San Diego Unified has spelled out new guidelines on school fees, 10News reports. We also wrote about this issue a few weeks ago, as parents raised concerns that schools were crossing the legal line when hitting them up for art supplies, uniforms and other costs.
You can read the new rules for yourself here, but here it is in a nutshell:
The California Constitution mandates that public education be provided to students free of charge, unless a charge is specifically authorized by law for a particular program or activity ... whether curricular or extracurricular, and regardless of whether credit is awarded for the educational activity. The right of free access also prohibits mandated purchases of materials, supplies, equipment or uniforms associated with the activity, as well as the payment of security deposits for access, participation, materials or equipment
Finally, a process that allows for a waiver process for an otherwise mandatory fee, charge or deposit does not render it constitutionally permissible.
The guidelines go on to lay out exceptions to the rules, including charging kids for loaned books or supplies that they fail to return, fees for parking vehicles on school grounds and school camp programs.
Friday, November 20 -- 12:13 pm
The almighty dollar strikes again in your morning newsblitz! It ain't pretty out there:
We blog on two clashing views on what it takes to do "zero-based budgeting" -- one way that San Diego Unified wants to revamp its financial planning -- and how the school board is nudging labor unions to look at ways to save money on health and welfare benefits.
The Union-Tribune does a Q & A with embattled Southwestern College President Raj Chopra. "I am being penalized for doing what the public expects a good public officer to do," he tells Tanya Sierra. In more controversial college news, there's a swirl of speculation over who will fill the spot after San Diego State's athletic director resigned, the Union-Tribune reports.
The University of California just hiked tuition by 32 percent, despite a storm of protests statewide. Here's the deets from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee, the Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
California Capitol Network reports that community college enrollment has jumped. (Via KPBS.)
Gov. Schwarzenegger is being asked to roll back funding for an after-school initiative that ties up more than $500 million annually -- an idea that he vetoed last year, the Associated Press reports.
Everyone's trying to find ways to save money: The Sacramento Bee writes that two elementary schools will close in a nearby school district. The Record reports that Lodi schools are ending summer school and requiring kids who fall behind to do work online instead. And things are so bad in Chico that they're openly talking about being taken over by the state. Maybe everyone can just take a lot of money out of this bank in a Sacramento high school?
Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation is spending millions on the question: What makes a good teacher a good teacher? The New York Times explains how they're looking for the answer.
The Christian Science Monitor writes about how the Obama Administration wants to make better preschools for disadvantaged kids, how they'd pay for it and what the skeptics say.
The feds are getting a lot of complaints about the rules tied to their school innovation grants, which critics say could make foundations the gatekeepers for crucial school dollars, Education Week writes.
And finally, a piece of positive news in the midst of all this dour budget talk: Education Week reports that more children worldwide are in school and fewer are dying, two decades after the United Nations launched a treaty on children's rights.
Friday, November 20 -- 8:16 am
Faced with a colossal deficit, the school board is nudging labor unions at San Diego Unified to find ways to save money on health and welfare benefits.
The unions have a shared committee that handles benefits, which recommended earlier this week that no changes be made to health or welfare benefits for this school year. School Board President Shelia Jackson and Vice President Richard Barrera responded yesterday:
It is becoming clear, however, that in the current economic environment, and in the wake of the substantial cuts that have already been made, there are very few, if any, painless options remaining.
For these reasons, and regretfully, through this letter we ask that [the committee] commit to working out the details [for four suggested changes to the benefits plans] and/or other alternatives that result in equal or greater savings in health and welfare benefits costs.
Barrera said changes would need to be negotiated in the next three months. San Diego Unified faces a deficit for next school year that could range from $147 million to $203 million. It hasn't come up with enough cuts to cover that cost -- even if it makes every cut the administration has come up with.
Thursday, November 19 -- 6:05 pm Earlier this week, the San Diego Unified school board decided to go about its budget cuts in a completely different way, building the budget from scratch instead of deciding what to cut from an existing budget loaded with programs and people.
It's called zero-based budgeting. School district staff balked at the idea of doing it by mid-December, the deadline for a financial report on balancing the current school year budget. But the board majority said they wanted it done eventually. The question is whether it can happen quickly enough -- and produce enough savings -- to be a worthwhile step in the middle of coping with the budget crisis.
