UTLA President Warren Fletcher

The governing body of the LA teachers union last night voted to seek out a state lawmaker to sponsor legislation that rewrites California’s parent trigger law, which allows for wholesale changes at a school if a majority of parents want them.

The state law, passed in 2010, was used for the first time this year in a handful of Los Angeles area schools, but in describing the rationale of the union’s House of Representatives vote, UTLA President Warren Fletcher said the current law pits parent groups against each other, a “balkanization” that does not serve the interest of all parents at the school.

“The current law is premised on the idea that someone has to be blamed and we have to go after the culprit,” Fletcher told LA School Report today. “We believe collaboration goes a lot farther than balkanization.”

Fletcher said it’s usually UTLA’s statewide affiliates, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association, that lobby for new laws. But because “so much of the effect” of the parent trigger law can come in LA Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, he said, “we feel the need to take the lead in pursuing it.”

In another vote, the House approved an effort aimed at delaying adoption of an online voting system for elections and policy changes until after the next round of union elections conclude early next year. If approved, online voting would replace paper ballots, starting on July 1.

The change, Fletcher said, was designed to allow the coming election cycle to proceed without changing the method of voting in midstream.

In a third vote, the House members approved a plan to boycott Common Core training sessions so long as the district refuses to pay teachers for attending the sessions at the same rate they earn during normal classroom hours. The training sessions, required by the state for implementation of the new curricula next year, are generally held after school hours and on weekends.

Fletcher said teachers are paid $102 a day for the training sessions, about a third of what they otherwise earn for their work in the classroom.

The starting date for a boycott, he said, is now under consideration.

*Corrects training session rate to $102 a day, not $102 an hour.

Previous Posts: ‘Parent Trigger‘ Doc in Final LA Showing With Director Q&A; Haddon Parents Abandon Trigger, Still Get Changes; Should the Teachers Union Vote Online? Members Will Decide; LA Teachers Proposing Online Voting System for Union Elections

Stephen English, Chair of School Construction Bond Oversight Committee

The head of the group that oversees capital expenditures of LA Unified says problems arising in Phase 1 of the district’s new iPad program do not appear serious enough to disrupt Phase 2.

“I don’t think the level of problems was greater than what we anticipated,” Stephen English, chairman of the district’s School Construction Bond Citizens’ Oversight Committee, said in an interview with LA School Report. “That’s why we have a pilot program. It’s better for problems to come up with 47 schools than with 10 times that number.”

The iPad program supports the district’s shift to the Common Core teaching curriculum. It was approved in January by the Oversight Committee, a 15-member volunteer group that monitors infrastructure spending, despite objections by some members that iPads fell beyond the scope of school modernization. The program now represents what is estimated to be $1 billion in spending, for hardware, software and internet access in school sites that don’t have it.

So far, iPads have been distributed to students in about half of 47 LA Unified schools in Phase 1, with the rest on the way. Through next year, the district plans to distribute the tablets to 300 schools in each of the next two phases of the program to reach all 650,000 students in the district.

Phase 1, which represents about $30 million in spending, has drawn public scrutiny largely for what has gone wrong — security breaches at several high schools, students’ taking iPads home and confusion among parents regarding their responsibility for a broken or stolen device. One recent Los Angeles Times headline said the iPad rollout has been “marred by chaos.”

But English expressed satisfaction with how Superintendent John Deasy and district officials responded to the glitches. “In handing a project of this complexity and size, the district has done a passing job – very well in some areas and not so well in others,” he said. “Overall, the district has demonstrated that it has been able to do this. Deasy said he’s very proud of what the district has done, and he’s got things to be proud of.”

Of greater concern to the committee, English said, is whether aspects of the program going forward remain consistent with state law that regulates how bond funds can he spent. As an example, he cited a condition of Phase 1, that iPads should remain at the school. After some were home with students, Deasy notified schools that all iPads must remain at the school site.

If the district relaxed the rule, allowing students to take their iPads home, that would be a change the panel would need to examine to make sure it the program remains in compliance, English said.

He also said “a major concern of ours” is how the district intends to sustain the iPad program in years to come when the current tablets and software might be outdated or unusable.

“Those are the things we look at most closely,” he said.

English said that the committee played no role in the district’s choices of Apple iPads as hardware and Pearson instructional software, nor did it second-guess the district’s decision to buy them, despite public complaints that less expensive products might have served just as well. He said Deasy and the committee discussed the choices and pricing after contracts were signed.

“Our discussions,” English said, “reflected what was in the presentation.” It’s not the committee’s inclination, he added “to say we think it ought to be adjusted this way or that.”

The iPad program comes under review twice this month, at a special school board meeting on the 29^th and the oversight committee’s next meeting, the following day.

