Recently in Education Policy Category

California Watch is out today with another great project, this time looking at school districts' spending per student.

It's a topic that creates controversy in education circles because there are such great disparities -- and because it's all based on a locked-in, byzantine funding system created by in the wake of a 1971 court ruling on state education spending, Serrano v. Priest.

Here's the crux of the issue:

The Supreme Court ruled that differences in the basic amount spent per student - so-called "revenue limit" funding - had to be within $100 across all districts. Taking inflation into account, the permissible difference is now $350 per student. Although larger differences remain among some districts, disparities in the basic amount districts receive from the state have been substantially reduced.

But that reduction has been wiped out by local, state and federal funds for close to a hundred different programs. A large part of the money is based on formulas established in the 1970s for meals, transportation and other services that often have little connection to current student needs.

The inequities the court sought to alleviate with its Serrano ruling persist. About two-thirds of districts now spend at least $500 above or below the state average, according to California Watch's analysis.

Comparing spending data from 2009-10, Cal Watch calculated per-pupil spending based on "annual salaries, employee benefits, books, supplies and other educational services" but not on "building purchases, construction, retiree benefits and food services."

Here's a surprising result of the research:

The analysis found there was virtually no correlation between funding and (API) scores that could explain the wide variation across the state in per-pupil spending in districts.

California Watch also looked at correlations between expenditures and student backgrounds, including their race and ethnicity and whether they are poor enough to receive a free or reduced lunch. The analysis also did not find any significant correlations among these variables.

Their database shows some surprising results locally. I know officials in some of the districts in affluent areas -- including Manhattan Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula -- are prone to emphasizing their comparative lack of per-pupil funding. But this is pretty stark in terms of more cash going to districts that educate lower-income student bodies.

In descending order, here are Cal Watch's figures for per-pupil spending in local districts:

• LAUSD $10,015
• Lennox $9,759
• Centinela Valley $9,366
• Inglewood $8,931
• California average $8,452
• Lawndale $8,390
• Redondo Beach $7,991
• Palos Verdes $7,812
• Hawthorne $7,806
• El Segundo $7,733
• Hermosa Beach $7,527
• Torrance $7,505
• Manhattan Beach $7,467
• Wiseburn $6,884

Wiseburn, the high-achieving K-8 district in Hawthorne, is clearly the curveball here.

Here's an important component of Cal Watch's story on these figures:

The disconnect between money and academic performance is at the heart of an ongoing debate among educators and researchers.

"Money may be necessary for school improvement, but it doesn't guarantee that improvement takes place," concluded UC Berkeley education professor W. Norton Grubb in his recent book "The Money Myth," after conducting an intensive review on the subject.

In particular, he found that urban schools tended to spend inefficiently for a variety of reasons, including high staff and student turnover and conflicts over how to teach struggling students. At the same time, he said, urban districts often have extra expenses for needs such as security, dropout prevention, or for teaching students who are not proficient in English.

Here's a Q&A with some more info.

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.

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.

A bill proposed by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palos Alto) would require that students entering kindergraten turn five by Sept. 1 of their first school year. The new bill, which lawmakers say would save California nearly $700 million annually, would be phased in over three years starting in 2012.

Currently, any child who turns five before Dec. 2 can enter kindergarten.

The bill, SB 1381, has been passed by the senate and will now move on to the state assembly. It has been opposed by the California Teacherrs Association, and teachers have voiced concerns about how the potential savings would be spent.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

As currently written, the bill would require half the money saved by the state to be spent on preschool programs to serve disadvantaged children. Simitian would use the other half to help cover state budget shortfalls.

Some teachers said they want to see the money saved put into funding K-12 programs to make up for income lost to schools based on the lower enrollment.

But the measure's supporters say the gradual implementation of the law would help ease budget concerns and allow the state and schools to plan for the change.

***

Almost every other state in the country requires a September birthday cutoff, perhaps giving them a competitive academic edge. Simitian's bill would put California in line with those states eventually. His bill would phase in over three years, moving the eligibility date up a month each fall starting in 2012, until it becomes Sept. 1.

Many parents already voluntarily keep their children with summer or fall birthdays out of kindergarten for a year. It's more often a choice made by families with the financial resources to cover child care or preschool for the extra year.

On the other hand, low-income families - those whose children are more likely to struggle in school and on standardized tests - often can't afford the extra year of child care and aren't allowed to stay in public preschool programs.

