After a year of working, a panel of educators released a set of proposed common academic standards on Wednesday. The panel—which published its work under the banner of Common Core State Standards Initiative—formed its standards at the direction of 48 state governors and commissioners (including California’s).

The panel’s proposal has been released “for public comment”—a nice admission that we are all in this together, and that dictating from on high has not been all that successful in the past.

The idea is to replace the checkerboarded standards that are inconsistent from state to state.

The standards seem, on first bounce, to be both sensible and sophisticated, pushing for a level of critical thinking and genuine knowledge in both English and Mathematics that goes beyond simple skills and memorization. (A cheering concept!)

The NY Times has more:

….adoption of the new standards would set off a vast new effort to rewrite textbooks and standardized tests.

“I’d say this is one of the most important events of the last several years in American education,” said Chester Finn, Jr., a former assistant secretary of education who has been an advocate for national standards for nearly two decades. “Now we have the possibility that, for the first time, states could come together around new standards and high school graduation requirements that are ambitious and coherent. This is a big deal.”

The proposed standards lay out a blueprint of the concepts and skills students should learn year by year as they make their way through the public schools. In English, for instance, they say that fifth graders should be able to explain major differences between drama and prose stories, and refer to elements of drama like casts of characters, dialogue, and stage directions when writing or speaking about specific works of dramatic literature, among other skills.

Read on.

The list of the Race to the Top recipients came out just as students and faculty all over the state of California, marched, gathered, sat-in, taught-in, spoke and sang to protest the massive budget cuts and fee hikes that are affecting the golden state’s educational system from K through to grad school.

Race to the Top is the competitive carrot—namely $4.35 billion worth of stimulus grant money—that the Obama administration has offered states who make innovative changes to their educational system.

So, as it was stated, restated, and predicted, and succinctly laid out in great detail, the states who made the most constructive changes, got the bucks.

And California was not on that list.

Why? Because the usual intractable suspects blocked the reforms that Gloria Romero and other ed reformers tried their damnedest to push through. But once again, the decisions were about the well-being and power-retention of the adults, not about the kids. (Do I sound angry? I am. I’m angry.)

And so, because our fair state failed to make the changes needed, we didn’t get the money.

Actions—or lack thereof—have consequences.

Jill Stewart at LA Weekly , who is also feeling pretty grumpy on the topic, lays out her views on why California got stiffed.

Here’s how California got itself into this hugely embarrassing predicament:

Gloria Romero, the scrappy state legislator from Los Angeles, had tried hard to fight the CTA-dominated crowd in the Sacramento statehouse. But she failed to persuade other powerful Los Angeles state legislators to back her plan to require true merit-judging of teachers, which the California Teachers Association has long opposed.

President Barack Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan say they are sick of thecurrent insanity, where merit plays no role in rewarding or punishing public school teachers. Some people think LAUSD and California are the epicenter of the anti-merit insanity. (See LA Weekly’s recent cover story, Dance of the Lemons by Beth Barrett).

Here is what toughie Romero had to say about getting stiffed publicly, and hugely, by President Obama: Romero danced around quite a bit in her official statement released about an hour ago, using a lot of vague government-ese to make it sound as if all was well.

But her clearest phrase was “the status quo is entrenched in our public school system …”

Even the relatively benign reforms Romero finally managed to push through in Sacramento were refused by more than half of the California school districts and teacher unions, according to Howard Blume and Jason Song over at the Los Angeles Times blog.

Oh, and by the way, many states did take on their teacher’s unions or otherwise manage to win money from Obama…….

Read the rest here.

According to Howard Blume and Jason Song at the LA Times, our state could have gotten as much as 700 million (if we’d played ball marginally with what the Obama administration asked).

We can apply for the second round in the summer. But, by that time, we will have had to make some changes.

Maybe some of Thursday’s protesting students could also march for that worthy goal.

The LA Times editorial also has a clear, correct and very sad explanation of what California failed to do.

Unlike Colorado, which built its Race to the Top application in concert with districts and teachers — and which made it to the list of finalists — California got relatively little support from school districts, fewer than half of which signed on to the application. That didn’t help the state’s chances.

To put it mildly.

One more March 4, report:

Holly Butcher and Irini Connerton of Neon Tommy have this video from the Pershing Square rally. (Irini and Holly are also my smart students. Not that I had anything to do with assigning this report. I’m simply cheering them on.)

PS: Commenter, teacher, blogger Rebel Girl has this report on the UC Irvine demonstration.