Previous Posts: Board Turns a ‘Retreat’ into a Special Meeting on iPads; LA Unified Removes iPads From Hackers’ High Schools; LA Unified Wants Student Hackers on an Anti-Hacking Panel; iPads Hacked? ‘Surprised it Took This Long,’ Says Zimmer

As part of the Common Core standards, students evaluate and present information, ideas and evidence in one-on-one, small-group and whole-class discussions. Though these types of interactions often appear constructive, the course instructors say they don’t always provide adequate opportunities for all students to engage in academically rich discussions, particularly English Language Learners. The Stanford team is trying to help all students collaborate and build upon each other’s ideas in live time.

The lead instructor is Stanford linguist and psychologist Kenji Hakuta, whose research and publications have focused on the education and development of bilingual children and youth. Most recently, Hakuta has contributed to Stanford’s Understanding Language Initiative, which addresses the educational challenges and opportunities of the new standards for English Language Learners.

Previous Posts: Common Core Training Session Draws Overflow Crowd, Union Survey Finds Teachers Unprepared for Common Core, Latest UTLA Survey Takes Aim at Common Core Readiness

Gov. Brown has expressed his support for AB 484 and has has until the end of the month to sign or veto it.

The bill, suspends annual multiple-choice tests, including the California Standards and Reporting tests, taken by students in the second grade through the junior year of high school. It replaces them with a new system called the Measurement of Academic Performance and Progress (MAPP), a test developed to assess the new Common Core Standards that will take effect in 2014-15.

Until then, the bill would allow schools to take a pilot MAPP field test in either English or math, and not count the scores as an official measure of school progress.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan initially opposed the plan and threatened to withhold up to $1.5 billion in federal funds from the state but he has since backed away. Duncan now says schools that administer the new test could ask for a waiver that would relieve them of having to report the results as mandated by No Child Left Behind. However, California schools would be required to test students in English and math.

State Superintendent Tom Torlakson says California can’t afford to pay for both tests.

Signatories to the letter hoping to block AB 484, including Parent Revolution, Educators 4 Excellence and Teach Plus, argue the single-testing policy leaves the neediest kids in the lurch.

In an email to the LA School Report, Parent Revolution said:

“[We oppose] any law or policy that weakens or does away with the requirement to gauge and share student and school progress.  We are pleased that student funding appears to no longer be threatened based on the political infighting of adults, but continue to stand firm in our call for Governor Brown to veto this bad law, as it strips away critical and federally required protections for students (and their parents) which provide annual information on student academic achievement.”

Previous Posts: CA Has a Plan for Using Test Scores — Even With No Tests (Updated); Torlakson Rebuts Duncan, Defends State Testing Bill; Superintendent Deasy Not Happy With Latest Testing Bill

A group called Parent Partnership for Public Education has renewed its call to support Deasy — with a big boost from Garcia’s email list.

In a message sent on Monday, the group asked its recipients to lobby the board to approve the $113 million Common Core budget, an item on today’s meeting agenda that Deasy strongly supports.

“Late last week, a key member of Superintendent Deasy’s team submitted his resignation and Deasy canceled a public appearance in the wake of a perplexing and concerning board meeting on September 10 that lasted over 8 hours,” the message said, referring to Jaime Aquino. Aquino had cited the Board’s delay of the budget’s approval as a reason for his resignation.

Garcia made no secret of her allegiance.

“I’m helping spread the word,” she told LA School Report. “I want the greater Los Angeles area to understand how one group is choosing to organize.”

Parent Partnership for Public Education was started in 2010 (according to its Facebook page) by two parents, Amy Baker and Rene Rodman. Earlier this year, the group circulated a petition in support of Deasy, in part, as a response to the teachers union’s frequent criticism of him. According to the group’s website, they gathered “nearly” 1,400 signatures. The site now says they are relaunching that petition drive.

Previous posts: Analysis: Aquino’s Resignation Turns a Spotlight onto Deasy; Aquino’s Resignation Explanation; Deasy Deputy Jaime Aquino Resigns (Updated); Deasy to LAUSD Administrators: I’m Staying on the Job

Board President Vladovic

Today is expected be another long day for LA Unified School Board members.

Last week’s eight-hour session — only the second board meeting of the school year –was not long enough to hash out the details of the district’s Common Core implementation plan, so they’ve sandwiched in a Special Board Meeting between two others that were already on the calendar.

The first meeting, starting at 10 a.m., will have a short window for public comment but, will then become, for the most part, a closed session for the board, legal counsel and labor contract negotiators. This is also when the board will take up personnel issues, a discussion which will now include the unexpected resignation on Friday of Jaime Aquino, Deputy Superintendent of Instruction and Superintendent John Deasy’s right-hand man. A routine evaluation of the superintendent’s performance is also on the closed-door agenda.

Board members, who said they were “shocked” and “surprised” by Aquino’s sudden decision to leave the $250,000 a year post effective Dec. 31, will address the impending vacancy. However, it’s unclear if the board will have input in choosing a successor for Aquino or if Deasy will single-handedly oversee the search.

Aquino blamed the school board for creating a contentious climate and intentionally blocking his efforts to push forward Deasy’s aggressive reform agenda. Aquino told the LA Daily News the tipping point for him was when the board failed to pass the Common Core budget last week, pushing it off until today.

