News Impacting CA Schools for the Week Ending August 30
Federal
First came the announcement that California was not going to receive Round 2 Race to the Top funding. Then came the finger-pointing about the lack of cooperation with the teachers unions. In the end, California’s poor reform track record proved its to be it undoing.
Sacramento
After getting a waiver from the Federal government, the California Board of Education awarded monies for the federal School Improvement Grants. While addressing some of the shortcomings of the first proposal, there is still plenty of room for improvement.
With the governor’s signature of SB 1422, students have won the right to express views of their teachers. It will take another bill, however, to win the right to actually be listened to.
School Districts Impacts
The closer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to leaving office and the longer the budget stalemate drags out, the more frank he seems to become. As a result, the State begins withholding/deferring payments to school districts.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through August 20
Sacramento News
A bill to create the state’s first formal system for soliciting opinions of high school students about their classes and teacher effectiveness was sent to Governor Schwarzenegger. Senate Bill 1422 would authorize student governments at each high school to appoint a committee of students and faculty to develop surveys for “fostering improved communication between pupils and teachers, and improving individual classes.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced California was awarded nearly $51.8 million in federal Charter Schools Program grant funding through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement. The fact that California was a grant recipient was announced in July. However, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced how a total $136 million would be divided among 12 state education agencies including the California Department of Education (CDE).
School District Impacts
As public schools continue to be battered in California’s budget wars, parents are organizing to compete with other powerful constituencies fighting for a share of dwindling taxpayer dollars and to push for education reforms. Parents are arguably among the least politically active, given the relentless time and financial pressures of raising children. For years, many have worked on local school issues through their PTAs to advocate for their schools, and the California PTA to represent them in Sacramento. But in a state where Sacramento controls so much of what happens in local schools, some parents are beginning to realize they may have no choice but to get more directly involved in political organizing.
After making the “easy cuts” school districts are struggling to find ways to reduce expenses. Lodi Unified trustees deadlocked Tuesday in a 3-3 vote, denying staff permission to file a class-size reduction waiver that would have allowed the district to legally increase class sizes as state and local officials continue to battle budget cuts in education.
Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) is a nonpartisan grassroots movement of concerned citizens and businesses who are fighting against lawsuit abuse in California. CALA released a report on litigation costs to 12 of California’s school districts, finding that in just three fiscal years, these schools spent $98.7 million.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through August 13
Federal News
President Obama signed a bill allocating $26 billion state relief fund for public safety and education jobs. California will get at least $1.2 billion for its schools. California has up to 30 days to apply from enactment, and the federal government then has up to 15 days to distribute the funds. Once money flows to the districts, local school boards have to ratify whatever decisions are made on how the funds will be spent.
Sacramento News
Does anyone really believe that having Meg Whitman in Sacramento will mean state budget passed sooner like she claims.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Even reform measures created by Legislature run into trouble. Citing a $19 billion deficit and a struggling economy, the Legislature voted to remove Prop 18 Water Bond measure from the November ballot and wait until 2012.
School District Impacts
School districts who are looking for additional revenue should tread lightly when looking charging fees for athletics and extra curricular activities. The American Civil Liberties Union is stepping up the pressure on school districts that are violating state law by charging students to participate in athletics and other extracurricular activities.
In a sign of the times, cities, school and special districts in the Alameda and Contra Costa counties have placed 32 measures on the Nov. 2 ballot, and most of them ask voters for money.
Alameda County BOE Races Recap
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has finalized the ballots for the November 2, 2010 ballot. There are 36 openings in 21 local school board races. 12 incumbents are not running for reelection. There are 38 individuals challenging incumbents in school board races.
In the San Leandro, District 6 race, no one filed and the Board of Education will have to make an appointment. In Castro Valley, Oakland, District 2 and Oakland, District 6 the incumbents do not have any challengers. In Dublin, one individual filed beside one of the incumbents so that race will not appear on the ballot.
Alameda, Berkeley, Hayward and San Lorenzo have the most crowded election fields with four or more challengers to the incumbents.
2010 BOE November Ballot Recap
News Impacting CA School Districts Through August 6
Federal News
The Department of Education announced a cross-section of 49 school districts, nonprofit education organizations and institutions of higher education have been selected from among nearly 1,700 applicants for potential funding under the Investing in Innovation (i3) program. To receive a share of the $650 million in i3 grants, the winning applicants must secure a commitment for a 20 percent private sector match by Sept. 8.
The U.S. Senate today approved a long-stalled measure that would provide $10 billion to prevent what supporters say would be hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs nationwide. Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, are taking the unusual step of calling for lawmakers to return from their August recess next week to pass the final version of the bill.
Sacramento News
The state Board of Education voted 9-0 to adopt the federal common core standards. By approving the national standards, the state’s application received additional points for a federal Race to the Top education grant that could be worth $700 million. Don’t expect to see changes in the classroom any time soon.
The timing of potential awards to school districts of $415 million of federal grant money late last Friday was questionable. On Monday, the state Board members sought a delay to clarify the selection process for doling out the money, which could exclude districts such as Oakland, Mt. Diablo, West Contra Costa and Los Angeles from receiving any money.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Here is an unintended consequence of term limits. Sen. Gloria Romero in an attempt to bolster her credentials for State Superintendent of Pubic Instruction sponsored legislation that identified 1,00 schools as among the lowest performing in the state. Students in those schools, for the first time, would have the right to transfer to any other school in the state, and would no longer be confined to schools in their own district. The only problem is that the list includes dozens of schools that were doing quite well, as a result of an artifact contained in the legislation which established the list. In addition, high performing school districts can reject applicants due to budgetary concerns, which most school districts are experiencing.
School District Impacts
Here is an example unintended consequences of March 15 notices and tightening budgets. In the wake of widespread layoffs, the cost of health benefits for hundreds of teachers that survived last year’s bloodbath at the Torrance Unified School District is skyrocketing.