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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)
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)
Summer enrichment programs prove their value
The organizers of a statewide campaign to encourage school districts to offer quality summer enrichment programs have documented gains in learning and growth in social skills that they anticipated would benefit low-income, minority students in their programs. Through its Summer Matters initiative in a dozen communities, the Partnership for Children and Youth has promoted full-day programs that are more like summer camp than traditional summer schools. Most of the programs are partnerships between city departments of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Dropout prevention, Equity issues, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Summer Programs
Bill aims to help expelled and truant students get back on track
The purpose of a complicated bill aimed at preventing students from languishing in alternative schools became much clearer after the testimony of a former student who got stuck in one. Jessie Camargo, now 18, was transferred to a community school two weeks before his eighth grade graduation. That summer he completed all the requirements set by his district, which included drug and alcohol counseling classes, 140 hours of community service, and an anger management class, but … Read entire article »
Filed under: Absence, Truancy, Discipline, Dropout prevention, Equity issues, Featured, Governance, High School Completion, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Legislature, Bills, Reporting & Analysis
Rocketship Education’s next phase: technology in a blended classroom
Palo Alto-based Rocketship Education has attracted national attention in the past few years for its innovative use of technology and impressive test scores for its largely low-income, Hispanic students. Now, as other districts and charter schools are starting to emulate the Rocketship model, which relies on computer-guided instruction as a key component, the K-5 charter school organization is considering leaving it behind, like a first-stage booster, and moving toward a different a 21st century classroom. Instead … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blended Learning, Equity issues, Featured, Online Learning, Reporting & Analysis
Democrats split on timing, specifics of Brown’s funding formula
Joan Buchanan, the Democratic chair of the Assembly Education Committee, grilled administration officials at length Wednesday on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to reform school funding. She wanted, without success, to get them to concede there are flaws and inconsistencies in the plan. Buchanan’s intense questioning prompted a frustrated Assemblymember Das Williams, a fellow Democrat from Santa Barbara, to call for a shift in the discussion from “poking holes” in the plan to “doing what we can … Read entire article »
Filed under: Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Bill restricting ‘willful defiance’ for suspending students moves ahead
With new data showing that more than half of all suspensions and a quarter of expulsions in California schools are for “willful defiance” of school authorities, the Assembly Education Committee voted 6-0 on Wednesday to move forward a bill that would restrict the use of the vague category by school administrators. Assemblymember Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, who introduced Assembly Bill 420, said that current law enumerates 23 other reasons why a student can be suspended or expelled, yet … Read entire article »
Filed under: Discipline, Equity issues, Featured, Governance, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Legislature, Bills, Race, Ethnicity, Reporting & Analysis, Students
Apples to apples comparison of Brown’s funding formula
Twenty-two of the 50 largest districts in the state would receive more money under Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed K-12 funding formula when it’s fully funded, potentially in seven years, while 28 districts would do better if additional money were simply divvied up under the current system, with no reforms, according to data provided this week by the state Department of Finance. Of course, glaring problems with the current system would also persist if nothing were done. Legislators … Read entire article »
Filed under: Categorical Funding, Equity issues, Featured, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Bill would protect adult ed, career tech while extending local control
School districts would keep discretion to spend billions of dollars of “categorical” funding however they want for five more years under a Senate bill that passed its first hurdle in the Legislature on Wednesday. SB 223‘s provisions on local spending control are similar to Gov. Jerry Brown’s sweeping plan for school finance reform. Both approaches would require that districts show how they used the money, freed from state restrictions, to improve student achievement. But there … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Categorical Funding, Equity issues, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Higher standards coming for state’s intern teachers
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing signaled Thursday its intention to increase training requirements for intern teachers, including Teach for America members, before they’re allowed to teach any of the state’s 1.4 million students who are English learners. At a packed, highly charged meeting in Sacramento, Commission members staked out a compromise position to avert threatened lawsuits from supporters, who had urged the Commission to severely restrict districts’ ability to hire intern teachers, and opponents, who argued that intern … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commission on Teacher Credentialing, English learners, Equity issues, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Students, Teachers
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