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Melissa Galvez

Return on Educational Investment: 2014 | Center for American Progress - 0 views

www.americanprogress.org/...rn-on-educational-investment-2

ROI CAP Center for American Progress educational productivity

shared by Melissa Galvez on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • In 2011, the Center of American Progress released the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country.
  • We embarked on this second evaluation for a number of reasons. In many areas, education leaders continue to face difficult budget choices,
  • At the same time, the advent of the new, more rigorous Common Core standards
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • In short, many educators are being asked to do more with less.
  • We believe that if our education system had a more robust way of tracking expenditures, it could do more to increase productivity.
  • Hanna’s analysis looks more closely at the programs and practices of more effective districts.
  • We continue to believe, for instance, that school vouchers do not further the cause of public education.
  • The bottom line is that we believe policymakers and educators need to focus on what works in education and scale up those practices.
  • The lowest productivity school districts serve about 3 percent of the more than 41 million students covered by our study.
  • Only a few states, such as Rhode Island, currently take a weighted-student funding based approach to education, where money is distributed to schools based on student need.
  • Some policymakers are taking on the issue of productivity, however, and some states, such as New York and Virginia, have taken smart capacity-building approaches.
  • Key expenditure-related definitions vary, and while almost every state now has a common chart of accounts a type of budget dictionary the specifics are not comparable across states.
  • States should build capacity for productivity gains through targeted grants, assistance teams, and performance metrics.
  • recommend that states build technical assistance teams that assist districts in increasing productivity.
  • Educators can do a lot within their communities to make accounting and budgets more transparent and actionable.
  • Something similar should be done within the fiscal space, with states coming together to develop more rigorous budgeting procedures.
  • Specifically, we recommend weighted student funding, which has the potential to both solve equity and efficacy issues with current school funding approaches.
  • Melissa Galvez on 10 Jul 14
     
    Educational productivity! The manifesto
Melissa Galvez

Wallace Foundation aims to help school leaders get better, donates $30 million - The Wa... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html

leadership DC

shared by Melissa Galvez on 24 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Melissa Galvez on 24 Jun 14
     
    wallace foundation to give grants to several districts, including DC and PG County, MD, to allow area Supes to spend more time with the the principals they coach--to move away from pure compliance and towards problem solving
Melissa Galvez

A teacher's plea to bosses: Give us 'time and autonomy to create solutions' - The Washi... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...d-autonomy-to-create-solutions

teachers flexibility

shared by Melissa Galvez on 23 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Melissa Galvez on 23 Jun 14
     
    a teacher asks for more flexibility and autonomy
Melissa Galvez

Will California's Ruling Against Teacher Tenure Change Schools? - Dana Goldstein - The ... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...372536

California teacher quality teacher hiring tenure

shared by Melissa Galvez on 16 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • On Tuesday, a California superior-court judge ruled that the state’s teacher tenure system discriminates against kids from low-income families.
  • one to three percent of California teachers are likely “grossly ineffective”
  • The ruling, in Vergara v. California, has the potential to overturn five state laws governing how long it takes for a teacher to earn tenure; the legal maneuvers necessary to remove a tenured teacher; and which teachers are laid off first in the event of budget cuts or school closings.
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  • but since 2009, two-thirds of American states have weakened their teacher-tenure laws in response to President Obama’s Race to the Top program.
  • But the ruling’s rhetoric is stern and memorable stuff, borrowed directly from the playbook of the Silicon Valley philanthropists and deep-pocketed advocacy groups that bankrolled Vergara.
  • Is the premise of Treu’s ruling correct? Will axing tenure and seniority lead directly to better test scores and higher lifetime earnings for poor kids?
  • California evaluates teachers for tenure in March of their second year of work, before two full years of student-teacher data are available.
  • California law mandates that the least experienced teachers be laid off first, even if they are more effective than their older colleagues, a policy known as “LIFO,” or “Last In, First Out.”
  • it also hurts teachers, who aren’t given enough time to prove their skill.
  • under current California law, principals are forced to make high-stakes decisions about teachers without enough evidence.
  • rich curricula
  • Nationally, teachers work an average of 3.1 years before they become eligible for tenure.
  • For high-poverty schools, hiring is at least as big of a challenge as firing, and the Vergara decision does nothing to make it easier for the most struggling schools to attract or retain the best teacher candidates.
  • n Chicago, economist Brian Jacob found that when the city’s school district made it easier for principals to fire teachers, nearly 40 percent of principals, including many at the worst performing, poorest schools, fired no teachers at all.
  • For one thing, firing a coworker is unpleasant. It takes more than a policy change to overturn the culture of public education, which values collegiality and continuous improvement over swift accountability.
  • The larger problem is that too few of the best teachers are willing to work long-term in the country’s most racially isolated and poorest neighborhoods.
  • It is about making the schools that serve poor children more attractive places for the smartest, most ambitious people to spend their careers.
  • excellent, stable principals
  • Only 12 states have formal laws on the books mandating LIFO.
  • their student bodies should be more socioeconomically integrated so schools are less overwhelmed by the social challenges of poverty.
  • Melissa Galvez on 16 Jun 14
     
    excellent article about Vergara vs California. Argues that yes, teacher tenure laws are insensible and need to be changed. But that is not the most important problem plaguing low income schools--it's getting great teachers to teach there in the first place. Schools need to change in many ways to make them places that excellent teachers want to teach
Melissa Galvez

