Lawmakers Predict “Good News” For Pre-K In California Budget

 

The Los Angeles Times (6/12, Megerian) reports that California Assembly Budget Chairwoman Nancy Skinner (D) predicted “good news” for pre-schools in California’s upcoming budget. The Times says not many details are available yet publicly but Senate leader Darrel Steinberg (D) said, “We’re going to make some good, solid investments in kids, in infrastructure, and in some other key areas.” The Times says “Steinberg originally wanted to provide every California child with preschool, at an annual cost of $1.5 billion,” but “he later pared down his proposal to $378 million to pay for preschool for all 4-year-olds from low-income families.” Gov. Jerry Brown has insisted on “more conservative revenue projections” but has opened “the door for lawmakers to spend more than he originally proposed.”

California Teacher Tenure Ruling Likely To Lead to Challenges In Other States

 

The CBS Evening News (6/11, story 8, 2:00, Pelley) reported that the “battle over teacher tenure is about to go national.” A California judge on Tuesday “declared the system unconstitutional and today the group that paid for that lawsuit in California says it may challenge tenure laws in 12 more states.” CBS (Tracy) added that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu “did not mince words. In his 16-page decision he wrote, ‘The number of grossly ineffective teachers has a direct, real, appreciable, and negative impact on a sick number of California students. The evidence is compelling, indeed it shocks the conscience.’” Treu “said ineffective teachers disproportionately impact low income and minority students and that getting rid of bad teachers is nearly impossible,” and his ruling “eliminates California’s teacher tenure system in which after just 18 months on the job, teachers are given strong job security.”

        USA Today (6/11, Toppo) reports that Treu’s ruling “could send shockwaves” through the nation’s public schools, “opening the door for lawsuits in at least a dozen other states over teacher quality, observers on both sides of the fight said.” The decision, if upheld, “also could clear the way for lawsuits about issues that are rarely fought in courts.” The case “used a novel approach, borrowing civil-rights strategies from unions and school advocates, who have used lawsuits to fight to equalize school funding between rich and poor districts.”

        The New York Times (6/12, Medina, Subscription Publication) also reports that the ruling “is likely to lead to a flood of copycat lawsuits in other states, shifting the battleground on the issue from the legislatures to the courts. ‘Almost nothing the plaintiffs raised is unique to California,’ said Timothy Daly, the executive director of the New Teacher Project, which has for years pressed for revamping the way teachers are hired and fired, pushing away from tenure rules that give teachers a job for life after only a few years of proving themselves.”

        Analysis: Union Appeals Could Last Years. The Los Angeles Times (6/12, Blume, Ceasar) reports that Treu’s ruling “will undoubtedly spawn a series of appeals that could last years before a final outcome is reached.” The Times suggests that before the “sweeping” ruling means that “any effort to change the laws – or restore them – must now survive court scrutiny.”

        Expert: Ruling Won’t Improve Teacher Quality. Jack Schneider, author and assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, writes in a Los Angeles Times (6/12) column that Treu’s ruling “is certain to set off legal battles across the nation,” and writes that the lawsuit was based on the premise that “if it were easier to fire teachers...classroom educators would be motivated to continue growing over the full arc of their careers,” instead of just in the early years. Schneider calls this logic “deeply flawed,” writing that teachers’ quality does not grow consistently over time “not because they stop caring but because they lack guidance and support.”

        More Commentary. The New York Times (6/12, Board, Subscription Publication) editorializes that the “important” ruling “opens a new chapter in the equal education struggle” and “underscores a shameful problem that has cast a long shadow over the lives of children, not just in California but in the rest of the country as well.” Treu “left it up to the state lawmakers to create new statutes that comport with the state Constitution,” and lawmakers are “almost certain to face heavy pressure from the teachers union, who will try to discredit this ruling,” but “unions can either work to change the anachronistic policies cited by the court or they will have change thrust upon them.”

        In an op-ed for the Washington Post (6/12), Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of District of Columbia public schools and founder and chief executive of StudentsFirst, writes that the ruling is “a huge win for California educators and the teaching profession as a whole,” as it says that “teachers should be rewarded for how well they serve children.” Rhee concludes that the ruling “ought to set off a national discussion about how to elevate teachers and treat educators like the professionals they are.”

California School Administrators Object To Draft Bill That Caps Emergency Reserves

 

The Sacramento (CA) Bee (6/11) reports in its “Capitol Alert” blog that school officials objected to “last-minute budget language” in a draft bill “that would cap the amount of money California school districts may set aside for economic uncertainties,” limiting the amount “to two or three times the minimum required.” The Bee says the reserve limits are considered “a potential victory for public employee unions resistant to tying money up in reserves,” but administrators consider the limits “‘fiscally irresponsible’ and inconsistent with principles of local control.” The administrators backed a letter send to Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) Administration and California lawmakers to object to the draft bill language and its last-minute appearance.

