Blog Post
March 29, 2010
Hoping to prevent the influence of the Texas State Board of Education from creeping into California's schools, state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, has been working on legislation that would keep recent conservative curriculum changes from being reproduced in state textbooks.
State Sen. Leland Yee
As the Texas Tribune and the LA Times have recently reported, states far beyond Texas have been working to blunt the effects of the board's recent social studies curriculum changes, which place more emphasis, among other things, on conservative figures and institutions such as Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.
To see what all the fuss is about, check out this very cool online application the Tribune built to show the context of each of the changes.
Because Texas dominates such a large share of the textbook market, the state board has long been seen as having tremendous influence over the contents of textbooks nationwide. Publishers have long taken a one-size-fits-all approach to book production, printing the same books for every state, so long as they meet local standards.
Blog Post
March 8, 2010
The final door to the State Board of Education has been closed for Rae Belisle, the former CEO of EdVoice. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's one-sentence letter to the Senate didn't elaborate on the reasons for withdrawing Belisle's nomination.
California Watch reported last Thursday that Belisle, who had served as a board member since March 2009, was not going to be reappointed due to heavy opposition from a wide array of education and minority groups.
Belisle said she was told by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg that she wouldn't get a confirmation hearing because he felt she was too close to charter schools, was too uncompromising overall and didn't work hard enough to build consensus.
She denied the claims and accused her critics of seeking revenge for past policy battles. There has been no word on any replacement for Belisle or Jorge Lopez, another Schwarzenegger appointee to the state board who resigned on Feb. 12.
Belisle said Lopez, an executive director of a charter school academy in Oakland, decided to step down after being questioned by the Senate over his financial dealings at his schools. Lopez has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Lopez didn't respond to California Watch's requests for comment.
Blog Post
March 4, 2010
Questions about the finances of an Oakland charter school and staunch opposition from education and minority groups may have derailed the confirmations of two State Board of Education members, according to interviews and public documents.
Neither of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's board appointees – Jorge Lopez, executive director of the Oakland Charter Academy, and Rae Belisle, CEO of EdVoice, an education advocacy firm – will get approved to serve another term, despite working on the state board since last March.
Rae Belisle and Jorge Lopez
Lopez resigned from the board on Feb. 12, citing a need to attend to family matters. The move was puzzling because two days earlier, Lopez had turned over new economic disclosure documents to the board – an action that was only necessary if he intended to stay on the job.
Meanwhile, a Feb. 18 confirmation hearing for Belisle was canceled and is likely not to be rescheduled, a Senate Rules Committee staffer said. Belisle's seat on the board ends on March 11.
In an interview with California Watch, Belisle said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, told her that she wouldn't get a confirmation hearing because he felt she was too close to charter schools, was too uncompromising overall and didn't work hard enough to build consensus.
Blog Post
February 22, 2010
State money that was supposed to fund early intervention programs for children ages 5 and younger is increasingly being diverted to things it was never intended for.
In Sacramento, an uproar ensued after officials allocated about $745,000 from the First 5 program to the county's Division of Social Services, according to a story in the Sacramento Bee. First 5 was created in 1999 after voters approved an initiative that placed a 50-cent tax on cigarettes, to pay for early childhood programs.
The program has been touted as a great resource for parents by many, including WNBA superstar Lisa Leslie. But as state and local governments continue to grapple with the loss of tax revenue caused by the recession, dipping into the First 5 money to stem economic bleeding is apparently becoming too tempting to pass up.
And the Bee found that some are grumbling over this new sticky-fingerness:
It was not intended to be just one more funding stream to go into business as usual," said Sherry Novick, executive director of the First 5 Association of California, an organization representing the commissions statewide.
Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan, however, says in these tough times the old rules shouldn't apply.
Blog Post
February 17, 2010
UC Berkeley, the nation’s pre-eminent public university, faces a $150 million budget deficit because of cuts in state aid.
Witter Rugby Field
Its renowned faculty has been hit with furloughs and pay cuts.
Meanwhile, the athletic department is running an operating deficit of more than $6 million per year.
Last fall, Berkeley’s faculty senate noted this apparent fiscal disconnect and urged UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to impose fiscal discipline on Cal sports.
At the time, Birgeneau said he couldn’t immediately end the university’s subsidies to the athletic department, but said “everything is on the table” when it comes to making the athletic department self-sufficient.
