Uncategorized

Mercury News: In California schools’ test scores, state sees success while feds’ No Child Left Behind act sees growing failure

October 11, 2012
By Sharon Noguchi

California schools continued their steady gains in achievement, and for the first time more than half of them met the state’s target score, according to California’s annual index of school achievement released Thursday.

As always, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Contra Costa county schools in general outperformed state averages. The statewide numbers offered some encouraging trends: Black and Latino students made greater gains than did white and Asian students but still lag far behind in scores. The scores for the 2011-12 school year are based on standardized tests administered last spring.

But the slew of scores released also highlighted the stark divergence between state and federal scores. Even while more schools are meeting state targets, more of them are missing federal ones. That’s because the state measures year-to-year improvement in achievement, while the federal system looks only at proficiency, or how many children are at or above grade level. And its demands for the proportion of students expected to meet that benchmark rise steeply every year. For 2011-12, about 78 percent of students had to test proficient in math and English.

By the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, only 26 percent of California schools met federal targets. That’s a drop from 35 percent last year, largely because that target was raised by 11 percentage points last year.

To read more.

Local

Contra Costa Times: Education Report: 13 Oakland schools to lose a teacher because of bad enrollment projections

October 10, 2012
By Katy Murphy

This year, 14 teachers are being moved to other schools, a process known as “consolidation,” because fewer students enrolled in a particular school than the district expected, the Oakland school district has reported.

Enrollment projections are complicated, especially when school closures and new charter schools are in the picture, as was the case here. Another problem, which affects even the most popular schools? When families admitted to a school don’t bother to tell anyone they’re sending their child elsewhere — essentially, holding their spots until the last minute.

According to a report I requested from OUSD, 14 teachers from 13 schools are being reassigned in what’s become an annual process to balance the budget. They’re from Bella Vista, Cleveland, Hoover, Kaiser, Claremont, Melrose Leadership Academy, Bret Harte, Roosevelt, Frick (two teachers), Piedmont Avenue, Allendale, La Escuelita and Rise. The report also included three vacant positions that are being consolidated at Burckhalter, Markham and Grass Valley elementary schools.

To read more.

Local

SFGate: Oakland Measure J to upgrade school kitchens

October 11, 2012
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Public schools in Oakland are looking for major kitchen remodeling with a measure on the Nov. 6 ballot.

If approved, Measure J would authorize the Oakland Unified School District to issue as much as $475 million in bonds to improve school facilities.

Along with seismic upgrades and lead-paint removal, the bonds could help underwrite a planned overhaul of school kitchens in the district, including building a new central kitchen in West Oakland. It’s part of an effort to improve the food the district serves to students, 70 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

Oakland has made strides toward serving healthier and fresher food in recent years. For instance, the district now buys more fresh fruits and vegetables from within 250 miles of Oakland. There are salad bars at 67 schools.

‘Kitchen dinosaurs’

But it’s infrastructure, not ingredients, that has become the biggest barrier to making lunches healthier and tastier. Many schools have antiquated kitchens – if they have a kitchen at all.

“It’s a very attractive museum of kitchen dinosaurs,” said Zenobia Barlow, executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The facilities limit what food can be served.

“A lot of what is served is processed and prepackaged and frozen,” said Ruth Woodruff, who has a first-grader and a fourth-grader attending Chabot Elementary School. “It gets unwrapped and put on trays and heated.”

Some schools, like Piedmont Avenue Elementary, don’t even have a kitchen. Meals there are reheated in the corner of a multipurpose room.

Events, Local, Youth Media

Video: The Oakland Youth Friendly Business Awards

On September 13, 2012 The Oakland Youth Friendly Business Awards(OYFBA) recognized and honored businesses that have gotten involved in helping our young people find jobs and internships in Oakland.
KQED, Oakland’s America’s Promise Alliance, Inner City Advisors, the Jonas Family Fund, Oakland Youth Commission, All About the Biz, a youth business program which is an active partner that is managing the event logistics and development and other community stakeholders hosted Oakland’s first Youth Friendly Business Awards event.

Watch here: Oakland Youth Friendly Business Awards

 

Uncategorized

The Education Report: In Oakland, tumult in special education leads teachers to organize

October 8, 2012
By Katy Murphy

A series of decisions about the costs, staffing and structure of Oakland Unified’s special education department caused parents to mobilize in June against last-minute reductions to the program.

Months later, the 11th-hour reassignment of dozens of special education teachers appears to have had a similar effect on teachers. (District staff have since reported that many, but not all, of those changes have been rescinded.)

