Currently browsing K-12 Challenges, Interventions
State Board handed job of defining rules of new funding system
The Legislature will vote today on a bill establishing Gov. Brown’s historic school funding system that punts to the State Board of Education some key decisions on how dollars for disadvantaged students must be spent and accounted for. Senate Bill 91, the 178-page “trailer” bill containing statutory changes for Gov. Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula, was released Thursday, one day before lawmakers must vote on the $96 billion state budget that includes funding for the new … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Advocates for Education, Featured, Program innovation, Reporting & Analysis, School Boards, Site Councils, State Board of Education, Systemic Change, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Education officials seek team approach to fight chronic absenteeism
Backed by the knowledge that the first symptom of academic failure is an empty desk, state education officials are putting a priority on battling chronic absenteeism by enlisting support across state agencies. The California Department of Education convened a first-of-its-kind forum last month of state and local experts from school districts, health and social services agencies, district attorneys’ offices and advocacy groups. The goal: to get them to work cooperatively to keep children in school. “We can … Read entire article »
Filed under: Absence, Truancy, Featured, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Poverty, Poverty, Reporting & Analysis
It’s a deal: Brown, top lawmakers raise base funding in finance formula
In a nod to suburban districts that argued they would be shortchanged, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders negotiated a new version of Brown’s plan for school finance reform that will increase the base funding level for all students and lower the extra dollars for some high-needs students. Late Monday, the Joint Legislative Budget Conference Committee, made up of lawmakers from the Senate and the Assembly, approved a compromise version of Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) … Read entire article »
Filed under: Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Poverty, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
No agreement yet on how to hold districts accountable for new state money
Gov. Jerry Brown’s new school funding system is based on the idea that school districts, not Sacramento, should be given control over spending and then held accountable for students’ results. But with time running out to work on details of the Local Control Funding Formula, negotiators from the Assembly, Senate and the governor’s office have yet to agree on what, when and how districts should be judged. All agree that districts should be measured by more … Read entire article »
Filed under: A to G Curriculum, Career Technical Education, Common Core standards, Featured, Jerry Brown, Parent Activism, Poverty, Poverty, Reporting & Analysis, Tests, Turning around failing schools, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Q&A: Lessons for California from New Jersey’s ‘Improbable Scholars’
Students in Union City, N.J., get twice the funding of students in California. They attend two years of full-day kindergarten. Recent immigrants to this country are taught initially in their native language. For all their differences, though, there are also some core similarities with California districts like Sanger, Garden Grove and Long Beach, which author David Kirp identifies in his latest book, among the beat-the-odds districts. Chief among them: a focus on the long view, with … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, English learners, Equity issues, Featured, High School Completion, Kindergarten and Preschool, Poverty, Reporting & Analysis, Systemic Change, Teacher Collaboration
Bill would require school districts to clarify the role of campus police
Unlike most school safety legislation introduced after the Newtown shootings, which called for increased security measures and beefing up school police forces, a bill by one California assemblyman takes a different tack: It seeks to limit the police role on school campuses. Concerned about an overreaction to the shootings, Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, introduced Assembly Bill 549, which would encourage school districts to clarify the roles of school police, limiting them to handling dangerous or physically … Read entire article »
Filed under: Discipline, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Legislature, Bills, Reporting & Analysis, School Safety
Disparities in education can crush aspirations in heart of Silicon Valley
Sunnyvale, in the heart of Silicon Valley, is home to such high-tech fixtures as Yahoo!, Juniper Networks, AMD and Applied Micro, plus aerospace/defense operations of Lockheed Martin and Honeywell. Yet few Latinos who grow up in their shadow are qualified to work for those companies. The disconnect between aspirations and reality starts early. Only 10 percent of Latinos, who comprise 42 percent of students in Sunnyvale Elementary District, are proficient in algebra by the end of … Read entire article »
Filed under: A to G Curriculum, Charter Schools, Equity issues, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, STEM, UC and CSU
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
LAUSD will no longer suspend students for ‘willful defiance’
Los Angeles Unified is the first district in the state to stop suspending students for “willful defiance” – a subjective category that accounts for 54 percent of suspensions and a quarter of all expulsions across the state. The school board voted 5-2 to ban suspensions for defiance following an impassioned discussion, according to the Los Angeles Times, with one board member saying he considered this change an experiment. The vote is a victory for civil rights groups and other activists who have been working to change the “zero tolerance” approach to discipline in favor of alternatives such as referring students to counseling or contacting parents to determine the root cause of the misbehavior. Supporters of the change point out that disproportionate numbers of African American students are suspended for willful defiance. African … Read entire article »
Filed under: Discipline, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Quick Hits, Race, Ethnicity, Students
Video Highlights from
2013 EdSource Symposium
Transforming Public Education: What's Next For
Students, Teachers and Schools
- In Partnership with the California State PTA -
May 4th symposium in San Jose featured a number of prominent speakers on key challenges in education today, including Linda Darling-Hammond, Martha Kanter, and Pedro Noguera.
You can find video of those speakers and more at our new YouTube channel by clicking below.
It’s time to fix school discipline practices and policies
May 20th, 2013 | 32 Comments | By Sarah Omojola / commentary
All students can learn. That’s a simple but profound starting place for talking about changing school discipline policies. As a former teacher in New Orleans public schools, I am well aware of the difficulty of teaching students who have varying backgrounds, abilities and learning styles in an ever-changing school system, inundated with countless internal and external pressures. However, research has shown that students are frequently suspended on grounds such as “willful defiance” for behavior that is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Absence, Truancy, Commentary, Discipline, Dropout prevention, Equity issues, Featured, K-12 Challenges, Interventions