That may be. But at this time of financial crisis, the UC is forging ahead with its plan to borrow $320 million to renovate the aging Memorial Stadium for the football team.
Last month, UC regents approved a plan to borrow the money and pay it back over 30 years. Cal will charge football fans upwards of $2,700 apiece for “seat licenses” – long-term rights to the 3,000 best seats in the renovated stadium. Not everyone is sure this funding mechanism will work.
Facts and Figures
February 16, 2010
At which UC are students most likely to graduate? Find out with our infographic
Blog Post
February 10, 2010
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill last week that seeks to prevent children with disabilities from being subjected to abusive disciplinary techniques.
Known as HR 4247, the bill bans untrained teachers from using restraint or other techniques that could cause physical harm to children.
The legislation follows a 2009 report from the General Accounting Office, which found thousands of instances of teachers allegedly injuring disabled children by using inappropriate restraining techniques or abusive seclusion.
GAO investigators found 14,354 instances of students subjected to restraint, seclusion or other undefined "emergency interventions" between Sept. 2007 and June 2008, in California alone.
Some of these instances involved teachers sitting on top of students – including the case of Paige Gaydos, when she was a 7-year-old student at a school in the Cupertino Union School District.
Gaydos, who is autistic, was wiggling a loose tooth during time-out. The teacher reportedly became enraged, grabbed Gaydos then pressed her face against the floor and sat on her.
The girl's family later learned that the teacher wasn't trained in the use of restraint and had a history of abuse allegations. They sued the district in 2003 and a federal jury ruled in their favor.
Blog Post
February 9, 2010
A reform signed into law last month gives families the ability to withdraw their child from an underperforming school and re-enroll him in any school across the state.
Yet, recent developments in Southern California raise concerns about whether that privilege could get derailed. The culprit? Property taxes.
Last month, according to the LA Times, the Beverly Hills Unified School District voted to kick out more than 400 students whose families don't live in the district.
The move, school leaders said, came because the district is transitioning to a new financing formula that calls for operations to be funded by local property tax revenues and not state funding.
Most of the state's approximately 1,000 school districts receive a combination of state and local taxes to finance school operations. Each district is given a limit on how much revenue they can receive based upon a complex formula created by the state.
School districts – mainly wealthier ones – are blocked by law from receiving state tax aid when their property taxes exceed these limits. Those districts, which are defined as basic-aid or community-funded districts, must then use their own revenues to fund their schools.
Blog Post
February 8, 2010
If a child is hungry or abused, or how well can he learn? If a teacher doesn't understand her students, how well can she reach them?
Factors such as culture, history and environment can play a crucial role in the future of students and schools, a growing body of experts say.
Many of today's reform ideas don't include or discuss those factors, but that could be changing.
Last week, the California Department of Education released an 152-page workbook that offers to help school districts improve the academic performance of impoverished and minority children.
The book, called "Improving School Climate & Closing the Achievement Gap," seeks to improve the quality of teaching of immigrants, minorities and special-needs children by helping educators better understand students in these groups.
The book also gives tips to districts on how to improve their interpretation and implementation of the existing data tools at their disposal.
The report is the result of a partnership between the Department of Education and a non-profit organization called WestEd. It also embodies a commitment made years ago – by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell – to address how California educates the underprivileged.
Blog Post
February 8, 2010
UCLA has launched a new committee tasked with cutting costs and boosting revenues – anticipating a continuing decline in state support for the university and rising costs associated with health and retirement benefits.
Scott L. Waugh, UCLA's executive vice chancellor and provost, will chair the Restructuring Steering Committee, according to a memo sent to UCLA faculty and staff last week.
Like UC Berkeley, UCLA has hired an outside consultant to help with the endeavor.
But while Berkeley's contract with consulting firm Bain & Co. will cost the school about $3 million – inspiring rage among some faculty and staff who had to take pay cuts – UCLA has agreed to pay no more than $240,000 to the higher-education branch of Huron Consulting Group, a university spokesman said.
Huron has worked with UCLA on several other projects – most recently, the group conducted an assessment of UCLA’s research administration infrastructure.
The consulting group will help UCLA weigh the pros and cons of several possible strategies, some of which university faculty and staff started to talk about in task force groups formed last year. UCLA also hopes to get some new cost-cutting or revenue-boosting proposals.