For a good overall round-up of the SoCal March 4 protests and demonstrations, check out Neon Tommy’s package.

10:04 p.m. – Great photo essay from UC Davis protester/police clash. And just good photos generally. (Click on the photo on the right side of the site.)

5:43 p.m. – An articulate Op Ed by a CUNY grad student who explains why students across the country are protesting along with California:

5:32 p.m. – The socialist worker types are reportedly peppering the downtown LA rally, with large signs advancing their own agenda. Not helpful. Organize your own party, people. Quit trying to highjack the events organized by others.

4:25 p.m. Cool live Flikr feed from Neon Tommy.

3:00 p.m. At around 2 p.m. police and students reportedly collided at UC Davis. Above pictures show students moving down road, and then cops moving it. There was some reported student whacking on the part of the cops and possibly some tear gas pepper spray or whatever is the newer incarnation of that stuff. Something. But supposedly that has stopped.

The photos and reports are from California Aggie, the UC Davis newspaper.

1:33 p.m. – Students gathered quietly outside Geisel Library at UCSD. Inside, the info librarian tweets that he’s never seen so many people gathered together on the campus before.

1:30 p.m. – Check out the march at UC Riverside.

1:20 – BIG RALLY AT PERSHING SQUARE AT 3 P.M.. UCLA students and Community College students and faculty spreading the word that downtown is the next place to be.

1:15: Community college students complain that the UC students are taking up community college classes because of the rise in UC fees. Thus community college students are getting aced out of classes. Meanwhile, SMC is forced to cut its faculty. Meanwhile unemployed adults are going to community colleges for classes to up their skills, putting further strain on the campuses.

So what was once California’s golden college safety net for those who could not yet afford or get into the UCs or the CSUs, is now becoming disastrously weighed down by the trickle-down effect of cuts above it, then further tattered by its own cuts.

12:15 at Santa Monica College, photo by Christine Duong. Community colleges are also raising their collective voices.

12:06 p.m. – Thousands at Berkeley rally—Youth Radio has photos.

11:41 – NY Times on protests for ed cuts.

Alberto Torrico, the Democratic majority leader in the State Assembly, has proposed a new 12.5 percent tax on revenue from oil and gas production in California, a measure that he says could raise $2 billion for higher education. But with any new tax in the state requiring a two-thirds majority, its prospects seemed uncertain.

Still, Mr. Torrico — who is from the city of Fremont on the east side of San Francisco Bay — said he had gathered 60,000 signatures on petitions in support of his plan.

“It’s really not a bill any more,” Mr. Torrico said of his proposed law, which is due to be debated this summer. “It has become a movement out there.”

11:06: The Daily Californian is live blogging at Berkeley. Better source of Cal Info. Very clear, neutral reporting. (Go Zach E.J. Williams and Mihir Zaveri)

Meanwhile, many Cal students and faculty leaving for Sac’to.

Rally at Sac’to starting.

11:05 : NOTE TO BERKELEY STUDENTS. Stop pulling the fire alarms. That’s just dumb. Sorry. But not helpful.

11 a.m. - A happy and pastoral-looking “teach out” among the trees at UC San Diego. Looks like a worthy activity, March 4 or no March 4.

10:50: Richie Duchon at Neon Tommy asks Where is Jerry Brown on March 4? Jerry? Any thoughts?

9:55 a.m. Pickets reportedly have been up at UC Berkeley since early morning.

9:50 a.m. Rally at UC Santa Cruz.

9:32 a.m.:Things are already underway at UC Santa Cruz. Parking enforcement was stopped on its rounds. (But in a nice way, I’m sure.)

Thursday is the nationwide “Day of Action” during which students, faculty and alumni are expected to protest drastic cuts in education funding—and in the case of higher eduction, the drastic fee hikes.

(The LA Times has more about what is expected.)

Annenberg’s Neon Tommy is sending teams to cover events around LA County and, when possible, around the state.

During the day, I’ll cherry pick whatever coverage is the most interesting.

So stay tuned.

In the meantime, watch the Twitter thread to your right for events as they unfold.—>

And here is Neon Tommy’s nice Timeline showing the rise in fees at California universities.

A map of all planned protests and events:

View March 4 Day of Action in a larger map

Yesterday, Barack Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan, announced that they propose to offer $900 million in “turnaround grants” to the nation’s 5000 lowest performing schools if the districts overseeing those schools will agree to reorganize the failing institutions according to one of four reform models.

