Gov. Jerry Brown delivers the State of the State address

In case you were otherwise occupied yesterday when Gov. Jerry Brown was delivering his State of the State address, here’s what he had to say about education.

With respect to education, the strong economic recovery and the passage of Proposition 30 has allowed us to increase spending on public schools and community colleges from a low of $47.3 billion in 2011, to $71.6 billion this budget year. That is a 51 percent increase in overall spending, with significant sums allocated under the Local Control Formula to provide for the unique challenges that face low-income students, English learners and those in foster care.

This pattern of educational spending reverses the historic practice of assuming that all students encounter similar circumstances. They do not. The Local Control Formula, now in its fourth year, recognizes this fact with extra funding to enable educators to overcome the barriers that confront non-English speaking families and those with low and very modest incomes.

I am proud of how California has led the country in the way it is returning control to local school districts. For the last two decades, there has been a national movement to micromanage teachers from afar, through increasingly minute and prescriptive state and federal regulations. California successfully fought that movement and has now changed its overly intrusive, test-heavy state control to a true system of local accountability.

Gov. Jerry Brown

Governor Jerry Brown today signed Senate Bill 725 into law, allowing close to 5,000 high school seniors across the state to graduate without passing a now-cancelled high school exit exam.

The governor signed the bill without comment, his office said.

Brown’s signature brings to a close a problem that began in May, when the California Department of Education suspended administration of the California High School Edit Examination (CAHSEE), which was to have taken place in July.

“Students who’ve been accepted into college should not be prevented from starting class this fall because of a test cancellation they could not control,” said Deborah Hoffman, Brown’s press secretary. The Governor signed the bill, she added, “to ensure these students begin their college careers.”

Education officials cancelled the July test in part because state lawmakers were considering whether to continue using the test as a graduate requirement even though it is not aligned with material being taught under new Common Core standards.

The cancellation left thousands of high school seniors in limbo, unable to graduate and move on to college. The number included 492 seniors in LA Unified.

The University of California and California State University had agreed to enroll students who had qualified for admission but had not passed the exam because they couldn’t take it. However many other colleges and universities had not.

The exam assessed students’ grade-level competency in the state content standards for reading, writing and math.

State politicians and educators are scrambling to cope with the fallout after the abrupt cancelation of an exam by the California Department of Education left over 5,000 high school students across the state — 492 of them in LA Unified –unable to graduate, despite having completed all other necessary course work.

The California High School Exit Exam, known as the CAHSEE, was required for students graduating in 2015 and before. It was meant to test students’ mastery of English and mathematics.

With the introduction of the new Common Core curriculum, the exam no longer tested what students were to have learned, so “the $11 million-a-year contract to administer the test was not renewed, and therefore the July exam was not offered as in past years,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a statement.

Unfortunately for those students across California who had counted on taking the July test to graduate, they were left with no possibility of completing their high school graduation requirements. Many had been accepted into colleges but would have been unable to attend because they hadn’t taken the final test.

Politicians piled on to condemn the decision. State Attorney General Kamala Harris was especially harsh.

“As the result of a thoughtless bureaucratic blunder, thousands of high school graduates face the prospect of not being able to enroll in college, serve their country through the military, or pursue other professional goals,” she said in a statement.

Governor Jerry Brown and the president of the state Board of Education, Mike Kirst, issued a joint statement: “Students who have been accepted into college should not be prevented from starting class this fall because of a test cancellation they could not control.”

To fix the problem, state legislators on Monday set to work gutting Senate Bill 725, which originally dealt with visual and performing arts education, and replacing it with language that would exempt the class of 2015 from the requirement to pass the exam.

The bill is expected to be earmarked today and go before the full Assembly for a vote tomorrow, according to the office of Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, Democrat from San Diego.

Some school districts aren’t waiting for the legislature. In an emergency meeting on Friday, San Francisco’s School Board voted to amend its graduation requirements and grant diplomas to 107 San Francisco high school seniors who hadn’t been able to take the exam.

“This is a decision that’s right for students,” said Superintendent Richard Carranza.

Gov. Jerry Brown

Seven education bills are currently awaiting the signature or veto of Gov. Jerry Brown – and before too many more stack up, we thought a review was in order.

For more check out Edsource’s EdTracker, a tool that follows the ins and outs of education legislation in Sacramento.

“Willful defiance” bill
AB 420 would limit the authority of a superintendent of a school district and a principal to suspend or expel a student for the act of “willful defiance.” It is meant to curb the number of suspensions and expulsions in the state for what critics say is a vaguely-defined infraction.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is the bill’s sponsor and says the “willful defiance” infraction “disproportionately affects students of color, LGBTQ students, and students with disabilities,” according to the group’s website. Brown vetoed an earlier version of the bill, saying, “I cannot support limiting the authority of local school leaders,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

If passed, the bill would be a moot point for LA Unified, which in 2013 became the first school district in the state to ban defiance as grounds for suspension, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bill to mandate kindergarten attendance
AB 1444 would make kindergarten attendance mandatory in the state. Currently, kindergarten is optional, but students starting in the 2016-17 school year must have completed one year of kindergarten before entering first grade if the bill becomes law. The bill is sponsored by the California Teacher’s Association (CTA).

