California Jolt: State Upends How It Funds and Runs Education

It's hard to find stories of "upheaval" in the way states structure the machinery of public schooling. Wrangling interests tend to allow only a little tinkering under the hood. But California right now is rewriting that script. And the sweeping changes occurring in the state's education system are so politically stunning that those inured to paralysis in Sacramento stand slack-jawed.

Not only is the nation's biggest state calmly implementing the Common Core State Standards that have roiled the waters in a number of other states. But to bolster the success of those higher academic expectations, the Golden State is revamping its entire education architecture, from how dollars flow to schools to how teachers and principals are supported and held accountable.

The changes take dead aim at reversing a longstanding lag in student achievement and, especially, narrowing the socio-economic achievement gap in a state whose schools were once the envy of the nation. The animating force is the new Local Control Funding Formula, the linchpin of 2013's authorizing legislation. Phased in over eight years, the LCFF obliterates the state's old finance system long denigrated as ineffective, dizzyingly complex and, above all, inequitable. In its place is a weighted approach that provides a basic level of funding for every student then targets additional funding to districts with large numbers of students who are more expensive to educate--those from poor families, English learners, and foster children.

While many state funding formulas use a weighted approach to try to account for the higher costs of educating different groups of students, California is taking an extra step. In a profound turnaround, and in keeping with Governor Jerry Brown's principle of "subsidiarity," decision-making responsibility for how to spend the money has been handed to local school districts.

This flips the norm established more than 35 years ago with Proposition 13, the landmark property tax limit, when the state became the school funding distributor as well as decider, largely dictating how locals could use the dollars. Over time, highly regulated "categorical" or specific-purpose programs proliferated.

The one-size-fits-all approach became increasingly counterproductive as the state's diversity exploded in the 1980s. And now, decades later, local educators are being given back the reins. Instead of compliance, their new mandate is to go forth and be creative. Innovate. Make the money matter. Work with your communities to dig into evidence about which kids are struggling with what, and why. Agree on top improvement goals and map out a plan that ties your budget to the actions you're going to take--actions that will help teachers and administrators know and continually get better at using the most effective practices.

Reaction in the state's 1,000 school districts is a stew of excitement, energy, and concern. You'd be hard pressed to find educators who don't applaud the aspiration to level the playing field for the least advantaged kids; more than half the state's six million public school students are low income. Beyond that is the new law's philosophic underpinning:

It's an implicit vote of confidence in California's educators, the opposite of the test-and-punish mode that prevailed nationally under the federal No Child Left Behind act.

At the same time, there's a near-audible gulp. Local school leaders who have complained for years about being hamstrung by Sacramento's restrictions now face, for starters, mindset change. But even exuberant local visionaries know that navigating conflicting parental and community interests can be daunting without the lever of "the state requires it" to push things forward.

The state, of course, still must hold schools accountable. Doing so will now occur by way of each district's annually updated plan that spells out its needs, priorities, and goals within eight statewide priority areas. The priorities start with student achievement but also include less tangibly documentable factors as school climate, student engagement, and parent involvement.

The local planning process has begun, even though details such as progress measures and a promised new system of improvement assistance are not yet fully in place. Watching intently are vocal advocacy groups who worry that too much local flexibility or insufficient transparency, especially for reporting on spending, may translate to diminished services for the very students the LCFF aims to accelerate.

Despite much optimism, no one sees this as a panacea in post-Proposition 13 California where investment in education has, for decades, languished below the national average and sank even lower during the recession. The new law's passage was made possible in part by good government victories--i.e., voter approved changes in legislative and election rules that finally broke legislative gridlock. But a pivotal other factor was the ballot success of Governor Brown's big 2012 gamble: Proposition 30, a temporary tax increase that averted further draconian cuts in recession-decimated school districts.

Since then, California's budget has massively rebounded. But even if activists manage to extend Proposition 30, which fully expires in 2018, and if projections of a long stretch of black ink are correct, it will take years to restore many school districts to pre-recession levels, nevermind to raise base funding from a level that's widely seen as inadequate.

The position of Brown and the state board of education is that the kids can't wait. By clearing away resource-sucking regulations and accreted categorical programs, instead unfettering education dollars to be directed to actual school and student needs, they're betting the state can turn the page on achievement mire.