The federal Head Start program, for example, pushes students into kindergarten when they are old enough, whether they are academically or developmentally ready to go.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he supported legislation that would give school officials more power to fire or re-assign teachers based on their performance and effectiveness in the classroom. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Bob Huff (D-Diamond Bar) and scheduled to be heard before the legislature Wednesday, would seek to streamline the educator dismissal process.

Schools need more power to make personnel decisions based on performance and merit rather than seniority, Schwarzenegger said during a news conference at Markham Middle School in Watts.

"It is unacceptable that school districts cannot determine their staffing based on the needs of students," Schwarzenegger said. "SB 955 will help ensure that classrooms are filled with effective teachers by giving school districts the flexibility to make staffing decisions based on ability, not just seniority."

The governor also announced his support for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)/Public Council lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) teacher layoff practices that are disproportionally hurting low-income and minority schools; a problem this legislation would help solve.

The U.S. Department of Education is looking to hand out up to $350 million to states willing to revamp how they test students, according to the Associated Press.

Here's more:

The money is designed to encourage states to develop standardized tests that accurately measure how much a child has learned each year and ensure the student is ready for college or a career after high school.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday the tests must be designed to accurately depict what students know and can do. The criteria for the grants were created after 10 public meetings held across the country since last year.

The money is part of the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition, which encourages states to embrace innovative programs to improve student achievement and turnaround low-performing schools.

President Obama signed a bill today that will reform the student loan industry. The legislation, approved by Congress last week, will oust commercial banks from most of the federal student loan market, which will now be overseen by an expanded direct-lending program by the government.

The bill also calls for increased funding for the Pell Grant Program and the revamp was included in the final health care package sent to the President. The student loan legislation has been a major focus point of Obama's education reform agenda. The change will not affect any loans made before July 1. Banks will be allowed to continue to make private, non-guaranteed college loans, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

From the Associated Press:

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- A struggling Georgia high school plans to fire its entire staff in an effort to avoid being taken over by the state.

Savannah-Chatham County schools spokeswoman Karla Redditte (REHD-iht) said Thursday superintendent Thomas Lockamy met with teachers and staff at Beach High School to tell them about the plan.

Employees are being told that they may reapply for their jobs. The same number of positions will be available but only half of the teachers can be rehired under federal education law. It makes the school eligible for up to $6 million in federal grants.

A similar action at a high school in Rhode Island prompted outrage from the teachers' union and anger at President Barack Obama when he said he supported the move.

Bonnie Reiss, a member of the University of California Board of Regents, has been chosen to be the governor's top education advisor. She replaces Glen W. Thomas, who stepped down earlier this month to take care of his ailing mom.

"I enthusiastically support the Governor's priorities for education and his commitment to seeing that every child receives a great education that allows them to achieve their dreams," Reiss said in a statement. "I believe that every door opened to me in my life has been because of education, and I am committed to working to ensure that all children have the tools they need to achieve success."

Reiss, a former advisor to the governor, was named to the UC system's governing board in March 2008. She previously served as an senior advisor to Schwarzenegger from 2003-2007. The Education Secretary position does not require Senate confirmation and Reiss will earn $175,000 annually.

"Bonnie has always been a friend to the California State University in her various capacities with the Governor's office, and we look forward to working with her in her new position as Secretary of Education," said Charles B. Reed, California State University Chancellor, in a statement issued this morning.

"She understands the important role that public higher education plays in the state's economic recovery, and the critical need to educate the future workforce," he added.

While on the UC Board of Regents, Reiss served on the California Postsecondary Education Committee and the UC Committee on Educational Policy. She has degrees from the University of Miami and Antioch Law School.

*UPDATE: Here's a statement on Reiss' appointment by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell:

"I look forward to continuing to work with Bonnie Reiss as she takes on this new role," O'Connell said. "Bonnie is knowledgeable about the challenges and opportunities faced by public education during these difficult economic times. With her leadership, the collaboration between my office and the Governor's Office of Secretary of Education will continue as we work together to implement education reform efforts and secure critical federal funding for California schools."

Reiss, 54, worked as a staff member for Senator Edward Kennedy while a law school student, and took a one-year leave of absence when he ran for president in 1980 to help run his campaign.

Among the reform proposals President Obama plans to implement to the Bush Administration's landmark "No Child Left Behind" will be changes to the way school districts receive federal funds. Under the proposal, announced today, distribution of funding will be based on student achievement and academic progress, rather than enrollment.