A posting on the CTA’s website states: “CTA believes in providing students with a quality education that begins the very moment they get to our schools. Making kindergarten mandatory is critical so that all children can be better prepared for career or college by the 12^th grade.”

Other groups, such as the Private & Home Educators of California, oppose the bill, saying it takes away a level of parental rights. A posting on the group’s website states: “Advocates of extending government control of all children from birth will be able to use passage of AB 1444 as an incremental step toward establishing seamless, cradle-to-grave government-controlled education and development programs.”

Bill to create 4-year degrees for community colleges
SB 850 would create a pilot program allowing some California community colleges to offer 4-year bachelor’s degrees not offered by the University of California or California State University. California’s community colleges can currently offer only certificates, diplomas and two-year associate’s degrees, according to the Daily Californian.

Supporters say the bill would help create more jobs, while SB 850 has been criticized for disrupting California’s Master Plan for Higher Education, according to the Daily Californian.

Bill Supporting multilingual education
SB 1174 would put a measure on the November 2016 ballot to repeal Proposition 227, the 1998 law requiring English-only instruction in California schools.

Under the proposed law, parents will have more power to decide which languages should be used to instruct their children, but the part of the law that ensures student access to adequate English instruction would remain, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The bill’s author, Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Los Angeles), said SB 1174 would encourage multilingualism, bilingualism and language immersion programs, according to the LA Times, while Senate Republican leader Bob Huff called the bill “an end run around the vote of the people.”

Bill to address absenteeism
AB 1866 is part of a package of five attendance-related bills crafted by California Attorney General Kamala Harris to address the problem of absenteeism. Harris recently appeared at LA Unified’s Malabar Elementary School to highlight a report on truancy released by her office that found a high correlation between attendance problems and both income and race.

AB 1866 would require the state student data system, known as CALPADS, to add reports on chronic absenteeism. It has received a lot of vocal support from many legislators, according to the Sierra Sun Times, but may face a veto from Brown because it is not in line with the Brown administration’s view of how CALPADS should be used, EdSource reported.

Bill to mandate child abuse training
AB 1432 is intended to strengthen training in schools to help teachers and administrators recognize child abuse. The legislation would require all school employees to be trained according to standards developed by the Department of Education. Current law does not require school districts to train employees on detecting or reporting child abuse, according to the bill. 

The bill has received broad support on both sides of the aisle and is supported by California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, according to CaliforniaNewsWire.com.

“California law needs to make sure that school administrators at all levels of education report these most serious crimes and empower our law-enforcement experts to investigate,” said the bill’s author, Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake), according to CaliforniaNewsWire.com.

Bill to improve after-school programs
SB 1221 would update the standards for after-school programs, give extra funds for small rural programs and provide priority funding to year-round programs to help bring them more in line with new Common Core standards. The state is looking to after-school and summer programs to support the new emphasis on hands-on learning, critical thinking and communication skills, according to EdSource.org.

The bill is sponsored by the California Department of Education and the Partnership for Children & Youth, according to the California AfterSchool Network. It passed through both the Assembly and Senate with broad support and is also supported by Torlakson.

Governor Jerry Brown

While editorial boards at most of California’s major newspapers all reacted favorably to Judge Rolf Treu’s ruling in Vergara vs. California, and a USC poll showed that a strong majority of California voters oppose the state’s tenure and layoff policies for public school teachers that the court ruling struck down, Gov. Jerry Brown nonetheless appealed the decision.

Was it so surprising that he did?

Not necessarily, from the point of view of his campaign contributions for reelection.

Teacher unions, including those who joined Vergara as defendants, have been supportive of Brown’s effort to win another four-year term.

The records show that they contributed nearly $114,000 to his campaign this year, led by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a national union, and the California Teachers Association (CTA), each of which gave him $54,400 early in the year. The amount represents a maximum-allowed contribution of $27,200 for the primary and the the general election.

The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) kicked in $5,000, and the California School Employees Association, the largest school support union in the country, contributed $27,200.

The CFT and CTA joined the state as Vergara defendants.

But only a cynic would conclude that sizable campaign contributions would directly influence a policy decision. After all, Brown cited three legally-based reasons for his appeal:

• Major decisions affecting the state “must be reviewed by a higher court.”
• The plaintiffs dismissed “key parties” from the case before trial for “reasons that are unclear or unexplained.”
• The trial court did not include “a detailed statement of the factual and legal bases for its ruling.”

The state records show neither union nor charter school support for Brown’s Republican challenger, Neel Kashkari.

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/browns-vergara-appeal-not-so-hard-to-understand/feed/ 5 https://www.laschoolreport.com/a-few-words-on-public-education-from-governor-brown/ https://www.laschoolreport.com/a-few-words-on-public-education-from-governor-brown/#respond Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:03:56 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=18976

Gov. Jerry Brown

In his State of the State address today, Gov. Jerry Brown spent a few minutes talking about public education in California. Here’s what he had to say:

“Last year, I spoke of the principle of subsidiarity, a rather clunky word that nevertheless points to a profoundly important principle, namely that in our federal system there are separate layers of government, each with its own distinct responsibilities. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a “central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.”

