News Impacting CA School Districts Through November 27
Thanksgiving week means it was a quiet week.
Sacramento News
A number of news agencies picked the story reported last week about school districts increasing class size. KGO TV story included a Google map of all the school districts across the state who have increased class size..
Reforming State and Local Governance
One reform thought to help reduce partisan politics would be an open primary. A deal stuck during February 09 will give voters a chance to approve the concept again. The Top Two Primaries Act would require that all candidates compete in a single primary open to all registered voters — similar to the way special elections are run. The top two vote-getters would advance to a runoff.
School District Impacts
About 20,000 Los Angeles school district workers have agreed to four unpaid furlough days to help close a large budget gap. In a concession to unions, Los Angeles Unified Schools chief Ramon Cortines said he will eliminate half the number of local district offices he helped create a few years ago in a bid to reduce next year’s deficit of nearly $500 million.
Bigger classes, fewer teachers, higher pay? That seemed to be the thinking of the Oakland school district’s administration, at least during a special budget meeting in which the board and staff discussed how to reconcile the district’s priorities with a $27 million budget cut (more than 10 percent of the district’s general purpose funds).
For about a year now, Capistrano’s school board – comprised entirely of trustees who ran on the politically popular “reform” platform – has advocated across-the-board, 10 percent salary cuts to balance the district’s budget. So far, only Capistrano’s non-unionized school and district administrators have taken 10 to 11 percent pay cuts.
Six Secrets of Change
Michael Fullan’s recent book The Six Secrets of Change builds on his life time of work on change including Leading in a Culture of Change. Before covering his six secrets of change, Fullan explains the importance of developing a theory that “travels well”. He points out there are no absolutes in this complex world, so the ability to be thoughtful and open to surprises or new data will direct further actions to be taken. Hence his six secrets are “his theory” of how lead to change in your school district.
1. Love your employees
If you build your school district focusing on the student/parents without making the same careful commitment to your teachers/staff, you won’t succeed for long. The opposite is also true. The key is in enabling employees to learn continuously and to find meaning in their work.
2. Connect peers with a purpose
To combat the too tight-too loose dilemma, leaders who embed strategies that continuous and purposeful peer interaction will succeed. The social glue of simultaneously tight-loose systems will stick, not because the employees love their bosses but rather because they fall in love with their peers.
3. Capacity build prevails
Capacity building entails leaders investing in the development of individual and collaborative practices of a whole group or system to accomplish significant improvements. Capacity consists of new competencies, new resources (time, ideas, expertise) and new motivation. The challenge arises when the evaluation of effectiveness is performed as it needs transparency and peer interaction.
4. Learning is the work
The ability to integrate the precision needed for consistent performance (using what we are already know) with the new learning required for continuous improvement is the key behind “learning is the work.”
5. Transparency rules
Transparency is defined as continuous display of results, and clear and continuous access to practice (what is being done to get the results). When transparency consistently evident, it creates an aura of “positive pressure” – pressure that is experienced as fair and reasonable, pressure that is actionable.
6. Systems learn
Systems can learn on a continuous basis. The synergistic results of the five previous secrets in action builds a system that learns from itself. Two dominant change forces are unleashed: knowledge and commitment. As people learn their sense of meaning and motivation deepens. Learning means being humble in the face of complexity.
As Fullan concludes his book he provides six guidelines for keeping the secrets.
- Seize the synergy
- Define your own traveling theory
- Share a secret, keep a secret
- The world is the only oyster you have
- Stay on the far side of complexity
- Happiness is not what some of us think
I will cover them in a future post.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through November 20
Federal News
The California State Assembly will reconvene in December, a month earlier than planned, to hasten the state’s pursuit of federal Race to the Top stimulus funds. Read John Fensterwald’s opinion on what action the Legislautre should take. For a counter point, Chadwick Matlin piece in Slate calls it a race to the bottom.
Sacramento News
The LAO issued a fiscal outlook that shows that the state must address a General Fund budget problem of $20.7 billion between now and the time the Legislature enacts a 2010–11 state budget plan. The budget problem consists of a $6.3 billion projected deficit for 2009–10 and a $14.4 billion gap between projected revenues and spending in 2010–11. Addressing this large shortfall will require painful choices—on top of the difficult choices the Legislature made earlier this year.
A report of the 30 largest school districts in California shows class size is rising.
There are two questions facing public education: One, is it getting enough money? Two, is the money being spent wisely? On both counts, California’s method of financing its schools gets a big fat F.
A Manteca editorial calls for wholesale rejection of those elected to Sacramento.
The University of California regents voted to raise tuition by 32 percent as angry students pounded drums and blocked exits to the UCLA building where the regents were meeting.
Reforming State and Local Governance
The California Teachers Association continues to grapple with whether to pursue either of two proposed ballot initiatives it filed this month to generate billions for schools from large businesses. One of the initiatives would impose an additional half-percent ad valorem tax on commercial property, the other would loosen Proposition 13 restrictions by assessing such property at current market rates.