The proposal would also eliminate the controversial 2014 deadline for academic proficiency. Any changes to the law would have to be approved by Congress.

From the New York Times:

Significantly, said those who have been briefed, the White House wants to change federal financing formulas so that a portion of the money is awarded based on academic progress, rather than by formulas that apportion money to districts according to their numbers of students, especially poor students. The well-worn formulas for distributing tens of billions of dollars in federal aid have, for decades, been a mainstay of the annual budgeting process in the nation's 14,000 school districts.

Currently the education law requires the nation's 98,000 public schools to make "adequate yearly progress" as measured by student test scores. Schools that miss their targets in reading and math must offer students the opportunity to transfer to other schools and free after-school tutoring. Schools that repeatedly miss targets face harsher sanctions, which can include staff dismissals and closings. All students are required to be proficient by 2014.

Educators have complained loudly in the eight years since the law was signed that it was branding tens of thousands of schools as failing but not forcing them to change.

The education law has been praised for focusing attention on achievement gaps, but it has also generated tremendous opposition, especially from educators, who contend that it sets impossible goals for students and schools and humiliates students and educators when they fall short. The law has, to date, labeled some 30,000 schools as "in need of improvement," a euphemism for failing, but states and districts have done little to change them.

The last serious attempt to rewrite the law was in 2007. That effort collapsed, partly because teachers' unions and other educator groups opposed an effort to incorporate merit pay provisions into a rewritten law. Earlier this month, Mr. Duncan and more than a dozen other administration officials took steps toward organizing a new rewrite, meeting with the Democratic chairmen and ranking Republican members of the education committees in both houses of Congress.

The Obama Administration will also seek to add $3 billion in additional for funding the nation's public schools. Once the law is reauthorized, an additional $1 billion would be added. More money would also be given to charter schools.

From Reuters:

(Obama) would also expand the stimulus initiative known as "Race to the Top" that funded new education innovations, especially at semi-autonomous charter schools, and has added $490 million in his budget for the charter school system. He would also create a $500 million testing program to gauge the success of various innovations.

In the budget, Obama also proposes giving $950 million of competitive grants to states and school districts for recruiting teachers and principals, as well as train them, and $210 million to "Promise Neighborhoods," to strengthen community services for students.

Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues in today's LA Times that since states continue to lower the academic bar for students, amendments should be made to No Child Left Behind. Changes allowing for uniform, stringent testing that would develop higher standards for public schools need to be created, Winters writes.

From the Op-ed:

A recent federal study noted that 15 states lowered at least one of their proficiency standards in math and reading between 2005 and 2007.

And there's more:

The law punishes a school when too few of its students meet math and reading proficiency targets each year. But the law has a gaping loophole: States get to define proficiency. A state can thus meet the law's targets by defining proficiency down; toughening its standards, by contrast, handicaps its ability to meet the federal requirements.

Of course, low standards have their own appeal. The lower the standard, the more students surpass it. State governments love to tell constituents that students are doing great on standardized exams; the public usually just assumes that the criteria used on those exams are meaningful.

We could make better progress toward an effective testing regime if we changed our goal from uniform national standards to high state standards, which two simple amendments to No Child Left Behind could help bring about.

The Manhattan Institute is a conservative think tank based in New York City.

President Obama today announced the launch of a government partnership with private businesses and non-profit corporations to bring more math and science curriculum into U.S. classrooms.

The Los Angeles Times has more on the "Educate to Innovate" program, which will utilize up to $260 million in private donations.

The state senate approved a bill Tuesday that would make California more competitive for federal Race to the Top funds. Senate Bill X5 1 would also allow students at under-performing schools to transfer out of their districts and seek to eliminate the cap on the number of charter schools in the state. The bill now moves on to the Assembly.

In a statement released Wednesday, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell (who recently said he won't make a run for governor) applauded the legislation's passage.

"Race to the Top presents California with an unprecedented opportunity to boldly reform our public education system so that we can improve student academic success and further our efforts to close the achievement gap," O'Connell said. "While last night's Senate approval of this bill is a major step forward, we should not lose sight of the hard work that remains ahead of us to win the Race to the Top. I look forward to working with the California State Assembly to gain approval of this measure."

Here's more on the bill from the Sacramento Bee.

Torrance Unified board members on Monday appointed 13 people to the district's bond oversight committee, in charge of reporting to the school board whether bond money is being spent according to plan.