 No better example of this can be found than in your enactment last year of the Local Control Funding Formula. This was a major breakthrough in the way funds are allocated to California’s schools so that our laws explicitly recognize the difficult problems faced by low-income families and those whose first language is other than English. As a result, those with less are going to receive more and that is good for all of us.

But something else is at work in this Local Control Funding Formula. Instead of prescriptive commands issued from headquarters here in Sacramento, more general goals have been established for each local school to attain, each in its own way. This puts the responsibility where it has to be: In the classroom and at the local district. With six million students, there is no way the state can micromanage teaching and learning in all the schools from El Centro to Eureka – and we should not even try!

 Last week, 324 people from across the state traveled to Sacramento to speak to the State Board of Education about the merits of this new law and the regulations which should be adopted under it.

Principals, teachers, students, parents, religious groups and lawyers, all came forward to express their views. Now that shows interest and real commitment! But their work is just beginning. Each local district now has to put into practice what the Local Control Funding Formula has made possible. That, together with new Common Core standards for math and English, will be a major challenge for teachers and local administrators. But they are the ones who can make it work and I have every confidence they will.”

LA School Report has learned that the initiative, called “Stop Child Molesters, Sexual Abusers, and Drug Dealers from Working in California Schools Act,” was submitted to state officials by a Sacramento law firm that specializes in campaign and election law — Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP.

The proposed initiative contends that state laws “do not enable school districts to expeditiously and permanently protect innocent students and staff from school employees who perpetrate acts of child molestation, sexual abuse, drug dealing, and other egregious misconduct.”

The measure was filed on Tuesday through a letter to the state Attorney General’s office and it comes just weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed AB 375, a bill intended to streamline the teacher dismissal process. AB 375, in part, grew out of an earlier bill from Senator Alex Padilla of Los Angeles, which was introduced in the wake of the Miramonte Elementary school sexual abuse scandal but died in the legislature last year.

Unlike AB 375, which was largely a procedural change that covered all infractions, the proposed measure more closely echoes Padilla’s bill, targeting only those accused of “egregious misconduct” relating to sex, drugs and child abuse. The ballot initiative would also differ in several procedural ways, including the removal of a statute of limitation on evidence gathered against an accused employee and the removal of limits on the number of witnesses.

The proposed measure is in the earliest stages. The Attorney General’s office has until Dec. 23 to title and summarize the initiative. After that, proponents have 150 days to circulate a petition throughout the state and collect 504,760 signatures.

In effect, the ballot measure represents an end-around the legislature, which has been caught between public outcry to remove predators and drug dealers from schools more quickly and the powerful teacher unions that have lobbied for a more comprehensive due process protocols. Upon vetoing AB 375, Brown said it was a step in the right direction but inevitably too problematic and “an imperfect solution.” He urged the legislature to try again.

In papers filed with the measure proposal, the law firm cited 10 cases of misconduct in school districts around state to demonstrate the need for such a focused law. The first referred to the Miramonte case, in which it said “a third grade school employee abusing dozens of students ages 6 to 10, including spoon-feeding semen and semen-laced cookies to blindfolded children, over a period of at least five school years.”

The proposed measure argues that school employees engaged in misconduct have “exploited loopholes” in current law “to delay and conceal dismissal proceedings.”

Public approval of the initiative, it concludes, would result in a “constitutional guarantee of students and staff to be safe and secure.”

Fred Glass, a spokesman for the California Federation of Teachers, said he could not comment on the proposed initiative until he learned more about it. Messages left for comment with the California Teachers Association were not returned.

Previous Posts: Gov. Brown’s Veto of AB 375 Leaves Teacher Dismissal Bill Uncertain; Brown Facing Pressure to Veto ‘Flawed’ Teacher Dismissal Bill; Lawmaker Supports Former Opponent’s Teacher Dismissal Bill.

Board member Marguerite LaMotte: ‘We’re as angry as you are.’

One parent wanted more counselors. Another wanted more security personnel. A student came forward with a friend and said, “You’re spending all that money on iPads. We’d prefer you spend it on nurses and librarians and can you please fix the bathrooms.”

This was Tuesday night, in the auditorium of Burroughs Middle School in Hancock Park. Parents, students and teachers took their concerns to a microphone, suggesting ways to slice up a $7 billion budget that includes $230 million in new revenue from Prop 30 taxes. District officials and three LA Unified Board members were there to listen.

It was democracy in action, ordinary citizens speaking to power, as part of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula plan for getting districts more money. But it was sad, too, as everybody seemed to know there is only so much a district can do and so many demands for so many needs.

“A lot of anger, a lot of frustration, the reality of six years of non-stop keeping schools open and everything running with fewer and fewer resources,” Megan Reilly, the district’s chief financial officer, said in an interview yesterday.

Reilly had presided over the 90-minute gathering, the fifth of six such community meetings held this month, the last at Dymally High School in south Los Angeles last night. The district also held a session for union officials. The overall purpose was to gather feedback for when the board gets around to drawing up a spending plan for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Reilly said she and colleagues who have attended the meetings have heard different concerns at different sites, but all laced with the common denominator of pent up frustrations over years of budget cutbacks.

“The feedback has been so raw, but so heartfelt,” she said. “It’s very impactful stuff.”