Are their ambitions quixotic? Not according to years of research findings, notably from an unprecedented set of California school finance and governance studies prompted by the student outcome urgency. Anchored at Stanford and undertaken by national experts--including current State Board of Education president Mike Kirst--the studies culled from experiments in the U.S. and abroad. Findings explicitly called for replacing the "fundamentally flawed" status quo with a system that would "improve the alignment between the accountability system and the decision-making responsibilities, increasing flexibility at the local level."

Guided by these studies, the state is buttressing the LCFF with a pre-emptive system of educator support to be orchestrated by a new state agency, the California Collaborative for Education Excellence. With 10,000 schools and nearly 300,000 teachers, there is intense focus on the problem of uneven local capacity--for aligning classroom practices with the Common Core; for ensuring skilled principal leadership; for revamping district management and budgeting strategies. One favored capacity building approach is to support cross-district partnerships to fast-forward the spread of best practices, using a model pioneered in the state by a group of mostly big districts.

As implementation unfolds, developmental glitches are inevitable. With criticisms simmering among advocates of tighter control, there may not be much leeway for missteps. But the governor is adamant that the state should remain hands off, giving local flexibility time to find its footing before making dramatic adjustments. So far, with momentum stoked by the political miracle of getting this far, the odds for success appear to be on his--and the kids'--side.

Via Joan McRobbie, Huffington Post 12/18/2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-mcrobbie/california-jolt-state-upe_b_8833242.html

Education reform bill provides increased support for early childhood education

The revision of the No Child Left Behind law now before Congress has an increased level of support for early childhood education that advocates are calling “historic.”

The bill makes permanent a grant program for early education and has a number of new provisions aimed at ensuring the effective use of resources among federal, state and local governments.

The bill, which has passed the House and is expected to be passed by the Senate this week, has “historic support for early childhood education,” said Charles Joughin, communications director with the First Five Years Fund, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

For the first time since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act  — currently referred to as NCLB — was implemented in 1965, the bill recognizes that early childhood education is important in federal and state efforts to close achievement gaps between low-income students and their peers, said Erin Gabel, deputy director of First 5 California. Gabel also applauds the bill for a new emphasis on coordination and collaboration between early education programs and K-12 schools.

There have been numerous attempts to revise NCLB since the law was enacted in 2002, but this is the first time it has found such strong bipartisan support. In a 359-64 vote last week, the House approved the bill, dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act.

A number of early education advocates in California, including First 5, have signed a letter to California Congress members, urging them to vote for the bill and provide adequate funding.

“While California legislators have slowly begun to rebuild the state’s early learning system, which was so devastated in the Great Recession, it continues to have an enormous unmet need,” the letter said. “If passed, this new and increased federal funding can support California to fulfill its preschool promise – to ensure all 4-year-olds have access to pre-K.”

The bill makes permanent in law the existing competitive grant program, Preschool Development Grants. These grants can be used not only to support coordination and alignment of states’ early learning systems, as in the past, but also to expand access to preschool.

But, advocates say, the true test of the bill’s impact will come when Congress determines a budget for next year. An amendment to the bill to raise cigarette taxes to provide $30 million for early education programs was defeated.

“The big question mark behind the promise is how much funding will be allocated,” Gabel said, and whether California will be able to secure a grant.

California’s application for the current preschool grants was turned down. But the state’s prospects may be better because of California’s recent commitments to early education, she said.

“We’ve had two big years of state preschool investments back to back,” Gabel said.

In a compromise with Republicans who did not want to expand education spending, the grants will be considered part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which administers Head Start. But the grants will be jointly administered by the health department and the U.S. Department of Education.

The bill also:

• Requires states to align their academic standards with relevant early learning guidelines.
• Formally states in the law that districts can use Title I funds for low-income children in early education programs if those programs meet Head Start performance standards.
• Encourages combining preschool and elementary school staff in professional development and planning activities that address kindergarten readiness.
• Recommends that preschool teachers be included in trainings about how to develop instructional programs for English learners.
• Requires that states use at least 15 percent of their funds under the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grants for state and local programs aimed at children from birth through entry into kindergarten.

Via http://edsource.org/2015/education-reform-bill-provides-historic-support-for-early-childhood-education/91533 
Susan Frey, December 6th, 2015 

School Success Part Of Broader Strategy To Target Urban Poverty In Los Angeles Promise Zone

LOS ANGELES – Most days, you can find Melissa Estrada at Monseñor Oscar Romero Charter Middle School in Central Los Angeles where her son Angel Hernandez is in eighth grade. While Angel is in school, Estrada has taken classes to learn how to track his attendance and grades online and talk to him about drugs and safe sex.

