Look out! It's gonna get your child

The charter school chain that ate California:

San Jose Mercury News
7/31/05

Charter school group has statewide goal

By Julie Patel

Mercury News

A new tech-heavy charter school founded by Qualcomm executive Gary Jacobs and backed by the Gates Foundation opens next month in Redwood City with the goal of training students to compete in the global workforce.

But the new school for roughly 200 high school students is just a start. The San Diego-based non-profit group behind High Tech High Bayshore is petitioning the state for clearance to be the first charter school group to spread its concept across California with no need for local approval.

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``There is just a huge demand for skilled employees,'' said Joe Feldman, executive director of the new High Tech High Bayshore, opening this August on a state-of-the-art campus in Redwood City. ``There's a lot of pressure on industries and businesses because of that, especially here.''

High Tech High Learning -- the umbrella group for the new school -- already boasts six schools in Southern California and plans to blanket the state with two new schools a year, including five or six in the Bay Area. And that has some critics nervous about local districts losing control of public schools and corporations using the school system to train obedient worker bees any way they see fit.

A section of a charter school law passed in 2002 allows charter schools with high test scores to make the case that they should be allowed to use their model across the state. California Department of Education board members will consider High Tech High's proposal in September.

If they approve it, other major charter groups in California are likely to follow with applications of their own and charter schools could spread more freely throughout the state. Charter school advocates say this could pave the way for an educational system that is based on choice and improves through competition.

The outcome may also influence whether other major charter groups in the state -- including Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools and KIPP -- follow High Tech's example.

``We're all glad High Tech volunteered to be the only fish in a giant fishbowl,'' said Don Shalvey, co-founder of Aspire, a non-profit which operates charter schools in Oakland and East Palo Alto. Shalvey was superintendent of the San Carlos School District when it opened the first charter school in the state and the second in the country.

Some educators and parents who fall in the last group say they don't like to see property taxes spent on charter schools. Charters aren't accountable to a locally elected school board and aren't subject to state curriculum standards and financial oversight like other public schools. Yet, they are fueled by tax dollars.

Charter schools in so-called basic aid districts, which are generally wealthier, get a slice of local property taxes for each student who chooses charter over regular public schools, said Deborah Connelly, an education program consultant for the Department of Education. In revenue-limit districts, which are typically poorer, they get a slice of the state's allocation of money to the district for each student who chooses a charter. Either way, the money follows the student.

But charter schools are accountable in other ways, Shalvey said. Students in charters are required to take the state's standardized tests. If the school doesn't meet the requirements outlined in its agreement with the district, county or state that approves its charter, the charter school can be shut down.

Note from Caroline: Shut down by whom? It answers to nobody.

This week, construction workers are putting the final touches on a $7.5 million Redwood City school building, complete with LCD overhead projectors, laptops in every room and ``studios'' where students can give formal presentations. The school, formerly called San Carlos High School, partnered with the High Tech group after San Mateo County's Board of Education approved a joint charter that took effect this month.

The school has placed newspaper advertisements to enroll up to 40 more students this year. About 60 percent of students who have graduated High Tech High schools so far are the first in their families to go to college, said Linda Stevenin, High Tech High's regional director of communications and outreach.

High Tech High schools teach beyond the three R's of reading, writing and 'rithmetic. By requiring internships, teaching vocational skills with academic subjects and assigning projects like business plans and presentations, the schools follow the philosophy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has donated millions of dollars to the schools.

The corporate emphasis turns some parents off, not just to the idea of sending their children there, but to having their local property taxes siphoned off to support the schools.

Tags: charter schools, education

Chron: Ackerman -- why stay?

One of the more controversial posts to this blog so far has been Caroline and Nestwife's The Ackerman-must-go movement. This post has led to an op-ed piece in the Examiner and appears to have contributed to yesterday's Chron editorial, Don't drive out Ackerman.

Many have read that and have concluded that this blog is hopelessly biased. I hope that does not prove to be the case. I hope to include a wide variety of voices here. In that spirit, here is a letter to the editor from today's Chron, Ackerman -- why stay?

Editor -- Your editorial 'Don't drive Ackerman out,' July 28, was very offensive.

You stated that if San Francisco public schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman were driven out, the city would need to find a leader 'tough enough to withstand meddling by school board members.'

The people of San Francisco elected those 'meddlers' -- we did not elect Ackerman. Those 'meddlers' receive a paltry $500 a month and take a lot more flak than Ackerman does. Ackerman gets paid $250,000 a year, plus a $2,000-a-month housing allowance.

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Ackerman complains constantly about the school board members not 'working with her' but at the same time refuses to meet with them to discuss the dire problems facing the San Francisco Unified School District.

Ackerman complains about the current divisiveness in the district, but at the same time she deliberately sets out to pit parents against parents, schools against schools, and board members against board members.

Perhaps The Chronicle should increase its very limited coverage of issues affecting the city's public schools, instead of just defending Ackerman.

You claim that driving Ackerman away would be a mistake, but you fail to state why it would be a mistake.

KATY FRANKLIN

San Francisco

Personally, I find the whole mess to be very disheartening. I keep waiting for cooler heads to prevail. Could be a long wait...

SFUSD monitor's 13 fave schools

The monitoring team that keeps watch on how SFUSD is faring in attempting to meet the goals of the consent decree has posted an interesting list: Thirteen Schools That Exemplify Success under the Mandates of the Consent Decree

Although my own kids' middle school, Aptos, deservedly appears on this list, I have questions about some of the choices. For example, the consent decree monitor repeatedly points out that a number of SFUSD schools have resegregated since the district was court-ordered to stop using race as one of its assignment criteria. He appears to mean that as criticism. Yet several of these schools are very definitely resegregated.

Still, it's an interesting list. I've stuck in some comments.

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We have found that the following SFUSD schools represent the best examples of success under the interrelated desegregation and academic achievement mandates of the Decree. Of course, as we have documented in past reports, these are not the only schools that are doing well, and wonderful things are happening at so many other school sites throughout the City. But these thirteen schools do exemplify the best features of what the Consent Decree has been all about.

Alvarado (K-5)

Targeted for additional funding and “comprehensive school improvement” under the Decree, has maintained a diverse student population and has shown significant gains in performance over the past 10 years, with noteworthy success closing the achievement gap.

