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Issues brief - 11/1/09
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1. Support Seattle Councilmember Tim Burgess
I think that I have mentioned before that I am a “bus chick” and zippy (zip car user) and I go all over the city. I walk everywhere. In order to have a livable urban environment those in government must take care of mundane issues like graffiti and aggressive panhandling. The buses must run on time and without being a fascist, there must be some order and not chaos. Still one part of living in an urban environment is a recognition of the “common good” and the fact that we have to deal with social problems and we have to care for people who cannot care for themselves. Councilmember Burgess seems to be assuming the role of someone who is interested in municipal governance. I have nothing against global warming and making sure that whales have a decent place to roam, but if people want to deal in national and international issues they probably should run for Congress or get a job at an international agency. As one who loves living in a city, I want the cities to work.
Sara Jean Green is reporting in the Seattle Times about the efforts of Councilmember Burgess and others to save a program, which helps teen prostitutes
The john picked her up in Kent and drove her to his home in Seattle. She remembers his living room was decorated with wedding photos and pictures of his children.
The now-19-year-old Tacoma woman had to go to Los Angeles, site of one of three residential programs in the country specifically for prostituted youths, for help escaping her pimp.
If Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess has his way, other girls won't have to travel outside King County to find safe housing, specialized social services, educational programs and the vocational training they need to break free of the streets and begin healing from the traumas of sexual exploitation.
The city, in partnership with King County and the United Way of King County, was just about to launch a two-year pilot project for prostituted youth when King County Executive Kurt Triplett announced in late August that he was cutting money for the program — roughly $480,000 a year for two years — because of the county's woeful budget situation.
But Burgess wasn't about to go down without a fight.
"We're not going to give up on launching this program," Burgess said. "There's no place in Seattle or King County or anywhere in the state of Washington where children forced into street prostitution can go to receive the services and safety they deserve."
On Thursday, during its first round of 2010 budget negotiations, the Seattle City Council briefly discussed allocating $150,000 for the pilot project. Council members will vote on the issue during a second round of budget talks in mid-November. If the program survives that vote, it would be incorporated into the budget that goes before the council for a final vote on Nov. 23.
"I'm hopeful. I think there's good support," Burgess said after Thursday's budget talks. "Getting the city to put its own money toward the project will make it easier to convince private foundations and individuals to also contribute."
Please support this program.
2. Parents to be Given Power to Address Inadequate Schools in L.A.
The L.A. Unified School District has a proposal to give parents power to address failing schools according to an article by Lesli A. Maxwell in Education Week.
Who should decide when it’s time to overhaul a chronically underperforming school?
Soon, in Los Angeles, parents can.
Under new rules released last week by the Los Angeles Unified School District, parents whose children attend some of the lowest-performing schools in the system will have the ability to force the district to launch new reform initiatives at troubled campuses. The rules—written by Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines and his team—are part of a series of regulations being crafted to govern the district’s new school choice policy, which will allow outside groups, such as charter school organizations, to operate schools where student achievement has not budged for several years.
By gathering a simple majority, or 51 percent, of parental signatures in a school community, parents can “trigger” the district to open up the targeted school for outside management. What’s more, the rules also grant that authority to certain prospective parents, such as those whose children attend schools that feed into the troubled campuses.
“This is not about wealthy philanthropists or smart academics coming up with the right way to reform schools,” said Ben Austin, the executive director of the Parent Revolution, the nonprofit, pro-charter school group that lobbied Mr. Cortines to give parents authority over launching reforms. “This is simply about giving parents power. The trigger is not a recommendation, it’s not advisory.”
The so-called parent trigger, which has drawn the ire of United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers’ union, could be the first-of-its-kind reform strategy in the nation.
“I’ve not heard of anything quite like this,” said Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University. “It sounds very democratic and like an attempt to be responsive to the community, which is a good thing.”
The problem, Mr. Noguera said, is that parents of children enrolled in urban districts tend not to be highly engaged in what’s going on in their children's schools.
“This seems like it could actually be a pretty weak mechanism for bringing necessary changes to a school,” said Mr. Noguera, an expert on urban school systems. “If the district already knows it has a weak school, why wait for parents to trigger it?”
It is important to close low performing schools, but just closing schools is not the answer unless there are better schools to relocate the children to. This Education Week report by Dakari I. Aarons about Chicago school closings yielding few gains makes that point.
