If words were dollars, universal Algebra I would be fully funded by the end of next week.
Indeed, talk about California’s new mandate will be flowing at two all-day algebra summits, one in Sacramento on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the convention center, sponsored by School Innovations and Advocacy and [...]
California has moved closer to having a statewide education data system. Governor Schwarzenegger today signed the key data bill — even sent out a release announcing his signature.
The final wording of SB 1298, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, isn’t as ambitious as early versions but the bill [...]
It’ cram time in the governor’s office, with four days left to decide whether to sign, veto or let 800 bills go into law without his action.
Not too many mountain-shaking bills affecting education are on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk. But he has signed two that are interesting and potentially significant.
I’ve [...]
Some interesting stats from “How California Compares: Demographics, Resources and Student Achievement,” new EdSource-comparison of state and national data:
California alone teaches more than a third of the nation’s English learners. They comprise a quarter of the state’s students, compared with 10 percent nationwide. With student population having soared in [...]Normal MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
KIPP charter schools in the Bay Area don’t “cream” students from the surrounding neighborhoods, and most significantly outperform surrounding district schools on the state’s standardized tests. KIPP schools aren’t immune from the problems facing urban districts, including student attrition and teacher turnover, but school districts can learn [...]
Departing Education Secretary Dave Long may or may not be frustrated, as I characterized in a posting this morning. But he certainly is gracious.
His office today released his Sept. 10 resignation-letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which Long expressed his gratitude and “great admiration” to the governor for “your [...]
In the continuing saga over universal algebra, the California School Boards Association has filed suit to overturn the State School Board’s decision in July to require that all students be tested — and therefore be required to take — Algebra I within the next three years. And incoming Senate President [...]
A frustrated Secretary of Education Dave Long has apparently quit. His office hasn’t returned my call, but Long has told others that he handed in a resignation letter, only to be asked by Gov. Schwarzenegger to stay on until a successor can be found.
Good luck with the search. Who’s nuts [...]
Todays’ release of the annual report card on state schools revealed a predictably conflicting pattern: Most schools are making slow and steady progress on the state’s API index, and yet increasing numbers are failing the federal government’s AYP or Annual Yearly Progress measure under No Child Left Behind. The reason [...]
If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ever starts signing bills again, he’ll face the same dilemma as one confronting him two years ago: whether to veto a bill to oversee the state’s private vocational and technical colleges. They haven’t been regulated for over a year, since the old law expired, and that’s [...]
Educated Guess has been consumed by the newspaper’s new computer system, which has been taxing this brain the past week, but a few items did catch its notice.
Timely and full public access to data is one reform that doesn’t cost money but is critical to getting parents involved in their [...]
The woman who guided California’s charter schools through a period of expansion and served as an articulate voice for the movement is taking on a new challenge.
Caprice Young announced this week she would be leaving his job as president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association to become a [...]
An education data bill will make it to the governor’s desk, and it’s worth his signature. The bill cleared the Senate yesterday 28-10.
But the path that Sen. Joe Simitian’s SB 1298 took to get this far has been tortuous and illustrates how hard it is to get substantive education [...]
Education Trust-West has turned around an analysis of the STAR results that the State Department of Education released yesterday. The study offers a detailed look at the state’s continuing and persistent achievement gap — the dark side of the sunny news that the state continues to make slow, [...]
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell today released a $3.1 billion plan for statewide Algebra I instruction and a challenge to Gov. Schwarzenegger: Either put up or take back. If you’re not willing to fund the program, then ask the state Board of Education to rescind its decision requiring all [...]
After fighting tooth and nail against including charter schools in November’s multi-billion dollar school construction bond, the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers Los Angeles are now actively supporting a bill that could bring charter schools more than $100 million in building aid over the next five [...]
A blogger from Ukiah has started an online petition to demand that the state Board of Education join the Legislature in broadcasting its meetings on the Internet. Petition organizer Dave Johnston, a telecom consultant who does the blog on education issues and whatever else comes to mind, says [...]
It’s bad enough that the Legislature, facing a $15 billion deficit, remains deadlocked over how to spend money it doesn’t have. It still can’t figure out how to spend money on education it does have.
The stalemate continues for liberating $47 million for 97 districts needing corrective action under No Child [...]
Might money related to reforms recommended by Secretary of Education David Long and the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence be a bargaining chip in stalled budget negotiations?
Long indicated as much in an interview yesterday in San Jose before a forum on “Students First,” the Excellence Committee’s report.
With Democrats pushing for [...]
With all the focus this year on education cuts, not new spending, the push for big reforms called for by the Governor’s Education Excellence Committee is stalled — but not dead. It may re-emerge in pilot projects, privately funded.
Committee Chairman Ted Mitchell, who’s also the president of the State [...]
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is right in principle: Legislators shouldn’t dictate what is or isn’t taught in public schools. They should leave that up to advisory committees reporting to the state Board of Education, which has the final say-so.
But in vetoing SB 908, the governor put principle ahead of the facts. [...]
The putative math gene has migrated. It now appears equally among boys and girls.
A new study, reported today in the Mercury News, puts another nail in the coffin of the theory of male superiority in math. The study, by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of [...]
This may be a pivotal moment for the charter movement in California.
With the backing of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the head of the California Charter Schools Association is demanding that $320 million or 10 percent for charter schools as their fair share of the $3.2 billion school bond that [...]
Educated Guess in out of state and blissfully on vacation. Check back in a week for the next posting.
I am confident that the state budget will be balanced and all policy disputes over math education and No
Child Left Behind will be resolved by then.
The Santa-Cruz based Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning has offered a sober warning, now that the State Board of Education has voted to require every eighth grader to be tested — and therefore take a course in — Algebra I within the next three years.
The study, released [...]
