New law dumbs down Calif. math performance

By Bill Evers and Ze’ev Wurman, Originally posted at CalWatchdog.com, republished with permission

Gov. Jerry Brown recently sent California several decades back into the 20th century by signing Senate Bill 1200, by state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland. This law now mandates a shocking rollback of how much math we expect children in California’s public schools to learn and  — furthermore — this law constitutes a setback for good government.

Back in the late 1990s, faced with evidence that the state ranked near the bottom of the nation and industrialized countries in math achievement,California policymakers set the goal of teaching Algebra 1 by grade eight to all students who were ready for it — in line with most high-achieving countries.

From the beginning, policymakers knew it was an ambitious goal. Educators stepped up to the challenge. Policymakers at the state level, working together with teachers and principals in local school districts, put a system in place to enhance learning of key building blocks of mathematics in the elementary grades, strengthened teachers’ math competency, increased training on math teaching techniques, and provided textbooks aligned to the more challenging standards.

And students stepped up, too. The results are a rarely-told story of stunning success in public education. In 1998, only 17 percent, just 70,000 of our students, took Algebra by grade eight. But this year, 68 percent, or more than 324,000 did.

This translates to almost quarter of a million more students taking Algebra by grade eight. Not only had we successfully quadrupled the fraction of Algebra-taking by grade eight, which is a major accomplishment for those students and their teachers — but an ever larger percentage of students have over time scored “proficient” and above.

The success of minorities and students in poverty increasing their Algebra 1 proficiency was the most significant achievement. In 2003, fewer than 1,700 African-Americans successfully took Algebra by grade 8. By 2012, more than 6,900 did; that was more than a four-fold increase

In 2003, slightly more than 10,000 Latino students successfully took Algebra by grade 8. By 2011, more than 63,000 did; that was more than six-fold increase. In fact, more Latino students scored proficient and advanced on Algebra in 2012 than the total number of Latino students who took Algebra in 2003.

Dooming the children

SB 1200 will doom all children, whether in poverty or affluent, to a one-size-fits-all, lowered-expectations elementary curriculum that will only prepare them for pre-algebra in middle school. Rather than strengthening preparation for all students in earlier grades for Algebra in grade eight, in line with international benchmarks, we will return to an era when only privileged families can afford the extra tutoring to prepare their children for high expectations and international competition.

We have come to the point in this country where foreign students now make up almost half of those getting master’s degrees and over half of doctorates in mathematics and computer science in our universities. This is shameful.

Poorly drafted

Furthermore, SB1200 is so poorly drafted that it doesn’t just roll back the expectation of Algebra 1 in grade eight. It does more than that by requiring “one set” of standards “at each grade level,” and precluding typical mathematics course options for students in high school.

California high schools have always offered different math classes to students in the same grade who have different levels of preparation. Accordingly,California historically has adopted course-level math standards for high school — preserving local control at the district and school level to decide when it would be best to offer rigorous courses to each student based on the student’s ability. But SB 1200 would outlaw that practice by mandating only one set of mathematics curriculum- content standards, textbooks and training and teacher materials for all students in each K-12 grade.

Officials of Brown’s administration have offered rhetoric about how they will not have to implement the plain language of the law. But they do not have the statutory authority or capacity to violate the law’s provisions. Efforts to get around the wording of the law will lead to confusion about policy on curriculum, textbooks, and testing — and hence invite lawsuits and re-ignite the math wars.

Standards development

Finally, SB 1200 radically changes the balance of power in government over the development of curriculum-content standards. Historically, standards have been drafted by a panel appointed by different branches of California’s state government, with a majority of appointees made by the governor. This bill permanently transfers authority over standards development to the state superintendent of public instruction, currently Tom Torlakson, a former Democratic state legislator.

Such a move is unwise. The state superintendent and bureaucrats at the state Department of Education often are likely to represent the narrow interests of education providers. Whereas the governor (of whatever party) is more likely to represent the larger interests of all the people of California who primarily want to see students succeeding academically – especially students’ parents and employers who hire graduates of public schools.

When California agreed to consider adopting the Common Core national curriculum-content standards, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, concerned about maintaining California’s rigorous standards, conditioned their adoption “until we have determined that they meet or exceed our own” standards

In that spirit, the California State Academic Content Standards Commission determined in 2010 that retaining Algebra I in eighth grade was essential. It suggested dual options — both authentic Algebra I and the Common Core’s pre-algebra. The state Board of Education approved the suggestions in August 2010. In signing SB 1200 Governor Brown has just thrown overboard the rigor that three past governors — of both parties — had fought hard to establish and maintain.