The two year appointments come as plans to overhaul Torrance school facilities continue to move ahead.

Committee members are Gary Kuwahara, Sumie Imada, Todd Hays, Denise Mandel, James Myers, Michael Wermers, George Harpole, Alex See, Carrie Lang, Steve Polcari, Stephen M. D'anjou, Toni Ann Fierro and David Ouwerkerk.

There's been a lot of chatter among parents about the new school report cards that Los Angeles Unified sent to parents on Monday.

We ran a Daily News story about the report cards today; the LA Times story ran Monday.

The report cards put a lot of data in parents' hands, all on one sheet. Most of the information is already available on the California Department of Education's DataQuest service, but parents would have to know what they're looking for.

On a parents' email listserv today, some questioned whether the report cards provided enough context -- or broke out data clearly enough. Others questioned why some parents' suggestions (made at focus group meetings last year) for the report cards were not incorporated.

The annual report cards are designed to give parents an idea of how their students' schools are performing while increasing accountability.

The per-school grade concept program, which was expanded districtwide after beign developed by LAUSD's iDesign division and L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, has been used in New York City and Chicago schools. The LAUSD project was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the L.A. Times reported.

A New York Times story last September about the release of grades for New York City public elementary and middle schools notes some opposition to letter grades. (And here is another NYT story from November on the high schools' grades being released, again with criticism.)

Incidentally, the link that the district has published on its website to the report card page is broke. Here is the correct link: www.lausd.net/reportcard.

Mitch Ozawa recently accepted a position on the Board of Trustees for Rolling Hills Preparatory School and the Renaissance School in San Pedro. Ozawa works as the senior vice president and senior client manager for Bank of America/Banc America Securities. He and his wife, Ann, are active in the Parents Association and have a daughter who attends the Renaissance School. Information: 310-791-1101.

The LA Times reports public school administrators can't fire or reassign journalism advisors because of what their students write in campus newspapers under a new state law.

Colorado provides similar protections for advisors but the new California law protects any school employee. At least 15 high school journalism advisors in the last three years have lost their jobs or been reassigned by administrators who perceived stories as critical, the Times reported.

The so-called Journalism Teacher Protection Act, which became law Thursday, prohibits school administrators from retaliating against advisors for trying to protect student press freedoms.

The measure, the most stringent of its kind in the nation, closes a loophole in state law that for years has ensured free speech rights for students but failed to guarantee protections for advisors, according to supporters. They say administrators have been able to exercise de facto campus censorship by clamping down on journalism advisors.

Redondo Beach resident Marquita Grenot-Scheyer was recently appointed dean of the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach, campus officials announced. She arrived at the school in 1988 and replaces Jean Houck who retired in July after 12 years as dean of the college. Grenot-Scheyer served as associate dean of graduate studies and research from 2001 to 2008.

The Sacramento Bee reports that a Superior Court judge put the kibosh on a plan to make California the first state to require all eighth-graders to be tested in algebra.

Judge Shelleyanne Chang said the state board of education overstepped its jurisdiction and acted without sufficient public input, according to the newspaper.

The plan would have required all eighth-graders to be tested for algebra proficiency by the end of the school year in 2012. Eighth-graders are already supposed to take algebra, according to the state's curriculum, and the performance index for schools that don't meet that standard has suffered.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and various teacher groups vigorously opposed the mandate - issued last July by the state Board of Education - because they said the state lacked the teachers and resources to teach algebra to all students.

State School Board President Ted Mitchell, a proponent of the algebra mandate, called the tentative ruling "disappointing" and "an unfortunate roadblock to higher academic achievement," in a statement released Friday.

The decision is a blow to the state school board, the governor, who supported the mandate, and some civil rights advocates, all of whom pushed for expanding algebra instruction to boost sagging math proficiency.

An appeals courts ruled recently that Los Angeles can continue to use race as an admissions factor at specialized magnet schools despite California's ban on race preferences in government programs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

About 56,000 of Los Angeles' 700,000 students attend 162 magnet schools which concentrate on specific fields like math and science or the arts, and often have long waiting lists.

Admission to highly sought schools is based on several factors, including a student's attendance at a predominantly minority school. The district's overall white enrollment is only 9 percent, but magnet schools maintain white enrollments of 30 to 40 percent, and give preference to students on the waiting list who allow them to keep that ratio. The ruling can be read at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B205943.PDF.