Those schools failing in CA? Choices: Close and reopen as a charter school, replace principal, etc

[The Straight Story]

California identifies lowest-performing schools



SACRAMENTO, CA - It is a dubious list.

The California Department of Education on Monday released the names of 188 schools with persistently low-achievement based on their current school year status as being in program improvement, Academic Performance Index (API) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores over three years, graduation rates over four years, and federal Title I fund eligibility.

From the above, the education department computed the bottom five percent lowest-performing schools in the state. CDE uses a tier system in conjunction with the above to make its determination. Tier I list, Tier II list

The distinction means the identified schools must implement one of the four by the start of the 2010-2011 school year:

· Replace the principal, rehire no more than 50 percent of the staff and change the instructional program.

· Close and reopen as a charter school.

· Close and reassign students to other higher-achieving schools in the district.

· Replace the principal, increase instructional time and make other changes.

http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=76795&catid=2

[Turbineguy]

1. What about cutting taxes?

There's no sense in fucking up what's left of the school system if you're not going to cut taxes. YOU HAVE TO CUT TAXES! IT'S THE ONLY SOLUTION TO EVERY PROBLEM!

[The Straight Story]

2. Well, if you cut fed taxes people in CA will spend more there, helping the CA tax income

;)

[omega minimo]

5. Proposition 13 gutted the California education system

[DBoon]

7. deliberately

The push to "charters" and other privatized alternatives to public schools is exactly what the authors of Prop 13 wanted.

Prop 13 was a Trojan horse designed to destroy an sort of effective government

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. Nothing contemporary to that time frame supports your assertions

[omega minimo]

10. I don't recall any bumperstickers saying, "Get our children away from the Public Trough"

[DBoon]

12. I recall lots of people wanting to "starve" funding for "overpaid government employees"

Now what do you think public school teachers are?

The most fervent Prop 13 supporters were white suburbanites who were mad about school desegregation and intent on sending their kids to private schools as a result.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Odd, I was living in California at the time and not see that for 13, but anger at

pols for dodging Prop 13 was clearly a major driver for Prop 4.

First some history for those without a background in CA Gov funding limits:

Prop 13 limited local property tax and required super majority for bonds and other tax increases. It passed by 65% vote. Later Prop 4 limited government revenue at all levels, and passed with 75% of the vote. They were later tweaked by Prop 98 and 111.

Prop 98 in addition to clarifying/tweaking Prop 4, also guaranteed certain levels of school funding that has not always been met by the State. http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/prop_98_primer/prop_98_primer_020805.htm is a good discussion of many aspects of it. Prop 111 further modified it in 1990 http://www.edsource.org/assets/files/finance/EdS_hist_Prop111.pdf

Good overall discussions of government funding limitation in California can be found here:
http://www.lao.ca.gov/2000/041300_gann/041300_gann.html
http://igs.berkeley.edu/library/htTaxSpendLimits2003.html

Those who bleat "Prop 13 is the root of the CA problem" clearly do not understand the full picture. Its much larger and more complex. Prop 13 could be repealed tomorrow and things would still be bad in California.

A better and more mature question would be "Is where we are today a foreseeable consequence at the time?" I think not. The late 70s were a bubble time in California, growth was unstoppable etc. The doom and desolation forecast by Prop 13 critics did not immediately materialize as critics said it would. Instead pols found ways around it. That in turn lead to Prop 4 (a much more hobbling statute) which 98 and 111 mildly updated nearly 10 years later. The facts also are that the fiscal impacts did not become readily apparent to your average bubba for almost 20 years. Clearly it is Prop 4, not Prop 13 that is the defining legal authority in CA budget issues. Prop 98 hurt as much as it helped, and made things much more complicated.

The answer as to why it passed is harder to call. The poll results crossed racial and economic boundaries and greatly surprised the pols. Nothing at the time showed that white anger over desegregation or a desire to kill public schools figured into it for the voters.

[DBoon]

22. The consequences were forseen at the time

It was well known that the Jerry Brown state surplus was finite, and would never again be possible.

I was there - my memory does not fail me.

People not blinded by tax cutting myopia know prop 13 (and its successors) were a ticking time bomb.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

27. Yet in the end, Brown supported Propr 13 and said he could work/live with it

During the run up to the election, there was a live discussion on KABC (Los Angeles) between Jarvis and Brown, billed originally as a debate, Brown effectively capitulated on live TV. It was appalling to watch at the time. Brown later called himself a born again tax cutter.

The dire warnings at the time were clearly read a false by the electorate. 75% voted for Prop 4, which is really at the heart of the current state of affairs. To me this raises several questions:
- How were so many blinded?
- Why did it take nearly 20 years for those warnings to become real to many people.
- Why is the California electorate still unwilling to remove those restrictions today?

