David Garcia (left), Alex Caputo-Pearl
Candidates for President of UTLA

Tensions deepened last night among the candidates running for the top job at United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) as one of them came close to a physical confrontation with another after the event ended.

Hosted by the teacher advocacy group, Educators4Excellence, at City Hall in Boyle Heights, the event played before a crowd of about 60 teachers, activists, students and community members dining on Subway sandwiches.

E4E members Bianca Sanchez and Jeff Austin moderated four questions to the 10 candidates — all male — running to lead the second largest union in the nation.

Friction was most evident between David Garcia, a substitute teacher, and Alex Caputo-Pearl, who is running at the top of a slate called “Union Power,” over Caputo-Pearl’s recent campaign appearances at LA Unified schools. Garcia angrily accused Caputo-Pearl of violating union election rules and misusing his ties to LAUSD. After the forum, the two nearly got into an altercation, as Garcia swatted at Caputo-Pearl before being restrained.

Other candidates, like Saul Lankster, agreed with Garcia’s accusations, saying that the school district is “giving Caputo-Pearl all the answers to the test since he has had unfettered access to all schools since September.”

The district has said Caputo-Pearl did not file proper paperwork for the unpaid leave, but he has not been disciplined.

“We have to accept fact that this is a very specialized election and the district has made its vote,” Lankster continued as a few crowd members clapped and hooted.

Such issues are why E4E hosted the forum, as the previous debates have often spiraled off topic and were rooted in rhetoric and personal attacks, according to E4E Executive Director Ama Nyamekye.

“There is too much at stake here in LAUSD and UTLA not to ask our candidates to squarely tackle tough policy issues,” she said. “We need to refocus the debate in this election.”

The moderators asked questions that sometimes elicited concrete responses, though a handful of candidates continued to push certain issues no matter what the question.

The very first questions of the evening — what inspired a candidate to run and what first three priorities would be tackled as president — were first addressed by Garcia, who immediately launched into accusing LAUSD of giving Caputo-Pearl preferential treatment by allowing him to take unpaid leave and hire substitutes to visit schools and campaign.

“There is a lot of favoritism going on in this election,” Garcia said. “It’s a corrupt circus.”

Lankster reminded the crowd that closing teacher jails was his top priority.

“It’s more important to me than anything in this race,” he said.

Marcus Ortegas II, a teacher in a “teacher jail,” revised a familiar theme, vowing to change UTLA’s color from red to pink to promote a new, more encompassing leadership.

Kevin Mottus stuck to his platform that Wifi and digital classrooms are seriously endangering students and teachers, citing six teachers who reportedly all died from cancer at one school.

Bill Gaffney said he favors a 20 percent raise for teachers.

The forum also aimed to address hot issues facing teachers that the union and district have clashed about in the past, such as differentiated compensation.

No candidate gave a simple “yes” or “no” answer on how to reward teachers, except Innocent Osunwa, a new union member, who flatly vetoed the idea and said the policy “forces favoritism and encourages discrimination.”

The other nine candidates said they would only support paying certain teachers more money if those teachers put in “extra work, had earned degrees and years of experience,” according to Caputo-Pearl.

Warren Fletcher, the incumbent, reminded the group that this has been in place for a year, and it is meant to “reward experience.” However, Fletcher criticized Superintendent John Deasy for transforming it into a “bonus for test scores to leverage teachers.”

Surprisingly, all 10 candidates basically agreed on the next question—that Gov. Jerry Brown’s Local Control Funding Formula money should be spent at the school level.

The moderators ended the forum by asking candidates if they believe the union has an obligation to fix the tense and fractured relationship with Deasy and other district leaders.

Fletcher said the district has been vying to “mechanize teaching for years,” and that its senior leadership has a history of intentionally marginalizing teachers.

“We know that LAUSD bureaucracy operates counter to instructional logic,” he said.

For Osunwa and Greg Solkovits, the answer was blaming the media.

“Big media has an anti-union bent and that will never change,” said Solkovits.

Osunwa added that the media discriminate against teachers.

Mottus said he would introduce weekly meetings with the superintendent, adding that Fletcher lost the relationship with the school district with his vote of no confidence in Deasy months ago. He then paused, and returned to condemning Wifi in classrooms.

The two-hour forum ended much as it began, with Caputo-Pearl defending his campaign actions and his union team, and Garcia heatedly interjecting and calling conspiracy.

“The knives are out,” Caputo-Pearl said.

The waiver is a one-of-a-kind, as it marks the first time a group of districts were exempted from “No Child” provisions that would have required that all students be proficient in English and math by 2014. They also would have forced California to pay more attention to student achievement, especially as measured by standardized tests. Critics said “No Child” also resulted in as many as 500 California schools being dubbed as “failing” for not meeting nearly impossible improvement targets.

“It’s not the simple thing to do but it’s the right thing to do,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said on Tuesday. “Especially when these districts represent more students than are in several states.”

After months of revisions, the new accountability system negotiated by LA Unified and seven other California school districts under the guidance of the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), will take effect next month. During a one-year trial period, federal education officials will monitor the districts to ensure the new measures of school, student and educator performance and effectiveness are working.

The system will be fully in place by the 2015-16 school year.

It measures school improvement by assessing such factors as standardized tests, graduation rates, suspension, expulsion, chronic absences, English learner improvement and campus “culture and climate.” It will also take into account surveys of parents, student and staff.

CORE officials continuously cited equity and transparency as their two main goals, saying that the districts’ eight superintendents’ evaluations will also be linked to their students’ performance.

John Deasy, L.A. Unified’s superintendent, said he was not surprised the government accepted the waiver, and he is ready for L.A. schools to reap the benefits.

“We are ready to enact this,” he said. “We completed the modeling and we know our schools. We have ability to reward schools now and focus on our priority schools the way they should be focused on.”

Districts Get More Money

The waiver frees up about $150 million in Title I dollars that each district can decide how to spend. L.A. Unified will receive as much as $80 million of the money.

Deasy said the district will continue to use a chunk of that money for transportation but will also have the ability to create after school programs and to pay for other resources that had been scarce.

Long Beach Superintendent Chris Steinhauser said most of his schools will choose to redirect the funding to create intervention programs like SAT prep, tutoring and college prep.

“Superintendents in Long Beach and L.A. know a lot better than I do what his students need and where that money should go,” said Duncan. “We will just hold them accountable for the results.”