[Alvarado did undergo a demographic shift when the Geneva Towers housing project was demolished, scattering a bloc of largely high-need students who used to feed into Alvarado. My understanding, by the way, is that the report does not take into account whether a shift in neighborhood demographics or an effective diversity enrollment system improved diversity at a school.]

Carver (K-5)

Originally reconstituted “Phase One” school in Bayview-Hunters Point, “turned around” under the Consent Decree, and has maintained a solid academic record throughout.

Golden Gate (K-5)

Western Addition school, reconstituted in 1997, showed record gains in academic achievement from 03 to 04, particularly for its African American student population.

[However, SFUSD is closing Golden Gate &mdash which has been plagued by plunging enrollment. I looked at the school's year-to-year demographics and I have to say they're bizarre. They shift erratically. The Asian percentage in the tested grades (2-5), for example, shows as 31% in '01-'02 and 20% in '02-'03. The Academic Performance Index rankings dropped from 3/6 to 1/1 in those same years. What's that about?]

Gordon J. Lau (K-5)

Serves a low-SES student population comprised of over 70% Cantonese-speaking and Spanish-speaking English Learners, targeted for additional funding under the Decree, emerging in this era as a highly desirable, high-performing, and welcoming school.

Marshall (K-5)

Located in a low-income, high-crime area of the Mission, it has developed an enriched curriculum, established high standards for all its students, and has shown great gains in academic achievement for the primarily low-SES population that it has served.

Harvey Milk (K-5)

Civil rights focus, exemplifying both the mandates of the Decree and the life work of the LGBT activist for whom the school is named, actively recruits low-income students of color and maintains one of the most diverse and welcoming school environments in San Francisco.

Claire B. Lilienthal (K-8)

Has maintained a diverse student body and continues to be one of the top performing schools in the District, not emphasizing “test prep” as some campuses do, but instead offering a rich, engaging, and challenging curriculum for all its students.

Alice Fong Yu (K-8)

A new school that has become one of the highest performing in SF, created in the mid-1990’s and guided from the beginning by Consent Decree principles, offering an innovative and inclusive Cantonese immersion program for students of every ethnicity.

Aptos (6-8)

Successfully reconstituted in 1996, when the new administration brought in a young and highly motivated faculty that has remained together over time, the school has maintained a highly diverse student population and continues to improve academically.

[Aptos rules. I'm not totally comfortable giving credit to reconstitution, though.]

Philip and Sala Burton (9-12)

Created new at the beginning of the Consent Decree under “Phase One,” continues to serve a diverse student population in the Southeast Quadrant while working to sustain a rigorous curriculum and consistently solid academic performance over time.

Galileo (9-12)

Targeted for additional funding under the Decree, has made great strides in recent years in its decisions on how to use this additional funding, showing great successes since 2002, increasing its diversity while improving its academic performance.

[Galileo's API has shot up, going from a 3/2 in '02-'03 to a 6/8 in '03-'04. And Burton's API numbers are indeed solid.]

Gateway Charter (9-12)

From its inception in the late 1990’s, the school has demonstrated a highly informed commitment to Consent Decree principles and goals, actively maintaining a diverse student population and demonstrating great academic success across all races/ethnicities.

Leadership Charter (9-12)

Equity focus by highly motivated educators has led to outstanding gains for a student population that is diverse racially/ethnically as well as on the basis of socioeconomic status, led the District by graduating every one of its students “UC eligible” in 2004.

[As a charter skeptic, I don't trust their information. Charter schools are not accountable to anyone and can claim what they want. Gateway claims it doesn't pick and choose its students, but one would have to be hopelessly naive to believe that. It requires a nine-page enrollment application to get into the alleged "blind" "lottery," and many parents who have gone through the enrollment process &mdash both successfully and unsuccessfully &mdash say they felt there was screening going on.

Meanwhile, supposedly successful Leadership has fallen entirely off the radar of families in the nearby area. I didn't hear of any of my son's classmates (Aptos graduating class of '05) applying there, despite Aptos' proximity to Leadership. Many of his classmates are going to Balboa, right near Leadership, without giving Leadership a passing glance. And Leadership has gone to SFUSD asking to become a non-chartered district school, so it's clearly having trouble. I'm unclear whether the information about the UC-eligible graduates is based on unverifiable self-reporting by Leadership.

Back to the monitor's comments:]

In our analysis of these schools, we have identified a number of factors that have enabled them to achieve their successes. These factors include maintaining a diverse student body, awareness of the individual learning differences and personal needs of every student, a school-wide commitment to improving African American and Latino student performance, strong intervention programs, school culture that promotes academic excellence for all students, qualified and caring faculty who understand the tenets of the Consent Decree, communication and collaboration between the administration and faculty, strong parent involvement in the school community, and effective site-based professional development programs that specifically address issues relating to the narrowing of the achievement gap.

[Somewhere in monitor Stuart Biegel's extensive reports, he mentions having made 800 school-site visits, to every school in SFUSD. Well, it's hard to disagree with his conclusions given that extensive research. I wonder if he goes in disguise, like a restaurant critic &mdash if you see a guy in a false nose, glasses and mustache, look busy.]

—Caroline

Send Wal-Mart "Back to School"

The following is a form-letter invitation to sign a petition that was posted to the sfschools list. Sounds like a good idea to me:

Dear sfschools@yahoogroups.com,

I just signed the Send Wal-Mart "Back to School" pledge at WakeUpWalMart.com. Because Wal-Mart is failing America, I pledge to send Wal-Mart “Back to School” this summer by buying my “Back to School” supplies somewhere other than Wal-Mart.

Please join me in taking this pledge by visiting the WakeUpWalMart.com "Back to School" page:

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/school/

I am tired of paying for Wal-Mart’s failure. With over $10 billion in profit, Wal-Mart can afford to do better than poverty level wages, no company health insurance for more than 600,000 employees, discriminating against 2 million female workers and violating child labor standards.

Please sign the pledge now

Dallas scandal has SFUSD ties

The Dallas Morning News reports this weekend (7/23/05) on ethical questions about Dallas schools Assistant Superintendent Ruben Bohuchot. Bohuchot has been getting frequent free use of a luxury yacht provided by a company that’s a major technology supplier to the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) — for which Bohuchot is in charge of technology. And the supplier bestowing such generosity on Bohuchot, Houston-based Micro System Enterprises, “has secured federally funded Dallas school district contracts potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars since 2003.” That funding comes from the federal E-rate program for school technology.

