I read this post two times.

I like it so much, please try to keep posting.

Let me introduce other material that may be good for our community.

Source: Teacher aide interview questions

Best regards
Henry

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools15-2009sep15,0,6657057.story
latimes.com
Obscure database is key to U.S. educational funds for California
The data system tracks student, teacher and administrator performance year to year but has barely gotten off the ground. Other states’ systems improve student performance and hold schools accountable.
By Jason Felch and Jason Song
7:56 PM PDT, September 14, 2009

California’s chance to receive hundreds of millions of federal educational dollars may rest heavily on an obscure and long-neglected piece of education infrastructure: a statewide data system that tracks students, teachers and administrators year to year.

Such education systems are expensive, complex and do not win elections for politicians. But experts say they are essential to learn how much of the nearly $60 billion that California spends on K-12 education makes a difference, a fact that student achievement tests only hint at.

Last month, California rolled out the first component, a student database known as CalPADS. It will eventually make it possible to measure what works and what doesn’t in classrooms throughout the state. The second major component, a teacher and administrator database known as CalTIDES, will not come online until 2011.

Though still in its infancy, the state’s data system has had a rocky history. The project was first conceived in the 1980s, but has been stalled repeatedly by infighting among state agencies and a lack of political support. Already overdue and over budget, it lacks many of the key components in place in other states such as Texas and Florida.

On Friday, the state Legislature passed a bill that removed one of the system’s key limitations — it sets aside a 2006 state law that, at the insistence of teachers unions, prevented California from using the system to evaluate teachers based on the academic gains of their students.

Experts say that identifying the most effective and least effective teachers is one of the most important factors in improving education, and the Obama administration has said that California would be ineligible for $4.35 billion in competitive federal education grants unless it changed the law.

But education officials say that Friday’s legislative fix does little to make California more competitive for the federal money, known as Race to the Top funds. To improve the state’s chances, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and several legislators have proposed a sweeping education reform bill that, among other things, seeks to hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students.

So far, few in Sacramento have championed the proposal, and the Democrat-controlled Legislature is facing pressure from the powerful teachers unions to delay the bill, education officials say.

David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn., made his position clear at a summer meeting with his membership.

“Paying and evaluating teachers based on a single test score does not improve student learning and does not help attract and retain quality teachers in lower-performing schools,” Sanchez said.

“And we will not stand for it.”

Disorganized data

California has long been awash in educational data. The state Department of Education alone has 125 separate databases, including those that track student test scores, national origin and school finances.

But for all that data, the state cannot answer many basic questions about public education: Which high school classes are best at preparing students for success in college? Do the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually on training actually make for better teachers? Which credentialing programs prepare the most effective educators?

For the most part, officials say, nobody knows.

David Gordon, the superintendent for Sacramento County schools, recalls a discussion in 1983 over unifying the databases to make it easier to measure the effectiveness of education reforms.

For two decades, the idea has been popular among reformers and policy wonks, but never received political support or funding.

In the meantime, other states developed data systems that have allowed them to improve student performance, hold schools accountable and spend education dollars more efficiently.

California was spurred into action in 2002, when the No Child Left Behind law required the state to collect new data. The Legislature approved CalPADS that year with little opposition. It was projected to cost $6 million.

In fact, the student database has taken seven years and tens of millions of dollars to build — the exact figures are in some dispute.

Many attribute the project’s delays to the Department of Finance, which one study said used “100 ways of saying no” to slow the project. Finance officials have fought bitterly with the education department on the scope of the system and who would control access to the data.

H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the finance department, acknowledged his department’s concerns about privacy and costs over the years. But once the system was approved, “in no way, shape or form have we been an impediment to providing the funds to build the system.”

Even today, the two departments have dramatically different estimates for the pricetag: Finance puts it at more than $100 million, including ongoing costs; the Department of Education says one-time development costs were $24 million.

Whatever the figure, some say the state has been penny-wise and pound-foolish, wasting far more money by not investing in the system sooner. “If you’re going to be investing $60 billion a year, to have a $20-million system in place to monitor what is working seems an obvious and appropriate investment,” said Gary K. Hart, the former secretary of education for Gov. Gray Davis.

“We’ve been something of an embarrassment in the states on this issue,” said Gordon, the Sacramento County superintendent. “This has been way, way too long in coming.”

Despite the delays, CalPADS’ development has already yielded some major breakthroughs for the state. California has been able to count the number of dropouts far more accurately, and students’ test data and enrollment history will now follow them when they transfer between districts, eliminating the need for some of the costly testing.

And soon, the state will be able to answer those basic questions about what works in California classrooms.

When the teacher and administrator database is in place, the state for the first time will be able to determine which teacher training programs produce the most effective teachers.

Used together, the systems will allow the state to save money by eliminating programs that are not working.

“It’s not going to solve the state budget deficit,” said Mary Perry, deputy director of EdSource, a California policy group that has studied the data system. “But it’s going to help educators learn what helps student performance and what doesn’t.”

jason.felch@latimes.com

jason.song@latimes.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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Friday, September 18, 2009
Security cameras unveiled at Brea Olinda campus
Seven cameras positioned throughout the campus should deter theft and vandalism, officials said.
By LOU PONSI
The Orange County Register

BREA – Officials expect Brea Olinda High School to be a safer place with the installation of security cameras positioned throughout the campus.

The new camera system was demonstrated Friday to board members of the Brea Olinda Unified School District, along with city officials and law enforcement personnel.

“(The high school) is located in the hills of Brea and although the location is beautiful, it poses many security and safety concerns,” Superintendant Skip Roland said.

He said the cameras should cut down on incidents of theft and vandalism, which have cost the district more than $100,000 in recent years, including $34,000 worth of trees maliciously cut down in the quad area, two incidents of theft of copper wire, two computers stolen from a classroom and graffiti spray painted on the outside of the gym.

Seven cameras have been installed throughout the 50-acre campus: three positioned at entrances to parking lots that can identify vehicles traveling in and out of the Brea Olinda and Brea Canyon campuses; one aimed at the football stadium; one that can view the athletic fields; and one is facing the pool.

The cameras can zoom in on vehicles and clearly identify license plates, and can be monitored from computers in police cars.

Only individuals given a pass code and URL address will be able to monitor screens showing the cameras’ recorded images.

“This is not a student surveillance system,” Roland said. “It is a property protection system.”

The cost to install the cameras was mostly covered by a $20,000 grant from ASIS International, a security management organization.

Brea Olinda won the grant in a competition with other Orange County public schools.
In the application, administrators answered questions related to security issues on school campuses, how those issues impacted educational goals and what they would do with the prize money to improve security.
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Thursday, September 24, 2009
Laguna Hills High, district defend Spanish newsletter
“Don’t we want our parents to be partners in the education process? Yes we do,” said a district official.
By ALEJANDRA MOLINA
The Orange County Register

LAGUNA HILLS – After several online readers expressed discontent with staff at Laguna Hills High translating a weekly newsletter in Spanish, the high school’s principal is defending its decision to do so in order to foster more parent involvement and to meet state requirements.

“A leading variable in student success is parent involvement,” said Principal Sean Boulton Wednesday. “We need parent support as well. This is just one tool that we use to reach out to our parents.”

Tuesday’s online story about the newly translated newsletter sparked several comments with most disagreeing with the school’s decision.

One reader commented: “This decision is one more reason for people to NOT assimilate. If Mr. Boulton wants to include everyone, then the newsletter should be translated into Farsi, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hebrew, and any number of other languages spoken at home.”
Another said: “This is not helping English learners, but hindering their progress.”
Boulton said one person filed a complaint with the district.

The idea to translate the newsletter came out of an English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC) meeting where a parent requested staff translate the newsletter “Hawk Happenings” into Spanish, Boulton said.

Under the California state education system, if schools have a population of 15 percent and above of a single language group then they are required to provide translation for the parent in that language.

In Laguna Hills High, 20 percent of its population includes English learners who are speaking Spanish as well as fluent English proficient students who have the Spanish language in their background, according to Gloria Roelen, director of Second Language Program.

“Sean Boulton was doing what he was supposed to do and he was trying to serve his community as we are required to do so by the state of California,” Roelen said.

Added Roelen: “We are communicating with parents about events going on in the school. Don’t we want our parents to be partners in the education process? Yes we do. ”

Hawk Happenings is a newsletter delivered via-email. Links to the newsletter are available through the school Web site. Also, the newsletter bulletin board is just across from the attendance office now in both Spanish and English.

Roelen said that in some cases parents do speak English but they may not read and write it at the same proficient level as an English only person.

“Our goal is to communicate with them and make sure we are welcoming them and respecting diversity within our community,” said Roelen.

“Language is a tool. It’s not a disease,” she added. “We are one community made up of a diverse population.”

Contact the writer: amolina@ocregister.com or 949-454-7360
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County of Orange Union rep blasts so-called “double-dippers” for pension abuse
September 15th, 2009, 6:00 am · posted by Jennifer Muir
Orange Register

An unlikely voice has joined the pension debate, singling out what he calls “pension abuse” in Orange County.

Nick Berardino (left), general manager for the Orange County Employees Association, says the countywide practice of hiring retired county employees to return and perform part time work is wrong. At a time when the county continues laying off employees, it’s not fair to keep retirees on the county’s payroll while they’re also collecting pensions, he says.
“If they eliminate this abuse, they’ll have room for people continuing to work who are paying for their retirement,” Berardino said. “Double dippers under any circumstances are wrong.”

Berardino’s criticism comes amid discussions with the sheriff’s department over plans to lay off 29 non-sworn sheriff’s workers represented by OCEA. He’s hoping to convince the department to find other ways to save money in hopes of saving jobs. And he’s arguing that full time employees pay into the pension fund, while working retirees just suck it dry.
According to a recent county internal audit, there were 212 working retirees last fiscal year, which ended in June. Those are people who have officially begun collecting their pensions from Orange County, but still work for the county part-time collecting an additional paycheck.

(They don’t include folks who have retired from other public agencies. For example, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens (below right) retired from Los Angeles County before taking her job in O.C., but she’s not included among the working retirees. We’re researching another post about how much employees, such as Hutchens, earn from pension plus their new full time gig. Check back here for a link to that.)

The sheriff’s department employs 70 county retirees for part-time work. Most of them work periodically or seasonally and are not needed full-time, sheriff’s officials say. Others have specialized experience and skills that can’t be filled by just anyone.

“We are not keeping these people in lieu of the laid off people,” Lt. Steve Kea said.

The county’s internal auditor reviews working retiree hours annually to ensure they’re not working more hours than they’re allowed to: 960 hours a year for regular retirees and 720 for those who retire early. (Last year’s audit found 12 employees exceeded the limits.)

“Not so long ago, the idea was once a person was retired, they should be retired and not be drawing a salary from their place of retirement,” internal auditor Peter Hughes said in an interview last month. “But that’s before we looked at the costs of bringing back a retiree. We don’t have to pay back into medical plan and retirement costs. … So we’re finding more and more use — and cost-effective use — of retirees.”

Hughes says many of the county’s working retirees come back for a short period, some reluctantly. They’re asked to stick around to finish up a project, provide expertise or help train people.

Berardino points out that some of the sheriff’s department retirees who have been working for several years. For example, 20 have been working part-time since 2004, according to a spreadsheet of the retired workers.

He wrote in a recent letter to county supervisors that that he was dismayed to learn how many retirees were working for the sheriff’s department, saying the practice “promotes cronyism and a culture of favoritism.”

Supervisor John Moorlach wonders why Berardino is surprised since he negotiated a contract that allows OCEA members to retire young, at age 55, with a sizeable pension. When Moorlach was a county department head, he preferred to hire experienced retirees when he needed seasonal help because they were already trained, he said.

“The retiree didn’t create the situation, Nick did,” Moorlach said. “From a management standpoint, to watch talented employees walk out at 55, that’s a heart breaker.”

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Obama urges investment in
high-tech education

The president says training Americans for jobs of the future will help create a more stable foundation for the economy.
By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: September 21, 2009: 4:45 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) President Obama on Monday pushed his plans to make the nation’s economy more stable in the future by investing in education for high-tech industries
The president unveiled a new “innovation strategy” that builds on $100 billion of economic stimulus funds to support entrepreneurship, education, infrastructure and other investments
The plan aims to make the U.S. economy more competitive and help prevent volatile “boom and bust” cycles in the future, Obama said.
“As we emerge from this economic crisis, our great challenge will be to ensure that we do not simply drift into the future, accepting less for our children and less for America,” Obama told students at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y. “Instead, we must choose to do what past generations have done: shape a brighter future through hard work and innovation.”
Obama said improving the nation’s education system is a key component of the strategy. “We know that the nation that out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow,” he said.
To that end, Obama touted his administration’s efforts to make college more affordable by increasing government grants, simplifying student aid applications and updating the GI Bill.
He praised a bill making its way through Congress that would boost federal student aid further and effectively end the government’s practice of subsidizing private lenders of student loans.
Obama also reiterated his call for increased investment in green energy technology, electronic health records, manufacturing advanced vehicles and expanding the nation’s broadband Internet network.
The president also pointed to proposed tax cuts and trade policies his administration has persued as ways to make U.S. companies more competitive and prosperous.
“Our strategy begins where innovation so often does: in the classroom and in the laboratory — and in the networks that connect them to the broader economy,” Obama said. “These are the building blocks of innovation: education, infrastructure, and research.”
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/economy/obama/index.htm

First Published: September 21, 2009: 12:01 PM ET

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Monday, September 14, 2009
FBI stats show Orange County safer, homicides up in Santa Ana
County shows dip overall in property and violent crimes in 2008.
By ERIC CARPENTER
Orange County Register

Orange County continues to get safer – or so the statistics indicate.

The number of reported violent crimes and property crimes in Orange County decreased last year, according to statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Some of the county’s most populous cities, including Anaheim and Santa Ana also showed dips in both categories.

Violent crimes are defined as murder and manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Property crimes include burglary, theft, vehicle theft and arson.

Orange County’s dip in crime reflects a nationwide trend, according to the statistics. FBI officials said that violent crimes declined by 1.9 percent across the country compared to the year prior, marking the second straight year it has dipped.

Property crimes in the U.S. dropped by nearly 1 percent, marking the sixth straight year fewer property crimes were reported compared to the previous year. Overall, victims of such crimes lost $17.2 billion, according to the report.

In Orange County, violent crimes fell for the third consecutive year, after rising slightly between 2003 and 2005.

Irvine, which routinely boasts about being the safest city of its size in the U.S., showed another decline in both categories in 2008. Violent crimes there fell from 143 reported in 2007 to 129 reported last year.

Property crimes there inched down from 3,256 to 3,211 during the same time.

In Santa Ana, the most populous city in Orange County, violent crime fell overall by 1.3 percent from 1,947 in 2007 to 1,726 last year. Most of that decrease came from a sharp decline in reported aggravated assaults.

But the rate of murders and non-negligent manslaughters increased from 23 to 30 in Santa Ana, the stats showed.

Cmdr. Ruben Ibarra, a spokesman for Santa Ana police, said he hadn’t yet reviewed the report in detail, but the department typically uses the numbers to look at potential trends in more detail.

“We look at each of the individual factors, then look at what might be gang-related and not. Was it alcohol-related? Was there domestic abuse involved?” Ibarra said. “(The numbers are) only part of the story. We have to take a look at what’s causing it.”

Violent crimes in Anaheim dropped from 1,423 to 1,312.

Countywide, the only sub-category of crime that showed an increase was theft – from 1,452 per 100,000 residents up to 1,492.

FBI officials include a disclaimer at the start of the report that discourages using the numbers to rank cities against other cities, saying that it leads to an incomplete and simplistic analysis.

Still, law enforcement officials say it is a valuable tool in their larger efforts to understand crime patterns on a regional and national level and helps them decide how to allot resources.

Local agencies say they are constantly analyzing the numbers.

“It never comes as a surprise to us because we are reviewing numbers and trends year-round,” said Sgt. Rick Martinez, a spokesman for Anaheim police. “Some might assume with the bad economy that crime might be on the increase, but we’ve seen that’s really not been the case.”

To review the report in detail, visit: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/

Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or ecarpenter@ocregister.com

Thursday, September 24, 2009
2% pay cut approved for Orange teachers
The Orange Unified School Board voted for the salary reduction Thursday night.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register

ORANGE – The Orange Unified School Board unanimously voted Thursday to reduce salaries for district teachers by 2 percent through the end of the 2011-12 school year.
The salary reduction will be achieved by decreasing teachers’ work year by four days each of the next three years. The district’s 1,291 certificated employees would lose four staff development days. The school year will not be shortened, said district spokesman Larry Hausner.

The district will save about $2 million annually by having the certificated employees take the pay cut, officials said.

The teachers union and district staff had already reached a tentative agreement earlier this month for the salary reduction. District administrators, including Superintendent Renae Dreier, also agreed to take a 2 percent pay cut earlier this year.

District staff and the classified employees union are currently negotiating a similar salary reduction.

Officials in Orange Unified have been working to cut about $30 million over two years from the $215 million annual budget. Besides salary reductions, the district has closed an elementary school, increased class sizes and eliminated dozens of jobs.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com

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latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-bus23-2009sep23,0,1967227.story
latimes.com
L.A. school district union agrees to furloughs
About 1,100 bus drivers will take six unpaid days off this fiscal year to help offset the budget shortfall. It is the first time in recent history that a district union has accepted such a concession.
By Jason Song
September 23, 2009

In what Los Angeles Unified School District officials hope is the first of several concessions by labor unions, bus drivers have agreed to take six unpaid days off this fiscal year, officials said Tuesday.

The deal is the first time in recent history that a school district union has agreed to furloughs. Last year, the district approved — but never required — four unpaid days off for most employees in an attempt to offset a budget shortfall.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is facing a nearly $200-million budget shortfall this fiscal year.

“We hope . . . we will be able to make similar announcements” in the near future, said David Holmquist, the district’s chief operating officer.

Leaders of the Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents about 1,100 bus drivers, said their membership agreed to furloughs because all members’ hours and retirement benefits otherwise would have been reduced.

“We understand it is a necessary sacrifice to protect good jobs in this hard economy and secure services to students,” Edward Reed, Local 99′s president, said in a statement.

The drivers transport about 55,000 students daily, according to the district. Because of the shortfall, the district cut $28 million from its transportation budget and eliminated more than 150 routes. Drivers will try to take their furlough days during school vacations to prevent a disruption in service to students, union leaders said.

It remains unclear if other labor groups also will accept furlough days. United Teachers Los Angeles officials have opposed them in the past, but said they discussed other cost-saving measures with L.A. Unified officials.

“This summer, UTLA put forth a proposal which would have kept class size down and reemployed all laid-off teachers, but the district would not agree to it,” said A.J. Duffy, president of the teachers union.

District officials said they could not guarantee that the bus drivers’ concessions would spare them from future cuts, but added that they want to avoid layoffs. “Our goal is to protect jobs,” board member Yolie Flores Aguilar said.

jason.song@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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School nurse shortage hampers swine flu response

By TERENCE CHEA (AP) – 1 day ago

SAN FRANCISCO — As schools grapple with a resurgence of swine flu, many districts have few or no nurses to prevent or respond to outbreaks, leaving students more vulnerable to a virus that spreads easily in classrooms and takes a heavier toll on children and young adults.

The shortage of school nurses could lead to more students falling ill from the H1N1 virus, which can be particularly dangerous for children with weakened immune systems or respiratory conditions such as asthma, experts say.

“It’s really irresponsible of the school district to not really provide medical oversight while kids are in school,” said Jamie Hintzke, who has two kids in Northern California’s Pleasanton Unified School District, including a son with severe food allergies. The district has one nurse for 15 schools and almost 15,000 students. “I’m playing Russian roulette every single day he goes to school.”

When the swine flu emerged last spring, it was a school nurse in New York City — Mary Pappas at St. Francis Preparatory School — who helped identify and curtail the country’s first major outbreak after she noticed large numbers of students complaining of high fevers and sore throats.

But many schools around the country don’t have a medical professional who can quickly diagnose students and detect outbreaks.

A 2008 survey by the National Association of School Nurses found that only 45 percent of public schools have their own full-time nurse, another 30 percent have a part-time nurse, and a quarter don’t have any nurses at all.

The average nurse-to-student ratio nationwide was one nurse for every 1,151 students, but in 14 states there was only one nurse for more than 2,000 students, according to the nurses association. States with the highest ratios include Oregon with one nurse for every 3,142 students, Michigan with one for every 4,204, and Utah with one for every 4,893.
Only 12 states, mostly in the Northeast, met the 1-to-750 ratio recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the association found.

In Michigan, severe financial problems prompted the Pontiac School District to lay off five of its six nurses, who played a key role in the district’s response to swine flu last spring.
“If H1N1 is anything like the prediction, schools without school nurses will be missing their front line of defense,” said Susan Zacharski, the district’s only remaining nurse. She now works in a center for special needs students who are legally entitled to a nurse, but there are no nurses to serve the district’s other 7,200 students.

With swine flu cases rising with the new school year, districts are depending on teachers, principals and secretaries with little medical training to identify, isolate and send home sick children, as well as monitor absences and illnesses for signs of a wider outbreak.

“We’re asking so much more of untrained staff as far as providing medical management,” said Nina Fekaris, a nurse in the Oregon’s Beaverton School District who is responsible for four schools with 4,300 students. “It’s putting our kids at risk.”

Some teachers complain they haven’t received guidance or training on how to deal with swine flu.

“We really don’t know what symptoms to look for, how to caution our kids or how to protect ourselves,” said Robert Ellis, a first grade teacher at Washington Elementary School in Richmond, Calif. “I’m really concerned about it spreading in the classroom, how many kids will be impacted and the loss of educational time.”

Since it was first identified in April, the swine flu has infected more than 1 million Americans and killed nearly 600, the CDC estimates.

So far swine flu does not appear to be more dangerous than seasonal flu, which kills an estimated 36,000 Americans each year, but it appears to be more contagious and health officials are concerned that it could mutate and become deadlier.