That indecision is what led to today’s noon Special Board Meeting. It is the third time the board will try to reach a consensus on how to spend $113 million to implement the new English and math curriculum. Board members have not agreed on the best plan for training teachers on the Common Core.

The final session of the day, on the schedule for 2 p.m., is a meeting for the Committee of the Whole, chaired by Steve Zimmer. The committee will tackle the Local Control Funding Formula, the plan that funnels Prop. 30 revenue directly to school districts.

Board president Richard Vladovic, Zimmer and Bennett Kayser want class size returned to pre-recession levels while Deasy, favors restoring summer school, after-school programs and advanced academic classes, in addition to paying down the structural deficit and giving raises to all district employees.

Previous Posts: Deasy Deputy Jaime Aquino Resigns (Updated); Vladovic Leadership Style Suggests Slower Pace is Best; Common Core Budget Approval Put Off for Another Week

The money represents $107 million for regular public schools and about $6 million for district charter schools. In addition, independently run charters within LAUSD will receive more than $23 million for the same purpose, but that money flows directly from the state.

The district money is being disbursed in two payments of about $53 million each over this month and next. It represents LA Unified’s share of the $1.25 billion the state has allocated to support teacher training and purchases of new technology and materials before the 2014-15 Common Core deadline.

The California Department of Education allotted the money based on a per-pupil formula of $200 per student. To view the first half of the state allocations, click here, then click on “Schedule of the First Apportionment.”

LA Unified spokesman Tom Waldman said the district has no shortage of uses for the extra funding, given LA Unified’s status as the nation’s second-largest school district after New York City’s.

“Some of the money will go to schools on a per student basis for personal development for teachers, some will pay for learning coaches for students, and some provide summer school in certain schools,” he said.

The amounts received by individual schools will be determined at the next school board meeting on September 10th.

Each school district determines how to use its own share of the state funds.

“The start of a school year is always exciting, but this year is something special,” said Tom Torlakson, the state Superintendent of Public Education said in announcing the distribution. “We’re challenging every part of our education system to remodel itself, and, step by step, give students the tools to achieve their dreams. And after years of cuts and turmoil, we’re finally able to start making the investments necessary to turn those dreams into a reality.”

Previous Posts: Common Core Training Session Draws Overflow Crowd, Torlakson Hosting Roundtable With Focus on Common Core, Ratliff Presiding Over Common Core Technology Session

*This updated version clarifies the allocation of state money to the district.

Monica Ratliff, a new committee chair

One of the LA Unified Board’s new ad-hoc committees — the Common Core Technology Project Committee — is holding its first public meeting at 10 a.m. tomorrow at district headquarters (333 S. Beaudry Ave.), with the board’s newest member, Monica Ratliff, presiding.

The meeting agenda says the committee, which includes board members Tamar Galatzan and Marguerite LaMotte, will hear presentations on the history of the district’s Common Core Technology Project, the current status of Common Core implementation and an update on the district’s cyber-security awareness campaign.

The meeting is open to the public, and a comment period follows the presentations.

As the newly-elected board president, Richard Vladovic created several ad hoc committees when the board met last week.

Previous Posts: Common Core Training Session Draws Overflow Crowd, Vladovic Adds Committees, Doles Out Assignments

Rather different from the usual instruction: “Pick the best answer, A, B, C, or D.” Right?

That’s because California is getting “Smarter.”

Beginning in the 2014–2015 school year, 25 states are replacing their standardized tests with “Smarter Balanced” assessments, a product of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two groups developing tests aligned to the new Common Core State Standards now being taught in 45 states.

In California, the new tests will replace the traditional Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) assessments, which were established by the legislature in 1997. The STAR tests passed into history on July 1 although the state has not yet decided what tests, if any, will be used for the current academic year.

“If you take a look at the Smarter Balanced prototype, you will see that almost all the items have a connection to the real world,” says Jaime Aquino, deputy superintendent of instruction for Los Angeles Unified. “It’s about application. It’s about measuring higher-order thinking. It’s not about multiple choice.”

Aquino says the new test is infinitely superior to the previous California standardized tests, which were entirely multiple choice, except for writing assessments in grades 4 and 7.  The Smarter Balanced tests are designed to probe critical thinking and analysis through a mix of multiple-choice, short answer and extended response questions.

Not all education experts are pleased with the change.

Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, a nonprofit that works to promote quality education and testing, says the new Common Core-aligned tests are longer and “substantially more difficult” than previous tests, calling the questions “esoteric, highly technical and unnecessary for someone to succeed in college or life” with a format he says is no different from the tests many states give now.

“Because of the political pressure to develop these tests quickly and cheaply, they largely failed to revise them,” says Schaeffer. “It’s more important to get it right than to get it fast. It’s easy to develop the perfect assessment system in theory, but you need to try it out in practice.”

