California's Children

CA School Bds Ass'n endorse *both* tax initiatives for school $$

UPDATE, May, 2012: In an "unprecedented move," the California School Boards Association (CSBA) has voted to endorse both tax initiatives that would raise revenue for K-12 schools on the November ballot, reports Kevin Yamamura for the Sacramento Bee.

The two initiatives on the ballot are Governor Brown's compromise tax proposal with the California Federation of Teachers that temporarily raises sales tax and income tax on the wealthiest earners, and Molly Munger's  "Our Children, Our Future, 2012," an across-the-board tax hike sponsored by the state PTA. Read below for previously reported details.

School districts must *give* unused bldgs to charters, says May revise

May 21, 2012: School districts that house charter schools are required under Proposition 39 to allocate adequate and comparable facilities to the charters; however, the district may sell or lease vacant buildings to provide additional sources of revenue.

Under the Governor's May budget revise, new revisions, school districts would no longer be able to sell their surplus property -- instead, they will be obligated to give any unused district facilities to charter schools.

The proposition is opposed by the Education Coalition. The Education Coalition members include: Association of California School Administrators (ACSA); California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO);  California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESSA);  California Federation of Teachers (CFT-AFL-CIO); California School Boards Association (CSBA); California School Employees Association (CSEA);  California State PTA; California Teachers Association (CTA); Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

As John Fensterwald covered the issue in Educated Guess:

“This proposal comes at a time when school districts have taken over $20 billion in cuts over the past several years,” [read a statement from the Education Coalition]. “This proposal would eliminate this flexibility and remove a valuable tool districts have...to minimize cuts in programs and services for students.”

 Eric Premack, executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento [disagrees]: "By law, districts are required to offer charter schools comparable facilities. Instead, they are offering inadequate facilities to charters while at the same time consolidating buildings and putting them on the market for lease or sale...

 [Brown's May revise of the '12-'13 budget] clarified that the provision would apply only to buildings that were funded with state money. It wasn’t clear from the budget message whether the provision would apply to school construction and renovation for any amount. Dennis Myers, assistant executive director of the California School Boards Association, said it also wasn’t clear if the provision would apply only to charters approved by the host district or any charter school that wants a building.

The Ed Coalition is proposing that charters, like other local entities, be required to submit an offer to buy a surplus building.

Turning surplus property over to charter schools could encourage parent groups facing the closing of their neighborhood school to start a charter school. But the new requirement also could result in a more straightforward process, and more of a fair shake for existing charters that have been leasing buildings outside of the district.

Brown is proposing another provision to benefit charter schools: County treasurers, which can pool borrowing at low interest rates, will have the authority to lend to charters as they have for school districts [to cover the delayed payments in state funding; previously charter schools have had to borrow from private lenders at much higher interest rates].

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J. Carlyle.

PTA/Munger tax initiative qualifies for the November ballot

May 8, 2012: The California State PTA's  annual convention begins tomorrow at the Anaheim Convention Center. To give momemtum to the gathering, PTA officials announced yesterday that the tax initiative it has sponsored, Our Children, Our Future, 2012, bank-rolled by Molly Munger, has collected enough signatures and will qualify for the ballot in November.

On the conference agenda:

• Keynote by Rosalind Wiseman, at left, anti-bullying expert and author of "Mean Girls"
  
  
• Keynote by University of California president Mark Yudof
  
  
• Guest appearance by Debbie Allen, actress, dancer and choreographer, who is an advocate for art and music in classrooms

• Discussion of Our Children, Our Future, 2012.

• Edsource symposium examining the impact of the state budget deficit on schools. 

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

8,197 teacher projects funded by 143K people thru donorschoose.org: LAUSD

February 15, 2012: The Wasserman Foundation, a family educational charity established in 1952 by Lew Wasserman, a movie studio mogul, and his wife Edie, in partnership with Los Angeles Unified School District, has donated $4 million to fund classroom projects in the district through donorschoose.org, an online charity where public school teachers can submit requests for supplies for classroom projects, and donors can choose which to support.

The Wasserman Foundation, currently run by grandson Casey Wasserman, at left, donated $5.3 million to LAUSD in 2009; the recent campaign brings the total donation to $9.3 million.

Wasserman's $4 million donation funded a total of 8,197 LAUSD classroom projects in less than 3 months.

PE when parents can pay; obesity/health issues when they cannot

Physical education (PE) classes in elementary schools are at risk of elimination as school districts struggle to find funds to pay for the extra teachers. (A November 2011 survey from the California State Parent Teacher Association reported: 75% of the 1,600 members polled said their school's physical education and sports programs had been eliminated or reduced).

 Redwood City School District's (RCSD) solution is to outsource PE classes to private contractors in a patchwork approach paid for by parents, foundations,and non-profits, reports Katherine Mieszkowski of the New York Times's Bay Citizen.

RCSD has hired 9 teachers for 16 schools in the distric; PE instruction falls to classroom teachers if outside funding for specialists is not available.

At Clifford School, Rhythm and Moves ( a private company that offers PE and music programs) is paid $71K (funds from RCSD's PTA).

At seven other schools , coaches from Peninsula Community Center teach weekly sessions of sports like basketball, volleyball, Frisbee and soccer in a program created in 2008 by Serve the Peninsula, a Redwood City nonprofit. The program costs $160K/annually, and is supported by the Sequoia Healthcare District, which receives its financing through property taxes.

The Redwood City Education Foundation will distribute $15K in grants this year to district schools to pay for programs that may include dance or yoga.

Other districts are not able to rely on a parents' financial support; Long Beach Unified School District cut all its middle school sports programs to cover budget shortfalls.

Statewide, it is fairly common for younger students to receive less physical education than the state requires (200 minutes of physical education every 10 school days), said Doug Jann, education programs consultant for the California Department of Education (CDE).

In December, the CDE released results from the 2010-11 Physcial Fitness Tests; only 31% of all children passed. A Los Angeles Times editorial pointed out the more serious problems of obesity masked by these numbers of pass or fail.

The results also show clear racial disparities in the body composition test, grade 5 (from Dataquest):

For Hispanic students only 43.8% were within the Health Fitness Zone (HFZ) for body composition (using the Body Mass Index (BMI), with 42% considered at high risk (meaning obese: for example, 5'7" and 190 pounds); only 49% of American Indian  and 50% of African American students have a healthy BMI, with 36% and 34% of students considered at risk respectively. These numbers are much lower compared to White (64%) and Asian (66%) students. Males fare slightly worse than females (49% to 56%).

Students from lower-income families also fared poorly on the body composition test: only 45% passed within the HFZ and 40% were considered at risk.

A sedentary lifestyle is known to to be the biggest factor in causing obesity; a report (December 2011) by the American Association of Pediatrics found socio-ecomonically disadvantaged children are at higher risk because they lack the resources for outside play.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.