This is of interest in SFUSD because Bohuchot used to be our own district’s chief technology officer. In late 1997, SFUSD hired him away from Carrera Consulting Group Inc., which had worked with SFUSD on setting up a PeopleSoft computer system so problem-plagued that it landed in SFUSD’s annals of scandals. Then Bohuchot left for Dallas in September 1999 with his SFUSD boss, then-Superintendent Bill Rojas, who took a new job as DISD superintendent. And is it just coincidence that another Rojas crony here, Tim Tronson, got nailed for (among other items), a scam involving the federal E-rate program?

It makes you want to refer to Rojas as “He Who Must Not Be Named” — at least if, like me, you’ve just finished the new Harry Potter. The complexities, intrigues and odd coincidences have a strangely familiar — and sinister — ring. Rojas himself, of course, has donned the Invisibility Cloak.

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The link to the Dallas News story will die in a few days (sounds like a wizard’s curse). Here are some interesting excerpts, and I’m pasting the whole story into the “comments” section — click at the end of this blog post.

Dallas schools' chief technology boss has for years accepted the free, regular use of luxurious sport-fishing yachts owned by a top provider of computer hardware to DISD, records and interviews show.

Ruben Bohuchot, a Dallas Independent School District associate superintendent, told The Dallas Morning News that the sea voyages grew out of his relationship with Frankie Wong, president of Houston-based Micro System Enterprises. Micro System has secured federally funded Dallas school district contracts potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars since 2003.

. . . On Friday, a day after The News raised questions, DISD officials said they had opened an investigation of Mr. Bohuchot, 56, who earns $143,492 in addition to a $4,000 annual car allowance. District policies prohibit employees from taking gifts or favors from vendors other than novelties such as key chains and coffee mugs.

There are a number of state and federal laws prohibiting the exchange of benefits between public officials and vendors.

. . . Since 2003, Micro System has been designated as the recipient of more than 96 percent of all funding DISD has applied for — $369 million in all — through the federal E-rate program for school technology. The E-rate program has been beset by allegations of waste, fraud and bid-rigging nationwide.

And here’s the entire text of a sidebar on Bohuchot’s background:

Official's faced tough questioning in past
2 inquiries in 2 years cleared Bohuchot, according to DISD

09:23 PM CDT on Saturday, July 23, 2005

By JESSICA LEEDER and PETE SLOVER
The Dallas Morning News

Ruben Bohuchot has endured tough questions before in his decades in information technology.

In his last job, Mr. Bohuchot, 56, was at one point in charge of fixing chronic problems with PeopleSoft human resources software that the San Francisco Unified School District was struggling to adopt.

He came to the Dallas Independent School District as chief technology officer in September 1999, following his former San Francisco boss, Waldemar "Bill" Rojas, who had taken over in Dallas as the highest-paid superintendent in America.

When Mr. Rojas was fired less than a year later, Mr. Bohuchot stayed on with a mandate to manage the district's complicated information systems and bring classrooms into the 21st century technologically.

Mr. Bohuchot has since overseen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of technology deals, including an estimated $125 million agreement under the federal E-rate funding program for fiscal 2003. The deal ranked DISD as the top E-rate applicant in the country based on per-student dollars secured through the program.

Along the way, Mr. Bohuchot has been accused by anonymous whistleblowers of taking kickbacks in return for influencing district contract awards.

Mr. Bohuchot denies the allegations and says he was cleared by internal and external reviews.

He has been investigated twice in the past two years, the first time voluntarily by the district in an external audit he requested to clear his name.

"I wasn't happy about it," Mr. Bohuchot said in an interview Thursday, adding that he agreed to allow KPMG auditors to inspect his personal bank records, income tax filings, credit card and other financial statements.

"I asked for it. I wanted it done. Quite frankly, I was tired of all the allegations ... all the anonymous letters and the innuendo," he said. District officials never released the audit – or even publicly disclosed the inquiry – but officials say it cleared Mr. Bohuchot.

The second investigation, last year, was conducted by federal employees in charge of monitoring the E-rate program. At the time, DISD spokesman Donald Claxton said the investigation was prompted by allegations directed towards someone in the technology department, and not for the first time.

Mr. Claxton did not name the individual, but said: "Somebody doesn't like him, and they've been trying to smear him for years. It certainly seems they have their facts in error."

At the time, Mr. Claxton said representatives of the National Exchange Carrier Association, which changed its name to NECA Services Inc., spent two days in Dallas examining the bidding process used to hire vendors who did telecommunications work in DISD.

The district said investigators found no merit in the complaint alleging misuse of funds.

"It's nice when outside organizations come in and give us a clean bill of health," Mr. Claxton said.

Last week, the spokesman said E-rate investigators never submitted written findings to the district.

That sidebar didn’t mention the history of Bohuchot’s hiring in SFUSD. To make a long story (SF Weekly, 11/22/00) short, the SFUSD Board of Ed bought a PeopleSoft computer system without knowing that they couldn’t get it working without spending additional megabucks on a PeopleSoft-connected consultant such as Carrera. (This apparently wasn’t a unique situation, as this 9/21/04 report in the Toledo, Ohio, Blade indicates.) Some eyebrows were raised when SFUSD then hired Bohuchot away from Carrera. Less than two years later, Rojas whisked Bohuchot away to Dallas with him. DISD fired Rojas in less than a year.

Meanwhile, for those who need a refresher in SFUSD’s own Rojas-crony-implemented E-rate scandal, here are some excerpts from a 5/27/04 press release from the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office:

The E-Rate false claims case arose out of an investigation into the actions of SFUSD Custodial Supervisor Desmond McQuoid. Without proper authorization from SFUSD, McQuoid applied to the E-Rate program in January 2000 for funding to construct a computer network with video conferencing capabilities for SFUSD. In these efforts, McQuoid was supervised by Tim Tronson, former director of operations management and one time interim director of the Facilities Development and Management Division, who was indicted by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office on unrelated charges.

