Common Core Standards: No Deal in a Growing Number of States

An Interview with Educator/Author, Rog Lucido

In perhaps the first instance anywhere in the nation, teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School have announced their refusal to administer a standardized test

How do High Stakes Tests Affect Our Students?

Rog Lucido

(also published in EDWEEK, Sept. 26^th, 2012)

“…Meanwhile without realizing it, kids are being horribly misjudged, educators are drawing irrelevant conclusions and parents are being sold disinformation”

The film “Waiting for Superman”, backed by large corporations profiting off public education  at an unprecedented level, has sparked a renewed interest in education reform efforts and continues to be used in political debates, as a soundbite in town hall meetings and is a popular topic of discussion among parents; but was it based on solid research? What do highly prized teachers working in traditional schools in the most disadvantaged areas have to say about it? 

“The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA) has released recommendations for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, currently “No Child Left Behind” or NCLB).These will strengthen public schools, improve learning, enhance equity and empower educators by improving federal policy in the areas of assessment, accountability, capacity building, and opportunity to learn. Ourmore detailed agenda is at http://www.edaccountability.org/Legislative.html. Our alliance carries forward"

Pursuant to California Education Code 60615, parents have the right to opt their children out of the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Assessment.  And now for the burning question:

What about “Accountability”?  Isn’t standardized testing meant to hold teachers and schools accountable and to track progress?

These are the sound bites that drive political debates, the phrases that fall from the mouths of celebrated education reformers and the terms that fit nicely into newspaper headlines alongside data charts. But do these tests really tell us how students are progressing? And if so, why are so many parents hopping off the bandwagon, sparing their children the added stress, burden and hoping to make a difference in the eyes of the administration?

Welcome to Our Foundational Feature

Sandra Hammond

Our “Measuring Success” feature relates to every other feature in this exciting, new publication. How we determine and evaluate progress, triumph and failure in California public schools is an issue at the heart of all current education controversy.  It impacts the debate over the drop-out crisis, the new charter school movement, issues surrounding special needs and discipline disputes, how we view career technical training and of course, education spending.

Our “Measuring Success” Feature will serve as an ongoing discussion about the basic concepts surrounding how local, state and federal government agencies currently assess students, teachers and schools as a whole. Currently, “performance” data is transformed into sound bites we hear in the media, (“Progress”, “The Achievement Gap”, and the various levels students are labeled with such as “Below Basic”, “Proficient”, and “Advanced” based on STAR Test results). These catch phrases are used as political platforms and eat up the bulk of staff meetings in our neighborhood schools. But what do the teachers we admire most think about the emphasis placed on standardized testing? Find out and share the following article with these important people working on the frontlines today.

Ten Things Teachers Need to Reclaim Their Profession

Rog Lucido

This article also appeared in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, May 2011

Sports referees make split second decisions. Judges and doctors do too, sometimes decisions that are life changing. Despite the subjective nature of their judgments,

Reading "Proficiently" by Grade Three: Is this the Holy Grail? 

Part of Which Was First Published in Language Magazine 11,2: 24-27. 2011

Stephen Krashen

Sandra Hammond

“…a great deal of research confirms that students can improve in reading at any age, given the right conditions”

There is no escaping the urgent call to support more reading instruction for young children. It is the overarching push of the bulk of education rallies, the white noise of talk radio; and it is woven into the fabric of every major grant proposal in the nonprofit sector.

Parents, Teachers and Advocates

Stephen Krashen is Emeritus Professor at the University of Southern California. He is best known for his work in establishing a general theory in second language acquisition as the Co-Founder of the Natural Approach and as the inventor of Sheltered Subject Matter Teaching. He is the author of numerous books; but I love this one most:

Accelerated Reader: The Data Softshoe

Susan Ohanian

I don’t want children to see books as something to be cashed in. I hope that teachers and parents will think about pleasure reading, think about whether attaching points to books puts children at risk of missing out on meeting up with books that resonate with their psyches, books that tickle their funny bones, awaken their sense of beauty, kindle their curiosity about the physical world around them; books that inspire their sense of justice.

Accelerated Reader:  A Disincentive to Creating Life-Long Readers

Derek Boucher
“In most schools today, reading has not been presented to children as an inherently pleasurable experience, but as a vehicle to get a prize or a grade”

Last week a friend of our family came to us distraught after her child, a student in a school district in the central valley of California, read the adolescent favorite The Name of This Book is Secret.  Despite having a very positive experience...

For the past year, Education Perspectives for the Central Valley, along with The ARC of Sacramento and United Cerebral Palsy have proposed legislation that requires transparency in school district legal spending. What is your district spending? In what area of education does conflict appear to be growing? Is your school district using salaried in-house counsel or contracting with attorneys whose financial interest is in litigating as much as possible? Most importantly, how can conflict resolution strategies be implemented in order to reduce conflict and reallocate funding back to the classroom?

Discipline that Restores: An Alternative to Zero Tolerance

Ron Claassen

“…When the primary focus of a criminal justice system or discipline program is on the rule violation, the human violation is ignored or minimized”

Deleveloping Alternatives to Zero-Tolerance

Education Perspectives for the Central Valley

“Effective means are needed to maintain a safe and disciplined learning environment… teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn in a climate marked by chaos and disruption. About this there is no controversy”

Lost and Found: Money for the Classroom

Reduce litigation costs by implementing conflict resolution strategies that matter…

Lack of Oversight in Spending on School District Legal Fees

Sandra Hammond

Education Perspectives for the Central Valley

The education budget crisis in California is seriously affecting the classroom. Everyone is making sacrifices. Or are they? One area of education budget concern that remains unchecked is legal spending. While teachers and parents continue to grapple with lost district and state funding, district officials continue to use attorney representation carte blanche. In fact, according to some reports, in California, this area of spending seems to grow with each passing year.  

Reports of Legal Counsel Spending in Fresno County

Education Perspectives for the Central Valley

For the past few years, our office has attempted to collect public records as to the dollar amount districts are spending on attorneys when a dispute arises between families of students and school districts. To this date, we have been unable to discern this amount to a degree that is useful and more importantly, accurate.

In light of the education budget crisis in California, but also in order to support our education community in developing conflict resolution strategies, please review the attached information collected as of this date.