[omega minimo]

24. "Bleat"?

Oh my. How has all this legislative tweaking affected your view from the Ivory Tower, Perfesser? Too comfy to hear the dismantling of the social safety net for 30 years? Too superior to think it could ever affect the likes of you?

"A better and more mature question would be "Is where we are today a foreseeable consequence at the time?" I think not."

Aside from your pompous dictates of what other people should think, you are wrong about that. At least two witnesses are here to tell you as much.

"The answer as to why it passed is harder to call. The poll results crossed racial and economic boundaries and greatly surprised the pols. Nothing at the time showed that white anger over desegregation or a desire to kill public schools figured into it for the voters."

The people for Prop. 13 were white, Republican and those who became "Reagan Democrats," the Blue Dogs, the pushers for the demise of the nation, the same smug group you apparently belong to, going along to get along, thinking it could never happen to them, cheering the dismantlement of the social safety net, not foreseeing that the consequences would affect them in a decade or two or three. That blind spot, for some, included education and infrastructure.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

28. Yes bleat

Many who rail against Prop 13 and 13 alone are clearly echoing what they have been told and do not fully understand the issues and that spending limits brought about by Prop 4 that are the crux of the matter.

I voted against 13 and 4. I was pleasantly surprised when it looked like California would continue to prosper despite them. Clearly most of the electorate did not share my view or yours about their impact. Why continues to be debated, but the fact remains that a serious majority of votes did not think it would cause serious impacts to people and services. Claims of racist anger put forth by a prior poster are clearly specious given that 75% of the voters supported Prop 4. To write that off as whites, repukes, Reagan DINOs etc, is being in denial. All of those combined, even then, would barely make a majority. For example 13 and 4 clearly had rank and file union support, though the unions themselves opposed it. Contemporary research done as to why they had such broad support clearly does not support statements being made by some on this thread. Its also does not explain why the California electorate today will still not repeal them.

I am expressing my opinion, which is shared by a great many others, in and out of academia, namely that most people did not see serious consequences at the time, and the votes were not inherently race or socioeconomically based. That is not telling others what to think and many disagree with that position. However some of those making claims to what the electorate thought at the time seem to be doing so without the benefit of documentation or consideration of the vote results.

[DBoon]

11. Bullshit

Prop 13 was entirely designed to be a straightjacket making it impossible for government to raise revenue. Homeowner tax relief was just its main selling point.

Its first (known and anticipated) consequence was to make local government dependent on the state. By doing so, it ensured that shortfalls at the state level would directly affect local government

It was worded not just to restrict raising home owner's property tax, but to make it impossible for state and local government to fund any sort of services, by requiring super-majorities that are nearly impossible to achieve in practice. It did not just cap property taxes, but severely restricted the ability of all levels of government (especially local government) to raise taxes. It was meant to precipitate a financial crises at all layers of government as a first step to shrinking government.

Jarvis and Gann were right wing "small government" ideologues who knew exactly what they were doing when they crafted Prop 13. They built something they knew would realize their goals. Their goal was to "starve the beast" and to eliminate the post New Deal welfare state. Prop 13 was the first shot in the battle that gave us President Reagan and Bush.

People voted for Prop 13 because they didn't want "lazy inefficient government bureaucrats" taking their taxes. Well, that is a straight road to school privatization. We see exactly the same arguments for charter schools 30 years after prop 13

[omega minimo]

13. Good points. Did you foresee it as such at the time?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. No one did. The initial predictions of calamity did not occur since pols found ways around it

ways that were cutoff with Prop 4. The issues we see today were masked by the real estate bubble, the money machine of the 1980s, and were not readily apparent for some 20 years. In hindsight, we could have/should have seen it coming.

[DBoon]

21. Some of us did see it coming

Not every California resident is a complete idiot who thinks you can cut taxes and maintain services by eliminating mythical "government bloat"

Affluent San Diego county was unable to contain massive wildfires of a few years ago because tax-cutting voters refused to approve essential fire fighting purchases.

[omega minimo]

23. Wrong.

Some of us saw most of it coming, since Reagan's bogus election. In foresight, more people should have seen it coming, instead of accepting being blatantly lied to and gambling that some other sucker would get caught in all the shell games, but not them.

As for foresight about a legislative scheme to gut public funding and public programs, that's not a stretch at all. That's the beginning of the dismantling of the social safety net. I did not realize then that some insane Nazis want the public to be uneducated, too.

[DBoon]

19. I was in college

and one of our profs raised exactly this point

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. Your understanding is flawed

Up thread I posted a fairly lengthy and well cited response about Props 13, 4, 98, and 111. Passed over a 10 year span they are the controlling law for CA budgeting. Prop 13 was the start, but Prop 4 as modified by 98 and 111 are the big deal.