As a result of two funding applications made by Desmond McQuoid to USAC during the 2000-01 Fiscal Year, USAC [E-rate program administrator Universal Service Administrative Co.] agreed to pay vendors associated with McQuoid a total of $49,129,206.37. SFUSD was supposed to contribute an additional $10,233,949.03 in matching funds for the work outlined in these two applications despite having never budgeted any matching funds—because McQuoid never notified the budget office or any other relevant district official (other than Tronson) of his activities.

The vendors associated with the two applications, including NEC/BNS, would have received a total of $59,363,155.40. According to the funding applications, these funds would have been used to create an incomplete computer network that would, by itself, have been inoperable. Some combination of 151 schools in the district would have been saddled with equipment that would have been useless. There would have been a phone system with no phones, and there would have been a computer system with no computer work stations. (USAC does not fund those pieces of equipment.) There would not have even been servers, as USAC rejected that portion of McQuoid’s applications. All the USAC award would have paid for was cabling, routers and switches, and a phone switch to reroute phone lines in 46 of the 151 schools.

When McQuoid’s E-Rate applications came to the attention of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who had recently come into office, she declined to accept the awarded monies due to her suspicions about the bidding and application process. She then asked the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office to investigate.

— Caroline

Gatesbucks and miracles vs. fads

A July issue of the Seattle Weekly took an unusually clear-eyed look at the latest education “miracle,” small schools, and the role of private funders in promoting education trends.

Of course I know that small, more-personalized schools work best for some kids. That's one benefit some families go private to seek out. But there are tradeoffs, nuances, complications and downsides. And the empirical results don’t yet show clear success.

The Weekly focused on Mountlake Terrace High School in the Edmonds School District outside Seattle, a large school that deployed $833,000 in Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding to break up into five small schools. The Gates Foundation is putting $1 billion into projects like this nationwide.
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Some excerpts from the Weekly article:

As the year passed, some real benefits became obvious. The smaller schools allowed closer tracking of individual students. …

There were, however, some unforeseen complications. A lot of programs had to be duplicated from school to school, and resources got overbooked. "All the math teachers used to share rooms, calculators, math tiles," says [math teacher Andi] Nofziger. "Now that we're broken up, we're spread throughout the building and we have to buy five sets of things." Students say they felt hemmed in by being limited to just one small school while they could see other opportunities around them. …

And there was ongoing tension between the Gates Foundation and the schools' staff. The foundation wanted strict adherence to its plan for change. But it was too rigid to work, [former vice principal Steven] Gering says. "It's clear that the Gates Foundation had a clear agenda. For instance—not allowing kids to switch from one school to another or to take electives out of their own school. They wanted pure small schools." …

In addition, some teachers felt the Gates Foundation was sending a not-too-subtle message that the teachers were the real problem with high schools. …

Over the summer of 2004, almost one-quarter of the staff &mdash 23 teachers out of 100 &mdash decided not to come back to the school, well above the typical turnover rate of 5 percent to 10 percent per year. There's disagreement about why so many faculty left, but some of those who left say the conversion experience drove them out. "A number of us bailed," says [former teacher Heather] Helman, who now teaches in Lake Stevens. "I don't think that anyone understood how much work it would take. …

[T]he Gates Foundation is generally dismayed by the early indications. "In Washington state, we've seen limited progress in high-school indicators, attendance, grade promotion rate, achievement levels," says [Gates Foundation small-schools head Tom] Vander Ark. "It has been very slow, very different from what we expected." Those problems are mirrored across the country. "We can conclude," he concedes, "that for large, struggling high schools, conversion is a very difficult entry point."

Here in SFUSD, small schools haven’t taken off like a rocket yet. There are certainly students thriving in the district’s official small high school, June Jordan School for Equity, and its small middle school, Aim High &mdash which grew out of a highly popular and successful longtime summer program. But in the most recent enrollment application round, neither was in notable demand.

A number of incoming middle-schoolers who had applied only to popular Hoover Middle School &mdash a 1,285-student school with an array of programs, including a stellar music department &mdash were unhappily assigned to Aim High. With no band, orchestra or chorus, Aim High was the exact opposite of what many of those applicants wanted. (At least some are known to have won spots at Hoover during the wait-pool process.) Some incoming 9th-graders were startled to be assigned to June Jordan, never having heard of it. Clearly, both schools had slots open after enrollment requests were processed.

Again, I recognize that small schools are a better environment for some (perhaps many) kids. What I question is whether they're being hyped as a miracle and, if so, whether that's a good thing. And is this the most effective way to spend $1 billion (counting only the Gates investment &mdash there are other funders too)?

Meanwhile, a few commentators have questioned whether private money is funding flash-in-the-pan education fads, noting that the small-schools trend is designed to reverse a now-bygone fad pushed by private funds &mdash large, comprehensive high schools. Education columnist Richard Rothstein looked at that issue in a 2002 column, and the question is still on the table. From Rothstein:

In New York City, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is helping to break up large high schools into smaller units. The idea is that adolescents need stable relationships with teachers who understand each student's intellectual and personal problems. Some New York educators already valued small schools and had developed about 100 of them before the Gates Foundation came to call, so private money reinforced a priority that many in the system had already embraced.

But another foundation helped to create the problem that Gates now hopes to solve. Giant high schools were promoted 40 years ago, when the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a campaign by James B. Conant, a former president of Harvard University, to consolidate small high schools. Dr. Conant wanted schools to be large enough to offer both an elite curriculum to students who scored well on standardized tests and a large variety of vocational and less demanding courses to the rest.

Many urban schools were already large before the Carnegie campaign, but the rise of large schools was accelerated by the foundation's influence.

I’ll look at another question about Gates money in another post.
&mdash Caroline

Tags: Small Schools, Gates Foundation

Propositions are set. Take aim!

The fall ballot initiatives are now set. The budget compromise has set the stage for the initiative battles that will follow. Time to fire up the blog presses!

As I have said earlier, you will hear a lot about the three school-related propositions here. I make no bones about my opposition to Propositions 74, 75, and 76.

Prop 74 is a potemkin proposition that does nothing to improve teacher management. Prop 75 is a naked power grab by the right, an anti free speech, anti democratic insult to Californians. Prop 76 threatens to undo much of the progress made in recent years in restoring funds to our kids schools.

