If supporters of public education want to raise revenue for public education the best path lies elsewhere. With redistricting the ability to elect super majorities in both houses of state Legislature exists. Rather then spend countless hours gathering signatures, collecting donations for an expensive campaign with a 50/50 chance of passing a tax ballot measure, focusing all of those resources on electing Democrats in swing districts is just as likely to be successful.

From a budgeting point of view, most school districts will end up adopting a 2012/13 budget that does NOT assume real increase in revenue. School districts can not hope the November election results will go their way. Over 90% of the school districts took the Governor’s 2011/12 promise to keep education funding intact and ignored it by planning for the upcoming trigger cuts.

Hopefully groups like the statewide PTA and Educate Our State will mobilize parents to focus on electing a super majority of Democrats. Then there will be a real chance to revenues for public education.

Real Revenues for Schools is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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Local Taxes

In California there were 53 tax/bond measures on local ballots. 40 of the 53 passed with a resounding 75% or more. California City Finances provides a complete rundown of the preliminary results.

For local school districts, five of seven parcel tax measures were successful, though the communities were renewing current parcel taxes.

For those of you thinking that this local support will translate into support for a state-wide measure to raise taxes for education, I would urge caution. Voters have shown support and trust of local government and that support does not extend to state government.

Public Employee Pensions

Every day there seems to be a news story with proposals to reform public employee pensions. In the last seven days, Governor issued a 12 point plan to change pensions, the LAO issued a report on the Governor’s proposal and Republican legislators called for a special session on pension reform.

On Tuesday, voters in An Francisco and Modesto overwhelmingly supported advisory measures to change pension plans in their cities.

Clearly, public employee pension reform will dominate the political conversation leading up to the November, 2012 election.

Collective Bargaining

In Ohio reversed the attempts to eliminate the ability of public employees engage in collective bargaining.

However, Palo Alto voters overwhelmingly repealed a similar arbitration law Tuesday, as did voters in San Luis Obispo earlier this year. San Jose voters agreed to sharply limit arbitration last year.

Once again, public employees unions will be subjected to changes to their current agreements in the coming year. The public wants changes but they draw the line when those changes go too far.

Tilting Left, Moving Right – Election Day Recap is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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1. Critical thinking
2. Communication
3. Collaboration
4. Creativity

The full reach of the model is portrayed in this graphic:

While it is counter intuitive, I would implore school boards to examine step one in this process. Given the dire fiscal circumstances facing all school districts this is the perfect time to reexamine your core values and create a new vision for your school district. The fiscal crisis is requiring all school districts to reevaluate everything so having a clearer picture of the future will help everyone make those painful decisions.

21st Century Education and School Boards is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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Nowhere is this cultural war more apparent than in the city of Denver. At stake in this year’s election is whether a 4-3 majority backing the reform agenda of Superintendent Tom Boasberg will survive.

As a result, the fight for control of Denver schools is leading to one of the most expensive campaigns in district history, with more than $600,000 already donated in school-board races.

In one district election, the husband of a candidate shares his disbelief over the flood of money and campaign tactics used in the election. It’s hard to know how you’ll feel when you see a slickly produced, oil-CEO-financed flier implicitly attacking your 11-month-old baby for not being old enough to attend school and explicitly criticizing your family for not being able to afford a home.

School Board Races – A Fight for America’s Future is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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In his veto message of SB 547, Governor Brown questioned the timing the implementing a new set of measurements when California is in the process of implementing Common Core standards in 2014. In addition, Governor Brown cited a sign that hung in Einstein’s office: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Related to Einstein’s sign is Campbell’s law which states: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

What Campbell also states in this principle is that “achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.”

In closing his veto message Governor Brown threw out a suggestion on how to focus on improving the quality of schools. “What about a system that relies on locally convened panels to visit schools, observe teachers, interview students, and examine work? Such a system wouldn’t produce an API number, but it could improve the quality of our schools.”

Einstein and School Accountability is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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Now Republicans have introduced their vision for ESEA moving forward. While keeping annual testing schedule and requiring states to keep reporting on results for different groups of kids, the Federal government would focus on bottom 5% of low performing schools. The measure would basically let states decide how to label and intervene in the other 95 percent of schools.

Given the complete inconsistency between State and Federal measurements for identifying failing schools this could be a God send to all of the school boards dealing Program Improvement sanctions. However, school boards need to careful for what they wish for. The public wants accountability along adequate funding for public schools, so throwing out accountability measures need to be replaced with something the public trusts.

Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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Let’s see so far this week we saw new proposals shifting implementation of the “Amazon tax”, overhauling business taxes, maneuvering to move initiatives from the June ballot to November and tweaking CEQA law to build a football stadium in Los Angeles.