It seems that, according the the Department of Education, around 2000 of the nation’s schools are responsible for half of the nation’s 1.2 million yearly dropouts. Arnie Duncan will be aiming the grants at those 2000 spectacularly failing schools, along with another 3000 of the runners-up in the failing category for good measure.

The LA Times and the NY Times both have more of the details.

Say what you will about this newest incentive based strategy, and the Obama administration’s $4 billion Race to the Top initiative (and many have said a great deal), but at least Obama and Arnie Duncan act like there really is a soul-crippling crisis going on in the nation’s schools.

And they have put their available dollars where their collective mouths are in the hope of bribing and cajoling states and local districts into the kind of reform that the Obama folks believe will work..

(BTW, It should be noted that the $900 million is still just a proposal that is part of the budget that the president sent to Congress.)

Both programs offer a carrot rather than a stick approach to promote the administration’s-approved brands of reform.

For instance, for those unaware, the competitive Race to the Top program, will drop its education-focused economic stimulus dollars only on a limited number of states, meaning that all states who want the money must compete with each other to show who has the innovation and/or reform chops worthy of the big bucks.

In fact, Race To the Top has more in common with the Knight News Challenge—than it does the Bush administration’s stick-driven No Child Left Behind.

The finalists will be announced this week and Edu-Wonks are madly handicapping who will likely make the cut.

Sadly, California is considered very unlikely to win any of those Race to the Top moneys due to the fact that the various teachers’ unions and other lobbying groups badly watered down the state’s reform package.

The ACLU of So Cal along with two other groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of students at three of the city’s worst-performing middle schools contending that students were denied an adequate education.

At first bounce the suit seems a bit squishy. I mean, every city and county agency has been hit with layoffs and dreadful cutbacks. But we’re out of money people!

AND THEN YOU READ THE FINE PRINT and you understand why this suit is important and why, despite his appalling personal failings, John Edwards had it right when he talked about Two Americas.

Jason Song, at the LA Times has the rest of the story. Here are some clips:

The last round of L.A. Unified teacher firings led to chaotic conditions on some campuses that made learning nearly impossible, especially at Samuel Gompers, Edwin Markham and John H. Liechty middle schools, according to a complaint filed by the ACLU, Public Counsel and Morrison & Foerster. Between half and three-quarters [italics mine] of the teachers at those campuses were laid off last year, according to the class-action lawsuit filed in L.A. County Superior Court.

Because of a steep budget deficit, L.A. Unified officials issued thousands of layoff notices last year and are expected to order more this year. Citing state law, school districts typically dismiss teachers on the basis of seniority during budgetary shortfalls.

The cuts were especially devastating to Gompers, Markham and Liechty because administrators had recruited younger instructors who wanted to teach in the inner city. When those teachers were dismissed, they were often replaced by instructors who did not want to work in tough, urban schools, the suit alleges.

Many positions were also difficult to fill, so schools turned to substitutes, according to the lawsuit. Some of those teachers allowed the classes to turn chaotic or were unfamiliar with the subject matter. Several substitutes allegedly gave every student a “C” grade because they didn’t know the material well enough to grade students….

Read on.

22 LAUSD SCHOOLS GIVEN TO LA TEACHERS TO RUN—HIGH PROFILE CHARTERS COME UP EMPTY

At LAUSD school board meeting Tuesday In a large win for UTLA, the teachers’ union, 22 schools were handed off to the districts’ teachers to reorganize. That was 22 out of the 30 that were that were up for grabs as part of the controversial school choice plan. Three of the 30 were given to the mayor’s group to reorganize and another three were given to charters, with one last school given to some kind of partnership between teachers and charters and—I don’t remember who else..

And a most perplexing decision, three charter school operators were yanked completely out of the mix: the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and ICEF Public School—and Green Dot (which only bid for one school). In other words, the charter companies that are best known for their success in running schools in Los Angeles County.

“We missed an opportunity to make bold change today,” the Daily News reported that school board member Yolie Flores said grimly. Flores, who was the one who authored the district’s School Choice plan, was not a happy camper. “Clearly, there is a line of board members that are still beholden to unions. I am beholden to children.”

Howard Blume at the LA Times has the best account of what was evidently a very wild, very woolly day.

Hey, we all hope for the best.

Photo by Brian Vander Brug for the LA Times

As the spring unfolds, I’ll be introducing a number of new voices here at WitnessLA.

The first is writer and Venice High School English teacher, Dennis Danziger who, if you’ll remember, is the person who introduced us to the wonderful Nina Montoya.

Over the next few weeks, he will be telling a true story that began in his classroom.

It’s called The Writer.