Counting the Uncounted

Duncan hailed the eight districts for reducing the number of students needed to measure a subgroup for performance in every school, lowering the number to 20 from 100, which is the minimum under current California law.

“California’s number was unacceptably high and these students were invisible,” said Duncan. “Now tens of thousands of additional students from historically under represented subgroups will have to be accounted for.”

Measuring a minimum of 20 students per subgroup, like English Learners, low-income students, Latino students or students with disabilities, forces schools to track categories of students who would have been bypassed under the old “No Child” system.

“In L.A., we have some elementary schools of 300 kids, but 50 students might be considered ‘low-income,’ so they would not have been included in a subgroup,”  Deasy said. “Now accountability is no longer a feature of zip code but a feature of every school.”

By reducing the subgroup size across all participating districts, schools will now be held accountable for reporting the progress of about 153,000 additional students who are mostly Latino, African American, English Learners, or students with disabilities.

Asian-American students, for example, had often gone unaccounted for as a subgroup in many California schools. Now 55 more schools next year have Asian student populations that will be taken into account because of this new model, according to CORE President Mike Hansen.

“The progress of 46,000 students with disabilities in these eight districts will now be measured,” said Duncan. “As well as 23,000 African American Students. But I worry about students across the rest of California that will remain invisible under the No Child Left Behind System.”

A Buddy System

The new accountability system will pair low and high-performing schools of similar size and demographics across the districts in an effort to help struggling schools learn from successful ones.

“We want to get those in the trenches more involved,” said Steinhauser. “This new support system is modeled after very successful school systems in other states and in Ontario and Hong Kong.”

Deasy also applauded the new system’s plan to network schools across the state and to solve academic performance problems with local assets, rather than calling for state and federal intervention.

“When schools persistently struggle, the first line now is to build capacity from schools that are successful,” he said. “It’s a cross district commitment to collaboration.”

However, the fact that only eight school districts in the state will now be under a more stringent accountability system could cause pushback from unions and cause confusion with the state’s own accountability measuring system.

While the state is moving toward a more robust and comprehensive accountability system instead of relying mostly on student test scores, CORE says its breakdown uses more parameters to measure a school’s performance.  School culture, climate and the social-emotional domain will make up 40 percent of a school’s improvement score, with “academic domain” accounting for 60 percent.

“We will now have three layers of accountability ,” said Rick Miller, the CORE executive director. “District, state and now ours.”

Union Choices

Unions were not involved in creating the waiver, though CORE says the “door has always been open.” Now that the waiver is passed, “we will work through issues we need to work through,” said San Francisco Superintendent Richard Carranza.

Under the new system, educator and principal success will now be linked to student achievement, a hotly-contested method among unions that was at the heart of disagreements with past California “No Child” waiver requests.

While L.A. Unified has already mandated that 20 percent of a teacher’s evaluation is measured by student achievement, schools in other districts will now have the choice to use the same percentage, propose a different model or drop out of the waiver system, altogether.

But what if unions don’t go for the required 20 percent?

There is a second option, know as the Massachusetts model, which relies on multiple measures not including student achievement. The results will be compared with student achievement results. Any misalignment will be sharply focused on.

“You ultimately have to convince unions this is ultimately better for them,” said Miller.

Previous posts: ‘No Child’ Waiver OKd for LA Unified, 7 Other CA School Districts, Update: Federal Review “Going In the Right Direction” for LAUSD, Final Decision Close on CORE’s ‘No Child’ Waiver Request, Teachers Unions Oppose NCLB Waiver That the ‘CA 9′ Want

Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the panel “unique” among the waivers granted to 39 states and the District of Columbia.

“We went back and forth about how to have oversight and hold these districts accountable,” said Duncan. “The panel idea was a significant improvement from the system they first proposed.”

The 14-member oversight body will provide an “unbiased external compliance review” of each district’s progress after a series of self- and peer-evaluations.

The group includes a Governor’s appointee and a representative for administrators, school boards, superintendents, unions, parents, the civil rights community, English learners and disabled students.

In effect, compliance with the terms of the waiver will require agreement from factions that routinely disagree with each other to sign off on academic progress.

An oversight panel was not included in earlier versions of the waiver request. It was added after multiple revisions as a way to discourage dissent and win support from groups that might otherwise have objected to protocols of the wavier.

“We welcome this oversight board because we want to be very transparent,” said Long Beach Supt. Chris Steinhaus. “We put the oversight committee under the Brown Act so the work of the panel will be open to the public.”

The eight districts from California Office to Reform Education (CORE) include Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa Ana Unified School Districts. Altogether, they represent over 1 million students.

The waiver is being granted only for one school year, and no other district can join the eight in that span. After reviewing the first-year results, Department officials will decide whether to renew it for 2014-2015.

The education department will give the participating districts more flexibility and accountability in how they measure student performance and raise academic performance at the district level, as well as more realistic goals for students. This is the first time the Department has granted a waiver to a group of districts.

Duncan said no other district or group of districts have applied for a waiver, nor does he expect any other No Child Left Behind waivers to be granted to districts.

“Our strong preference is to work with states because it makes more sense and is much easier to manage,” said Duncan. “But this was a unique situation. We didn’t have an application from a state but this waiver affects so many children.”

*An earlier version said the panel included nine members.

Previous posts: ‘No Child’ Waiver OKd for LA Unified, 7 Other CA School Districts, Update: Federal Review “Going In the Right Direction” for LAUSD, Final Decision Close on CORE’s ‘No Child’ Waiver Request, Teachers Unions Oppose NCLB Waiver That the ‘CA 9′ Want

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan

The U.S. Department of Education today approved a long-awaited federal waiver that allows LA Unified and seven other California districts to replace No Child Left Behind accountability rules with their own school improvement system.

The waiver creates a unique 14-member oversight body to provide an “unbiased external compliance review” of each district’s progress after a series of self- and peer-evaluations. The group includes a Governor’s appointee and a representative for administrators, school boards, superintendents, unions, parents, the civil rights community, English learners and disabled students.

In effect, compliance with the terms of the waiver will require agreement from factions that routinely disagree with each other to sign off on academic progress.

An oversight panel was not included in earlier versions of the waiver request. It was added as a mechanism to discourage dissent and win support from groups that might otherwise have objected to protocols of the wavier.

Secretary Arne Duncan called the body “unique” among the waivers granted by the Department.

The eight districts from California Office to Reform Education (CORE) include Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa Ana Unified School Districts. Altogether, they represent over 1 million students.

