No good deed goes unpunished?

Some flak has been launched over veteran SFUSD school board Commissioner Jill Wynns' travel expenses for attending school board-related conferences and events.

Wynns donates her volunteer time — unpaid — to attend these events. The school board commissioners receive a flat $500 monthly stipend no matter how much extra work and board-related travel they take on.

Much of the discussion comes from observers who don't understand that and who assume that the travel expenses are a benefit of a paid job. Even some of the press apparently fails to recognize that this is unpaid volunteer work. Wynns incurs more travel expenses than other Board of Ed members because she donates more time — a sacrifice she makes on behalf of San Francisco's schools and children.

This discussion presents an opportunity to learn more about how school boards work. Let's ask Wynns what she does on these trips.

continue reading...

She describes a typical event, giving as examples the California School Boards Association (CSBA) and the National School Boards Association (NSBA), as well as its "urban component," the Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE).

Wynns: "Both CSBA and CUBE/NSBA combine their conferences with meetings of the board and Delegate Assembly (governing body). At CSBA the Delegate Assembly meets for a day and a half. This involves sitting in a hotel conference room going through a long agenda that includes presentations and discussions of current issues in California education, like the budget and legislative proposals.

"Last year, when CSBA met in San Diego and the District paid for my attendance, there was discussion of an influential High School Task Force to which I was appointed. The task force took four full-day meetings in Sacramento plus several conference calls.

"The presence of urban advocates on these groups keeps the perspective of small suburban and rural districts that vastly outnumber us in the organization from ignoring the realities of urban challenges.

"I have always attended the entire Delegate Assembly and been outspoken, as you can imagine, on progressive issues."

Eric Mar and Eddie Chin are also SFUSD delegates to the CSBA, but haven't been able to be present for much of the time. Wynns, as the only SFUSD Board of Ed member with neither a day job nor young children at home, is able to devote far more time to these obligations, and has built up years of contacts and a national reputation among her peers along the way.

She emphasizes the value of regular participation in these organizations: "It is credibility built up by being a faithful participant that makes it possible to get support for our issues when we need it. It took quite a lot of aggressive advocacy to get CSBA to support SB319, which saves SFUSD over a million dollars a year that we were giving charter high schools from our general fund." SB319, authored by state Sen. Carole Migden (D-S.F.) and passed in 2005, remedied an inequity that required school districts to provide significantly more funding to charter high schools than to non-charter high schools.

Wynns recently rejoined the CSBA Board of Directors, which she has served on in the past. She explains how selections for that position work:

"The delegates from our region, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, choose the director, alternating counties. The delegates will only support a person who will attend consistently to represent us, someone who also regularly attends and participates in the Delegate Assembly. This Board requires six weekend meetings a year, all of it paid for by CSBA."

Wynns is not paid for any of these duties.

"None of the boards on which I sit include any compensation. In fact, they require the District to support my participation in conferences, etc."

She gives more details on her involvement on the national level:

"At CUBE I have been an elected member of the national Steering Committee for five years. I will be term-limited out in two more years. This group is elected by the membership of CUBE — those that attend the Annual Meeting at the NSBA Annual Conference in April. Last year it was in Las Vegas. The Steering Committee picks the sites. I voted against Vegas, but it is very popular with attendees. Eric Mar and Norman Yee attended too.

"I have been co-chair of CUBE's Racial Isolation Task Force for five years. CUBE is one of the few national organizations still working hard on desegregation issues. The NSBA/CUBE web site has links to the important documents that the Task Force has produced, including a guide for school districts to designing diverse assignment plans and programs without the protection of federal courts. My work, with others in CUBE leadership, has kept NSBA from dropping this hot potato.

"The Task Force and Steering Committee have designed programming for urban board members from around the country. We brought (nationally recognized school-desegregation expert) Gary Orfield to a CUBE meeting in Boston last summer.

"I often act as a facilitator at CUBE conferences in my role as a Steering Commmittee member, giving SFUSD a national presence and platform for our programs and work. We have highlighted our Weighted Student Formula/Site-Based Budgeting initiative, our Nutrition Policy, language programs, our Labor/Management Committee work from a few years ago, the STAR program (initiated by Arlene Ackerman to give extra supports to the lowest-performing schools), and many more. We have often been featured in the newsletters of CUBE, NSBA, School Board News, etc."

"We visit schools at every CUBE conference, including when NSBA comes to San Francisco every four years. CUBE is one of the only organizations that has these regular school visits for board members and staff at conferences.

"NSBA has significant lobbying influence on Capitol Hill. It took me two trips to Washington (which also included other duties) to get Congressman George Miller (D-East Bay) to speak at a CUBE legislative luncheon and to establish a good working relationship with him and his staff. This is essential, as our own representatives do not serve on the education-related committees. Being on the CUBE Steering Committee and active in CUBE allows urban board members to influence the positions taken by NSBA."

Wynns is also involved in the Council of the Great City Schools, requiring still more attendance at conferences and events. "Dan Kelly and I have played different roles there. I have worked to become an influential member of the Governance Task Force while Dan and Arlene have been working on the Bilingual Education Task Force that Arlene has chaired."

School board members do this unpaid work for good reason, Wynns emphasizes.

"Getting and keeping the urban perspective included in national education policy discussions is a difficult and time-consuming challenge. This kind of involvement and hard work is the way you become an effective advocate for urban education."

— Caroline

Ms. Frizzle - "I teach to the test"

I'm a fan of Ms Frizzle and quote her often here. So I'm not surprised to hear her articulate a position close to my own about the benefits of standardized testing. I'll let her explain: Ms. Frizzle: Since you asked...

A reader emailed me a copy of his article, A Response to Jay Mathews' 'Let's Teach to the Test' from the Real World of Teaching, and asked me what I thought. Honestly, I mostly agree with Mr. Mathews. For starters, I absolutely agree that the phrase "teach to the test" is thrown around without a lot of clarity about what this sort of teaching looks like in real-life.