Federal health officials are urging parents to have their kids vaccinated, but the H1N1 vaccine will not be ready until October.

In districts that have them, school nurses are developing plans to screen and quarantine sick students, teaching students proper classroom hygiene, urging parents to keep ill children at home, organizing vaccination campaigns and instructing teachers and school staff how to identify sick students.

In Utah’s Granite School District near Salt Lake City, officials have prepared a pandemic response plan, but the district only has 10 nurses for 89 schools with 68,000 students.
“It would be great to have a school nurse in each school. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury,” said district spokesman Ben Horsley.

In California, where there was one nurse for every 2,240 students last year, roughly half of the state’s 1,000 school districts do not have any nurses at all.

Among them is the Berkeley Unified School District, which has 17 schools with 9,000 students. The district has a partnership with the city health department to deal with school health issues, but has not had its own nurses for many years, said spokesman Mark Coplan.

“Parents have called to say, ‘Is there a new policy to deal with H1N1? We say, ‘No, it’s exactly the same as seasonal flu,’” Coplan said. “We really want to treat this as a normal situation.”

Only 19 states require certain nurse-to-student ratios, and few states set money aside to pay for nurses, according to the nurses association.

Brenda Green, director of school health programs for the National School Boards Association, is urging school districts without nurses to partner with local health agencies, hospitals and nursing schools to prepare for swine flu.

“What I’m concerned about is anyone thinking this won’t happen here,” Green said. “If there’s no plan in place, and people just acting in an ad hoc way, that’s risky.”

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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JUSTICE IN EDUCATION

presents

SPECIAL EDUCATION

WHAT’S NEW ?

Keep up with latest regulations, rules, directives and court decisions:
Ø New eligibility determinations under IDEA
Ø Important role and function of “placement team”
Ø Revoking bus privileges
Ø Suspensions – Expulsions
Ø “Stay – Put”
Ø Note – Taking Guide and more

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009
6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M.
Workshop is free – RSVP required
Call 714 542 – 1707 to reserve place
CLINIC conducted at Legal Aid Society of Orange County
2101 North Tustin Ave. Santa Ana CA 92705
JIE monthly clinics graciously sponsored by Legal Aid Society of O C

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latimes.com/news/local/la-me-schools-scores16-2009sep16,0,6098455.story
latimes.com
State, U.S. disagree on progress at some L.A. schools
Federal standards deem dozens of campuses to still be ‘failing,’ making them eligible for takeover under a new L.A. Unified policy. State evaluations show major improvements at some of those campuses.
By Howard Blume
7:57 PM PDT, September 15, 2009

Thirty-nine Los Angeles schools — a group larger than the entire Glendale school system — identified as “failing” under federal standards became eligible Tuesday for takeover under a recent Board of Education policy.

These schools bring the number of Los Angeles Unified School District campuses eligible for takeover to 252. Bidders from inside or outside the nation’s second-largest school system could submit proposals to run such schools. The bidding process also applies to 51 new schools set to open over the next four years.

Under the policy adopted last month, existing schools become eligible for takeover when they reach their third year in “Program Improvement.” A school receives this label after persistently failing a federal standard, called Adequate Yearly Progress, that measures whether a school has the required percentage of proficient students. This percentage is rising sharply every year, and, as a result, more schools are annually judged as failing.

The state’s evaluation system, by contrast, shows broad, incremental improvement both statewide and locally, with 42% of California schools scoring at or above the target of 800 on the Academic Performance Index, up six percentage points from last year. The API rates schools on a scale of 200 to 1,000; if all students at a school were proficient, its score would be 875.

The state yardstick suggests that even within beleaguered L.A. Unified, there are places where labeling campuses as failures may not tell the whole story:

* Venice High became eligible for takeover under the board policy. It fell short on two of 18 federal targets: Its math scores were too low for Latino students and English learners. And yet the school registered a second consecutive year of overall improvement by more than 10 points on the state’s index.

* Belmont High, west of downtown, remained mired with the lowest federal ranking. It missed seven of 18 federal targets — evidence that the school has far to go. Yet its API rose 16 points last year and a massive 78 points this year.

* 112th Street Elementary in Watts gained 126 points over three years, blowing past state-issued improvement targets totaling 23 points. The school missed only one of 21 goals this year but its federal rating remains at the bottom.

A closer look reveals that, over five years, 112th Street has cut in half the number of fifth-graders who score in the lowest two levels in math and English. And it’s doubled the number of fifth-graders who score proficient or advanced in those subjects. Principal Brenda Manuel, entering her sixth year, makes no excuses for not keeping up with the rising federal standard. “Every child needs to be at grade level and doing well,” she said. “When the bar goes higher, our job is to try to get ourselves to go higher.”

Monday morning, she called in fourth-graders with low standardized test scores and asked if they wanted help. “They said yes, and I said, ‘We’re going to help you.’ ” These efforts will include Saturday school and meetings with parents.

“My children can tell you what their scores are,” she said. “They’ll tell you, ‘I’m far below basic, but not for long.’ ”

L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said in an interview that he has no intention of turning over a rapidly improving school to anyone and will personally see to it that their progress continues.

Six L.A. Unified schools improved so much that they officially shed their “failed” federal status: 122nd Street, Kingsley, Montara, Vernon City and White elementary schools and Metropolitan Continuation, an alternative school for students who transfer from a comprehensive high school. These schools hit all federal achievement targets — despite the rising bar — for two consecutive years.

howard.blume@latimes.com

Times data analyst Sandra Poindexter contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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Assemblyman Jose Solorio Named to Extraordinary Session
Committee on Education

SACRAMENTO – Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim) accepted an appointment by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass to the Fifth Extraordinary Session Committee on Education, where he will play a pivotal role in crafting legislation that would help align California law with federal, Race to the Top Fund eligibility requirements. The fund is a $4.35 billion competitive-grant initiative for education reform included in President Obama’s American, Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Yesterday, Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) announced the formation of the committee and its members. The legislators will hold hearings throughout the state to gather testimony on how to make California eligible and competitive for Race to the Top grant funds (Hearing dates and agendas are attached). The Fifth Extraordinary Session was called by Governor Schwarzenegger last month to address this issue.

“This is the largest pot of discretionary funding for K-12 education reform in the history of the United States,” said Assemblyman Solorio after the announcement. “California has a rich history of educational excellence. We have an important opportunity to access federal education dollars and impact the lives of students for generations to come.”

Assemblyman Solorio has made education a legislative priority. He serves on the Assembly Education Committee, and this year authored AB 1130, a bill that could help with the state’s Race to the Top Fund compliance. The legislation asks California’s Superintendent of Schools to consider adopting a growth model that will measure a pupil’s achievement over time.

President Obama’s education reform initiative challenges the states to develop innovative reform strategies that focus on high academic standards, the development of highly skilled teachers and leaders, closing the achievement gap, turning around struggling schools, and the use of data to determine evidence-based instructional programs that work. For more information on the Race to the Top initiative, visit http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop.
State Assemblyman Jose Solorio is the chair of the Assembly Insurance Committee and also serves on the Assembly Education, Transportation, and Appropriations Committees. He represents the Sixty-Ninth Assembly District, which includes the cities of Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana. For more information about Assemblyman Solorio, visit http://www.assembly.ca.gov/solorio.

Thursday, September 17, 2009
School looks to replace its stolen war memorials
Thieves wrenched plaques from the walls of Santa Ana High a year ago.
By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA It’s been almost a year since thieves broke the locks at Santa Ana High School and tore from the walls several plaques that honored the school’s war dead, apparently to sell as scrap.

School officials and alumni have begun raising the thousands of dollars they expect it will cost to replace the plaques. They want to have at least a few re-cast by the end of the year, maybe those that paid tribute to the former students who died in the two world wars.
There were six plaques in all, cast in solid bronze and brass, bolted to the walls of the school’s entryway. Four memorialized those who died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

A fifth commemorated the rededication of the school after a major earthquake in the 1930s. The sixth celebrated the school’s centennial in 1989.

School officials suspect at least two thieves cut the padlocks on a gate across the entryway in the middle of the night last October. The thieves wrenched the six plaques from the wall; each weighed at least 30 pounds.

At the time, the going price for bronze on the local scrap market meant the thieves would have gotten no more than $50 for each of the plaques.

But the plaques were made of something much more valuable than metal: names. School officials worried after the thefts that they had no surviving lists of students killed as long ago as the First World War. They weren’t sure they’d be able to re-create the plaques, even if they could afford to.

And then they ran into some unexpected good luck. A school resource officer had snapped digital pictures of each of the plaques, to document them. The pictures were clear enough to make out the lost names.

The World War I plaque had nine, including a woman – Cara Keech – who was killed while serving as a nurse. The World War II plaque had 78 names, including three pairs of servicemen with the same last names.

The plaque from the Korean War had no names, just a general tribute “to the servicemen and servicewomen … who gave their lives.” The Vietnam War plaque named nine former students “who made the supreme sacrifice.”

School officials are looking for more names of former students killed in the Korean and Vietnam wars, so that the replacement plaques will be as complete as possible. The alumni association can be reached through its Web site, http://www.santaanahighschool.org.
The school also has information about the stolen plaques on its Web site, http://www.sausd.us/sahs.

It will likely cost around $8,000 to replace all six plaques, Principal Julie Infante said. A special committee – the Plaque Replacement Committee – has raised close to $2,500 of that so far.

That doesn’t include the cost of improving security in the entryway, to make sure the replacement plaques stay on the wall. Infante said the school and the district are looking into ways to better protect the entryway; committee members suggested surveillance cameras.

The committee has also talked about moving forward with the money it already has and replacing at least the World War II plaque, and maybe the World War I plaque, quickly. They would like to have an unveiling event, complete with veterans and the school band, by the end of the year.

“It’s certainly part of the history of the school,” committee member and former teacher Douglas Dyer said. “We want students to be able to experience it, to have a sense of pride. People who attended the school have given their lives for their country over all these years.”
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Friday, September 25, 2009
Ducks’ mascot Wild Wing hands out hockey gear to students
Donated equipment will go to three schools in Santa Ana Unified to encourage physical fitness.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – Anaheim Ducks mascot Wild Wing stopped by McFadden Intermediate School this morning to give away hockey sticks, pads and other street hockey gear to students.

The gear was donated by the Anaheim Ducks Foundation and the Samueli Foundation to address issues of health and obesity among students. Students at Saddleback High and Willard Intermediate will also receive the street hockey equipment, which includes donation of a portable street hockey rink and professional training services on how to play the sport for each school.

Street hockey will become part of the physical education activities scheduled for ninth graders at Saddleback High. At Willard and McFadden Intermediate schools it will become an after-school sports activity, coinciding with the regular hockey season from the end of October through March.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Teacher not financially liable for disparaging Christians in class
A federal judge says James Corbett, 62, still violated a former student’s First Amendment rights.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – A federal judge has ruled that high school history teacher James Corbett is not financially liable for disparaging Christians in class, in violation of a former student’s First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge James Selna had issued a tentative ruling last month indicating he would effectively bar 17-year-old Chad Farnan of Mission Viejo from recovering any monetary damages or legal fees in the nearly 2-year-old case, but did not make that ruling final until Tuesday.

“Corbett is shielded from liability – not because he did not violate the Constitution, but because of the balance which must be struck to allow public officials to perform their duties,” Selna said in a 33-page decision issued from his Santa Ana courtroom.

In May, Selna determined that Corbett, 62, violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause when he referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a fall 2007 lecture at Mission Viejo’s Capistrano Valley High School.

But the judge on Tuesday shielded Corbett from financial liability under a “qualified immunity” defense, a form of federal protection available to government employees who have violated an individual’s constitutional rights.

“Given that qualified immunity protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law, and given the lack of parallel case law, the court finds that the right at issue was not clearly established when Corbett made the (Creationism) statement,” Selna said in his ruling.

In a statement released Tuesday, Corbett said Farnan’s lawsuit was “needless and pointless” and that it had “sewn discord” in his life and ruined his reputation.
“In my opinion, Chad Farnan has been ill-served in this case,” Corbett said in the statement.

“He may find admission to a quality non-Christian school challenging, because such institutions may try to avoid a student who has sued his teacher and his school without making any pre-lawsuit effort to discuss, much less resolve, his claims outside of court,” Corbett continued. “The school district has been ill-served because they have been forced to pay for a defense attorney in a case that, in my opinion, never should have been filed in the first place.”

Farnan’s attorneys, who were working on the case on a pro-bono basis through a nonprofit Christian legal group, vowed to appeal the judge’s decision.

“We feel the judge erred in his ruling,” said attorney Jennifer Monk of Murrietta-based Advocates for Faith & Freedom. “At the same time, we are happy with the May 1 ruling and it doesn’t not take away from the fact that Dr. Corbett violated the establishment clause.”

In his lawsuit, Farnan did not seek monetary damages, but he asked that his former Advanced Placement European history teacher be fired or that the court issue an injunction barring Corbett from disparaging religion in class.

Selna ruled against issuing such an injunction; Corbett remains in his teaching position at Capistrano Valley High.

At a hearing two weeks ago, Monk argued that if the judge granted qualified immunity to Corbett, he would be effectively barring her client from appealing the case because Farnan would have to appeal the immunity defense for an appeals court to even consider the merits of the case itself – a scenario she characterized as insurmountable and prejudicial to her client.

But Monk said Tuesday that she would file an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals within 30 days.

“No battle on the Ninth Circuit is easy,” she said.

Corbett made his “superstitious nonsense” remark about Creationism during a class discussion about a 1993 court case in which former Capistrano Valley High science teacher John Peloza sued the Capistrano Unified School District, challenging its requirement that Peloza teach evolution.

Corbett’s attorney said the teacher was simply expressing his personal opinion that Peloza shouldn’t have presented religious views to students. But Selna, after reviewing an audiotape of the discussion made by Farnan, decided Corbett crossed a legal line.

The legal battle began in December 2007, when Farnan, then a sophomore, sued Corbett and the school district, accusing his former teacher of repeatedly promoting hostility toward Christians in class and advocating “irreligion over religion” in violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The establishment clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion” and has been interpreted by U.S. courts to also prohibit government employees from displaying religious hostility.

Selna threw out all of the quotes attributed to Corbett except the Creationism comment, and that became the basis of the judge’s high-profile May 1 decision against Corbett.

“When Judge Selna last ruled, he found me not liable on 21 of 22 counts,” Corbett said in an e-mail Tuesday. “At that time, Robert Tyler, general counsel of the Advocates for Faith & Freedom, said he viewed the decision as a complete victory. Today I’m happy to correct Mr. Tyler – a ‘complete’ victory is winning on 22 of 22 counts.”
Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com

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Monday, September 21, 2009
Census: 1/3 of Santa Ana residents have no health insurance
Health insurance coverage varies widely in state and Orange County. Poorest cities have most uninsured residents.
By RONALD CAMPBELL and JENNIFER MUIR
The Orange County Register

A half-million Orange County residents lack health insurance, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau survey released today.

The uninsured are concentrated in poorer cities. Some 34% of Santa Ana residents are uninsured. The comparable figure for Mission Viejo is 5.7%.

Health experts say Santa Ana’s ranking is no surprise: It’s densely populated, home to large immigrant populations and has a lower-middle class workforce that includes many transitional and seasonal jobs. That means many don’t get health care coverage through their employers and are more susceptible to the rising cost of health care premiums.
Even though the wealthier parts of the county have much higher rates of health insurance coverage, they are not immune from the effects of poor coverage in low income communities, according to Isabel Becerra, director for the Orange County Coalition of Community Clinics.

“It’s a public health concern when a large number of folks aren’t getting their illnesses taken care of in a timely manner,” Becerra said. “The impact is tremendous and it’s felt across the freeways … There are folks preparing your food, doing your lawn, cleaning your house who might not have access to quality health care.”

(To read about other Census findings — O.C. has among the worst commutes, and the number of foreign-born residents has leveled off — click here.)

The new census report is the first to offer city-by-city details on health insurance. Previous surveys, including one released just two weeks ago, have included only state-level and national figures. That survey found that 46 million Americans and 6 million Californians lack health insurance.

A Register analysis of the new census data showed:

Santa Ana ranks 13th nationwide for the highest rate of uninsured residents. Among 121 California cities surveyed, only East Los Angeles and South Gate had higher rates.
Three Orange County cities – Mission Viejo, Lake Forest and Newport Beach – ranked among the five most-insured California cities. Mission Viejo ranked 17th nationwide. Cities in Massachusetts, which adopted a mandatory health insurance system several years ago, dominated the most-insured list.

Uninsured rates tended to track closely with median household income, the broadest measure of income. Among California cities, the lower the median household income, the greater the percentage of residents without health insurance.

Insurance coverage varies widely by age. In general, almost everyone aged 65 or older has health insurance, mostly through the federal Medicare program. About 90 percent of children nationwide are covered. The national insured rate drops under 80 percent for working-age adults, those between 18 and 64.

The new health insurance data is contained in the 2008 American Community Survey, a detailed annual report on the United States. The survey also contains information about housing, education, income and dozens of other subjects.

The Census Bureau surveyed 3 million households nationwide throughout 2008. The new findings cover 802 counties and 632 cities in the United States and Puerto Rico with populations exceeding 65,000. Based on 3 million households nationwide, the American Community Survey also includes information about housing, education, income and dozens of other subjects for 802 counties and 532 cities in the United States and Puerto Rico with populations exceeding 65,000.

The new health insurance numbers come in the midst of a rancorous national debate over President Obama’s effort to make good on his campaign promise to make health care universally available in the United States.

How O.C. cities rank in terms of population uninsured
U.S. rankCA rankCityPop.% uninsuredUnder 18 % uninsured18 to 64 % uninsured65-plus % uninsured
520119Santa Ana320,837 32.7%17.9%42.7%12.0%
492108Buena Park86,117 25.1%13.5%33.0%8.1%
43894Anaheim329,674 22.5%13.6%29.8%1.9%
43593Garden Grove194,921 22.4%14.3%28.6%2.8%
39685Orange135,262 20.1%15.1%24.9%0.9%
39184Costa Mesa101,474 19.9%13.9%24.4%0.0%
38081Tustin86,785 19.5%9.5%25.9%6.5%
37680Fullerton130,901 19.3%12.5%24.4%3.8%
26455Westminster84,326 15.6%11.2%20.9%0.6%
15933Huntington Beach195,315 12.1%7.9%15.7%1.2%
9518Yorba Linda73,143 9.8%10.0%11.6%1.5%
6111Irvine196,157 8.4%2.0%10.9%2.7%
405Newport Beach87,932 7.3%3.7%10.4%0.0%
384Lake Forest67,146 7.1%4.9%8.9%1.8%
172Mission Viejo92,870 5.7%2.7%7.9%0.7%

Contact the writer: 714-796-5030 or rcampbell@ocregister.com

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Discover Science center to expand to Great Park
September 27th, 2009, 6:00 am · 5 Comments · posted by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
Orange County Register

The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana says it’s going to begin negotiating to locate a satellite facility at the Orange County Great Park, the sprawling park being developed at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in central Orange County.

DSC officials say they would like to create a roughly 12-acre nature education garden at Great Park, which already has botanical gardens on a site that covers more than 1,300 acres.

The garden is part of a larger plan by DSC President Joe Adams to create services and facilities that eventually would serve more people than the main “edu-tainment” complex in Santa Ana, near Bowers Museum. Adams has said such diversification is part of the center’s mission, and that it would help ensure that DSC operates in the black, financially.

Like other science centers, DSC has experienced some attendance challenges during the recession. But it has been attracting more than 400,000 people a year to its main center on Main Street.

DSC officials have yet to say how much it will cost to build a satellite facility at the Great Park, or when it would open. The park is operated by a non-profit corporation.

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University of California, Irvine resumes classes today with deep money woes
September 24th, 2009, 5:00 am · 17 Comments · posted by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
Orange County Register

UCI will have an enrollment of roughly 27,000 this year. Image courtesy of UCI.

The fall quarter begins today at UC Irvine, where some faculty might stage a one-day walkout. Many professors are upset that furloughs were imposed throughout the University of California system to save money and help the state balance its budget. There’s also a faculty hiring freeze at UCI that’s expected to lead to higher teaching loads and bigger classes, in some areas.

Such changes haven’t solved all of the system’s money problems. The UC says it has a $1 billion budget shortfall that could rise to $1.2 billion next year. That’s why the UC Board of Regents will decide in November whether to increase student fees by 30 percent. Such an increase could raise fees at least $1,344 for undergraduates who are residents of California. And the raise follows a fee hike in May that averages 9.3 percent for undergraduates.

Here are answers to some common questions about the UC’s financial situation.

Q: How likely is it that Regents will raise fees 30 percent?

A: It’s likely, but not guaranteed. UC President Mark Yudof says he supports the “painful” increases as one way of preserving the quality of the system. The Regents will probably approve the idea; they have few other options.

Q: What impact would a 30 percent fee hike have on a school like UCI?

A: The answer isn’t entirely clear. The hike would probably mean that furloughs for faculty and staff would end in September 2010. UCI also might be able to resume hiring faculty and give merit pay increases. But many students would face a large financial burden that’s part of fundamental change in the way the UC operates. A greater percentage of cost is being shifted directly to students, rather than coming from the state. Yudof has said that the UC is becoming less of a “freeway to higher education” than an academic “tollroad” for students.

Q: Will students get additional financial aid to cope with costs?

A: One-third of the proposed fee increase would be devoted to financial aid. UCI Chancellor Michael Drake says, “There is a mitigation plan under which students from families earning less than $60,000 will have no increase.” The family income threshold might rise to $70,000 next year. And Drake says increases in “programs such as the Pell Grants, along with changes in tax credits available to middle class families,” will enable most students who need aid to get at least some help. The UC also wants to provide further relief through additional scholarship money, but its unclear whether the system can raise the funds.

Q: Will UCI students have a harder time getting classes they need?