It explores what happens when a really great, really decent, really talented kid you know is accused of doing something terrible.

Here is the first chapter.

THE WRITER: CHAPTER ONE

At first, he was just another guy in my first period, 12th grade English class at Venice High School.

Not one of the guys who hides his face in his hood or sits so far in the back of the classroom, back near the windows, that he seems to be outside looking in . He wasn’t a goofball. Didn’t work the room, going from girl to girl trying to get their numbers so he could hook up with them later on. Wasn’t a stoner or a drinker who sat, then put his forehead on the desk and zoned out because he was on maybe two hours of sleep. Wasn’t a jock yakking about how great Kobe is or showing off the cleat marks from yesterday’s soccer practice. Or one of those perpetually tardy guys who slink in 25 minutes late carrying a Frappaccino as if it’s perfectly normal to come late because the line at Starbucks was long.

He was just another guy in my first period, 12th grade English class, Expository Composition.

What was different about John Rodriguez was that he volunteered to read what he wrote. Every day in class I give writing prompts. Random stuff that has nothing to do with what we’re studying. Most students are shy. They might go four or five weeks at a time without reading a word they’ve written. And I never call on anyone. So if a student reads his work work, it’s because he’s eager to share it.

John didn’t emote like a bad actor when he read. He didn’t look around as if expecting applause when he finished. But he responded to all the prompts seriously. And he read pieces of his work every day. He put himself out there, risking the judgment of his classmates. He seemed to care about school, about his education.

All of which makes any student automatically likable from a teacher’s perspective

The first essay I assigned was a 500-word job entitled, “Home.” Whatever one thought of as home, be it a bedroom, a street, a soccer field, or in a lover’s arms, write about it.

John turned in a story that begins like this:

It’s seven o’clock. I’m at home, bored. My brother Damien is sitting
next to me changing the channel on the television. I’m tired of watching
Family Guy. I feel my stomach growl. I look inside the fridge, there’s
nothing in it. Each row is like an apartment on a three story, abandoned
building.

I thought, Whoa, “…like an apartment on a three story, abandoned building.” What 17 year old writes like this?

Not many that I’ve taught in my 17 years in the LAUSD. And I’ve taught some good ones at Crenshaw HS, Palisades HS, Venice HS, and at a summer UCLA high school extension program that attracted some of the most well-to-do students in the country.

After the home essay I began paying more attention to John and his writing.

After class one day I asked, “Hey John, what do you read?”

“I read the LA Times on Thursdays, the ones you bring in.”

”What do you read outside of school?”

No answer.

“For pleasure.”

He shook his head.

He didn’t read and he could write. Really write. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

For the past three years I’ve received a grant from PEN in the Classroom, an organization that promotes literacy in high schools. They pay a professional writer to come into a high school class, once a week for twelve weeks, to work on some aspect of writing. For my students, it’s personal essay.

The PiTC mentor is Amy Friedman, a syndicated columnist who’s written a children’s column called Tell Me a Story for the past 16 years.

Two weeks into the sessions with Amy, John started cranking out essays. I read them and passed them along to Amy, who also happens to be my wife.

“I think John’s a savant,” Amy said. “I’ve never known anyone to write like this. Especially a teenager.”

”I’ve taught, what maybe 4,000 high school students?” I said. “And if John’s not the most talented one, then he’s one of the two or three best.”

The culmination of the PiTC program is that the essays are published in an anthology.

Amy and I were proud of this collection titled, “Thinking Out Loud.” That was John’s title. So was the cover art of a solid looking, but lone teen, whose face is obscured by a baseball cap. He sits, staring straight down, his hands folded together locked in prayer position. And attached to this guy’s shoulder, angel wings.

Inside the collection are 30 essays. Twenty-six of our student writers each penned one essay that made it into the book. John wrote five. And his five are the best five.

The book came out in March. All our students received a copy. Most students acted like it was no big deal, to break into print for the first time, to be published writers.

Then the next day a bunch of them would sheepishly approach me after class and ask if they could buy another copy. For their mom or a relative back home.

About that time I told John that since the PiTC project had ended and Amy would not be teaching the class anymore, that I was going to be his personal writing coach. That in addition to the class work I assigned, I was going to give him extra projects. I wanted to make sure he kept honing his craft.

I asked him if he had ever read anything by Gary Soto. He had not. I sent John to the library to check out a collection of Soto’s short stories. I guaranteed that he’d like the stories. Every California writer should be familiar with Soto’s writing. I said.

He didn’t resist the additional work. Instead he seemed to thrive at the challenge.