Gates Foundation Urges Delay On “High-Stakes” Common Core Decisions

 

The New York Times (6/11, Rich, Subscription Publication) reports that The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a “strong backer” of the Common Core standards, “has called for a two-year moratorium on states or school districts making any high-stakes decisions based on tests aligned to the new standards.” While the standards were originally adopted by most states and backed by the Administration, they have now encountered serious opposition from teachers unions and parent groups.

        The Washington Post (6/11, Layton) reports that the Gates Foundation said that states and districts “should hold off from using new standardized tests aligned to the Common Core to evaluate teachers, promote students and make other high-stakes decisions.” According to a statement from the foundation’s Vicki Phillips, “teachers and students need more time to adjust to the standards and the new tests.”

        Andrew Ujifusa writes at the Education Week (6/11) “State EdWatch” blog that Phillips said that “while the common core is having a very positive impact on education, that doesn’t mean teachers and schools shouldn’t be given more time to adjust.”

        TIME (6/11) also covers this story, noting that the National Education Association approved of the Gates Foundation’s position. The Washington Post (6/11, Strauss) “Answer Sheet” blog also covers this story.

New Study Looks At Effect Of Decorated Walls On Kindergarten Education

 

The New York Times (6/10, Hoffman) reports a new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has shown that kindergartners in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, had gazes that wandered off task more, and had lower test scores than kindergartners taught in a more austere classroom environment. The researchers emphasized that educators should establish standards when decorating classrooms, but not to totally eliminate any decorations.

How Teachers Can Combat Math Anxiety

The Education Week (6/11, Heitin) carries an article telling teachers what they can do to “combat math anxiety.” The article notes three things that can be done based on a research article: focusing math teacher training on pedagogy rather than on concepts, stop giving timed math tests, and being careful when consoling students who are struggling.

California Court Strikes Down Teachers’ Job Protections As Unconstitutional

 

NBC Nightly News (6/10, story 6, 0:30, Williams) reported, “A closely watched case in the world of education,” resulted in a ruling “that California’s tenure protection for public schoolteachers are unconstitutional.” NBC said, “A lot of people will be watching this outcome.”

        USA Today (6/11, Toppo) reports the two largest teachers unions “vowed to challenge” the decision. USA Today notes the case “could reverberate across” the country as “other states look to overhaul their systems for hiring, paying and retaining teachers.” The article notes that National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel called the ruling “deeply flawed,” and quotes him saying, “Today’s ruling would make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in our classrooms and ignores all research that shows experience is a key factor in effective teaching.” Noting that Education Secretary Arne Duncan took the opposite position on the ruling, USA Today reports that “he said he hoped the ruling would help ‘build a new framework for the teaching profession that protects students’ rights to equal educational opportunities while providing teachers the support, respect and rewarding careers they deserve.’”

        According to the Los Angeles Times (6/11, Ceasar, Blume), the unions “denounced” the preliminary ruling by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Rolf Treu as “a misguided attack on teachers and students.” Treu ruled “that it was too easy for teachers to gain strong job protections and too difficult to dismiss” poor performing instructors. The Times reports that Duncan “called the ruling a nationwide ‘mandate’ to change similar ‘laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students.’”

        The Washington Times (6/11, Richardson) reports the lawsuit was “filed by nine public school students and backed by...Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Welch” against the state and the California Teachers Association.

        The Washington Post (6/11, Layton) reports the ruling in Vergara v. California “struck down three state laws,” including statutes that “grant tenure to teachers after two years, require layoffs by seniority, and call or a complex and lengthy process before a teacher can be fired.” True held that the laws “created unequal conditions...and deprive poor children of the best teachers.”

        In its coverage, the AP (6/10) reports that Duncan “hailed the judge’s ruling as a chance for schools everywhere to open a conversation on equal opportunity in education,” and concludes by quoting him saying, “The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students. Today’s court decision is a mandate to fix these problems.”

        Politico (6/10, Simon) reports that Duncan “signaled his support for the ongoing campaign to reform hiring and firing laws,” noting that laws make it difficult to identify the top teachers and “match them with our neediest students.” Duncan “called the ruling ‘a mandate to fix these problems.’” Politico quotes Van Roekel saying, “Let’s be clear. This lawsuit was never about helping students, but is yet another attempt by millionaires and corporate special interests to undermine the teaching profession and push their own ideological agenda on public schools and students while working to privatize public education.”

