EdSource Extra!

More changes at the top at CSU

Louis Freedberg — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:49:22 +0000

The announcement that California State University chancellor Charles Reed will be stepping down after 14 years at the helm comes against the backdrop of extraordinary changes in the top leadership of the 417,000 student system. Since January 2011, CSU has filled vacancies or will have to fill them because of the departures or pending departures of 12 presidents of the 23 campus system, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. In an interview earlier this month, Claudia Keith, a CSU spokesperson, said that the system had enjoyed a long period of leadership stability but that “it is very unusual to have so many vacancies and so much movement at the president level.” The head of the CSU system is called chancellor, while presidents run each of the campuses. This year alone, the system had multiple presidential searches underway, including at San Francisco State, Cal State San Bernardino and the California Maritime Academy, and made several new appointments. This ...

Schools’ reprieve from further cuts may only be temporary

Louis Freedberg — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:41:47 +0000

It is a sign of just how thoroughly the budget crisis has shaken the education landscape that good news can sometimes seem like bad news for California schools. Last week’s revelation that the state’s projected budget deficit had soared from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion had left many school officials anxiously waiting for details of Governor Jerry Brown’s May revision of his budget yesterday. They braced for having to make even more extensive cuts than the painful ones they had already made. Yet Gov. Brown somehow was able to come up with cuts that did not touch schools directly. Brown’s budget message argues that under his plan school funding would actually increase by 16 percent, subject to voters approving his tax initiative in November. State funding for K-12 schools, it argues, would increase from $29.3 billion in last year’s budget to $34.0 billion by the end of 2013. But that did not change ...

Report: Continuation schools failing to ensure student success

Pamela Martineau — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:53:04 +0000

California’s continuation schools are failing to provide the academic and critical support services that students need to succeed, a new report from researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford has concluded. A fixture on the education landscape for a half century, the state’s nearly 500 continuation schools are intended to help students who are struggling academically, but haven’t succeeded in a regular high school setting and are in danger of not graduating from high school. The report found that some of the most successful continuation schools are “successful on-ramps for re-engaging youth back into school.” But too often these schools “remain simply early exit ramps from school.” “California is unique in providing these schools, and there is evidence that they can provide an effective pathway to a diploma for a large number of kids who need special and supplemental services,” said Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, director of education at the Warren Institute at UC ...

Education leaders call for overhaul of state’s school accountability system

Louis Freedberg — Wed, 09 May 2012 07:23:20 +0000

UPDATE: The State Board of Education approved seeking an NCLB waiver under Section 9401 of the law on May 10, 2012. As state education leaders consider whether to seek a waiver from the most onerous provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind law, they are also proposing a “comprehensive review” of the state’s accountability system put in place in 1999. The State Board of Education will start discussing what an updated state accountability system might look like at its meeting in Sacramento today. The outline of an updated state accountability system is spelled out in a draft letter signed by State Board of Education President Michael Kirst and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson “on behalf of all California districts” to the Obama administration seeking exemption from key provisions of the NCLB law that labels increasing numbers of schools as failing. For the past decade, California has operated under two often conflicting accountability ...

California may seek a waiver from No Child Left Behind law — on its own terms

Louis Freedberg — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:33:44 +0000

UPDATE: The State Board of Education approved seeking an NCLB waiver under Section 9401 of the law on May 10, 2012. The California Department of Education is recommending that California apply for a waiver from the most onerous conditions of the No Child Left Behind law — but not under the conditions set by the Obama administration under a waiver program it announced last fall. Instead, California would apply to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for a waiver under a separate section of the decade-old NCLB law — Section 9401 – which allows whoever is secretary to grant waivers on a case by case basis. The California State Board of Education, almost all whose members are appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, will take up the matter at its regular meeting in Sacramento next week. Under the recommendation made by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the state would operate under its own system ...