So what does it take to get to zero? I got an interesting e-mail from Florence Samuels in Santee, who wrote that she worked for the county engineer in the 1970s when it switched to zero-based budgeting. She wrote a manual to help do it:
Once program managers knew exactly what to do and how, plus realizing their excuses no longer were valid, we got the results we needed -- budgets that held people accountable. This also flushed out the fat because it was very difficult to hide money that had nothing to support its expenditure. ... Something is going on and the school board is clueless.
An alternate viewpoint comes from Rick Knott, a former San Diego Unified finance chief and consultant, who sent an analysis to school board member John de Beck. Zero-based budgeting "cannot be used for the entire budget," he wrote. "It works over activities the district has some discretion over."
He also noted that it tended to be time-consuming and couldn't be done quickly. And if other big changes were underway at the same time, "it is highly unlikely the organization can support both at the same time," Knott wrote.
In an e-mail, De Beck wrote that the staffers "looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a 80 mph truck [Tuesday] night" when the idea arose.
"I would go for this if we started it as a plan for 2012! But for now we are mired in our own trap!" he wrote.
Got thoughts on zero-based budgeting? Post your comments here or e-mail me at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org.
Thursday, November 19 -- 1:33 pm The almighty dollar -- or the lack of it -- dominates your school newsblitz today:
The Union-Tribune has a cavalcade of school news today: The paper revisits the tiny classes that San Diego Unified created with stimulus money and looks at why classes are growing elsewhere.
Also in the U-T are stories about a new charter school focused on independent study, complaints at Southwestern College and a rally aimed at reversing budget cuts
San Marcos school trustees are revisiting the idea of a school construction and renovation bond, the North County Times reports.
A columnist opines in the Los Angeles Times that the confusing funding system for California schools is so badly broken that legislators can't even tell how they're shortchanging schools.
The California budget deficit is now expected to balloon to nearly three times what it was estimated to be four months ago, the San Jose Mercury News writes. California Capitol Network reports (via KPBS) on the debate over bills to make California eligible for more school stimulus dollars and fears of more budget cuts. The Merc reports that the legislature will reconvene in December to try to get a slice of those dollars. The Union-Tribune editorializes in favor of going for it -- against the wishes of teachers unions.
Also in the Merc: A popular custodian put on leave because of concerns about him recruiting students as models will switch schools but stay with his San Jose-area school district.
San Juan Unified is keeping a policy that requires parental consent for students to leave campus for confidential medical care -- even though the school district could lose state funding by keeping it, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Also in the Bee: Another Sacramento-area school district voted to cut all sports programs and eliminate all library staff and counselors to balance its budget -- though a district staffer cautioned that the cuts are "just on paper."
In the San Francisco Chronicle: Fee hikes for the University of California system are spurring protests in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and some students have been arrested.
The Washington Post questions how schools can tell if their students are really making progress if students switched to a different test.
Eduwonk writes that the small amounts up for grabs under Race to the Top, a competition for more school stimulus money, have diminished some of the enthusiasm in smaller states.
The Wall Street Journal gives a rundown of the clash between D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and union leader Randi Weingarten over the question of teacher tenure.
Thursday, November 19 -- 3:04 pm San Diego Unified still has trouble tracking the dollars that are transferred to and from its student government groups, outside auditors found. Last year, the same group warned that while they found no fraud, failing to keep proper books could "provide an opportunity for irregularities that might go undetected." The school district plans to train staff on how to handle the money properly this year.
The auditors also found that the school district hasn't always used purchase orders when buying goods or services, which raises the risk that San Diego Unified might order something twice or order something that wasn't allowed. Staffers responded again that they were fixing the problem.
Other problems were fixed this year: Auditors found that overpayments for employees, a persistent problem in past years, had been addressed by making sure that the human resources and payroll departments communicated with each other when employees left or took leaves.
Thursday, November 19 -- 7:57 am I spent last night tweeting the school board meeting and boy, is my beak tired. You can catch up on all the gritty details here. Now for your morning newsblitz:
We blog about another objection to the cuts that an internal team has scrounged up for San Diego Unified: Auditors say a recommendation to cut "non-financial auditors" is just plain impossible because they don't exist. They also argue that cutting the fraud hotline doesn't make sense because it has recovered more money than it costs. (Want an example? 10News reported on this employee who was rooted out by the anti-fraud team.)