FairTest is calling for a moratorium on the Common Core tests. Schaeffer cites the sharp drop in scores in New York and Kentucky, after those states administered tests aligned to the new standards, and FairTest is not alone in its objection.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said back in April that the tests should not be used to judge student or teacher performance, or used in any other high-stakes decisions, until the standards have been field-tested. Education organizations, including the National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association, have made similar requests.

Schaeffer suggests it will take more than three years to try out the assessments and improve them.

“In the perfect world, tests would be treated like prescription drugs,” he says. “Before you can sell a prescription drug in this country, you have to prove to a neutral body that it is both safe and effective. And you do that through experiments and trials and you build to mass administration. You don’t say, ‘Wow! This looks like it’s going to be a cure for a rare cancer’ and start administering it right away.”

In LA Unified schools, the Smarter Balanced tests will be taken on iPads. Elsewhere, students may take them on whichever devices—iPads, laptops, desktops—schools have available, with Smarter Balanced providing pencil-and-paper tests until the 2017–2018 school year to give schools time to acquire the appropriate technology.

The new tests for math and language arts will be given over the last 12 weeks of the school year in grades 3 through 8 and 11. There will be a mix of multiple-choice and short-answer questions. Some parts of the test will require students to have some tech savvy. They may be asked, for example, to drag and drop fractions or decimals onto the correct place of a number line.

Students will also have to tackle a “real-world” writing assignment called a performance task, like the example above or this one. To complete some of them, students may first have to read articles or watch an informational video, like this one.

The new tests are lengthy. The language arts and math tests combined will take seven hours in grades 3 through 5 and 8½ hours in grade 11. Schools decide over how many days to administer the test. Teachers have the option to give assessments throughout the school year to track their students’ progress. Deb Sigman, California’s deputy superintendent of public instruction, says these interim tests would be a helpful way to inform teaching and learning.

“We have included in our assessment bill that we think the [interim tests] are vitally important and we encourage that the state pays for them for all districts,” Sigman told LA School Report.

The biggest difference with the Smarter Balanced assessments, aside from the fact that ultimately they will all be given on computers, is that they will adjust to the student taking them. Questions become more difficult or easy depending on how a student answers previous questions. The benefit, according to the Smarter Balanced website, is that the tests are individualized and can more quickly pinpoint the skills students have mastered.

“Struggling students who can’t answer the more difficult questions can be given a set of questions that can really home in on what it is they know,” says Sigman. “We’re not giving kids questions that we know they can’t answer. So it’s a more precise measure.”

This past spring, 52 LAUSD schools participated in pilot tests for the new assessments. Findings from the pilot tests are not yet available, but they will eventually be used to improve the assessments going forward.

Field tests will be conducted in the spring of 2014. In a letter to district superintendents and charter school administrators, Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, wrote that he is requesting “as many schools as possible” participate in the field test, insisting that “this will be a wonderful opportunity for our students and teachers.”

Previous Posts: Aquino Sees Deeper Thinking but Falling Scores with Common Core, California Could Face Year With No Meaningful Testing Data

CDE Press, the publishing arm of the California Department of Education, is offering print versions of the California Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects and California Common Core State Standards: Mathematics. Previously, the documents were available only online.

Torlakson also released a short video explaining in plain language the importance of the transition.

“These standards are the blueprints for remodeling our education system, laying out step-by-step what students need to know and be able to do to graduate ready to start a career or go to college,” Torlakson said in a press release. “And if we’re updating how and what we teach students, then we have to update the way we test as well.”

Standards define the knowledge, concepts, and skills students should acquire at each grade level. The Common Core standards are designed so that all students—no matter where they come from or where they live—receive a world-class education that is consistent from school to school, and graduate ready to contribute to the future of the state and the country, the release said.

The publications are available for purchase, with the prices set to offset printing and shipping costs. Details on how to order them, including sales tax and shipping and handling fees, are available on the CDE Press’ Catalog Listings of Publications or by calling toll-free, 1-800-995-4099.

Previous Posts: Torlakson Hosting Roundtable With Focus on Common Core, Curious About the New Common Core Test? Practice Here

Common Core Training Session at CSU Dominguez Hills

Nearly 1,400 LA Unified educators flooded the California State University Dominguez Hills campus in Carson on Saturday for a free conference on the Common Core State Standards.  “Launch LA Common Core” was organized by Teach Plus, a nonprofit that focuses on professional development for teachers.

The event was held as states are scrambling to train teachers in implementing the new standards. The demand for training is high—about 4,000 teachers wanted to attend the conference at Dominguez Hills. In the first 24 hours of sign-up, 1,700 teachers crashed the online reservation system.

“It’s great to see both the appetite from teachers who want to attend and from those who want to share common core-aligned lessons that they’re already doing in classrooms,” says John Lee of the mostly teacher-led conference. He is the executive director of Teach Plus Los Angeles, which received 100 applications from educators looking to lead training sessions.

