Good Legislation: Freeing Up Education Money

State Senator Alan Lowenthal has certainly sponsored some questionable legislation, two pieces of Lowenthal's work this year I have previously labelled Dumbest and More Dumb. But if his SB 1396, co-authored with his ex-wife Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, passes he will be the author of a groundbreaking pilot program that can change the future of education in our state.

If it becomes law SB 1396 would initiate a three year pilot program for three school districts, at this point Long Beach Unified School District, Fresno Unified School District and Garden Grove Unified School District. Under the pilot program the State Schools Superintendent would convert funding for the Districts for "categorical education programs" to block grants. In short, the bill would eliminate state spending mandates for the Districts and allow the local boards of education and Superintendents determine how those funds can best be spent within their districts to improve student education.

This program is the first step to return control of education to the local communities, putting more responsibility for education funding and programs with the Districts, and therefore with the parents and residents within the Districts. This legislation greatly diminishes the control of the state government and bureaucracy, which means it also diminishes the influence and control of the California Teachers Association and other unions representing education employees. This legislation will allow Long Beach, Fresno and Garden Grove to show Sacramento, and the nation, that the closer to the source government revenue is controlled the more efficiently it is used.

As part of the legislation the districts must show measurable improvement in API scores, graduation rates and students headed off to college. The funds are not just going to be dumped on the districts with a "good luck, see you in three years." As well they will still have to adhere to any federal spending mandates tied to any federal funds received. By setting the goals and having the ability to apply spending where needed to meet those goals however allows significant more opportunity for success than having to meet goals set from the state with mandated spending by a bureaucracy that has no idea what local needs may be.

Long Beach Unified is on the record as proposing the legislation, and since the Lowenthals' districts cover areas of Long Beach Unified, Bonnie was a member of the LBUSD Board of Education before her election to the Long Beach City Council. The ties between the Lowenthals and LBUSD are long and deep. A very progressive school district, LBUSD was first in the nation to require every student in elementary, and then middle, school wear a uniform every day, required students reach benchmark reading levels at 3rd and 8th grades, required students with multiple fails to repeat 8th grade, and has been a finalist for the Broad Award several times, winning once. The partnership between the Lowenthals and LBUSD is a natural for this legislation impacting Long Beach.

Education reform is extremely difficult to achieve given the nature of funding for districts, they raise no funds on their own but rather receive funding from the state and/or federal government directly. Because their revenues are filtered through the state the revenues are able to be controlled by the state. Through the years special projects and agendas have resulted in funding mandates for revenues sent to districts. As more and more mandates are placed upon the revenues local school districts have less and less control over their budgets. Even how teachers can be laid off or let go due to poor performance or egregious actions is dictated by the State Code of Education, handcuffing the ability of Districts to able shift personnel and needs for their students. Needless to say this control by the state over employment also prohibits school districts from creating and utilizing performance criteria for teacher evaluations; therefore the teachers you get and that stay through good times and bad are the ones there the longest, which means some of the best will be left behind when layoffs occur.

Across the country there has been significant moves by states to remove power from the state capitals and return it to the local districts, to dilute the power of the state and local teachers' unions and their strong influence on budgets and policy. Florida came very close to a major education overhaul until the bill was vetoed by Governor Crist because of politics and his campaign for U.S. Senator. That California is considering a change in funding for school districts and decentralizing the budgetary control is a major step for not only our state but for the nation.

I called out Senator Lowenthal for his legislation to out law parking and to require carbon monoxide detectors in all homes, it is only right that I laud him for legislation that unwinds state spending mandates and allows school districts the freedom to allocate funds as needed within their districts, not as dictated by Sacramento. Well done Lowenthals, let's hope your fellow members of the Senate and Assembly agree with you.

DCS 04212010

Mary Stanton For School Board

Four years ago our community came a few votes short of taking a sharp turn South. In 2006 the Teacher's Association of Long Beach under the direction of then Executive Director Scott McVarish made the decision to take over the Long Beach Unified School District Board of Directors. Determined to win the three seats up for election in the cycle the union board put the TALB into severe debt and ran three candidates for office. In one contest current LBUSD board member David Barton, backed by TALB, defeated incumbent Jim Choura. In another contest TALB managed to get Michael Ellis on the ballot in a race that was vacated by then incumbent Suja Lowenthal as she gave up the school board race to run instead for the City Council seat vacated by Dan Baker. Though not eligible for the ballot because of residency requirements, City Attorney Bob Shannon let him on the ballot anyway. With no opposition Ellis won the election. Ellis subsequently was busted a few times for DUI, almost never showed up for board meetings and was a disgrace to the LBUSD as well as the hard working teachers in the district whose hard earned money went into his campaign.