We also blog about how the two Gompers charter schools are seeking to become one -- and how it could impact their status under No Child Left Behind.
San Diego State is urging local teens to apply to the college, despite new rules that could make it harder for them to get in than before, the Union-Tribune reports.
10News explains what the heck San Diego Unified means by "zero-based budgeting" and why they want it.
The San Diego Daily Transcript reports that La Jolla Country Day got its first campus makeover in 40 years.
The California Teachers Association is deciding whether or not to go after two ballot initiatives it has filed which would extract money for schools from big businesses, the Sacramento Bee writes.
In Los Angeles, the teachers union is at odds with the school district over the ideas of layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs, the Daily News reports. Its mantra? Cut bureaucracy first.
Public School Insights blogs that we should beware of the conventional wisdom on schools -- and scolds a journalist for being "schnookered" by it.
The Gates Foundation is doling out some serious cash to school districts that study and enhance teacher effectiveness, including Pittsburgh, Memphis and Hillsborough County in Florida.
In Education Week, historian Diane Ravitch opines that the Obama Administration is using the stimulus money to bribe school systems to pursue untested remedies, and questions the gains of charter schools.
And Jay Mathews at the Washington Post asks: What if some schools just can't be saved?
Wednesday, November 18 -- 7:55 am Auditors say there's one small problem with the idea of San Diego Unified saving money by cutting auditors who look at issues other than finances: It doesn’t have any.
Eliminating those employees was one recommendation from the BRACE Team, which scrubbed the school district budget for savings that will impact the fewest number of children possible. It also recommended ending the fraud hotline, which allows anonymous callers to report financial waste and abuse. Cuts to the audits and investigations department would save the district $448,000, according to the report.
But Andrea Niehaus, who oversees internal audits and investigations, said the department doesn't have any auditors who handle non-financial issues. She also questioned how financially sound it was to eliminate the hotline, which she estimated costs just $11,000 a year. It has helped the district terminate more than a dozen employees (including this woman) and recoup roughly $4 million over the past two and a half years, Niehaus said.
I phoned Phil Stover, who headed up BRACE, to ask about her complaint. Stover insisted that the school district has several auditors who don't focus on financial issues. His proposal calls to cut two of them and 1.7 clerical workers. I called back Niehaus. She reiterated that no, she didn't have any "non-financial auditors," as the report refers to them, and added that she has no clerical staff at all.
Huh. Niehaus isn't the only one to question the options that BRACE has put together. Parents of gifted children are riled about the idea of shutting down the central offices that administer programs for the gifted and talented, even though schools would still have their own programs.
The school board will go over the BRACE report tonight. Expect fireworks.
Tuesday, November 17 -- 3:52 pm
First there was Gompers Charter Middle School, widely praised as safer and more scholarly since it became a charter school. Then there was Gompers Preparatory Academy, a high school for Gompers.
Now Gompers wants to consolidate the two schools into one and shut down the middle school, making a single school for grades 6 to 12.
Confused? Principal Vince Riveroll says the move is meant to simplify bookkeeping and keep the high school name intact. But doing so would also dodge a negative label under No Child Left Behind, raising questions about academic accountability for the charter school.
Gompers has fallen short of testing targets for several years. The school has been widely recognized for bettering the school climate and its scores have improved over time, but not enough to meet the state goals, which skyrocket dramatically higher every year.
If it continues to fall short, it could be forced to restructure. That's the same process under No Child Left Behind that led Gompers to become a charter school in the first place.
The end result of closing the middle school and expanding the new one would be a single school that would not bear the same label, turning back the clock on the testing targets. A similar switch happened years ago when Mann Middle split into three schools, two of which got a blank slate under the federal law. But Riveroll said the merger wasn't designed avoid No Child Left Behind's penalties.
"It was designed for what parents wanted -- a continuation of success," he said. "That's what this school was created for. We're going to keep doing what this charter set out to do -- to change and save the lives of our students."
Starting the new high school instead of expanding the middle school had other advantages: New charters can get state funding, while expanding a school doesn't get the same support. And Riveroll said parents wanted a new school with a new name to signify that it was going beyond what the kids had learned in middle school. Board members raised the idea of merging the schools after Gompers Preparatory Academy was already approved last spring, Riveroll said.
The San Diego Unified board would have to approve the expansion of Gompers Preparatory Academy to include middle school grades. Riveroll said that if the school board or the state deemed it appropriate, the merged school could keep the same code and the same record under No Child Left Behind.