I work in New York City: trust me, I have seen the bad kind of "teaching to the test." I've read Mr. E's complaints about his school's policy of "all test prep, all the time." […] I think this kind of "teaching to the test" is awful. It's boring for both students and teachers, it replaces projects that ask the kids to engage with material and take pride in their work, and it is a stop-gap measure that allows schools to avoid punitive policies without necessarily resulting in the kids learning a whole lot that will help them outside of test-land.

That said, I "teach to the test."

There, I've said it. I do.

Did that catch your attention? Good. Go read the whole post. It's worth it! She captures both the value of a measured, limited testing regime and the pitfalls. She does omit any mention of SpEd kids and other sorts of learning differences and how those variables play out (badly) against the testing orthodoxy. But from my experience with my kids, I think she nails it.

Teaching in the 408: Absurdity in the Pre-School Debate

One less argument against Prop 82
Teaching in the 408 directs our attention to a topic that I hope to spend a lot more time talking about in the coming months: Rob Reiner's Universal PreSchool initiative, Prop 82. Here he knocks down one talking point from the opposition: Absurdity in the Pre-School Debate

the critique [of Prop 82] that seems to get the most play, the one that is consistently repeated, highlighted on edu-blogs and op-eds, is the finding that learning gains demonstrated by poor kids who attend preschool programs begin to fade by grades 3-4. Such claims are repeated here: SjMerc: Preschool reform measure won't close learning gap for poor, although without the usual misguided emphasis.

I keep seeing this. We should not advocate that more poor kids from non-white ethnic groups attend preschool, because 4 years later the academic gains attributable to their attendance in preschool have faded. Four years later.

Who the hell cares what happens four years later? The point of the program is to work toward the goal of ensuring that every kid who enters kindergarten does so with the skills necessary to be successful. In kindergarten.

Point taken.

SF School Photoblogging: Everett MS, Take 2

Everett, Like Mission High, is so striking and so noteworthy it deserves to be featured over and over again in our photoblogging series.

Of course, I really need to take a field trip and snap some new shots of the many, many architecturally significant schools in our district. It will happen. But for now, we take a moment to appreciate Everett Middle School.

More Info on MySpace

A while back I posted A word about MySpace.com which has been one of the more popular posts in our archives — thank you all. The media attention on MySpace continues to build, and way too much of it is sensationalistic hyping of the dire threat it poses to teens.

What rubbish. MySpace is OK. Being a teenager involves risks, with or without MySpace.

Dipping my oar in the waters again, and trying to move the debate a little closer to sanity, here are two articles about MySpace that attempt to put it in a context that will be familiar to clueless parents who might otherwise be prone to the hysteria.

First up is a short FAQ from the folks at Wired: A MySpace Cheat Sheet for Parents that offers calm answers to the following questions

• Can I search MySpace to see if my kid is on it?…
• I did it anyway. Should I be worried that my teenage girl is linked to so many male "friends?"…
• What if she's linking to adult men? That can't be good.…
• How should I talk to them about MySpace?…
• What is MySpace doing to protect its users?…

Next I recommend checking out this recent post on Boing Boing: Why kids are on MySpace

danah boyd has published an excellent paper on the hows and whys of the explosive growth of teen users of MySpace, the most popular social networking site ever. boyd, a high-tech social scientist who has an excellent track-record for winkling out the important truths behind social uses of tech. Her clear-eyed work on MySpace talks about the youth-liberation aspects of the service as well as the response, situating in history.

The Boing Boing post links to Boyd's full paper, which I also recommend. Hopefully both of these posts will help calm down any anxious parents out there.

In spite of their advice, I do think it is perfectly OK for parents to search MySpace and read their kid's profiles and their kid's friend's profiles, as long as they are willing to respect their child's independence and not make a big deal out of normal teenage exploration. But I do urge parents to give their kids a wide berth on MySpace. So much of a teen's life is regulated, scrutinized, and restricted these days that they really need a place to hang out without the reproach of adults.

Think of your own teenage years, your own juvenile recklessness, and your need for some privacy and independence from your parents before clamping down on what you as a parent might perceive as risky on-line behaviour. It is their space. It is their hang-out. They know about the creeps and the pervs and how to protect themselves. Cut 'em some slack. (But keep your eyes and ears open, just in case.)

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Try this quiz — and think, if you can't pass this, you wouldn't be able to pass CASHEE and you would not have a High School diploma!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

I guess I'm OK:

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

District "Fact Sheet" on UESF Negotiations

A while back we posted part of an email from the UESF to its memebers explaining that the negotiations with the district had reached an impasse. Since then the district has posted their side of the story on their website. Here are some of the key points from their Update on UESF Negotiations:

SFUSD Current Proposal

District initial proposal was 4% plus a one time bonus of $500 (Teachers) and $200 (para).

Proposal of Feb. 2nd included:

• 2% salary increase retro to January 1, 2006
• 1% additional salary increase effective July 1, 2006
• 1% additional salary increase effective January 1, 2007
• 3.5% salary increase effective June 30, 2007
• Each percentage point salary increase is equal to $3 million
• Total offer is 7.5% over the next 18 months
• Total estimated cash value of salary increases offered by SFUSD is over $36 million, including nearly $11 million next year.

UESF Current Proposal

UESF initial proposal was 12% with 6% each year.

Proposal of Jan. 17th included:

• 3% salary increase retro to July 1, 2005
• 3% additional salary increase effective July 1, 2006
• 4% additional salary increase effective January 1, 2007
• $400 (Teachers) and $200 (Para) one time bonus
• Total proposal is 11% over the next 18 months (10% on schedule plus 1% off schedule)
• Total estimated cash value of current UESF proposal is over $50 million

COLA - Where does it go?

