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CSU freezes spring enrollment again
California State University is once again severely limiting spring enrollment due to state budget cutbacks and the fear of more reductions. … Read entire article »
Filed under: California Colleges, College Enrollment, Community Colleges, Featured, Initiatives, Jerry Brown, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Taxes, UC and CSU
Educational differences run deep by race, ethnicity, and income in new report
California’s poor showing in a national study of children’s well-being came despite increases in academic achievement. California students improved on all four indicators in education, according to the 23rd annual Kids Count report released last week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Equity issues, Featured, Poverty, Poverty, Race, Ethnicity, Reporting & Analysis, Research
California’s school facilities need a shot in the arm
California’s school facilities need an infusion of $117 billion during the next decade, with close to half of the funding needed to replace or repair existing schools, according to a report by UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities & Schools. The report, released this week, called on state leaders to develop a comprehensive school facilities master plan that will address past inequities in funding among school districts, involve districts in regional land use planning to reduce greenhouse … Read entire article »
Filed under: Facilities, Reporting & Analysis, Revenue and taxes
What next for Brown’s school finance reform?
A termed-out state senator who’s been a leader on education issues offered advice Wednesday to Gov. Jerry Brown on how to get the Legislature to pass significant school finance reform: Don’t try to jam lawmakers; ally yourself with a respected legislator who’s got more than a couple years left to serve; and implement the reforms gradually, for more buy-in from 1,000 districts that will be asking, “What’s in it for me?” “Come back through policy process … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Finance, Reporting & Analysis, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Bigger dashboards may not steer districts in right direction
Lately I’ve been doing some musing about educational dashboards, the displays that school districts and others are developing to provide quick indicators of success or failure. The iconography, of course, is derived from the dashboards in our automobiles, and we understand the self-correcting nature of those indicators. People who don’t heed the “tank empty” light frequently find themselves over at the side of the road calling the service truck. Zipping past the nice state patrol officer when … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Data, Featured, High School Completion
California nearly last in children’s well-being
California is doing slightly better by its kids but still has a long way to go, ranking 41st out of 50 states in the overall well-being of children. The 2012 Kids Count report, released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, measures how well children are faring on 16 different indicators in education, economic well-being, health, and family and community. California showed improvements in 10 of the 16 categories, including education. The brightest spot is health, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Data, Equity issues, Featured, Health, Nutrition, Fitness, High School Completion, K-12 Challenges, Interventions, Poverty, Poverty, Race, Ethnicity, Reporting & Analysis
Big win in court for ‘parent trigger’ organizers
A Superior Court judge has given the parents in a Mojave Desert town who pulled the state’s second “parent trigger” a milestone victory. San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Steve Malone ruled that the Adelanto School District trustees illegally rejected the petition submitted by a majority of parents to turn Desert Trails Elementary into a charter school. Malone has given the school board a month to approve the petition, and the parents a green light to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Parent Activism, Parent Trigger, Reporting & Analysis
Mum’s the word on California’s request for NCLB waiver
No word yet on California’s application for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law. Literally, no word. At a press conference last week, in which he announced that six more states would get waivers from NCLB sanctions, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan declined to answer a reporter’s question regarding California’s status, according to Education Week. Read into that what you want, but no comment is probably not good news for California’s non-conforming application. So far, the federal Department of Education has approved waivers for 33 states, with three more in the hopper. Vermont has dropped out and Iowa, for now, has had its application denied. The states with the waivers won’t have to meet the looming demand that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014, and they won’t … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, No Child Left Behind, Quick Hits
Aspire to expand residency program for teachers in training
Aspire Public Schools is significantly enlarging its Teacher Residency program, an intensive teacher training model that San Francisco Unified and about two dozen urban school districts nationwide have adopted to better prepare new teachers from day one in the classroom. Under a teacher residency program, teachers in training do a full-year internship under individual mentor teachers while they take courses for their teaching credential. In exchange, usually for a small stipend and a loan forgiveness agreement … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Preparation, Reporting & Analysis, Teachers
Why school reform will continue to be so hard
July 31st, 2012 | 8 Comments
By Peter Schrag / commentary ~ EdSource Extra
Listening to even the best people in California’s school reform discussions doesn’t leave much clarity about the direction our money-starved education system should go or much confidence that things will get perceptibly better any time soon. Many of those good people know what’s needed. It’s just that they don’t all know the same thing, or don’t know it at the same time. That much at least was apparent once again at a forum in Sacramento last … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Data, Featured, Finance, Funding and Taxation, Jerry Brown, Revenue and taxes, School Boards, State Board of Education, Student spending, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)