Teachers from district and charter schools lucky enough to gain entrance chose from more than 60 workshops in math, language arts, social studies, science and technology. There were also sessions for teachers of special education and English language learners. Some workshop titles reflected the impression that these are tough standards: “Ready or Not, Common Core Is Here: What Every ELA Teacher Needs to Know” and “Conquering the Common Core Using Cognitive Guided Instruction in Mathematics. “

In a workshop titled “Common Core Shifts in Teaching Practice & Learning,” teachers tackled a word problem that instructed them to design the biggest and smallest dog pen possible, using 64 feet of fence. Teachers drew narrow, rectangular pens, square pens and even circular pens. As they worked, they talked about how the problem has “real-world application” and how they would have to provide background knowledge to students who don’t know the meaning of “pen.”

Volunteers explained how they solved the problem. One teacher held up a notebook showing her calculations and drawings. She found all the multiples of 64 before attempting to create the different-shaped perimeters of each pen.  Then she found their areas. The goal of Common Core: to get students beyond blind calculation and into understanding concepts.

The teachers in the room were most impressed with the way Bonnie Kwon, a 3^rd grade teacher at Knox Elementary, solved the problem. To make the dog pen even bigger, she used a wall of a house as part of the perimeter. “That’s outside-the-box thinking,” one teacher said.

“I never learned like this before,” said Candice Smith, a K–1 teacher at 95^th Street Elementary. “When I was a kid, we just learned the formulas for calculating perimeter and area. We threw out the dog!”

All in all, teachers appeared undaunted by the tough task ahead. Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy acknowledged in his opening address that teaching the Common Core standards would be “unbelievably difficult.”

“We’re going to fail; we’re going to stumble,” Deasy said. “But if we are afraid to stumble, we are not going to succeed. The best advice I can give you: Stay calm and teach on.”

The top four presenters at Dominguez Hills, as named by attendee surveys, will have their lessons videotaped and uploaded to a new LA Unified professional development website. Teachers will have access to videos and other teaching resources.

The educator who led the most popular training session will give his or her workshop at an upcoming Teach Plus conference in Boston.

Previous Posts: Union Survey Finds Teachers Unprepared for Common Core, Aquino Sees Deeper Thinking but Falling Scores with Common Core, John Deasy: one of the biggest adjustments ever – Common Core

“Americans’ mistrust of standardized tests and their lack of confidence and understanding around new education standards is one the most surprising developments we’ve found in years,” William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of the PDK/Gallup poll, said in a press release announcing the poll results. “The 2013 poll shows deep confusion around the nation’s most significant education policies and poses serious communication challenges for education leaders.”

The poll is based on a national survey of 1,001 Americans 18 years and older, according to PDK International/Gallup.

The Common Core standards are a state-led effort to establish learning standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and math. They were designed to prepare more students for college and careers. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, they are being phased in through instruction on iPads and Common Core-specific content loaded onto them.

Despite the widespread adoption of new standards, nearly two-thirds of poll respondents, or 62 percent, said they had never heard of them. Of the 38 percent who said they had, many thought – incorrectly – that the federal government was forcing states to adopt them, the pollsters said.

Only 41 percent of those surveyed said they thought Common Core would make American schools more competitive globally – a key goal of the initiative. Yet nearly all respondents, 95 percent, said they want schools to teach critical thinking skills, another Common Core goal.

While the new standards will be accompanied by new student assessments, the public now says that increased testing is hurting American education more than helping. Only 22 percent of those polled said increased testing had helped the performance of their local schools, compared with 28 percent in 2007. This year, 36 percent of those questioned said the testing was hurting school performance; 41 percent said it had made no difference.

“Americans support certain key ideals or goals, but don’t understand the programs or initiatives being pursued to improve student achievement,” Bushaw said in the release. “Our local and national leaders must do a better job of explaining what they’re doing and why.”

In a finding sure to bolster positions of teacher unions, the poll found increasing public concern about using standardized testing for teacher evaluation. This year, 58 percent of the respondents said they oppose using standardized test results for teacher evaluations, compared with 47 percent last year.

More than half of respondents, 52 percent, said teachers should have the right to strike, up from 40 percent in 1980.

Respondents expressed greater interest in seeing performance reviews released publicly for doctors (76 percent) and police officers (70 percent) than they did for teachers (60 percent). More than six in 10 respondents, 63 percent, also opposed the idea of releasing information to the media on how the students of individual teachers perform on standardized tests.

The poll posed several questions on school security and even in the aftermath of recent school shootings, it found that 88 percent of parents feel their child is safe in school – the highest percentage ever on the PDK/Gallup poll.

In contrast, 66 percent say they feel their child is safe playing outside in their neighborhood. When asked to choose between more security guards or more mental health services to promote school safety, 59 percent of respondents said they prefer expanding mental health services while only 33 percent would opt for hiring more security guards.

The public also prefers using screening procedures in schools over armed guards. At the elementary school level, the poll found, 57 percent said they agreed or strongly agreed that screening procedures similar to those used in government buildings should be implemented. The figure was 62 percent for middle and high schools.