I've posted a roster of the fall initiatives here for easy reference. We'll have more to say on this soon.

Tags: San Francisco, Special election

SfSchools. Is it a list? Is it a blog?

Since there is a good chance that we'll be seeing a fresh influx of viewers here real soon I figure I had better pen an update on the State of SfSchools–the–Blog and SfSchools–the–List.

SfSchools, the list, has been around for over six years now. It started life on egroups.com, which was then bought by Yahoo where we've been ever since. The list has been very successful, if I may say so, by getting a good mix of influential and interested parties talking together in a safe, civil community. Well, usually civil. We keep the list private to create a safer environment for our members—you have to join to read or post to the list. It has worked. The group has grown steadily over the years. By Yahoo's count we have 617 members, which undoubtedly on the high side. New voices keep arriving and filling in nicely for others members that move on.

The list is a great place for many school stakeholders to get up and speak freely. We've been blessed with many informed and colorful voices speaking out on just about any school issue you can imagine. I'm proud to say that I have almost never needed to moderate anything. If you have the time and interest, and you can respect the list's culture, I encourage you to join the list.

At the same time I hear from many people that the list is not for everyone. It can take a lot of energy just to keep up with the list traffic when the discussion heats up. Some people have specific interests and just don't want to sift through all the posts to find the information they want, or to follow their favorite issue.

Enter the blog.

As I explained in my first post, I want this to be a group blog featuring some of the voices from the list. In some cases I may copy posts from the list to the blog. In other cases list members will contribute posts to the blog. I'll be the owner and chief techie on the list. Its a new role for me. Moderating the list usually consisted of doing absolutely nothing. Here I have to take a more active role.

The goal is for this to be a more focused and edited source of information. Hopefully it will augment the list and allow some of the information found and developed there to reach the public web. It should be a better vehicle for reaching some of the San Francisco schooling communities too.

If you have any ideas for what you would like to see on this blog, please speak up. Add you comments here or send me email.

We're making it up as we go.

KC

Tags: San Francisco, Schools

SFUSD School Info Google Map Hack

And now for something completely different...

I love maps. I've always loved the web mapping services like MapQuest and Yahoo maps. Since Google maps came out I've been in awe. Google earth is beyond cool too.

When I heard Google offered a public API to their map servers, and when I heard of a bunch of so-called Google map hacks, I checked it out. You can look at craigslist real estate and apartment rental ads on a Google map. You can get recent home sale prices on a Google map. Every day there are dozens of new "map hacks".

My first Google map hack is here:

SFUSD School Info Google Map Hack
http://www.sfschools.org/maps/sfusd_schools.html

Like the blog, this is an experiment, a work in progress. I have ideas on other information to include on the map and other ways of using the map to show other kinds of school data. But its already pretty neat, if I do say so myself. Best of all, I don't think this could be construed to be propaganda by any definition!

Check it out.
Comments welcome.

KC

The Ackerman-must-go movement

Some segments of the community now openly want to get rid of SFUSD Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Usually, when a school district ousts a superintendent, it’s because of low achievement, financial mismanagement or outright corruption.

But in SFUSD, test scores are rising, as Ackerman’s critics acknowledge. And they allow that she has taken significant steps to clean up the district’s finances and root out the corruption that abounded before she got here.

Those aren’t the problems Ackerman’s critics have with her. They accuse her of restricting SFUSD staff from talking to the press, and they say her underlings respond slowly and grudgingly to media inquiries. They blast the size and budget of her PR staff. They say she isn’t "talking to people who disagree" with her. They say she disrespects student dissenters, and — needless to say — they oppose her pay level and recent controversial raise.

But can our school district afford to cast out a superintendent who’s doing an excellent job by traditional measures? True, she has personality conflicts with a faction of the Board of Education, and the unions are mad at her, with contract negotiations currently going on. And she has really ticked off one alternative newspaper.

(The San Francisco Bay Guardian — an employer with its own history of cold-blooded union-busting and an ax to grind with Ackerman — has transformed itself into the new champion of labor during SFUSD contract negotiations.)

Whatever her faults, Ackerman's achievements are neither insignificant nor PR hype.

• Test scores have risen. And they’re doing so with more and more students who used to be excluded now being tested. In the last year of Bill Rojas’ administration (1998-’99), only 77 percent of SFUSD students (in tested grades, 2-11) were included, with kids who were deemed likely to bring scores down excluded wherever possible. In 2003-’04, 98 percent of SFUSD students (in tested grades) were included in testing.
  
• Ackerman introduced the weighted student formula, which creates a more equitable funding arrangement, guaranteeing that schools with harder-to-educate kids (such as low-income students, language learners or low achievers) get more funds. If the student changes schools, the funds follow him or her.
  
• She implemented site-based budgeting, so that school communities, not the central office, determine how to spend their money.
  
• Formerly underperforming high schools are starting to turn around. Mission made the Newsweek list of top 1,000 high schools in the nation. Galileo has shown a big jump in test scores – its statewide API ranking jumped from a 3 to a 6, while its similar schools ranking climbed from a 2 to an 8, in just one year. Balboa is on the radar for families who would never have considered it a few years ago.
  
• Elementary and middle schools that were once widely viewed as undesirable have surged in popularity. Examples include Alvarado, Aptos, Miraloma, Fairmount, McKinley, Monroe and others.
  
• Ackerman has unearthed and fought corruption, winning millions for the district in settlement and reward money and getting crooks who stole from our kids sent to jail.
  
• Since she arrived in SFUSD, city voters have passed an important school bond measure (2003’s Proposition A) and a groundbreaking measure to provide city funding to schools (2004’s Proposition H). The election results showed that Ackerman’s leadership had helped overcome the community hostility created by a badly flawed Chronicle exposé on the school district — which by implication tarred Ackerman with her predecessor’s corruption and mismanagement so as to give the Chronicle credit for reforms actually initiated by Ackerman.
  
• She supported the creation of a nutrition policy that may be the most comprehensive in the nation, while other superintendents nationwide were vigorously selling their students' health out to junk-food interests.
  
• More students have access to more AP classes.
  
• She has met demand by increasing the number of coveted language immersion programs.
  
• Before the current disastrous funding crisis, teachers got a significant raise.
  