Undoing California’s high academic expectations is a disastrous step backward for all children. SB 1200 will leave the children and  future workers of California woefully unprepared for the challenges and demands they will face in today’s ever more fiercely competitive economy at home and in an increasingly global marketplace.

Bill Evers is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a member of the institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education. He was U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Program, Evaluation and Policy Development from 2007 to 2009. Ze’ev Wurman is an executive at a Silicon Valley semiconductor company and a former senior adviser to the U.S. Department of Education. Both Evers and Wurman served on the California State Academic Content Standards Commission in 2010.  

2012 California Propositions Voting Guide

Posted by CotoBlogzz

 

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA - As we started to look at the 2012 California propositions, we recall that with few exceptions, while most legislation, including propositions, may be well intentioned, more legislation begets more parasitic bureaucracies, which quickly turn their focus to self-preservation.

Why we continue to argue that we must slay The hydra -   The symbiotic relationship between politicians, unions, lobbyist and parasitic .bureaucracies. 

Consider fir example that as of July 1, 2012, it is now illegal to sell and consume  duck's liver (foi grass,) but it is legal to use taxpayer money to fund legalized murder.    For the the past ten years, we have been arguing  that we no longer need lawmakers.  What we need are problem solvers.  Which is why we should only  consider candidates willing to pledge to support the 80-20-10Plan:

 Consider that a new study conducted by Daniel DiSalvo for the Manhattan Institute found that since 1980, public employee unions have been successful in defeating 75 percent of the ballot initiatives they opposed and have won in 50 percent of the initiatives they supported. That means unions have perfected the use of initiatives to block proposals that threaten their interests, or pass the ones that best fits their interests - such as what happened in California in the last election: While all eyes were on Wisconsin, The Union Wreaks Havoc in SOCAL - California Voters Approve 63% of tax Measures

 Finally, consider that max business exodus support the argument that Excessive Government Regulations Are Strangling California Businesses

Proposition 30 -  NO Proposition 30 is upported by Brown, the California Teachers Association and SEIU. Consider that the California teachers association (CTA) and the SEIU spent $500 million in ten years buying politicians in Sacramento. Now both joined Brown In support of Proposition 30. This is your brain. this is your brain on drugs.   This is Joe Biden laughing.  Any questions?

Proposition 31 -  NO

Simple political game

Proposition 32 -  YES

Brown, CTA and SEIU say no.  Enough said.  See Prop 30 comments above.

Proposition 33 -  NO

Simple political game

Proposition 34 - NO

Morally correct, fiscally irresponsible

Proposition 35 -  YES

Proposition 36 -  NO

Political game

Proposition 37 -  YES

While it may need fine-tuning, genetically engineered  foodstuff needs to be labelled.

Proposition 38 -  NO

Education reforms is not about money, as much as it is to break the public union's stranglehold -  Consider that the CTA defeated sex abuse legislation and wants to criminalize home-schoolers - why give them any more blank checks?

Proposition 39 -  NO

What part of stop giving politicians a blank check don't you understand?

Proposition 40 -  NO

A political game

Combating Union Misinformation

By Larry Sand

Getting the facts to people who have been lied to for decades is essential for change.

In my latest City Journal post, I argue in favor of an initiative that will be on the ballot in California in November.

Proposition 32, which will appear on the November general-election ballot, would ban unions and most corporations from making direct contributions to state and local candidates. The measure would also bar government contractors from contributing to political campaigns. The most significant provision, though – the one giving public-employee unions, especially the California Teachers Association, fits – would prohibit corporations, unions, and government employers from deducting money from workers’ paychecks to use for political purposes.

Chris, a commenter to my article, dismissed my argument, claiming that,

It is very easy to opt-out of the payroll deductions, which amount to about 6 dollars a year per teacher.

When I read such comments, I have to wonder where Chris gets his misinformation. Assuming he isn’t pulling it out of a hat, he is getting it from someone he trusts, very probably his local teachers union. And, sad to say, there are many thousands of Chris’s who form opinions and vote on erroneous data. It brought back bad memories from 2005 when Prop. 75, the last paycheck protection initiative on the ballot, sought to ban “the use by public employee labor organizations of public employee dues or fees for political contributions except with the prior consent of individual public employees each year on a specified written form.” The prop was popular early in the campaign, but after CTA blasted ads over the summer in which they spouted lie after lie and managed to scare teachers (and the general public), it was voted down. Infuriated that CTA’s deceitfulness and demagoguery were so readily believed, I cofounded the California Teachers Empowerment Network in 2006.