The pollsters said some of the highest “strongly disagree” percentages of the survey came in response to questions about arming teachers and administrators. Nearly half, 47 percent, strongly opposed to arming elementary teachers and administrators and 43 percent opposed to arming middle and high school teachers and administrators. In both instances, adding in those who merely “disagree” created clear majorities in opposition.

Predictably, respondents broke along political lines when asked about free education for children of people who entered the country illegally. Of those identifying themselves as Democrats, 66 percent were in favor compared with 19 percent among self-identified Republicans.

Click here to see the entire poll.

Previous Posts: Union Survey Finds Teachers Unprepared for Common Core, LA Unified Survey Finds Teacher Satisfaction with iPad Training, Curious About the New Common Core Test? Practice Here

UTLA President Warren Fletcher

Hours after LA Unified announced results of a survey in which teachers expressed “high marks” for their training on iPads and the teaching content on them – the instructional tools for the new Common Core State Standards — the teacher’s union on Monday said its own survey found that a majority of teachers do not feel personally prepared to teach the standards

The UTLA survey, announced in a press release, reflected responses from 4,462 members and found that once teachers had been given professional development, their confidence in being able to teach CCSS greatly increases.

The release said only 1,000 of the respondents said they received more than three days of professional development on Common Core, and 95 percent of teachers wanted more planning time and more time to collaborate with colleagues on the Common Core standards.

Teachers who participated in the survey “think their schools have done more to prepare for Common Core, than the District or the State,” the release said without providing a specific number of teachers who expressed that opinion.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher will present the survey results to the School Board at its Tuesday meeting, the release said.

Referring to Superintendent John Deasy’s calling for $44 million for 200 “out of classroom” positions to implement Common Core the first year, Fletcher said, “We believe the wiser course is to provide paid training days for all LAUSD teachers. Our survey results make it clear, professional development works at the school level.”

Previous Posts: Aquino Sees Deeper Thinking but Falling Scores with Common Core,Latest UTLA Survey Takes Aim at Common Core Readiness, Curious About the New Common Core Test? Practice Here

Previous posts: California Could Face Year With No Meaningful Testing Data, Post Deasy: ‘One of the Biggest Adjustments Ever’

Jaime Aquino

Five years ago, as Jaime Aquino was leaving his post as chief academic officer of Denver public schools, a reporter asked him his thoughts on how to improve public education. His response: national standards, coupled with national assessments.

But Aquino told the reporter, “I will never see this in my lifetime.’”

Fast forward to 2013. Aquino is now the deputy superintendent of instruction for Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the country. Another school has started this week, and it’s shattering his prediction of years ago.

In LA Unified’s administrative hierarchy, Aquino is responsible for training 28,000 teachers on how to implement the Common Core Standards, the new teaching regimen that 45 states and the District of Columbia are adopting — in LA Unified’s case, with iPads. The standards prescribe what students in kindergarten through 12^th grade are expected to learn and how they’re going to learn it.

And all across the country, educators and politicians have sounded the alarm: the new standards are tough, and test scores — previously based on each state’s individual testing protocols — are sure to plummet.

“I’m not a gambler, “ Aquino says now, “but I am willing to gamble my entire pension that come 2015 our scores will go down.”

Yet Aquino is undaunted. “Test scores will decrease, not because the students are learning less,” he says, “but because the definition of proficiency has changed.”

Aquino cites a disparity among state standards that he noticed when serving as deputy superintendent in Hartford, Connecticut from 1999 to 2001. Students who passed the Connecticut Mastery test were deemed proficient as a matter of course. Yet had they moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, a 30-minute drive from Hartford, they would have fallen behind when tested against Massachusetts’ more rigorous standards. The expectations were lower, Aquino noted, depending on where students lived.

“I kept saying that in Hartford, we were lying,” Aquino said. “We were saying, ‘Yes, you’re proficient, but God forbid you should ever move to Massachusetts.’”

Now, nearly all U.S. students will be held to the same standards as the United States begins facing down the persistent poor showings of American students in international assessments. In language arts, the Common Core standards emphasize reading informational texts as opposed to literature. These kinds of readings, the thinking goes, will better prepare students for college and the workforce, where they are more likely to encounter texts that dispense information, whether scientific, historical or technical.

In fact, according to Common Core standards, by the time they reach high school, students should be reading 70 percent informational texts and only 30 percent literature. The emphasis is more on supporting answers by providing evidence from the text, and less on sharing opinions.

As for the math standards, parents may be surprised that their kids have one or two problems to solve for homework, instead of 30. The difference, Aquino explains, is that students will have to write an explanation of how they solved the problems. This way, they demonstrate understanding of the concepts, instead of going through the motions of solving a bunch of problems.

Aquino calls the U.S. an “answer-getting culture.” We provide students with “quick tricks” for finding correct answers, rather than tools for critical thinking to help them understand the concepts.  Aquino points to an example of how multiple-choice tests force teachers into providing these quick tricks, simply to increase students’ odds of choosing the correct answer.