The waiver will give participating districts more flexibility and accountability in how they measure student performance and raise academic performance at the district level, as well as more realistic goals for students. This is the first time the Department has granted a waiver to a group of districts.

Until now, 39 states and the District of Columbia have received waivers.

The new accountability system, known as the School Quality Improvement System, will also closely align with California’s new Local Control Funding Formula and the Common Core Standards.

The system will be fully in place by the 2015-16 school year. It measures school improvement by assessing graduation rates, suspension, expulsions and chronic absences; English learner improvement. It will also take into account surveys taken by parents, student and staff.

The No Child Left Behind law applies strict sanctions if certain educational goals are not met by 2014, such as limitations on Title I funding for low-income students and federal intervention in low-performing schools. The inability to meet the goals can also force a school to close.

The group’s waiver application has sparked controversy among other state superintendents, who see a district waiver as giving too much power to locally-run districts. Teacher unions have argued they were not consulted in deciding how to evaluate teachers.

Under the new system, educator and principal success will now be linked to student achievement, a hotly-contested method that was at the heart of disagreements with past California No Child waiver requests.

While each district will develop its own specifics and guidelines, each has to choose from two options that incorporate student growth as a significant factor when assessing teacher performance:

• Student growth integrated through a “trigger” system. With this option, an evaluation will be conducted using multiple measures, not including student achievement. The results will be compared to student achievement results. Any misalignment between teacher/administrator professional practice and student performance will initiate a dialogue to identify why a discrepancy between scores exists, followed by district action in the interest of professional development of the teacher.
• Student growth as a defined percentage. Student growth will represent a minimum of 20% of teacher and principal evaluation calculations. Student growth will be calculated using a growth model which will be developed by the CORE Board of Directors in the 2014-2015 school year. However, if a district currently uses or seeks to use another high quality student growth model, the district will have the opportunity to apply to the CORE Board for the option to use an alternative method, provided the district provides a strong research-based rationale.

CORE’s system also shrinks the number of students measured for subgroup performance from 100, which is California’s current law, to 20. By reducing the subgroup size across all participating districts, schools will be held accountable for reporting the progress of about 153,000 additional students who are mostly Latino, African American, English Learners, or students with disabilities.

CORE first submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Education in February with the hopes of getting it approved by the start of the 2013-14 school year. The group has been continuously going back and forth with D.C. officials, resubmitting the application multiple times after receiving feedback.

A few CORE representatives, including L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy, flew to Washington earlier this month to speed up the review.

*An earlier version said the panel included nine members.

Previous posts: Update: Federal Review “Going In the Right Direction” for LAUSD, Final Decision Close on CORE’s ‘No Child’ Waiver Request, Teachers Unions Oppose NCLB Waiver That the ‘CA 9′ Want

An online voting system in Virginia

Less than 23 percent of the 40,000 members of United Teachers of Los Angeles cast ballots in the final round of voting for union president in 2011, the union’s last leadership election. Even fewer, 15 percent, voted in the preliminary round.

A new, online voting system could change all that, says a group of teachers who are taking their case to the membership.

“We’re proposing that all the city-wide elections would be online,” said Marisa Crabtree, a UTLA Chapter Chair and member of the House of Representatives for the East Area. She is spearheading the initiative, which will be presented to union members at the annual UTLA Leadership Conference this weekend at the Westin Los Angeles Airport. “We want to encourage people to vote more and that comes from a more flexible, user-friendly system,” she said.

UTLA’s current voting system is paper-based and differs for various elections. If members vote on a contract change, a chapter chair hosts an in-person election at every school site. Leadership elections rely on snail mail ballots, which have to be turned in by a certain date for counting.

But what if a teacher is absent or out of town? What if a member loses a ballot or forgets to mail it in on time? Ultimately, like most elections, mailing in a ballot can seem too arduous for an important election, especially with newer digital options available.

And since so few UTLA members last voted for a union president, the current voting system needs an upgrade, said Crabtree, who is an English and choral teacher at Abraham Lincoln Senior High School in east Los Angeles.

“Most of the races in the last election were won by 80 to 100 votes,” she said. “They become close races because there were only 8,000 ballots cast.”

The union did not respond to a request for comment.

Crabtree contends that teachers favor an easier, more streamlined voting system.

“I have friends and fellow teachers who are active UTLA members but missed the mail-in deadline or forgot to send it in all together,” she said.

Her fellow teachers are also extremely busy, she added, and having a system that would allow them to vote late at night or during a lunch break would generate more voter participation, especially from semi-involved members.

That’s what spurred Megan Markevich, a middle school teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School in Highland Park and a member of the UTLA House of Reps, to join Crabtree in pushing for a new system.

Markevich says members like her don’t have much of a say in union issues.

“We want more teacher voices on issues,” said Markevich, who is also proposing that the union use the electronic system to survey members on issues.

“Members could vote in the convenience and privacy of their own home without a Chapter Chair looking over their shoulder or influencing them on who to vote for, which happens,” she said.

While details are still in the works, Crabtree and Markevich say they have spoken to a few online voting companies willing to create an easy log-in system, such as the voting systems created for teacher unions in Hawaii and the Volusia County Teachers Association in Florida.

Crabtree said she anticipates pushback on the proposal from union leaders during the leadership conference. “If you change the system leaders can feel threatened,” she said.

Markevich agreed, explaining that an electronic voting system could take away Chapter Chairs’ duties since they are responsible for hosting elections. She also cited unfamiliarity with the system and fears of hacking as other reasons why some might object to a new voting system.

“They will say it didn’t work in places like San Diego, but the fact is that a lot of unions are using it and it has been successful in Hawaii and Florida,” said Markevich.

The conference is for union Chapter Chairs and UTLA leaders, which is why Crabtree and Markevich are expecting a host of questions and comments following their presentation.

“A lot of leaders are not fans of it,” said Crabtree. “Like many other democratic bodies, the union is a little resistant to change and it can be a power struggle.”

But a new electronic voting system could free up people from hosting elections, creating mailers and counting ballots — time that could otherwise be spent “helping kids,” according to Crabtree.

“Overall, people are disappointed with the lack of organizing at UTLA,” Markevich said. “It’s like pulling teeth to get people on election committees. No one wants or has the time to volunteer and this system could free up all that energy and use it to let people know about important issues.”

While other district unions already use electronic voting systems, “L.A. unified could be the largest school union to be the frontrunner on online voting,” said Crabtree.