School District Impacts
In a report that sounded very much like a chain of previous reports dating back to at least August, the Chico Unified School District board of trustees that unless something changes in the economic future, the district will likely go into state receivership next summer.
As the Lodi school district begins to tackle what administrators say is a new deficit of $20 million to $30 million for 2010-11, the focus is likely to be on pay cuts, which has ruffled union leaders who represent thousands of employees. The same message is being at state’s largest school district Los Angeles Unified. Saying the district needs to bridge a $480 million budget gap for the 2010-11 school year, Cortines asked all employees to accept four furlough days this year and a 12 percent pay cut next year. Leaders of the LAUSD teachers’ union demanded that the district slash bureaucracy and disclose spending before imposing furloughs and deep pay cuts.
Teachers, classified staffers and administrators in the El Rancho Unified School District have agreed to take three furlough days this school year, which officials say will translate into about a 1.5-percent pay cut.
The Paramount Board of Education unanimously approved a plan to save $25 million over the next three fiscal years, in part by raising class sizes next school year in grades K-3 and in ninth-grade English and math classes. The class-size increases could result in about 17 teachers losing their jobs at the end of the academic year, district officials have said.
With major budget cuts looming, Stockton Unified is preparing to host a series of public forums at its four comprehensive high schools to allow parents and students to voice their opinions and suggest ways the district can save money.
Modesto City Schools’ advisory committee is charged with looking into areas the district could trim and recommending cutbacks to administrators. Members broke into small groups to talk about prioritizing a list of 50 cuts. Johansen High School Principal Thor Harrison noted that when he added up each item’s estimated cost savings, he totaled $11.5 million — not even half of what the district needs to axe. Committee members and the district’s board of education will confront difficult decisions about whether to do things such as rolling back employee pay, closing schools or reducing the number of days in the school year. Modesto Teachers Association President Barney Hale said cutting $25 million would require every employee to take a 12.5 percent pay cut.
To help offset an estimated deficit of up to $203 million to the San Diego Unified School District’s $1.2 billion operating budget next year, a committee presented a menu of potential cuts to the board. The findings include the potential elimination of several district departments, a move that would save money at the central office but would allow programs to continue at schools. The committee scoured 123 departments to find $33.7 million in cuts. The idea is to preserve programs but cut offices that could be absorbed by other departments. The committee also showed a savings by cutting employee hours and contracts.
Corona-Norco Unified School District announced a memorandum of understanding which allows teachers to volunteer for those duties without extra pay. Certain activities were suspended to save $350,000, mostly in teacher stipends for coordinators at each school. The stipends were required by contracts.
School boards are also feeling the squeeze as spending freeze are being implemented. In San Diego, a divided board opted against spending about $13,000 to cover dues for two national education organizations. Trustees also announced that they would put the kibosh on taxpayer-funded food at their meetings and workshops, and they balked at $835 in travel costs to send school board President Shelia Jackson on an otherwise free trip to China. The Alisal Union School District will no longer pay for board members’ health-care benefits, stipends, traveling allowance or Internet services.
News Impacting CA Schools Through November 13
Federal News
The American Association of School Administrators released a new survey on the impact of the recession on school districts. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) allowed states to maintain education spending at 2006 levels.
California could be eligible for up to $700 million in federal education stimulus funds under guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Education.
According to the rules, states will have to show that districts, through binding agreements, have committed to “implement all or significant portions of the work outlined in the State’s plan.” On those agreements, Race to the Top judges will be looking for signatures of superintendents, school board presidents, and local teachers’ union leaders, as well as “tables that summarize which portions of the State plans [local districts] are committing to implement and how extensive the [local district's] leadership support is.”
Sacramento News
The State Controller issued their October report on tax receipts and indicated there is evidence that the State has begun the healing process, but the road to recovery likely will be rocky.
The state budget cuts are also impacting post secondary education. Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed said the 23-campus system will offer 40,000 fewer seats for the 2010-11 academic year, a 7 percent cut. A new Public Policy Institute of California survey shows Californians give high grades to their public higher education systems but are worried about increased student costs and state budget cuts.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through November 6
Federal News
Declaring there should be “no excuse for mediocrity” in public schools, President Obama on Wednesday pledged to push for recruitment of better teachers, better pay for those who succeed and dismissal of those who let their students down.
Senate Bill X5 1, approved by the Senate Tuesday, would make the state more likely to get a piece of the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top federal stimulus funds offered to the nation’s schools. The bill repeals California’s charter school cap, calls for a strategy to turn around its lowest performing schools and allows students at these institutions to attend any school in the state. It also encourages school districts to reward teachers who consistently improve student scores.
Sacramento News
The Legislative Analyst Office prepared information concerning projected General Fund debt service obligations and the state’s currently authorized, but unissued, general obligation (GO) bonds.
Lost in avalanche of vetoed bills was AB 8. It would have created a working group with broad representation – representatives of the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the governor, staff of both parties’ leaders, the state superintendent of instruction – to create a comprehensive plan for finance reform by December 2010. No wonder groups are considering the suing the Governor for more equitable education funding.