“We say to students, ‘If you’re multiplying two numbers, the product is always going to be greater than both numbers,’ ” he explains. “That is always true, except if you’re multiplying a number times a decimal. Students rely on this trick so much that they don’t even multiply. They just look for the answers that are greater.”

Aquino thinks we need to teach math as they do in places like Japan and Hong Kong. He says Hong Kong covers only 40 percent of the topics in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an assessment given to fourth and eighth-grade students in more than 60 countries, including the U.S.

Students in Hong Kong, according to Aquino, perform much better than their American counterparts, who cover 80 percent of the topics. The difference is that, in Hong Kong, teachers stress mathematical knowledge over answers.

“We need to change the way we train teachers in this country,” Aquino says, and for now, he is attempting to do just that in Los Angeles: He’s changing the way teachers teach to change the way students learn. In time, he says, the efforts will boost test scores, too.

Previous Posts: LA’s Most Famous Teacher Critiques Common Core, Common Core P20 Flow Chart, California Could Face Year With No Meaningful Testing Data, LA Teachers Get Their Hands on the Future as iPad Era Begins

In Part One of a two-part interview, LA School Report contributor Vanessa Romo talks with Deasy about his relationship with teachers, the challenges of pioneering the new Common Core curriculum and the possibility that district-wide test scores might fall this year.

Q: Despite the upward trend of metrics that suggest the district is making progress – rising API scores, increasing graduation rates, and a significant reduction in suspension rates – the vast majority of respondents* to a teachers’ union survey found your performance either “below average” or “poor”, especially when it comes to morale and spending money. How do you answer your critics?

A: I can make no sense of it whatsoever. I have a fantastic relationship with the teachers of this district. Our teachers are doing a phenomenal job. I’ve been calling on the Board to give teachers and all employees a raise. I admire them, and I’m not confused about my mission, which is to lift youth out of poverty.

If you want to get technical about it, I don’t spend money. I make recommendations, and the [school] board decides. So since my recommendation is that 96 cents of every dollar go to schools, I don’t even know how to respond to that statement. I’m looking for partners to do this work with the teachers union leadership. I would love to have a partner to advance this work and recognize great teaching.

(*About 27 percent of the union’s 32,000 members participated in the survey.)

Q: In a speech at the teachers’ union leadership conference, UTLA President Warren Fletcher said you have conducted a “witch hunt” on teachers, and that Los Angeles “has become the teacher dismissal capital of California. While LAUSD employs about 10 percent of the state’s teachers, the district accounts for nearly 40 percent of California’s teacher dismissal cases.” Are you on a witch hunt?

A: Of course not. The board recommends to dismiss teachers when they harm children. Like when they sleep with a child or do drugs with a child or strike a child or steal money from the system; that’s when people get dismissed. I think those are morally obligatory reasons to have no one working with a child.

I don’t criticize the union, and I don’t criticize their leadership. I think the record is explicitly clear, I’ve never actually had a criticism out loud of Warren Fletcher.  But I certainly hope he wants to be a partner for the new $30 million in federal money to honor classroom practice that’s in Race to the Top. I hope they don’t leave that money on the table again.

Q: California’s Department of Education has yet to develop materials to support the new common core guidelines. In fact, state lawmakers suspended textbook adoptions until a year after students take the first mandated test under Common Core standards. How do you prepare students for a test without textbooks?

A: We can’t wait for the state. We actually have to provide for our teachers already and that’s what we’ve been rolling out this summer. There are curriculum materials for every single grade in the subject in the common core in every classroom developed by our teachers. We just launched digital texts for English language arts K-12 that was developed for LAUSD, and all of the training being done by our own teachers. We call them Common Core Fellows. We are absolutely prepared for the new school year.

Q: Leaders of the California Teachers Association and American Federation of Teachers have asked the U.S. Dept. of Education to temporarily suspend penalties on schools that score poorly on tests until teachers and students can “master this new approach.” Do you agree that a moratorium is necessary?

A: We’re making one of the biggest adjustments ever in education. People have been trying to make the case that teachers need time to train, and that’s absolutely true. I think the use of the test and accountability systems, [those] merit real pause as we learn to teach in a new way, and I’d like that to be two to three years.  But I don’t think we should have a moratorium on tests to let us know how students are doing.

Q: Do you have a strategy for managing the public-relations problem or morale problem that could arise when scores on the new tests look worse than those on the state’s current tests?

A: Test scores are going to change completely because it’s an entirely different system. You actually can’t compare California Standardized Tests to Smarter Balance. The scores themselves will be very, very different and what you’re doing is setting a new baseline. If you think that at one point you were at 80 percent, and now you’re 40 percent, so, therefore, it’s plummeting morale, it’s quite the opposite.

We were talking about this the whole week with Principal groups. People who care so much about this profession, their anxiety is up, and what we wanted to say is: Use the time to really focus on leading improvement of practice. Stop being so concerned about results until we actually learn how to do this.