A: UCI reduced freshmen enrollment by about 500 for the fall. But the university is still likely to have more than 27,000 students, and there will be fewer classes. UCI says it plans to offer roughly 6 percent fewer sections of lower-division general education classes this fall, compared to last year. Its unclear which disciplines will be hit the hardest, but they’re likely to include the humanities and social sciences.

Q: Will it take students longer to get the classes they need to earn a degree?

A: Drake says, “We will do everything we can to get the classes students need to graduate on time.” That’s a pledge, not a guarantee. UCI, like other UC campuses, isn’t fully funded by the state for the number of students it has. And the campus is under growing pressure to add classes because the university’s prestige and more students are applying. That creates a supply-and-demand problem. UCI might not be able to supply all of the classes students demand.

Q: Has the furlough program led to a “brain drain” at UCI? Are lots of talented faculty getting angry and leaving?

A: That’s hard to quantify, but it doesn’t appear that a large number of professors has left due to the system’s financial problems. Drake says, “We always have a certain level of attrition. We have a more difficult time retaining faculty (when the economy is bad.) But the University of California is not the only higher education system that’s facing awful budget cuts. There is less hiring going on, but we’re doing everything we can to support

PRESS RELEASE

Contacts:
Dr. Juan Lara 626-390-0176
John Palacio 714-856-5214
Shelley Hoss 949-553-4202

Date: September 21, 2009

“APPLE OF GOLD” AWARDS RECOGNIZE
EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION

The Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund (HEEF) announces the recipients of the 16th Annual Apple of Gold Awards for excellence in teaching and educational leadership. Educators who will be recognized at the October 16th Apple of Gold Gala Awards Dinner at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel include: Excellence in K-12 Educational Leadership: Kasey Klappenback, Teacher, Heroes Elementary School, Santa Ana Unified School District; Excellence in Community Service: Rosa Harrizon, Parent Advocate for Education, Co-Founder, Padres Promotores de Educacion and Excellence in University Instruction, Luis Ortiz-Franco, Ph.D., Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Chapman University. Recipients were nominated by their principal, superintendent or president, and supported by their peers, students, and parents.

In addition to recognizing local teachers and administrators who inspire and encourage students to strive for a university education, with the Apple of Gold Award, HEEF provides scholarships for college students and creates partnerships with the business sector to support higher education and nurture the next generation of community leaders.

Proceeds from the dinner go to the scholarship general fund and to its 30 sub funds targeting majors from the arts to business, engineering, law, medicine and technology. Today, the fruits of this investment are being made evident at graduation ceremonies across the county and the state. HEEF scholarship recipients are completing bachelor’s degrees as well as doctoral programs at prestigious institutions. Of note, one local student is in their final year at Boalt Law School. She had previously won HEEF scholarships as a graduating high school senior and a community college transfer student. She completed her MSW at Columbia University. This is but one example of students who have come through the K-14 pipeline and transferred to a four-year university and continued their education in graduate and professional schools. They make us proud and reflect Orange County’s commitment to future generations.

Hispanic leaders and representatives of the greater Orange County community united to establish HEEF, formally launching the campaign in January 1994 with the goal of raising $1 million within five years. In 1998, HEEF celebrated the attainment of its $1 million goal. As of July 31, 2009, HEEF’s endowment stands at nearly $2.4 million.

As a resource to academically talented Hispanic youth, HEEF’s goal is to enhance educational opportunities and resources at early ages to reduce school dropout rates and to improve students’ educational expectations and opportunities. Since 1996, HEEF has awarded over $1.4 million in scholarships to over 1,150 deserving individuals.

HEEF is a component fund of the Orange County Community Foundation (OCCF), which was founded in 1989 to encourage, support and facilitate philanthropy in Orange County. OCCF’s investment guidelines ensure the best return possible while protecting the Fund’s principal.

Nearly one in 10 students in the class of 2009 did not pass the state’s high school exit exam, which is required to receive a diploma. The results, released Wednesday, were nearly stagnant compared with the previous year.

By the end of their senior year, 90.6% of students in the graduating class had passed the two-part exam, compared with 90.4% in the class of 2008.

“These gains are incremental, but they are in fact significant and they are a true testimony to the tremendous work being done by our professional educators . . . as well as our students,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, whose office released the data.

Beginning in their sophomore year, students have several chances to take the exit exam. A score of at least 55% on the math portion, which is geared to an eighth-grade level, and 60% on the English portion, which is ninth- or 10th-grade level, is required.

The achievement gap between white and Asian students and their Latino and black classmates persisted. More than 95% of Asian students and nearly 96% of white students passed the exam by the end of their senior year, compared with nearly 87% of Latino students and more than 81% of black students. But the data did show the size of the gap narrowing. English-language learners and lower-income students also lagged but have made notable gains since the exam was first required.

Critics say education officials must take stronger action to close the gap, noting that nearly 78% of the more than 45,000 students in the class of 2009 who have not passed the exam are Latino or black.

“Let us be clear: These failures do not result from students’ demographics, innate ability or lack thereof, but rather serve as an indictment of our public school system,” said Linda Murray, acting executive director for the Education Trust–West, an Oakland-based nonprofit advocacy group.

“It is no longer good enough to simply acknowledge the achievement gap exists. These data reveal that state leaders must actually get about the business of doing something about it or run the risk of watching yet another generation of our students be failed by our educational system.”

Los Angeles Unified School District students continued to lag behind their peers statewide, with 87% of the class of 2009 passing the exam. But Supt. Ramon C. Cortines noted that the district’s Latino and black students have made substantive gains over time, and the district is doing well when compared with others of similar size and demographics.

“Yes, we’re an urban school system, but we’re not at the bottom of the barrel and we’re progressively moving up,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I attribute it to the students themselves. I think that the principals and teachers and counselors have placed an emphasis on the importance of this, and I think young people are understanding that without a high school diploma, there’s not much of a future.”

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009
CHART: 2009 high school exit exam scores for O.C. schools
O.C. schools outperform state as passing rates remain steady.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register

The California High School Exit Exam is a test that all high school students must pass to receive a diploma. It aims to ensure students graduate with basic skills. The exam is based on California standards in English and math — specifically, ninth- and 10th-grade English, sixth- and seventh-grade math, and Algebra 1, typically taken in eighth grade.
Students take the test once as sophomores. If they fail, they may try twice in their junior year and three times in their senior year. Students can also take it once in the summer after their class graduates.

If students fail, school districts must provide more instruction, such as extra math classes or after-school tutoring, for juniors and seniors who haven’t passed the test. Students who still don’t pass are often encouraged to enroll in community colleges, which don’t require high school diplomas, to continue their education.

Below are summaries of Orange County’s top and worst scoring schools in English and Math, followed by summaries of scores for all schools, and links to detailed subgroup data courtesy of GreatSchools.net, the Orange County Register’s data partner.

Click here to see all O.C. scores

Orange County Top 10 Math

DistrictSchoolStudents testedStudents passing
Anaheim UnionOxford High180100%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedEarly College High67100%
Santa Ana UnifiedMiddle College High74100%
Fullerton JointTroy High62299%
Irvine UnifiedUniversity High56699%
Irvine UnifiedNorthwood High51198%
Irvine UnifiedWoodbridge High48198%
Los Alamitos UnifiedLos Alamitos High80998%
Santa Ana UnifiedOrange County School of the Arts26798%
Capistrano UnifiedAliso Niguel High74697%

Orange County Bottom 10 Math

DistrictSchoolStudents testedStudents passing
Santa Ana UnifiedCentury High64564%
Santa Ana UnifiedValley High67364%
Santa Ana UnifiedSaddleback High51568%
Santa Ana UnifiedSanta Ana High90171%
Anaheim UnionAnaheim High78573%
Anaheim UnionSavanna High53274%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedEstancia High34076%
Anaheim UnionKatella High68177%
Anaheim UnionMagnolia High59577%
Orange UnifiedOrange High57777%

Orange County Top 10 English

DistrictSchoolStudents testedStudents passing
Anaheim UnionOxford High181100%
Fullerton JointTroy High62299%
Santa Ana UnifiedOrange County School of the Arts26699%
Irvine UnifiedNorthwood High51098%
Irvine UnifiedWoodbridge High49097%
Laguna Beach UnifiedLaguna Beach High24597%
Santa Ana UnifiedSegerstrom High60597%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedCorona del Mar High41397%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedEarly College High6796%
Santa Ana UnifiedMiddle College High7496%

Orange County Bottom 10 English

DistrictSchoolStudents testedStudents passing
Santa Ana UnifiedValley High67452%
Santa Ana UnifiedCentury High64860%
Santa Ana UnifiedSanta Ana High90362%
Santa Ana UnifiedSaddleback High50663%
Anaheim UnionAnaheim High78671%
Orange UnifiedOrange High58471%
Garden Grove UnifiedLos Amigos High63572%
Anaheim UnionMagnolia High59673%
Anaheim UnionKatella High69174%
Anaheim UnionLoara High64975%

All Orange County scores

District School All tested Math 2009 All Students passing Math 2009 All Students tested English 2009 All Students Passing English 2009
Anaheim UnionAnaheim High 78573%78671%
Anaheim UnionCypress High 62194%62593%
Anaheim UnionGilbert High (Cont.) 10844%12437%
Anaheim UnionKatella High 68177%69174%
Anaheim UnionKennedy (John F.) High 55793%56093%
Anaheim UnionLoara High 64780%64975%
Anaheim UnionMagnolia High 59577%59673%
Anaheim UnionOxford High 180100%181100%
Anaheim UnionPolaris High (Alter.) 3866%4262%
Anaheim UnionSavanna High 53274%53276%
Anaheim UnionWestern High 51785%51282%
Brea-Olinda UnifiedBrea Canyon High (Cont.) 1553%1567%
Brea-Olinda UnifiedBrea-Olinda High 48293%48291%
Capistrano UnifiedAliso Niguel High 74697%75596%
Capistrano UnifiedCapistrano Valley High 67393%67292%
Capistrano UnifiedDana Hills High 71289%70789%
Capistrano UnifiedSan Clemente High 81589%81591%
Capistrano UnifiedSan Juan Hills High 55383%55288%
Capistrano UnifiedSerra High (Cont.) 2658%2864%
Capistrano UnifiedTesoro High 66896%66996%
Fullerton JointBuena Park High 35884%35784%
Fullerton JointFullerton High 35191%35589%
Fullerton JointLa Habra High 47291%47392%
Fullerton JointLa Sierra High (Alternative) 1553%1573%
Fullerton JointSonora High 46285%46386%
Fullerton JointSunny Hills High 58195%58094%
Fullerton JointTroy High 62299%62299%
Garden Grove UnifiedBolsa Grande High 52088%52281%
Garden Grove UnifiedGarden Grove High 58587%58885%
Garden Grove UnifiedHare (Maire) High (Cont.) 3834%3842%
Garden Grove UnifiedLa Quinta High 49895%49892%
Garden Grove UnifiedLincoln Educ. Ctr – Continuation 1267%1267%
Garden Grove UnifiedLos Amigos High 63679%63572%
Garden Grove UnifiedPacifica High 49694%50090%
Garden Grove UnifiedRancho Alamitos High 53185%53279%
Garden Grove UnifiedSantiago High 60880%60977%
H.B. UnionCoast High (Alt) 3485%3291%
H.B. UnionEdison High 61294%61995%
H.B. UnionFountain Valley High 80596%81195%
H.B. UnionHuntington Beach High 61992%61793%
H.B. UnionMarina High 68792%68791%
H.B. UnionOcean View High 41086%41483%
H.B. UnionValley Vista High (Cont.) 5746%5754%
H.B. UnionWestminster High 67182%67480%
Irvine UnifiedCreekside High School 4965%5167%
Irvine UnifiedIrvine High 47697%48194%
Irvine UnifiedNorthwood High 51198%51098%
Irvine UnifiedSan Joaquin High (Alt.) 1688%1694%
Irvine UnifiedUniversity High 56699%57095%
Irvine UnifiedWoodbridge High 48198%49097%
Laguna Beach UnifiedLaguna Beach High 23597%24597%
Los Alamitos UnifiedLaurel High (Cont.) 8n/a8n/a
Los Alamitos UnifiedLos Alamitos High 80998%83496%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedBack Bay High (Cont.) 2055%1974%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedCorona del Mar High 41494%41397%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedCosta Mesa High 29279%29280%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedEarly College High 67100%6796%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedEstancia High 34076%34278%
Newport-Mesa UnifiedMonte Vista High (Alter.) 3n/a3n/a
Newport-Mesa UnifiedNewport Harbor High 59386%58986%
O.C.D.E.ACCESS Juvenile Hall 18245%18555%
O.C.D.E.O.C. Community Home Education Program 11889%12396%
Orange UnifiedCanyon High 59495%59595%
Orange UnifiedEl Modena High 58486%58284%
Orange UnifiedOrange High 57777%58471%
Orange UnifiedRichland Continuation High 8n/a8n/a
Orange UnifiedVilla Park High 58987%59087%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedEl Camino Real Continuation High 2928%2756%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedEl Dorado High 70993%70990%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedEsperanza High 76597%78895%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedLa Entrada High (Alter) 3090%3190%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedParkview 2391%2391%
Placentia-Yorba Linda UnifiedValencia High 65185%64779%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedEl Toro High 67295%67293%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedLaguna Hills High 44790%44790%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedMira Monte High (Alt 2095%21100%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedMission Viejo High 74395%74694%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedSilverado High (Cont.) 8050%8455%
Saddleback Valley UnifiedTrabuco Hills High 83393%83695%
Santa Ana UnifiedCentury High 64564%64860%
Santa Ana UnifiedHector G Godinez High School 59393%59490%
Santa Ana UnifiedMiddle College High 74100%7496%
Santa Ana UnifiedMountain View High (Cont.) 4n/a4n/a
Santa Ana UnifiedOrange County School of the Arts 26798%26699%
Santa Ana UnifiedSaddleback High 51568%50663%
Santa Ana UnifiedSanta Ana High 90171%90362%
Santa Ana UnifiedSegerstrom High 60497%60597%
Santa Ana UnifiedValley High 67364%67452%
Tustin UnifiedBeckman High 60191%60190%
Tustin UnifiedFoothill High 54492%54492%
Tustin UnifiedHillview High (Cont.) 1759%2080%
Tustin UnifiedSycamore High (Alt.) 1n/a1n/a
Tustin UnifiedTustin High 52083%52181%

Orange County total39,99587%34,15885%
California total474,22180%476,76879%

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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Segerstrom High shines on exit exam
The Santa Ana campus stresses test preparation and strict discipline for high scores.
By FERMIN LEAL
The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – Since Segerstrom High opened five years ago, people have argued the school succeeds because it draws the smartest, most motivated students from throughout Santa Ana Unified.

“That myth could not be further from the truth,” said Principal Amy Avina.
Segerstrom has boasted solid test scores and high graduation rates, while other high schools in the district have struggled.

(Click here to see scores for all O.C. high schools, and links to scores for each school’s subgroups.)

But Avina said it’s the school’s philosophy for achievement, devotion of teachers and strict approach to discipline that has led students at Segerstrom to earn to marks in several measures not just districtwide, but across all of Orange County.

Segerstrom placed in the top 10 on both the math and English portions of the state High School Exit Exam, with about 97 percent of test-takers passing both sections. The campus, where 58 percent of students come from poor families, also ranked as the best school countywide on the exit exam for schools with high concentrations of low-income students, a group that traditionally struggles on state tests.

About 97 percent of low-income students at Segerstrom passed the math portion, while 96 percent of these students passed in English. That’s about 25 percentage points higher than the county average for the demographic.
“The main reason our students did well on the exit exam is because of what we do here every day,” Avina said. “But we also prepare for the test and take it very seriously.”

At Segerstrom, all students take an exit exam practice test as freshman. Students who score poorly are then funneled into after-school tutoring classes. The classes are run by the school’s English and math teachers, who work the extra hours without additional pay, Avina said.

Students also prepare for the test their sophomore year by taking part in an exit exam “boot camp.” Three days before the exam, all students in math and English classes thoroughly review practice questions and study the different subjects they’ll be tested on.

The principal also credits Segerstrom’s fundamental school philosophy for high tests scores. The campus is one in a handful of Santa Ana Unified schools to operate under fundamental school curriculum.

At Segerstrom, a strict dress code is strongly enforced, Avina said. Girls’ skirts can’t be too short, boys must tuck in their shirts and baggy clothing, facial piercings, and unnatural hair coloring are prohibited for all.

Teachers also use a color-coded card system to enforce discipline issues. Missing or late homework will earn a student a yellow card. Green cards are issued for excessive tardies, and pink cards go out for dress code violations.

Teachers are all required to consistently follow discipline guidelines for all students.

“We don’t want to have the typical ‘cool teacher’ who lets kids come in late to class or sometimes lets them slide on homework,” she said. “We want all teachers to strictly enforce all these rules.”

Students that accumulate multiple violations first meet with teachers, then parents are called, and ultimately the principal herself gets involved. When Avina intervenes, she can threaten a student with transfer out of the school.
Segerstrom draws most of its enrollment from surrounding neighborhoods in southern Santa Ana, Avina said. But the school does have some students who don’t live within the school’s boundaries chosen via a lottery.

Of the 600 freshman this year, 150 were lottery students from across the district.

Avina said grades and other academic records are not a factor in the lottery selection process. The school has about 600 other students on a waiting list.

“There is a misconception that we just choose honor students and those who have straight A’s,” she said. “But we actually have more students who may have some F’s in their record than we have straight-A students. The students we value the most are those who are motivated and are willing to work hard.”

Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com

SANTA ANA – Every student at 18 campuses in Santa Ana Unified School District will receive a free breakfast and lunch through the rest of the school year regardless of whether they qualify for the federal free and reduced-price meal program.

Students at the campuses have been selected to participate in a U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program to receive free meals for the 2009-10 school year. In the program, every student at the schools will be offered a free breakfast and lunch every day.

Officials said the goal is to improve nutrition among students in schools serving the neediest populations. The 18 schools each have at least 85 percent of students already qualifying for free or reduced-price meals. Officials say the program will also help reduce administrative costs by freeing up district staff from processing thousands of free and reduced-price lunch applications.

The USDA, which runs the free and reduced-price lunch program nationally, began the pilot program at districts across the country last year. Santa Ana Unified, the county’s largest district with 55,000 students and 55 campuses, is the only district participating in Orange County.

“All students are encouraged to participate daily in both the breakfast and lunch meal program and reap the benefits of having not one but two nutritious meals to start the day off in a positive manner,” said Mary Lou Romero, director of the food service department for Santa Ana Unified.
Romero said the program could be extended another three years if most students continue to participate.

For 10 schools, this is the second consecutive year participating in the federal program. They are Jackson Elementary, Kennedy Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, Lowell Elementary, Madison Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Washington Elementary, Carr Intermediate, Community Day Intermediate and Community Day High School.

Eight new campuses were added this school year. They are Davis Elementary, Diamond Elementary, Edison Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Heninger Elementary, Heroes Elementary, King Elementary and Pio Pico Elementary.

In Santa Ana Unified, a full-priced elementary school breakfast or lunch costs between $2 and $3 per meal. Breakfast dishes include cereal, English muffins with egg and ham, and breakfast burritos with potatoes, cheese and egg. Lunches include spaghetti with meatballs, crispy turkey filet sandwiches, and teriyaki beef with brown rice.

Many parents in Santa Ana welcome the program as a way to promote health for children who instead may eat fast food, or other less nutritious meals. At the same time, parent say the program allows families to save money in tough economic times.

“This program makes a lot of sense,” said Graciela Cervantes, a parent at Davis Elementary. “If nearly all students at this school already qualify for a free lunch, why not just give it to everyone?”

Families who wish to apply for free meals but who do not attend one of the 18 pilot schools must still fill out an application to determine their eligibility for free meals, district officials said. For those campuses, parents need to meet the household income guidelines set by the federal government.

For example, a household of four needs to earn a maximum of about $39,000 annually to qualify for a reduced-price meal and $27,500 for free meals.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com

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latimes.com/news/local/la-me-art-schools10-2009sep10,0,5947743.story
latimes.com
2 new L.A. arts high schools are a study in contrasts
The schools opened for business this week, one on a $232-million shiny new campus, the other in rented space in a small church. Both have high hopes.
By Mitchell Landsberg
September 10, 2009

One occupies $232 million worth of serious architecture on a promontory overlooking downtown Los Angeles. The other rents cramped space in a South L.A. church.

One has an address that shouts prestige, with neighbors that include the city’s Roman Catholic cathedral and the Music Center. The other is across the street from an apartment building for the recently homeless.

Two new high schools for the arts debuted this week — a rare enough feat in a down economy. Despite the vast differences in their circumstances, it may be too early to say which of the two has the most potential to nurture the next generation of artists and performers.

The Los Angeles Unified school at 450 N. Grand Ave., perched across the 101 Freeway from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, was years in the making and is housed on one of the most expensive and widely praised campuses in the nation. Yet it is only now shaking off more than a year of controversy and false starts in its launch to become the flagship of the district. The Fernando Pullum Performing Arts High School at 51st Street and Broadway may have the feel of something hastily thrown together out of spare parts, but it is led by one of the city’s most respected music educators and has the support of such big-name artists as Kenny Burrell, Jackson Browne, Bill Cosby and Don Cheadle.

Adding a twist to the relationship between these two fledgling schools is this: Fernando Pullum, a charter school run by the Inner City Education Foundation (and named after the music teacher who heads the foundation’s arts program), doesn’t plan to stay in its rented quarters for long. It has its sights on an eventual takeover of 450 N. Grand.

“When our performing arts school is doing one amazing thing after another . . . . people will say, ‘Why is this school in a small church on 51st and Broadway instead of at 450 N. Grand?’ ” said Mike Piscal, chief executive of Inner City schools.

Charter takeovers are not unheard of — in the last year, two L.A. Unified high schools have converted to charter status, under which they are independently managed and freed from day-to-day oversight by the district. But Piscal will get no encouragement from L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines.