Crabtree, Markevich and other supporters of the on-line system say they need at least 600 signatures before they turn in the initiative, giving the union two months to vote on it. They said they have 450 and expect to rally enough members to sign on to support the new voting system by the end of August.

“I have personally collected 200 signatures and only one person was hesitant,” said Markevich. “The rest were very excited about it and said, ‘I can’t believe we aren’t already doing this.'”

“Hopefully,” said Crabtree, “that will be our last paper vote.”

Nearly 18 percent enrolled in AP courses in biology, calculus, chemistry, English literature, foreign languages, government and history during the 2012-13 school year, compared with less than 12 percent in 2006-07.

Allowed to enroll in multiple courses, LAUSD students took more than 44,000 AP exams in May 2013, compared with nearly 30,000 five years ago.

“Even as our overall high school enrollment shrinks more students are choosing to take AP classes and exams,” Deasy said. “I congratulate them, and their teachers.”

Tests are scored on a five-point scale, about 40 percent of LAUSD students generally received threes and above over the past four years, according to the district.

Notably, 13 schools increased the percentage of AP exams with a passing score and the number of AP exams taken in 2012-13. They are: Torres Hum/Art/Tech, Orthopedic Hospital Magnet; Mendez Learning Center Math/Science; Fremont Senior High; Cleveland Senior High; Bravo Medical Magnet; Roybal Learning Center and Polytechnic Senior High.

Previous posts: Charts: Advanced Placement Up Nationally, Locally, Test Scores Will Matter Less for a School’s Fate… In Four Years, A Computer Tablet On Every Desk

A new report from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says that districts have to maintain an average class size to get about $712 more per average daily attendance, according to the SI&A Cabinet Report.

However, school officials can negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with their teachers’ union that sets class sizes at another level and still receive the funding boost.

Along with early childhood students, high schoolers will also get a funding
boost. The plan’s high school adjustment increases the grades 9–12 base rate by 2.6 percent to about $8,505 to provide more services and resources to older students.

Because so much of a district’s funding will be tied to demographics with the new funding formula,there will be a new process for identifying educationally disadvantaged students.

The report also said that if the Local Control Funding Formula was fully enacted by 2014, it would require the state to spend $18 billion more on K-12 services.

Luck for the state, it has eight years to make that happen.

Read the rest at SI&A Cabinet Report

Previous posts: More Praise For Gov. Brown’s Funding Formula, Districts to Get First Payment Under Brown’s New Formula, LA Unified Wins Big Under State Budget Compromise

The bipartisan research team of Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research, commissioned by the early education advocacy group First Five Years Fund, said that 86 percent of the 800 registered voters who participated, rated universal high-quality pre-K as a major national concern. And about half said they “strongly support” President Obama’s $75 billion universal pre-K proposal.

California could receive as much as $335 million from the federal plan for preschool programs during its first year, which would allow the state to serve an additional 41,000 children, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Almost 70 percent of respondents said they want Congress to “take action now” to fund a federal plan to help states and communities fund higher-quality early childhood programs for middle and low-income families. Many lawmakers have withheld support over funding issues.

Even though states say they support quality public preschool, many disagree on how to pay for it. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 this month to match the Obama plan, with the two dissenters, Don Knabe and Michael Antonovich, saying the funding model is unsustainable.

While California has already begun experimenting with affordable universal pre-K programs, quality preschool is still out of reach for many families in the state, especially in Los Angeles.

“We need to start addressing the serious achievement gap by starting one year of quality preschool for 3 and 4 year-olds if possible,” said Celia C. Ayala, chief executive of Los Angeles Universal Preschool. “The reality is that we don’t have enough dollars. ”

The poll respondents agreed, with 68 percent saying that as many as half the children beginning kindergarten lack the knowledge and skills needed to do well.

Creating more high-quality pre-K programs is a huge deal in California, which cut about $1 billion from its childcare and development programs since 2008, resulting in 110,000 children losing out on preschool and child care.

For most Los Angeles low and middle income families, paying for quality pre-K is not an option, with most programs costing about $10,000.

“We have a severe lack of quality preschool in this city,” said Ayala.

Los Angeles Universal Preschool, LAUP, is one example of a small-scale model of President Obama’s nationwide low-cost, high-quality preschool program created by a voter-approved increased cigarette tax in 2004.

LAUP has about 300 quality preschool programs in LA County and has served about 60,000 students over the past seven years. And like most programs in Los Angeles, LAUP has a majority of students from Latino families that generally make less than $44,000 a year.

California is taking early childcare initiatives into it’s own hands but is still not investing enough in highly educated teachers and quality learning environments, Ayala said.

Rebounding from the recession is a slow process, says California Head Start Executive Director Rick Mockler. Especially since pre-K funding took almost 20 percent of the overall cuts.

“One way or the other, we are moving in the right direction. Were doing it more incrementally than other states that launched it in one swoop,” he said.

Mockler says the state is building the infrastructure to give more children access to high-quality pre-K, but President Obama’s initiative would greatly accelerate the process and open more spots for the thousands of children currently on wait lists for subsidized high-quality programs.

Previous posts: California Awaits Obama’s Pre-K Funding Specifics, First Daughter Yawned During Obama Speech, School Board Gives Final Approval to 24th St. Plan

Last week, representatives from the California Office to Reform Education, which represents the nine districts, said they still believed DOE would ultimately approve the waiver, known as the School Quality Improvement System. The reps had flown to Washington to meet with federal officials to resolve lingering issues.

“We are still in the fine tuning phase of the process, expanding on various sections in response to the feedback we have received from the U.S. Dept. of Education,” said CORE Director of Communications Hilary McLean.

If the waiver is not approved, districts will be forced to comply with strict “No Child” sanctions if certain educational goals are not met by 2014. They could include limitations on Title I funding for low-income students and federal intervention in low-performing schools.

But the coalition “does not expect any public release of the updated version of the plan this week,” said McLean.

After California’s waiver request was rejected in January, CORE submitted its own application to the Department of Education, marking the first time districts filed a unified proposal. Typically, a request comes from a state, and the department has already granted waivers to most of the states and the District of Columbia.

Previous posts: Final Decision Close on CORE’s ‘No Child’ Waiver Request, Update: Federal Review “Going In the Right Direction” for LAUSD

Thanks to LAUSD’s deal with Apple, 30,000 retina display iPads — those are the latest — will land in student hands starting next month in a $400 million deal that will dramatically change how kids learn reading and math. By next August, the district says every LA Unified student will have access to a $678 iPad.