Tuesday, November 17 -- 3:29 pm
I'm lamenting the fact that every week isn't the anniversary of a treasured childhood show like Sesame Street. It really cuts down on my chances to incorporate YouTube into Bright and Early. Or does it? Now for your newsblitz:
We blog that an internal team at San Diego Unified is recommending a slew of cuts, including closing departments for community relations, curriculum, gifted and talented education and race relations. They also want to end testing other than the tests required under No Child Left Behind. Parents of gifted students are already up in arms about the idea.
A teacher at the San Diego High School of International Studies won $25,000 from a foundation in what has been dubbed "the Oscars of Teaching." Here's the deets from the Union-Tribune and KPBS.
KPBS also reports that students at San Diego State staged their second rally in two weeks. They're protesting fees and cutbacks at the college.
Parents in Vista aren't happy about the idea of merging an elementary and a middle school to save money. One sign held by an Olive Elementary parent read "Olive = good; merge=bad."
The Los Angeles mayor will square off against teachers backed by the union in their bids to take over four campuses in Los Angeles Unified, the Times reports. The superintendent gets to choose who wins.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that if legislators don't pick up the pace in Sacramento to make some changes that the feds want, California isn't likely to get any of the second, competitive round of school stimulus money.
Educated Guess blogs on whether the University of California requirements, known as a through g, should be the default curriculum for schools. They already are in San Jose.
The Ventura County Star questions whether gifted kids will get left behind in budget cuts.
Education Week reports that the feds are going to start asking school districts to report salaries at the school level -- something that could show inequities in the levels of teacher experience at different schools. And it is perhaps a signal that the Obama Administration will require schools to equalize how teachers are divvied up.
Also in Education Week: Test scores for students with disabilities have risen in recent years, according to a new study.
In New York, City Journal says that we're screwing up math education. A wonky read but worthwhile.
USA Today reports that tainted food isn't pulled from the pipeline for school lunches and schools are left in the dark about safety warnings.
Blogger Claus von Zastrow comes back to the Maryland school that so impressed him and argues that the conventional wisdom about how to fix schools would actually destroy it. The school's secret? Collaboration among teachers.
Tuesday, November 17 -- 7:41 am
Parents of gifted and talented children are already raising the alarm about one of the proposed cuts listed by the BRACE team, an internal group that scrubbed the San Diego Unified budget for savings.
BRACE raised the idea of eliminating the central offices that administer programs for gifted kids. Phil Stover, who headed the effort, said that individual schools would still get funding for gifted and talented programs, but the department itself would disappear, absorbed by other departments or offices. Shutting it down would save the school district $1.2 million and cut the equivalent of 11 jobs.
Katie Anderson, a parent who chairs a school district committee on gifted education, said that would be impossible to do. She wrote in an e-mail:
The [Gifted and Talented] Dept. has been so decimated over the last several years that it is down to being almost entirely composed of psychologists who do the identification testing (to tell whether children are gifted). There are 2 resource teachers, one of whom administers one of the AP grants and 3 clerical people. The resource teachers are experts in GATE education strategies and scramble to provide the sites the support they so desperately need.
Another parent forwarded me a mass e-mail to parents begging them to show up in force to the budget workshop tomorrow night. It reads:
Because the department has become so small, it has been reduced to the identification of students and rudimentary support to the sites, but if we stop identifying new students we are essentially phasing the program out; as well as leaving sites without guidance of how to administer the program. The program will cease to be.
Monday, November 16 -- 6:17 pm
Eliminate the school district program on preventing dropouts. Shut down departments that administer programs for gifted and talented students, curriculum, community relations, race relations and adult education. And stop giving students tests that aren't required under No Child Left Behind.
Those are some of the options that an internal team has scrounged up to save money in San Diego Unified, which faces a deficit for next school year that could range from $147 million to $203 million. The group, called Budget Reduction Alternatives to Conserve Education -- or BRACE -- was led by Phil Stover, a longtime consultant who was recently tapped as the group's interim chief special projects officer.
Brace's goals were to find cuts that would impact as few students as possible, preferably by cutting programs that could be absorbed or replicated by other departments. Their recommendations included $10 million in voluntary cuts that the departments offered up themselves and roughly $24 million more in cuts that wouldn't be so voluntary. Those options included:
Phasing out the Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program, which helps support and mentor new teachers. Estimated savings: $1.1 million.