Estrada never finished high school, but hopes to show Angel and her three other children how much she values education by taking workshops at the Romero school in the largely poor Mexican and Salvadoran neighborhood of Pico Union.

“I don’t know if I’m a good parent, but I want my children to see that I’m trying,” Estrada says. “I tell my son, ‘I want you to be better than I am.’”

Classes for parents offered at the charter school are all part of the plan there and at other schools in some low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles to connect students’ families and other community residents with the help they need to find housing, health care, counseling and job training.

The concept is one all schools in Central Los Angeles’s “Promise Zone” – encompassing the neighborhoods of Pico Union, Westlake, Koreatown, Hollywood and East Hollywood – plan to copy.

‘Enormous implications’

With 165,000 residents and a poverty rate of 35 percent – 14 percent higher than for the city as a whole – the Promise Zone is one of five low-income areas named by President Obama in January as test cases for how to transform poor communities through a combination of federal grant support and local investments and partnerships.

The other Promise Zones are in San Antonio, Philadelphia, Southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Within three years, the administration plans to bring the total number of Promise Zones to 20 across the nation.

The Promise Zones bring together the central elements of the multiple place-based strategies initiated during President Obama’s first term. These include Promise Neighborhoods, emphasizing schools designed to provide services to students from “cradle to career;” Choice Neighborhoods, centered on improved housing; and the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation grant program, focused on public safety. In addition, Promise Zones are designed to attract and encourage economic investment and provide job training – and jobs.

“Promise Zones build on a lot of work that has been done already,” says James Quane, an associate director of research at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who advised the Obama Administration on how to evaluate the Zones. But historically different governmental agencies -- including the departments of Education, Housing and Justice -- carried that work out separately. In the Promise Zones, these federal agencies and others, including the departments of Health, Treasury and Agriculture, will work together toward the goal of ending poverty, and each will be held accountable for its role.

“The push in the Obama Administration has been to put schools at the center of these agency networks,” says Quane. “So for example, there will be a push for interagency collaboration around the Department of Education’s goal to improve the academic performance of kids. If done right, this combined effort can have enormous implications.”

Another distinctive feature of the Promise Zones is that they will get preference when applying for federal grants. An array of city agencies, the Los Angeles Unified School District and 83 additional nonprofit and corporate partners have identified more than $500 million in potential federal grant money these partners can apply for under the Promise Zone initiative over the next 10 years – all aimed at not only giving families like the Estradas a chance to succeed but also to lower unemployment rates and raise income levels.

The city of Los Angeles has pledged nearly $33 million annually toward implementing and sustaining Promise Zone strategies.

In addition, nearly 50 business and nonprofit partners are on track to contribute $387 million to the LA Promise Zone. Combining revenues from all these sources, including support from philanthropic foundations, the LA Promise Zone is projected to benefit from an infusion of about $900 million over the next 10 years.

Schools at the hub

The LA Promise Zone will build on the substantial work of the Youth Policy Institute, which won a $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2012 to revitalize the low-income communities of Hollywood and Pacoima, under the Obama administration’s Promise Neighborhood program.

Nineteen schools in the Promise Neighborhoods operate much like the Romero school, offering job training, one-on-one tutoring, after school programs, and health care to serve the whole community.

“When a student steps into a school, it’s our job to meet the needs of that student and her family, whether those needs are education-related or not,” says Dixon Slingerland, director of the Youth Policy Institute, which runs the Romero school and three other schools in Los Angeles, and will play a leading role in the LA Promise Zone.

The schools are based on the community school model, in which campuses become a hub for a range of programs for neighborhood residents. Educating students is just a small part of the services available to students and their families at the school. “If they’ve got housing problems, need counseling or therapy, we have full-time staff at the school site whose only job is to make all this stuff work,” Slingerland said.

Of the 19 schools in the Promise Neighborhoods, 11 have seen test score gains. Three of the schools are too new to have comparative test results. The schools with test results available saw on average a 17-point gain on the Academic Performance Index, according to numbers reported on Ed-Data, a website providing statistics on California schools. The index is the scale California has used to rank schools and is tied primarily to the test scores of their students.

The community school model is based on the idea of providing “cradle-to-college” services along the lines of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a 97-block section of Manhattan that has emerged as one of the most prominent place-based initiatives in the nation.

Despite skepticism among some researchers as to its effectiveness, President Obama has been sufficiently impressed with the Harlem project and its founder Geoffrey Canada that he has made it a model for his Promise Neighborhood program, and now for his Promise Zone initiative.