Anyway, back to Chris and his $6 figure. The truth is quite different. Throughout California, almost all teachers belong to three unions – their local, a state affiliate (usually CTA) and a national union (usually NEA). Dues vary from year to year and in 2011-2012, teachers’ union dues broke down this way:

NEA – $178
CTA – $647
Local – varies (typically $200-$300)
NEA – 56%
CTA – 28.6%
Local – 28.6%

What many California teachers don’t know is that they don’t have to belong to a union. By resigning from the union (and losing voting privileges and liability insurance) a teacher becomes what’s called an agency fee payer. As such, the teacher still has to pay the union the full dues amount, but can get a yearly rebate for monies that the unions “claim” they spend on politics. (I say “claim” because it is generally understood that the unions spend much more on politics than they admit to. In addition, there are many gray-area expenditures, like if a teachers union sends members a letter telling them to vote for a certain state assemblyman, the cost of the mailer and the postage don’t get counted as political spending, but rather as communication costs.)

What can someone who resigns from the union expect in the way of a rebate? As an example, the following rebate percentages were furnished by Sacramento-area teacher-blogger Darren Miller.

This means, for example, that Miller, an agency fee payer, got back 28.6% of his CTA dues which amounted to $185 (28.6% of $647.) Same principle holds for NEA and his local. Hence, he received a rebate check last year for $358.20.

But there is an even bigger question here. Even if Prop. 32 flies and unions can’t deduct the political part of their dues from a member’s paycheck, I have to wonder why the government (i.e. the taxpayer) is involved at all in the collection of monies for a union – a private, non-tax paying, multimillion dollar corporation. In short, why can’t the union collect its own dues?

The answer, of course, is that if the union had to do it, it would lose millions because many teachers wouldn’t bother paying up. This is just what happened in Wisconsin after Act 10 became law.

In the nearly 15 months since Mr. Walker signed the law, 6,000 of the AFT’s Wisconsin 17,000 members quit, the union said. It blamed the drop on the law.

WEAC, the other teachers union in Wisconsin, has lost almost a quarter of its membership (20,000 teachers) since the advent of Act 10, with more sure to follow when their contracts end in June 2013.

And just how do the unions justify payroll deduction of dues?

Bob Chanin, then-general counsel of the National Education Association, explained it in 1978: “It is well-recognized that if you take away the mechanism of payroll deduction you won’t collect a penny from these people, and it has nothing to do with voluntary or involuntary. I think it has a lot to do with the nature of the beast, and the beasts who are our teachers. . . [They] simply don’t come up with the money regardless of the purpose.”

Seems to me that it’s time that “the beasts who are our teachers” and the general public, who get taken to the cleaners on a regular basis, rise up against their abusers. A Yes vote on Prop. 32 in California would be a good place to start.

About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.

Larry Sand, a retired teacher, is president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network.

Paycheck Protection Redux

By Larry Sand

Unions line up against an initiative that would end payroll deductions for politics.

For the third time since 1998, California voters face a ballot initiative that would rein in special-interest political spending in the state. Proposition 32, which will appear on the November general-election ballot, would ban unions and most corporations from making direct contributions to state and local candidates. The measure would also bar government contractors from contributing to political campaigns. The most significant provision, though—the one giving public-employee unions, especially the California Teachers Association, fits—would prohibit corporations, unions, and government employers from deducting money from workers’ paychecks to use for political purposes.

Corporations, which have other means of acquiring political money, don’t deduct nearly as much money for politics as unions do. Only about 800 companies in the United States use voluntary deductions to fund corporate PACs; most political donations come from company executives. By contrast, payroll deductions are the unions’ bread and butter. Every public-employee union in the state deducts money from members’ paychecks alongside the withholding for federal and state income taxes. Right now, the only way an employee can recoup the political portion of these dues is to “resign” from the union and ask for a rebate—an onerous process. Prop. 32 would turn the tables on union political fundraising, and so the unions have invested heavily in defeating it.