In the third race incumbent Mary Stanton barely beat the TALB challenger. The race was close and it went to a re-count, paid for by TALB as they tried to squeeze out a third victory and control of the school district. Paramount among their agenda items was firing Superintendent Chris Steinhauser and installing a teacher's union friendly Administration. Thankfully Mary prevailed.

On April 13th Mary will once again face a challenger that is backed and supported by TALB. Jeff Price's list of supporters reads like a Who's Who list of Long Beach Democrats who are tied to public employee unions and not its residents, including 7th District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes-Uranga who is running a write in campaign to retain her seat, and her husband Roberto Uranga who is supported by the employee unions at Long Beach City College. Essentially Price's list of supporters reads like a political insider not a member of the community, someone who will follow the party line and be beholden to public employees' unions and not the residents of his district. It is as if Mary is running against the local Democratic political machine and its allies.

Long Beach Unified School District has seen its revenue from the state decline by over $100 million in the past few years. The LBUSD has not control over its revenue, it is dependent upon Sacramento and is subject to the political process of the state budget negotiations. The results of these negotiations have not been favorable to K-12 schools as you are award. Throughout the declining revenue Mary Stanton has worked hard and honestly with fellow board members Jon Meyer, Felton Williams, David Barton and new comer John McGinnis who replaced Ellis when he resigned.

As President of the LBUSD Board of Education, Mary has led the district through extremely difficult budget cuts and staffing reductions. Holding off as long as possible through the past few years to keep the budget cuts out of the classroom, this year the LBUSD has had to send out notices to hundreds of teachers that they may be laid off at the end of the school year. With the political climate and desire to not cut spending where it needs to be cut in Sacramento it should be expected that LBUSD's revenue will again decline in the coming year. Our district needs experienced, level headed and unbiased leadership to ensure the ability to continue the quality education our children receive.

During Mary's tenure on the Board of Education LBUSD has won the prestigious Broad Award for urban school education excellence and been a finalist several times. Test scores have improved while funding has decreased. Parents of many students graduating from LBUSD high schools save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in college tuition from scholarships and from college credits their children earned through Advanced Placement courses. My kids are in the LBUSD system and I look forward to their continuing through high school receiving excellent education every year.

Mary Stanton is a proven leader, advocate for students, a former teacher who knows and understands what teachers face in classrooms and a solid member of our community.

Disclaimer! Several months ago Mary called me to ask if I would be the Treasurer for her campaign and I readily agreed. I agreed because I respect and admire Mary not only as a member of our school board and the work she has done, but as a person as well. She is honest, she is committed to improving the lives of my children and yours, she is intelligent and she is kind--not always adjectives used for people running for public office. I am proud to be associated with Mary and her campaign and hope you too align yourself with her effort to be re-elected.

I wholeheartedly endorse and support Mary Stanton for Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education in the election April 13, 2010.

Please join me in this support, visit Mary's site (link below) and donate a few bucks for the future of all students in Long Beach and their future. Please, if you are concerned about the future of education in our city do not be a bystander, be involved, donate a few dollars and help re-elect Mary Stanton.

For those in the area Leslie and I will be holding a meet and greet for Mary next Monday, March 22nd, in the late evening at our home. If you are interested in attending please contact me for details.

Mary Stanton For School Board 2010 website.

Price's list of supporters.

DCS03172010

Back To School

Last Thursday our girls, woke up, put on their blue skorts and white shirts and headed back to school. A day filled with excitement, nerves, anticipation and some relief to get started on another year of academic achievement, personal growth and homework.

This year our elementary school campus mirrors many in the Long Beach Unified School District, and other districts across the state, because we have fewer adults on the campus. Adults that used to provide library services, nursing, physical education, instrumental or vocal music lessons, computer instruction, counseling, janitorial services, and teachers aides to name a few. Budget cuts from the district have resulted in staffing cuts on school campuses and principals have juggled what small portions of their budgets they can control to keep cuts out of the classroom and core academic instruction and push the budget cuts into the "ancillary" services.

Long Beach Unified School District, and other districts up and down the state, are cutting their budgets because of the almost criminal budgeting processes that have been overseen by the California Legislature controlled by the Democrats and signed by Governors Gray Davis, another Democrat, and Arnold Schwarzenegger who ran as a Republican. Each of the budgets the past ten years has required anywhere from three to five Republicans to cross party lines to vote for the budget so there is fault on both parties for the obscene give aways the past decade to public employees in the form of salaries and benefits. Those give aways have resulted in take aways from our students. While prison guards have seen their salaries balloon our school has lost its nursing service so for five hundred or more students there is a nurse on campus 1 day a week.

While the Legislature has doubled the spending from the State it has taken billions away from our school districts while increasing the number of mandated programs and services that school districts must offer--whether needed in the district or not. So while the number of staffers who work for the Legislators and their committees who make well over $100,000 a year, plus benefits, has exploded, many campuses across the Long Beach Unified School District have no Physical Education.