“I don’t think so,” Cortines said Wednesday when asked if he could envision a charter takeover of the district’s crown jewel. “It bothers me that people are looking at our new schools and sort of salivating. I don’t see them looking at the Manual Arts and the Muirs and the Jeffersons and the Fremonts” — a list of some of the district’s oldest, lowest-performing schools.

However the competition plays out, both arts schools opened in a burst of optimism and magnanimity. They were among a host of new schools opening in Los Angeles this fall, both charters and traditional public schools. Among them were two new elementary schools at the Mid-Wilshire site once occupied by the Ambassador Hotel, the first of several schools planned for the property.

There was an almost giddy feeling Wednesday morning as students streamed onto the Grand Avenue arts campus for their first day of school.

“We’re very excited,” said a beaming Rex Patton, executive director of the school, still known only as Central High School #9 for the Visual and Performing Arts.

The downtown school, on the site of the former school district headquarters, had a difficult birth, with years of debate over who would attend and how the students would be selected, and nearly a year of recruiting difficulties before an administration team was put in place in May. All that was set aside as students and parents roamed the campus, poring over schedules and looking for unfamiliar classrooms.

“It’s beautiful,” marveled Magali Arriaza, who was dropping her ninth-grade daughter at the gate. “Beautiful.”

“We’ve waited a long time for a school like this,” added another mother, Judith Martinez, who drove her son, Eric Marquez, from East Los Angeles, where his neighborhood school is Roosevelt High. She said he is a singer and dancer who previously attended Millikan Middle School’s performing arts magnet in Sherman Oaks. “This area hasn’t had any kind of school for kids interested in the arts,” she said.

The school had enrolled 1,279 students in grades 9, 10 and 11 as of Monday, Principal Suzanne Blake said (there will be no senior class until next year). In the ninth grade, she said, the school hit its targeted balance of 70% students from the surrounding neighborhood and 30% from elsewhere in the district. In the upper grades, she said, the mix was closer to 60% to 40%.

The geographic balance was the result of a political compromise on the Board of Education between those who believed the school was promised to the surrounding neighborhood and should serve only its children, and those who believed that such a landmark campus should serve the best young dancers, musicians, actors and visual artists in the city. Another debate turned on whether students should be admitted on the basis of ability.

In the end, students were admitted on a first-come, first-served basis, although Blake said the school naturally attracted those with an interest in the arts.

If the physical facility was the initial draw for many at 450 N. Grand, the magnet at the Fernando Pullum charter school was . . . Fernando Pullum. An award-winning teacher and musician who spent many years leading a music program at Washington Prep High School, Pullum was recruited to the Inner City Education Foundation two years ago and has a modest goal for the new school that carries his name.

“This is going to be the best school in the entire world,” he assured about 135 ninth- and 10th-graders at an opening-day assembly Tuesday in the sanctuary of the school’s new home, Paradise Baptist Church. The school will add 11th and 12th grades in the coming years. Pullum said the school will measure success by the number of students who go on to college, not by how many become stars.

Among the assets that Pullum brings to the school is an iPhone filled with contacts from the entertainment industry, where he moonlights as a working musician. Already, he has aired radio ads for the school featuring Cosby and Cheadle, and has commitments from institutions that include the Creative Artists Agency, UCLA, the Grammy Foundation and the Music Center.

“Wherever he goes is where I go,” said the Creative Artists Agency’s Michael Yanover, who has brought such celebrities as Roger Daltrey of the Who, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock and Oscar-winning director Taylor Hackford to work with Pullum’s students in the past.

Plans have already been announced for the artists Jackson Browne and Fishbone to appear at the school this month as part of the John Lennon Educational Bus Tour. Browne has volunteered at Pullum’s schools for years, and Pullum plays in Fishbone’s band.

Pullum’s counterparts at 450 N. Grand have lined up their own list of arts-world partners, including the Music Center, Colburn School of Music, Museum of Contemporary Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, suggesting a continuing eagerness by the creative community to fill in the gaps in schools’ arts classes.

Although existing arts schools — and there are a number in Southern California — might be expected to resent the new faces on the block, Principal Leah Bass-Baylis of the CHAMPS Charter High School of the Arts in Van Nuys said she welcomes them. “There’s such a dearth of opportunity for quality arts education,” she said. “You know, I think of everybody as partners.”

In a city this size, Bass-Baylis said, “there’s enough to go around. There are definitely enough kids to go around.”

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Publication:Freedom – Orange County Register; Date:Sept. 10, 2009; Section:Local; Page Number:Local 7

School district to require sensitivity training

Officials agree to provide classes, settling a lawsuit alleging bias against gay people and females.

By JEFF OVERLEY THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

A school district will provide training on issues of intolerance to settle an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit accusing educators of ignoring sexism and homophobia, officials said Wednesday.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District will hold “mandatory training sessions for administrators, teachers and students that will focus on the harmful impacts of sexual discrimination and harassment,” the ACLU said.

The organization’s Southern California branch sued the district in March in a case that stemmed in part from the brief cancellation of a student production of the rock opera “Rent,” which has gay characters.

“Students are routinely referred to … (by derogatory terms) by other students at school in hallways and classrooms within earshot of teachers, but without repercussion,” the lawsuit said.

Administrators at Corona del Mar High School, where the play was staged, were “permitting and sanctioning an atmosphere that is hostile to female, lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender students in general, and has led to despicable threats of violence against one student in particular,” the ACLU said at the time.

The violence allegation refers to a video posted online in which three male students made slurs against gay people and suggested raping and killing a female peer. School officials became aware of the tape but responded poorly, the ACLU said.

District officials have agreed to give a written apology to the female, Hail Ketchum, who now attends Loyola Marymount.

Because of the training, “No one else will have to go through what I went through,” Ketchum said in a statement read by her parents at a news conference Wednesday.

In a statement Wednesday, district spokeswoman Laura Boss said no wrongdoing was admitted. “We believe this training program will raise awareness for staff and students and will contribute to an overall positive environment at Corona del Mar High School,” she said.

CONTACT THE WRITER:

949-553-292 1 or joverley@ocregister.com
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Friday, September 11, 2009
Editor: Student newspaper censored by school
Taylor Erickson, 17, says school administrators were uneasy about what one of her reporters uncovered.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register

UPDATE: Two leading experts on the First Amendment rights of student journalists say school administrators crossed a legal line. Click here to read the story.

SANTA ANA – The editor of the student newspaper that school administrators stopped from being printed earlier this week says her principal was trying to censor controversial but factual information about a new cafeteria services provider.

Taylor Erickson, 17, a senior at the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, said Principal Sue Vaughn primarily objected to an article reporting that independent vendor Alegre Foods is a Christian company whose “mission” is to “serve God.” The Long Beach-based group was hired this year to run the school’s cafeteria.

“Her concern was that if a parent by chance took issue with Christianity, they would get a couple of extra angry phone calls,” said Erickson, who was called into the principal’s office Tuesday for about a 40-minute meeting. “They were afraid of the information and claimed it was irrelevant. We were simply stating what the company was all about. Our objective isn’t to please the administration and show everything’s all hunky dory.”

School administrators on Wednesday ordered printing of the student-run “Evolution” newspaper to be stopped after reviewing an advanced copy. All 1,500 copies of the six-page paper – the first issue of the school year – had been slated for distribution Thursday; they’re now scheduled to be printed next week, although it’s not clear yet whether any changes will be made.

Click here to read initial report about the paper being delayed, including what the law says about prior restraint of student publications.

Vaughn confirmed Thursday that Alegre’s religious affiliation was one of the factors that led her to authorize the printing delay, but denied trying to censor the students’ work.

“We’re in no way trying to censor anything,” Vaughn said Thursday. “We were given the copy to look at after it was sent to the printer. There were errors in it that need to be corrected, and then the printing will be continued.”
Alegre’s religious proclivity is factually correct – that’s evident from the company’s Web site – but Vaughn noted that a school official had been misquoted in that article. Vaughn also said she was concerned about the accuracy of a second article characterizing the faculty as “looking forward to the upcoming school year with an attitude filled with boldness and spiciness.” Vaughn, however, said she hadn’t requested any changes to the faculty article.

Vaughn and Assistant Principal Michael Ciecek told Erickson on Tuesday they had been unaware of the company’s religious affiliation until reading the article, Erickson said.

“They were surprised by the information, which shows we did our job as journalists,” said Erickson, who completed a 10-week internship this summer in the Register’s newsroom. “We should be asking them, why did they hire this Christian-based company?”

The Orange County High School of the Arts is an independent, public charter school serving about 1,400 students in the seventh through 12th grades. It is the largest charter school in Orange County.

Erickson, who identifies herself as a Christian, noted that the paper had simply reported information from Alegre’s Web site, adding that the article did not editorialize or imply the hiring decision was improper.

Alegre’s religious ties are readily apparent from the company’s Web site.
“Our passion, and our mission, is to serve God and to provide the finest full service program to the private school segment,” the homepage says.
It’s not clear yet if any changes will be made, but the administration’s insistence on removing the religious reference from the article appears to have softened since Tuesday, Erickson said.

During her 40-minute meeting with the principal Tuesday, Erickson said she was told “Evolution” could not be printed in its current form; now she doesn’t know what will happen.

Also, in an e-mail to newspaper faculty advisor Konnie Krislock, Assistant Principal Michael Ciecek initially threatened to stop publication of the paper altogether if the administration could not approve it first.

“All future newspaper publications will be cleared by Sue (Vaughn) or I before being delivered to Maritza (Ahn, the school’s purchasing technician) for printing,” Ciecek said in the e-mail. “We will not continue to use leadership or yearbook funds to publish something (digitally or in paper versions) that the administration has not approved. If you are not able to comply with this, then the newspaper will no longer be published.”

Vaughn said Thursday the school had no intentions to stop printing “Evolution” and that she was meeting Thursday afternoon with the reporter who wrote the Alegre article to discuss the story, not to order any changes to it.

“I need to hear her rationale,” said Vaughn, explaining that she felt the religious component was “irrelevant” to the story. “If she has a good reason for putting it in the story, and we still disagree, she gets to publish it as she wrote it.”

The Alegre article’s reporter, junior Julia Ostmann, declined to comment when contacted by phone after her meeting with the principal. But she later e-mailed a brief statement to the Register.

“I stand by my story, I’m looking forward to seeing it published, and I’m proud of our newspaper ‘Evolution,’” she said.

Ostmann’s mother, Susan Paterno, director of Chapman University’s journalism program, did not immediately return a phone call to her office seeking comment.

Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com

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Publication:Freedom – Orange County Register; Date:Sept. 10, 2009; Section:Local; Page Number:Local 5

Volunteers return to rebuild school’s burned library

Electrical fire destroyed room at Faylane Elementary in Garden Grove.

By DEEPA BHARATH THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

GARDEN GROVE About 40 volunteers wearing green “Faylane RE-BUILD” Tshirts did just that Wednesday.

Armed with paint brushes and measuring tapes, they set out to rebuild Faylane Elementary School’s library, which burned down Aug. 20 as a result of an electrical fire – less than 12 hours after the same volunteer group had built it and decorated it with murals depicting America’s presidents.

Tri Pham, whose daughter will start fourth grade today when the school reopens, said he lives in the same neighborhood and got a bad feeling when he heard firetrucks the morning of the fire.

Pham works for C & D Zodiac, and the Give and Grow Foundation, which took on the school project, is the nonprofit arm of the Huntington Beach company that makes airplane interiors. Pham had asked his employer if they would consider helping Faylane Elementary because the school had recently been burglarized three times in one month.

“To have this fire on top of that just did not seem fair,” he said. “It was devastating.”

But what came out of it has been positive and heartwarming, Pham said. In the days following the fire, the school has received more than 10,000 books.

“We’re still getting more donations,” Principal Thorsten Hegberg said. “I’m just very happy that we can have this place ready before school starts.”

School district crews worked to get the burned room back in shape by installing new glass windows and carpeting, providing a fresh coat of paint and deodorizing the smoke-damaged library. This was the school’s first library or reading room. Until now, books were stacked in a room that doubled as the computer lab.

Volunteers also repainted the fields. The fresh paint they had put on Aug. 19 was removed after firetrucks pulled in to put out the fire. They also repaired the mural for the library.

Phil Dixon, who sanded and stained the original wooden shelves for the library, said he had no doubt they were going to be back at Faylane rebuilding and repairing the damage.

“I was horrified when I heard the news because we had put in so much time and effort,” he said. “But most of all, I felt sad for the children.”

Dixon and others were able to salvage the wooden shelves by painting them white instead of leaving them with the original wood finish.

Noli Escobido said he feels happy that volunteers were able to come back and help rebuild the library.

“When I heard about the fire, I felt like our job wasn’t done here,” he said. “It felt like unfinished business. Now, I’m happy the children have something nice to come back to.”

CONTACT THE WRITER:

949-553-2903 or dbharath@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
School chief sees misinformation behind city’s suit
Mission Viejo to sue Saddleback district over O’Neill Elementary.
By NIYAZ PIRANI
The Orange County Register
2
MISSION VIEJO The superintendent of Saddleback Valley Unified says that only Mission Viejo’s lawyers will benefit from a lawsuit the city plans to file today challenging the closure and reuse of an elementary school.

The suit, made public after closed session discussions at the City Council meeting Tuesday night, alleges the school district violated state law when it closed O’Neill Elementary School with plans to use the facility for adult education.

The suit contends the district violated the California Environmental Quality Act by only conducting an environmental impact report concerning the closure of the school, but not its reopening for another purpose.

A timeline in the lawsuit outlines contact between city staff and the school district, but Superintendent Steve Fish said the only communications he has received from the city are threatening letters from the city attorney.

The city contends that it asked the district in March 2009 to keep the elementary school open, and then in July asked the district to conduct an environmental study if adult programs were offered there.

Fish said that an alternative use for O’Neill was not considered until after the decision to close the school was made. Trustees in March decided to close the school in June.

He said misinformation about O’Neill becoming a large adult education center are false, and that only four classes for 12 to 15 adults – including computer, painting and ESL – will be held at the site, starting Thursday.

O’Neill, Mission Viejo’s oldest elementary school, was one of two schools, including La Tierra Elementary, that were closed by the district at the end of the 2008-09 school year because of declining attendance and budget cuts.
The district is already looking at a $25 million deficit for the 2009-10 school year, and closing more schools in a district with declining attendance may not be out of the question, Fish said.

Adult programs will be offered at the campus to lessen class sizes at other adult education sites. Because the programs are fee based, upkeep of the O’Neill facility, including utilities, will be paid for, Fish said.

“We were concerned as a property owner in the city of Mission Viejo that we not abandon the property,” Fish said. “We never had an intention to sell it or let it get out of the district’s hands so we found a use that we thought would help the community and not impose on the neighbors.”

Speaking to the lawsuit, Fish said his hope was that the city would work amiably with the district to resolve the issue, which has not happened.

The city is suing to make the district pay for the environmental impact report regarding the adult classes. A cost on that report is currently unknown.

“I’ll just add it to the $25 million I have to pay next year, on top of all the attorney fees I have to pay for this suit,” Fish said.

Contact the writer: 949-454-7352 or npirani@ocregister.com

The Regent proposal envisions raising fees 15 percent early next year and by another 15 percent or so for the 2010-11 academic year, says Peter King, a spokesman for the UC system.

(To read the entire budget item, click fee hike proposal below, then double-click on the document. The fee schedules are on pages 13 and 15.)
fee hike proposal

“This (situation) has been stuffed down our throat by Sacramento, which has been cutting our budget,” said King. “We would rather raise fees than trim enrollment. This is not a first choice. But it is something the Regents will consider.”

Undergraduate students who are residents of California are currently scheduled to pay $7,788 in fees for the 2009-10 academic year, which begins later this month. The fee increases the Regents will consider next week could increase fees $585, to $8,373, effective in January, according to UC documents. Graduate students would experience similar hikes.

Regents also might raise fees further, raising the cost for undergraduate residents to $10,302 for the 2010-11 year.

“The cuts that have already been made have been devastating, and if they went further there would be more decay in the value of a UC education,” King said.

King said that Regents will only discuss the fee hikes in San Francisco. They couldn’t be approved until later this year.

King was referring to the fact the lawmakers told the UC system to cut more than $813 million in expenses to help balance the state budget. At least $77 million in cuts were ordered for UC Irvine, Orange County’s largest employer.

The UC system has order that most employees take furlough days, cutting pay 4-10 percent, depending on how much a person earns. Employees also are being fired, and some programs are being closed or scaled back.

Through a spokesman, UCI Chancellor Michael Drake declined comment until after the Regents decide what to do about student fees.
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latimes.com/news/local/la-me-legis-wrap13-2009sep13,0,3697639.story
latimes.com
Legislative year ends with a whimper
Sacramento lawmakers adjourn with little progress to pacify a restive public. Key prison and energy efforts got watered down, and the governor plans to veto most of the few bills that did pass.
By Eric Bailey
September 13, 2009

They bickered over how to end the state’s multigeneration water war. They balked at tough changes to relieve prison overcrowding. They grimaced over a sex scandal that last week brought the resignation of Assemblyman Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda).

As the gavel banged an end to the 2009 legislative year in California’s Capitol, shell-shocked lawmakers had little to show for it except discontent, partisan dysfunction and a colleague’s personal disgrace.

“This was the year that wasn’t,” lamented Assemblyman Mike Villines (R-Clovis), until recently the lower-house minority leader

Amid a crumbling economy and a canyon of government debt, state lawmakers seemed to spin their wheels through much of the year — and the final days were little different.

Meanwhile, the Legislature’s testy relationship with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger grew more tense as the governor issued a scorched-earth veto threat in a bid to leverage a water deal and then killed a mom-and-apple-pie bid to honor America’s Vietnam War dead.

Looming like a storm front was the prospect that lawmakers might soon face a public revolt.

Business leaders are pushing a constitutional convention while a conservative group is mounting an effort to make the Legislature part-time. A poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California days ago showed that three-quarters of Californians believe their government has gone wrong.

“If we don’t break through the partisan juggernaut,” said Villines, “the people are going to do it for us.”

Democrats fear the governor might champion a part-time Legislature — though lately Schwarzenegger seems reluctant to let lawmakers go home, as they normally would until resuming in the new year. The governor has already called a special session on education and is expected to also ask the houses to stick around this fall to consider revolutionary changes in the state’s tax system.

For most of the year, the painful task of deficit reduction consumed the Capitol. After a midsummer deal was struck to balance the budget, lawmakers settled in for the final month of the session hoping to forge a few tectonic changes.

But the final weeks sawfewunequivocal successes.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) brokered a deal with health insurance companies to keep nearly 700,000children of the working poor from being pulled off the government’s Healthy Families insurance program. She even coaxed support from across the aisle — a rare Capitol occurrence.

“I feel good about a lot of things,” Bass said, citing an extension of unemployment insurance and a bill helping troubled mortgage holders keep their homes. “But it was an extremely painful year, just completely overshadowed by the economic crisis.”

Even the few victories seemed muted.

Democratic leaders pushed into the final day bullish on their No. 1 environmental priority — boosting state energy standards to require that 33% of all electricity be from renewable sources by 2020.

But prodding by power company lobbyists yielded legislation adorned with requirements for new dams in Canada and loopholes for energy firms that don’t meet the mandates.

The governor vowed to veto the legislation. Matt David, his communication director, called the slate of bills “protectionist schemes” that would kill California’s solar industry, and said Schwarzenegger would issue an executive order to enact the 33% mandate on his own.

“The environment was not treated with a lot of respect this year,” groused Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, which is urging the governor not to veto the bills.

Even a key budgetary issue — how to cut prison costs — dragged on to haunt the final days of the session.

Schwarzenegger’s prison overhaul plans — a raft of long-debated changes to save money and start satisfying a federal court decree to cut overcrowding — ran aground in the Assembly. Several lawmakers, including key Democrats who supported the sweeping ideas in the past, balked out of fear that they could be portrayed in next year’s elections as soft on crime.

With time and patience running short, grumbling lawmakers in the Senate on Friday went along with a stripped-down measure lacking several of the most critical cost-saving proposals, such as electronic monitoring and home detention for some low-level offenders. One irked senator dubbed the final agreement “prison lite.”

Industry power was on display in the defeat of an attempt by state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) to ban the use of the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, from baby bottles, toddler sippy cups and other food and drink containers for children 3 and younger.

Chemical firms argued that health regulators in California and beyond had found no proof of BPA causing harm, while Pavley vowed to push her “David vs. Goliath fight” anew next year.

And the final days drew the interest of some wealthy political donors.

Lobbyists for Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick, owner of the POM Wonderful line of pomegranate juice, pushed unsuccessfully for tougher purity standards. And billionaire Philip Anschutz failed to win an exception to state prohibitions on alcohol advertisements at his downtown Club Nokia.

The most aggressive battle, though, was over billionaire Ed Roski’s dream of returning professional football to Los Angeles County.

Roski wants to build a 70,000-seat stadium in the city of Industry. He met with Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) in recent days to pitch what he characterizes as the job-creation benefits of the project — and argued that it should be exempt from environmental review and lawsuits.

Labor unions, hungry for job growth, helped push the measure to an easy victory in the Assembly. But it stalled in the Senate, where Steinberg suggested more work was needed and the proposal would be deferred.

Nothing capped the legislative year quite like the travails of Mike Duvall.

The assemblyman’s tale — inadvertent bragging about sex with two women into an open microphone at a July committee hearing — made international headlines.

Less than 24 hours after the story broke, Duvall had stepped down and the Legislature’s remaining 119 lawmakers were left to ponder how the scandal might further stain an institution already hurting for fans.

“The events of this week didn’t help,” Bass acknowledged.

Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), a Sacramento veteran, said lawmakers need to refocus on working collegially to solve the state’s myriad problems.

“The failings of an individual — that will pass,” he said. “The failings of an institution will not. That’s what really needs to be addressed.”

eric.bailey@latimes.com

Times staff writers Patrick McGreevy and Shane Goldmacher contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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This story is taken from Sacbee / Our Region / Top Stories

Amid budget crisis, California legislators still wined and dined on lobbyists’ dime
preese@sacbee.com
Published Sunday, Sep. 13, 2009

It was Valentine’s Day eve 2009, and the state faced a $40 billion deficit and a deadline.
The governor and legislative leaders had just agreed on a package of sobering tax increases and spending cuts that would affect nearly every Californian. But the package awaited review by the full Legislature.