So far, Prop. 32 opponents have outraised supporters by roughly five-to-one. As of September 24, the Prop. 32 campaign had raised about $9 million, while the opposition collected $41.3 million. Nearly $17 million of that total came directly from the CTA.

Earlier ballot measures similar to Prop. 32 have failed. In 1998, Prop. 226, the first “paycheck-protection” initiative, would have required all employers and labor organizations to obtain a member’s permission on a yearly basis before withholding wages or using union dues or fees for political activities. Correctly perceiving the initiative as a threat to their hegemony, the unions spent more than $24.8 million opposing it. The “Yes on 226” side could only muster $6.4 million, and the measure lost, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent. Paycheck protection made a comeback in 2005 with Prop. 75, which sought to ban “the use by public employee labor organizations of public employee dues or fees for political contributions except with the prior consent of individual public employees each year on a specified written form.” Once again, opposition forces overwhelmed proponents, with the CTA contributing $12.1 million to the “No on Prop. 75” campaign’s $54.1 million war chest, while the “Yes” campaign barely raised $5.8 million. The initiative lost by the nearly identical margin of 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent.

Seven years later, we’re at it again. Prop. 32 goes further than its predecessors in simply banning paycheck deductions for political purposes, period—no fuss over employees’ consent this time. Of course, employees could give to a candidate or political-action committee via a direct deduction from their own bank accounts if they so choose. But public-employee unions know well what happens when employees are given a choice. In 2001, Utah’s state legislature passed the Voluntary Contributions Act, which “banned public agencies from diverting employee wages to political entities” and requiring “public sector unions to collect funds through voluntary member contributions.” Within a year, the Utah Education Association saw the rate of contributing members to the union’s PAC plunge from 68 percent to 6.8 percent. In 1997, Idaho passed legislation requiring public-employee union PACs to get written consent from members every year before making automatic payroll deductions. The proportion of contributing members dropped 75 percent soon after the law took effect.

How do teachers’ unions justify automatic deductions? Bob Chanin, then-general counsel of the National Education Association, explained it in 1978: “It is well-recognized that if you take away the mechanism of payroll deduction you won’t collect a penny from these people, and it has nothing to do with voluntary or involuntary. I think it has a lot to do with the nature of the beast, and the beasts who are our teachers. . . [They] simply don’t come up with the money regardless of the purpose.” What Chanin seemed to be saying is that teachers are too greedy, lazy, or unenlightened to know what’s good for them, so the union leadership should take members’ money and spend it as they see fit.

And how do the unions spend their members’ dues? According to the California Fair Practices Commission, from 2000 through 2009 the CTA doled out $211.8 million on candidates, ballot measures, and a fearsome lobbying operation in Sacramento. Another public-employee union, the California State Council of Service Employees, laid out $107.5 million in political expenditures during the same period. Of the $286.6 million lobbying groups spent in 2011 trying to influence legislation, the CTA spent the most ($6.5 million). And it’s no secret which direction teachers’ union money flows. According to Follow the Money, between 2003 and 2012, the CTA contributed more than $15 million to Democrats and just $92,700 to Republicans. That works out to 99.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. No polling data exists on how California’s teachers break down politically, but it’s safe to assume that it’s nowhere near as one-sided as their union’s spending suggests. (Nationally, the political breakdown for teachers is 40 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican, and 30 percent unaffiliated.)

How is a system fair in which union members’ dues flow, without their consent, to candidates and campaigns whose views they and other taxpayers may not share? And why should a worker have to take the initiative to avoid contributing to political causes deemed worthy by his union bosses? “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves,” Thomas Jefferson once declared, “is sinful and tyrannical.” Public-employee unions are the living embodiment of this practice.

Larry Sand, a retired teacher, is president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network.

Are you ready for BrownTaxMaggeddon?

 Posted By CotoBlogzz

In response to businesses fleeing California, LG Newsone quipped that businesses need to be more responsive.  Now today I got this notice informing me that the “legislature passed and the Governor signed legislation to require some property owners to pay a fee for state fire prevention in their areas..”

Makes sense doesn’t it?  Particularly if there is symmetry.

For example, I have been paying property taxes for over 20 years, but have not had my children attend public schools in that period – does that mean I get a refund?

What about parents who send their children to private schools, or better yet home-school their children?  Do they get a tax break.  Of course note.  Worse.  The California Teachers Association as tried to criminalize home-school teachers!

