An Interactive Learning Design Blog

An Interactive Learning Design Blog

Mar 11, 2008

1,800 more school district staff in Orange County receive layoff notices..

From the OC Register in Orange County comes this upsetting headilne

Capistrano layoffs bring O.C. teacher terminations to 1,867
District approves plan to cut 270 full-time teaching jobs during late Monday meeting.
By FERMIN LEAL and SCOTT MARTINDALE
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Comments 62 | Recommend 12

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – Capistrano Unified trustees on Monday approved the issuance of layoff notices for 306.8 certificated staff jobs – teachers, administrators, education support staff and others – in preparation for state budget cuts.
Read more....

Some people don't seem to understand the gravity of the problem

Take the Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters. In a column entitled " Budget gap spotlights public school funding "

starts out:

Inevitably, every debate about California's deficit-riddled budget morphs into a fight over how much money we should be spending on public schools and how that money should be spent.
It's happening again as the Capitol's political figures wrestle with a deficit that's worse than usual and as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes – semiseriously – a $4.8 billion whack in state aid to schools.


I'm don't know where he got the idea that Arnold was semiserious in his budget. But the best(or worse) of this column comes at end
Cutting school financing, as Schwarzenegger proposes, certainly doesn't make the task of improving performance any easier but, as the Stanford researchers implied, merely spending money doesn't, unto itself, guarantee a better outcome. There is virtually no statistical correlation between a state's level of per-pupil spending and its standing in national academic tests or high school graduation rates.

Other factors such as poverty, peer and familial pressure, and cultural values all play roles in academic outcomes that merely spending more money doesn't alter. Unfortunately, however, the Capitol is incapable of debating education in any terms other than money.


Words fail me. Across California, School Districts(and, more importantly, the children they serve) are facing disastrous cuts in services, and Mr. Walters, one of the most widely read columnists in Sacramento, is ignoring the fact that we are already ranked 47th in the country in spending per pupil. Arnold's cuts would put us seriously below Mississippi in spending per pupil.
His email address is dwalters@sacbee.com. I encourage everyone to write him and encourage him to consider moving to Mississippi where educational spending is more to his liking.

Continuing to track the effect of school budget cuts state wide

School district to examine budget cuts
The Desert Sun - Palm Springs,CA,USA
Long after the final bell rang at Agua Caliente Elementary School in Cathedral City on Monday, about 30 students huddled in the cafeteria, ...


State leaders visit to discuss education cuts
Whittier Daily News - Whittier,CA,USA
Hittelman said he is unwilling to accept any cuts to the education budget, regardless of the state's budget woes. "California is 46th in the nation in ...

District may lay off 54 teachers
Hesperia Star - Victorville,CA,USA
"Without exaggeration, I did not sleep Thursday night," after he first saw the proposed cuts. The cuts include 40 elementary school teaching positions, ...

County's School Cuts Could Total $276M
NBC Sandiego.com - San Diego,CA,USA
"I am convinced the people of California want better for California's children." Teachers from all over the county showed up Monday at San Altos Elementary ...

Banning Unified district to lay off 25 people
Press-Enterprise - Riverside,CA,USA
Ten elementary school teachers, instead of 23, will receive layoff notices. "That number may go down as well," said board President Amy Herr. ...

Riverside Unified's historic Grant school like a family heirloom
Press-Enterprise - Riverside,CA,USA
Named after the former Union Army general and 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant, the campus first served as an elementary school, as well as Riverside's ...

Mar 10, 2008

Tracking the state wide disaster in Education budget cuts...

This week, I begin to track the state wide crisis in school funding brought on by the Governor's budget proposal. Novato is not alone in facing disastrous cuts in programs if the governor and the legislature cannot find a better solution to the current budget crisis.


Teachers caught in middle of state deficit debate
San Jose Mercury News - CA, USA
But an elementary school program that teaches kids to play string instruments could be eliminated, he said, as well as counselors who work with troubled ...
See all stories on this topic

An unhappy math exercise
Napa Valley Register - Napa,CA,USA
Asano is one of six elementary science teachers in Napa who could lose their jobs during a time of statewide budget cuts to public education. ...
See all stories on this topic

Local schools prepare for big budget cuts
Daily Review Online - CA,USA
Meanwhile, San Leandro district trustees recently rejected a recommendation to cut 18 elementary teaching positions. All positions are in art, ...
See all stories on this topic


North County Times - Escondido,CA,USA
SAN MARCOS -- Parents and drivers say San Marcos Unified School District's recommendation to cut busing from next year's budget could be a big mistake, ...
See all stories on this topic

Schools may rely on layoffs
Record-Searchlight (subscription) - Redding,CA,USA
The Red Bluff Joint Union High School District is bracing for a $900000 hit in fiscal 2008-2009, while the Red Bluff Union Elementary School District ...
See all stories on this topic

Mar 9, 2008

Spring Haiku time


As we were walking on the mountain today, I remembered these lines from Nikos Kazantzakis in Report To Greco:

As I turn over the yellowed pages of my journal, it becomes clear that nothing died. Everything was simply asleep inside me. Look how all has awakened now, how everything rises from the worn, half-indecipherable pages to become monasteries, monks, paintings, and the sea once more! And my friend, he too rises from the soil as he was at that time, handsome, in the flower of youth, with his Homeric laugh, his blue eagle-eye, his breast filled with poems! He gave men more than they were able to receive, he sought from them more than they were able to give, and he died forsaken and sorrowful, having been left with nothing but the bitter smile of a proud, wounded soul. A meteor, he conquered the darkness for an instant and then perished. Such is the way we all shall perish, such the way the earth too will perish; but this fact offers no consolation, nor is it any justification for He who begets and then destroys us.
We had toured the Holy Mountain for forty days. When, completing our circle, we finally returned to Daphne on Christmas Eve in order to depart, the most unexpected, most decisive miracle was awaiting us. Though it was the heart of winter, there in a small, humble orchard was an almond tree in bloom!
Seizing my friend’s arm, I pointed to the blossoming tree.
“Angelos,” I said, “during the whole of this pilgrimage our
hearts have been tormented by many intricate questions. Now, behold the answer!”
My friend riveted his blue eyes upon the flowering almond tree and crossed himself, as though doing obeisance before a holy wonder-working icon. He remained speechless for a long moment. Then, speaking slowly, he said, “A poem is rising to my lips, a tiny little poem: a haikai.”
He looked again at the almond tree.

I said to the almond tree, “Sister, speak to me of God.” And the almond tree blossomed"

Mount Tamalpais is truly one of the greatest places on the face of the earth. Just saying.