Long-term transformation

The Los Angeles Promise Zone will arguably be even more ambitious in its plan to transform schools than the Harlem Children’s Zone, which centers on three charter schools. The city hopes it can transform all 45 public and charter schools within the zone into resource centers for the entire community.

A large measure of the Promise Zone’s success will depend not only on whether it can improve children’s academic performance but also whether it will promote business investment in its communities and create jobs for its residents.

Youth Policy Institute’s Slingerland says he is pleased with success stories like the Estrada family. Yet he points out that the long-term goal is to put people to work through job-training programs offered through schools, or in one of three job-training centers that will be funded by the city and are expected to be up and running in the Promise Zone by this summer.

The Los Angeles Unified District, with the help of Youth Policy Institute, will transform all high schools in the Promise Zone into “linked learning” schools – effectively linking the academic curriculum with preparation for college and careers. To that end, schools will partner with high growth industries in the Promise Zone such as health care, construction, tourism and entertainment.

“If you look at data and statistics, a majority of our students tend to stay in this area,” says Esther Soliman, head of Los Angeles Unified’s linked learning initiative. “We’ll look at economic forecasts throughout the country, and specifically in LA, so we can determine the areas where students can actually get an entry-level job. We want them to go to college, but if they don’t, we want them to be prepared to make other decisions and make positive contributions to the community.”

Promise Zone leaders will be expected to collect data to measure their progress. That shouldn’t be a problem in Los Angeles, where the Youth Policy Institute spent three years building a data system in its Promise Neighborhoods in Hollywood and Pacoima to track children’s attendance, grades, test scores and post-graduation plans, including college attendance.

“For the first time ever we’ll be able to track families and say after five years what happened to those families,” says Martha Rivas, who directs research and evaluation for the Youth Policy Institute. “We’ll be able to say what services they received, what was effective, what wasn’t effective, what happened to family education level, family income, and begin to get more of a holistic picture of what’s working, what’s not, and what we need to do to change.”

Melissa Estrada has seen firsthand how the school has helped her son Angel. At many schools, there’s only time to teach reading, writing and math. At the Romero school, the first class begins at 8:30 a.m. and the school day ends at 4 p.m. After school programs continue until 6:50 p.m. That leaves time for hands-on science experiments in class, as well as computer and leadership lessons.

All students at the school get free breakfast, lunch and a snack (some community schools serve dinner). Tutors give students one-on-one help in all math classes. After school, there’s soccer (her son Angel’s favorite), chess, piano lessons, computer graphics and more one-on-one tutoring.

Plus, his mother’s involvement in the school also benefits her son. When she noticed Angel hadn’t turned in two history assignments, she spoke to his teacher right away – thanks to the workshop that taught her how to track his attendance and grades online. Since then, Angel’s history grade has improved from a C-plus to a B-plus.

But it is not test scores that are the most important goal of the initiative, says the Youth Policy Institute’s Slingerland. “What if test scores don’t go up?” he said. “I mean, we’re sure they will, but what if they don’t? If we reduce poverty, that’s what’s important. That’s what this is all about.”

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report and EdSource Today, the largest education reporting team in California

PHOTO: US President Barack Obama greets members of the Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy after speaking about poverty during an event in the East Room of the White House's private dining room January 9, 2014 in Washington, DC. Obama announced five locations where his administration hopes to combat poverty including San Antonio, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. AFP PHOTO/Brendan SMIALOWSKI

via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/13/la-promise-zone-school_n_4957245.html

S.F. seen as model in bilingual education over English only

In the 15 years since voters essentially banned bilingual education in state schools, teaching English learners to read, write and do arithmetic first in their native language has nearly disappeared from California classrooms.

Since Proposition 227 overwhelmingly passed in June 1998, it's been all about learning English, first and foremost - but not in San Francisco. Nearly 30 percent of the city's 17,000 English learners are in bilingual education programs, compared with 5 percent on average statewide, according to the most recent data available.

And it's working, according to a recently published Stanford University study commissioned by the San Francisco Unified School District.

Districts can get around the Prop. 227 ban by having parents sign a waiver authorizing their children to be in bilingual education programs.

Bilingual education students, who learn to read and write in their native language and then transfer those academic skills into English, are - after a slower start - as fluent by sixth grade as those focused on and immersed in English with minimal support in their home language, according to the study.