• For 2006-2007 the Gross Revenue Limit increase or COLA is $18.6 million dollars
• Subtract $5.2 million for declining enrollment
• Subtract $2.1 million for retiree health benefits cost
• Subtract $2.1 million for active employee health benefit cost
• Subtract $2.7 million for step and column increases for all bargaining units
• Total remaining ("Net") COLA is $6.4 million for SY 2006-2007

Please note that this update from the district is dated February 14, 2006. On that same date there was a BOE meeting at which UESF president Dennis Kelly offered this optimistic quote, "I think this is resolvable[...] I'm hopeful. I don't think the numbers are that far apart." So I think we have to take the very different accounting of each side's offer with a grain of salt. This "fact sheet" from the district, like the UESF email update, are part of the negotiating process.

Also note that this district fact sheet is not new. Hopefully the negotiations continue and progress is being made -- quietly, at the table, as a result of good faith bargaining. When I hear about updates, I will report them hear.

What I would really like to know about is what is the BOE doing to break this impasse and get the deal done? Are they making sure that Superintendent Chan's negotiating team has every resource they need to make a deal? Are all the resources that were brought to bear to resolve the SEIU deadlock — like City Controller Ed Harrington — being brought to bear now instead of waiting for the last minute? Or are they diddling and letting the negotiations stall, waiting for the heat to rise so they can appear to be the ones to rush in an "solve" the problem at the last minute?

Matching Contributions

An sfschools list colleague sent me an interesting letter from the RoofTop parent's group containing a list of corporations that have matching gift programs. Gift matching, and directed charitable giving, are great ways to enhance fundraising for any charity, including school related parent groups like a school's PTA.

Your contribution can go twice as far!

Are you an employee or retiree from one of these organizations? If the answer is yes, your current or former employer may match your contribution to Rooftop PTA. It's easy - contact your Human Resources administrator for details on how your company can join you in supporting Rooftop PTA.

Though the letter come to me from Rooftop via the PPS listserve, typically any 501c3 charity is eligible for matching gifts. Check out the list to see if your employer is included. Leave us a comment if you notice any errors or omissions in the list!

New superintendent, old story

The Daily Howler expounds today on two recurring syndromes: enthusiastic, too-glowing-to-live-up-to accolades for new superintendents stepping into the top role in challenging school districts, and education reporters who parrot inaccurate statistics and information without checking.

Today's topic is John Deasy, moving from the top spot in the Santa Monica-Malibu school district to run Prince George's County schools in Maryland. Deasy is moving from a small, largely white and wealthy district to a huge, heavily disadvantaged minority district. When the Washington Post ran a flattering story about Deasy's candidacy for the job, it misleadingly quoted statistics for Santa Monica-Malibu schools that included adult students. Those statistics inflated both the size of the school district (from 12,500 to 14,000 students) and the percentage of disadvantaged nonwhite students (because adult students tend to be from hard-knock lives). That inaccuracy may have lessened the impression that Deasy is underwhelmingly qualified to run a high-poverty, 133,000-student district.

Howler nicks the Post for its mild, unconcerned correction of the misinformation in its Feb. 23 profile of Deasy.

I posted last October about a chapter of Jonathan Kozol's book "The Shame of the Nation" that addresses "the high set of expectations that attach themselves to changes in the topmost personnel." The public and the press tend to make new superindents the toast of the town, predicting that true reform has arrived. When it doesn't happen, the thumping begins.

Let's see what happens to Deasy. Sorry not to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this syndrome sounds pretty familiar.

— Caroline

Extra-special Education

Readers of last Sunday’s Chronicle were treated to an “expose” of lavish settlements parents have won in special education disputes with their school districts. Particularly egregious-sounding was the lead anecdote, the case of a San Mateo county student with learning disabilities who, despite being offered a program that included daily help from a special education teacher and an advocate to negotiate with teachers at his local public high school, ended up in a plush private boarding school in Maine that doesn’t even offer special education. His school district was eventually ordered to pay half the cost of the tuition after his parents took them to court (they had previously won tuition for the boy’s private middle school).

The article went on to offer quotes from a panoply of school district consultants and lawyers decrying the increasingly litigious and greedy special education parents who are robbing underfunded districts to secure lavish private school tuitions, dolphin therapy and horseback riding for their children with disabilities.

Ah, yes, let’s demonize special education parents as welfare queens, sponging off the rest of us and laughing all the way to the bank in their tricked out Cadillacs. Let’s ignore the fact that a 2000 report from the National Council on Disability found that, 25 years after the passage of the landmark legislation that guides special education, all 50 states were out of compliance with some aspect of the law.

What was missing from the Chronicle’s two full pages on this topic was a balancing perspective from the vast majority of special education parents, teachers and administrators who are frustrated with Congress and the state legislatures’ failure to fully fund the services mandated under the law. What was missing was a look at the many desperate tactics school districts use to try and make ends meet: stonewalling, intimidation, outright misinformation and offering children programs that have been designed to provide services with the lowest possible cost instead of the highest possible quality. Finally, what was missing was the undisputed point that parents provide the only enforcement of special education legislation, through taking districts to court when they fail to provide the appropriate, individualized and “least restricted” educational programs that are required by the law. Perhaps a tiny minority of these parents have overreached, but most are simply trying to get their school districts to meet basic standards in educating children with all manner of disabilities. Why didn’t we hear from any of them?

Both learning-disabled and GATE: chat about it

A new listserve discusses the needs of kids who are both learning-disabled and gifted and talented (LD/GATE). Sign on to share your concerns and learn from others by e-mailing:

SF-GATE-LD-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

School Board Notes 2.14.06

School Board Notes
2.14.06
By Nicole Achs Freeling

Enlivening a meeting held Valentine's Day eve, about a dozen UESF members carrying big hearts reading "Fair Play" and "Equal Protection" passed out candy and cards in a lighthearted effort to call attention to its ongoing contract battle with the district. "We are asking you to be our Valentine," teacher Darcie Chan Blackburn said. "We love our jobs. … But love is a two-way street," Blackburn said, calling for the district to meet the union's pay raise demands. Contract negotiations are currently at an impasse, largely due to conflict over salary increases; UESF has asked for an 11 percent increase over the next 18 months, while the district has proposed a 7.5 percent increase in that time.