• SFUSD is currently a finalist for the national 2005 Broad Prize for Urban Education. As a finalist, the district receives $125,000 in scholarship money, and if it wins, the award (to be announced in September), comes with $500,000 in scholarships.
  
• Ackerman was just named chair of the Board of Directors of the Council of the Great City Schools, a national urban education policy and research organization that represents 65 big-city school systems.
  

All that raises the obvious question: Do Ackerman’s critics have a replacement waiting in the wings?

Not unless it’s a deep, dark secret. There’s certainly no obvious candidate. Who would come here and take on all the challenges of this district (the consent decree/desegregation issue, the student assignment process, the budget being shortchanged by a hostile governor, many language learners speaking a vast array of languages, aging facilities, and much, much more)?

And to top it all off, the newcomer would be working with a deeply divided Board of Education that seems to fight for the sake of fighting — and with a faction sometimes accused of making decisions based on what is best for its political agenda, not what’s best for schools or kids.

Sounds like a dream job! Oh, and this same faction and its supporters will cut the new hire’s pay, too.

After seeing how part of our community has tried to run out of town a woman whom many educational insiders nationwide view as one of the best superintendents in the country, out of personal antipathy or on ideological grounds — yes, they’ll be lining up for miles to apply for that cushy gig.

A little nationwide research reveals that it’s extremely difficult to find an honest, competent superintendent — and harder to keep one. Turnover is high and pay gets higher and higher.

PBS education reporter John Merrow wrote last year in the Washington Post about the search for a Washington, D.C., superintendent — Ackerman’s previous job, which turned over in 2004 for the fifth time in nine years.

Just as the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball seem to play musical chairs with their respective coaches, search firms recycle superintendents.

Typically, a new superintendent arrives in a city, hailed as the answer to every problem — low test scores, poor attendance, embarrassing graduation rates. When change does not occur overnight, or perhaps at all, disappointment sets in. The superintendent departs for the next school district, and the cycle begins anew.

Instead of producing candidates with the hard-eyed management and single-minded concentration needed to figure out how best to teach kids, the search process gives these school systems more of the same.

Reports from Detroit, Dallas, Cincinnati and elsewhere emphasize the difficulty. The Dallas News wrote in July 2004 about the departure of its superintendent, Mike Moses:

The job of urban superintendent has never been easy. But in the last decade, it's become an around-the-clock stress test — the sort of job that chews through dynamic leaders and, more often than not, leaves them exhausted and beaten.

"It's just a constant bombardment," Dr. Moses said after announcing his resignation Wednesday.

Here in San Francisco, Arlene Ackerman has achieved goals that other school districts would love to emulate. Is it best for our schools and our kids if we get rid of her, with no feasible replacement waiting in the wings and a shrinking pool of competent applicants?

We don’t think so.

— Nestwife and Caroline

SfGate: In search of problem teachers

Louis Freedberg of The Chron makes an excellent point about Proposition 74, What's the point? In search of problem teachers

What puzzles me is that neither he nor his allies have been able to come up with any meaningful data to support his contention that there are so many bad public-school teachers out there that he needed to call a special election—at a cost of at least $45 million to the taxpayer—to deal with it.[...]

Schwarzenegger achieved his fame from playing larger-than life, wildly exaggerated movie characters. He seems to have introduced some of those same characteristics into state politics by vastly exaggerating the problem of unqualified teachers.

For months, I've been looking for large numbers of problem teachers that Schwarzenegger says are dragging down the academic performance of our children. Maybe they are out there somewhere, and I just haven't found them. Governor, can you help?

My first reaction when I read the full text of the proposition was, is this it? I even looked up the voluminous Ed Code that it amends to see the change in context.

There is nothing to it.

If there is a problem with teacher performance and teacher management, it will take far bigger changes than changing the number '2' to '5' in a few paragraphs burred way, way deep in the multi-phone-book sized monument to lawyerlyness that is the Ed Code.

What we have is mere grandstanding for the camera. Arnold is taking on the teachers! Those powerful, pampered, union, left winger teachers. Take that! Conan raises the pelt of the sacrificial victim.

The real problem is not getting rid of bad teachers. The real problem is retaining the good ones. Far too many teachers leave the profession too soon. Maybe they don't get the support they need when they are new. Maybe its the money / cost of living. The problem is retention, and training, and support—the problem is not deadwood.

Besides, if there is a teacher management problem, its found in the levels of bureaucracy and red tape that sometimes tie the hands of administrators. But this proposition does nothing about that—at least nothing effective. Instead of dealing with the red tape, Prop 74 just makes it easier to run young teachers out of the biz.

What a stupid idea. What a sham of an initiative.

Tags: Education, Schools

CounterPunch: Beyond Opt-Out

SFUSD, and the sitting BOE, have been very receptive to the counter recruiting efforts. They do what they can to alert parents of their right to opt-out of sharing contact information with military recruiters. They have been receptive to anti-war efforts, including a controversial teach-in during the run-up to the Iraq war. So I found this article from CounterPunch quite interesting: Rick Jahnkow: Beyond Opt-Out

The lesson here is that while opting out is worth pursuing as a tactical issue, an approach to countering recruitment that focuses mostly on saving individual students is an energy-intensive one that will perpetually miss most young people because the involvement of the military in schools is too widespread and is not being adequately challenged institutionally. Also open to question is whether or not parents and others will end their involvement in the cause once their own kids graduate, or the U.S. withdraws from Iraq. This is what happened with many activists after Vietnam.

I'm not so sure that the opt-out effort is just a tactical effort. Parental resistance to recruiting efforts is having a marked effect on the war effort. Yes, it plays upon the parochial concerns of a parent for their child. But that is powerful and effective. Still, the article makes many good points about the limits of opt-out, the other ways recruiters get contact info, and the many ways that the military has insinuated itself into our schools.

That said, my personal views are a bit different. Counter recruitment is essentially a pacifist's approach. At some level I think it is a divisive and polarizing approach to the problem. If we accept the need for any military institutions in our democracy, its important that they reflect all the people. And the only way I can see that happening is if we accept some form of conscripted national service.

But I know that's just my (minority) point of view.

