Just News from Center X – October 30, 2015

Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

LA Unified teacher named one of 5 CA Teachers of the Year

LA School Report

Daniel Jocz, a social studies teacher at Downtown Magnets High School, is one of five people named today by Tom Torlakson, State Superintendent of Public Education, as 2016 California Teachers of the Year.

http://laschoolreport.com/la-unified-teacher-named-one-of-5-ca-teachers-of-the-year/

Who might head L.A. Unified, and what are officials looking for in a leader?

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

In its search for a new superintendent, the Los Angeles Board of Education is out to find that rare leader who can tame political turmoil, manage a multibillion-dollar organization and somehow drive academic achievement upward.

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-supt-search-20151023-story.html

LAUSD board rejects committee to interview superintendent finalists

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, KPCC

Earlier this month, dozens of Los Angeles civic groups proposed creating a committee to help in Los Angeles Unified’s superintendent search. School board members voted down the idea Tuesday.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/10/28/55300/lausd-board-rejects-nonprofits-idea-to-interview-s/

Language, Culture, and Power

Violent South Carolina classroom arrest adds to ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ debate

Matt Pearce and Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times

It happens so often in classrooms that it’s almost unremarkable. A student sends a text during class, plays a video game on an iPad or mouths off, drawing a reprimand from the teacher. Then what? At Spring Valley High School in Columbia, S.C., a similar scenario ended Monday when a white sheriff’s deputy — summoned after an African American student refused to leave the class — yanked the student from her desk and threw her across the floor.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-police-schools-20151028-story.html

Black girls suspended more often

KCRW, Guest: Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Columbia University

Around the country, students of color are suspended three times as often as white students, according to the Department of Education. We hear a lot about how these disparities affect boys. But girls get less attention, even though black girls are suspended six times more often than their white counterparts.

http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/police-in-schools-a-mobile-opera-and-whither-high-speed-rail

New ‘diversion’ program helping keep LAUSD students out of court

Mike Szymanski, LA School Report

A new LA Unified police diversion program, which replaces arrests with counseling, is keeping hundreds of students out of the city’s criminal justice system.

http://laschoolreport.com/new-diversion-program-helping-keep-lausd-students-out-of-court/

Report calls for big changes in educating state’s English learners

John Fensterwald, EdSource

Researchers studying a group of California school districts are highly critical of the state’s system for providing services to English language learners in a report released this week.

http://edsource.org/2015/report-calls-for-big-changes-in-educating-states-english-learners/89369

Access, Assessment, and Advancement

School testing in L.A.

KCRW, Guest: John Rogers, UCLA

How is this school testing mania playing out here in California, and in Los Angeles?

http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/women-in-hollywood-boardrooms-and-j-g-ballards-punk-rock-influence

NAEPscuses: Making sense of excuse-making from the no-excuses contingent

Kevin Welner, National Education Policy Center

This morning’s release of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) will report a dip in scores, according to multiple sources. These lower grades on the Nation’s Report Card are not good news for anyone, but they are particularly bad news for those who have been vigorously advocating for “no excuses” approaches — standards-based testing and accountability policies like No Child Left Behind.

http://tinyurl.com/nl6u59b

California math, reading scores stagnate on federal exam

Associated Press, Education Week

California student performance in math and reading has stagnated while wide achievement gaps for black, Hispanic and low-income students persist, according to results released Wednesday from a federal exam taken by students across the United States.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/28/california-math-reading-scores-stagnate-on_ap.html

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Latino school segregation: The big education problem that no one is talking about

Rebecca Klein, The Huffington Post

Nearly a decade before the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education made segregated schooling of black students unconstitutional, a group of five Mexican-American families fought for integrated schools in Mendez v. Westminster.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/latino-school-segregation_561d70a5e4b050c6c4a34118

A disadvantaged start hurts boys more than girls

Claire Cain Miller, New York Times

Boys are falling behind. They graduate from high school and attend college at lower rates than girls and are more likely to get in trouble, which can hurt them when they enter the job market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/upshot/a-disadvantaged-start-hurts-boys-more-than-girls.html

Here’s what’s holding black students back, from preschool through college

Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times

One in five black high school students in California drop out before they can graduate.

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/community/la-me-edu-black-students-in-california-20151027-story.html

Public Schools and Private $

Voluntary contributions to California’s public schools

Margaret Weston, Public Policy Institute of California

As Table 3 shows, a school with the fewest relative share of low-income students will raise more than 50 times as much through voluntary contributions as a school at the other end of the spectrum. (See p. 8 of this report)

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1015MWR.pdf

Broad names former Louisiana ed chief to lead LA charter plan

LA School Report

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation said today Paul Pastorek, a former superintendent of public education in Louisiana who joined the foundation in an executive role earlier this year, has been appointed to lead the group’s efforts to expand charter schools in Los Angeles Unified.

http://laschoolreport.com/broad-names-former-louisiana-ed-chief-to-lead-la-charter-plan/

Is New Orleans a preview of Broad’s charter expansion plan in LA?

Craig Clough, LA School Report

Were it to come to fruition, the Broad Foundation‘s recently announced plan to expand charter schools in LA Unified to include half of all district students would create a system that is unprecedented in size and scope across the United States.

http://laschoolreport.com/is-new-orleans-a-preview-of-broads-charter-expansion-plan-in-la/

Just News from Center X is a free weekly education news blast produced by UCLA’s Center X and is edited by Jenn Ayscue.