        The New York Times (6/11, Medina, Subscription Publication) reports the president of the California Federation of Teachers, Joshua Pechthalt, said the judge “fell victim to the anti-union, anti-teacher rhetoric” and the plaintiff’s lawyers “set out to scapegoat teachers for the problems that exist in public education.” Pechthalt added, “There are real problems in our schools, but this decision in no way helps us move the ball forward.” The Times notes that the case is expected to “generate dozens more like it” across the country. The Times reports that Duncan “enthusiastically endorsed” the ruling, and “issued a statement saying the ruling could help millions of students who are hurt by existing teacher tenure laws.” The piece quotes Duncan saying, “My hope is that today’s decision moves from the courtroom toward a collaborative process in California that is fair, thoughtful, practical and swift. Every state, every school district needs to have that kind of conversation.”

        The Wall Street Journal (6/11, Phillips, Subscription Publication) reports the teachers’ unions indicated they plan to appeal the ruling. California Teachers Association spokesman Frank Wells expressed confidence in the unions’ ability to “prevail on appeal.” Wells said, “We don’t believe the court is the place to be making these kinds of policy decisions.”

        Other media outlets covering this story include the Sacramento (CA) Bee (6/10), the San Francisco Chronicle (6/11), theChristian Science Monitor (6/11), the Education Week (6/11) “TeacherBeat” blog, PBS’ Newshour With Jim Lehrer (6/11), CNN(6/11, Martinez, Cnn), the Washington Examiner (6/11), the NPR (6/11, Westervelt) “NprEd” blog, and US News & World Report(6/10).

        New York Activists Energized By California Ruling. The New York Post (6/11) reports that parents in New York were “scrambling to overturn New York’s” tenure laws on Tuesday after the “stunning” ruling. The article quotes Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union saying, “The California ruling sets a precedent. We want to file the same lawsuit here in New York. For too long, children have been condemned to schools with low-performing teachers protected by the teachers union.”

        WSJournal: Case Provides Disadvantaged Students Hope Of Judicial Protection of Rights. The Wall Street Journal (6/11, Subscription Publication) editorializes that Treu made the correct ruling and argues that the case provides disadvantaged students an opportunity to seek protection of their rights from the judicial system.

Common Core Sees Numerous Setbacks

 

NPR (6/10, Kamenetz) reports in its “NprEd” blog on the recent “bunch of front-page news on the Common Core,” noting that opinions of the standards are “trending toward the heated.” The piece describes the bills signed in South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Indiana pulling those states out of the Common Core, noting that those states “now face spending tens of millions of dollars to create new standards, adopt new materials to go with them and retrain teachers.” The piece explores the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s support for the standards, and the influence of the “unique system of highly localized control of public schools” in the US. The article notes that many Common Core critics are troubled by “the close association between the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration.”

Projects Aim To Collect Best Common Core Lessons

 

NPR (6/5, Kamenetz) reports in its “NprEd” blog that “reading and digesting” the Common Core Standards and “determining what lessons best fulfill them is a big, big job” for educators, and describes the controversy surrounding reports on “a few pieces of math homework that weren’t, frankly, particularly high quality, or necessarily well-aligned.” The piece contrasts these reports with projects such as EQUIP (Educators Evaluating Quality Instructional Products), which is an effort “to independently review and rate individual high-quality Core-aligned lessons and make them easier to find.”

Bill Would Make Kindergarten Mandatory In California

 

The Pleasanton (CA) Weekly (6/7, Aguilar) reports the California State Assembly approved a bill that would require children to attend kindergarten before they enter first grade, although the bill doesn’t require children to attend kindergarten when they’re five. Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D), a sponsor, said the bill was inspired in part by “the new Common Core State Standards,” which “have academic expectations for kindergarten students.” Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D), another sponsor, said the state is designing much of its educational policy “around the assumption that California’s children will attend kindergarten.”

Bill Gates Defends Foundation’s Role In Common Core

 

Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post (6/8) details her March interview with Bill Gates about “his role is to fund the research and development of new tools, such as the Common Core.” Layton claims that “Gates grew irritated in the interview when the political backlash against the standards was mentioned.” During the “sometimes tense” interview, Gates “defend[ed] the Gates Foundation’s pervasive presence in education and its support of the Common Core,” Layton notes.

Parents Mobilize To Curb Data Mining Of Children

 

Politico (6/8, Simon) reports in an article of more than 3,000 words that parents “from across the political spectrum have mobilized into an unexpected political force in recent months to fight the data mining of their children,” and have “catapulted student privacy – an issue that was barely on anyone’s radar last spring – to prominence in statehouses from New York to Florida to Wyoming.” A Politico review of student privacy issues found “the parent privacy lobby gaining momentum – and catching big-data advocates off guard.” The movement, initially dismissed “as a fringe campaign,” has “attracted powerful allies on both the left and right,” including the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Legislative Exchange Council. The movement is targeting “huge state databases being built to track children for more than two decades, from as early as infancy through the start of their careers.” These databases are being promoted by the Obama Administration, Politico notes.