UESF President Dennis Kelly said the tone of the demonstration reflected a sense of optimism that the district and union can come to an agreement. "I think this is resolvable," he said. "If not, we'll be back in here screaming. But I'm hopeful. I don't think the numbers are that far apart."

Chief Administrative Officer Orla O'Keefe presented information to the board about students transitioning from schools recently voted to be closed or merged. Out of the 408 students in the closed schools who would have to find new placements, over 300, or about 75 percent, have submitted applications for other schools. In schools that were voted to be merged into other schools, 53 percent have applied to go to another school in the district entirely. Many JBBP West students have asked to be placed in Dianne Feinstein Elementary, a brand new school that will open next fall, while many John Swett students have applied to Tenderloin Elementary.

The board unanimously passed a resolution to call for the immediate withdrawal of California National Guard Troops from Iraq. The resolution, which calls on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to push for the withdrawal of the state's troops, joins similar calls made by the California State Legislature and numerous cities and counties, including San Francisco. While some have questioned the sway a school board resolution can carry in such matters, Commissioner Dan Kelly, who introduced the resolution, noted that the resolution helped underscore strong grassroots opposition to the war in the community.

Several members of the community appeared to support a call by Sarah Lipson and Norman Yee for an independent financial audit of the district as it changes leadership from outgoing superintendent Arlene Ackerman to interim superintendent Gwen Chan, who presided over her first meeting as acting superintendent Tuesday. The item, which was introduced for first reading Tuesday night, was not acted upon and did not generate discussion among the board. The call for an audit has reportedly sparked controversy, however, between some members of the board, who say it is standard, and Ackerman, whose lawyer has said it is an attempt to harass her.

826 Valencia January Teacher of the Month

Once again, the good folks at 826 Valencia have honored a San Francisco teacher with their Teacher of the Month award Congratulations to Tanya Elizabeth Friedman

Congratulations to the January Teacher of the Month, Ms. Tanya Elizabeth Friedman of the San Francisco Community School. Thanks to her extraordinary efforts, she has created a classroom that helps students realize their full potential in a challenging, engaging and, of course, fun environment.

In her second and third grade combined classroom, Tanya is a tireless force of nature. She consistently acknowledges her student’s brilliance and masterminds an even playing field for all students. Encouraging her students to aspire for excellence, she works one-on-one with her students and finds unique ways to make learning exciting.

If you or the student in your family know of a special teacher that has touched your family's life, take a moment and nominate them for this award. See the FAQ on the 826 Valencia site, or contact Nínive Calegari for more information.

What went wrong in Minneapolis?

Here's a cautionary tale about Superintendent searches gone wrong. Not only can picking a Superintendent can be a risky crap shot, it can quickly turn into a costly fiasco. But it is amusing to note the dollar figures involved. We should get away so cheap!

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune,
School superintendent buyouts: What went wrong?
Buyouts of Minneapolis and Osseo superintendents raise questions about search processes.
Norman Draper, Star Tribune

Superintendents in two of the Twin Cities' largest school districts were bought out and sent packing within two weeks of each other. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent to get rid of them. One had been superintendent for a year and a half; the other, only seven months.

What went wrong?

The outcome might have been unavoidable. Finding a good superintendent is a complex process, often involving national search firms that patch together profiles of what communities and boards of education want and match them with the available talent. With different people wanting different things, selecting just the right superintendent is no slam dunk.

"In the end it's a crapshoot," said Bob Lowe, a former Minnesota superintendent who is now an official with the Minnesota School Boards Association.

Book Suggestions for Boys - an unconventional source (for SF)

The following message, originally posted to the sfschools list, provides a fascinating list of reading recommendations for high school boys. Girls too, but we are talking about a reading list for Marines here. Check it out.

---

I just came across this:
MARINE CORPS PROFESSIONAL READING PROGRAM

1. Purpose. In ref a, i stated "in order to increase the depth of our professional education, we will reinvigorate the professional reading program." the purpose of this ALMAR is to initiate actions that will accomplish that goal, contribute to the growth of aggressive and informed leaders, and above all ensure that our main effort as serious practitioners of the profession of arms remains excellence in warfighting. 2. Objectives. The 29th Commandant, General A. M. Gray, identified in his initiating documents for this program, Ref B, six objectives for the professional reading program in order to provide a continuum of study for all marine leaders. These objectives are unchanged and are reiterated as follows:

• To impart a sense of marine values and traits.
• To increase knowledge of our profession.
• To improve analytical and reasoning skills.
• To increase capacity of using printed media as a means of learning and communication.
• To increase knowledge of our nation's institutions and the principles upon which our country and way of life were founded.
• To increase knowledge of the world's governments, culture, and geography.

This is the official Marine Corps professional reading list - which emphasizes, among other things, that it is "achievable by all Marines" - and that is a matter that is pertinent to high-school reading lists I would think.

Now, as it happens, the educational standard of the US armed forces is much higher than that of the general US population, so a lot of these suggestions may test the envelope of what is achievable in high school.

Some of these books really are professional works ("Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat"), but others are modern novels, even thrillers, but of a certain sort - Pressfields "Gates of Fire", for one. I can see how that would work in High School. It is both complex and gripping, but extremely bloody, if that is an issue. For what its worth I have given this book to teenage boys with the universal comment of "awesome!".

The ordering of the works is fascinating. "Blackhawk Down" is recommended for Pfc's, but "All Quiet on the Western Front" is for colonels and generals. There are some real surprises in here as well as many old standards.

A lot of them, however, do answer the question of finding books that will both engage boys and teach them something useful. And history is always useful.

Some are old standby's that seem to have fallen away from the younger generations, like C.S. Foresters books, which I can certainly recommend as absorbing reads, and I would think probably are appropriate for much younger children.

Others include non-fiction works, like those of Keegan, which are analyses of military history, but extremely well done and interesting to almost anyone.

If any kid in high school is not reading Shaara's "Killer Angels" for American history class, well, shame on someone.

So, FYI.