But you know kids. Some will lose their iPads. Some will break them. But Apple has it covered. By terms of the final contract with the district,  Apple is providing additional iPads as replacements for those that are lost, stolen or damaged, in contract language — “a pool of spare devices in order to minimize the amount of time a student may be without a device.”

4LAKids linked to the contract, which can be found here.

Finalized on July 16, the contract also says Apple will provide every student with a Griffin case and fully loaded Pearson curricula. Apple has agreed to provide the district with “on-site repair or replacement” warranty for the three-year period as well as iPad training products.

Beginning in August, 30,000 students in 47 schools will receive the first wave of iPads. Come January 2014, phase 2 will add 300,000 across the district. The final phase culminates with another 300,000 iPads, for the overall total of 630,000.

The document also includes a detailed description of the Pearson Common Core curricula for grades K-12, which provides courses for 145-150 days.

Pearson’s Common Core System of Courses for Mathematics is made up of nine complete year-long courses. The English Language Arts section includes 13 courses with small-group discussions that will be conducted both in class and electronically.

The document was signed July 16, 2013 by Mark Hovatter, LAUSD Chief Facilities Executive and Christina M. Quezada, Apple Contract Operations Manager.

Previous posts: Roundup: LAUSD / iPad Story Goes Global, Update: Controversy Awaits $30 Million iPad Vote

*Correction: An earlier post said the cost was $30 million. That figure is just for first phase of contract.

La Raza is an advocacy group that brings community members, elected officials and public sector representatives together in the interests of Latinos. The organization focuses on juvenile justice reform, education, workforce issues, and childcare and public service provision.

“It’s been over a year since we’ve been wanting him to join us in San Jose and speak to us about education and how students are doing across the state,”  said La Raza Co-Founder and Chairman Victor Garza. “I want to know the status of the dropout rate for Latino students and what’s been done to help reduce our state’s overall high dropout rate,”

Garza expects about 100 attendees, including Senator John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who will introduce Torlakson.

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. at The Center for Training & Careers in San Jose.

Previous posts: Deasy’s Letter to Schools Chief Torlakson, NewsFlash: “Double-Testing” Might Be Avoided Next Year,

Nearly $27 billion is slated to be distributed from the controller’s office by July 31, according to to the SI&A Cabinet Report. The money represents the first regular installment for the fiscal year and includes about $2 billion for LCFF activities.

Brown’s new formula, which will be fully funded over the next eight years, directs more state money to districts with a large proportion of needy students and English learners. It also eliminates almost all categorical programs and lets districts choose how to spend their dollars.

Instead, the state is pooling school programs and services to provide base grants for every district, based on average daily attendance and other factors.

The formula gives a supplemental grant of 20 percent to districts with higher numbers of low-income students, foster youth and English learners.

In districts like LA Unified, where low-income students make up over 55 percent of enrollment, the state will also give additional funding that adds an additional 50 percent of the base amount.

However, districts are being warned that their funding may change because California Department of Education officials said they didn’t have enough time to perform all necessary recalculations, leaving district allocations based on 2012 numbers.

“We are basically just flowing money based on the prior year,” said Elizabeth Dearstyne, an administrator at CDE’s fiscal division who helps oversee apportionments. The new  LCFF – in terms of base grants, targets and economic recovery as well as the unduplicated pupil funding – those components won’t occur until we do the Second Principal Appointment certification for 2013-14.”

Some critics say that the formula has too much flexibility and gives districts too much control in spending choices.

Arun Ramanathan, executive director of the Education Trust-West, told EdSource that the formula lacks clarity.

The state Department of Education has lumped districts’ LCFF allocations as one figure, instead of by components. Without a breakdown of base, supplemental and concentration dollars, there’s no baseline to measure spending decisions moving forward, he said.

The State Board of Education is reportedly working on creating tighter regulations for the formula’s accountability component. Spending standards and policies need to be adopted by Jan. 1, 2014.

Read the whole story at SI&A Cabinet Report.

Previous posts: More Praise For Gov. Brown’s Funding Formula, LA Unified Wins Big Under State Budget Compromise

A special education parent protests outside LAUSD headquarters/ Brianna Sacks

A group of parents and teachers plans to picket the office of school board member Tamar Galatzan on Wednesday to protest LA Unified’s compliance with federal and state laws to move special needs students into general education settings.

The group, Parents and Teachers United for Action, says that by moving special education students from centers they now attend would deny them care and resources they need.

The group contends that Galaztan has been consistently supportive of the moves even though the board played no role in the legal rulings.

According to United Teachers of Los Angeles, thousands of students from special education centers have been moved into regular campuses over the past few years, and four centers have closed.

Sharyn Howell, executive director of the LAUSD Division of Special Education, said the  the district must comply with laws aimed at giving special education students the same experiences and learning opportunities as other public school children.

She said that among the nearly 83,000 special education students in the district, most are already attending regular public schools in their own classrooms. About 2,600 students are still in the remaining 14 special education centers across the district.

Four of the centers are located in Galatzan’s district. She declined a request to comment, and her chief of staff, Hilary MacGregor, told LA School Report that she has no idea why protesters have chosen their district for picketing.

Howell said she believes the protesters chose the location because many parents of the special education students attend centers in the area.

Phillip Murphy, a teacher at Sophia T. Salvin Special Education Center in downtown who plans to join the protest, said special education centers are vital for moderately to severely developmentally delayed students.

“There is a good reason to put as many kids with special needs on regular campuses that can handle it,” he said. “But the fact is that most kids who go to special centers wouldn’t make it on a normal campus.”

Murphy, who has worked at Salvin for more than 14 years, said he has some students who are 10 years old but have developed only to the level of a toddler and require constant attention. These students, he said, would not fare well in a traditional learning environment.

“The reason these centers are here is because many of these students were getting teased and mistreated at regular schools,” Murphy said. “They can be targets.”

He also argued that many regular campuses don’t have the facilities and staff in place to support these students. “Here at Salvin,” he said, “we have two full time nurses because students may need medication or help.”

Howell disputed Murphy’s claim, insisting that laws require the district to have sufficient resources to serve special education children in regular public schools.

“There are enough resources for these students across the district because over the years we have been increasingly serving special education students on regular campuses,” she said.

The protest group is also arguing that parents should have the option to educate their children in separate centers, and if they are denied, the centers would close from disuse.

