The Obama administration has put a hold on approving a second round of  education stimulus money for California until Gov. Schwarzenegger responds to questions raised by school districts and parent advocates.

The groups — the Education Coalition and Parents and Students for Great Schools, led by Public Advocates – have challenged Schwarzenegger’s claim that the state will spend enough on K-12 schools to qualify for additional federal money. As a condition for receiving the money, California has agreed either to spend proportionally as much on education as on other programs, or to keep spending on education at a pre-recession level.

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By John Fensterwald on March 9th, 2010

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Civil rights attorneys aren’t the only ones opposed to a teacher layoff system based strictly on seniority. Teachers themselves apparently aren’t crazy about it either.

“A Smarter Teacher Layoff System” – a report this month by The New Teacher Project – included a survey of 9,000 teachers in two unnamed urban districts. Seventy percent of  teachers in one district and 77 percent of teachers in the other, including most of  tenured teachers, said that factors other than just seniority should be considered in a layoff.

In both districts, teachers rated classroom management, teacher attendance and instructional performance based on evaluations, as more important factors than the number of years that a teacher has taught in the district or total years of teaching.

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By John Fensterwald on March 7th, 2010

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Families in Cupertino Union School District are anguished over their schools.

They thought that they had largely solved their district’s financial problems a year ago when they passed their first parcel tax, raising $4 million.

But now this K-8 Silicon Valley district, home of Apple Computer and some of the  highest performing schools in the state, is facing a $9 million deficit for next year. And that’s putting in jeopardy many of the programs parents consider essential: small classes, summer school, the GATE program for gifted children, librarians.

On Thursday evening, when thousands of Bay Area teachers, students and supporters joined a protest in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza, 300 or so Cupertino parents gathered in a middle school gym to hear how the state’s funding crisis has finally hit home and to plot what they can do about it.

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By John Fensterwald on March 5th, 2010

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With teachers and college students taking to the streets to protest budget cuts on Thursday,  Democrats in the Legislature took a step toward restoring $900 million of the more than $2 billion that Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed to cut from K-12 schools and community colleges.

They did so, largely along party lines, in passing a variation of the “gas-tax swap” that Schwarzenegger proposed. That’s the sneaky plan to eliminate the 6 percent sales tax on gasoline and replace it with a 17.3 cent excise tax on gasoline. Doing this will free more than $1 billion for the general fund, because  there were tighter restrictions on the use of the sales tax revenue.

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By John Fensterwald on March 4th, 2010

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A coalition of education organizations and nearly 100 school districts has called on U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to deny Gov. Schwarzenegger’s request for the federal Okay to cut K-12 spending as much as he proposes. If Ducan buys their argument, the governor would have to come up with an additional $850 million for schools.

The ed groups appear to make a strong case.

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By John Fensterwald on February 21st, 2010

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A protest or demonstration will be coming to a school or college campus near you on Thursday, March 4^th.

That’s what the state’s two teachers unions, the California Teachers Assn. and the California Federation of Teachers, are designating their “Day of Action,” in which teachers hope to rouse people’s attention to the impact of current and likely budget cuts. CTA announced it will be running a 1-minute radio ad promoting the day on 84 stations  between now and then.

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By John Fensterwald on February 16th, 2010

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One way or the other, the California Teachers Association and business interests were headed for a mighty battle this November over taxes. Now it’s clear what they’ll be fighting over.

Delegates for the 325,000 member union voted to back initiatives to rescind corporate tax breaks (see initiatives #1412 and #1375), passed a year ago under cover of darkness, that eventually will cut state revenues by an estimated $1.7 billion. Backing up its vote with dollars, the CTA this week committed $587,000 to gather 434,000 signatures needed to put it on the ballot.

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By John Fensterwald on February 10th, 2010

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Recognizing schools’ financial plight, the Legislature and Gov. Schwarzenegger have given districts considerable latitude over how they can spend money for 40 programs known as categoricals. They include important programs: summer school, teacher training and textbook purchases

But when it comes to dozens of smaller, mandated programs – many unneeded – the governor and legislators have been devious. They have either allotted a token amount in the budget, creating IOUs now totaling more than $3 billion, or they have suspended the mandates year by year, creating headaches and confusion for local districts.

In a report issued this week, Education Mandates: Overhauling a Broken System, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, says, Enough. Eliminate dozens of the 51 mandated programs that are not critical, start paying back the money owed districts, and clarify the reimbursement system for ones that should be kept, such as  expenditures related to the high school exit exam expenditures. Doing so would save the state more than $350 million yearly, the LAO said.

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By John Fensterwald on February 4th, 2010

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Call it remarkable management or, more likely, the lull before the crash. The number of school districts in financial distress actually decreased from a year ago, according to report issued last week by FCMAT, the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. That’s the agency that intervenes when districts are struggling financially.

For the reporting period ending Oct. 31, only a dozen districts – out of about 1,000  – reported a negative status, compared with 19 in the last reporting period of 2009 and 16 in the comparable period a year ago. The latest total  is preliminary, since county offices of education have yet to certify that the districts’ self-reporting is accurate. (View FCMAT’s latest report for a 15-year comparison of the number of districts in financial trouble.)

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By John Fensterwald on February 1st, 2010

Comments on Good report, for the moment, on districts’ finances

Two-thirds of adults surveyed in a Public Policy Institute of California poll say they support higher taxes to maintain funding for K-12 schools. And a full 82 percent, including a majority of Republicans polled, oppose cutting K-12 education to reduce the state budget deficit.  No other part of state spending comes close to engendering such support in the poll, which was released Wednesday.

Gov.  Schwarzenegger should keep those numbers in mind, because they’ll only go up  in coming months, as school districts lay out next year’s severe budget cuts and, in March, when they send out layoff notices to teachers.

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By John Fensterwald on January 28th, 2010

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