EdSource Today
EdSource Today is an independent online forum that responds in a timely way to key education challenges and innovations in California and nationally. Written by EdSource staff and guest commentators, its mission is to promote critical thinking through informed, in-depth discussion and reporting, in addition to clarifying key education issues for policy makers, educators, the media and the general public.
Teacher layoffs lowest since economic downturn, CTA reports
Teacher layoffs shrank to the lowest number since the recession began in 2008, with about 1,300 teachers, librarians, counselors and other public school employees receiving final layoff notifications by the May 15 deadline, according to the California Teachers Association. The 1,300 notices amounted to less than half of the 3,000 preliminary “pink slip” layoff notifications that school districts sent on March 15, the state deadline to inform teachers they might be laid off. In March 2012, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reporting & Analysis
Social and emotional learning gaining new focus under Common Core
SACRAMENTO – School is nothing if not an intensely social experience, which is why teacher Michelle Flores posed this question to 24 third graders at Aspire Capitol Heights Academy: “When someone makes a mistake, what do we say?” “That’s cool,” the third graders responded in unison. “We are experts at making mistakes,” said Flores, who incorporates social and emotional instruction, including the idea that making a mistake is not cause for embarrassment, into academics at the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, K-12 Programs, Program innovation, Reporting & Analysis
Brown commits $1 billion for Common Core, sticks with funding formula
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Tuesday to direct all of the extra $2.8 billion in revenue that the state expects to receive this year to K-12 schools and community colleges, mostly for one-time uses, including $1 billion to implement the Common Core standards. There had been projections of even more money this year, but in a news conference releasing his May budget revise, Gov. Jerry Brown tempered expectations; the drag of federal tax changes, sequestration of federal spending … Read entire article »
Filed under: Categorical Funding, Common Core standards, Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Poverty, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Revenue and taxes, Student spending, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Governor tries to fix adult ed plan, but controversy remains
Backing away from his controversial plan to hand control of adult education over to community colleges, Gov. Jerry Brown is instead proposing that regional consortia, made up of community colleges and school districts, determine adult ed’s future. However, his new plan is also stirring controversy. In his budget revision unveiled Tuesday, Brown provides substantially more dedicated funding for adult education beginning in 2015-16, raising the amount allocated to $500 million instead of the $300 million in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Finance, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Community colleges get boost under governor’s revised budget
Community colleges will receive millions more to begin to restore cut classes, rebuild flagging enrollment and strengthen student support services under Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget released Tuesday. Brown would add an additional $30 million to the system’s 2013-14 apportionment, raising it to $226.9 million from the Proposition 98 school funding guarantee. Unlike the January budget proposal, however, when Gov. Brown left it to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to decide how to spend … Read entire article »
Filed under: California Colleges, Community Colleges, Featured, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget
Early education advocates disappointed with governor’s revised budget
Early education advocates in California were hoping for increases in preschool and child care funding in the governor’s revised budget, released Tuesday. No such luck. “The governor talks a lot about educational equity and equality of opportunity,” said Scott Moore, policy analyst for the early education advocacy group Early Edge California. “He is really missing the boat when it comes to preschool.” The funding change that is most likely to affect a child under 5 next year … Read entire article »
Filed under: Child Care, Early Childhood, Featured, Kindergarten and Preschool, Reporting & Analysis
School funding will be focus, source of contention, of Brown’s revised budget
Democrats in the Legislature may find themselves at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on two issues that will factor large when Brown reveals his revised state budget Tuesday: how to spend billions in unanticipated revenue and how to reshape Brown’s sweeping plan for funding K-12 education. As of now, the state is on target to collect $4.5 billion more than expected in personal income taxes, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Democratic leaders in the Legislature … Read entire article »
Filed under: Equity issues, Featured, Foster care, Funding and Taxation, Poverty, Poverty, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
You reach more kids when you use the arts to teach
When I tell people I use the performing arts to teach my second grade students, they often ask, “You’re responsible for teaching kids academics. How do you find the time for that?” Guess what? For the first 13 years of teaching, I too viewed the performing arts as an unaffordable luxury, if not a waste of precious instructional time. My job was to teach academics by filling my students with information. If the school wanted my students to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Arts, Commentary, Featured, Teachers
Lower-income districts would benefit from 55 percent parcel tax threshold, study suggests
Only about one in eight school districts in California have passed a parcel tax, and they predominantly have been wealthier and smaller districts. But if the threshold for passing a parcel tax were dropped from a two-thirds majority to 55 percent, an EdSource analysis suggests more districts with larger enrollments of low-income students would pass them. “Raising Revenues Locally,” an extensive look at three decades of parcel taxes, found that, had the 55 percent threshold been in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Funding and Taxation, Parcel Tax, Reporting & Analysis
California needs alternative certification now more than ever
May 15th, 2013 | 13 Comments | By Corinne Muelrath / commentary
California, now more than ever, is facing an urgent need for qualified and talented professionals to enter our teaching workforce. At a time when one-third of California’s educators are nearing retirement, school districts are going to need the thousands of teachers entering the profession through alternative certification programs, which allow candidates to teach in the classroom while simultaneously earning their teaching credential. This is not the time for hasty policy decisions that threaten to further … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Featured, Preparation, Teachers