May 2011 Archives

Los Angeles Unified School District has just announced an agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles. Details from the district's press release are below. UTLA statement after the jump.

From "A Portrait of California," released today by the American Human Development Project:

Only one hundred of California's nearly 2,500 high schools account for nearly half of the state's dropouts.

Wow. Based on a speed-read, I'm not sure where this statistic comes from, but just: wow.

The report uses census data to look at health, education, and living standards, not surprisingly revealing wide disparities in the Golden State.

LA Times columnist Hector Tobar gives some nice press today to a group of young-ish folks who grew up in Wilmington and are trying to make the port community a better place.

The feel-good column is about twentysomethings giving back to the neighborhood that raised them. Tobar dubs it "renaissance by the refineries."

He writes about 24-year-old Kat Madrigal, who started a blog called the Wilmington Wire, and Robert Jones, a 21-year-old CSU Dominguez Hills student who teaches at the Wilmington Empowerment Project. Jones wants to return to Banning High to teach. Also mentioned is artist Oscar Duarte, who helped start the Wilmington Enrichment Community Artist Network, or WECAN.

The column points out the disparity made evident by Wilmington's proximity to the affluent Palos Verdes Peninsula:

From just about anywhere in Wilmington and the communities that surround it, you can look up and see the hills of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, an island of prosperity floating in the distance and a constant reminder to locals of where they stand in the world.

Sumiko Braun, a Carson native and actress, recently took a group of Wilmington and Long Beach teenagers up to Palos Verdes as part of a "reality tour" organized by members of the One Imagination collective. It was her way of sharing with neighborhood young people some of the lessons she'd learned in college.

"We started off in Wilmington, by the refineries, and went up to PV ... and then back down to South L.A. and Watts," Braun told me. They compared the schools, medical facilities and grocery stores and looked at other measures of social health. "The differences were drastic and extreme," she said. "When we were done, a lot of the students got emotional about it, because they didn't realize until that moment how this city works."

As the LA Times notes today, there's a handy new online tool to map out potential cuts to school districts across the state.

The map shows the estimated losses per student -- in each school district or state Assembly or Senate district -- under dramatic education spending reductions that would be part of an all-cuts state budget. The tool uses projected cuts of $764 per pupil. In some districts, it shows the number of pink slips that have gone out.

Torrance Unified, our biggest local district after LAUSD, is facing the largest loss: $18.4 million in cuts, according to the tool. Inglewood follows with a possible $11.7 million loss. Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified comes next with nearly $9 million in cuts.

Los Angeles Unified faces cuts of $498 million, according to the site.

The site, on the K-12 News Network, was developed as a volunteer project by two California parents. It's a collaboration with the with Parents for Great Education, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit.

As Howard Blume writes in the LA Times, there's a reason for putting this data together.

The effort behind it is ostensibly nonpartisan, but one reason for the new reference tool is to increase pressure on a handful of Republican legislators to allow a statewide vote on tax extensions that, if approved, would ease budget shortfalls on school districts.

In an open letter to teachers nationwide sent in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2-6), U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan acknowledged that teachers are frustrated and have come under attack in recent months.

He writes:

[Y]ou are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems. You rightfully believe that responsibility for educational quality should be shared by administrators, community, parents, and even students themselves.

He acknowledged that many teachers are fed up with the teach-to-the-test effects of No Child Left Behind, and with being the target of accountability measures that don't factor in other elements of students' lives.

Many of you have told me you are willing to be held accountable for outcomes over which you have some control, but you also want school leaders held accountable for creating a positive and supportive learning environment. You want real feedback in a professional setting rather than drive-by visits from principals or a single score on a bubble test. And you want the time and opportunity to work with your colleagues and strengthen your craft.

The solution? Not surprisingly, Duncan says he wants to work together with teachers to change federal law to create a "a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking."

We'll see how that goes.

The whole letter is worth a read. It's after the jump.