Equally proficient

The same results were seen with English learners in dual-immersion programs, which teach native English speakers and non-English speakers first in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic or other languages before phasing English into their studies.

In other words, students ended up equally proficient in English no matter how they learned it in San Francisco schools, the Stanford researchers found.

The difference is that those in dual-immersion and bilingual education programs are taught in those five or six years to speak, read and write in two languages and are more likely to be bilingual.

Despite the state ban, "we haven't actually deterred from our goal of bilingualism," said Christina Wong, San Francisco Unified's special assistant to the superintendent. "We were very pleased, and it really helps justify the investment the district has made over a number of years to this effort."

A bad word

When Prop. 227 passed, "bilingual" was, to many, a bad word.

There was a sense that in bilingual education classrooms, English learners were segregated and languished in native language classrooms, putting them at a significant disadvantage to their English-fluent peers.

Knowing English, supporters said, was critical - even if that meant purging a first language from a student's skill set.

"Bilingual education in California means monolingual instruction, mainly in Spanish," said the measure's author, Ron Unz, during the 1997-98 campaign. "It would be a very good thing if (students) were fluent in two languages, but often they come out illiterate in two languages. I've always been somebody very skeptical of bilingual education."

The initiative passed with 60 percent voter support.

More than 15 years later, the global economy increasingly has placed value on bilingual workers, whether English is their first or second language. That demand in the United States has trickled down into schools, where policymakers are rethinking an English first approach and parents are calling for access to language-immersion programs.

In 2012, several districts in California, including San Francisco, started offering a Seal of Biliteracy for graduating high school seniors to acknowledge their language skills.

Nationally, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last year that when teaching English to English learners, the primary language should be maintained so they can become bilingual.

"We are really squandering our linguistic resources by not supporting the primary-language instruction," said Sarah Capitelli, a University of San Francisco professor of teacher education. "I feel like it's a huge waste."

Esther Woo started teaching 10 years ago when Prop. 227 and the decline of bilingual education in California was in full swing.

via: http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/S-F-seen-as-model-in-bilingual-education-over-5229826.php

University of California president proposes tuition freeze

SAN FRANCISCO - University of California President Janet Napolitano on Wednesday proposed freezing undergraduate tuition for the 2014-15 academic year, a move she said will give officials time to consider overhauling the UC's tuition system.

Napolitano, speaking at her first meeting of the UC regents since becoming president, said administrators will look for a "better way" to set tuition to avoid dramatic price increases in future years.

"We need to figure out, in the real world in which we live, how to bring clarity to, and reduce volatility in, the tuition-setting process," she said. "It's time for this university to collaboratively come up with a better way."

One option she said officials will consider is a so-called "cohort tuition," in which students are assured the tuition they pay when entering college will not dramatically change during their four years in school.

Napolitano's proposal to keep undergraduate tuition steady for a third consecutive year is in line with Gov. Jerry Brown's funding proposals. The Democratic governor has called for moderate annual increases in the UC budget as long as the UC does not raise tuition at least through 2016-17 academic year.

PHOTO: Janet Napolitano, then director of the Department of Homeland Security, shown on April 17, 2013. Abaca Press/ MCT/ Olivier Douliery. 

California more accepting of Common Core education overhaul than other states

Controversy is dogging the rollout of the rigorous new Common Core curriculum in many of the 45 states that first embraced the bipartisan proposal, with critics saying the change in English and math standards are a federal intrusion, an attack on local control or just too expensive.

In Pennsylvania, passionate protests prompted the state to replace the Common Core with a hybrid that includes much of the state’s current — and less demanding — standards. In Indiana, critics succeeded in cutting off funding for implementation of the Common Core. Michigan legislators took similar action before reversing themselves in late September.

Variations of these fights have broken out in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

But that pushback is largely missing in California — home to more students than any other state — even among some of the more conservative districts.

Deputy state Superintendent Deborah Sigman says while she has seen some criticism, it’s been more muted than elsewhere.

“I don’t mean that we don’t have any controversy,” she says. “There are some naysayers. But I think it is fair to say that we have less at every level.”

California’s first standards, established in the late 1990s, were among the most ambitious in the nation. The new Common Core is not seen as a radical shift, says Gerardo Loera, who heads the curriculum office of Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district.

“We’re used to the idea of having standards that we have to teach toward,” Loera says. “We’re not questioning the philosophical ‘why,’ just the practical ‘how.’ ”

The Common Core’s political history in California also seems to be making a difference. Many governors agreed to adopt the new national standards in order to increase their state’s chances of winning extra money from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education reform competition.