One Prop 13 passed, pols immediately started to get around it by using fees and other means to maintain revenue. Prop 4 cut that approach off, forcing income limits on all levels of government, regardless of source. It also passed with 75% of the vote. It was the initiative aimed at perceived government bloat. Prop 13 garnered most of its support and 65% of the vote based on property taxes jumping up well ahead of inflation and income growth for many people.

I believe your theories/assumptions about the motivations of Jarvis and Gann give them to much credit as prophets. Many of the results we discuss now were not predicable then and really did not materialize for 20 years.

[DBoon]

20. I was there. I remember all these propositions

My memory of these events is not flawed. These points were raised and known by the opposition to these measures at the time. I was getting a Masters in public policy at the time. Everything I mentioned was discussed

Jarvis and Gann's motivations lead them to draft an amendment that would realize their ideological dreams. It went far beyond property tax relief. They did not need to be "prophets" - they wrote the damn law with exactly the intention it would do what it has done - destroy the ability of government to do anything beyond basic law enforcement.

Jarvis and Gann's ideology is not a "theory/assumption" - it is a matter of public record.

"forcing income limits on all levels of government, regardless of source" is a very good approach to destroying essential government services, regardless of the need. We see this in the decline in California's K-12 educational system, which tracks these tax limiting measures exactly. We are seeing it in the decline of the University of California system. We see it in overburdened highway systems and failing emergency services

We can thank these measures, the right-wing ideology of their proponents, and the myopia of the voters for the decline of this once great state.

[omega minimo]

25. Your approach is pompous and pointless

"Up thread I posted a fairly lengthy and well cited response about Props 13, 4, 98, and 111. Passed over a 10 year span they are the controlling law for CA budgeting. Prop 13 was the start, but Prop 4 as modified by 98 and 111 are the big deal."

Upthread your post contained citations and flawed logic or mere selective memory. And as you say here, "Prop 13 was the start." That's the point. That was the start and that was where the selfish sentiments were initially expressed, which have since that time, with some of us bearing witness as it occurred, resulted in the destruction of our nation and way of life.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

26. We can argue over the historical events as you wish but it does not change the fact that Prop 13

could go away today and CA would still be in a straight jacket. Its Prop 4 that is the throttling California governments at all levels. A none subtle distinction.

One can argue the mean spiritedness of 13 & 4 (98 and 111 are considered more liberalizing and increased equity) but to claim it resulted in the destruction of the nation and our way of life is hyperbole at best. Also note that the majority of the so called tax revolt measures nationwide failed in that time period. You are effectively claiming that 75% of California voters intended to tear down the government and education. That just doesn't wash. Hate does not drive 3/4 of the electorate. What is your explanation as to why it was so broadly supported?

[omega minimo]

30. Actual statement = "Prop 13 was a Trojan horse designed to destroy an sort of effective government"

It -- and what followed -- succeeded.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. Its still overstatement and hyberpole...

And the statement I quoted was also in the upstream post.

[omega minimo]

32. You are splitting hairs on a discussion board, only to miss the point. For what purpose?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

33. Its far from a hair split

Prop 4 limited all government branches and agencies, not Prop 13. It passed with 75% of the vote, and could not reasonably be blamed on angry whites etc.

[MadMaddie]

3. The statistics on charter schools successes are skewed

The charter schools can pick and choose which students they want - which usually means the higher achieving students and then claim that they are better than public schools.

I do believe there are a few teachers that may not be up to par but that could be applied to any industry. The issue lies with the school boards and administrators and the way they have decided to run the schools.

Thom Hartman was discussing this very issue this morning.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. Not just better students, but better parents too

You see that in magnet public schools as well. To get your child into a charter school takes action and effort by the parents. They take that action because they want a better educational opportunity for their child and believe that a charter school will provide that. That means they care and are willing to expend effort. A key factor in educational success, especially in the lower levels is parental involvement. This can tend to be a self licking ice cream cone in many ways.

[KamaAina]

4. I just scoped out that list

about a half-dozen schools on it are charters! So do they get to close and reopen as real public schools? :shrug:

Also, to absolutely no one's surprise, the list is dominated by schools in low-income areas, with LA Unified alone accounting for about two dozen.

[XemaSab]

14. Exactly

What do Hoopa, Compton, and Chualar have in common? :think:

[omega minimo]

6. It's a racket for privatization of public schools. Anyone interested in this NATIONAL issue

Madfloridian's Journal is recommended reading. Do not miss.

[lonestarnot]

9. Shock and awers.

You would expect that they would attack on only 1 front now would you?

[bemildred]

29. "failing"is an opinion, it is NOT a fact.

Tests are just something somebody made up. They do not mean shit.