Ackerman in the (bad) news

There have been many stories in the papers about Arlene Ackerman's "emeritus" status and her $38K in expenses she has charged the district this year. The first article to be cited on the sfschools list was Matier and Ross' No 'amiable parting' for S.F. superintendent from 2/6:

The "smooth transition" of power over at the San Francisco school district is turning out to be anything but -- especially after a behind-closed-doors blowup between outgoing Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, her attorney and some school board members.

The Chron followed up on 2/8 with the editorial, One chief too many

Clarity in leadership is essential for the functioning of any school district -- especially one such as San Francisco's, which faces multiple challenges.

Yet, beginning last week, the San Francisco schools have an "interim superintendent" as well as a "superintendent emeritus," both of whom are paid full-time salaries.

To this point the focus of the reporting had been on the question of who is in charge, and how was this going to work. The story has more recently focused on the expenses. On 2/9 Heather Knight wrote, Schools chief's credit conflict , Some commissioners call Ackerman's charges excessive:

Outgoing San Francisco schools chief Arlene Ackerman racked up $45,625 in credit card charges in 2005 -- mostly in meals, airplane tickets and hotels -- which have been reimbursed by the San Francisco Unified School District at taxpayer expense.

The $45K figure was misleading since some of the expenses were reimbursed. The district has actually paid $38K of that total. Tali Woodward did a better job of reporting this in Ackerman's hefty expense account

Records at the heart of Arlene Ackerman's most recent dispute with members of the San Francisco Board of Education show that the outgoing superintendent racked up more than $45,000 in expenses on a single Diner's Club corporate account during 2005. The charges include plane tickets, dozens upon dozens of meals, and a least nine stays in luxury hotels.

Several thousand dollars have been repaid to the district by nonprofit entities or by Ackerman herself, the records show, but the school district has picked up the vast majority of charges, totaling about $38,000, a preliminary analysis of roughly 250 pages of records shows. Ackerman has hired an attorney who specializes employment discrimination and is threatening to sue board members for "harassment," in part because of requests for these documents made late last month.

As one sfschools poster said, "Moving on sounds good." With all of the important business on the BOE's docket, why are we still fighting last year's battles?

Supporting teachers -- or taking aim at them?

I decided to blog about the book "Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers" (Daniel Moulthrop, Ninive Clements Calegari and Dave Eggers). Then after I finished it, I thought, jeez, I really have to do a lot of side research to do this thoroughly.

But I'm a working mom with a lot of volunteer commitments (and I ain't getting paid by the hour to blog), so if I want to get this done at all, I'm going to have to do it without the research I'd prefer.

"Teachers Have It Easy" (THIE) is written by the folks who bring us the wonderful 826 Valencia writing workshop, which also offers a $1,500 award for a teacher each month. I think their commitment to improving the lives of teachers is sincere, so I just have to speculate that they've been badly misled.

The two issues here are that THIE basically supports the whole notion of tying teacher pay to performance, a plan favored by the union-busting and public-school-bashing right and often viewed as an attack on teachers. And it strongly supports charter schools, which are at bottom a weapon in the right's arsenal aimed at weakening and destroying public education. Busting teachers' unions is also a key goal of the charter movement. That's about paying them less, not more.

I believe — I hope — that the authors genuinely didn't get all this, as opposed to the more conspiratorial view. Either view is unpleasant and troubling. 826 Valencia is an admirable project (my own daughter is doing her second session of workshops there right now).

THIE focuses a lot on the SFUSD charter Leadership High School and one awesome former teacher, Jonathan Dearman, who burned himself out devoting superhuman effort to working with Leadership's largely at-risk students. Drained and broke, he gave it up to go into real estate. (See my previous commentary on how charter school successes based on demanding superhuman commitment from overworked teachers are unsustainable.) Leadership, THIE correctly notes, once had a stellar reputation and is now in meltdown, with students rushing to get out of there and into SFUSD's once-scorned Balboa High School (just down the block) faster than you can say "midsemester transfer." The reason, THIE indicates, is that — well, charter school successes based on demanding superhuman commitment from overworked teachers are unsustainable.

Yet THIE really doesn't get the nature of the charter setup. In writing about Dearman, the authors indicate that he would have been held to SFUSD's salary schedule. Well, no, he wouldn't. Charter school teachers in SFUSD (and most places) are nonunion, not held to SFUSD's salary schedule, and charters can pay them whatever they want. That's a pretty huge point to miss, and I feel like I should call up one of the authors and ask "hey, what's the deal here?" Pressed for time, I'll just post that question here instead.

I'm sure Leadership couldn't afford to pay him more, but that's not because they were forced to stick with some old hidebound union contract. They could have done anything they could afford, and the SFUSD pay scale doesn't apply.

THIE has a long section praising a charter in Pacoima, near Los Angeles, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. Vaughn teachers, it says, get lower base pay than teachers in L.A. Unified, but can bump their pay way up with performance bonuses. The principal devotes a lot of her time and energy to fundraising (of course via the Gates Foundation, with its eternal faith in showering money on anything as long as it's a charter).

I can't confirm or dispute THIE's claims about Vaughn's success — its API ranking is only 3 (scale of 1-10, with 10 being highest), but its Similar Schools ranking (against schools with comparable demographics) is 9. In the little research I did do, I found a right-wing (of course)commentary praising Vaughn with this dubious point:

It was decided to add grades because too many of Vaughn’s now-successful students were running into difficulties as they moved to higher grades in conventional schools within the district.

To me, that's a warning sign that those kids were unprepared for conventional schools — indicating failure, not success, by Vaughn.

Vaughn is extremely segregated — 97% Latino — again, see my previous cmomentary. It's also huge — a K-8 of nearly 1,500 students — which I swear THIE never mentions. Charter advocates routinely portray charters as a way to create popular small schools, so I couldn't help wondering if THIE specifically chose not to mention that glaring point — unflattering in an era when large schools are widely viewed as impersonal and dehumanizing. If I missed the reference, I eat my words.