Conservatives were decrying the tax increases, Democrats were trying to stand firm, and national newspapers were opining on whether California would go bankrupt.

That same night, AT&T spent $1,800 to send 18 legislators, legislative staffers and their children to “Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour” at Arco Arena.

Such contrasts were commonplace, according to a Bee analysis of gifts to legislators over 18 months ending in June. While their constituents coped with the worst recession in decades and the state suffered through another budget crisis, California’s legislators and leaders ate about 8,000 free meals, pocketed about 2,000 free event tickets and accepted enough flowers to open their own shop, all courtesy of lobbyists.

The final tally: From January 2008 through June 2009 lobbyists gave legislators, their staffs and relatives about $610,000 in gifts, according to a Bee analysis of thousands of lobbyist disclosure reports. State constitutional officers, regulators and state agency workers collected an additional $233,000 in gifts.

(Go here to search the Bee’s database of all the gifts.)

Loopholes allowed many to circumvent the annual limit of $420 in gifts an individual may accept from a single organization; companies can give unlimited gifts directly to a leader’s relatives and friends, for instance.

Officials defend the gifts by noting that $420 isn’t much, that a lot of the gifts are actually meals at boring, quasi-obligatory functions, and that the lobbying largesse does not sway their decisions.

“Sen. (Ron) Calderon views each piece of legislation on its own merits and not on the value of any gift,” said Rocky Rushing, chief of staff to Calderon, a Los Angeles-area Democrat, whose legislative office ranked among the Capitol’s top gift recipients during the time span reviewed by The Bee.

Watchdog groups, however, say at best these gifts increase the lifestyle gap between state leaders and struggling constituents. At worst, they say, they can influence decisions that affect the lives of Californians.

“It grants unfair access to the interests that can afford to give the gifts,” said Trent Lange, whose group, the California Clean Money Campaign, advocates public funding of elections. “At a maximum it is meant as a form of legalized bribery.”

A database created by The Bee from 25,000 pages of documents lists all the gifts: passes to concerts ranging from Billy Joel to Britney Spears; 424 lunches and dinners at Capitol fine dining establishment Spataro (average cost: $57 a meal); kegs of beer; free travel to destinations from Hawaii to Hungary.

And Kings tickets – hundreds of Sacramento Kings tickets.
‘Furlough Friday’ frolics
On the first “Furlough Friday” of state workers, the atmosphere in Arco Arena was electric as the Kings prepared to retire the jersey of former star Chris Webber.

Gary Gerould, the voice of the Sacramento Kings, was in top form. Sitting in front of him at center court on Feb. 6 were some of the best-loved Kings in history – Divac, Christie, Pollard. Around him were more than 15,000 screaming fans, a rare sellout in an otherwise disappointing season.

Just before Chris Webber strode out to huge roars – “old-fashioned Arco Thunder,” Gerould would call it – Gerould summed up the mood:

“My God, isn’t it good to be a Kings fan tonight!”

It was even better to be a Kings fan with a connection to the state Legislature.
BP America, the California arm of the British oil giant, bought two tickets for an aide to Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, worth $300; two tickets for an aide to Sen. Mike Davis. D-Los Angeles, worth $300; and two tickets for a consultant to the Senate Insurance Committee, also worth $300.

Then there was state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, who is running for lieutenant governor, and his wife, daughter and son.

Denham paid for his own ticket. AT&T reported giving $495 in tickets to his wife, so the total did not count toward Denham’s annual limit, and he won’t have to report the gift himself on annual disclosure forms.

The practice is common. Lobbying organizations reported giving $34,000 in gifts directly to the spouses and relatives of legislators and their staffs during the last 18 months.

Denham’s relatives received direct gifts worth more than those to the relatives of any other California official except Calderon, state records show. In one instance, on Dec. 28, Denham, his wife and children accepted $700 worth of tickets from AT&T to a Golden State Warriors basketball away game in Los Angeles. He later reimbursed the company for his ticket alone. Then he wrote on annual disclosure forms that he received no gifts from anyone during 2008.

Denham declined to answer questions about the Kings game, only saying through a spokeswoman, “I did attend and I paid for my own ticket.”

Tickets were popular gifts, The Bee found. State officials accepted $135,000 in tickets to concerts or sporting events. They accepted an additional $17,000 in tickets to theme parks like Disneyland and Sea World.

Assemblyman Mike Villines, R-Clovis, for instance, took $420 worth of free tickets to Universal Studios on a recent Furlough Friday.

Villines declined to answer questions about his trip to Southern California. A spokesman said it had been planned before the furloughs were announced, and he was not even sure whether Villines actually had used the tickets on March 6 – the date General Electric reported making the gift – or on a different day.
The draw of conferences
Even more popular than free tickets were all-expense-paid trips to conferences.
In July, for instance, a group of lawyers from the California Department of Insurance boarded a plane destined for a Las Vegas conference, their trip paid for by the insurance companies they regulate.

The Association of California Insurance Companies paid $378 apiece, or $2,268 total, to lodge six Department of Insurance deputy commissioners at the Wynn Resort, a Mobil five-star, AAA five-diamond hotel on the strip that features a spa, a golf course and a “European Pool” surrounded by ancient-looking colonnades.

The insurance industry spent $1,300 more to feed and transport the commissioners, including $527 for a meal, car service and airfare for Dale Banda, who led the unit that investigates insurance fraud.

The conference costs were just a small portion of the $30,000 in gifts the insurance industry gave to legislators and state regulators during the last 18 months.

At the time, the association was actively lobbying the California Department of Insurance on “pay as you go” vehicle regulations that base insurance partly on how much someone drives, according to lobbyist forms.

Insurance Department spokesman Darrell Ng said the July 2008 conference was an opportunity to educate insurance industry members about the laws that govern them. All of the deputy commissioners spoke at the conference, Ng said, which they attended again this year.

A few months later, the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies hosted its annual conference at the Pebble Beach Golf Resort, spending thousands on state leaders, including state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, who sits on the committee overseeing insurance.

The insurance industry paid $390 for Calderon’s room at the resort. They gave his wife, Ana, $1,076 in “meals, drinks, spa,” according to lobbyist disclosure reports. A Calderon staffer and spouse also received $957 toward lodging and meals. Calderon’s brother, state Assemblyman Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, and his wife and son got $981 in “meals, drinks, in-room movies” at the conference.

Ron Calderon, his family and staff collectively received more than $13,000 in gifts during the 18 months ending in June, ranking him among the Legislature’s top five recipients. Among his other gifts: free tickets from AT&T for him and his family to attend a Britney Spears concert.

The day before the Pebble Beach jaunt, a measure strongly opposed by the association paying for Calderon’s trip had been signed by the governor. Calderon had voted against the bill, which required insurers to pay for HIV tests.

Speaking for Calderon, Rushing, his chief of staff, said the senator always attends workshops at the conferences he attends. Rushing also noted that Calderon often does vote against insurance industry interests, a statement borne out by Senate records.
A break from budget woes
The backdrop for these gifts was the state’s budget troubles, which grew increasingly worse during the 18-month period reviewed. Take the week starting Feb. 12, when the Legislature grappled with the governor over a massive series of cuts and tax increases to plug a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

That work didn’t slow the pace of lobbyist-funded entertainment.

On the night of the 12th, at Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium, the Amgen biotech corporation held its Race Opening Gala, a black tie optional affair. The event featured some of the biggest names in cycling, mingling with the guests. Amgen provided $300 tickets to five legislators (three Democrats and two Republicans, and one Republican staffer) – $1,800 worth of tickets.

Across town, the folks at Chevron and the California Association of Health Facilities, a nursing home advocacy group, hosted a party at The Mix Downtown, a hot new club and bar. The companies spent around $3,000 on the roughly 31 Republican staffers in attendance.

On Feb. 13, public pressure on Republicans to take a united stand against the budget bill mounted to fever pitch, with one talk radio station declaring, “This is war!” The Legislature worked into the early morning hours, but nobody seemed to have a clue whether an agreement would be reached.

U.S. Rep. Ted Gaines, a Roseville Republican who opposed the agreement, told The Bee for that day’s edition that the political careers of multiple legislators were at stake.
That night, AT&T came through with the “Disney on Ice” tickets for 18 legislators, their staffs and children.

On Valentine’s Day, the Amgen Tour got under way, and the company spent $2,800 on a dozen legislators and staffers using their hospitality tent, including Gaines, disclosure reports show.

As the budget impasse grew frantic, the Legislature went into lockdown that night, leaving legislators unable to get away for free meals or shows. But their staff members stepped in, taking $400 worth of tickets for themselves and their children to the Disney ice show, this time from BP America.

Over the next three days, legislative staffers kept the fires burning, accepting an additional $700 worth of Amgen tickets.

By Feb. 18, the impasse started to thaw, hinging on the wavering votes of a few Republican Assembly members. About a dozen legislators and staffers, mostly Democrats, took the opportunity to leave the building for a reception at Frank Fat’s Asia Bistro put on by the technology industry.

On the 19th, the budget deal passed, and the governor signed it the next day.
The following week, having balanced the budget through large tax increases and spending cuts, legislators and staffers accepted more than $10,000 in gifts from donors ranging from Chevron to casinos to the video game industry.

Call The Bee’s Phillip Reese, (916) 321-1137.
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The $100,000-plus pension club in Anaheim, Brea and Buena Park
September 10th, 2009, 2:42 pm · 12 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Today we begin working through the CalPERS database of public retirees who get pensions of more than $100,000 a year.
We’ll go alphabetically, three at a time, until we’re done with Orange County’s cities and special districts that are part of the California Public Employees Retirement System. (The Register is in a standoff with the Orange County Employees Retirement System to get similar data.)
There are 59 retirees from the city of Anaheim who are in the $100,000-plus club; 13 from the city of Brea; and 11 from the city of Buena Park. They are retired police chiefs, city managers, firefighters, engineers. Click below to see names and numbers.
We’ve been getting angry mail from folks who are appalled that we printed the names of the 40 people in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $100,000-plus club, and we’re sure to get complaints about running names and numbers here. So let’s say this for the record:
We know that the number of public retirees in the $100,000-plus club – 5,115 – is just a tiny fraction of those in CalPERS.

We know that the average CalPERS pensioner collects just $15,948 a year.

But we also know that public agencies still want to hike retirement benefits – and thus, the number of people in the $100,000-plus club – at the very time that CalPERS’ investments are tanking, and when CalPERS own eggheads say that the system is unsustainable.

Who will be on the hook to pay those generous pensions? The taxpayers.

Once those generous pension benefits are granted, undoing them is virtually impossible – as Orange County’s $2 million legal battle to do just that illustrates.

If you just can’t wait to see your city’s data, you’re welcome to click here, find your city on the drop-down menu, and look it up now. And here, without further ado, are the details:

ANAHEIM

JAMES RUTH $219,045
GARY JOHNSON $196,468
HARRY HILL $185,095
STEPHEN SAIN $168,257
ROGER BAKER $154,099
RICHARD HALL $143,752
CHARLES CHAVEZ $142,519
JEFFREY STONE $141,238
GORDON HOYT $140,449
JEFFREY BOWMAN $136,866
MICHAEL REYNOLDS $135,135
STEPHEN ALBRIGHT $131,172
STEVE RODIG $131,132
EDWARD AGHJAYAN $129,888
JOHN KELLEY $129,563
STEVEN WALKER $122,190
JERRY AUSTIN $121,975
ROBERT TEMPLETON $121,416
DENNIS URSCHEL $121,120
MICHAEL HANNAH $120,559
DAVID SEVERSON $120,471
FRANK FLEMING $120,245
WILLIAM TALLEY JR $120,227
JAMES AMATO $119,566
STEVEN MCKINNEY $119,099
GARY WILDER $118,893
LOUIS VECCHIONE $118,526
KENNETH ANDERSON $117,013
CHERYL FLORES $116,943
HAROLD MITTMANN $116,725
CHRISTOPHER KIELICH $116,285
ANNIKA SANTALAHTI $115,602
JEFF NEWELL $115,272
PAUL MUNDT $115,091
DORIS ROUSH $112,585
KENNETH JACKSON $112,507
JAFAR TAGHAVI $111,199
PAUL HAAS $110,029
JAY KAUBLE $109,372
ROBERT MCINTOSH $108,738
JAMES BRADLEY $108,366
JAMES GETZ $108,285
MICHAEL MUIS $107,243
DONALD REDDY $106,829
CRAIG CASTILLO $105,969
PHILLIP LOCK $104,974
LYNN AREA $104,793
DAVID DYKES $104,370
EDWARD ALARIO $103,434
CRAIG ALLAN $103,195
MICHAEL FEENEY $102,881
LEE SHELDON $102,553
RALPH HARP $102,529
MARCUS HEDGPETH $100,893
JAMES SCHERLER $100,861
JOSEPH LIDDICOTE $100,813
RODRICK ERTEL $100,422
JOHN KELLEY $100,290
THEODORE NEEDLE $100,209

BREA

WILLIAM LENTINI $146,083
DAVID CARLOCK $125,605
JOEL SHENNUM $113,772
DAVID HUFFMAN $112,055
DANIEL HUNTER $109,277
DENNIS GRAY $109,210
CHESTER PANIQUE $108,127
RUEBEN HERNANDEZ $106,655
CHRISTOPHER HADDAD $105,021
JAMES WINDER $101,430
WILLIAM SIMPKINS $101,426
JAMES OMAN $101,095
DOUGLAS DICKERSON $100,814

BUENA PARK

RICHARD TEFANK $149,838
GARY HICKEN $140,201
MICHAEL SCHWARTZ $136,449
ROBERT CHANEY $134,854
RODNEY NATALE $123,239
ROBERT GONZALES $119,732
TERRY BRANUM $117,254
ROBERT MOTE $114,048
GREGORY BEAUBIEN $107,359
RICHARD PENA $104,767
JAMES SCHOALES $101,157
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Editorial: Retroactive pensions
Supervisor Nguyen puts union support above taxpayers’ interest in opposing sensible lawsuit appeal.
The Orange County Register

The Orange County Board of Supervisors wisely voted to continue the board’s lawsuit against an unconscionable, pension-spiking giveaway approved by a previous board. Supervisors voted 4-1 – with only Supervisor Janet Nguyen dissenting – to appeal a superior court ruling against the lawsuit.

The board action appears to be based on strong legal reasoning, and all too often superior courts are loathe to rock the boat. Any such precedent-setting action will be appealed to the highest court.

The county and the state are struggling under an enormous amount of unfunded liabilities caused by an unsustainable level of pension and health-care promises made to government employees. Essentially, pro-union legislators have raided the treasury on behalf of their allies and haven’t worried too much about the costs to the future.

In 2001, the O.C. board voted 5-0 to retroactively increase pensions for long-serving deputy sheriffs, allowing them to retire at age 50 with 90 percent or more of their final year’s pay. Even those deputies who were ready to retire were given the pension boost for past years’ service. As Girard Miller of Governing magazine has pointed out, “the practice of awarding pension benefits on a retroactive basis is the devil’s doing. …

They serve no purpose except to buy favor with incumbent union members … at the expense of future taxpayers who don’t even know what hit them.”

While three members of that board faded into the political sunset, two of them – Jim Silva and Todd Spitzer – went on to the California Assembly, and Mr. Spitzer hopes to one day be the Orange County district attorney.

The current board’s lawsuit questions the constitutionality of retroactivity – calling it a gift of public funds for past service. This is a compelling legal argument that needs to be hashed out in the courts. The deputies union, which has never seen a tax dollar it hasn’t wanted to spend, is all of a sudden outraged by the $2 million legal tab for the lawsuit. These strike us as crocodile tears. It’s too bad Ms. Nguyen is siding with special interests on this one.

It’s nice to see four supervisors – Pat Bates, Bill Campbell, John Moorlach and Chris Norby – siding with the taxpayers these days.
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Is California’s prison system a money-sucking mess?
September 10th, 2009, 6:00 am ·by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Orange County Register
The good news? The number of prisoners in the California Department of Corrections decreased by about 1 percent over three years.
The, er, bad news? Its expenses increased by 32 percent over that time period anyway.
A damning new report on the state prison system by the California State Auditor’s office paints a disturbing portrait of a department reeling under the weight of spiking salaries, high overtime payouts, generous retirement benefits and a mandatory Three Strikes policy that its employee union fervently backed – and which has swelled California’s prisons to their breaking point.
The prison system also suffers from a general inability to track relevant data and get technology up to speed, even as a federal mandate to radically reduce the state’s prison population looms.
Officials at the Department of Corrections balked. “The report does not completely capture the complexity of many of these issues,” it said in an official response.
Stunning prison facts:
The Department of Corrections consumes about $1 of every $10 shelled out by the state’s general fund budget.

As of June 30, it was responsible for nearly 168,000 inmates, 111,000 parolees and more than 1,600 juvenile wards of the state.

It costs $49,300 to incarcerate one inmate for one year.

Nearly 25 percent of the inmates are there under the three strikes law.

The increase in sentence length due to the three strikes law will cost an additional $19.2 billion over the duration of their incarcerations. (As these three-strikers age, the cost of their medical care increases as well.)

Stunning salaries:
Correctional officers received six salary increases over the 30 months between July 2004 and January 2007 – raises totaling 26 percent.
The maximum salary for a correctional officer increased from $58,600 in June 2004 to more than $73,700 in July 2007.
These raises resulted in a corresponding spike in overtime costs, raising the maximum overtime rate from $41 per hour in June 2004 to nearly $52 per hour in July 2007.

Corrections spent $431 million on overtime for staff in 2007-08.

Nearly 4,500 correctional officers earned more than the top pay rate for captains – nearly $109,000.

More than 1,600 correctional officers earned more than the $129,100 paid to wardens.

Stunning pensions:

Correctional officers get 3 percent of pay for each year of service at age 50 (as opposed to 2.5 percent at 63, received by many other state employees).

The cost of providing new correctional officers with these enhanced retirement benefits increases to $74 million a year in seven years; and reaches nearly $113 million a year in 10 years.

Over the next 14 years, the difference between providing new correctional officers with enhanced retirement benefits as opposed to the retirement benefits many other state workers receive, will cost the State an additional $1 billion.

Between fiscal years 2002-03 and 2007-08 the state’s pension contribution rate rose by 83 percent.

A correctional officer whose highest level of compensation was $74,000, who retires at age 55 with 30 years of service, would receive an annual pension of $66,600. (That’s 50 percent more than the $44,400 that many other state workers earning the same salary, with the same number of years of service, would receive at the same age.)

There are many other generally stunning things in the report. Although Corrections’ budget for academic and vocational programs totaled more than $208 million last year, it was unable to assess the success of its programs.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

The Auditor doesn’t go here, but in a piece titled, “The Stakes of the Upcoming Prison Policy Fight,” David Dayen offers some interesting historical perspective on the “progressive” web site Calitics:

“California’s prisons were once the envy of the nation,” he wrote. “Then the Tough On Crime crowd got a hold of the levers of power, produced 1,000 laws expanding sentences over 30 years, pushed the public to do the same through ballot initiatives, increased parole sanctions, and the system just got swamped.

“In the early 1980s we had 20,000 prisoners. Now it’s 170,000. The overcrowding decimates rehabilitation, sends nonviolent offenders into what amounts to a college for violent crime, violates prisoner rights by denying proper medical care, and increases costs at every point along the way.”

Much of this can be traced to the prison guard’s union, and the political system that catered to it. “In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California,” the piece says. “The union has contributed millions of dollars to support ‘three strikes’ and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to (former Gov. Pete) Wilson after he backed the three strikes law.

“And the result for the union has been dramatic. Since the laws went into effect and the inmate population boomed, the union grew from 2,600 officers to 45,000 officers. Salaries jumped: In 1980, the average officer earned $15,000 a year; today, one in every 10 officers makes more than $100,000 a year.”

CHANGE AFOOT?

In August, a three‑judge federal court ordered Corrections to provide a plan to reduce the inmate population over the next two years.

According to Corrections, that would require a reduction of more than 40,000 inmates.
California’s secretary of Corrections said the federal courts are exceeding their authority under the Prison Litigation Reform Act. It will continue to fight against a population cap or court‑ordered early release.

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73 professors join call for faculty walkout at UCI
September 13th, 2009, 4:00 am · 31 Comments · posted by Gary Robbins, science writer-editor
Orange County Register

Anger and frustration are building at UC Irvine, where the state budget crisis has led to widespread furloughs, hiring freezes, staff firings, program closures and enrollment cuts. Through this morning, at least 73 UCI faculty have endorsed a petition (read document) that calls for professors throughout the University of California to stage a walkout on Sept. 24, the first full day of the fall quarter.

The uproar comes as the UC Board of Regents is about to consider action that could infuriate students — raising fees up to 30 percent, with half of the hike coming in January. (fee hike proposal)

The Regents have been told to cut the system’s budget by $813 million, including $77 million at UCI, Orange County’s largest employer.

The cuts and the hikes (student fees were raised in May) have people on edge, and led a committee of UC professors to distribute a letter urging all faculty to stage the walkout. It’s unclear, though, whether there’s widespread support at Irvine for the job action, or whether it would be effective. Sept. 24 is the first day of classes, but it falls on a Thursday, one of the lightest class days of the week, minimizing the impact.

And the professors who’ve signed the online petition do not broadly and deeply represent UCI and its hospital, suggesting that the walkout might be little more than rhetoric. About 50 of the signers are from the humanities and social sciences, the so-called ’soft sciences.” They include faculty from such programs as sociology, history, English, comparative literature, Chicano studies, Women’s studies, philosophy and languages. There are few signers from such fields as biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering and medicine. And only a couple of Irvine’s elite professors have signed on.

Do you think the UCI faculty who’ve signed the petition are bluffing when they say they’ll stage a walkout?