The pleas also come at a time the district is fending off slings and arrows from critics of the iPad rollout, an imperfect exercise so far that could cost the district as much as $1 billion if it continues through completion. Just this week, the rollout schedule was stretched out a year, to the end of 2015, in deference to the problems so far.

Never mind that iPad money is separate from Local Control money.

Still, a billion dollars for tablets that lots of people don’t necessarily want has been a bitter pill to swallow for many, with remedies still needed for overcrowded classrooms, the union cry for more teachers and insufficient supplies of toilet paper.

With needs different place to place, a consensus seems to be building around the district for letting schools make their own spending decisions, rather than LA Unified Central. In the very unscientific poll Reilly conducted Tuesday night, 72 percent of the 86 people voting “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the proposition that schools should get more autonomy over how to invest their money. That’s something else the board has to decide.

The three board members in the audience Tuesday night — Monica Ratliff, Steve Zimmer and Marguerite LaMotte – each took a turn at the end, addressing those who stayed. We hear you, they all said, acknowledging the grim landscape and promising that things, even if slowly, will start improving.

“We’re as angry as you are,” LaMotte said in a rousing closing argument, her fist pumping the air.

It’s true, in a way, that things can only get better. One of the slides Reilly put up early in the presentation showed the decline of per-student spending by state since 2008, when the recession hit.

California ranked 49th, trailing only Alabama.

Previous Posts:You Name It, LA Unified Community Wants it Funded; Vladovic Willing to Meet with Groups on Spending Plan*; Local Groups to LA Unified Board: Let Schools Decide Spending

Assembly member Joan Buchanan, left, and State Senator Alex Padilla, right

Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of AB 375, a bill that would have amended California’s teacher dismissal process, doesn’t mean the effort is dead.

“The governor still wants to do something,” LA Unified’s chief lobbyist, Edgar Zazueta, told LA School Report. “I do see there will be one, if not several, efforts to do this next year. Hopefully we’re able to find somewhere in the middle, where more stakeholders can embrace final product.”

Zazueta added that Brown “always wants to make sure that all the stakeholders are on board. With 375, it was unbalanced. None of the folks who do dismissals were part of process.”

Gloria Romero, who just left California Democrats for Education Reform to start her own organization, the Foundation for Parent Empowerment, also sees a pathway forward, even if it remains uncertain who’s leading the effort.

“The stars are aligned,” she said. “There will be a very bright public spotlight on this. The legislature will have to act. The question is, who carries it this time?”

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, the East Bay Democrat who sponsored the measure, has not decided whether she will go forward with a reconfigured approach or defer to someone else on the issue. One possibility is State Senator Alex Padilla, who authored a bill, SB 10, that would have made it easier to fire teachers accused of harming a student.

That bill died in committee after an intense lobbying blitz from the California Teachers Association.

This year, Padilla declined to take the lead on the new version of the bill – perhaps because he’s running for California Secretary of State and doesn’t want to antagonize the teachers unions. Buchanan’s bill was supported by teacher unions but widely attacked reform groups and newspaper editorial boards statewide.

“I still strongly believe that the discipline appeal process is broken,” Buchanan said in an email. “It takes too long and costs too much money. However, I agree that the path forward is uncertain.”

The question then, is there a compromise to made?

Romero also said that if the legislature doesn’t act, there could be a move by outside groups to write a ballot initiative. “There’ve been discussions, believe me, about which way to go forward,” she said.

A ballot initiative could pressure the legislature into acting. But the real pressure might come from Vergara v. California, the lawsuit filed by Students Matter aimed at tearing up many of the laws that govern the teacher dismissal process. That trial is set to being on January 27 – and could have an enormous impact on how teachers in California are fired.

Students Matter spokesperson Danielle Kelton said that Brown’s veto “definitely highlights the failure of the legislature to address the problem.”

*This update includes a comment from Buchanan. An early version of the post mistakenly identified the Vergara plaintiffs as Students First.

Previous posts: John Deasy on AB 375 Veto: ‘Wise Decision’; BREAKING NEWS: Brown Vetoes Weak Teacher Dismissal Bill; Brown Facing Pressure to Veto ‘Flawed’ Teacher Dismissal Bill; Unions Ask Court to Dismiss ‘Bad Teacher’ Suit

Gov. Jerry Brown

Under mounting pressure, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a controversial bill originally meant to make it easier to dismiss teachers for abusive or inappropriate behavior. In a veto memo, Brown said he “share[s] the authors’ desire to streamline the teacher discipline process, but this bill is an imperfect solution.”

Gov. Jerry Brown

Governor Jerry Brown is facing rising opposition to a bill designed to make it easier to fire teachers accused of abusing students. Critics say it doesn’t, and that could make it harder for him to justify signing it into law. The deadline for consideration is Sunday.

Over the last few weeks, school district superintendents, education groups and newspaper editorial boards across the state have expressed their concerns, pointing out what they perceive as numerous shortcomings in the measure, AB 375, authored by Joan Buchanan, a Bay Area Democrat.

Richard Carranza, Superintendent of San Francisco Unified, wrote in SF Gate, “This bill is a classic case of good intentions to protect student safety gone awry” and pleaded with the governor to veto the bill.

In a commentary for the Modesto Bee, Cindy Marks, President of the California School Boards Association, called AB 375 “deeply flawed,” saying, “I’m unaware of any school board or superintendent who has taken a position in support of the bill. It appears no one who has investigated and removed a teacher believes AB 375 is good for schools.”