Within the teacher’s union, a new group has emerged: The OEA Special Education Caucus website features a blog, a statement of purpose, and possible solutions for improved communication and logistics, including something as simple as a roster with department staff names and contact information.

Emily Sacks, one of the organizers, said the upheaval brought teachers together. The thinking?  ”We can get really specific about things that are not rocket science, but that could impact the situation dramatically.”

At Wednesday night’s board meeting, as new special education director Karen Mates gives a presentation about plans for the department (and community involvement in the making of those plans), there could be a large special education contingent.

Uncategorized

Jose Corona: CEO of Inner City Advisors

October 9, 2012
By Lisa Hewitt

“If we can expose more young people to the business sector, we can inspire more people to be entrepreneurs.”-Jose Corona

Jose Corona, the CEO of Inner City Advisors (ICA), a non-profit serving the entire Bay Area, strives to create locally-based jobs. From an early age Jose had a passion for entrepreneurship. His father, a strawberry grower in Watsonville, CA, demonstrated the importance of community-based businesses as a tool to aid the local economy.  Before venturing into non-profit work, Jose worked in the corporate world for several years, learning operation and management skills. Marrying practical business skills and a passion for community development, Jose joined Inner City Advisors in 2004.

By providing entrepreneurship education, management consulting and advisory services, and capital investment into socially responsible entrepreneurs, ICA seeks to aid companies in their efforts to employ populations with higher barriers to employment. Jose explains, “by higher barriers to employment, we mean, lower educational attainment levels, English as a second language learners, formally incarcerated and aged-out foster youth. We try to connect them to the right workforce partners.” ICA’s mission mandates that they take on companies that are in the position to create a substantial number of jobs. Jose adds, “they have to have a social responsibility component to their business model. So it can either be environmental or it could be through supporting education. It has to be a core value or their business model. It can’t be something that all the sudden they instituted a recycling program and all the sudden they’re green and responsible. It has to be core, as part of their core model. So it has to be from deep down in their values.”

ICA works primarily with companies, but over the past couple of years, they’ve found that they need to be more intentional with their companies, specifically connecting them to the workforce. “Companies are coming back to us and asking, ‘Well we want to hire, from the populations you care about. Can you help us get to those populations?” Jose sees where ICA has grown in the last few years and where it would like to extend its reach in the future. “We’ve started to think about how ICA can be more thoughtful and really create some strategic alliances with some existing work force development partners. So we don’t have to create another workforce development program, but work with ones that are working out there; connecting their populations and their clients with the jobs that are being created through our companies.”

Jose sees the importance in engaging and working with young people, specifically those living in moderate to low-income households and emancipated youth. “I think for me personally, and as an organization, I think it’s critical that we engage youth in the work force. The whole discussion right now around job creation, there’s a lot of rhetoric about it, and it typically focuses on the adult that are unemployed and don’t have jobs. Too often, I think especially now, the youths are often overlooked as part of that unemployment figure. They focus on the adults that don’t have jobs or they lost jobs, but what about the youth that are up-in-coming and are going to be that next generation of work force with the jobs that we’re creating? For us it has become a critical population. How do we work with not only our companies, but with ICA ourselves to provide these job opportunities for the youth…from high school, undergrad, to grad school students to become engaged in projects or internships with ICA, and engage our companies to actually invest in the youth?” One means is through strong community outreach.

Jose believes the missions of ICA and KQED are the same, “KQED is hugely inline with our mission. [KQED adds] value to communities through information, [and by] educating communities. We try to do the same thing. We try to educate our companies on how to be better, more active and committed community members.”  KQED caters to an audience that might not know about ICA, but cares about solving the same issues they do.

If you’re interested in getting involved with ICA please visit: http://innercityadvisors.org/

Jose attending the Oakland Youth Friendly Business Awards.

Local

The Education Report: Oakland, Alameda teachers named Alameda County Teacher of the Year

October 5, 2012
By Katy Murphy

Congratulations to the two Alameda County teachers of the year: I’Asha Warfield, from Oakland’s Frick Middle School, and Chris Hansen, from Alameda’s Lincoln Middle School.

They learned of the distinction last night, at an awards night organized by the Alameda County Office of Education. Now, they go on to compete for California Teacher of the Year.

In this video of Warfield, she talks about the conversations and debates that take place in her classroom. “I really, really believe in my students,” she said. “Their intellectual capacity is so great.”