The split among the faculty might involve money; some professors in the “hard sciences” can spend furlough days on research programs, which in many cases make up part of their compensation. That’s not widely true in the soft sciences.

Even so, there’s no denying the anger that many faculty are feeling. As we noted in an earlier post, the walkout letter that says, in part: “The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission. Or better: it seeks to shift the blame for this failure to the faculty, should we be so bold as to hold the President accountable to the consequences of his own plan. Toward this evasion, UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.”

As angry as faculty already are, students are likely to become equally upset when they get a full look at the fee increases that will be considered by the UC Board of Regents on Sept. 16 in San Francisco. The board will discuss hike fees of 30 percent or more, as the table below shows.

2009-10*Proposed increaseProposed 2010-11
Undergraduate resident$8,958$1,344$10,302
Undergraduate non-resident$9,702$1,458$11,160
Graduate academic resident$10,044$1,506$11,550
Graduate academic non-resident$10,440$1,566$12,006
Graduate professional$8,880$1,232$10,212

The asterik, says the UC, refers to “2009-10 fee levels assume approval of mid-year increases and represents the annualized fee amount. The graduate professional category covers both residents and non-residents.

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UCI study: Freed inmates raise crime rates
Aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, and in some cases murder rates go up when parolees return to their old neighborhoods, study says.
By SEAN EMERY
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

IRVINE – A newly released study linking parolees to increases in violent crime could spell trouble for lawmakers considering the release of at least 27,000 inmates as part of a statewide cost-cutting measure.

Reports of aggravated assault, robbery and burglary shoot up when parolees return to their neighborhood, UC Irvine criminologist John Hipp found, including increases in murder rates when more violent inmates return home.

Despite the troubling news, researchers also found that the social make-up of a neighborhood helped temper the impact of returning parolees, particularly in communities with long-time residents, non-profit groups that can lend a hand and youth intervention programs.

“Neighborhoods that had more of these service organizations had lower increases in crime,” Hipp said. “It was sort of heartening to us that certain neighborhoods were equipped to deal with these parolees.”

Researchers arrived at their findings by monitoring parolees returning to Sacramento neighborhoods and comparing the data with monthly changes in crime rates over a four-year period ending in 2006.

The study found that, in an average month, increases in the number of parolees returning home led to:

•A 20 percent jump in robbery reports.

•An 8 percent jump in aggravated assault reports.

•A 10 percent increase in burglary reports.

•And, in the case of violent parolees, a 20 percent increase in murder rates.
Researchers were unable to determine whether the parolees themselves were committing the reported crimes, or whether they simply affected other individuals in the neighborhoods.

For future research, Hipp said he plans to take a closer look at community resources and the impact they have on recidivism.

The parolee study comes as state leaders are working on a controversial plan to reduce the amount of time lower-level offenders spend behind bars.

Proponents say the change could save millions for the state, as well as help comply with federal court orders to reduce California’s prison population. Critics of the plan, including some law enforcement organizations, worry that it would amount to a “get out of jail free” card that could force up crime rates.

Contact the writer: 949-553-2911 or semery@ocregister.com

Soon the touted Commission on the 21st Century Economy, formed by the governor and Democratic legislative leaders nearly a year ago, will present its recommendation for stabilizing volatile state government revenue so the Legislature can change tax laws and, regrettably, resume spending with confidence.

On the upside, the scheme would somewhat reduce personal income and sales taxes and eliminate corporation taxes. On the downside, the heart of the proposal to iron out volatility would create a type of value-added tax, perhaps as responsible as anything for retarding European economic growth. Dubbed the “business net receipts tax,” this insidious cancer would tack on a 4.2 percent tax at each successive stage in the business chain, from manufacture through consumer purchase.

It would have multiple detrimental effects, including capture of many more businesses than are taxed today, such as presently excluded service businesses, while imposing disproportionate penalties on labor-intensive enterprises. That, in turn, may discourage hiring and pay raises and give businesses more reasons to leave California. It’s also likely to require legions of new government enforcers to probe each stage of business activity to make sure new taxes are collected.

Perhaps worst of all, this tax would be largely invisible to most people, while potentially penalizing consumers as each successive tax increment is passed along in higher prices to the next link in the chain. The reduced sales tax rung up at checkout won’t reflect government’s cumulative haul along the way. The benefit is government’s. It’s a means of collecting taxes less obviously.

This stealthy approach to government cash-grabbing resembles the equally sinister, below-the-radar tactic of payroll tax deductions. When money slowly is taken from people in smaller increments, taxpayers are less likely to feel the pain. This slow-drip taxation aims to encompass as many taxpayers as possible while sneakily attracting as little attention as possible.

Taxes should be seen and felt. Otherwise they are too easily tolerated and encouraged. The panel appointed by Democratic legislative leadership and the governor isn’t so much a commission on the economy as it is on a mission to boost government.

We agree with Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street that the business net-receipts tax would raise a lot of money for “welfare state politicians,” while creating “double-digit unemployment,” as it has in Europe. The commission, which has been studying alternatives for gouging taxpayers, should scrap this wolf in sheep’s clothing. Instead, the commission should recommend scaling back government operations that require ever more taxpayers’ money. Then revenue volatility wouldn’t much matter.

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Santa Ana police honored for doing right by reservists
September 2nd, 2009, 12:08 pm · 15 Comments · posted by Dena Bunis, Washington Bureau Chief
Orange County Register

The Santa Ana Police Department is getting the Department of Defense’s Freedom Award because of the way it takes care of its officers who are part of the National Guard and military reserves.

According to the Defense Department, Santa Ana’s PD has more than two dozen officers in this category. The department gives these officers pay to make sure they don’t lose any money while serving overseas, continues their families’ health benefits and helps these reservists when they get back to the department.

“I believe it’s part of our obligation to support our military men and women,’’ said Chief Paul Walters, who said he will bring about 10 people from the department to Washington, D.C. to get the award. Fifteen public agencies and private employers are being honored. There were a record 3,202 nominations made by reservists or National Guard members or their families.

Santa Ana was nominated by Terry Zlateff, a police sergeant for more than 20 years who is also a chief warrant officer in the U.S. Army. Zlateff has a son and daughter who were also deployed overseas. DOD officials praised the Santa Ana department for having a liaison officer who kept in touch with Zlateff’s wife and mother during all these deployments.

“The military service of employees is recognized through newsletters, photographs and several prominent display cases throughout the station,’’ says part of a description of why Santa Ana was chosen for the award.

Walters said he served in the Air Force before starting with the police department and knows what it’s like to be away from one’s family.

“When you’re married and have kids imagine how stressful it can be no knowing if your job is going to be there when you get back,’’ Walters said.

That is a concern for many who have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

According to the Department of Defense, about 10 percent of National Guard members or reservists have lost their jobs, been demoted or lost pay once they’ve come back.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
is supposed to protect the jobs of those called to active duty. But employers have been getting around that by eliminating positions, something which allows them not to hire back returning service members.

Walters says his department has had up to six officers deployed at any one time. They just have other employees pick up the slack.

It’s the same, Walters told me, as if someone was out with a serious injury.

“Everyone is willing to pull together and recognize that these officers are going to be back,’’ he said.

“The Orange County community should be proud of the Santa Ana Police Department, which has worked hard to create a positive work environment for our National Guard and Reserve members,” said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, who sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the awards ceremony next Thursday. Also on the schedule is a private meeting between the recipients and President Barack Obama.

“That’s exciting,’’ said Walters, who is still waiting for confirmation that the meeting will happen. “I’ve been to the White House a number of times but not actually in the Oval Office so that’s really a thrill.’’

Walters said he expects he’ll tell Obama he knows it’s a difficult time and he appreciates all he’s doing. “I’ll thank him for recognizing all 15 recipients.’’

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Publication:Freedom – Orange County Register; Date:Sept. 10, 2009; Section:Local; Page Number:Local 6

Huntington Beach council approves budget
Members reduce their own pay and make cuts in all departments as part of a $181.3 million spending plan.
By JAIMEE LYNN FLETCHER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH City Council members adopted a trimmed budget and cut their own pay.

In addition to approving program cuts, job vacancies and part-time employee layoffs, the council Tuesday night unanimously voted to cut its pay 10 percent and place the money, about $12,000, in city reserves. Members previously agreed to increase taxes.

The pay cut comes from the council members’ expense allowance.

“We’ve shown willingness to raise property taxes in light of a recession when people are losing their homes,” Councilman Don Hansen said. “(Let’s) show the leadership, take the reduction.”

The council adopted a $181.3 million 2009-10 general fund budget, which includes cuts and reductions in every city department.

“None of this is easy at all,” Councilwoman Jill Hardy said. “But it’s just going to get harder.”

Although many employees got raises because of previously negotiated contracts, a hiring freeze of 70 positions will continue. The Fire Department will lose four fire-prevention specialists, and four sworn firefighter positions will be converted to nonsworn jobs.

Hazmat training and funding for SWAT paramedics will also decrease. The Police Department expects to keep 11 officer positions vacant and eliminate beach liaison officer positions, among other cuts.

Huntington Beach will also have to weather the state’s dipping into its coffers to help offset California’s $26 billion deficit.

The city will look to offset $10.8 million in possible state takeaways, which Councilwoman Cathy Green said could come in the next few months.

City officials say the state will take $5.4 million from the expected $66.4 million in property tax revenue, which must be repaid to the city with interest in three years.

However, California will not have to reimburse the $5.4 million in 2009-10 and the $1.1 million in 2010-11 it’s looking to take from the Redevelopment Agency fund.

The state voted against dipping into gas tax funds, which give the city money for street maintenance and road rehabilitation projects, according to city reports.

However, city officials said the state could take $3.5 million from this fund in the future. If so, the money does not have to be paid back, Huntington Beach officials reported.

City officials in August approved a retirement property tax increase that would mean about $15 more for residents with a home valued at $500,000. The increase is expected to generate about $3 million.

Huntington Beach could also see a utility users tax, an idea expected to go before voters in November 2010.

CONTACT THE WRITER:

949-553-2932 or fletcher@ocregister.com

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Thursday, September 10, 2009
UCI settles more lawsuits over stolen eggs, embryos
Total of payouts reaches $27.4 million, according to a UCI spokesman.
The Orange County Register

The University of California system has settled another set of lawsuits over eggs or embryos stolen by doctors more than a decade ago, in an effort to end the scandal over its fertility center, a UC Irvine spokesman said Thursday.

The settlements in 12 cases add up to $4.2 million, bringing the total paid by the university sytem to about $27.4 million, said the spokesman, John Murray.

“We think we have dealt with cases fairly, but we are going to reserve comment” beyond that, Murray said Thursday night.

“These cases were settled bit by bit over the past nine months.”

UC officials previously said the system paid more than $23.2 million to settle most of the 139-plus lawsuits from patients whose eggs were taken without their permission and given to other women, or used for research, or lost, according to figures released in 2007.
Auditors from KPMG Peat Marwick found that nearly $1 million in income at the clinic had not been reported, including tens of thousands of dollars of patients’ cash payments allegedly pocketed by the doctors.

Two doctors at the school’s Center for Reproductive Health, Ricardo Asch and Jose Balmadeca, fled the country and were indicted by a federal grand jury, along with another doctor at the clinic, Dr. Sergio Stone, on multiple charges of mail fraud and income-tax evasion.

Stone was convicted in 1997 of fraudulently billing insurance companies and fined $50,000.
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Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers
September 10, 2009
Sacramento Bee

Furloughs immediately canceled for 7,900 state workers

State Fund employees are off furlough. Immediately.

A decision signed this morning by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard ends unpaid days off for all 7,900 or so State Compensation Insurance Fund employees throughout California, according to an announcement by SEIU Local 1000, which represents about 6,000 fund employees.

Woolard had ruled in favor of the union earlier this month. Today’s hearing formalized that decision, which mirrored an earlier judgment in favor of about 500 fund legal staff.

According to a Local 1000 release, “The order also prohibits the Governor and DPA from arguing the order should be stayed pending appeal. This allows the State Controller’s Office to reprogram the payroll system to full pay for SCIF workers immediately.”

The local said that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attorneys tried to keep the union from seeking back pay: “After hearing arguments the judge rejected the governor’s attempt and entered an order ending the furloughs.”

The union is going to “vigorously pursue retroactive back pay with interest for its members.”

Fund President Jan Frank filed a successful complaint on behalf of employees not represented by SEIU to include them in the decision.
We’ll post the court order later today.

On a related furolough lawsuit note, Local 1000 has filed its furlough appeal with the Third District Court in Sacramento. The local, along with Professional Engineers in California Government, California Association of Professional Scientists and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment have all filed briefs seeking to overturn the Jan. 29 decision by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette that supported Schwarzenegger’s furlough order. Click here to see the court’s register of actions in the case.

The document is so massive, we’re told, that the union hasn’t had time to scan it and send it to TSW so that we can post it. (The court’s Web site doesn’t provide document viewing.) Union spokesman Jim Zamora said that we’ll get it soon. We’ll post the brief immediately after it lands in our e-mail inbox.

There’s been no court date set and there won’t be for quite some time
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Obama advises caution in what kids put on Facebook
Sept. 8, 2009 10:31 AM
Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Va. – In a pep talk that kept clear of politics, President Barack Obama on Tuesday challenged the nation’s students to take pride and ownership in their education — and stick with it even if they don’t like every class or must overcome tough circumstances at home.

“Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer,” Obama told students at Wakefield High School in suburban Arlington, Va., and children watching his speech on television in schools across the country. “And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”

Presidents often visit schools, and Obama was not the first one to offer a back-to-school address aimed at millions of students in every grade. Yet this speech came with a dose of controversy, as several conservative organizations and many concerned parents warned Obama was trying to sell his political agenda. That concern was caused in part by an accompanying administration lesson plan encouraging students to “help the president,” which the White House later revised.

Obama preceded his broad-scale talk with a meeting with Wakefield students, where at one point he advised them to “be careful what you post on Facebook. Whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life.”

Obama, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, met with some 40 students gathered in a school library before the speech carried on ESPN and on the White House Web site. “When I was your age,” Obama said, “I was a little bit of a goof-off. My main goal was to get on the varsity basketball team and have fun.”

The uproar over his speech followed him across the Potomac River, as his motorcade was greeted by a small band of protesters. One carried a sign exclaiming: “Mr. President, stay away from our kids.”

During his meeting inside, one young person asked why the country doesn’t have universal health insurance. “I think we need it. I think we can do it,” Obama replied. The president said the country can afford to insure all Americans and that doing so will save money in the long run.

Obama is not the first president to give such a school-opening talk, but his plans seemed to almost immediately get plunged in controversy. Critics accused him of overstepping his authority, and school districts in some areas decided not to provide their students access to his midday speech.

Duncan acknowledged Tuesday that some of the prepared guidance for school officials included a suggestion that students could compose essays stating how they could help support Obama — an idea the education secretary acknowledged was wrongheaded.
In his conversation with the Wakefield students, Obama said that not having a father at home “forced me to grow up faster.” One young person asked the president whom he would choose to dine with if he could make only one such selection.

“Gandhi,” Obama replied. “He’s somebody I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. (Martin Luther) King” with his message of nonviolence.

“He ended up doing so much and changed the world just by the power of his ethics,” Obama said of the inspirational leader Mahatma Gandhi. At another point, Obama told the students that “a lot of people are counting on me.”

Obama proceeded later with the speech the White House had released a day early, virtually unchanged. The school he chose as the setting for his talk — Wakefield — is the most economically and racially diverse school in Arlington County, according to the Department of Education. Nearly 40 percent of graduating seniors pass an Advanced Placement test. That’s more than twice the national average.

“There is no excuse for not trying” he said in the speech. He said students must be individually responsible for their education, and that it’s important to work hard, pay attention in school and complete assignments.

“Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it,” Obama said. “The truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject that you study. You won’t click with every teacher that you have.”

“At the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents and the best schools in the world, and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities,” the president said.

The state budget crisis as led to another round of class cuts among Orange County community colleges.

The Coast Community College District– which has already cut the number of classes it offers this fall — has decided to suspend Intersession, a concentrated period of learning held each January.

The suspension will collectively eliminate about 65 classes at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa and Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley, the district says. The classes — which some students needed to graduate on time or transfer to a four-year school — would have served about 2,000 students.

Orange County is home to nine community colleges.

“We’re going to try to work some of these students into the second part of the fall semester, and into the spring classes, but most of the fall classes are now closed,” said Martha Parham, a spokeswoman for the district.

“This is having an impact on our students, and on our teachers, who are doing a phenomenal job.”

The Coast district will receive about $166.8 million from the state to fund its campuses this year — almost $6 million less than a year ago. But enrollment has increased by roughly 3,000 students. The district has coped with the cut, in part, by increasing the size of some classes, including those in the general education curriculum.

The Rancho Community College District (Santa Ana College, Santiago Canyon College) recently cut about 400 class sections, affecting thousands of students. And nearby Cal State Fullerton, which accepts a lot of transfer students from the community colleges, eliminated roughly 150 class sections this fall.

Follow Sciencedude on Twitter @grobbins, become a fan on Facebook, and watch his videos on the ocsciencedude channel of YouTube.

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Friday, September 4, 2009
School buses may leave neighbors behind
Saddleback Valley Unified uses a lottery in two communities to decide who gets to ride.
By SCOTT MARTINDALE
The Orange County Register

LAKE FOREST – A school bus will stop directly across the street from Jennifer Dodos’ home next week, and her 13-year-old daughter may not get to ride it.

A neighbor around the corner, however, has been guaranteed a spot for her daughter.

More than 1,000 students were displaced when the Saddleback Valley Unified School District slashed 19 of its 26 bus routes this year as a cost-savings measure, but perhaps nowhere is the pain more acute than on two of the district’s remaining bus routes.

Service to Lake Forest’s Foothill Ranch neighborhood and Rancho Santa Margarita’s Dove Canyon neighborhood is expected to be so limited that the school district may not be able to offer bus service to all the children of a single neighborhood.

“It’s just really hard to understand how the school district can provide busing to some students in one area and not others,” said Dodos, who lives in Foothill Ranch about 6.5 miles from daughter Olivia’s school. “It feels like they’re intentionally inflicting pain.”

The district wrapped up a random lottery process this week to decide who gets to buy a bus pass, leaving more than 100 middle and high school students in these two communities stranded.

About 40 Foothill Ranch students who attend Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School are on a waiting list, plus about 64 Dove Canyon residents who attend Mission Viejo High School, said Stephen McMahon, assistant superintendent for business services.

“We’re going to try to accommodate as many of the kids as possible,” McMahon said Friday. “We’re trying to figure out if we can move our routes around and add some additional busing. Transportation has been a big issue for us this year.”

District officials were forced to move to a lottery system last month after state legislators in late July cut funding earmarked for bus services by 20 percent. It was part of the state Legislature’s plan to close a $26.3 billion budget gap.

Saddleback already had cut $1.2 million from its busing budget this year to help close a $20 million deficit, but it wasn’t enough to stave off the state cuts in July.

“I can’t get my kids to school,” said Foothill Ranch parent Sandy Ransom, who starts work at 6 a.m. in Anaheim and has a 12-year-old daughter attending Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School. “I understand cuts across the board, but with this, my neighbor gets the bus and I don’t.”

PRICEY LOTTERY

All residents of Foothill Ranch who wanted bus transportation to Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School were required to put their names into the lottery, as were all residents of Dove Canyon requesting service to Mission Viejo High School.

Students who won were given the option to buy a bus pass for $436, which is the same price the district charged last year.

McMahon said Friday the district was hoping to squeeze more money out of its paltry transportation budget so officials could add one-way transportation to Mission Viejo High in the morning – a cheaper option than round-trip service – and reconfigure the remaining bus routes to possibly accommodate the Foothill Ranch students.

“We’ll be working over the holiday weekend to try to figure this out,” McMahon said.

School starts Thursday in Saddleback; officials hope to have the issue resolved by Tuesday.

While parents pay $436 annually for bus transportation, the district still must subsidize the cost of service. Additionally, about 60 percent of riders this year come from low-income families who aren’t required to pay the fee, McMahon said.

McMahon said that if the district had raised every student’s bus fee to accommodate the 100-plus displaced students, the bus pass would have gone up to about $560, nearly a 30 percent increase.

“That just seemed to be way too much given the state of economy,” he said.

FAR FEWER RIDERS

Only about 610 students will be accommodated on Saddleback buses this year, down from 1,650 last year.

District officials selected the seven bus routes for this year based on distance from school and whether the majority of students in a particular area would otherwise be able to get to school, McMahon said.
The other five routes were able to absorb all of the students in their respective neighborhoods requesting service.

Olivia Dodos said she wasn’t looking forward to waking up earlier for school on Thursday. If she can’t get a seat on the bus, she’ll need to leave the house with her high school brother, Matt, at least 15 minutes earlier.

“It makes me angry,” the eighth-grader said of being forced to carpool. “On the bus, I got to talk to my friends before I went to school.”

“I’ll be even more tired when I go home,” chimed in her friend and neighbor, Michelle De Leon, also an eighth-grader at Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School: “My parents are really upset.”

Contact the writer: 949-454-7394 or smartindale@ocregister.com

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latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-schools5-2009sep05,0,3351598.story
latimes.com
Editorial
Equal funding for California’s schools
No one really understands the crazy quilt system now in place.
September 5, 2009

If there is one bright spot in the state’s dismal funding of schools this year, it’s that the Legislature is finally paying attention to long-standing and truly nonsensical disparities in the way that money is distributed.

There is no particular pattern to the inequities, except that a handful of the wealthiest school districts receive far more money per student than others, and the differences have nothing to do with what those districts’ relative needs are. Rather, the crazy quilt of funding relies on outdated formulas that made little sense when they were devised and make even less sense now.

The Los Angeles and Inglewood school districts, for instance, have similar populations and educational challenges. Yet Inglewood received $1,400 less per student in 2007-08, the last year for which figures are available. And the relatively affluent Capistrano Unified School District in south Orange County got $1,000 less than that, while the well-off Laguna Beach schools received $3,000 more than Inglewood.