“There is backlash in other states that didn’t get Race to the Top money and are now ticked off,” says Jeannette LaFors of Education Trust-West, an advocacy group.

While California didn’t get any of that federal money either, the original decision to press ahead wasn’t motivated as much by money from Washington as “a more genuine commitment to improving standards,” she says.

Opponents who see the Common Core as an attack on local control have had a hard time getting heard here. California school boards have the right to opt out of the Common Core, says Barbara Murchison, who heads up the state’s implementation program. “There is nothing at the state level that requires them to do it.”

To date, no district has voted to reject the new standards, she says.

That may be, in part, because all districts are required to take an annual test given by the state.

Beginning in 2015, that test will be the new Smarter Balanced online assessment, one of two national tests, developed with federal funding, that are pegged to the new standards. About 24 other states have indicated they will also be giving the Smarter Balanced tests.

The Common Core has also attracted fans because it’s viewed by teachers as “more realistic and smarter” than California’s 1997 standards, which are often criticized as a mile long and an inch thick, says Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association.

“It was impossible for teachers to cover everything,” he says, adding that teachers view the new national standards as “a breath of fresh air” because they require much less regimentation than the earlier standards. Districts have more freedom, this time around, to choose their own curriculum, instructional materials and teacher training programs.

“The Common Core is a document that recognizes the educator as the expert and provides for the teacher to have an authoritative role in pedagogical decisions to make things better for kids,” Vogel says. “From our point of view, this is a powerful antidote to the increasingly obtrusive, top down, ‘this is what you have to do’ view of reform.”

Worries about cost have been an issue in many states, including California, which currently ranks 49th in per pupil funding. But some of the pressure came off in the last year. The state recently revamped its funding formula in ways that funnel additional money to schools with more students who are from low-income families or are English learners.

In addition, last fall, California voters passed Proposition 30, which approved a temporary tax increase to raise more money for schools.

Gov. Jerry Brown announced in the spring that each district would get a proportional slice of $1.25 billion in new state money over the next two years that could only be used to implement the Common Core.

The one criticism of California’s rollout of Common Core that seems to stick is a complaint that the pace of state implementation has been too slow and uneven. Groups such as Education Trust-West have stressed that with California’s below-average scores on national tests, the state Education Department leaders shouldn’t be “dragging their feet” compared to other states.

California officials deny they are doing so. In any case, the relatively drawn-out pace of change and the low-key way educators are presenting it may help explain why there has been little opposition, at least so far.

“We talk about this as a remodeling effort,” says Sigman of the state education department. “This is an evolution of the system. The ’97 standards were good standards, but this set of college- and career-ready standards is better.”

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University.

via http://www.sbsun.com/social-affairs/20131016/california-more-accepting-of-common-core-education-overhaul-than-other-states

California Bill to Restrict long-term School Bonds Moving Again

Legislation to crack down on California school districts' issuance of long-term "capital appreciation bonds," which had stalled in the Senate after passing the Assembly, is moving again.

On Wednesday, the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, on a 5-0 vote, approved the measure, Assembly Bill 182, after its author, Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, softened its restrictions on the bonds.

The changes, however, did not placate school district representatives, who continued to oppose the measure, arguing that it will damage their ability to meet needs for new school construction and upgrading, especially in areas with relatively low levels of taxable property.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer pushed for the legislation, arguing that the use of the CABs, as they have been dubbed, puts local taxpayers on the book for interest payments to bond buyers that may be 10 times or more of the original loan amounts.

The issue erupted when it was revealed that Poway Unified School District in San Diego County had issued $105 million in CABs that would cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars because principal payments were being postponed for decades and the bonds wouldn't be fully retired for 40 years.

Since then, it's become known that hundreds of CABs have been approved. Lockyer calls them "long-term balloon debt" that should be abolished, but he told the committee that he accepts the political need to place some curbs on them, rather than erase them altogether.

"The logic defies me ... that poor people ought to be burdened with more debt to finance facilities," Lockyer said.

Among other provisions, the revised bill limits debt-to-principal ratios to 4-1 and their maturity date to 30 years.

PHOTO: A kindergarten teacher keeps an eye on her class at Greer Elementary School in Sacramento on Jan. 17, 2013. The Sacramento Bee/ Renée C. Byer

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/07/california-bill-to-restrict-long-term-school-bonds-moving-again.html#storylink=cpy