Stephen Davis, a kindergarten teacher at Global Family Elementary School, was Oakland Unified’s other nominee for 2012-13. At a school board meeting last week, he said he had three rules for his students: 1) Be kind. 2) Be kind. 3) Be kind.

To read more.

Local

I-SEEED Guest Youth Blogger: Prevailing by Pelesani Sua

October 6, 2012
By Pelesani Sua, youth representative of the Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational and Environmental Design (I-SEEED)

It only took one person to stop me from believing that I could go to college.

When your teacher passes you up for a school funded college tour because she says she knows you’re not going to make it to college, let alone graduate high school it falls right into the category of oppression. Although this would be a great learning opportunity you won’t even have the chance to experience it because your teacher has already decided your future. Or when your teacher doesn’t believe that you could’ve gotten everything correct on a test and accuses you of cheating, because of your race.   I’ve been in situations like this one many times.

I now know that some people don’t believe in encouraging others that don’t belong in the same racial background as them. So from that day on I told myself that I wasn’t going to diminish someone else’s education just because I wasn’t good enough myself. I would just pick myself up and keep trying to prove that I could be the best. It didn’t matter to me whether or not that teacher believed in me because the years afterwards I met better teachers who believed in and encouraged me to become the intelligent young lady I am today.  In a way I would like to thank that one teacher, because the racism and institutionalized oppression she showed to me in middle school actually gave a me an extra push to do better as I got older.  But not every student responds the way that I did, and they shouldn’t have to.

It’s a dream of mine to see a world of equality not only in education but in government and the communities around me. People need to not just know how to unite with their own, but with all people. I would love to wake up to a world where people know their neighbors, school officials, and people in office. When a person knows when the next election is, not the next football game. Where people don’t settle for satisfactory, but they push the limit.  When people get together not only to support themselves, but also the elderly and disabled. It would be wonderful to be able to walk around my neighborhood and know I’m safe and think “which park will I go to?” and not “which fast food restaurant is the closest?”. These are the issues close to my heart and I hope I will be one of the many people to unite to fight against these detrimental issues at hand.

I would like to end by saying that it starts here with me. I will someday lead an army of people who believe in the same issues as me and want to unite against it all to protect our future generations from falling to the hands that the government has given us.

Local, National

KQED News: Oakland School District and Feds Agree on Changes to School Discipline

October 1, 2012
By Barbara Grady

The Oakland Unified School District board agreed Thursday night to take  specific steps to eradicate racial bias in school discipline, voting unanimously to enter a voluntary resolution with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

The resolution focuses on replacing suspensions – which historically OUSD meted out to African American boys with much greater frequency than to other students – with restorative justice and positive behavior intervention practices and requiring training for all OUSD staff in these practices as well as in classroom management. The resolution includes about a dozen other specific actions the school district must take, many of which it has already begun.

At a packed school board meeting Thursday night, OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith called the agreement “an exciting opportunity to continue work,” along a path that OUSD started with its strategic plan of creating Full Service Community Schools in the district and launching the African American Male Achievement Initiative. But he and others acknowledged the resolution means accelerating those efforts.

“We will further work that is already underway” Smith said. What have been pilot projects in restorative justice will need to be expanded and brought to every school, starting with 38 the DOE cited for disproportionate use of suspensions as discipline of African American boys.

To read more.

Uncategorized

Oakland Tribune: School closures an issue in Oakland school board race

October 4, 2012
By Katy Murphy

Until now, Thearse Pecot’s decades-long involvement in Oakland’s public education system has focused mainly on the schools her children and grandchildren have attended. But the latest round of school closures — which included Santa Fe, her grandchildren’s school — prompted her to challenge Jody London for the District 1 seat on the Oakland school board.

“We’ve got to stop tearing down our communities by closing neighborhood schools,” Pecot said.

Pecot sued the district in April to block the closures, alleging that it was discriminating against poor and minority families. While the case has yet to make it to court, she said it demands the reopening of Santa Fe Elementary. Pecot said that if she succeeds in unseating London, she will fight to prevent additional school closures. None are being considered at the moment, though if statewide tax measures fail and education funding “trigger cuts” proceed, schools throughout California will face some painful choices.

The other priorities Pecot listed — from improving safety on school campuses to lowering the dropout and truancy rates — were broad and ambitious, though she offered few specifics of how her approaches would compare to the district’s current policies and initiatives. She said she would advocate giving children more enriching activities to keep them interested in school.

To read more.