November 26 | Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge
By Amanda Ripley
Time Magazine
...Each week, Rhee gets e-mails from superintendents in other cities. They understand that if she succeeds, Rhee could do something no one has done before: she could prove that low-income urban kids can catch up with kids in the suburbs. The radicalism of this idea cannot be overstated. Now, without proof that cities can revolutionize their worst schools, there is always a fine excuse. Superintendents, parents and teachers in urban school districts lament systemic problems they cannot control: poverty, hunger, violence and negligent parents. They bicker over small improvements such as class size and curriculum, like diplomats touring a refugee camp and talking about the need for nicer curtains. Click here to read more..
Click here to watch a video interview with D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.
November 12 | Accountability Must Be Focus of Any No Child Left Behind Overhaul
By Andrew J. Rotherham
U.S. News and World Report
Accountability is a watchword of the moment. Democrats want to hold Republicans accountable for the past eight years. Everyone wants to hold Wall Street accountable for the recent economic free fall. And some tough questions about school accountability await policymakers in Washington.
The federal No Child Left Behind education law brought the question of holding schools accountable for student learning to the forefront of national education policy. Seven years after it was first passed, the law can obviously be improved when it is revised by the new Congress. Doing that while maintaining the law's focus on accountability provisions for struggling students involves relatively straightforward fixes. The more complicated challenge is how lawmakers will resist tremendous pressure to weaken the law's emphasis on accountability for student performance. Click here to read more...
November 3 | Oakland charter schools get high marks and skepticism
By Katy Murphy
Oakland Tribune
...The Oakland Charter Academy and American Indian charter schools have won national awards and drawn international attention. But some local educators and parents seem doubtful of the schools' main tenet: that through hard work, discipline and extra class time, poor students from Oakland, regardless of their previous academic record, can — and do — beat children from Piedmont, San Ramon and other affluent Bay Area school districts on state tests.
Some critics of the original American Indian Public Charter School, for example, attribute its rising math and reading scores with the increase in Asian-American student enrollment, even though the school's black and Latino children score just as well as their Asian peers. Click here to read more...
October 23 | Report: Kids less likely to graduate than parents
By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Your child is less likely to graduate from high school than you were, and most states are doing little to hold schools accountable, according to a study by a children's advocacy group.
More than half the states have graduation goals that don't make schools get better, the Education Trust says in a report released Thursday.
And dropout rates haven't budged: One in four kids is dropping out of high school.
"The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us," said Anna Habash, author of the report by Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of minority and poor children. "And that is going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to compete," she said. Click here to read more...
October 6 | Dumping the Exit Exam is Not the Answer
By Russlynn Ali
New America Media
Once again, doomsday predictions failed to materialize with 90.2 percent of California's high school students passing the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) in 2008, making it evident that if expectations are raised, both students and teachers will rise to meet them.
Still though, CAHSEE results revealed achievement gaps separating Latino, African-American and low-income students from their peers. While White students passed the CAHSEE at a rate of 95.8 percent, only 85.8 percent of Latino and 80.1 percent of African-American students passed. Click here to read more...
September 26 | Governor, Senator Romero Act to address teacher shortages in low-performing schools
By Patrick McGreevy and Nancy Vogel
The Los Angeles Times
The governor took action Thursday to address the severe shortage of math, science and special education teachers in California. He signed SB 1660 by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles).
It allows poor-performing campuses -- including more than 300 in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- to divert professional development grant funds to pay a stipend to new and existing teachers in those three fields.
"This legislation will allow school districts to compete for the best and brightest personnel to teach our children," said A.J. Duffy, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles. Click here to read the article.
September 10 | 90.2% in class of '08 pass exit tests
By Deb Kollars
The Sacramento Bee
Nine out of 10 high school seniors passed the California High School Exit Exam by the time their class graduated this past spring, according to data released Tuesday by the state...
...The exam covers mathematics and English-language arts, with some of the questions covering middle-school level material and some reaching through the 10th-grade level. Students have multiple opportunities to pass it, starting in 10th grade. Click here to read more...
Click here to see how you local school is performing
August 25 | Algebra: Trouble is in early grades
The Sacramento Bee
Something is terribly wrong with California math education if 13-year-olds aren't ready to tackle Algebra I. Kids from Asia to Europe to Africa take algebra and geometry in the middle school years, and they do just fine. There's no reason why California kids can't match them.
Since 1998, California has had the goal that all eighth-graders should take Algebra I. And the state has made progress. Of 491,000 eighth-graders, 248,000 (50.5 percent) take Algebra I. Another 38,000 (7.8 percent) take geometry or Algebra II.
But that leaves 205,000 eighth-graders who are spending their time repeating the same low-level arithmetic over and over. They're dumped into "general math," never moving beyond the fifth- or sixth-grade level. And the curriculum is deadly boring: Here's a type of problem; here's how you solve it; here is a set of problems to solve. Next topic. All sense of discovery, excitement and challenge is lost. And the learning is shallow. No wonder kids zone out. Click here to read more...
August 20 | Algebra 1 requirement highlights teacher shortage
The Sacramento Bee
By Deb Kollars
Now that the state has mandated Algebra 1 for all eighth-graders within three years, a deeply entrenched problem has become even more urgent: California does not have enough qualified teachers of mathematics.
Districts recognize the problem and are doing what they can to cultivate more teachers. So are universities. The number of new math teachers emerging from colleges has been going up.
...Overall, however, the looming shortage of math teachers stands as one of the biggest challenges facing schools in coming years. Click here to read more...
Act to help schools hire math and science teachers
Nothing has a greater impact on student learning than the quality of the teacher in the classroom. SB 1660 helps struggling schools hire more quality math and science teachers to help students succeed.
Click here to here to send a letter to ask your elected representatives to support the bill.
The latest in student achievement
2008 is the 10 year anniversary of the STAR Program. Prior to the STAR Program , parents, teachers and policy makers did not have an accurate school- and grade- level measure to compare academic achievement.
This year’s data shows that California has come a long way but still needs improvement to empower students to succeed in college and the global economy. Click here to read more...
August 18 | State budget woes are no excuse for delaying school reform
The Mercury News
By Ted Mitchell and Dede Alpert
While news headlines are now focused on California's budget and economic challenges, our schools remain in crisis. And too many in Sacramento are pointing to the current budget deficit as a rationale for delaying improvements to California's school system.
California's schools require more money to provide children with the education they deserve, but research clearly shows that continuing to spend money in the same fashion that we have will not improve the situation. So, in a budget year where there simply is no additional money to fund all necessary reforms, we should determine which improvements will most benefit children who need additional support. Click here to read more...
August 4 | Push Algebra: Ignore the naysayers who say students can't handle challenging math
The Press-Enterprise
By YVONNE W. LARSEN
As the president of the state Board of Education during the adoption of California's world-class academic content standards, I salute the governor and state Board of Education for their commitment to ensure that all of California's children have a chance to master Algebra I by the end of eighth grade.
Algebra I is the gateway skill to critical thinking and real world problem-solving and a key academic building block of the next generation, which will lead the state, the nation and the world in conquering the challenges in health care, clean technology, environmental protection and energy independence. Click here to read more...