A majority of Chicago students affected by school closings were sent to schools that were low-performing, just like those they left behind—moves that had no significant impact on performance for most students, a study released last week
The lack of academic improvement raises questions about a strategy that’s part of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s spotlight on changing the nation’s lowest-performing schools.
The study, by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research, examines the academic effects of the closings on students at 18 elementary schools shut down between 2001 and 2006. To measure the impact, the researchers compared students 8 and older with their counterparts in schools that had similar characteristics but continued to operate. The schools had a combined enrollment of 5,445 at the time of their closing.
“Certainly, when schools were closed for academic reasons, the idea was to try to change their educational prospects and what they might obtain. Unfortunately, we didn’t find that,” said Julia Gwynne, a senior research analyst with the consortium and the report’s co-author. “The main reason why that seems not to have occurred was because most students did not attend schools that were substantially better than the ones that were closed.”
A Chicago-style strategy has been championed nationwide by Mr. Duncan, the chief executive officer of the Chicago district from 2001 until December 2008, when President-elect Barack Obama tapped him to be education secretary. School closings are one element of the so-called “turnaround” plans Mr. Duncan has promoted as secretary, which also include measures that would replace principals and teachers in persistently failing schools.
“It would be difficult to measure a student’s academic achievement based solely on a school’s closing,” Monique D. Bond, a Chicago schools spokeswoman, said by e-mail, noting the district believes the consortium’s study is a “fair analysis.”
“We need to review the data to get a better understanding of its findings, which will help to inform us as we move forward with considering our future school closing policies,” she said.
The big issue is how to make the majority of schools in all sectors of a city high performing schools? Low performing schools must be given a chance to turnaround, but if that doesn’t happen, they should be closed. The next challenge is finding enough good schools for those transferring out of failing schools.
3. Some States Lower Proficiency Standards
According to Debra Viadero writing in Education Week some states have lowered proficiency standards
With 2014 approaching as the deadline by which states must get their all their students up to “proficient” levels on state tests, the U.S. Department of Education’s top statistics agency released data today suggesting that some states may have lowered student-proficiency standards on such tests in recent years.
For the 47-state study, researchers for the National Center for Education Statistics used student test scores to figure out where the proficiency levels on various state tests would lie on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Their results suggest that between 2005 and 2007, various states made their standards less rigorous in one or more grade levels or subjects in at least 26 instances. In 12 instances, particular states appeared to make their standards more stringent in one or more grade levels or subjects.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, adopted nearly eight years ago, states are required to show that all students have attained proficient levels of performance in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year, and most states are far from reaching that goal.
“I think as 2014 looms, ... clearly what a lot of states are doing is changing the bar so that a lot more students will become proficient,” said Mark S. Schneider
A bit like the proposal by the Seattle School Board to lower the graduation requirements to a “D” average?
4. School Funding is a Big Issue for States
Erik W. Robelen is reporting in Education Week that funding schools will be a challenge for the states and finding revenue is a problem.
Amid a still-shaky economy, a troubling reality is starting to set in for states and school districts: The budget situation may get a lot worse when the federal economic-stimulus spigot runs dry.
The hope of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress has been that the $787 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—including some $100 billion for education—would soften the pain of the recession and help drive a recovery.
But as helpful as many state and local officials have found the once-only stimulus aid in coping with current and anticipated revenue shortfalls, it creates some awfully big holes to fill when the money begins to run out late next year in what’s widely known as the “funding cliff.”
Experts also caution that the recovery of state and local coffers is likely to significantly lag behind any progress in the national economy generally. For one thing, state budgets are largely supported by individual income and sales taxes, which will likely be slower to catch up.
“States are bracing themselves for prolonged fiscal difficulties,” said Todd Haggerty, a research analyst at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures. “When you couple the absence of federal ARRA funds with still-declining revenues, it puts states in a difficult situation.”
An October report issued by the White House
But a close look by Education Week at data submitted to the department by the states about how they planned to spend the money shows that 36 states will have to fill a collective gap of at least $16.5 billion to return to fiscal 2008 state spending levels for K-12 education.
And that figure does not reflect the more recent revenue shortfalls many states have since encountered.
The Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession has Senators McAuliffe and Oemig as guest bloggers.
Check out the latest post to our Stories From School Blog featuring guest bloggers State Senator Rosemary McAuliffe (1st legislative district) and State Senator Eric Oemig (45th legislative district). Read about what they learned from teachers and their next steps with the Quality Education Council.
Senators McAuliffe and Oemig serve as the chair and vice-chair, respectively, on the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Committee and both are members of the Quality Education Council.
