Just News from Center X is a free weekly news blast about equitable public education. Please share and encourage colleagues and friends to subscribe.
Dear Center X Community,
In light of recent announcements, we wish to reaffirm our commitment to public education. Center X was founded two decades ago on the principle that a great public university must play a vital role in promoting equitable and high quality schooling across Los Angeles’ diverse communities. Our belief in this principle and great Los Angeles public schools is stronger than ever. As always, you will find us, our students, and our partners in public schools, working together to build a more just and humane society.
Professor John Rogers, Faculty Director of Center X
Dr. Annamarie Francois, Executive Director of Center X
Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice
Project to recognize ‘high schools of opportunity’ for all students goes national
Valerie Strauss, Kevin Welner, Carol Burris, The Answer Sheet
Last year, a project called Schools of Opportunity was launched as a pilot effort to honor high schools that work hard to offer all students a chance to succeed. Spearheaded by two veteran educators, it was different from other efforts to rate and rank schools through the use of student standardized test scores and data points. Instead, the Schools of Opportunity project sought to identify and recognize public high schools that seek to close opportunity gaps through practices “that build on students’ strengths” — not by inundating them with tests and obsessing on the scores.
Behind the shortage of special ed teachers: Long hours, crushing paperwork
Lee Hale, NPR
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, requires that every student have what’s known as an IEP — Individualized Education Program. And almost always, those IEP’s spell out that students — either some of the time or all of the time — must be taught by a teacher fully certified in special education. And yet, around the country, that’s exactly the category of teacher that’s most in demand, as many states and districts are reporting severe shortages.
LAUSD school board to take up report warning of approaching bankruptcy
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, KPCC
The Los Angeles Unified School District board is set to hear dire news at its Tuesday meeting: a $333 million budget deficit looms in the 2017-2018 school year and the shortfall is predicted to balloon to $600 million two years later.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/11/10/55561/lausd-school-board-to-take-up-report-warning-of-ap/
Language, Culture, and Power
L.A. schools swapped ‘zero tolerance’ for ‘restorative justice.’ Is it working?
Molly Jackson, The Christian Science Monitor
Staff applaud the goals of ‘restorative justice,’ a community-minded alternative to schools’ ‘zero tolerance’ policies, which have not proven to be effective, but they add that more training and resources are needed.
Expulsion of preschoolers: ‘Let’s take that option off the table’
Erin Brownfield, EdSource
Children who are expelled or suspended from preschool are more likely to have problems – including higher rates of incarceration – later in life, according to new report titled Point of Entry: The Preschool-to-Prison Pipeline. Preschoolers in public programs, according to research from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights cited in the report, were expelled at more than three times the rate of K-12 students in 2014.
http://edsource.org/2015/expulsion-of-preschoolers-lets-take-that-option-off-the-table/90150
Racial microaggressions: What they are, what they are not, and why they matter
Lindsay Pérez Huber and Daniel G. Solórzano
Latino Policy and Issues Brief, Number 30, November 2015
Research has shown that racial microaggressions are significant obstacles in the educational, professional, and life trajectories of Latinas/os and other people of color in the United States (Pérez Huber and Solórzano 2015; Pierce 1970; Solórzano 1998; Sue 2010), yet these experiences are often dismissed.
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/publications/report-brief/racial-microaggressions
Access, Assessment, and Advancement
Settlement seeks to keep high school students out of ‘fake’ classes
Joy Resmovits, Los Angeles Times
A lawsuit settlement announced Thursday confirms what attorneys have said for over a year: Jefferson’s problems were more widespread, and many students across California have missed days, weeks or months of learning time because they were sitting in courses without academic content or merely let out early.
The nation’s high school dropout rate has fallen, study says
Emma Brown, The Washington Post
The U.S. high school dropout rate has fallen in recent years, with the number of dropouts declining from 1 million in 2008 to about 750,000 in 2012, according to a new study to be released Tuesday. The number of “dropout factories” — high schools in which fewer than 60 percent of freshmen graduate in four years — declined significantly during the same period, according to the study by a coalition of education groups.
LAUSD relying on credit recovery to halt steep decline in graduation rate
Craig Clough, LA School Report
After years of rising graduation rates, LA Unified is facing a stunning reversal this year, with recent estimates showing that no more than 49 percent of seniors are on pace to receive a diploma in 2016. But there may be a chance to avoid the sudden drop.
http://laschoolreport.com/lausd-relying-on-credit-recovery-to-halt-steep-decline-in-graduation-rate/
Inequality, Poverty, Segregation
Child care workers aren’t paid enough to make ends meet
Elise Gould, Economic Policy Institute
Despite the crucial nature of their work, child care workers’ job quality does not seem to be valued in today’s economy. They are among the country’s lowest-paid workers, and seldom receive job-based benefits such as health insurance and pensions.
http://www.epi.org/publication/child-care-workers-arent-paid-enough-to-make-ends-meet/
The story we tell about poverty isn’t true
Mia Birdsong, TED
As a global community, we all want to end poverty. Mia Birdsong suggests a great place to start: Let’s honor the skills, drive and initiative that poor people bring to the struggle every day. She asks us to look again at people in poverty: They may be broke — but they’re not broken.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mia_birdsong_the_story_we_tell_about_poverty_isn_t_true?language=en
Public Schools and Private $
Walton foundation sustains local funding for Teach For America with new grant
Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
The Walton Family Foundation, a major education funder in Los Angeles, has announced a $50-million grant to Teach For America that will support the organization’s work in Southern California as well as across the nation.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-walton-funding-tfa-20151106-story.html
Yes, ‘Virtual’ Charter Schools Exist–and They’re Growing
Donald Cohen, In the Public Interest
Did you know that one of the fastest growing sectors of the charter school industry are ‘virtual’ charter schools, where K-12 students learn from home in front of their computers?
http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/yes-virtual-charter-schools-exist-and-theyre-growing/
L.A. Board of Education will weigh Broad charter-expansion plan
Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times
Members of the Los Angeles Board of Education will be under pressure to take a position on a controversial plan to expand local charter schools because of a resolution being introduced at its meeting this week.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-la-schools-charter-expansion-20151108-story.html
David Geffen gives $100 million to build a school for the children of UCLA staff and others
Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
Entertainment industry billionaire David Geffen, who previously gave $300 million to support UCLA‘s medical school, is donating $100 million to establish a private middle and high school on the Westwood campus partly for the children of faculty and staff.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-geffen-ucla-20151112-story.html
Other News of Note
University of Missouri protests spur a day of change
John Eligon and Richard Perez-Pena, The New York Times
Months of student and faculty protests over racial tensions and other issues that all but paralyzed the University of Missouri campus culminated Monday in an extraordinary coup for the demonstrators, as the president of the university system resigned and the chancellor of the flagship campus here said he would step down to a less prominent role at the end of the year.
“Another Yale is possible”: Students confront racism at Ivy League school
Democracy Now! Guest: Lex Barlowe, African American studies major at Yale University and the president of the Black Student Alliance
The protests at the University of Missouri come as a similar dynamic plays out at one of the nation’s top Ivy League schools. On Monday, more than 1,000 students at Yale University in Connecticut held a march over racism on campus. The “March of Resilience” comes after several incidents where students of color said they faced discrimination.
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/10/another_yale_is_possible_students_confront
Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast edited by Jenn Ayscue.