However, Howell says these centers have a long history. Many were opened in the 1970s when special education students were completely segregated, and the district has been working to move away from that system.

“I understand parents’ anxiety and concerns about this because many of their children have been in these centers for a long time,” said Howell. “I want to assure them that we can support their children in a safe environment but also give them an opportunity to be around other children.”

But Murphy said his school used to get special education students who left regular campuses because they were not receiving the proper care or education they needed, or were getting teased.

That number has dwindled since the district is pushing for students to remain on traditional campuses.

“It’s not in the best interest for these students,” said Murphy. “They are safe in these centers.”

Previous posts: Charter & District School Alternatives, More School Space, More Problems,

Rick Miller, executive director of the Coalition Office to Reform Education (CORE), which includes LAUSD, said the conversations so far have been positive, productive — and extensive.

“There was ongoing feedback on changes we needed to make so we did those while we were there and then would reconvene,” Miller said.

LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy and other CORE officials traveled to Washington for talks so the waiver could be ready before the start of the upcoming school year. According to a top CORE source, the districts expect a final decision by August 8.

While Miller did not confirm the date, he said he “remained cautiously optimistic that they could get it done by August.”

The final application will be evaluated by Department of Education officials prior to a final decision from Secretary Arne Duncan. Duncan did not attend any of the CORE meetings, Miller said.

“We have to make more changes, and we keep narrowing down their level of concerns and rewrite the waiver as they raise questions about parts like teacher evaluations and Common Core,” Miller said.

EdSource reported that Fresno Unified Superintendent Michael Hanson characterized the status of the waiver as “closer but not done.”

“If there was not a chance of approval,” he told EdSource, high-ranking Department of Education administrators “would not have wasted their time or our time.”

Though the trip was positive overall, the districts heard concerns from federal officials regarding the coalition’s ambitions around Common Core, particularly for English learners and special education students.

“There was definitely pushback,” said Miller. “They wanted to make sure we had done a good enough job documenting our plan for these students, so now we are in the process of doing that more thoroughly.”

Districts across the state have already been working on phasing in new Common Core standards, one of the requirements for the waiver.

After California’s waiver request was rejected back in January, CORE submitted its own application to the Department of Education, marking the first time districts filed a unified proposal. Typically, a request comes from a state, and the department has already granted waivers to most of the states and the District of Columbia.

The NCLB law applies strict sanctions if certain educational goals are not met by 2014, like limitations on Title I funding for low-income students and federal intervention in low-performing schools.

The group’s waiver application has sparked controversy among other state superintendents, who see a district waiver as giving too much power to locally-run districts, as well as teachers unions that argue they were not consulted in constructing CORE’s academic accountability system, known as the School Quality Improvement Index.

The CORE districts pulled ideas from districts in Ontario, Canada and Massachusetts in creating their own school improvement and accountability model. Linking teacher improvement to student test scores is included in their plan, a hotly-contested method that was at the heart of disagreements with past California No Child waiver applications.

Previous posts: CA Districts in DC for Final ‘No Child’ Pitch; Analysis: Politics Could Affect LAUSD Waiver Approval; Teachers Unions Oppose NCLB Waiver That the ‘CA 9′ Want

Kids in art class/creative commons

Arts education is making a comeback in LA Unified classrooms thanks to a new, five-year plan unveiled today by the LAUSD Arts Education Branch.

The report, known as “The Arts Education and Cultural Network Plan:  2012-2017,”  promises to infuse core curriculum with artistic elements.

“Arts education at the LAUSD was decimated during the recent budget crisis,” Dr. Steven McCarthy, who heads the District’s Arts Education Branch, said in a press release.  “But with the passage of Proposition 30 and an improving economy, we are now in position to implement significant changes in the teaching of dance, music, theater and visual arts to our students.”

This summer, more than 200 K-through-12 LAUSD teachers from all subject areas  attended arts integration development sessions, which guided arts and non-arts teachers on how to integrate dance, music, theater and visual arts into basic subjects like math, science and language arts.

Arts-depleted classrooms are also getting help from a three-year, $750,000 grant by the LA Fund, which recently announced that the first grant of $150,000 to the Music Center will train 20 teachers on how to bring arts into core academic classrooms at five LA middle schools,

Although the District is recovering from years of severe budget cuts, the arts program may  take years to recover, having lost almost 50 percent of its funding since 2008.

In 2011 there were 250 arts teachers, reports LAUSD, and in 2012,  there were only 216 elementary arts teachers to serve all the District’s elementary schools and primary centers.

By graduation, the average student in LAUSD will have spent 2 percent or less time learning any arts education. To remedy this deficit, the district promises to raise the level of funding over the first three years of the program, as well as increase the number of arts pilot schools, magnets, academies, and new Grade 6-12 designated arts hubs.

In a city rife with museums, concert venues and other cultural institutions,  students should be able to collaborate with some of the 11,235 arts venues scattered across LA, says the report.

Thanks to new funding, the district plans to create partnerships and online arts education lessons with various universities, museums, theaters, art galleries, parks and film schools.

Read the whole report here

Previous posts: LA Unified Arts Programs Getting Serious Boost, Nonprofit Funds Big Arts Education Push,

“

The new report, STEP: Supporting Teachers as Empowered Professionals, aims to reverse L.A. Unified’s high turnover rate, close to 50 percent according to a few studies. They’re leaving over low wages, poor working conditions and new teachers being assigned to the neediest schools without help or necessary resources.

Even teachers need teachers, says the report, which goes to say new teachers need social and emotional support while navigating through their first year in the system. They need to be observed, mentored and given feedback by veteran colleagues.

And when veteran teachers take on these mentorships and new leadership roles, they should have a lighter course or student load to ensure they can give ample time to newer teachers.

With most new teachers dropping out after their fifth year, these new resources and programs could slow attrition for the district, which costs the state about $450 million each year, according to the report.

“Our important work is to discover our students’ interests, spark their passion and help them grow. But teachers need our education leaders to do the same for us,” Educators 4 Excellence said in its message to Mayor Garcetti.

The 13 educators who devised the plan also recommend creating an Educator Entrepreneurship Grant to fund teacher-created projects, a more effective teacher induction program for new teachers and greater opportunities for seasoned, effective teachers to take on “hybrid roles” that include teaching and responsibilities outside of the classroom.

The plan is winning early support from Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy, along with LAUSD School Board members Monica Ratliff and Monica Garcia.