Now, if you think ObamTax is bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  Forget the special fire prevention tax  or any other special tax, or even the 63%  voter-approved local tax  measures on the June 5, 2012 California primary ballot. 

California residents face BrownTaxMaggeddon if they approve California Proposition 30, despite what Brian Jones Long Beach teacher might say.  

In a piece titled California education needs Proposition 30 published Septemebr 25, 2012 by the Examiner.com, Jonews writes “ I have been in education since 2007. When I first began teaching, there was funding for school field trips, small class size, and teacher aides. My first classroom had 24 students in a 4/5 combination. In this small class I was able to address each individual need through teacher led small groups that I could split between myself and my aide. My inner-city class also got to go on a week-long science camp expedition to gain firsthand experiences as to how mountains shift and geologic layers form.

This is in stark contrast to the last year of teaching. I was teaching a third grade class composed of 36 students. When you would try to make a copy, a sign covered the copier stating, “We are over our copy limit,” this was November! The teachers at the school had to go 7 months scrounging copies from a malfunctioning Duplo machine. If action is not taken, there will be another $6 billion in cuts to California education; this means over $50 million in mid-year cuts to Long Beach Unified School District alone.”

The issue is not about money.  The issue is not about class size.  The issue is about making sure that the taxpayer money is used responsibly.  The issue is that the Teachers Union, the one bankrolling proposition 30, in conjunction with the SEIU spent over $500,000,000 to buy lawmakers in Sacramento, over a ten year period.

Yesterday, Governor Brown signed SB 1200, which according to State Board of Education Executive Director will result in discouraging students from taking Algebra I in eight grade.

Now consider the old adage:  If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.  The California Teachers Union has been adamant about establishing performance measurement criteria.  Worse.  Rather than focusing on improving education, the  California Teachers Union was instrumental in  defeating  Senate Bill 1530, a bill to protect schoolchildren from teachers who are sexual predators. After the recent arrest of Mark Berndt for feeding his students cookies laced with his own semen, State Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat, submitted a bill to make it easier to fire such teachers. It passed the Senate in Sacramento, but when it went to the Assembly, the California Teachers Association put pressure on the Democrats and only one Democrat on the committee voted for it.

So if you think that California proposition 30 will actually help improve public education in California, you qualify for a free iPhone.  If you call now, you are also eligible for a self-sterilization kit  worth $999 that can be used to clean you gene pool.  Call now and be ready to face BrownTaxMaggeddon

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HB Married teachers convicted of unlawful sex with a minor

Posted by CotoBlogzz

Ranch Santa Margarita, CA - Daniel Alma and  Gay Davidson-Shepard, married school teachers were convicted today of having an unlawful sexual relationship together and on their own with a 17-year-old male high school student.

Daniel Alma Shepard, 63, Huntington Beach, pleaded guilty to three felony counts and one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Gay Davidson-Shepard, 60, Huntington Beach. Pleaded guilty three felony counts and one misdemeanor count each of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and violation of a protective order. 

According to the Orange County District Attorney’s office, the Shepards are expected to be sentenced to the court offer of three years formal probation, counseling, and 60 days of community service. Shepard was sentenced to two years in prison and Davidson-Shepard was sentenced to four years in prison, both stayed pending completion of probation. The OCDA  intends to object to the sentence at the sentencing hearing. 

At the time of the crime, Gay Davidson-Shepard was a teacher at Mesa View Middle School in Huntington Beach and her husband Daniel Shepard was a teacher at Westminster High School in Westminster. 

Daniel Shepard met John Doe while the victim was a student at Westminster High School. In March 2009, Daniel Shepard and Gay Davidson-Shepard groomed the 17-year-old victim by regularly inviting him to their Huntington Beach home to drink alcohol, eat, play board games, and watch movies. 

In April 2009, the dShepards sexually assaulted the victim for the first time, while John Doe was at their home. On a weekly basis beginning in April 2009, the Shepards got John Doe intoxicated by providing him with alcohol and then engaged in illegal sex acts with the victim in their home.

In March 2011, the victim disclosed the sexual assault to his mother. John Doe's mother contacted the Westminster Police Department, who investigated the case and arrested the defendants on April 20, 2011. 

On Nov. 28, 2011, while out of custody on bail for the sexual assault and subject to a protective order barring her from contacting John Doe, Gay Davidson-Shepard violated the protective order by calling and texting the victim numerous times.

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