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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)
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 … 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
On the limits of planning (or, It’s all about the pants)
There is a great, but also deeply challenging, story in Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Mandela had been working to end apartheid. There is a warrant out for his arrest, he goes underground, but eventually is caught, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island. No one has ever escaped from this infamous prison. This is the end. There is no possible plan or blueprint that leads from here forward. But when … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Featured, Systemic Change, Teachers
Common Core test is on track, State Board told
Four states have encountered serious glitches and system meltdowns over the past several weeks as they have moved their own state assessments online. But the head of the state-led consortium creating the Common Core tests for California and two dozen other states expressed confidence Wednesday that his organization is working closely with states and taking precautions to avoid significant problems. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is one of two state consortiums – the other is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Standardized tests, Technology, Tests & Assessments, Twenty-first Century Learning
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