California's Children

Only 22% of SoCal 8th graders are "proficient" at grade level

May 15, 2012: California's 8th grade students ranked 47th in the nation in the Nation's Report Card: Science 2011, the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of 21 of the largest cities and urban school districts by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. CA school districts included in the report were Los Angeles (LAUSD), San Diego (SDUSD) and Fresno (FUSD) Unified.

California's average score was 140, up 3 points from 2009 in a possible score range of 0-300. However, the results showed 30% of 8th grade students in California scored in the basic range, meaning they have partial mastery of the fundamentals required for proficient work at each grade level; 47% scored below basic, and only 21% and 1% scored in the proficient (meaning a solid academic performance) and advanced (superior) range respectively.

California also showed the second largest gap--50 points--between the highest (75th percentile and above) and lowest-performing students (25th percentile or below).

The gap was also significant (30 points) between those eligible for Free and Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) with the National School Lunch Program and those who were not, with California ranking 8th worst in the nation.

Among the national findings:

Two-thirds of students work together on science projects at least weekly. Students whose teachers reported that their students do hands-on projects every day or almost every day scored higher on average than students who had hands-on study less frequently.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

LA Board of Ed raises grad requirements for incoming 9th graders

UPDATE, May 10, 2012: The Los Angeles Board of Education voted 5-2 yesterday at a packed board meeting to raise the LAUSD graduation requirements for this year's incoming 9th grade students (graduates of 2016), reports Howard Blume for the LA Times.

At left, Director of LAUSD curriculum and instruction, Gerardo Loera.

Students will be now be required to pass a college prep curriculum, including 2 years of a foreign language, science and math classes. The class of 2016 will be allowed to graduate with Ds; however, the class of 2017 will need a C in all classes to get their high school diploma. The board also voted to reduce the number of credits required to graduate from 230 to 210; the original proposal was to reduce the number of credits to 180, but that would have left no room for important electives such as health (including sex education), music and art.

Previously reported:

Fresno USD: Supe asks for, and gets, "scathing" assessment

May 2, 2012: Fresno Unified School District, reports the Fresno Bee,  is plagued by low expectations of students. This conclusion is from a report by the Washington, D.C.-based Council of Great City Schools. It is based on an assessment from the Council that was requested by FUSD superintendent, Michael Hanson, who asked that the findings "pull no punches." (At left, Hanson in a formal portrait, by Craig Kohlruss.)

The findings [read full report here] call for an administrative overhaul and new top-level central office jobs. The council's report will join the Graduation Task Force recommendations, expected in the next month or so, to become the district's guiding documents next school year, Hanson said last week. ...Some teachers and school board members have questioned the credibility of the council's report, which was expedited at Hanson's request and completed during the spring break in April when schools were closed. The report ... validates efforts to expand Hanson's administrative cabinet that already were under way for weeks......

The report criticizes staffing shortages, a lack of accountability for teachers and administrators, failing English-language programs, high suspension and expulsion rates, and management that is ineffectively structured.

Low math-skilled adults 5x times "more likely" to endanger kids w/med overdose

April 30, 2012: Measuring the correct dose of medicine to give a sick child is critical, but a study has found that caregivers who lack math skills (below 3rd grade) were 5 times more likely to make a dosing error.

The findings were published online in AAP News, April 28, 2012, in time for the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston last weekend.

From AAP News:

In this study, researchers looked at the relationship between both reading and math skills and medication dosing errors. Participants (289 primary caregivers of children younger than 8 years of age) were prescribed a short course of liquid medication after being seen in a pediatric emergency department. Caregivers were given three tests to assess their reading and math skills: nearly 1 in 3 had low reading skills, while 83% had poor numeracy skills  and 27% had skills at the third grade level or below.

Researchers also watched them as they measured out a dose of the medication that had been prescribed for their child; 41% of caregivers made a dosing error, and math scores in particular were associated with measuring mistakes.

Study co-author H. Shonna Yin, M.D., (above), assistant professor of pediatrics, New York
University School of Medicine:

“These findings point to a need to examine whether strategies that specifically address parent math skills can help reduce medication errors in children. In addition, recognition of the importance of addressing numeracy skills may be helpful ...for example, having providers review and give parents pictures of dosing instruments filled to the correct amount for that prescription may be beneficial.”

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

9 CA elems win Target library renovation grants

April 30, 2012:  Nine California elementary schools  are recipients of grants in Target's  2012 School Library Makeover Program (in partnership with the Heart of America Foundation).  The money from Target --$12 million -- will go toward renovating library facilities in the schools, and will include donations of 2,000 books, furniture, and iPads; additionally, each student at the winning schools will receive 7 books to take home.

The winners in California are:

Leo Politi Elementary, Western Avenue Elementary, Valerio Street Elementary (Los Angeles);
Roosevelt Elementary School (Santa Ana); Peter Burnett Elementary (Sacramento);  Albert Will Angier Elementary (San Diego); Bachrodt Charter Academy (San Jose); Sanchez College Preparatory School (San Francisco); Burnett Elementary School (Long Beach).

Schools are preselected based on need: more than 65% of the students must be eligible for free or reduced-price lunches and more than 25% of the students read at or below basic levels on standardized tests.

Target also announced it plans to return to 118 schools that received library renovations in previous efforts and provide them with $1.5 million in reading grant

Click here to see a previous library makeover of Starr King Elementary School in Long Beach.

 Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.