training programs, better professional development and additional peer support. As teachers, we want to see our profession strengthened. But that won't happen simply through punitive measures. Here is our framework for positive change. (more...)

Also Noted for Friday, January 8, 2010:

California's formulas for funding schools are labyrinthine, outdated and just plain weird. They have needed a radical makeover for decades, though this year Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unwisely vetoed legislation to begin the process. The most recent victims of this messy situation are students who attend schools in Beverly Hills without living there. The prestigious public school district was glad to have nearly 500 nonresidents attend under its "opportunity" permits when each student brought in annual state funding of more than $6,000. But under California's convoluted formulas, Beverly Hills is likely to become one of the state's 90 or so "basic aid" districts, meaning it will be funded by local property taxes instead of per-pupil dollars. (more...)

Dozens of anxious parents lined up Thursday morning in the hope of enrolling their kindergartners-to-be at a high-performing Santa Clara elementary school. As if they were winning a golden ticket from the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory, lucky parents were handed orange registration cards, giving them hope that their children will be among the 120 kindergartners at Don Callejon School this fall. About 80 parents got the cards Thursday, which allow them to receive a registration packet for Don Callejon, set amidst the exclusive Rivermark neighborhood identified by narrow streets, small cul-de-sacs and upscale town homes. Some parents lined up as early as Wednesday afternoon and slept there. At least one dad was wearing a full-body snow parka; others lugged tents and camping chairs. The registration process began at 8:45 a.m. Thursday. (more...)

School district staffers have offered up a long list of possible cuts to fill a budget gap that could range from $147 million to $203 million. Their ideas include cutbacks that must be negotiated with reluctant labor unions as well as politically toxic ideas such as completely eliminating librarians and vice principals, jettisoning the arts and magnet programs and closing five schools. But if California makes the deepest cuts possible, in the worst way possible, the school district could take every one of those dreaded steps and still wouldn't be able to close the gap. "I don't have any answers right now," said school board member Richard Barrera, who voiced concern about the situation last week. "But we've got to stay patient. These numbers can change." (more...)