Education funding in this state is so arcane that only a handful of people claim to understand it. Sometimes it’s based on land values in the late 1970s, so that districts that were largely agricultural at the time receive less money even though they are built out or even urbanized now. Other school districts received dramatically more money for food programs that were later taken over by the federal government — and yet they continue to receive the extra sums to spend however they please.

The harsh cuts to education spending this year have thrown a glaring light on these unfair funding gaps, which should persuade the Legislature to bring more logic to the equation.

Assembly Bill 8, sponsored by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica), would convene a working group to study the formulas that are used to allocate education money. The panel would produce a report and recommendations for simpler, more rational funding mechanisms by December 2010. Another bill would be required to enact the recommendations.

Any such bill will surely be challenged by the school districts that now receive more generous sums; previous attempts to reform the formulas have repeatedly fallen victim to lobbying by educators who cannot imagine making do with less. We sympathize with them — but sympathize more with the districts that already make do with less every day.

But that’s getting ahead of the issue. California’s convoluted school funding system begs for impartial study and new clarity. Brownley’s bill is the best starting point for an open debate about how best to provide money for schools.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-bills5-2009sep05,0,7034179.story
latimes.com
SACRAMENTO DOCKET
The California Legislature’s endgame
There are worthy bills on the table as the session winds down. A proposed oil deal isn’t one of them.
September 5, 2009

So you wanted to keep up with the Legislature this year but got distracted? Don’t worry. Anything important gets replayed or rescinded during the session’s final week, which begins Tuesday. In the works are some good resolutions (domestic violence funding) and some bad ones (another bid at offshore oil drilling).

In our last episode, the state Senate approved drilling off the Santa Barbara coast to help balance the shrinking budget, then adjourned. The Assembly rejected the drilling plan, expunged the record to shield members’ votes from public scrutiny, passed a budget that didn’t match the Senate version, sent it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and left town. The governor signed the budget but purported to veto funding that he had approved back in February. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) sued to block the arguably illegal vetoes. The case hasn’t yet been heard.

This week, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) led a successful effort to restore funding for the vetoed Healthy Families program and with it $100 million in federal matching funds and health insurance for about 660,000 children. The fix was savvy and effective — a fee on Medi-Cal plans that was about to expire was instead extended at a lower rate. The California Taxpayers Assn. was OK with it, and most Assembly Republicans saw the merit and joined Democrats in passing the measure.

Now Bass should help with another program restoration: domestic violence shelter funding. SB 662 by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) would allocate $16.3 million from the state victim compensation fund to help shelters, including many in Los Angeles County, that otherwise must soon close their doors. The Senate has approved this eminently sensible use of money to aid violence victims, but the bill is stuck in the Assembly. Bass must get it moving.

But what if California could recapture vetoed funding for shelters, AIDS programs, state parks and open space besides? That’s the lure dangled by Assembly GOP leader Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo — if only the Legislature again reverses itself on offshore oil drilling. AB 1536 is nothing like Bass’ and Yee’s measured bills to preserve programs; it is simply a replay of this year’s effort to skirt the long-standing public process for approving oil leases. Drilling is unrelated to AIDS funding or any of the governor’s other vetoes. Lawmakers might as well retry the failed attempt to impose an oil extraction tax.

This is the wrong time to fight those partisan battles again. The Legislature should quickly move forward with responsible bills to restore programs that serve people in need, and leave the slick but unenforceable oil deal off the table.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Cops don’t die early after all
If you’re not reading our Orange Punch blog regularly (http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/), you’re missing stuff!

Steven Greenhut
Sr. editorial writer and columnist

The Orange County Register
sgreenhut@ocregister.com

Pensions are big news these days. As average Americans struggle with their devastated investments and postponed retirement ages, government officials are raking in the big bucks and retiring at earlier ages than ever.

In particular, law enforcement officials can retire with 90 percent of their final year’s pay guaranteed as early as age 50. And that’s before they get involved with all those common pension-spiking schemes (chief’s disease, for instance) that protect their retirement from taxes and in some cases push their pensions above their pay while working.

Then add in cost of living adjustments and free health care, and you can see the disparity between the public servants and the private taxpayers. Usually, these retirees — even “disabled” ones – go on to get other police jobs even though they claim they needed to retire at such young ages to avoid all the stress.

This is a legitimate public policy debate given that these outsized deals are the result of politics rather than any public-safety necessity. The most common argument I hear from police justifying the lush pensions is that they die shortly after retirement. This is one of those absurd myths that cops and their union members either truly believe or falsely promote for political purposes.

On its face, it’s a hard one to believe. If police died a few years after retirement, there would be no unfunded liability crisis. The crisis is caused by the large number of police officers who earn “3 percent at 50?” retirements for decades.

Here is the typical argument I received from one local police officer: “Please show me what your death rates are, after retirement, in your profession. The average cop will die six to seven years after retirement. So how rich do you think they will be? Enjoy your day and please buckle up; I would hate for one of those rich SOBs to have to write you a ticket!”

According to one police Web site, he referred me to: “In the U.S., non-police males have a life-expectancy of 73 years. Policemen in the U.S. have a life expectancy of 53-66 years … .” And this is from a local police union leader: “Are you aware of the average life span of an officer? We don’t live too long on average.”

I hear the exact same thing from fire officials.

Drum roll, please …

According to a new CalPERS presentation that busts myths about retirements, here is the life expectancy data for miscellaneous members:

• If the current age is 55, the retiree is expected to live to be 81.4 if male, and 85 if female.

• If the current age is 60, the retiree is expected to live to be age 82 if male, and 85.5 if female.

• If the current age is 65, the retiree is expected to live to be age 82.9 if male, and 86.1 if female.

Here is the CalPERS life expectancy data for public safety members (police and fire, which are grouped together by the pension fund):

• If the current age is 55, the retiree is expected to live to be 81.4 if male, and 85 if female.

• If the current age is 60, the retiree is expected to live to be age 82 if male, and 85.5 if female.

• If the current age is 65, the retiree is expected to live to be age 82.9 if male, and 86.1 if female.

In other words, police and fire officials have the identical life expectancies as non-safety officials. A 55-year-old male cop is likely to live past 81, which is far more than a few years and it explains why pension liabilities are so costly for taxpayers.

Here is how the union-dominated CalPERS puts it: “Verdict: Myth #4 Busted! Safety members do live as long as miscellaneous members.”

In fact, a study from the late 1980s – before the lowered retirement ages and higher pensions – confirms the same basic point. A key federal study is 22 years old – but that’s the point. Even I thought the “we die early, so we deserve the big bucks” argument might have made sense in the past, but this turns out simply to be one of the oldest myths that government officials use to gin up huge benefits for themselves.

That same study also debunks the idea that police have higher suicide and divorce rates than the general population, but I have not done research on more recent numbers. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics can debunk the argument that police work is more dangerous than other work – it’s 12 on the list, after 11 private-sector professions including driver, roofer, contractor, farmers.

My point: Let’s at least deal with actuarial reality rather than emotionally laden fantasy when dealing with the public policy issue of pensions.

OCERS treats public like idiots

Sept. 2, 12:11 pm
Jack Dean, editor of the invaluable pensiontsunami.com Web site documenting news stories about pension-related issues, sent a polite e-mail to all the members of the OCERS (Orange County Employees Retirement System) board referencing his site and the top news story – about OCERS’ refusal to release pension information to the public. He sent it to the official OCERS’ e-mail addresses he got out of a Register news story and got this interesting response from Board Member Richard A. White on an official sheriff’s department e-mail:

“You’re an idiot and stop sending me stuff….”

That pretty much captures the arrogance of some members of the OCERS board. Contra Costa was forced to release its pension data after a court ruling, but the OCERS folks believe that the information is secret. You have no right to know about the six-figure pensions enjoyed by taxpayer-funded government retirees. And, in fact, if you even dare to correspond with these public officials, at least one of them will call you an “idiot” – and do so on a sheriff’s department e-mail. You’d think the department would have learned its lesson about mocking the public on official e-mails and BlackBerry devices after another recent incident.

Check out the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility pension Web site and learn about the large pensions earned by Orange County (and other) residents on the CalPERS system.
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Sunday, August 23, 2009
Steven Greenhut: Guess who told police union no?
Giving credit where’s it due is tough for me on this one.

Steven Greenhut
Sr. editorial writer and columnist
The Orange County Register
sgreenhut@ocregister.com

Let’s name today Mess With Your Head Sunday: I’m actually writing something nice about Irvine Councilman Larry Agran and his two council allies, Councilwoman Beth Krom and Mayor Sukhee Kang. There have been few politicians that I have taken more pleasure in ridiculing over the years than Agran because of a variety of issues involving openness, political fund-raising, development and spending. Nevertheless, I’ve got to hand it to this prominent left-leaning councilman and his Democratic majority for teaching local Republicans a thing or two about standing up to greedy union leaders. (Note to editor: No, I can’t believe I actually wrote the above paragraph!)

Money is tight. Government agencies, which have been resistant to the cutbacks that have been endemic throughout the private sector, finally have to face reality that the gravy train of the past few years just cannot roll on. The endless increases in employee pension benefits and salaries are, in the words of the California Public Employees Retirement System’s top actuary, “unsustainable.” That was a shocking admission from a union-dominated retirement system – yet the blockbuster news hasn’t dimmed the demands of public-sector unions that are used to getting whatever they want.

Someone has to say no. A couple weeks ago I wrote about the Costa Mesa City Council’s granting of a “retirement enhancement” to city firefighters, thus allowing them to retire five years earlier, at age 50, with 90 percent of their final year’s pay, guaranteed for them and their spouses until they depart this Earth in that golden firetruck.

I also mentioned the Irvine Police Association’s demand for a contract extension that would allow their members raises of 5 percent to 8 percent (based on merit and seniority, per the previous contract). Since that time, the Irvine Council has held firm and said no, forcing the union to accept a one-year salary freeze with no benefit cuts or layoffs – a good deal in the current economic climate, and one that mirrored the deal accepted by all of the other city’s unions.

A month ago, if you asked me which council – Costa Mesa’s, which has a 4-1 GOP majority, or Irvine’s, with its 3-2 Democratic majority (both are officially nonpartisan) – would stand up for fiscal responsibility, I would not have flinched in selecting the former. Call me pleasantly surprised, not just at the vote, but at the way the Agran-led Irvine majority is shrugging off the sort of police-union theatrics that have become commonplace as police associations have mastered the art of hardball politics to a degree that would make the Teamsters blush.

On Thursday, the police unions were staging a hissy fit protest that just happened to be near the site of one council member’s fund-raising event. In its Irvine World News advertisement calling on the public to join its protest event, the POA argued: “Irvine has become the ‘Safest City in America’ for an unprecedented five years in a row. Irvine has flourished and now has more than $100 million in surplus monies. Sadly though, the majority of your City Council now does not value our efforts and actually wants to punish us by taking away already existing wages and benefits. This action creates a public safety issue for you because we do not want the morale of our hard working officers to be effected when they are doing a great job protecting our city!”

In a letter to the City Council majority, Irvine POA President Shane Barrows gave a (very non-Irvine) sense of things to come: “The police association has been forced into a position where we will now have to fight to not only try to improve pay and benefits for our members, but to fight for what is trying to be taken away from us. We are being forced to conduct job actions which will probably include picket lines, press releases, job actions and showing up in force at council meetings. We did not want to have to do these things, but we are not being given any other choice. The city leadership will have no one to blame but themselves.”

Irvine certainly is a wonderfully safe place – so much so that the officers there seem to spend the bulk of their time writing traffic tickets. I recall a hilarious L.A. Times article about Irvine, which focused on a local activist who was “having trouble getting her neighbors to sign up for her WatchMail e-mail crime alerts [because] there’s simply not enough crime in Irvine to warrant interest in dispatches about car burglaries, purse snatchings and stolen electronics.”

The crime debate is complex. Nationwide, officials had predicted a crime surge as the economy has tanked, but that hasn’t happened. Policing is only one element in a community’s safety, and its impact is felt mainly in gang-ridden or high-crime areas, not in placid suburbs where most people tend to their lives in a law-abiding manner. I often hear cops take credit when crime in a city goes down but have never once heard a police agency blame itself when crime goes up. So I’m not convinced by the Irvine POA’s argument that crime will surge if its well-paid and generously pensioned officers don’t get a little more money. (In fairness, Irvine’s daytime population swells to more than 250,000 given that it has large commercial and retail areas, so policing there can be complex.)

The officers want the city to dig deeply into reserve funds to pay for the raises, but the raiding of reserve funds over the years has caused many of this state’s and nation’s problems. In 1999, when the Legislature rammed through (without proper analysis or debate) approval for municipalities to dramatically increase pensions for public-safety workers, one of the rationales was the economic boom and burgeoning local reserves.

Whenever union members spot reserves – supposedly emergency funds reserved for really tough times – they want that money spent, and spent, more specifically, on their compensation packages. Now that times are tough, the state has a $200 billion unfunded liability (by some estimates) simply to pay the pension and health care promises for all those lush retirements.

Irvine officials did a fine job outlining the issue in an analysis presented to the City Council before the vote. The city decided to draw down its reserves to avoid layoffs (something I disagree with, given that layoffs are a better way to get the budget numbers in balance), but wanted to hold the line on salaries for two years in order to save nearly $3 million.

The city emphasized that Irvine police – despite the city’s low level of crime and danger – enjoy the second-highest compensation package in the county. The average Irvine cop earns $118,000 a year in pay and overtime plus a “3 percent at 50″ retirement package that costs the city another 40 percent of the officer’s salary, plus family health benefits. The city has increased salaries for police by 32 percent since 2002, according to the city.

The city has guaranteed no layoffs in exchange for a wage freeze (and some minor benefit tweaks). As Agran told me, “This is a time when we all need to pull together in the context of a balanced budget and no-layoff policy and move through the next two or three years with no cuts in services, no new taxes or layoffs.” That sounds more than fair to this columnist, who has witnessed several rounds of layoffs, an unpaid one-week furlough and salary cut at this newspaper.

The way these union contracts are written – and what makes it so hard for cities to negotiate with unions – is that the old contract mandates pay raises (in this case, mainly merit raises) if a new contract isn’t approved. That’s what the POA is referring to as givebacks, and a few officers received pay hikes starting in July that will be stopped under the council-approved plan. Last year, one of Irvine POA’s top bargaining issues was to replace the city’s white/blue/green squad cars with black-and-white cars – apparently to show the proper modern sense of police authority. This year, the POA dropped that down the list, but has its eyes firmly on maintaining a wage and benefit structure that is too costly in the current climate.

The two council Republicans – Christina Shea and Steven Choi – voted with the council majority in closed session to approve the deal, but then voted against it in open session, which suggests to me that they simply are pandering to the law enforcement unions. I never would have guessed that the Agran-controlled majority would be the ones to hold the line. But so far, so good. And, yes, it can be difficult to give credit where credit is due.

Contact the writer: sgreenhut@ocregister.com or 714-796-7823

By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Washington Post

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stupider, schools across the nation decided to censor President Obama’s speech urging kids to work hard because “being successful is hard.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the terribly scary bit of propaganda that prompted certain Americans to cry “socialism” and “indoctrination” and force some schools to opt out of hearing the president’s message Tuesday.

When and how did we become so ridiculous?

As it turns out, we’ve been this way for a while. Such protests — a review of which follows shortly — aren’t new. The difference is that now the masses are technologically enabled, amplified by a twillion tweets. Everybody’s got a megaphone, bless democracy’s heart.
But when a protest of one (or a few) can instantly morph into a babble of thousands, rabble-rousing becomes a hobby — and rational debate becomes an oxymoron.

Granting a super-sized benefit of the doubt to protesters, Obama’s speech originally included classroom instructional materials from the Education Department that asked students to express how they were inspired by the president and how they might help him.
Too political, critics said. Indoctrination, charged Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer.

“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,” Greer said.

Some conservative radio and television hosts latched onto the specter of youth camps past and encouraged parents to keep their children home from school in protest.

Okay, benefit-of-the-doubt rescinded. Even asking kids to help the president improve the nation doesn’t justify charges of socialist indoctrination. John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” is hardly considered a bugle call to summer camp in the Urals.

Essentially, Obama’s speech, which aired live, focused on encouraging students to evaluate how they might contribute to making America better. “What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make?”

Anyone who heard or read the address will have found little to criticize, except perhaps that it was a tad boring, too long — and certifiably schmaltzy. Then again, he was talking to kids, some of them as young as 5. Even former first lady Laura Bush and former House speaker Newt Gingrich approved of the president’s talk.

Presidential speeches to students aren’t new. The St. Petersburg Times’s indispensable PolitiFact.com “Truth-O-Meter” notes that both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush gave such addresses while president. And, yes, Democrats protested. Reagan’s speech was, in fact, political, as he went beyond stressing the importance of education to discuss nuclear disarmament, defense funding and even taxes. Talk about a snooze.

Gingrich, who at the time of Bush’s address was House Republican whip, defended the president’s right to speak directly to students. But Richard Gephardt, then the House Democratic leader, said the Education Department shouldn’t be producing “paid political advertising for the president. . . . And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’ ”

And round and round we go. The hysterics, it would seem, have reached a detente. Or, one hopes, canceled each other out. Compared to previous presidential addresses, Obama’s was strictly apolitical. It was also quintessential Obama — aimed at healing, at soothing the afflicted and making things all better. The speech was so brimming with pathos, it seemed to have been concocted around a campfire where kids recalled their worst day in school.

Addressing all ages of students, from kindergartners to 12th-graders, presents challenges, but Obama managed to hit every group’s vulnerabilities and insecurities — from being bullied, to not fitting in, to having a divided family. Hey, he’s been there!

And now he’s president. You can be, too, was the subtext. What’s so wrong with that?
One might have wished Obama’s remarks cut by half. It also would have been nice if he had thrown in an Ashley or a Jonah among the students he featured — Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell. But overall, the president’s message was a conservative hymn, a GOP platform for kiddies: Take personal responsibility, don’t blame others for your failures, listen to your parents and your teachers, work hard.

“Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.”

The only thing missing from this orgy of conservative orthodoxy was . . . a Republican president. And that is the lesson of the day.

kathleenparker@washpost.com

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Laguna Beach kids head to escuela — er, school.
Laguna Beach Unified places emphasis on teaching Spanish.
By CLAUDIA KOERNER
The Orange County Register

LAGUNA BEACH – The new school year will bring new goals for students and teachers in Laguna Beach.

Expanding Spanish instruction to elementary school, adopting new materials to math programs and emphasizing successful transitions for students make up the school board’s new goals for the 2009-2010 year.

The board meets tonight to discuss the new school year, as well as the district’s swine flu preparations.

Overall, the district aims to prepare its students with new instruction methods.

For the first time, fourth- and fifth-graders will take Spanish classes during the school day. First- through third-graders may participate in after-school classes once a week.
Previously, the district contracted out its Spanish curriculum. This year, a new Laguna Beach teacher will develop and work with other teachers on a teaching plan.

“The overall goal is that by the 12th grade, we will be graduating more bilingual and biliterate students,” said Nancy Hubbell, assistant superintendent for instructional services in Laguna Beach Unified.

In math, the district has opted for a new curriculum that better fits state education guidelines. Hubbell said the new materials will be more conceptual, instead of focusing on memorization.

For students in transition grades, like kindergarten, fifth grade and eighth grade, Hubbell said the schools are trying to work with parents for good outcomes.
“We have a lot of parent involvement in this district,” she said.

Parents at Top of the World Elementary School said they were confident in their kids and the district as school started today.

Debora Seitz’s daughter Maddie is going into fifth grade.

“She’s very enthusiastic about school,” Seitz said. “We like her teacher.”

Jeremy Garrett’s daughter Jai-Lin is a new student at the school.
“I’m excited for her to meet new friends,” he said.

Peggy Pietig dropped off her fourth-grade son Jacob, who said he is looking forward to having the same teacher his brother had.

“It’s a perfect school,” Peggy Pietig said.

Contact the writer: ckoerner@ocregister.com or 949-454-7309

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This story is taken from Sacbee / Our Region / Top Stories

Unions attack Sacramento County plan to impose layoffs
rlewis@sacbee.com
Published Wednesday, Sep. 09, 2009
It’s a job action expected to end up in the courts.

Sacramento County says it has the right to lay off employees, change their jobs to part-time and rehire them. All to eliminate 16 hours a month per position, saving $4.6 million for a general fund estimated at nearly $70 million in the red.

The layoffs would affect more than half the county work force of 12,000.

The unions are calling the county’s plan – publicly unveiled Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors budget hearings – a backdoor furlough that violates the terms of their contract.
So far, no county union has agreed to furloughs.

“We are very concerned that the county has opted to avoid working with our union to reach a concession package that would meet the county’s goal and instead seeks to implement this forced furlough program,” said Amy Marie Smith, president of the Association of Professional Engineers, County of Sacramento.

Several labor experts contacted by The Bee also questioned the legality of the move.
There’s no question the action would expose the county to litigation and could lead to significant costs down the road, said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

The Public Employment Relations Board likely would view the change as “subterfuge to changing hours,” said Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor emeritus at the Anderson Graduate School of Management and the School of Public Affairs at UCLA.

Martha West, professor of law emeritus at UC Davis, said she’d never heard of a move such as Sacramento County is proposing.

“I laughed out loud when I read it,” West said. “This scheme would violate the contract.”

Facing a $68 million general fund shortfall in the current fiscal year, the county is proposing to cut almost 380 general fund positions, plus another 25 jobs in public works-funded departments.

Barely two months ago the board passed a $2 billion general fund spending plan for the fiscal year that started July 1.

However, several key revenue streams – property taxes, sales taxes and realignment funds – are falling short of expectations. The board then decided to shift another $10 million to the Sheriff’s Department in July to limit deputy layoffs, forcing officials to look for $10 million in cuts elsewhere. And the state budget package also means less money for local programs.

Besides more layoffs, the county executive has proposed changing most jobs to nine-tenths positions, down from full-time jobs.