ACT Announces Changes To Scoring

 

The Washington Post (6/6, Anderson) reports that ACT announced on Thursday that students “will face a more complex task if they choose to write an essay and will receive new scores for English language arts and the combined fields of science and mathematics.” The article reports that these and other changes “show the ACT is evolving as the rival SAT admissions test undergoes a major redesign that will debut in early 2016.”

Reports Show California On Top In Reducing Detrimental Disciplinary Policies

 

EdSource Today (6/6, Frey) reports that report released by The Council of State Governments Justice Center this week, “calls on school districts across the nations to hold themselves accountable for a positive school climate.” The report found that suspensions and expulsions of students are “disproportionately” falling on students who are nonwhite, disabled, and who identify as lesbian, gay and bisexual or transgender. California’s recent efforts make it a state “at the top of the list” in promoting a healthy school climate according to the director of the Justice Center. A second report by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies showed that 500 of 745 state school districts reduced the number of out of school suspensions for the last two school years. The Justice Center report contains “60 recommendations, including 12 key recommendations regarding conditions for learning, behavioral interventions, school-police partnerships, and courts and juvenile justice.”

Call For Greater Focus On Computers In STEM Education

 

Evan Charles, the founder of Launch Academy, writes in an op-ed in US News & World Report, “Focusing on STEM is a smart investment based on pretty solid evidence,” but adds that the thrust of the focus may be misplaced. Charles cites research predicting most future STEM jobs will be in computing and suggests we should invest in computer education, noting that computer skills are becoming “essential” even in non-STEM areas. He argues that computer literacy should be a core component of middle and high school education, but focuses on coding camps as a solution because they “address the problem more quickly and directly than changes to our overall education can or will.”

Over-Decorated Classrooms May Impede Learning

 

The Seattle Times (6/3, Long) reported that a new research paper from Carnegie Mellon University “suggests that, at least for young children, an over-decorated classroom can actually make it harder to learn.” According to the paper, “children in highly-decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning gains than when the decorations were removed.”

Researchers Point To Links Between Handwriting, Cognitive Development

 

The New York Times (6/3, Konnikova, Subscription Publication) reports that as schools across the country abandon handwriting instruction beyond the early grades, in favor of keyboarding skills emphasized by the Common Core Standards, some researchers argue that “it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past,” citing new research touting “links between handwriting and broader educational development.” The Times reports that studies indicate that students “learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand” and “remain better able to generate ideas and retain information.”

Teacher Questions The Effects Of Value Added Model On Special Education

 

The Idaho Press Tribune (6/3, Cavener) reports that the Value Added Model being discussed by the Idaho Governor’s Education Task Force may cause special education teachers to flee “away from the students who need the most talented instructors.” The author questions “will teachers be eager” to teach a student population of low performing students when their pay is tied to their performance under the value added plan? The author also worries that the new plan may cause teachers to leave the special education area in favor of regular education jobs where the likelihood they earn the possible $20,000 bonus under the Value Added Model is more likely.

California Senate Passes Modified Preschool Bill

 

The Los Angeles Times (5/30, Mcgreevy) reports that a bill to “expand publicly funded preschool programs to tens of thousands of 4-year-olds from low-income families” cleared the California state Senate on Thursday “despite Republican lawmakers’ concerns that the change would strain the state budget.” The article reports that sponsor Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D) “said the status quo puts low-income children at a disadvantage,” but notes that Senate Republican leader Robert Huff argued that “there are other, higher priorities in education funding.”

        The AP (5/29, Thompson) reports that the bill passed by the Senate “represents a proposal that is far less than what its author had originally intended,” noting that Steinberg “modified his original $1 billion-plus proposal for universal preschool, which would have made the program available to all California children.” Reuters (5/30, Chaussee) also covers this story.

California Superintendent Of Public Instruction Race A “Proxy War Between Big Labor And Big Donors”

 

In an over 2,000-word article, EdSource Today (5/30, Fensterwald) reported that the race for California superintendent of public instruction has become “an expensive proxy war between big labor and big donors” due to the differences in the views of the top two candidates, Tom Torlakson and Marshall Tuck, on charter schools, teachers unions, and education reform. Still, both support the state’s new school financing system, the Local Control Funding Formula, as well as the Common Core State Standards.