Other opponents, including Students First, EdVoice and the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee concluded that the final version of AB 375 got so watered down by the time it reached the governor’s desk that the process for getting rid of teachers who may be a threat to student safety may actually be more onerous.

Their advice to Gov. Brown: A complete do-over; veto AB 375 until lawmakers can draft a better, more effective version.

Opponents of the bill say its most egregious problems are it would place a seven-month limit on the time a district has to bring a case against a teacher, a process that usually takes more than twice that long. It also prohibits the use of evidence more than four years old. It makes it more difficult to add or change charges if new information is uncovered during investigations, and it limits to five the number of witness who can testify against an accused to teacher.

In the 2012 Miramonte sex abuse scandal, in which teacher Mark Berndt was accused of lewd acts against 23 children at the Los Angeles elementary school, that would have been devastating, said state Senator Bob Huff, a Republican representing parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties who voted against AB 375.

“This bill would have shut out the voices of Mark Berdnt’s victims,” he said in a speech on the senate floor. “Anyone who molests children should have no right to exclude the voices of their victims.  How can we stand here in good conscience and say that is good for students?”

Instead, he said, a bill should limit witnesses only in cases dealing with teachers being dismissed for insufficient performance.

Buchanan, whose bill is backed by the California Teachers Association as well as UTLA, told EdSource “that the opponents are spreading misinformation and waging a campaign ‘not based on facts but emotion.’”

Assembly member Das Williams, who represents Santa Barbara, agrees.

“The truth is that AB 375 is faster. It is better than the current system and it will cost less money,” he told LA School Report.

Williams said he hopes Gov. Brown approves the bill.

“I understand why people would want the bill to be even stronger but I don’t understand how vetoing the bill and having nothing is better,” Williams said. “I think that the system we have right now is obviously flawed, and we do need to take some action and this is the action that we have before us.”

There’s nothing to stop the legislature from making it better in the future, he added.

Previous Posts: Brown Urged to Veto Weakened Teacher Dismissal Bill*; Teacher Dismissal Bill: No Added Concern for Predators; LA Unified Blames ‘Cumbersome’ Law for Dismissal Delay

Via Governor Jerry Brown’s twitter feed

The old California Standardized Tests are a thing of the past.

Governor Jerry Brown just signed Assembly Bill 484, which immediately suspends the old tests and funds a trial run this year of the new Smarter Balanced Assessments, which will be taken on computers and are aligned with the new Common Core curriculum.

“I’ve said from the beginning, California needs tests that measure how ready our students are for the challenges of a changing world,” State Superintendent Tom Torlakson said in a statement.

A number of groups, including Ed Voice, Educators 4 Excellence, Teach Plus, and Parent Revolution, had urged Brown to veto the new law on the grounds that it would leave school districts with a year of missing test data, which is often used to gauge the effectiveness of teachers, administrators and schools.

“At this critical juncture in our transition to Common Core, the public needs a thoughtful, rational middle approach that both gives teachers, students and parents space to adapt to new standards, and also maintains transparency for all our stakeholders,” Ama Nyamekye, executive director of Educators 4 Excellence, said in a statement. Unfortunately, AB 484 does not deliver on this important second task. By signing this bill, Governor Brown has created a black hole of information for students, parents and teachers.”

Superintendent John Deasy had also been deeply critical of the bill, on the grounds that it only funded either the math or English parts of the new Smarter Balanced Assessments. Deasy had been urging lawmakers to fund both tests.

Deasy now says that LAUSD will cover the costs of the test that the state doesn’t pay for and that he will try to find a way to use the Smarter Balanced testing data to gauge student performance.

*This adds statement from Educators 4 Excellence.

Previous posts: Coalition Calls on Gov. Brown to Veto Testing Bill, AB 484; CA Has a Plan for Using Test Scores — Even With No Tests (Updated); Superintendent Deasy Not Happy With Latest Testing Bill; California Could Face Year With No Meaningful Testing Data

Organized by the United Way under the acronym CLASS — Communities for Los Angeles School Success — the coalition sent a letter Friday to board President Richard Vladovic, with copies to his six colleagues, urging him to seek input from teachers, administrators and students and to give them more control over spending priorities.

“Our hope is that the final adopted budgets will truly empower local communities to make decisions that meet their needs,” said the letter, a copy of which was given to LA School Report.

The coalition, which includes the Los Angeles Urban League, Teach Plus, Alliance for a Better Community and Educators4Excellence, expressed particular concern for underserved students, those whom the LCFF initiative was designed to help most — English learners, children from foster homes and students from low-income families.

Ryan Smith of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and one of the organizers of the coalition, said that Vladovic has so far ignored efforts by CLASS to discuss local concerns and spending plans.

“It’s important for us that the district listen to community groups and adopt what they have to say,” said in an interview with LA School Report. “If not, then we have a problem.”

The letter was sent in advance of the board’s meeting tomorrow, when the agenda includes two items that bear directly on setting priorities for how the LCFF money will be spent. The state requires each district to put its three-year plan into effect July 1 of next year.

