The vice president of the California Teachers Association said last week that he wouldn’t oppose alternative pay plans for teachers, under two conditions: They must be negotiated locally, and they must not tie teacher raises to results on California’s annual, high-stakes standardized tests.

Dean Vogel was a panelist on a forum on pay for performance sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. The other panelists, who included a high school principal, a superintendent, an executive at a Silicon Valley corporation and a leader at a philanthropic organization who has studied the issue extensively, agreed it was time to pursue new ways to reward teacher excellence and leadership.

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By John Fensterwald on March 8th, 2010

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A six-month stab at school competition with nationwide interest ended Tuesday when Los Angeles Unified school board members turned control of more schools to groups of teachers than Superintendent Ramon Cortines had recommended. There will certainly  be an injection of experimentation in schools organized by unionized teachers as a result– but also fewer quality charter schools than had been predicted in August when the trustees opened up 12 low-performing schools and 18 new schools to bids by outside groups.

United Teachers Los Angeles, which has seen a decline in membership and could lose hundreds more teachers to layoffs next fall, lobbied hard to keep the 30 schools under its control. In the end, board members gave union-affiliated teachers 22 of the 30 campuses, with four new schools turned over to charters and three to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s non-profit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

The board’s decision to shut out three of the city’s respected charter school outfits – Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and  Green Dot Public Schools from sharing five small schools at the new Esteban Torres High School, and ICEF (Inner City Education Foundation Public Schools)  from sharing the campus at the new Barack Obama Global Prep – frustrated  charter advocates. Jed Wallace, CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, said in a statement that “the supporters of the status quo and adult concerns trump(ed) making good decisions on the behalf of children.”

Ben Austin, an organizer for the group Parent Revolution, was more blunt in an e-mail: “Parents are going to take back and transform their schools by any means necessary because they only get one chance to give their kids the education they deserve.”

If anyone is worrying about bloodshed on the streets, Austin is talking about the metaphorical “parent trigger” ­– the law that the Legislature passed last month allowing a majority of parents to petition local school trustees  to turn around their struggling school. One option, which some parent groups will demand, is to invite in a charter school, though the board has the final say. Within a few months, Los Angeles may see the first petition.

Los Angeles Unified’s public school choice motion is designed to create innovation through competition. That will happen in some of the 30 schools, where teacher groups, threatened with a loss of jobs, came up with interesting plans. But charter participation is the leverage to make change happen. Whether the board’s vote shutting out some of the charters will discourage more from applying in the next round remains an open question.

By John Fensterwald on February 24th, 2010

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Districts aiming to raise scores of middle school students shouldn’t count on hiring a messianic principal or jiggling the grade configuration of a school or making vague commitments to excellence – or any single tie-it-in-a-bow policy.

The hard work – and success – come from aligning instruction in every grade to state standards, setting measurable goals, committing to see that all students are prepared for the rigors of high school and staying true to the practices that bring results. Lower-income schools that follow these strategies can overcome the drag of demographics and achieve the success of middle schools in middle-income neighborhoods.

That’s among the key findings of an extensive study of 303 California middle schools covering 204,000 students – the most comprehensive survey of those grades – by the non-profit EdSource and Stanford University Professor Michael Kirst, the lead researcher.  With an unusually high 88 percent response rate, 3,572 English language arts and math teachers, including teachers at 27 charter schools, 303 principals and 157 superintendents filled out a survey with 900 specific items on school strategies.

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By John Fensterwald on February 23rd, 2010

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Knowledge of science and math can make you the next Olympian. At least that’s what I would tell any 12-year-old with dreams of bringing home the gold in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

You, young Sidney Crosby: See why slamming the ice with your stick an instant before you strike the puck adds speed to your slap shot.

Hey, aspiring Kim Yu-na: Study the law of conservation of angular momentum and centripetal force to make you a whirling dervish with a triple toe loop.

Shaun White wanna-be: Learn the physics of angular momentum, drag and torque before you even think about imitating that gravity- and death-defying Double McTwist 1260.

And you, their teachers: Inspire them by going  to Lessonopoly to watch videos on the physics behind Olympic sports and download some hands-on experiments to reinforce what students are watching.

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By John Fensterwald on February 22nd, 2010

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On Saturday, parents, teachers, students, neighbors – truth is, anyone who feels like it – will have another chance to vote on who should take over 30 Los Angeles Unified schools.

If the balloting is anything like Tuesday’s fiasco at the polls, Superintendent Ramon Cortines should take all the votes and shred them. That chaotic exercise in democracy threatened to discredit  the district’s bold experiment in school choice.

In a move that has drawn national attention, last fall the school board agreed to open up 12 failing schools and 18 new schools to bids from charter schools, community organizations and in-district groups of teachers and administrators. It’s the first round of a multi-year process that promises to transform the nation’s second largest district – and one of the nation’s most intransigent. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on February 5th, 2010

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Take heart, innovators in Long Beach Unified and union reformers and charter operators in Los Angeles. If California’s Race to the Top application flames out, there will still be opportunities for you.

On the day that California, 39 other states and the District of Columbia submitted their plans for the $4.3 billion grant competition, President Obama proposed adding another round – just for school districts. Assuming that Congress goes along, districts will compete for an additional $1.3 billion Race to the top grants later this year or early in 2011. That way, innovative districts won’t be cheated by governors, like Rick Perry of Texas, who refused to compete for the money – dismissing Race to the Top as a federal intrusion – or states that submitted pedestrian applications that were denied money.

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By John Fensterwald on January 19th, 2010

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Intel Corp. is going nationwide with an intensive math course for teachers that the company has successfully piloted in the Bay Area and New England.

Expanding Intel Math is piece of a $200 million, 10-year commitment in science, technology, engineering and math education, known as STEM, that Intel announced with President Obama at the White House last week. Continuing Intel science competitions and the International Science and Engineering Fair (this year in San Jose in May) is a bigger piece.

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By John Fensterwald on January 13th, 2010

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Sen. Gloria Romero’s willingness to compromise on the most controversial parental choice provision may have saved her parents rights bill – SBX5-4 – though with not one vote to spare in a critical Assembly vote Tuesday.

Students trapped in persistently bad schools will now have the right to choose an academically better school in another school district. This marks a fundamental shift in school governance. But, during hearings, legislators and lobbyists for school boards and teachers had less of a problem with principle than with the details of how open enrollment would work. The bill lacked specifics.

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By John Fensterwald on January 6th, 2010

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California will have some impressive numbers to show the feds, if most of the districts that have expressed interest in the federal Race to the Top competition follow through this week and sign the dotted line to participate in the state’s as yet unfinished application.

Nine of the state’s 10 largest school districts – every one but San Diego Unified — and 23 of the top 30 districts sent in letters of intent to join the program. In total, 798 of the approximately 1,800 school districts, county offices of education and charter schools showed interest. They educate 3.8 million of the state’s 6.25 million public school students – 61 percent. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on January 5th, 2010

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A new year, same old power plays.

There likely will be action today in the Assembly on compromise Race to the Top legislation, as scheduled.  But instead of one big bill,  two reforms opposed by the school boards association and the state teachers union will be shoved  into a separate bill, which the lobbies hope to kill. At least that’s the word I got late last night, after a day of intense negotiations.

Both reforms would give more power to families in chronically failing schools. So Democrats in the Assembly will find themselves having to choose between the interests of the union and that of parents.

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By John Fensterwald on January 3rd, 2010

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