Social Media Stories for the Week Ending January 28
Board Members
Are you frustrated about visiting a website to check for updates and wasting time? Now Google has a way to receive automatic updates when content changes on a webpage.
If you are looking for some guidance on how to spend your time in the evolving social media area, Chris Brogan offers his take on how to slice up your time .
Schools and the Classroom
There certainly ARE and should continue to be limits on the punishments school officials mete out in response to students’ off campus behavior with social media technologies. This case involving Taylor Cummings, who reportedly had a public Facebook page and was threatening school employees with physical violence is the latest example.
The Chino Valley Unified School District decided to enter the second decade of the 21st century by opening its first “virtual” high school. The virtual school – the district’s eighth high school – will be dedicated to an online multimedia curriculum. Students will be able learn via the Internet from home and on a personalized schedule.
Community Engagement
As more journalists get laid off, expect to see more local blogs covering public education. Here is an example of local blogger covering impact of the state budget on class size reduction in Alameda.
If the priests in the Catholic Church are being encouraged to blog by the Pope, can school districts administrators be far behind?
Creating Fan Page on Facebook is a popular trend for businesses. Before school districts create a Fan Page, here are guidelines to consider.
Pass along to others using the SHARE button.
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending January 28
Federal
What concerns National School Board Association is the discussion of a shift from discretionary funds to competitive grants for much of the proposed increase in education funding. Obama already has announced plans to add $1.35 billion to the Race to the Top program, and Duncan indicated that the White House sees competitive grants as the best way to leverage a relatively small amount of money to maximize reforms.
There is a debate going on about whether the identity of the reviewers should be revealed before the Race to the Top grants are awarded.
Sacramento
Maybe the State Legislature should look to Oregon which passed ballot measures to raise taxes for schools. Two-thirds of adults surveyed in a Public Policy Institute of California poll say they support higher taxes to maintain funding for K-12 schools. And a full 82 percent, including a majority of Republicans polled, oppose cutting K-12 education to reduce the state budget deficit. No other part of state spending comes close to engendering such support in the poll.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put organized labor squarely in his cross-hairs in 2010, opening a fight that will largely determine the shape of his final year in office. Schwarzenegger’s proposals would cut the size of the union workforce, reduce pay, shrink future pensions and roll back job protections won through collective bargaining.
The Legislature’s budget analyst recommended that lawmakers go along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut state employee pay, even without labor unions’ consent, saying the state’s fiscal distress warrants the action.
Twenty-two of state Sen. Joe Simitian’s colleagues in the Senate are co-sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow lower the threshold for passing a local school parcel tax from two-thirds to 55 percent.
Social Media Stories for Week of Jan 18
This new weekly post will provide insights into the emerging world of social media and its impact on the classroom and community engagement .
Board Members
Where are you on the Social Technographic Ladder?
If you are a Facebook user, it will not hurt to review your Facebook settings to insure what you thought you were sharing with the world is actually happening.
Confused by the dialog box requesting an email address when you sign up for an application on Facebook? This article explains how it works.
Do you constantly have 99 new notifications, marked with the little red button at the bottom right in your Facebook account? Would you like to only receive important notifications, such as comments from friends, and skip the stuff various applications send you? Read on.
Schools and the Classroom
The Kaiser Family Foundation has the results in from its latest media usage study, and it was enough to shock the authors. Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours. Students no longer use technology as an add-on they have no choice .
The recently released video, “RE: Cry of the Dolphins,” is a clever and thought-provoking anti-cyberbullying effort by Google/YouTube, the National Crime Prevention Council and Saatchi & Saatchi. Watch closely, you’ll probably be surprised what happens.
Community Engagement
Using online surveys is becoming a more popular among school distircts, especially for budget reductions input. Currently Sacramento City and Oakland are using surveys to solicit input.
As more of us use non school district resources to communicate with our constituents using iPhones, blogs and social networking apps like Facebook, beware of the implications on public records requests.
As more newspapers declare bankruptcy impacting coverage of schools, what is your school district doing to create its own distribution channels of information?
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending Jan 22
Federal
President Obama announced he’ll ask Congress for $1.35 billion to extend an education grant program for more states and local school districts to win grants.
Assuming that Congress goes along, districts will compete for an additional $1.3 billion Race to the top grants later this year or early in 2011. That way, innovative districts won’t be cheated by governors, like Rick Perry of Texas, who refused to compete for the money – dismissing Race to the Top as a federal intrusion – or states that submitted pedestrian applications that were denied money.
40 states and the District of Columbia submitted applications to compete in Phase 1 of Race to the Top. Which raises the question: Do Federal education dollars work? Here is the Department of Education’s 2009 assessment of education performance and accountability.
Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts jolted the political world, and may spell the end for President Obama’s health care legislation. But what are the edu-implications?
Sacramento
State Superintendent Public Instruction Jack O’Connell delivered his 7th annual State of Education Address. In his speech to educators, policymakers, students, and parents, O’Connell highlighted progress made over the past seven years in improving student achievement and applauded California’s educators for doing the hard work to achieve these results even as schools were forced to absorb deep cuts in funding.
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending January 15
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If you missed the CSBA Forecast webinar, go here for all of the resources. The webinar included an economic forecast and an assessment of the impact of the Governor’s budget on school districts.
Federal
Why are school districts holding out in participating in Race To The Top funds when State policies are changing regardless of their participation?
In his proposed budget, the governor assumes that the federal government will grant the state a waiver so that the state can spend $600 million less on K-12 education than it promised the federal government it would as a condition of taking stimulus money last year.
The California Teachers Association is used to getting its way. The union that represents 340,000 public school teachers has traditionally been one of the most powerful forces in the Capitol. In the past decade, it spent $38 million on lobbying – more than anyone else in the state. So it was an unusual loss for the CTA when the Legislature last week approved the Race to the Top education bills that the union and its allies opposed.
Sacramento
While the LAO characterized the Governor’s budget as reasonable, the Legislature should assume that federal relief will be billions of dollars less than the Governor wants—necessitating that it make more very difficult decisions affecting both state revenues and spending. Therefore, the Legislature and the Governor need to agree to a framework to solve much of the budget problem by the end of March.
Much of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plan to save the state $1.6 billion by cutting state workers’ pay, boosting their pension contributions and limiting the government workforce can’t be done unilaterally but requires agreements from the public-employee unions or the Legislature – or both.
News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending January 8
Federal
State Superintendent OConnell issued this statement after passage of Race to the Top legislation that is expected to be signed by the Governor. CTA is urging local unions not to sign MOUs with their school districts.
At the end of a NPR interview, David Brooks of the New York Times was quoted as follows:
Race to the Top is the single-most successful program he’s (Obama) done. It’s changing education reform in state after state … Rahm Emanuel calls it the invisible revolution, but it’s really having bigger effects than almost anything else he’s done, save health care.
Sacramento
Despite his promise to “protect education” this time, the Governor’s budget proposal contains a $1.2 billion cut that would be sought in school district level administration. None of the cuts could be shifted to classroom reductions. For a historical perspective you can review the prior seven years of California state budget crisis, year by year.
On Wednesday the Governor delivered his State of the State speech that drew the usual partisan responses.
In advance of releasing his budget proposal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will propose ending furloughs for state workers at the end of June but seek permanent pay cuts and higher employee retirement contributions in their place.
Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Delaine Eastin writes an opinion pieceon the dismantling of class size reduction due to defunding of public education.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Yet another reason why political reform is so difficult. The people who write the rules for campaign financing reform, know how to circumvent them.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through January 1
Federal News
Facing a $21 billion shortfall through June 2011, California leaders want billions of dollars in budget relief from Washington that could head off deep cuts expected to state programs. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will ask the White House to waive rules that require the state to spend its own money on certain programs to receive federal funds, according to California officials briefed on the Republican’s coming budget proposal.
At least 20 of Orange County’s 28 school districts have tentatively committed to implementing a series of controversial education reforms outlined under President Obama’s competitive Race to the Top grant program for schools. Here is a statewide list of 780 school districts that have applied as of December 31.
Reforming State and Local Governance
In recent weeks, nearly 90 proposed initiatives have been in the pipeline, elbowing to become the latest entrants in the state’s century-old tradition of direct democracy or proving California’s system of governance is broken.
Perhaps the only growing segment of voting population will decide who the next Governor will be.
School District Impacts
Sources have confirmed that Lodi Unified will look eliminating prep periods as a way to save as much as $7 million. Catherine Pennington, assistant superintendent of elementary education, described teacher prep periods as 35- or 40-minute segments for teachers to prepare assignments, grade work or handle other classroom duties. During those periods, their students typically are taken out of the classroom by a physical education or music teacher.
As school districts bleed programs and services to cope with education funding cuts, some are looking into extra revenue streams, such as parcel taxes. Modesto City Schools officials are in the early discussion stages of asking voters to approve a parcel tax, which would levy a fee on all property owners within the elementary and high school districts’ boundaries, including Modesto, Salida, and parts of Empire and Riverbank.
With the decade coming to a close, the San Bernadino Sun reviewed the years 2000-2009 for public education.
P.S. Have not made any New Year Resolutions? Try this site for help. Happy New Year and may this decade be the decade where California decides to reinvest in public education.