The first is Superintendent John Deasy’s three-year budget proposal, which is back for board consideration after several postponements. Deasy’s preference is to close the district’s $350 million deficit, raise salaries of current LA Unified employees and allow individual schools to make their own decision on the money they get.

A competing plan, favored by the teachers union, is reflected in a resolution from member Steve Zimmer, who wants to rehire teachers and restore programs that were eliminated by the recent recession. Zimmer’s resolution says nothing explicit about allowing schools to make their own spending decisions.

Both proposals say the public should weigh in, and Deasy’s includes a schedule for five meetings around the district next week for parents, teachers and community leaders to offer their ideas on spending priorities.

That, alone, suggests the board will delay a vote on the budget again.

The meetings in Deasy’s plan, Smith said, were at least step in the right direction. But he expressed a need for more consultation with community groups, given the disparate needs in such a large district, the second-biggest in the nation.

Smith also said his concerns over whether Vladovic was open to community participation led to wonder  “if Vladovic would even attend the meeting in his own district.”

“That tells me we haven’t been vocal enough in helping the school board members understand the value of input from the community,” Smith said, adding that CLASS would endorse no spending plan until community the board embraced community feedback into the spending plan.

While the letter asks Vladovic for a meeting “in the coming weeks,” Smith said in the interview if the board president does not indicate “within a week or so” a willingness to consider community needs, the CLASS groups would take further action.

“If we fail to hear from him,” Smith said, “that gives us the first piece of data how much he really cares.”

Previous Posts: LA Unified Budget Wars Return with the Usual Competing Visions; Deasy, Board Plunging Back into Turbulent Budget Waters; Deasy’s Community Meetings Take $2 Billion Funding Fight Public

Gov. Jerry Brown

While a bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature would end statewide testing for a year – he’s expected to sign it – state officials plan to use older test results to assure that California receives its annual Title I allocations.

To comply with federal regulations that states must provide annual test results to qualify for the money, the California Department of Education has decided to use the higher of two scores — a school’s 2012-13 API results, which were issued last month, or a three year average of the most recent APIs.

“We knew that we needed something in the law that said what are we going to do, given the fact that we won’t have English language arts and math scores for one year,” Keric Ashley, Director of Analysis, Measurement, and Accountability Reporting Division for the department of education told LA School Report.

The bill would give California school districts time to acclimate to the new Common Core State Standards curriculum and the computer-based Smarter Balanced assessments that will be used in 2015.

There is one caveat.

The State Superintendent may decide to calculate new scores for high schools since the high school API is partially based on the California High School Exit Exam. And the CAHSEE is not impacted by AB 484, the law awaiting Brown’s approval.

“So we could still do a new calculated API for high schools, but that would be State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s decision to do that,” Ashely said.

The options in place not only safeguard millions of federal dollars that annually flow to districts, it could eliminate any legal confusion that has arisen within LA Unified and other state school districts regarding the use of California’s parent trigger law, which allows parents to make changes in their children’s schools by securing signatures of a majority of parents. It has been used several times on LA Unified schools.

At the district’s board meeting on Tuesday, district officials expressed apprehension over “the unknowns” in the absence of new school performance data. One senior district official speculated it would be possible to put a moratorium on all parent trigger applications.

But Ashley said, “I don’t know on what basis they would say a moratorium because there will be an API connected to the school.”

LA Unified’s Chief of Intensive Support and Instruction, Donna Muncey, worried that re-using a school’s current API score would give Parent Trigger advocates “a window that’s twice as long” to take over a school.

Schools only become eligible for a “parent trigger” action after they are identified by the state as failing, based on Academic Performance Index and Adequate Yearly Progress scores, which are usually released in late August or early September.

“That’s what sets the petition gathering [for a parent trigger] in motion,” Muncey said. “So usually, organizers collect signatures from the time those scores come out through May at the latest.”

Under the state’s new plan, the data used to determine which schools would be eligible is already available, giving parent trigger advocates a head start on their organizing efforts. That could lead to a significant increase in the number of parent trigger applications submitted over the next two years.

Ashley said the state would “probably release the new scores much earlier because we wouldn’t have to calculate anything new here. We could do that now.”

Communications Director Derrick Everett of Parent Revolution, the non-profit that has led the organizing efforts on all signature gathering campaigns in LA Unified and the nation’s first successful campaign in the Mojave Desert, said the new assessment formula does present them an advantage.

“It’s too early to tell whether this will move the calculus of parents, in terms of moving their time tables up or not, he said, adding: “The school’s that are failing this year have been failing for several years so they’re already on parents’ radar and thus they’re already on our radar.”

Previous Posts: No Statewide Testing Could Delay Parent Trigger Drives; State Senate Approves Eliminating Testing for 2012-13; API Tests for LA Unified Improve Slightly, State Scores Fall

It might not be pretty.

Superintendent John Deasy is expected to respond to the board’s June directive to draw up a spending plan that focuses on rehiring, specifically to return the district to pre-recession school staffing levels. But Deasy’s recommendations (see powerpoint here) may not be what the board is looking for.

He is expected argue that new money should be used, instead, to close a sizable budget gap, with any leftovers going to schools with high concentrations of low-income and English learning students, and that the board’s demand to add staff and lengthen the school year could cost more than $1 billion.