Continuation schools close in some rural districts

Leslie Layton — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:35:12 +0000

As school districts across California struggle with budget cuts, some districts are cutting back on small schools known as continuation schools that have been a mainstay of high school instruction for more than half a century. Continuation schools are intended to help students who are struggling academically to stay in school and graduate, but haven’t succeeded in a regular high school setting. But especially in rural areas some school districts are having a hard time sustaining them. According to state figures on Ed-Data.org, in the fall of 2010, the latest year for which figures are available, there were 497 California continuation high schools — 28 fewer than the 525 that existed two years earlier. In rural areas surrounding Chico, school districts serving a relatively small number of struggling or failing students are finding continuation schools prohibitively expensive. In some areas, districts have closed the schools outright and moved students into one or two classrooms on ...

Out-of-state expansion of California charter school companies could affect in-state growth

Louis Freedberg — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:53:40 +0000

The decision by two of California’s best known charter management organizations to try to open schools in Memphis and Nashville raises this question: Will the expansion of California-based charter schools outside the state come at the expense of their growth inside the state? Nearly four years ago, Green Dot Public Schools, which runs 18 charter schools in Los Angeles, opened a charter school in the South Bronx. But it hardly led to a surge of California-based charter schools to open similar schools outside the state. That may be about to change. Aspire Public Schools, the state’s largest charter school provider, with 34 schools in six California cities, wants to open ten charter schools in Memphis over the next five years. Rocketship Education, which currently runs five charter schools in San Jose, wants to open eight schools in Nashville and another eight in Memphis. It has already signed on to open eight in Milwaukee over ...

Children’s groups unite to increase influence in Sacramento

Pamela Martineau — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:18:38 +0000

Hundreds of groups working on behalf of children’s issues in California are coming together for the first time to pool their collective influence to shape child-friendly policies in the state. Titled the Children’s Movement of California, the effort is being spearheaded by Children Now, an Oakland-based advocacy organization. In an effort to counter what he calls a “silo-ed” approach to children’s advocacy, Children Now president Ted Lempert, launched the Children’s Movement a year ago in an effort to “aggregate the support for kids we all know is out there.” The Children’s Movement now includes more than 200 organizations and advocacy groups. They range from faith-based organizations to businesses and healthcare associations, education groups and mental health advocates. Going deeper For more information on the Children’s Movement, check out the Children Now website. “When there is a proposal to slash early education, the response should not just come from early education groups,” said Lempert. “It should be done in the ...

New statistics course aims to accelerate college students’ path to success

Sue Frey — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:53:59 +0000

Some California colleges are helping struggling math students complete all the math they need in a single yearlong course, instead of requiring them to take the usual sequence of courses that can take years to complete and that many never finish. First offered during the current academic year, the course is called Statway — short for Statistics Pathway — and is aimed at students who are not ready for college-level math. So far, five community colleges and three CSU campuses are participating in this national initiative, which is being developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, located in the foothills above Stanford University. Statway wraps the usual two-course sequence of elementary and intermediate algebra into a year-long statistics course. The Statway project is part of a $13 million initiative that has attracted support from a number of foundations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The William and Flora ...

Newspaper report on “suspect” test scores elicits criticism

Louis Freedberg — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:05:28 +0000

California school officials in several school districts contacted by EdSource have rejected allegations of “suspect” test scores in their districts contained in a national report by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The newspaper said it had found ”high concentrations of suspect math or reading scores in school systems from coast to coast,” including in 40 California school districts. Cheating, the newspaper implied, based on a complex analysis of data, is the most likely cause. The paper argued that cheating is driven by the relentless pressures on schools imposed by the No Child Left Behind law which each year raises the test score bar for schools and students and labels increasing numbers of schools as failing under the law. At the same time, the conclusions were based entirely on the newspaper’s statistical analysis, without any actual evidence that cheating has occurred in the districts it has named. Moreover, the newspapers’ editors told EdSource Extra that none of ...