Teacher turnover rate and dissatisfaction is widespread. Less than half of teachers are satisfied with their jobs, reports Forbes, because current systems in many school districts prevent teachers from moving upward and taking on additional leadership roles in and outside the classroom.

This lack of opportunities for diverse engagement and advancement negatively affects teacher satisfaction, which is currently at a near-record low of 44 percent, with 46 percent of teachers leaving the profession within five years, says Forbes.

“As a relatively new teacher, entering my fourth year in the classroom, I did not receive some of the support at the beginning of my career that might have enabled me to be a more effective teacher for my students,” Christopher Records, one of the authors of the report, said in a commentary for PolicyMic.

The report says new teachers are often thrown into the system and are left to “sink or swim” without support or feedback, writes the group.

“I’ve seen too many of my colleagues leave the profession shortly after entering it, unsatisfied with the avenues to advancement available to them, Records said in his commentary. “The result of this is instability for students and schools, who yearly face the loss of good, strong educators.”

Previous posts: Board Candidates Differ on Teacher Retention, School Turnaround, Commentary: Teachers’ Letter to Mayor Garcetti

CORE Executive Director Rick Miller

Pressed for time, a small group of superintendents and officials from a coalition of nine California school districts, representing 1.1 million students, are on their way to D.C. to ensure that its No Child Left Behind waiver proposal is passed in time for the upcoming school year.

Representatives from the California Office to Reform Education (CORE) will be meeting with federal officials on Wednesday and are still confident that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will approve their request to be exempted from requirements of the federal law that could cause school closures if not met by 2014.

On his way to the airport, CORE Executive Director Rick Miller said the districts might have a better chance of getting the waiver passed if everyone was in the same room.

“We feel like we are really close to getting the waiver passed,” said Miller. “But it’s a 70-something page document with a lot of technical information and it’s a difficult conversation to continue to have digitally.”

LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy is joining Miller, along with superintendents from Fresno Unified, Long Beach Unified, San Francisco Unified and Oakland Unified, in an effort to speed up the federal review.

Miller said CORE has been having ongoing conversations with officials in D.C. over the past few months, but summer’s ticking clock was causing concern.

Districts are up against deadlines for contracts with companies that provide services, such as tutoring, in schools that have failed to meet NCLB’s academic targets, EdSource reported. Especially for Los Angeles Unified, these must be signed within a week or so.

After California’s waiver was rejected back in January, CORE submitted its own application to the Department of Education, marking the first time districts filed a unified proposal. Typically, a request comes from a state, and the department has already granted waivers to 39 states and the District of Columbia.

“The state board is OK with it,” said Miller. “They wrote a letter to Duncan raising some concerns but overall supported our application.”

The unique proposal raises a new and difficult question since districts took the NCLB waiver into their own hands: What role would the state play in this new accountability system?

“We are still figuring out how to make sure we are not splitting the state up,” said Miller. “It’s a very new idea.”

The group will be working through three different aspects of CORE’s proposed accountability system, known as the School Quality Improvement Index.

Intervention in low-performing schools has been one of the government’s biggest issues with the proposal, said Miller.

“We are focusing on peer review rather than having the state come in, meaning we would be paring high performing schools with struggling ones to help them improve and that hasn’t been done before in the U.S.,” said Miller.

“They want to know how that kind of locally-controlled intervention is going to work,” he added.

If the three-year waiver is approved, the coalition will have flexibility to spend $100 million in Title I dollars funded for low-income children. The districts would use some of that money for teachers and administrators to work collaboratively instead of relying on previous contracts, EdSource reported.

Controversial teacher evaluation methods will also be brought up in the D.C. meetings, especially since the coalition is developing its own way to judge teacher effectiveness.

“We’re using the Massachusetts Model System,” said Miller. “You first conduct an evaluation without student achievement data to see if they are effective and then compare that finding to student achievement in the classroom. If there is a large disconnect, you look at that.”

The group expects to stay in D.C. until Friday to ensure all issues are resolved so that students in the nine districts will not be faced with nearly impossible NLCB requirements, like becoming proficient in English and math by 2014.

“I hope the meeting lasts for a few days,” said Miller. “We will stay there for the rest of the week to make sure we get this passed.”

Previous posts: Update: Federal Review “Going In the Right Direction” for LAUSD; LA’s Most Famous Teacher Critiques Common Core; Reform Group Splits over Federal Waiver for LAUSD

It’s still a waiting game for LA Unified and eight other California school districts who have yet to hear if their revised No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver application will be given the thumbs up by the US Department of Education in Washington.

The nine districts, known as California Office to Reform Education (CORE), are still in the dark as to if and when they might be exempted from some of the more stringent requirements of the federal NCLB law that among other things requires all students to be proficient in English and math by 2014.

But spirits remain high.

The Obama administration continues to send positive signals about the process.

“If there are millions of kids and we could make a difference, then that’s something we have to look at,” said Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a recent EdWeek interview.

And, according to CORE, the plan to have the waiver accepted by the start of this upcoming school year is still very much in motion.

“We’ve been having less formal, ongoing conversations with the U.S. Department of Education” in recent weeks, Hilary McLean, CORE’s director of communications told LA School Report. “Things seem to be going in the right direction.”

California submitted an application for a state waiver back in January, but was rejected because it was unable to include provisions that linked teacher evaluations to student performance.

In May, State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson said that the state would not make any more attempts, saying that the standards were “too difficult” for a state of this size.

CORE first submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Education in February, marking the first time that school districts, not an entire state, submitted a unified proposal.

The CORE districts, consisting of Clovis, Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger and Santa Ana Unified School Districts, represent 1.1 million students. Under its proposal, which was revised and re-submitted in May, the waiver would be extended to any other district or charter school system in the state that agrees to follow its guidelines.

As of this week, the US Department of Education is still looking over CORE’s proposed accountability system, known as the School Quality Improvement Index, which aims to create what CORE describes as more realistic goals for students and more flexibility to student performance regulations at the district level.

The State Department of Education would not comment on the nine school districts’ decision to pursue their own waiver, though Torlakson did say California remained “committed to local flexibility and decision-making.”

The U.S. Department of Education also had no updates on whether getting the goal approved by the upcoming school year was a possibility.

“We are still working with CORE on their waiver request,” said JoAnn Webb of the US Department of Education.

Despite concrete deadlines, the nine districts believe their new school improvement proposal will be replacing No Child Left Behind’s “narrow accountability rules” come September.