An afterword written by Dave Eggers praises Green Dot Public Schools, one of the numerous enterprises (this one a nonprofit) devoted to opening chains of charter schools. As SFUSD Board of Ed commissioner Jill Wynns points out, what these chains amount to are separate, parallel school districts — publicly funded but entirely unaccountable to the public. (Yes, I know the charter advocates will retort that they're accountable to the parents whose kids attend. That's about marketing — for example, Edison Schools win parent loyalty largely by giving inflated grades and dumping troublemaking kids out into district schools — and ignores a school district's responsibility to do what's best for all kids, not just the kids in one school.)

THIE further gives me pause by quoting right-wing education "researcher" Caroline Minter Hoxby in several places, without even hinting at her widely known identity as a vigorous public-education opponent — the charter/voucher/privatization queen.

The area I'd really like to have researched before I commented is the notion of merit pay and performance bonuses vs. "lockstep" pay scales. I know that teachers' unions view the former as a long-term way to weaken teachers by eliminating their bargaining strength. I wish I could discuss that part more knowledgeably. But this book left me baffled by advocating a position so strongly favored by the anti-public-school elements of the right, without really seeming to fathom what it was saying. I don't get it.

&mdash Caroline

Help your child's school thrive

It's sad to see the energy expended fighting school closures, which could have done so much more good helping the schools thrive all along.

So, here are some suggestions for school communities, for strengthening schools now.

• Get involved in your school and your kids' education. Go to PTA meetings, school events, teacher conferences. Ask your teacher or your PTA officers how you can volunteer. Mountains of evidence link parent involvement with higher achievement by their kids (and think of the good karma). And involved parents are the hallmark of a thriving school.
• Pay attention to what's going on at the school. Read the school newsletter, dig into your kids' backpacks to make sure you get information sent home from school, join the listserve, listen to the autodialer calls.
• Do everything possible to ensure that your children are learning effectively. Make sure they do their homework and get to school on time; limit screen time; make sure they get adequate sleep and good nutrition; support and encourage their achievements; require them to behave appropriately, dress appropriately and respect their teachers, and model that behavior yourself; talk to and listen to their teachers.
• If your school doesn't have a PTA, START ONE. Contact the San Francisco PTA online or at 415/241-6048. You need 15 members and three officers.
• This applies if you're a teacher, too. Join the PTA or start one and work to keep it thriving. The T is for teacher.
• Attend district PTA events and subscribe to the SFPTA newsletter. E-mail to 2nd-dist-biweekly-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to subscribe.
• Promote your school to parents looking for schools. Bring your friends in. Invite parents to visit the school and lead them on tours.
• Get involved in Parents for Public Schools (415/468-7077) to support and promote your school and your child's learning.

&mdash Caroline

An unexpected perspective

Ms Frizzle is a well-know blog by a science teacher in NYC. Her blog offers many insights into a teacher's life, as well as her views on current issues like school reform, NCLB, etc. But I had never heard her speak about unions before this post which airs some complaints about the NYC union, the UFT, and their ongoing contract negations: Pay attention, UFT

I don't like this oppositional system we have for making important decisions. I don't think there should be so many sides, all doubting each other's motives, playing politics with our paychecks, pitting us against one another. I resent the energy dissipated that could go into productive conversations that would benefit the children. I particularly resent the energy on top of energy dissipated in arguing within the union.

Read the whole post. She is not stating a knee-jerk anti-union position at all. She feels the union should have put its foot down long ago. She just feels the negotiations should never have been allowed to reach their current dysfunctional state.

All of which resonates with me as I try and understand the situation here is SF. The current impasse between teachers and management reeks of an overly oppositional, fractious system that is playing politics with the teachers' paycheck while failing to protect the students' interests. I don't know of anyone who is happy with the way this story is unfolding. I just wonder who will step forward and provide the leadership needed to complete the UESF contract.

Does Superintendent Chan have a strong enough hand to break the impasse? Today's news tells me no. From my outsider's perspective, it's impossible to know who is representing the district and who is delegating what authority to them. Is is Ackerman, Chan, or the BOE? Is any accountable party in charge on the management side?

Is the union bargaining team acting in good faith, being realistic about compromise where compromises are needed while consulting with members and union leaders to ensure that members' priority needs are represented? I should hope that teachers have more than the occasional email updates keeping them in the negotiating loop. Yet the last union meeting I am aware of was months ago during the SEIU brinkmanship, and it gave the impression that behind the impressively united union front there is a need for better internal communication.

Will the BOE act responsibly and step in to fill the void left by the departing Ackerman administration? Will they take an active role in the negotiations sooner than it did in the SEIU fiasco? Again, today's news indicates a divided board is fixated on scapegoating and finger pointing over Ackerman's departure instead of leading.

The BOE should be focusing on the most important district business, completing the contract, instead of grabbing headlines and planning their upcoming election campaigns. But that may be expecting too much from this dysfunctional group. They did beat expectations and come together under difficult circumstances during the final school closure meetings. They showed that they are capable of collegial, respectful, civil deliberations. They need to muster the same professionalism and reinvigorate the contract negotiations. If they dither and allow the impasse to deepen, if they fall back to the pettiness, acrimony, and political grandstanding that marked the end of the SEIU negotiations, if they fail to protect the district finances, then voters will have to make sure they pay for their ineptitude next November.

More on charters hurting districts

On Nov. 30, I posted a comment
about a proposed charter school's attempt to force itself into San Jose's Moreland School District against the district's will.

An anonymous reader posted a response just yesterday to my 2-month-old item. It's alarming.

Charter passed County Board February 1st . Now Charter plans to open in the Fall as usual the School District lacks space to house the charter . It is now forced to close two schools and give layoff notices to Teachers and staff March 15th . Can any one please give any legal advice?

Sun Feb 05, 01:59:12 PM

How long is this going to go on before the press, liberal/progressives and communities get it about how undemocratic and harmful charter schools are? There will be a tipping point, but a lot of damage may be done before that happens.