The proposal would not impact most public safety personnel and workers in 24-hour county facilities. Managers, whom the county already stripped of raises and forced to take furloughs, also would be exempt.

The move is expected to save about $4.6 million for the general fund through the end of this fiscal year next June 30 – $7 million over a 12-month period, said Steve Keil, the county’s chief labor negotiator. It also would affect workers who aren’t paid from the general fund.

The entire savings for the county would be $16.9 million for the whole budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, $25.4 million for 12 months.

The county had pushed the unions to agree to concessions over the past year, including forgoing scheduled raises and taking furloughs, officials said.

The Sacramento County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association agreed to defer a portion of its scheduled pay raise for several years. The deputies still got a 2.9 percent bump. The union representing probation officers also agreed to concessions.

The other unions were unable to come to terms with the county, and most employees got at least a 2.9 percent cost-of-living salary increase as scheduled at the start of this fiscal year.

The unions have said they’ll fight the current proposal. Ted Somera, executive director of United Public Employees Local 1, said his unions would file a grievance today to bring the issue before a third-party administrator.

“It’s unfortunate it had to get to this point,” Somera said.

West, the UC Davis professor who taught labor law for 25 years, said she doubted the county would win in arbitration.

The county agreed to a contract and can’t unilaterally change the terms, she said.
“This is one reason public entities should not agree to long-term contracts,” West said.
Budget hearings continue today.

For more information, visit http://www.budget.saccounty.net.

Call The Bee’s Robert Lewis, (916) 321-1061.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY PROPOSED JOB CHANGES

Sacramento County is poised for a fight with its employee unions over a controversial proposal that the labor groups are calling a backdoor furlough.

The plan: The county would lay off most of its workers, eliminate their full-time jobs, create new nine-tenths-time positions to replace those jobs and rehire the laid off workers.

The effect: A nine-tenths schedule basically means 16 fewer hours worked a month, or 24 fewer work days a year, per position.

County savings: Savings of $4.6 million in the general fund for the rest of the fiscal year and $7 million for a full year. It also would affect workers who aren’t paid from the general fund. Total savings for the county would be $16.9 million for the whole budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, $25.4 million for 12 months.

Jobs affected: Just about everyone not in public safety, the county counsel’s office, 24-hour facilities and those already on reduced work schedules.

What’s next:

• County supervisors could vote on the plan as early as Friday.

• County counsel will present a list of positions Sept. 22.

• Changes would take effect Nov. 8.

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HOW TO CONDUCT AND PARTICIPATE IN A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEETING
FREE SEMINAR for officers and members of unions, homeowners associations, school boards, and other non-profit organizations. Learn from professional parliamentarians how to conduct and participate in a successful business meeting
The next meeting will be Monday, September 21st from 5-6 p.m., at the Orange County Federation of Labor, Suite A, 309 Rampart St. Orange, CA (between W. Chapman and E. Orangewood Ave.) Interested in learning more? Call Paul Rich at 714-321-2535 (Cell) or email: Paulrich512@yahoo.com.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Catcalls and whistles inspired change
Come fall, a group of mothers determined to build a park in their neighborhood will see their dream realized.

Yvette Cabrera
Columnist
The Orange County Register
ycabrera@ocregister.com

The little dirt lot didn’t seem like much.

But Irma Rivera knew better. She knew that in a park-poor neighborhood in Santa Ana this once neglected half acre lot was a gem; a dusty piece of land that could be turned into an oasis where the children, who lived in the crowded apartment complexes nearby, could play.

That was her dream more than six years ago, when she and handful of mothers who lived near Garfield Elementary School decided to do whatever it took to make this dream a reality.

Over the years, I’ve written about the progress of this dirt lot on Fourth Street, which is bordered by industrial buildings and an apartment/condo complex of more than 1,000 residents. If there’s been a theme to those stories it’s that vision has sustained Rivera and the other mothers, along with the nonprofit group Latino Health Access, as they’ve waded through several rivers of red tape.

Now, that vision is almost a reality. Construction of a new park and community center is slated to start on the little dirt lot this fall, possibly as soon as November.

“It seemed like something so far off,” says Rivera, a former volunteer and now an employee of Latino Health Access, a Santa Ana nonprofit that works to improve the health of Latinos.

The idea for a park and community center was born out of necessity, plus a little sweat.
About seven years ago, Rivera began leading an exercise class, a group of neighborhood mothers who would work out on the kindergarten playground at Garfield Elementary. Separated from the outside world by only a chain-link fence, the women quickly attracted unwanted male attention in the form of stares, catcalls and whistles.

“One husband was so jealous he almost strangled his wife because he said she was provoking the men when she exercised,” says Rivera, who ended the class about a year and a half later when the mothers couldn’t find an alternate place to exercise.

But that wasn’t all. Rivera, whose two children attended Garfield, also noticed that after school, and on weekends, the school’s parking lot became a magnet for families whose children had no other place to play. But kids, plus bicycles, tricycles and roller skates, when mixed with a busy intersection, was a recipe for disaster. Rivera says there were several car accidents in the area involving children.

Yet there were no other alternatives. According to statistics from Latino Health Access, Santa Ana has an open space ratio of about a half-acre for every 1,000 residents, making it among the most crowded urban areas in America. Research also shows that the city has the second highest child obesity rate in the state.

Children live in apartment complexes where signs say “No children allowed to play.” And Rivera says she would see drug deals on street corners, making the neighborhood unsafe.
Thus, the little gem on Fourth Street.

Last year, Latino Health Access signed an agreement with Santa Ana to lease two parcels on the lot for $2 per year. A third parcel was donated to the cause by the Northgate González Markets grocery chain.

Meanwhile, Jim Bostic, assistant vice president of construction for the St. Joseph Health System, has overseen a team of architects, engineers, and landscape designers who are donating their time to build the park and community center. Their donations have been worth several hundred thousand dollars to a project that, in all, will cost about $4 million to build and operate.

The half-acre park, with two playgrounds, a multipurpose room and kitchen for cooking and nutrition classes, will close nightly, but will be free and open to the public during the day. Everyone who uses the park will be expected to volunteer, even if it’s simply wiping tables and picking up litter.

“This is what will discourage people who don’t have good intentions, who want to kick back… If you don’t pay your dues with some type of volunteer work, you won’t have access,” says America Bracho, executive director and chief executive of Latino Health Access.

It’s the same philosophy that Bracho’s nonprofit has embraced to raise money. Everyone pitches in. In May, the residents raised $2,500 by selling tostadas, fresh fruit and pozole stew at a fair they held on the dirt lot.

So far, the nonprofit has raised about $700,000 in cash and in-kind donations, but needs about $3 million to complete the project. The group has applied for grants and, later this month, it may receive about $150,000 in federal funding. More fundraisers are planned for this fall.

It may seem insurmountable, but that “even if we have to sell tacos” determination is still there. I see it in Rivera, whose eyes sparkle excitedly when she talks about the park. She’s remained involved in the project, even though she moved out of the Garfield Elementary area to another neighborhood in Santa Ana.

That Rivera and other parents are so involved speaks to an effort that has evolved into a social movement, says Ana Carricchi, director of policy for Latino Health Access.
“It started off with four mothers to create a healthier community,” says Carricchi.
“But this is not (just) a park project. What we are creating is a movement for community development and social change, starting with families, aiming for neighborhoods and changing the community. That is really the goal.”

Contact the writer: at ycabrera@ocregister.com or 714-796-3649 or http://twitter.com/Ycabreraocr.

Santa Ana Unified School District may have to trim budget by $11 million

Orange County’s largest system, in Santa Ana, could lose funding under California’s spending plan.

By FERMIN LEAL THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA The Santa Ana Unified School District may have to cut $11 million more from its budget this year because of a possible loss of state funds aimed at lowperforming schools, district officials said.

The loss, caused by a funding swap in the recently enacted state education budget, affects school districts in California that receive Quality Education Investment Act, or QEIA, state funding.

Officials in Santa Ana Unified, with 55,000 students, had already approved about $29.4 million in cuts for the 2009-10 school year.

Funds under the act came from a 2006 settlement after the California Teachers Association sued Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The deal authorized repayment of $2.7 billion in funding owed under Proposition 98 to California school districts that serve high concentrations of lowincome students, minorities and English learners.

Fourteen Santa Ana Unified schools qualified for $77 million in funding over a seven-year period that started in 2007-08. In Orange County, the Anaheim Union, Capistrano Unified, Fullerton Elementary, Orange Unified and Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified school districts could also lose a combined $9 million in funding.

“This additional reduction in the state’s budget was completely unexpected,” said Santa Ana Unified Superintendent Jane Russo. “It is particularly discouraging because the impact will be felt not just in our 14 qualifying QEIA schools, but across the school district as a whole, which relies on the general fund to operate.”

The reduction of an additional $11 million in funding for Santa Ana Unified could force the county’s largest school district to cut more jobs and eliminate programs and services, officials said.

Russo and other superintendents, union leaders, and other educators traveled to Sacramento last week to lobby lawmakers to reinstate the funds.

“When we were awarded statutory QEIA funding in 2007, it meant that Santa Ana Unified could rely on this funding for assistance in improving academic instruction and achievement in some of our neediest schools,” said school board member Rob Richardson.

“It also presented an opportunity to lower class sizes and focus on improving results in core subject areas,” he said. “Instead, the state has rescinded that revenue stream this year.”

State lawmakers said Tuesday they plan to introduce emergency legislation this week to correct a budget funding loss to the state’s lowest-performing schools.

CONTACT THE WRITER:

7 1 4-704-3773 or fleal@ocregister.com
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Orange Grove: Keep UC out of Capitol’s clutches
Legislation would put university system under political control.

Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana,
represents the 69th Assembly District in the state Legislature

If I were graduating high school today, I wonder if I would have the same opportunity to reap the educational benefits of the University of California system that I did nearly 20 years ago.

Our public university network, often lauded as the best in the world, led me from the Central Valley, where I picked crops in the summer, toward a post-secondary education at Harvard University and the halls of the state Capitol. Four years at UC Irvine shaped my adult life and commitment to public service. It was on this campus that I learned about government.

California’s public university system has had a similar impact on millions of other students, making our state an international envy. Its campuses are home to distinguished faculty in almost every field. According to U.S. News and World Report, eight of its undergraduate campuses are among the top 100 in the United States.

But this year, UC will admit 2,500 fewer students than the previous year, levy a 9.3 percent tuition hike, freeze employee wages and increase classroom sizes. Recently, UC Chairman Russell S. Gould wrote me with a troubling update: some world-class faculty and graduate students are abandoning their careers in our public university system, UC faculty salaries presently lag 19 percent below the national rate, UC Berkeley could only afford to conduct 10 new faculty searches in 2009 – about one-tenth of its usual load, and 55 faculty positions at UC Santa Cruz have been cut.

What we all fear is a downward spiral that will surely affect generations of students. Once leading researchers and professors leave the system, it will be extremely difficult to get them to return. The next generation of academia will then be less likely to join a UC school.

Some legislators, frustrated with what they say are UC arrogance and high compensation packages for university executives, recently introduced legislation – ACA24 (Nestande) and SCA21 (Yee) – to strip the UC system of its immunity from regulation by the state government. They argue that the governor and Legislature might be able to run the UC system better than those who have developed its outstanding international reputation.
I strongly disagree.

As we grapple with reviving our state’s economy, we cannot suffocate innovation, university policymaking, and academic freedom with government red tape and regulation. The economic future of our state and college system is intricately intertwined.

Many advances related to our food, health care, education, and technology emanate from the University of California. Food research in the university system helps make our state the No. 1 U.S. food producer. One of every seven California doctors was educated, at least in part, by the UC system.

Biotech, high tech and other important industries rely on hiring UC graduates. Those same industries also collaborate with the UC on research projects that often lead to job creation and innovations that move society forward.

Then there are stakeholders like me, who came doe-eyed to a large campus and left feeling empowered to help shape our communities and create opportunities for the next generation.

The UC is one of the few public institutions in California that is working well. Let’s not strangle it with more red tape by placing it under full state government control and allowing the governor and Legislature to politicize it. They have plenty to do already.

Urge the governor and the Legislature instead to work out their differences with their appointed members of the UC Board of Regents, instead of trying to take it over and subjecting it to more regulation.
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Publication:Freedom – Orange County Register; Date:Sept. 10, 2009; Section:Nation & World; Page Number:News 12

States scramble for stimulus funds

California and Wisconsin rewrite legislation; Nevada may be too late.

By SCOTT BAUER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MADISON, WIS. Three cashstrapped states may find themselves left at the starting line in the competition for more than $4 billion in education stimulus funding if they don’t allow teacher evaluations to be tied to student test results.

That requirement is a cornerstone of Obama’s education reform efforts and has set off a rush to change existing laws before time runs out on the funds. Obama believes so strongly that teachers are key to fixing schools and helping kids learn that he refuses to dole out the stimulus dollars if states don’t heed his wishes.

California, Wisconsin and Nevada each have laws that rule out tying test scores to teacher reviews. While California and Wisconsin lawmakers are scrambling to lift the ban, Nevada may not be able to remove its restriction in time because its Legislature won’t be back in session until 2011.

New York also bars test scores as a factor in teacher tenure, but this restriction is more narrow and not expected to hurt the state’s chances for the funds under Obama’s “Race to the Top” funding program.

The administration hopes the program will improve student achievement, boost the performance of minority students and raise graduation rates.

Teachers unions have long opposed linking test scores with evaluations and pay because they believe it’s unfair to judge a teacher’s performance on a single test. They also note the tests can be flawed, don’t test every subject, and that students learn from more than one teacher.

“I don’t think the best approach … comes from students’ test scores,” said Dave Harswick, a high school history teacher and union leader in Green Bay, Wis. “It can be part of the picture, but it shouldn’t be the whole picture.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said state laws that prohibit linking student test scores and teacher evaluations are “simply ridiculous.” He says good teaching ought to be rewarded and that test results are a measure of progress in the classroom.

Making an issue of using test scores to rate teachers means taking on powerful teacher unions, a core Democratic interest group.

“This is definitely a case of poking the teachers union in the eye,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washingtonbased education think tank.

Both the 3.2 millionmember National Education Association and the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers have said if tests must be used, they should be only one of several measures for evaluating teachers.

“Of all the things in the Race to the Top guidelines, this is the one that’s given us the most pause, the most concern,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “It just focuses huge attention on standardized testing.”

In a letter to the administration, the NEA said it is unhealthy to focus so much on test scores and warned that the rules for the competition would interfere with local union contracts.

But states like Wisconsin and California that face ongoing budget problems don’t want one issue to keep them from a piece of the $4.35 billion federal pie. Competition is expected to be fierce, with Duncan anticipating only 10 to 20 states will share the money.

The first grants should be awarded in March. Another round of money will be awarded in spring 2010.

Last month Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger convened the Legislature to pass a package of reforms, including requiring school districts to consider student test data in evaluating teachers. That drew praise from Duncan, who said it was encouraging.

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California: Mounting deficits

By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com

Published: Tuesday, Sep. 8, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Sacramento Bee

As lawmakers return to the Capitol today, they are still grappling with deep budget cuts. The picture in future years doesn’t look much better.

Economists predict a slow recovery over the next few years, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance has projected multi-billion state budget deficits for the foreseeable future. The problem will reappear next year largely because the governor and lawmakers solved this year’s problem with a multitude of one-time solutions that likely can’t be used again.

Think that’s bad? The problem gets significantly worse in 2011-12 because the state loses revenue from the temporary tax hikes that are scheduled to end in 2011.

Here are the major dynamics that will make it difficult for the state to dig out of its fiscal hole, even as the economy improves (see graphic at right)

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Education Week
Published Online: September 9, 2009

Calif. Budget Troubles Fuel Curriculum Crisis
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

School administrators in California are getting greater flexibility in how they spend more than $300 million dollars intended for instructional materials, along with encouragement to use some free digital textbooks for high school courses, as a result of cost-cutting measures brought on by the state’s budget crisis.

But extensive changes to the state’s curriculum policies have raised concerns among many educators that they will not have the guidance or resources they need to choose the best textbooks and teaching strategies for their students.

Beyond those concerns, the changes have also left publishers reeling as they brace for the potential of huge losses of sales in what is their biggest and most influential market. Coupled with budget cuts in other states, the economic climate could jeopardize development of new print and digital products nationally, industry experts say.

Lawmakers recently approved a four-year suspension of California’s textbook-adoption process, as well as its curriculum commission, which was in the middle of updating state frameworks, or content guidelines in science, social studies, and other subject areas. A new state law also allows district officials to forgo purchasing instructional materials altogether and use the money instead on staffing and other critical areas to offset funding cuts resulting from California’s $26 billion budget gap.

“Each new version of our textbooks seeks to improve on the last as we learn what strategies and materials are most effective for teaching our students,” Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement. He noted that by the time the state board adopts new materials, many students could be learning from textbooks that are older than they are. “Students will not have new approved books until 2016. The impact is that tools for teachers, principals, and superintendents will be dated and stale and, in some cases, unavailable,” he said.

District leaders, who have long sought flexibility to purchase instructional materials outside the state-approved list, do not necessarily welcome the changes.

“Any time the state gives us flexibility is wonderful, but it’s a struggle every time they give us flexibility and they also cut our budget,” said Darline P. Robles, the superintendent of the 2 million-student Los Angeles County Schools, which serves 80 districts. If the regional education agency decides to purchase science and social studies texts for the 2010-11 school year, as planned, Ms. Robles said, school leaders in the county will not have the updated state frameworks to help them choose the ones that best meet academic standards and goals. And if textbook purchases are postponed, she added, there will not be the kind of state-level guidance teachers and administrators need to ensure that lessons cover the essential content and skills.

“We’re not going to be able to make some good decisions about textbooks, … and absent a new textbook, teachers [in the past] could look at the framework for direction on ways to assess students, different instructional strategies, how to teach English-learners,” she pointed out.
Problems for Publishers
The $700,000 budget for the state curriculum commission was eliminated in a line-item veto when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the latest legislation to balance the budget in late July. The commission, an advisory panel first established in 1927, is authorized by the state constitution to review and advise the state school board on adoption of textbooks used in K-8 classrooms and curriculum frameworks in most content areas.

The state budget for instructional materials was cut for fiscal 2009 as well, by about 20 percent, leaving $333 million, although that money no longer has to be used for curriculum. Districts were scheduled to adopt new reading textbooks for the elementary grades in 2009 and 2010, sales that could have reached nearly $1 billion for publishers. The state had planned to adopt additional materials in reading, mathematics, and science next year, as well as reviewing textbooks for Mandarin-language classes for the first time.

In preparation for meeting the commission’s strict approval standards for the latest elementary reading adoption, publishers had spent tens of millions of dollars developing new products, according to Jay Diskey, the executive director of the Washington-based school division of the American Association of Publishers.

While publishers knew the economic downturn would likely crimp districts’ purchasing power this year, they were confident that California’s constitutional requirements, and the 2004 settlement in the case of Williams v. California, would help salvage sales, Mr. Diskey said. The Williams outcome prompted to legislation that requires students be provided with adequate instructional materials, as well as suitable facilities and highly qualified teachers.

Budget cuts have led to reductions in textbook funding and postponed adoptions in other states as well. Idaho has cut its subsidies for curricular materials by more than 80 percent, according to reports submitted this summer to the National Association of State Textbook Administrators. Oregon districts have been given permission to postpone textbook adoptions for up to two years. And South Carolina officials are hoping to negotiate lower prices with publishers to allow districts to adopt textbooks on schedule.

In California, however, the changes go beyond schoolbooks to the frameworks that guide curriculum and instruction. The state-appointed frameworks committees had begun updating state guidelines in several subject areas, but will now have to suspend that work, according to Tom Adams, the director of the curriculum and frameworks division at the California education department.

The curriculum commission, for example, had already approved a draft of the history/social studies framework and appointed members to a committee to write the draft of the science guidelines. Health-education frameworks, which were last revised in 2002, were set to be reworked to align with the state’s new academic standards in the subject.

The updated frameworks were needed to clarify some state policies on curriculum, provide guidance on assessing students, and offer recommendations for teaching English-language learners, Mr. Adams said.

The work done to date would be outdated by the 2013-14 school year, when it is set to resume, he added, and would need to be started from scratch.
‘Inventive and Creative’
Despite the problems the changes create for selecting instructional materials, some school leaders welcome the flexibility, which they say will allow them to maintain sufficient staffing levels and salvage essential professional development and school programs.

“It really is most unfortunate that we’re in a position to have to choose between the staff that we need to deliver education and/or buying new textbooks,” said Steven M. Ladd, the superintendent of the 62,000-student Elk Grove district, outside Sacramento. “We have made the decision that we are grateful to have the flexibility because it does allow us to keep people.”

The district, which spends about $3.5 million on textbooks each year, purchased new science and social studies textbooks in the last two years, but it has been more than six years since it replaced its math and English-language arts texts.

While textbooks will be out of date—consider that students may not read about the election of the nation’s first African-American president until well into the next decade—Mr. Ladd said teachers will find ways to supplement them with up-to-date resources.
“Teachers have always been inventive and creative and been able to augment the textbook,” he said. “And with the technology we have available now, they have the opportunity to go online and vet those resources.”

In that vein, the state conducted a review of free digital textbooks over the summer at the request of Gov. Schwarzenegger, a Republican. More than a dozen high school math and science texts available as open-source materials on the Internet were evaluated for how well they align with state standards in those subjects. In a statement this past June, Mr. Schwarzenegger touted the project as a way to provide “technologically advanced, cost-effective, and engaging” content for students.

The initiative may be expanded to include history textbooks and commercial products as well, if the state budget allows, Mr. Adams said.

California educators are not alone in seeking quality digital content. The availability of online curriculum resources, both free and for sale, has increased significantly in recent years, leading several states to formally consider them for school use. Florida, Indiana, and Texas, for example, allow electronic resources under their textbook-adoption policies.
California officials are hoping the state’s emphasis on digital materials will encourage more educators to try nontraditional media in their classrooms, Mr. Adams said.

Vol. 29, Issue 03