Social media is pulling back the curtain surrounding the legislative process and legislators are going to have to adjust. In the old days, news cycle were daily so citizens would have no idea how the legislative process unfolded. Now news is created as it happens.

Rumors swirled early in the week that Democrats wanted to change rules when initiatives qualify for state-wide election. Under the current practice, if an initiative qualifies 131 days before the June primary, it would be voted on in June. Then on Thursday, SB 202 appeared. Around 12 noon, Friday, the text of SB 202 was finally released. Senator Hancock released her version of why SB 202 was needed. Fox and Hounds gave their assessment of SB 202. As events unfolded anyone following the hashtag #SB202 on Twitter could watch the political theater.

Any bets on the rules changing back in 2016 when Democrats select their next Presidential candidate?

Not Business As Usual is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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Groups and Conversation

After the invention of printing press and the assembly of books, the delivery of education has not changed much. The conversation was compromised of content contained in books with a group of students being led by one teacher. New forms of media like the telegraph/telephone, film/record and radio/television have not substantially changed the model of teacher, student and book. Ignoring the eventual migration of all prior forms of media being digitized and being delivered via the internet, the internet fundamentally changes the nature of groups and conversations. The internet supports both groups and conversations so content is free to take whatever form makes the most sense.

Communicate With the Natives

If we have learned anything about the emerging technologies of the last decade, they have the power to topple existing power structures. The ability to coordinate, communicate and collaborate has never been easier. Join groups of like-minded individuals who are committed to changing the conversation. Start conversations with the digital natives (students). Engage and empower students and they will enlighten us on how change the delivery of education. Amass your group of followers and demand a change to the educational conversation.

From my lofty perch high on top of the educational pyramid (school board trustee), I offer this observation to all of you who are committed to overthrowing me. Time is short and the 21st century will not wait. I look forward to the coming coup d’etat.

Groups and Conversations is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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History

To improve their chances for September, 2010 Race To The Top funding, states had to adopt state specific common core standards by August 2, 2010. However, a year earlier, legislation for adopting instructional materials, including framework revisions, until the 2013-14 school year was passed (Subsequent legislation has moved the adoption to 2014/15).

In June, 2011, California joined 30 states to become members of the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Of those, California is one of 18 governing states, which allows decision-making participation.

Work of CORE

Seven school districts formed in October, 2010 to work on school district reform. The seven school districts are Clovis, Fresno Long Beach, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Sanger districts or California Office to Reform Education (CORE).

In July, 2011, the Stuart Foundation has announced it will spend $1.55 million to support the work of CORE. The grant supports CORE’s priority work of sharing and using data to improve instruction; improving teacher preparation and recruitment; and creating formative assessments for and implementing the Common Core standards in English language arts and math.

Common Core Standards California – Happy Birthday is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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With Tuesday’s decision by Controller Chiang not to pay Legislators (reaction) until they pass a balanced budget, the uncertainty remains for school districts. Subsequent discussions later during week have not shown any signs of movement towards a solution. In fact, increases in revenues may not voted on and take effect until 2012/13. As a result, school boards would be prudent to revert back to assumptions from the current 2010/11 budget. Unfortunately, with over a 140 school districts already on the fiscal watch list that may not be possible.

By the way, we have known for a long time that California has had problems solving its budget problems, but apparently Texas is doing the exact same thing California did in 2009 and 2010.

Civic Discourse

I was recently asked to submit a blog post for a local blog in Alameda. Below is the post:

The foundation of the democratic process is the ability and willingness of civic leaders and ordinary citizens to utilize civic discourse as a means to find common ground and broadly based effective solutions. Depending on the diligence of the public agency and the willingness of the print press to cover upcoming meetings, civic discourse was limited. In the “good old days” (I let you decide when this was), the framework for dialogue and the opportunity to speak was limited to a city council meeting or board of education meeting.

However, in the brave new world of increasing access to information, multiple channels of communications (email, Twitter, Facebook) and the rise of participatory media culture (blogs, comments on print media news stories, social bookmarking) the nature of civic discourse is changing. Civic leaders and public agencies can no longer control the framework for dialogue. Now ordinary citizens have multiple opportunities to engage in civic discourse. With the civic discourse moving out of the structured world of a city council meeting/board of education meeting, I offer some principles for civic discourse in the public:

• Focus on issues, not personalities
• Avoid personal attacks
• Invite and encourage a variety of perspectives
• Recognize and value different forms of evidence ranging from testimony to statistical evidence and story telling
• Seek common ground and consensus whenever possible
• Resist relying on sound bites and buzz words heard from political pundits or politicians
• Make your goal to understand rather than persuade

If we focus on applying these principles, I believe we can find common ground and develop broad base effective solutions for the problems facing our community.

Pay Them Later, Not Now is a post from: Effective Governance Teams

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