— Caroline

UESF Declares Impasse

Her's the latest UESF email update from Dennis Kelly

UESF Declares Impasse

---

On Thursday, February 2nd negotiations between the San Francisco Unified School District and the United Educators of San Francisco broke down and UESF declared that an impasse was reached.

The major sticking point in negotiations is the district's refusal to offer a fair pay raise to educators in San Francisco. It is going on 4 years since we have had a raise, and the district's offer fails to even match inflation over that time period!

The district's offer amounts to a one percent raise for this year and no retroactive pay for the past years. The rest of their proposal calls for one or two percent each six months, with 3.5% at the start of the 2007-2008 school year.

The district is also refusing to come to common sense solutions on school safety and denies equal protection for paraprofessionals.

More information about the process of impasse will be posted on our website in the coming week. As this process unfolds we must be clear. The district's unwillingness to respect educators in negotiations significantly increases the likelihood that a strike may be coming to San Francisco.

This Saturday UESF is holding a citywide meeting to train building reps, UBC members, and activists in the steps necessary to conduct successful actions at every school site.

PLEASE PRINT, COPY, POST, AND SHARE WITH UESF COLLEAGUES WHO ARE RECEIVING UNION EMAILS.

United Educators of San Francisco
2310 Mason Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

The charter school "sorting hat"

We keep hearing similar glowing accounts about a certain type of charter school.

These schools focus on low-performing students from disadvantaged demographics that tend to achieve poorly in school. They're almost always segregated — Latino or African-American. They mandate a no-excuses high level of participation by parents/guardians. They set high standards for the students, though they do often find themselves recognizing that their original standards weren't realistic and revising them. They require the students to meet the standards — or else.

They demand long hours from students and teachers. The widely hailed, San Francisco-based KIPP chain of charters runs schools with nine-hour days, Saturday classes and mandatory summer school. In many of these schools, teachers are required to visit students and home and to be available for student and parent/guardian cellphone calls at all waking hours.

Some — perhaps many &mdash schools like this appear to achieve academic success with their students. So what's not to like?

Critics and questioners &mdash who are largely drowned out by the mainstream media's cheering for these schools &mdash point to a few issues. Here are my interpretations.

Like the Harry Potter "sorting hat," there's a vigorous process going on that can't happen in traditional general-ed public schools.

continue reading...

• These schools self-screen for a subset of a demographic. They are all "choice" schools, so all students must have parents/guardians who care enough to learn about and request an educational option. That rules out those who have too many problems to pay attention at all, meaning largely the families with the very most messed-up, low-achieving kids.
• They self-screen for parents/guardians willing to commit to mandatory involvement. Many of these parents/guardians weren't involved in "regular" school when it was optional, but they come through when required to. That rules out those who absolutely can't or won't — and those are the most likely to have messed-up, low-achieving kids.
• They self-screen for students who will commit to trying to meet standards. That rules out another big batch of messed-up, low-achieving kids.
• Of the remaining students, those who can't or won't meet the standards they committed to are outta there, voluntarily or not. So there goes another batch of messed-up, low-achieving kids.

By now, the student population is winnowed to a very specific category -- those who are willing and able to meet the standards and whose families are willing and able to perform the required work, no matter what their histories at previous schools.

As I said, these schools are largely segregated. There's no doubt that it's easier to teach a group of kids from the same background and at the same academic level. Remember Jaime Escalante, the "Stand and Deliver" teacher who brought poor Latino kids in his East L.A. high school to advanced levels of math achievement? Escalante later taught elsewhere, including Sacramento, and was never able to replicate his success. He attributed that largely to the fact that his classes in East L.A. were entirely homogenous — all one demographic, which was also Escalante's own — and he couldn't teach as effectively in diverse classes.

San Jose's Downtown College Prep is a high-profile example of this type of school. Pro-charter author Joanne Jacobs' book about DCP mentions that occasionally a middle-class family with high-achieving kids checks out the school and immediately recognizes it's not for their kind.

I'm not endorsing segregated schools! But we often hear that it's easier, short-term, to work with a homogenous group of similar kids at similar ability levels.

So, we have a type of school with classes full of kids who are very similar to each other. Kids are leaving the school — voluntarily or not — all along the way as they or their parents/guardians fail to live up. Those who remain are those most likely to graduate and (in a situation where colleges are eager to accept promising minority students) go to college.

If a traditional public school could apply all these practices, would it achieve the same successes? And if it could, what would happen to all the other kids — the many who couldn't get with the program due to their own or their parents'/guardians' failings?

Meanwhile, these schools demand superhuman commitment and sacrifice of their teachers and administrators, who must have no life at all. Joanne Jacobs' book and the book "Teachers Have it Easy" (about which I plan to blog later) portray plenty of these hero/martyrs.

Nine-hour days, Saturday school, summer school, on call 24/7, a schedule of visits to students' homes. Nobody could keep this up — which is why the turnover is staggering in those schools. Let's not even go into whether teachers' unions can possibly condone these working conditions.

My husband is training for a cross-country charity bike ride that he hopes to do this summer. He can (we think) manage the regimen of daily 5 a.m. gym workouts and biking to work till the cross-country ride begins in late June. He could not make it a regular lifelong routine. We could not honestly say "Yes! Any 54-year-old can be in shape all the time to take a 3,000-mile bike ride!"

Seems like that's the situation for these teachers. They can work near-miracles with challenging kids — a vigorously screened set of challenging kids — and lift them to undreamed-of heights. But only for a brief while, till the teachers crash and burn. Then another wave of teachers has to come in and take over. How many waves of these teachers are out there?

What these schools are doing is sustainable only if they can achieve it with merely talented, committed teachers under tolerable working conditions, able to live normal lives. If it's not sustainable, the achievement has no value as a "reform." We've seen this with the once-successful Leadership High charter in San Francisco, which is now in meltdown.

And these schools are no basis for hailing charter schools as a successful reform. Any traditional school could achieve the same results if it could utilize the same techniques: teach only students who can meet a set standard, from families willing to commit to significant involvement and support -- all others must go elsewhere. Maintain a segregated, homogeous student population. Demand superhuman, unsustainable commitment from teachers and administrators.