Part Two of the interview appears tomorrow.

 Previous Posts: Defiant Deasy Says He’ll Push Targeted Spending Plan Anyway, Deasy Skirmish With Board Members a Long Time Coming, Board Members Ask Deasy To Explain Himself

But the greater uncertainty could lie ahead.

The plan is for all students to be tested on a new curriculum — the Common Core State Standards — in 2015. Those tests will be administered on computers. But what about 2014? The State Assembly hasn’t quite made a decision on that front, but 2014 could be a lost year in terms of meaningful testing data.

Assembly Bill 484, which has been approved by the Assembly and is currently being debated in a state Senate committee, would eliminate all of the California Standardized Tests that high school students would have taken over the 2013-2014 academic year — tests in subjects like history, algebra, chemistry and physics. Some students will take the new Common Core tests, and students in grades 3 through 8 would still take the CSTs for Title 1 purposes.

“The tests will be irrelevant,” said John Mockler, an education consultant who served briefly as interim California Education Secretary and was one of the architects of Proposition 30. “Some kids are going to take these new Common Core tests, some kids are going to take the old STAR test. Either one of those or both will be invalid, because they test different things. They can’t be used for accountability purposes.”

If AB 484 doesn’t pass, most students would take the CSTs for one final year.

Either way, California testing will face, in 2015, the same sort of rocky results that New York is facing this year, when transition to the Common Core caused their scores to plummet.

Previous posts: Slim Gains, Slight Drop in English for LA Unified in CA Test Scores; California’s 2013 Testing Results to be Released Thursday; LAUSD Shows Improvement In State Tests

In his annual address to LA Unified administrators, the LASUSD Superintendent addressed head-on recent reports that his rocky relationship with the school board may lead to his resignation or removal.

“A lot of chatter this summer, if you read blogs or read newspapers,” he said, “So let’s clear that up really quickly: I and this administration are going nowhere. I and this administration can’t wait to work for this Board of Education.”

Referring to the new board president, Richard Vladovic, with whom he is said to have a testy relationship, Deasy said, “I personally find it a privilege to think that I’m going to work with a board president — and I do believe this is accurate — in LAUSD, for the first time, we have a president of the board who’s been a teacher, a principal and a superintendent.”

Mayor Eric Garcetti addressed the audience earlier in the program and called for an end to the walls that separate the city bureaucracy from the school district bureaucracy, as well as idealogical walls that separate the “pro-union” crowd from the “reformers.”

“The things that divide us too often are the things we spend 95 percent of the time on,” he said.

Mayor Garcetti, at the podium, with Deasy, Steve Zimmer and Richard Vladovic sitting behind him

Garcetti also praised the district’s plan to provide every student and teacher with iPads by the end of 2014.

“How quickly can we change, how quickly can we adapt, sometimes is more important than the exact place we want to adapt to,” he said.

Deasy, who spoke for just over half an hour, addressed some concerns, by teachers and administrators, about the transition to the Common Core curriculum, which the district will begin when school starts next week.

“People are going to be very nervous,” he said. “Stay calm. We will do it as a team. We will learn together, we will grow together, and we will make mistakes together. We will fail together and learn from those, and not fail the same way again, so that we can lead. It is nothing short of what we ask you to do every single day in school.”

The school board’s newest member, Monica Ratliff, sitting in the front row, liked this section of the speech especially.

“I appreciated his focus on adults being able to learn publicly without fear,” she said afterward, “that these are challenging times, and they’re not expected to be perfect out of the gate.”

Teachers union President Warren Fletcher, also sitting in the front row, declined to comment on the speech, saying afterward that he was “on the run.”

Administrators union President Judith Perez said, “I think his speech was a call to all the administrators wanting to collaborate. We are always willing to collaborate, and we’re hopeful that he will follow through.”

Previous posts: Slim Gains, Slight Drop in English for LA Unified in CA Test Scores; Fiery Speech by UTLA Chief Gets Mixed Response From Members; The Buzz: Thelma Melendez Likely to Run Garcetti’s Education Team; LA Unified Sees Big Rise in AP Enrollment and Exams

Though he focused mainly on his top priorities for spending future revenue, Deasy also reflected on the school system’s recent gains, including 800 new campus safety aides assigned to elementary and middle schools across the city.

One of the district’s greatest achievements has been the remarkable progress made by English Language Learners, according to Deasy. As a whole, LAUSD students who are still learning English increased in proficiency at a higher rate than all other students, scoring at 38 percent on the English/Language Arts Periodic Assessment exam in the 2013 school year compared to 25 percent the year before.

Deasy also noted that the district has seen a 44 percent drop in out-of-class suspensions during since the 2011-2012 school year and will most likely see that number increase since LAUSD became the first district in the state to ban suspensions for “willful defiance.”

Read the Superintendent’s full report here.

Previous posts Deasy Wants to Revamp Local School Funding Formula; Deasy & Allies Prevail at May Board Meeting;  Deasy Budget Memo