“It is a little bit of a waiting game and we are mindful of the ticking clock,” said McLean. “But we know the US Department of Education has to make sure everything is right.”

Previous posts: Reform Group Splits over Federal Waiver for LAUSD; Feds Want More Details from Waiver Application; District Waivers Worry State Education Chiefs

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-San Ramon)

After nine months of hearings and amendments, legislation aimed to quicken and streamline teacher dismissal procedures failed to pass in the Senate Education Committee by one vote.

The Chair of the Senate Education Committee Carol Liu (D-Glendale) — the only LA-area lawmaker on the committee — decided not to vote for or against the bill because of district administrators and attorneys’ concerns. Many other lawmakers followed suit.

Liu did grant the bill reconsideration, however, but it now will not be reconsidered until at least January.

Unless the process is changed at the state-level, bill sponsor State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-San Ramon) says LAUSD and other districts will continue to wade through onerous dismissal procedures that can last 18 months or longer.

However,  Edgar Zazueta, the director of government relations for LAUSD, said that while Buchanan’s bill would be a great improvement to the current law there are some serious flaws that could damage the district if the bill passed as is.

The Buchanan legislation has been supported by the teachers union, among others.

Assembly Bill 357 was expected to pass with strong support from teachers’ unions and student advocacy groups.  It would have made it easier for districts to suspend and fire teachers for serious offenses, an especially pertinent issue given the continuous slew of child molestation and teacher misconduct cases that continue to crop up throughout LA Unified.

First reported by EdSource Today, the failure of the Buchanan legislation was a repeat of the failure of similar legislation in 2012.

Last year, Buchanan voted against the legislation, SB 1530, which was championed by Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima).  This year, she developed her own legislation and was joined by Padilla, but was met with similar push back by the state Senate.

What is really holding the bill back, from perspective of LAUSD, is the proposed seven-month time frame for dismissing teachers accused of misdeeds in the classroom.

“This bill says that if the seven months pass without a resolution, a district gets another 30 days,” Zazueta explained. “But ultimately that time period may lapse, and the bill states that the district would have to refile the case. That’s a big concern for us.”

“It doesn’t make sense for us to have to start from scratch, put people back on the stand and do the whole thing over,” he added.

District lawyers warned that Office of Administrative Hearings, where the dismissal cases are heard, has a difficult time putting these on the calendar from the get go, according to Zazueta. To district administrators, a seven month dismissal resolution seems like a long shot.

“What our lawyers told us is that the Office of Administrative Hearings (where the dismissal cases are heard) has a difficult time putting these on the calendar from the get go,” said Zazueta. “Just because we say it will happen in seven months, will it actually happen?”

Buchanan disagrees with this assessment, saying that most dismissal hearings actually take days or a week once they are scheduled at the Office of Administrative Hearings because their deadlines are written into statues, and that forces the OAH to make sure cases are concluded.

“It works,” said Buchanan. “So to say you cannot get it done in seven months’ time, I don’t believe is correct, since these cases are not part of judicial branch.”

United Teachers of Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher said the union will continue to support the bill despite the recent setbacks. The administrators’ union also said they support the bill, though they also have concerns about the hard-set time deadline, among other details.

“Yes the process should be faster, but I think [the bill’s sponsors] tried to make it faster than would be possible,” said AALA President Judith Perez.

Perez said that she was concerned at the speed teachers could be dismissed if the bill passed and explained that putting such a specific length of time could backfire for school districts.

Buchanan acknowledges that’s what prevented the bill from passing.

“The bill stalling really hinged on one law firm who testified and said the process cannot be completed in seven months so cases will get dismissed and end up costing districts more money,” said Buchanan.

Depending on the severity of the charges in a teacher dismissal case, the process can drag on for a year or more, costing districts money they don’t have.

Buchanan says the biggest problem facing schools is actually not the sexual abuse and misconduct cases like Miramonte, but the dismissals for unprofessional conduct and unsatisfactory performance which are less cut-and-dry, harder to prove, “drag on for extended periods of time” and often costs districts hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On this issue, Buchanan and LAUSD agree.

“Sometimes cases last over a year,” said Zazueta. “Some cases have even dragged on for multiple years.”

These delayed dismissal cases can cost LAUSD anywhere from $150,000 – $300,000 for one case, he said. If the district loses a case once it finally gets to trial, Zazueta says the district has to pay the two panelists it finds to sit in for the hearing about $7,000-$9,500.

Under Supt. Deasy’s administration, Zazueta says the district has tried to “be more aggressive to see which employees should be in the classroom,” which can result in more teacher dismissal cases.

With months until the January consideration, Buchanan says she will do whatever it takes to get the bill ready to pass.

“I need to sit down individually with every member of the Senate Committee on Education to make sure they truly understand what the bill really does,” she said. “If we need to amend it we will.”

Previous posts: Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Deasy Wants Stronger Teacher Dismissal Bill; State Teachers Union Rejects Criticism of Teacher Dismissal Bill; Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill

LA Fund’s “Arts Matter” campaign bus

Nearly a year after its launch last October, LA Unified’s “Arts at the Core” plan is getting a serious boost to help bring more music, dance, theater and visual arts back into arts-depleted classrooms thanks to a three-year, $750,000 initiative by the LA Fund.

Since 2008, LAUSD arts programs have been cut by 41 percent, resulting in a sorrowful ratio of middle school students to arts teachers, about 413 to 1, said LA Fund’s Executive Director Dan Chang.

The nonprofit plans to announce the first grant of $150,000 to the Music Center, which will train 20 teachers on how to bring arts into core academic classrooms at five LA middle schools, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Last fall, the organization launched a $4 million campaign to raise awareness about the importance of arts education that included artworks on public buses and other locations and endorsements by such artists as Justin Bieber and Barbara Kruger.

LA Unified “Arts at the Core” program plans to nearly double arts funding back to 2007-08 levels of about $32 million, but with a new spin or arts education:

Over the next five years, arts will be interwoven into math, science, English and social studies classes to ensure arts education is a foundation for all other subjects, and to make sure arts programs do not suffer from such drastic budget cuts in the future.

Disclosure:  LA School Report publisher Jamie Alter Lynton is on the board of the LA Fund. Read the whole story at the LA Times.

Previous posts: Nonprofit Funds Big Arts Education Push;  LA Fund Launches 2nd Arts Initiative; “Les Mis” Cast Turns Out for LA Education Fund