Foothill College President Judy Miner

By John Fensterwald on November 30th, 2009

Comments on Foothill College President Judy Miner on the impact of budget cuts

(The Mercury News published this column on  Sunday’s editorial page.)

Two voices called out when I heard that dozens of students on University of California campuses had been arrested for occupying college buildings in protest of the 32 percent fee increase that UC regents had passed.

One was that of the indignant college sophomore who was hauled off to the city jail in Boston in 1970 after refusing to leave the plaza at Government Center during a Vietnam War protest. The other was that of my disbelieving father who asked, “You were taken where for doing what?”

I am the age my dad was then and closer in sensibility to him now than to the youth I once was. I also have a daughter who’s a freshman at UC-Davis and, much to my relief, was busy studying calculus when others took over Mrak Hall.

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By John Fensterwald on November 30th, 2009

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An excellent report by California Watch, a new investigative team of reporters created by the Center for Investigative Reporting,  should prompt discussion in Sacramento on the future of California’s class-size reduction program.

The report found that most large school districts had already abandoned the 20:1 student-teacher ratio that was the hallmark of class-size reduction when Gov. Pete  Wilson and the Legislature created it 13 years ago for grade K-3 and some 9^th grade classes. Some districts have expanded early-grade classes to as large as 30 students.

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By John Fensterwald on November 25th, 2009

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For those nearing retirement or otherwise ready to hang it up from high tech, here’s something to mull over during Turkey Day: If you’ve pondered teaching as a second career, EnCorps may have a place for you.

Buoyed by its first year track record, the San Francisco-based non-profit has set a goal of recruiting 250 science and math teachers for underserved high schools in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It’s hoping for serious inquiries from nearly 2,000 candidates within the next two months and is counting on a viral ad campaign millionwaystoteach.org to help. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on November 24th, 2009

Comments on EnCorps recruiting 250 science, math teachers

• A one-year residency program for aspiring teachers;

• A data warehouse of assessments to measure individual students’ growth;

• A performance-based pay system that teacher help design.

A consortium of five charter school organizations operating in Los Angeles will make these innovations with a seven-year, $60 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,plus $16 million in matching money that they must raise.

They are also precisely the sorts of things that the state should be considering in its application for the Race to the Top competition. Improving teacher performance, including using data as a factor to set teachers’ pay, is a  primary focus of the $4.35 billion federal program. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on November 22nd, 2009

Comments on How LA charters will spend Gates’ $60 million

How much spending is cut for K-12 schools and higher education next year may be determined not in Sacramento but in Washington, D.C. – and perhaps by the White House.

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor this week projected an 18-month state budget deficit of $20.7 billion ($6.3 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30 and the rest next year).

Using the roughest rule of thumb, with K-12 schools and community colleges receiving roughly 40 percent of the budget and higher ed an additional 10 percent, one would assume that education could be expected to absorb 50 percent of that deficit – or $10 billion. That assumes, for the moment, no higher fees and taxes and no new budget gimmicks (Haven’t we run out of those by now?).

But cutting education will bump against the federal government’s demand that states maintain their levels of spending for education in order to receive stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

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By John Fensterwald on November 20th, 2009

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By John Fensterwald on November 19th, 2009

Comments on Linda Murray: Districts should adopt the a-g curriculum

Many school districts apparently have inflated the numbers of  graduating seniors they say have the grades and course completion to qualify for a four-year state university. But probably none has overstated it as much as San Jose Unified.

Until this year,  the district had been claiming that two-thirds of its graduating seniors were eligible to enter a California State University or University of California school. Last summer, it learned that it had been calculating that number wrong for years. Instead of the 64 to 66 percent rate it had reported for six straight years, the corrected number dropped to 41.3 percent for the class of 2008.

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By John Fensterwald on November 19th, 2009

Comments on One district’s embarrassing mistake

The polarized arguments were familiar this week at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation forum in San Jose on a-g, the set of 15 courses required for admission to a four-year state school.

• The establishment of a-g as a district’s default curriculum has opened up opportunities for students who never imagined themselves college-capable. If instituted with academic supports for struggling students, an a-g curriculum will not lead to a higher dropout rate but will offer more students, especially minority children, higher level courses. That’s been the San Jose Unified experience, Linda Murray, the former superintendent who instituted a-g, said. Making a-g standard could avoid what Neal Finkelstein, a senior researcher at WestEd, described as the “heartbreak” of many seniors who discover they’re a few credits short of being eligible to go to college. (Listen to my interview of Murray on why districts should adopt an a-g curriculum.)

• The spread of a-g has narrowed the academic curriculum, San Jose State engineering professor Seth Bates said, and all but destroyed once-thriving career technical education programs that gave students hard skills for real jobs in electronics, construction and manufacturing. A-g has not contributed to a higher rate of college attendance and graduation. It has led to more than half of high school students entering the workforce unprepared, without skills.

But Finkelstein and other speakers also agreed it’s a false dichotomy.

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By John Fensterwald on November 18th, 2009

Comments on Career academies, where a-g and job training meet

Perhaps in response to criticism that the Assembly was dawdling, Speaker Karen Bass has pushed up by two weeks a hearing on possible  Race to the Top legislation and indicated that she might call members into a December special session — “if need be” — to help the state compete for a share of the $4.35 billion federal competition.

The state’s application is due Jan. 19. The success of California’s bid for as much as $700 million will depend  largely on the persuasiveness of the state’s as yet unformed plan – and the willingness of school districts to join it. But  legislators can strengthen  the application by committing to reform in  four key areas of Race to the Top: (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on November 17th, 2009

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