But a few weeks after we began the coaching arrangement, an odd thing happened. Odd and uncharacteristic. John quit coming to class.

Early April and he was a no-show. For days and days.

Finally after class one day I asked Jorge, who was either John’s friend or cousin or both, if he knew what happened to John.

“Can I close the door?” Jorge asked.

“Sure.”

He did so.

“What’s up?” I asked.

”It’s not good,” he said.

“Just say it.”

He looked at the floor. Then at me. His chin quivered.

“Just say it.”

”John’s been arrested.”

“Arrested?”

”Yes sir.”

”For what?” I asked.

Again Jorge looked at his shoes. Stared at them for several moments, then took a deep breath.

“Just say it.”

”Attempted murder.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Note: Be sure to read Danziger’s recent column “Shut Up and Strike” at the Huffington Post.

THE CALIFORNIA SURPREMES UPHOLD JESSICA’S LAW

On Monday, the California Supreme Court largely upheld Jessica’s Law dictating where sex offenders are allowed to live—even though, by most accounts, it wreaks havoc with the parolee’s ability find a place to live and to stabilize his life and does little to protect public safety.

Stories on the very disappointing ruling may be found that the Sacramento Bee,the San Jose Murcury News and the LA Times, among others.

REFORMING THE DREADED NCLB

President Obama’s proposed budget includes some serious—and much needed—overhauling of the controversial No Child Left Behind act.

On Monday, KPCC’s Patt Morrison had an informative discussion on what the changes would mean should they take place.

A HIGH SCHOOL FREE OF TAUNTS AND RIDICULE

It shouldn’t be that much to ask. The LA Times has the story about the new school. Here’s how it opens:

Aiden Aizumi almost didn’t graduate from high school.

Aizumi, now 21, is one of many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people who say they have suffered through school, enduring homophobic taunts and name-calling.

He completed his final semester of high school from home.

His mother, Marsha Aizumi, didn’t want others to endure the same treatment, so she approached educators about a new school geared for such students.

The school, which serves grades seven through 12, is a collaboration between Opportunities for Learning, a charter school with 34 locations across Los Angeles and Orange counties, and Lifeworks, a mentoring program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth sponsored by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center….

By the way, the kind of taunting that kids want attend this school to escape is yet one more reason why Prop 8 is so vile: By its existence it says to such kids that there is something wrong with them, that they are not normal, that their desire to one day marry the person they love is not only not allowable, it an active threat to the well being of others.

Being a teenager is hard enough without this kind of abuse.

Nina Montoya is a student in writer/teacher Dennis Danziger’s English class at Venice High School.

She is also part of PEN in the Classroom, a program that sends professional writers into their classrooms for creative writing residencies. In Danziger’s class the kids worked on personal essays, and the professional writer also happened to be Danzinger’s wife, Amy Friedman.

Ten of those students will be performing the essays that resulted in a spoken word setting on Monday, March 8, at the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica. (I’ll remind you again when the date is closer.)

But in meantime, I thought you would enjoy reading the biographical essay that the talented Nina has written.

It is a called: Never to be Seen Again.

Keep in mind as you read it that Nina, a senior, is an honor student, a cheerleader, on staff of the yearbook and has been accepted by Cal State, Northridge for Fall 2010.

Ten years ago I was sitting in my third grade classroom at Noise Elementary School picking up my school things, shoveling them into my Lion King backpack. Before I whisked out the classroom door my teacher caught my eye. I can hardly remember what she looked like, all I can remember was thinking she looked pretty and her hair was a dark brunette. She had just received a phone call and ordered me to accompany her to the office.

I cannot recall when I first remember seeing my older sister Kirin. Kirin, age nine, was either already in the police car or we stepped into the cruiser together. We were not allowed to go home and pack our things; it was straight off to foster care again, except this time I was seven, old enough to remember. I had been there once before, but did not remember anything about that place. My only knowledge of having been there before was from what my sister had told me.

My memory is foggy as to what exactly happened. I do not remember my sister’s reaction to any of this. We knew we would not go home anytime soon and that upset us. Home was in Pasadena, California and to me always seemed prefect. With warm weekends and seemingly endless sunny days. Most of those sunny days we spent on the perfectly manicured, bright green lawn, running crazy and wild through the sprinklers in the front yard.

While we were being driven away, I was trying to recognize something, anything, grasping for some kind of hint, but I never did figure out where we were headed. The vehicle slowly pulled up in front of a small one-story house with an attached garage on the left side of our unwanted new home.

Read the rest of this entry »