Eliminating tests that are not required by the state under No Child Left Behind. The tests have been unpopular with some teachers, but they also give teachers quicker feedback than the state tests. Estimated savings: $1.1 million.
Closing or consolidating departments in the central office, such as central offices for the gifted and talented education department, the race and human relations department, the curriculum and instructional support department, the ombudsperson, adult education and community relations. Stover said many of the programs they ran, such as the dropout prevention program, could be picked up by other departments.Estimated savings: Over $6 million.
Cutting back on contracts in a slew of offices and departments. (I didn't add it all up, but there are quite a few different offices slated to pare back.)
Cutting the hours worked by hourly employees by 25 percent, except for summer school employees. Estimated savings: $2.7 million.
Eliminating auditors who look at issues other than finances and the Fraud Hotline. Estimated savings: $448,000.
They also noticed some ongoing problems in how San Diego Unified tracks financial data. The team found that some jobs that were supposed to be cut were still on the books. Phone bills for land lines were "very high," though the report didn't specify just how high. And dollars are being transferred in and out of accounts with the knowledge or consent of the managers who oversee each department.
You can check out the full list of potential cuts and a ton of backup information here. The school board will go over the data tomorrow in an evening budget workshop. Monday, November 16 -- 4:45 pm
Jamie Enochs, a teacher at the San Diego High School of International Studies, won $25,000 today from the Milken Family Foundation, which picks teachers every year based on the recommendation of a state panel. The awards, dubbed the "Oscars of teaching," come as a surprise to the winning teachers. Enochs is one of three California teachers to win the award and the only one in San Diego County this year.
Here's a glowing excerpt from the press release:
Enochs has developed innovative ways to navigate students through the rigors of [International Baccalaureate] curriculum. From this blend of creativity and critical thinking emerged her section on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Enochs created a "character meter" for her students to track Hamlet’s anxiety level during each act. Her artistic skills are no secret, as she decorates her classroom with elaborate charts and dècor she makes herself. She also fashioned pins for her IB English seniors -- bees with large eyes to symbolize "IB"-- to wear for confidence and solidarity during their rigorous IB testing. Almost 100 percent of her seniors went on to pass the California IB English language exam. The worldwide average is 60 percent.
Monday, November 16 -- 12:50 pm
Remember when San Diego Unified realized it had more than $16 million in unanticipated costs and revenues that might not pan out for this school year?
The bad news is that staffers have bumped that number from $16.6 million to $17.6 million. The good news is that the school district has already scrounged up $10.2 million in possible solutions, though a big part of the plan is that $5.6 million will be "absorbed in ending balance." That typically means that an agency will just take the money out of what it would have left in its coffers at the end of the year.
The report says that leaves $7.2 million left to go -- and that's before the school district starts to grapple with the budget cuts for next school year.
This is just one of the details from a lengthy report on the budget that the school board is looking over tomorrow night. I'll have more as I keep going through the numbers.
Monday, November 16 -- 11:52 am
It's better than coffee, I've heard it argued. Launch into your week with the school newsblitz!
Sweetwater school board members will discuss behind closed doors whether Superintendent Jesus Gandara violated his contract by quietly interviewing for a job in Austin, the Union-Tribune reports. If you missed the exacting reporting on this from the Chula Vista Star News, you should check it out.We blog that the long and winding case of a former San Diego County Office of Education employee takes another twist.Also in the UT: University of California students protest upped fees due to the schools' budget crisis. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that some of the increased fees break the universities' own rules.The Los Angeles Times writes about the awkward situation of having two schools on the same campus, one of them a charter, the other a magnet school. Both were once the same Los Angeles Unified school.And Los Angeles Unified is asking employees to take a 12 percent pay cut in the future to offset budget cuts, the Los Angeles Times writes.San Juan Unified schools are debating whether students can leave campus for confidential medical services without parental consent, including abortion, birth control and treatment for sexual assault, the Sacramento Bee reports. The same issue came up here in San Diego two years ago.Education Week zeroes in on peer review: teachers evaluating other teachers. It's existed for a long time but has attracted more and more interest as reformers focus on teacher evaluation.The New York Times reports that teachers are selling their lesson plans online. One professor worries about what that does to the teaching community.I heard this story Friday on the radio and had no idea it was this old. Still a good one, though. NPR delves into how the Cristo Rey Catholic schools make work a mandatory part of the school week.Jay Mathews at the Washington Post says calling kids ""at-promise"" instead of "at-risk" may seem silly, but it might not be a bad idea.Monday, November 16 -- 7:58 am
Armed with a new ruling from a Superior Court judge, a former San Diego County Office of Education employee who claims he was wrongfully terminated will try again to return to work.