By Deasy’s accounting, the district still faces a $30.7 million budget gap in the current school year, pending an accounting update later in the month, and could face a deeper hole in 2014-15, thanks in part to federal sequestration.

Prior to the June meeting, Deasy had pressed for raises for current LAUSD employees, deficit reduction and what he called “student support and safety nets.” The board effectively ignored him, directing him by a 5-2 vote to present a spending plan that includes hiring new teachers, counselors, librarians and other employees, with the goal of bringing employee-to-student ratios back to pre-recession ratios.

The presentation Deasy is expected to make tomorrow satisfies the June request with an itemized account of the board’s spending wish list — click here. But it shows that the cost of new hires (more than $365 million), pay raises for current personnel (up to $240 million) and an expanded school year beyond its current 180 days (as much as $300 million) may be too expensive. Total cost for what the board wants?  $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion.

The new money for LAUSD flows from the passage of Proposition 30, which is a temporary sales tax, and from Governor Jerry Brown‘s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which gives more money to school districts with higher concentrations of low-income, special education and English learning students.

A resolution from board members Tamar Galatzan and Monica Garcia that appears to support Deasy’s position and was postponed in June and last week was postponed again, until January. It would require LCFF money to “follow the child to the school site.”

Deasy has incorporated the idea into his recommendations, anyway, as reflected in points 2, 3 and 4 of his presentation:

The Board could vote on Deasy’s recommendation right away or postpone a decision until after the district holds a series of community meetings to seek feedback on what the district’s budget priorities should be. Plans for such meetings are already in place.

“I would love them to vote on something,” said Deasy. “It would be good if they give us some direction.”

A final decision could reflect several other influences. Gov. Brown might issue district guidelines for spending new LCFF money. Board member Steve Zimmer has proposed a resolution that directs Deasy to be “guided” by various “principles” as he develops re-hiring plans, such as “bringing LAUSD in line with national averages for class size, counselor ratios, administrator ratios and clerical and classified ratios” and “returning severed employees working in temporary status to permanent status.”

A resolution by Zimmer and Bennett Kayser, a chief critic of Deasy, aims to restore funding to the district’s physical education program.

Two other resolutions direct the Superintendent to seek more funding for arts education and adult education.

Also on Tuesday, the Superintendent will ask the board to approve the district’s $30 million Race to the Top application. The Board approved last year’s application, but UTLA, the teachers union, refused to sign off. Deasy sent the application in anyway, although it was rejected, largely because of the union’s non-participation.

Deasy said that this year’s application is largely the same as last year’s, though “some of the focus has changed.” The union did not respond to a message seeking to learn if would approve the application this time.

The Board will also vote on the district’s $113 million budget for the much heralded Common Core transition. Most of the money, which will be spent over two years, is earmarked for teacher development and training. The Common Core budget was introduced at last month’s Board meeting, where UTLA President Warren Fletcher denounced it.

Previous posts: Board Members Seeking to Ease Requirements for Volunteers; School Board Meeting Wrap Up: More Discussion Than Votes*; Deasy to Board: Your Wish List Could Cost $1.4 Billion; LA Unified Getting $113 Million for Common Core Transition*

Governor Jerry Brown pitches his formula last month in LA — UTLA president Warren Fletcher in background

Superintendent John Deasy told LA School Report that the passage of Governor Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula was “probably the most important education public policy decision in 40 years.”

“This is beyond phenomenal,” he said. “I feel great.”

The LA Times editorial page also praised Brown this morning, saying, “with his decisive and, yes, stubborn insistence on fixing what was so badly broken, Brown will have helped the state’s neediest children for decades to come.” The Local Control Funding Formula “could well become the great legacy of his administration.”

There are some strings attached to the new formula, notes SI&A Cabinet Report — including more stringent reporting requirements for groups of different kinds of students within schools (special education, low-income, etc.) — which will likely affect some LAUSD schools.

Previous posts: LA Unified Wins Big Under State Budget Compromise; Brown Soft-Sells School Formula in LA; Deasy Joins Governor’s Funding Formula Offensive; Gov’s “Weighted” Funding Formula Will Transform LAUSD

“I applaud Governor Brown and our legislators for their work on the compromise announced on the Local Control Funding Formula,” said Superintendent John Deasy in a written statement.

The compromise language is designed to give more money all school districts while still making sure districts like LAUSD with a large concentration of low-income and English language learning students get a big boost.

Last month, Deasy said that the original Brown plan would hand LAUSD an extra $188 million in the first school year alone. The compromise version is expected to give the district roughly the same amount of money.

Governor Brown’s initial proposal earmarked 80 percent of education funds to go directly to all school districts evenly — the “base funding.”

Meanwhile, 16 percent went to “supplemental funding,” flowing to districts with disadvantaged kids, and 4 percent to “concentration funding,” helping districts (like LAUSD) with especially high concentrations of low-income students, English language learners and foster kids.

The compromise proposal raises the base funding to 84 percent, lowers the supplemental funding to 10 percent, and then increases the concentration funding to 6 percent.

See EdSource Today‘s handy chart for a visual comparison of the original and compromise language:

Via EdSource Today

“This announcement marks the most significant overhaul of K-12 school finance since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13 shifted most school funding from property taxes to the state’s sales and income tax rolls,” said Deasy. “While we have miles to go to regain the ground we’ve lost since, with this deal, we have begun our journey toward funding equity and funding adequacy.”