Phila. Funding Crisis Threatens Spread of Innovation - Education Week - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...35techschool.h33.html

Philadelphia school design funding levels

shared by Melissa Galvez on 16 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • But the tentative flourishing of innovation is at risk of being overwhelmed by a massive funding shortfall that has cast doubt on the superintendent's ability to safely open schools in September, let alone spread promising new models across the 131,000-student system.
  • In late May, at the superintendent's urging, the governing School Reform Commission refused to endorse a budget that called for steep class-size hikes and a fresh round of cuts.
  • Even when the money is there, those observers say, a thicket of problems—labor strife, dysfunctional bureaucracies, crazy politics, leadership churn—prevents sustained investments in the instructional expertise of teachers and principals.
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  • For a district desperate for something to build on, the successful replication of SLA has been "gigantic," Mr. Hite said.
  • many city principals and teachers feel abandoned, rather than empowered.
  • Melissa Galvez on 16 Jun 14
     
    Story of a district trying to promote innovative instructional models in the context of a huge budget crisis--and the experiment risks failure because resources are pulled away from other schools
Melissa Galvez

Leveraging the Core Budget to Change America's Schools - BlendED Update - 0 views

learningaccelerator.org/...get-to-change-americas-schools

funding school funding

shared by Melissa Galvez on 28 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • the shift to blended learning. 
  • a fundamental redesign of instructional and organizational models, transforming the core elements of teaching and learning--changing roles, structures, schedules, staffing, and core budgets.
  • Starting the 2014-15 school year RCS principals will have direct control over an estimated 90% of their budgets--the most to date.
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  • make decisions as to how to spend the budget,
  • helps free principals and their staffs to pursue new approaches to school management, instruction, staffing, and supports so they can respond more nimbly and effectively
  • supporting their capacity to do things well on their own.
  • seed and cultivate the potential of its leaders
  • ach principal will still be provided funds to cover materials, supplies, software, etc. but they will now direct staffing budgets
  • software or devices
  • grant school leadership teams the responsibility and authority for determining how to meet their goals
  • a new policy is only a starting point
  • even whether it's carried out by principals
  • f principals will assume the role of change agent, or opt not to do anything significantly different from that of traditional school principals without budget autonomy
  • RCS principals already have a package of autonomies and support for risk-taking.
  • they need to create system conditions where schools will thrive.
  • overcome the tremendous gravitational pull of business-as-usual.
  • Melissa Galvez on 28 Apr 14
     
    Lisa Duty's blog
Melissa Galvez

Leveraging the Core Budget to Change America's Schools - Vander Ark on Innovation - Edu... - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...o_change_americas_schools.html

school design school funding

shared by Melissa Galvez on 22 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Melissa Galvez on 22 Apr 14
     
    Very ERS aligned piece about Reynoldsburg School District, and how that district is providing more autonomy and flexibility to school leaders
Melissa Galvez

N.Y. Lawsuit Seeks More School Funding for 'Sound Basic Education' - State EdWatch - Ed... - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...for_sound_basic_education.html

NYS funding ERSImpact ToBlog

shared by Melissa Galvez on 13 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • These substantial funding reductions were undertaken without (1) any study of their likely impact on the ability of school districts to provide students the opportunity for a sound basic education, and (2) any guidance to school districts on how they might provide the opportunity for a sound basic education with substantially reduced funds
  • And what was Cuomo's response to the new suit? "We spend more than any other state in the country," he said. "It ain't about the money. It's about how you spend it—and the results."
  • Melissa Galvez on 13 Feb 14
     
    A group called New Yorkers for Students' Education Rights and other plaintffs are bringing a suit against the state for not funding education to the levels promised in 2007. They say the state is not upholding its constitutional obligation to provide a sound basic education. Cuomo says "It's not about how much--it's about how you use it"
  • Melissa Galvez on 13 Feb 14
     
    A group called New Yorkers for Students' Education Rights and other plaintffs are bringing a suit against the state for not funding education to the levels promised in 2007. They say the state is not upholding its constitutional obligation to provide a sound basic education. Cuomo says "It's not about how much--it's about how you use it"
Melissa Galvez

Principals' Bosses to Be Target of New Initiative in Six Districts - District Dossier -... - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...ipals_bosses_target_of_ne.html

shared by Melissa Galvez on 04 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Melissa Galvez on 04 Feb 14
     
    ADH suggested I read this
  • Melissa Galvez on 04 Feb 14
     
    ADH suggested I read this
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