It's another wrinkle in the complicated case of Rodger Hartnett, who has sued the County Office, alleging that he was fired for blowing the whistle on conflicts of interest within the public agency. The office counters that he was fired for negligence, insubordination and dishonesty.
A judge ordered in March that Hartnett should be put back to work and given back pay. The office appealed. That appeal was dismissed last month, but the office contended that Hartnett still could not go back to work or receive his past paychecks until the larger case about whether he was wrongly terminated had wound its way through the court.
This week a judge issued another order, denying the attempt by the County Office to hold off enforcing his March order. Hartnett said he planned to report to work on Monday and request his pay. The County Office declined to comment on the ruling.
Friday, November 13 -- 10:22 am I'm not ready to let the Sesame Street anniversary end yet. Are you? I didn’t think so. Now for your newsblitz!
Remember all the fuss about evaluating San Diego Unified principals using test scores? It isn't going to happen after all. We blog that the school district dropped that part of the proposed new evaluation after Superintendent Terry Grier left.KPBS reports that Southwestern College hired an investigator to find out whether professors were inciting students to move outside the "free speech zone" at the college during a protest. The ACLU says the things the investigator reported the professors doing are all well within the definition of free speech.Vista students are raising money to build a school in India, the North County Times writes.The Sacramento Bee explains what the new, somewhat looser than expected rules for Race to the Top, a competition for more school stimulus dollars, might mean for California.
Education Week blogs that the state will need to get big school districts such as San Diego Unified on board to get a better chance at the bucks. And meanwhile, some pundits are questioning whether the feds gave too much ground with the new rules.Schools in San Jose are going solar, the Mercury News reports. They hope to save $12 million in electricity costs over 20 years.The Chico Enterprise Record writes that Chico schools are prodding teachers to take a pay cut.The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin writes about how a student thesis ended up pitting the ACLU against the Bureau of Prisons over the attempted removal of religious books from prison chapel libraries.Young teachers respond to a report on how Generation Y differs in its attitudes on merit pay and tenure than Generation X educators in the Oakland Tribune schools blog.Education Week reports that the Harlem Children's Zone is closing the achievement gap between black and white students. The famed project combines a ton of social services, parenting workshops and health initiatives with a set of rigorous charter schools. The big question is whether the gains can be chalked up to the extra supports, the schools or both -- and how it could be replicated, as Obama has talked up.NPR walks us through some of the kerfuffles over Sesame Street -- or as they put it, "'C' is for Controversy."News for wonks: The New York Times blogs that researchers are challenging a rosy report on New York charter schools, saying that it overestimated their effects. Check out the full report here. Another new study finds that the now unpopular strategy of integrating schools by voluntarily busing students of color into suburban, largely white schools helped close achievement gaps and improve racial attitudes. The study is available here.A D.C. middle school with rare success is worried about Chancellor Michelle Rhee's plan to "turn" their school, the Washington Post reports. Rhee is walking a tightrope between diversifying the school system by "drawing in more white, middle-class families without compromising the interests of its predominantly poor and minority student population."Friday, November 13 -- 7:58 am
Remember the fuss about including school test scores as part of principals' evaluations? It looks like that is now off the table.
This week, the San Diego Unified board approved a plan to keep using the old evaluation for principals this year, before rolling out a new version that doesn't include test scores. That version was piloted by principals last spring, before the school district altered its proposed evaluation to include school performance. That proved controversial with principals, who pushed against it.
Bruce McGirr, director of the principals union, said that after Superintendent Terry Grier announced his departure, the district agreed to drop the added criteria that included test scores. Schools still have improved scores as part of their goals, but boosting test performance is not tied to an individual person. McGirr wrote:
The only thing that might change [our] position on use of test data to evaluate principals would be a change to the California Ed. Code that would allow the use of test data to evaluate teachers, as well. But even if the state changed the law, allowing districts to use test data to evaluate teachers, [the teachers union] will never let that happen.