To be sure, Deasy was just one of the many LA officials pushing for the funding formula, including UTLA President Warren Fletcher and LA Chamber of Commerce President Gary Toebben.

“This is one of those issues where you had everyone on board — labor, business, management,” said Zazueta. “This is a big win for LA as a whole.”

LA Unified will also get a funding boost from Proposition 39, the ballot measure passed by California voters in November to close a corporate tax loophole that benefitted out-of-state-corporations in order to build clean energy infrastructure.

The State legislature has decided that the bulk of the Prop 39 money will go to school districts, who can now apply for the money in order to, say, install solar panels on schools in order to save on energy costs.

Previous posts: Brown Soft-Sells School Formula in LA; Deasy Joins Governor’s Funding Formula Offensive; Gov’s “Weighted” Funding Formula Will Transform LAUSD; Deasy Praises Brown Budget Proposal

Governor Brown speaking at recent LA press event, with Superintendent Deasy to the far right

Last week’s visit from Governor Jerry Brown in support of his proposed new funding formula garnered lots of media attention and the enthusiastic support of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy (who’s depending on the $188 million bump in funding for LAUSD that would come from the Brown overhaul).

But Brown hasn’t yet persuaded lawmakers in Sacramento … or the LA Times editorial page: “The concept is spot on,” according to the Times, “but in this case the details matter too.” In particular, the Times thinks that the Brown formula isn’t generous enough to smaller districts with smaller numbers of poor students, creating funding gaps over time as large as $2,000 per kid between adjacent districts.

To read the full piece, go here:  Fairly funding California’s schools

Census Bureau via Wall Street Journal

The LA Times reported earlier this week that California has slipped another notch in public spending on K-12 education — from 23rd in 2008 to 35th in 2011 — part of a nationwide dip in spending reported by the Census Bureau.

At least we’re not in Illinois, where education funding dropped the most (7.4 percent) over the same time period. Still, particularly shocking was this tidbit: “The New York City school district spends twice as much per pupil on instructional salaries as does Los Angeles Unified.”

Things are likely to get better thanks to last year’s ballot measure to hike taxes for public education, and Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed formula revamp could make things even better for districts like LAUSD with lots of bilingual and poor students — if it’s approved.

Gov. Brown addresses reporters and photographers

Governor Jerry Brown continued to promote his Local Control Funding Formula proposal at a Friday morning press conference at East LA’s Humphreys Elementary.

Joining him was an All-Star cast that included LA Chamber of Commerce CEO Gary Toebben, United Way CEO Elise Buik, School Board member Bennett Kayser, former State Senator and City Council candidate Gil Cedillo, UTLA President Warren Fletcher, and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who (in what must be an extremely rare occurrence) introduced Fletcher to the podium as “my union president.”

The Governor presented his plan as a small but important change in how funds are allocated to districts like LA.  Deasy described its passage as a make-or-break $188 million game changer. His chief intergovernmental relations staffer noted that there were some LA-area legislators who hadn’t yet gotten behind the plan.

The Brown proposal would divert more money to school districts like LAUSD with a higher concentration of low-income students and English Language Learners.

Left to right: John Deasy, Warren Fletcher, Gil Cedillo

Brown’s sales pitch played down the new formula’s reach.

“We’re trying to compensate a little bit for the difference of living in this neighborhood, and living over there in Beverly HIlls, or out in Malibu,” he said.

“This is a small but very powerful way of giving to those who don’t have much.”

Deasy put a much sharper emphasis on the importance of the proposed formula, which he said would mean a $188 million difference for LAUSD in the next school year alone.

“Our entire budget is predicated on this passing,” Deasy told LA School Report after the presser. “We don’t have a second scenario. We’ve put our trust in the Governor.”

Perhaps most surprising, there are still some LA-based legislators who are not yet totally on board and might be influenced by the Governor’s appearance.

“They’re still some skepticism,” said Edgar Zazueta, Director of LAUSD’s Office of Governmental Relations. “You hear this a lot: ‘I’m supportive of the concept but…'”

Many legislators, he said, are concerned over “Issues like accountability, and how to make sure money is spent appropriately.”

Zazueta also said that policy staffers who’ve worked in the Capital for decades are especially suspicious of the plan, which would remove some 60-odd categorical funds (sometimes called “silos”) that can only be spent in specific ways.

“There’s a very influential policy staff who drive most of the big education conversations,” said Zazueta. “They’re the ones who are dissecting this more than everyone.”

The collapsing of the categorical funds into larger pots of money that local districts have more control over is “a hard pill to swallow for people that have spent their whole career developing the system.”

Brown, meanwhile, tried to stress that the redistributive portion of his plan was simply a small but in important part of the formula — 20 percent of all the education funding.

“People in Sacramento want to take that and spray it over everybody,” said Brown. “It will  be pennies compared to the dollars that it means here.”

He added, later: “I can’t believe that any Democrat would go against this.”

Previous posts: Deasy Joins Governor’s Funding Formula Offensive; Gov’s “Weighted” Funding Formula Will Transform LAUSD; Deasy Praises Brown Budget Proposal