The school privatization god that failed

Remember Edison Schools, the big education story of 2001? SFUSD took a bashing from the international media for being one of the first dissatisfied Edison clients to try to get rid of the for-profit school management firm. Today Edison is still limping along, largely forgotten. With its core business -- taking over schools and managing them -- stumbling badly, Edison is quietly moving into providing conventional supplemental services like test prep, after-school programs, summer school and the like. Here's an update from Edison watchdog Parents Advocating School Accountability.

Press release 6/30/05
Parents Advocating School Accountability, San Francisco
www.pasasf.org
All or any part of this press release may be used or reproduced.

EDISON SCHOOLS' FALSE NUMBERS OBSCURE CONTRACT LOSSES

Embattled, for-profit Edison Schools – the education management organization once hailed as the miracle savior of America’s schools – lost one-sixth of its school-management contracts with school districts in spring 2005, while continuing its longstanding practice of claiming to operate far more schools than it actually does.

Edison began March 2005 with 41 contracts to manage schools in school districts around the United States. In the past few weeks, it has lost seven of them. Edison contracts were severed or not renewed by school districts in Miami; Springfield, Ill.; Worcester, Mass; Flint and Inkster, Mich.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Chester-Upland, Pa. Numbers of schools in each cancelled district varied. Chester-Upland, where Edison managed eight schools, was Edison’s second-largest school-management contract. Edison contracts in Peoria, Ill., and York, Pa., are also in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, Edison’s website claims that the company “currently operates 157 schools,” but a hand-count of schools listed on the website (as of June 28, 2005) shows only 104 schools.

Of those, the website list misleadingly includes 13 schools that Edison does not manage or operate but for which it merely provides consulting services (all in Allendale and Charleston, S.C.). It also lists 14 schools that Edison no longer operates due to recently severed contracts. Omitting those misleadingly listed schools brings the actual number of Edison-managed schools to 77, not 157.

In addition, a long-awaited report on Edison Schools’ achievement by the respected RAND research organization – for which Edison contracted in 2000 – is now two years overdue after repeated delays. The report was originally due in summer 2003, and was eagerly anticipated back in the days when Edison boasted high credibility and visibility. A RAND spokesperson, giving no reason for the delays, says the report is now due in August 2005.

Over the company’s 13-year history, Edison has contracted to manage schools in a total of 59 districts nationwide. Counting the most recent seven severed contracts, the company has lost 25, or 42.3 percent, of those 59 contracts. Edison spokesperson Adam Tucker told the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper in May that Edison “retain(s) 80 percent of our contracts” -- which was inaccurate if Tucker referred to school-management contracts (“Edison Says Past Troubles Won’t Follow It Here,” Treena Shapiro, Honolulu Advertiser, May 15, 2005). Edison has moved into various supplemental services, such as summer school and tutoring, that appear to be supplanting its original core business. The Honolulu Advertiser article was a report on the prospect of Edison’s providing consulting services, not running schools, in Hawaii.

New York-based Edison Schools, founded in 1992 by flamboyant entrepreneur Chris Whittle, was publicly traded on the NASDAQ from 1999 to 2003. After reaching a high of close to $40 per share in early 2001, the share value tumbled to a low of 14 cents. In November 2003, the company’s stock was taken private in a buyout at $1.75 per share.

Edison attracted ideological support from backers of privatization and school vouchers, and from such powerful conservative bastions as the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the Hoover Institution. But its name is no longer mentioned when "school reform" supporters talk about solutions for public education.

-- Caroline

Another reason to Kill Your TV

I read this article about the risks of excessive TV watching with more than a little dread. New Scientist is running this review, Watching TV harms kids’ academic success

Too much time in front of the TV reduces children’s learning abilities, academic achievement, and even the likelihood of their graduating from university, suggest three new studies. But it may be the quality, not quantity, of the programmes that really matters.

Decades of studies have linked childhood hours in front of the TV with aggressive behaviour, earlier sexual activity, smoking, obesity, and poor school performance. The research has lead the American Academy of Pediatrics to suggest children watch no more than 2 hours of TV per day and that children under 2 years old watch none at all.

We let our kids watch way too much TV, and in my son's case I really wonder if it has had a negative effect. In his case I think he chooses to watch TV instead of reading -- and that creates a deficit that really hurts him at school and limits his intellectual stimulation.

So now I guess I have all the more reason to put my foot down.

What is up with the budget?

Its been a few days since the California budget deal was announced. Yet there has been almost no concrete information on what the actual budget is, and how it impacts schools. I've read some stories that talk about $3B being restored and later about $3B still missing. The inability of the media to figure out the impact on schools may just be another indicator that school finances are utterly non-transparent. Or maybe the medis is just clueless or asleep.

In the midst of this void I did find this press release (via Goodle News and Bakersfield Online) that suggests that the news is not good: Schools Chief Jack O'Connell Comments on Final Budget Agreement

"I’m pleased a state budget agreement was reached last night so that school operations won’t be impacted by a long delay in funding. I am, however, very disappointed in the lack of commitment to education reflected in this agreement.

"In fact, this budget does not represent a significant increase in funding for our students. It barely keeps our schools afloat at a time when many districts are facing serious budget shortfalls. Nor does the budget include the $3.1 billion our schools were promised under Proposition 98 and the agreement reached with the Governor last year. I will continue to fight for significant new investment in California’s public school system so our schools will not continue to be shortchanged.

"Unfortunately, the Governor’s claim that the budget provides more than $10,000 per student is misleading and should not be interpreted as money going to classrooms. For example, that figure includes $50 million for the State Library and $38 million for the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

"The $10,000-plus-per-student figure also includes money for education over which the state had no control. His calculation includes: $7.6 billion in federal funding, $1.5 billion to repay local debt service on locally raised money for school building projects, and $3.8 billion for other local revenues raised by local districts for their own schools – everything from booster club bake sales to donations from local businesses. The reason why every major state-to-state comparison of school funding does not include such funding sources is because they have nothing to do with a state’s effort to support its schools.

"Remarkably, the Governor even includes parcel taxes raised at the local level by citizens who believed it necessary to raise their taxes to support a school system under-funded by the state. While taking credit for a state budget that does not raise taxes to improve schools, the governor also takes credit for local taxes raised for that purpose.

"Finally, the Governor’s portrayal of increased funding to pay for the growth in student population and provide a cost-of-living increase to schools as new dollars to fund classroom programs is misleading, as this money simply allows our schools to maintain a shaky status quo. California has one of the highest costs of living of any state, the largest, most diverse and most challenging student population, yet sadly, its education funding still ranks 8th from the bottom of all states.