Date: 11/12/09 One thing I left out of my story about calculus at Crawford High is that every now and then, Jonathan Winn sings. (The song is addressed to his classroom volunteer, Becky Breedlove, who is nicknamed B squared.) That and other, somewhat less musical tidbits in your daily newsblitz:
It's a calculus class so crazy, it just might work. Seventy-odd teens are packing an early morning class at Crawford High to learn calculus with a guy who resembles Jim Carrey with a mathematics degree. Advanced Placement classes like this are commonplace in La Jolla and Scripps Ranch, but are historically less common at disadvantaged schools such as Crawford, which threw the class open to anyone.Free speech advocates are challenging Southwestern College on how it handled a campus protest, particularly putting four professors on leave, the Union-Tribune reports.KPBS talks about what's in the new GI Bill for veterans when it comes to education.Vista schools are weighing whether to merge two schools -- one an elementary, one a middle school -- to save as much as $500,000 annually in operating costs. Parents are a little worried about having middle schoolers and little kids on the same campus, the North County Times reports.California could get up to $700 million if it makes the cut in Race to the Top, a competitive bid for more school stimulus money from the federal government, the Los Angeles Times writes. Said the California Federation of Teachers' spokesman: "Seven hundred million is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's not going to come close to filling the hole" of previous budget cuts.Education Week takes a national view on the newly released rules for Race to the Top and all the wonky details. The Washington Post also breaks it down, explaining that the scoring system for states vying for the dollars leans heavily on teacher and principal effectiveness. Unions won't like that.Blogger Alexander Russo rounds up the different quotes from articles on the new Race to the Top rules and says journalists are still making too much out of a molehill of money.It's pretty bad when schools have to file restraining orders against students. The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports on the phenomenon.A new teacher in East Oakland says he's hanging by a thread and desperately wants someone to just tell him how the heck he's doing and how he can improve. An amazing window into the daily work of teaching from the Oakland Tribune schools blog.I'm still stunned by this story from the Raleigh News and Observer: Families who gave $20 to a middle school could buy higher grades on tests. The principal defended it, saying that selling chocolates hadn't worked and the grade bump was so little that it wouldn't make a difference. (Doesn't that undercut your sales strategy?) The district has now ended the practice.Education Week writes about a new book that explores how pay incentives for teachers might work, including some that teachers design themselves.The latest Bracey Report on Public Education, written by the late firebrand Gerald Bracey, seeks to debunk three major ideas: That good schools can eliminate the achievement gap by themselves, that mayoral control will help fix schools and that high standards will boost school performance. I've only gotten halfway through it, but it's definitely worth reading.You think testing is high-stakes here? Try being a kid in South Korea, NPR reports.Date: 11/12/09 I found this tidbit about math classes at Crawford High so fascinating that I had to share it with you -- even though I couldn't find a place to fit it into my story today.
Crawford now has a mathematics society called Mu Alpha Theta for kids who get a 3.0 grade point average or more. Last year, they raised hundreds of dollars by washing cars -- not to get a field trip or something flashy for the club. Nope. They were raising money so they could pay to bus students across town who wanted to take the SATs, which weren't offered at Crawford because historically, few students took them. And because many students are too poor to have their own cars, getting across town could be a barrier.
"You've got kids that are, on their own time, volunteering to raise money so they can go take a standardized test," said math teacher Carl Munn. "Jon (Winn, one of the other math teachers) and I stand around amazed sometimes at what these kids want to do."
Fortunately, they won't have to do it anymore. Jennifer Mai, president of Mu Alpha Theta, told me that students and Winn rang up the College Board and asked why the SATs couldn't come to Crawford. The answer? There's no reason they couldn't. Mai said the SAT will be administered there in January. I can only imagine how surprised the College Board folks were to hear high schoolers clamoring for a test.
"That's really big news for us," Mai said. "It will give everyone on campus -- and schools around us, like Hoover -- a chance to come to a testing center nearby."
Thursday, November 12 -- 7:21 am
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 Crib some notes on all things educational in San Diego, from the latest and greatest classroom innovations to scuffles on the school board, from school lunches to the teachers union.
Reporter Emily Alpert hits the books, dials the decision makers and navigates the bureaucracy so you don't have to, keeping you posted throughout each day on the education beat.
Contact her at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org.
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