5. Schools Saved by Stimulus Money
Michael Cooper and Ron Nixon are reporting in the New York Times that schools were saved by stimulus money and there is a question of what comes after the money runs out.
The best symbol of the $787 billion federal stimulus program turns out not to be a construction worker in a hard hat, but rather a classroom teacher saved from a layoff.
On Friday, the Obama administration released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half — 325,000 — were in education. Most were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.
Although the stimulus was initially sold in large part as a public works program, only about 80,000 of the jobs that were claimed Friday were in construction.
Of course, counting jobs that were saved can be a squishier proposition than counting jobs that were created. Teachers have been laid off in some areas — and budget officials say that there would have been more layoffs without the stimulus money — but it is difficult to say with certainty how many teachers would have been laid off without that money.
Indiana, for example, reported saving or creating 13,232 education jobs with its stimulus money, but Cris Johnston, the director of the government efficiency division of the state budget office, said that it was difficult to say whether the state would have actually lost those jobs without the money.
The end of stimulus money is going to be a real problem and some hard choices will be made. As if there aren’t hard choices already being made.
Alerts
1. Taproot Theater Needs Your help
I read a news report that the fire who damaged Taproot Theater and several other Greenwood businesses was arson. How sad. According to John Levesque writing at SeattlePI.Com these businesses affected by arson need help.
Szechuan Bistro, C.C. Teriyaki, Pho Tic Tac and Green Bean Coffeehouse suffered total losses in a fire Friday in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood. The adjacent Taproot Theatre, which owns the building that housed the destroyed businesses, received a lot of smoke and water damage.
A relief fund to aid the three restaurants and the coffee shop has been established at the Greenwood branch of JP Morgan Chase (8500 Greenwood Ave. N.). Taproot, meanwhile, is trying to get its theater in shape for the Nov. 20 opening of "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol."
Certainly, Taproot could use money too. Accordingly, Theatre Puget Sound has suggested a 20/40 campaign -- Taproot's address is 204 NW 85th St. -- whereby each member of the vast Seattle theater community would donate $20.40.
But Taproot could use other assistance as well: "Your gift of labor or resources is also welcome," the theater says on its Web site. "Maybe you're really good at cleaning or talking on the phone or you have exceptional office skills. ... Over the coming days and weeks we will become more aware of our specific needs, but your expertise and ideas are sure to come in handy. If you are able to donate your time, energy or skills, please fill out this form and we will be in touch."
Hope is the common denominator in all of Taproot's productions. The least we can do is repay the favor.
Taproot Theater is a family friendly venue.
2. Early Learning Plan Documents Ready for Public Input
Thrive by Five is reporting in its newsletter that the Early Learning Plan documents are ready for public input.
Specifically, leaders want to know if the outcomes and strategies resonate with individuals and communities and if there is anything missing or off-target.
The plan aims to give all young children in Washington state a fair chance at a great start in life by helping ensure school readiness; coordinating the different systems around children in their earliest years (early care and education, health, parenting support, etc.) into one early learning system; and measuring results over time for children and families to make sure we're investing in what works. More than 40 groups have helped shape the plan's first draft documents.
If you're interested in looking at and providing input on these early draft documents, go online now, read the documents and fill out a survey or attend one of several upcoming community meetings (info under "What You Can Do").
The window for this round of feedback on the plan is limited to a couple of weeks because Dec. 1 is the deadline for the group, which is being led by the state Department of Early Learning, Thrive by Five Washington and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, to send a draft of the plan and recommendations for the upcoming legislative session to Gov. Gregoire.
Become a Key Communicator (communications@del.wa.gov) and receive regular updates about the work on the plan and opportunities for feedback. More public feedback will be taken during December through early March 2010.The plan is expected to be finalized by the end of March.
Now is the time to comment.
3. Now You Have to Hide the Credit Card from the Dog
Huffington Post reports the story of a dog with a remote using a card system and there is a video.
A chewed remote control, a dog, and $62.50 less in the bank account. For Greg Stroke, this could only mean one thing: his dog had purchased 5,000 Xbox points -- worth $62 -- while he and his girlfriend were asleep. Stroke saved his credit card information on his remote control to make it easier to buy video games using Microsoft Xbox points -- so easy, in fact, that a dog could do it. When the dog chewed the remote, the points were bought. "i just wish they'd make it a little harder to purchase points," Stroke lamented.
Dr. Wilda says this about that ©
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