I’ve learned that glitches will force the postponement of the release of the data on droputs, scheduled for Tuesday. Check the Dept. of Education website for updates.
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On Tuesday, the Department of Education will release the first piece of long-awaited data on the state’s dropout rate. It won’t end the debate; even before the numbers are out, critics are claiming the state will low-ball the numbers. But it should provide much more accurate data on which students [...]
Yesterday was one of the few times I wish I could have attended a state Board of Education meeting. The 8-1 vote by the board to require that all eighth graders be tested in Algebra I three years from now (unless the feds agree to a longer extension) was preceded, [...]
The Sacramento Bee is reporting today that Gov. Schwarzenegger has finally given State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell clear direction on what position to take in the great debate over the future of eighth grade math. The governor has come down on the side of EdVoice, Education Trust-West [...]
Students at for-profit colleges and trade schools in California are once again on their own, vulnerable to unscrupulous institutions out to grab their tuition payments.
For two years, the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have been unable to cut a deal on creating an agency to oversee the 1,500-plus private schools [...]
Meanwhile, I checked in from afar to read the Sacramento Bee’s story today  on the unfortunate passage of SB 606, pushed by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and backed by the ed establishment, that would savage the state Board of Education’s authority to oversee the worst performing districts. I [...]
There was lots of talk at the state Board of Education meeting on Monday over what to do about algebra assessments for eighth grade — but no action. A divided or confused or perplexed board punted the issue to the July meeting. This marks the second delay.
What will happen next [...]
Three former secretaries of education and four former presidents of the state Board of Education have signed a statement urging the state board not to retreat from the commitment to Algebra I as the standard math curriculum for eighth grade. Their high-visibility letter should give the board pause from adopting [...]
Watch the State Board of Education closely on Monday to how it handles a dilemma over the math test for eighth graders. Its decision will determine whether the state remains true to its commitment that all eighth graders take Algebra I to put them on a path of readiness for [...]
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata of Oakland is leading the charge to weaken the one school reform initiative that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can lay claim to this year. Perata’s bill would undo the state’s plan to demand improvements at the worst performing school districts. In an excellent story, Juliet [...]
Over the past 30 years, the price of a four-year degree at a public university in California has increased at twice the rate of inflation. Incomes of the wealthiest 20 percent of California families have kept pace. Incomes of the majority of Californians have not, creating a crisis of affordability [...]
Charter school CEO John Danner’s point (see my last blog entry), that building your own charter school ensures independence, was made emphatic last night.
The board of Leadership Public Schools voted last night to shut down its Campbell campus, located a few miles up the road from Danner’s new elementary school [...]
Last week, with appropriate fanfare, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Superintendent Jack O’Connell presented $463 million in checks to 29 charter schools. It was charter schools’ share of Proposition 1D, the $10.4 billion school construction and renovation initiative that voters approved two year ago.
Meanwhile, last month, bulldozers began clearing earth [...]
Credit Superintendent John Porter of the Franklin-McKinley School District in San Jose for not letting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state bureaucracy stand in the way of a good idea.
Last year, as a way to motivate more of his middle schoolers to excel in math, Porter proposed that eighth [...]
I’m back from the East Coast, where I was happily away from e-mail for a few days. But I did have a chance to read the Little Hoover Commission’s take on educational reform: Educational Governance and Accountability: Taking the Next Step,
That’s a pedestrian title for a 110-page report [...]
SB 1298, which would set up a Statewide Education Data Governing Board, faces a critical vote tomorrow in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hopes for movement on a comprehensive statewide education data system rest on its passage.
The 19-member governing board would make the tricky technical and policy decisions about what a [...]
Advocates of strong K-12 schools won’t feel any better about Gov. Schwarzenegger’s May revision to the budget after reading the assessment of the Legislative Analyst.
Analyst Elizabeth Hill’s office predicts that the governor’s blue-sky estimates of revenue from borrowing against future proceeds of the lottery will jeopardize the already measly [...]
(Next up: The Legislative Analyst’s Office releases its analysis of the May revision of the budget today. Look for its take on the governor’s revenue estimates and the lottery scheme.)
No question about it: The protests and pickets by teachers, and, to a lesser extend, parents, up and [...]
Charter schools are more efficient. If they can raise test scores, why do district schools need more money?
You’ve heard the argument. Of course, many charters don’t outperform district public schools. But here comes the word, in today’s Mercury News, that KIPP, the outstanding San Francisco-based nonprofit charter school network, [...]
   When some of my fellow bloggers need to pump up readership, they casually throw in references to Milley Cyrus or Lindsay Lohan. Not me: I mention Propositon 13.
The discussion of Prop 13 that I started six weeks ago by far generated the most comments to Educated Guess’ short life. [...]
Sen. Jack Scott will have a $198,000 job when he leaves the Senate this year, and the state’s 109 community colleges will gain a powerful ally.
The Board of Governors on Thursday chose Scott, a Democrat from Pasadena as the next chancellor of the community colleges.
It was a small choice, enthusiastically [...]
The San Francisco-based Bernard Osher Foundation is creating a $70 million scholarship fund for the state’s community colleges - the largest gift ever to the community colleges in the nation.
Announced yesterday at a press conference with Gov. Schwarzenegger, an alumnus of the system, the fund will initially provide [...]
It’s STAR testing again - the time of year that gives teachers and administrators heartburn and students headaches. California’s standardized tests, given from second through 11th grade, form the basis of the API score, the three-digit shorthand for success or failure, and accountability requirements under the federal No Child Left [...]
As reported in the Mercury News and other newspapers today, Californians remain schizophrenic and contradictory about their schools. Eight-four percent believe that the quality of public education is a problem. But more than half would give their own locals schools an “A” (18 percent) or a “B” (36 percent). Sixty [...]