"While this budget unfortunately represents a status quo for our schools, we now must focus on the November special election and defeating the Governor’s Live Within Our Means Act. That initiative would do serious long-term damage to our schools by eviscerating the state’s Constitutional guarantee of stable school funding."

# # #

Hilary McLean

Press Secretary for Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Compromised testing

The Daily Howler has been running a series of posts questioning the testing gains in the NYC schools. The mayor and the school administrators have been boasting of their success as measured by a sharp rise in 4th grade test results. But questions abound in Do urban kids matter?

Could "an unprecedented increase in test preparation" lead to misleading gains—to score gains which reflect test savvy, not a real gain in reading skill? We suppose this is possible—but, at least in Winerip's telling, Tobias ignores a much larger problem. Over the course of the past forty years, teachers, principals and school administrators have routinely cheated on high-stakes tests as they struggle to drive up their test scores. Under the pressure of high-stakes testing, teachers have routinely pre-acquainted kids with the specific items on which they'd be tested. Teachers have routinely given kids too much time to take their tests. Teachers have routinely arranged for slower kids to be absent from the tests. And yes, teachers have given kids correct answers while the tests were being given—and teachers have routinely erased wrong answers, making them right, after the testing is completed and the students have all gone home! (Yes, this has been widely documented.) There is no way to cheat on these tests that hasn't been routinely observed—but testing experts like Tobias almost never mention this fact, preferring instead to mouth polite words, euphemistically saying that schools sometimes try "to beat or game a test." Sorry—as we've noted again and again (links below), teachers, principals and entire school systems routinely cheat on tests like these. But forty years into this well-documented story, experts like Tobias dare not say its name—and writers like Winerip don't bring it up either. Readers of the New York Times get to see polite, puzzling euphemisms—and the lives of urban kids keep playing second fiddle to the interests of hoaxers.

My problem with standardized testing is exactly this. Test results are fungible. Teachers can cheat. Administrations, testing companies, testing professionals... all have both means and motive to influence the outcome. When the stakes are high, there is added impetus to cheat. Without the high stakes the cheating tends to be self-cancelling, random noise, and the test results tend to be more trustworthy. As a parent and as an engineer, I like the idea of testing and measuring. But the value of the testing is compromised when so many people's careers have a vested interest in the testing outcomes.

Charters, give our kids their money...

The Calif. Charter Schools Assn. sent an update on a proposed bill by Carole Migden that would have eliminated the requirement that school districts give their high school charters a set amount -- which in SFUSD exceeds the amount regular schools get by $800/student/year.

The parties are working on a compromise. The language describing it is pretty incomprehensible, but I think it means that districts will no longer have to fork over that extra $800 out of their OWN money. Instead, the STATE will fork over the extra $800.

Of course, that's still money that should be going to all our kids' schools, not just charter schools, even if it comes from the state. So it sounds to me like charters will still unjustly and divisively get extra money and it's just accounting sleight-of-hand where it comes from.


Also, I am told by knowledgeable sources that it's not true that school districts make money on elementary charters, at least not in SFUSD. Those are the same sources that told me about the extra $800 charter high schools get, which the charter people used to dispute, so you can see which is more credible. Fool me once, etc. (as George Bush likes to say).

Anyway, pasted below is the impenetrable description from the CCSA. I love the device of putting "lose" in quotes when they admit that school districts lose money on charters... How about: all our kids "subsidize" charters, and all our kids "lose" when the school district approves another one.

Welcome to this edition of the Capitol Update-Capitol Journal Online. In this edition we will give you an update on several charter school bills that Assembly or Senate Committees took action on today and yesterday.

In the Assembly, agreement was finally reached between the California Charter Schools Association and The Senate Appropriations Chair, Senator Migden on her measure SB 319:

Yesterday, SB 319 was heard in the Assembly Education Committee. The measure began life as a bill to allow unified school districts to negotiate charter school revenue limit amounts instead of paying the statutory charter school general purpose grant amounts. The genesis of the bill was the discrepancy in rates between charter school rates and the unified rates. The "blended rate" for unified school districts is less than the charter high school rate and greater than the charter elementary rates. After the California Charter Schools Association strongly opposed the bill and met with Senator Migden, the bill was amended to provide to districts the full charter rates to pass through to start up charter schools.

There is also a competing policy in existing law that prohibits unified school districts from converting high schools to charter schools to collect the higher charter high school rate. The current provision still requires the unified district to pay to the charter the charter rate. Consequently, unified districts make money from elementary charters and "lose" money from high school charters.

LAUSD raised the specter of continuing to "lose" funding from conversion schools and not make money on elementary charter schools to help pay for the conversion high school costs. The bill was amended to handle existing conversion schools, existing start-up schools, and future start-up schools but not change current law for future conversion schools.

LAUSD and others continued to argue against the proposal before the start of the Assembly Education Committee hearing. That committee is chaired by Assembly Member Goldberg (Los Angeles). In last minute developments, amendments were proposed to address future conversion schools. In essence the amendments are intended to ensure that future conversion schools will receive the same level of per ADA funding general purpose funding (teacher salaries and benefits, utilities, etc) as they received in the year before conversion adjusted by COLA and resident average daily attendance. In addition, all charter categorical funding will continue to be available to these conversion charter schools.

SB 430 also passed out of the Assembly Education Committee yesterday. This measure would require that charter schools adopt conflict of interest policies and also codifies current charter school practice concerning the county superintendent. We are still monitoring this legislation, so please alert our staff to any concerns that you might have concerning SB 430.

Today in the Senate Education Committee SB 1610 was voted out of committee. SB 1610 is the Superintendent of Public Instructions omnibus charter school legislation. SB 1610 includes several charter school provisions that we do not believe are too burdensome or onerous to the charter school community. As with SB 430, please check the measure and let our staff know your thoughts on the measure.

Finally, SB 846 which provides dry period funding to California's charter schools passed the Assembly Local Government Committee and will next be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

To view any of these measures please go to the web site, http://www.leginfo.ca.gov, hit the bill link and put in the bill number.

Branché Jones, Director-Governmental Affairs

Caroline