There's nothing mystical about being a charter school that makes these techniques succeed. And these successes are a "reform" only if they can be replicated and sustained.

— Caroline

Purls of wisdom on the S.F. Board of Ed

It's the latest scandal in our fractious school district: Knitgate.

It's shocking but true. BOE Commissioner Jill Wynns &mdash who (like the other six commissioners) is paid all of $500 a month to sit through hundreds of hours of meetings, try to solve insoluble problems and take endless beatings from the public (verbal, I hope, though there was a moment of panic when an angry speaker reached into her purse for a pencil at a recent heated meeting) over her inability to do so— sometimes does needlepoint or knits during meetings.

There have been pointed (so to speak) comments about that from her critics for a while. They've gotten heated during the sad and angry issue of school closures, and some critics are proposing a "knit-in" at a BOE meeting as a jab at Wynns. The comments, I note again, started well before the school-closures controversy. (All BOE members voted to close or merge some schools; this anger is about one particular split vote.)

I maintain that if it were Sarah Lipson (the other female BOE member) doing the knitting, Wynns' critics would be admiring the yarn — Wynns and Lipson often being on the opposite sides of issues.

I posted a comment about this on the sfschools listserve and got a flurry of interesting responses, not by any means from Wynns' political allies, pointing out that kinesthetic learners absorb information better when they're doing something like knitting. The discussion has turned into a knitting fan club. Now the knit-in may evolve into a pro-knitting event. All BOE members would rush to learn to knit to cater to this new constituency.

Even Wynns' sharpest critics readily acknowledge that she's a fount of information and the best-informed BOE member about complex issues like funding. Maybe that's because she knits while she listens.

OK, here's what the critics say. It makes people feel like they're not being heard when she knits while they speak. It's true that Wynns is not prone to warm, fuzzy professions of "I feel your pain" -- not that she doesn't feel people's pain.

One sfschools poster says flatly that elected officials shouldn't knit during public testimony, a new rule I hadn't heard. Matier and Ross: Wynns Spotted in Yarn Aisle at Beverly's.

My quilting friend Margo carries her handiwork in a tote bag emblazoned, "Ladies' Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society." Maybe it's time for a Ladies' BOE Watchers and Knitting Circle.

Full disclosure: I am personal friends with Jill Wynns -- though I admired her from afar standing up to former Supe Bill Rojas during the Rojas Reign of Terror before I ever met her face to face.

Not only that -- I was invited to a birthday gathering for departing Superintendent Arlene Ackerman that was also essentially a going-away party, and knitted her a scarf as a gift.

Handicrafts police! Drop the needles, lady!

— Caroline

NAACP support for NCLB in CT

Here's another bit of interesting bit of news I found via the Jenny D. blog: NAACP Goes To Court To Support NCLB

I just saw this. Connecticut is fighting NCLB in court, and the NAACP has just filed a motion to join with the Bush Administration in support of the law.

The article comes to use from the Hartford Courant article: NAACP Opposes State Lawsuit

The decision to back the Bush administration's controversial school reform law "was very unorthodox for the NAACP," said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state chapter, but he said Connecticut's opposition to the federal law amounts to an excuse to avoid helping minority schoolchildren.

State officials, he said, "are looking for loopholes, looking for ways to get out of what they need to do."

This fits together in a pattern with the recent NYT article(NYT Select subscription required, sorry) that delved into the unexpected support for NCLB by the venerable civil rights greybeard William Taylor. The article explains Taylor's support for NCLB:

WHILE working in Lyndon B. Johnson's administration as staff director of the Commission on Civil Rights, Mr. Taylor recalled, he saw firsthand the utility of backing up laudable values with tough enforcement. Only a decade after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education did Southern schools start to comply, he said, because only then did Washington threaten to withhold federal dollars from districts that defied the integration order.

In the desegregation program in metropolitan St. Louis, Mr. Taylor has seen 12,000 black students who attend suburban schools record higher marks and better graduation rates than their peers left behind in the city.

''These suburban schools are accountable to their communities,'' Mr. Taylor told the audience at Teachers College. ''They have high standards and the students respond to those standards. And if a teacher or a principal is falling short, you know they will be gone. That's not the case in most central-city schools.''

The legal reality since a 1974 Supreme Court ruling is that such regional integration plans cannot be imposed, but only entered into voluntarily. So, for Mr. Taylor, still crusading for something at age 74, No Child Left Behind offers not a panacea but an obtainable possibility.

''I can't think of any other issues on which I agree with Bush,'' Mr. Taylor said. ''Iraq has been a disaster. There was no basis for privatizing Social Security. There's a growing inequality due to tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts in social programs. Nevertheless, I can work with the administration on this issue. You can't wait for a perfectly ordered universe.''

I'm not convinced that NCLB's penalties will really spur equitable change. I think it is equally likely to harm low income students since the penalties will negatively impact their schools without ushering in anything better. Still, it is interesting to note that accountability and enforcement does offer hope for students in inferior schools.

Disillusionment over Teach for America

Tmao of Teaching in the 408 — a Teach for America (TFA) alum — blogged a sharp, sad commentary about TFA today.

He points out unhappily that TFA ("Teach for Awhile") treats it as a given that these bright-eyed youth will spend a couple of years in the classroom helping disadvantaged urban kids, and then go on to their real lives, probably something important and lucrative.

... the myth [is] that the best way to bring about educational reform is to 1) align yourself with media-friendly small/charter school movements and undermine the school communities you promote yourself as serving and 2) steer talented individuals with some teaching experience out of the classroom and into other fields so they can tangentially affect the lives of today's poor urban and rural youth.

It's an insider perspective we don't see often.

(Speaking of bright eyes, the youthful Tmao has the wisdom of a much older person — but apparently not the vision, and I refer here to the literal kind of vision the optometrist deals with. We middle-aged geezers struggle to read the white-on-black reverse lettering on his blog.)

— Caroline