Our campus is not alone, our childrens' campus reflects campuses throughout Long Beach Unified School District and up and down the state. District Administrators and principals are making difficult decisions as to who and what must go so our kids can learn the core subjects. In the meantime parents are scrambling to back fill funding for what they consider essential services and prioritizing their fundraising targets.

Last year our PTA was told that Patrick Henry Elementary would not have Ms. Roberts for the 2008-2009 school year. Ms. Roberts runs the computer lab and teaches our children how to use the computers, research on-line, how to do PowerPoint presentations. We asked how much to keep her and were told we would need to raise approximately $60,000 to keep her on campus 5 days a week. We began to fund raise because as parents we consider computer training and instruction in this day and age to be close to a core service. Thankfully we have so far raised funds to keep her four days a week, for this year, but what about next? It led us to establish the Henry Technology Endowment, realizing that funding for computer equipment and instruction would not be coming back to our district and campus in the near future. Why?

Why will we not see money coming back to our districts and campuses to fund and re-start services and programs that have been cut? Because the politicians in Sacramento have no incentive to cut the payments extracted through contracts to SEIU employees or other groups that have contributed to their campaigns and their party. We will not see any change because voters will continue to vote for the same individuals to fill the same seats and when they are term limited out of office you will vote for the person who represents the same party as the last one.

Long Beach Unified School District will find out later today if it will once again win the prestigious Broad Prize for Excellence in Public Schools. Since its inception in 2002 Long Beach Unified has been a finalist for the prize five times, winning it in 2003, including this year. As the Broad committee has observed, Long Beach Unified is an outstanding distrcit. Supervisor Chris Steinhauser, the Board of Education, the principals, the teachers, the support staff, the parents and the students overwhelming make positive contributions to the education of our children. Despite losing tens of millions of dollars in funding from the state budgets the past decade.

Our state collects more and more taxes, our state spends more and more money, our state sends less and less back to the taxpayers' school districts to educate their children. And yet the political intelligence of the California voters is such that they will re-elect again and again the people responsible for this broken budget process that has rewarded the public employees unions at the expense of our childrens' futures. Some would say the politicians actions are almost criminal rewarding political donors at the expense of citizens; I would say the proposed criminal act is with the voters for rewarding them with their votes.

Who are these people? Well for those who represent the Long Beach Unified School District here are the members of the California Assembly and Senate who voted to cut your school nurse, your PE instructor, your librarian, your language arts, your music, your computer lab, your counselor, your science camp:

Assembly:

Bonnie Lowenthal (D) 54th Assembly District (click here for campaign donors)

Warren Furutani (D) 55th Assembly District (click here for campaign donors)

Senate:

Rod Wright (D) 25th Senate District (click here for campaign donors)

Alan Lowenthal (D) 27th Senate District (click here for campaign donors)

Jenny Oropeze (D) 28th Senate District (click here for campaign donors)

Remember these names in 14 months when you go to vote...if you go to vote.

Who are they representing, the list of voters or the list of campaign donors? Who is taking money from your child's school and funneling it to those on their donor lists?

Don't live in Long Beach but want to find out who is responsible for taking funding from your district? Here are links for State Senators and for Assembly Members.

Being a responsible parent also means being a responsible voter, doing homework, studying for the election and doing your best on the final test: casting your votes.

UPDATE: It was announced today that Aldine Independent School District in Texas won the $1 million Broad Prize for 2009. Long Beach Unified School District as a finalist was awarded $250,000 for scholarships. Congratulations to everyone in the District for this accomplishment despite having no support or prospects for future support from Sacramento.

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LBUSD Needs To Delay Vacancy

On Tuesday September 1st the Long Beach Unified School District Board of Education will convene in a regularly scheduled meeting. The agenda packet for the board meetings is rather lengthy, in this case fifty-four pages.

Typical of these meetings is a closed session to deal with discipline issues for students and personnel in a closed meeting, and a rather large consent calendar. For those unfamiliar with committee meetings, commissions and boards, consent calendars are used to save time and allow for quickly passing measures and items that are routine and typically are not subject to any controversy. Items such as disbursements, credentions, procedures, approving contracts, are placed on the consent calendar and in that way the board can vote to approve many items at once instead of having ten, twenty, fifty...separate items read and voted upon.

Following the closed session and the consent calendar on Tuesday the LBUSD Board of Education will get to item 24. New Business. There are three very interesting items under new business, first is whether the Board will approve the renewal of the charter for Constellation Community Charter School which has had its difficulties abiding by its charter in the view of the Board. After the Constellation renewal vote the Board will have this item:

Resolution No. 090109-B, Declaring A Vacancy in the Office of Board of Education Member, District 3.

The entire resolution can be found on page 51 of the agenda. To recap for those not in the Long Beach area, or those who are but have been on a desert island, District 3 of the LBUSD has had as its elected representative one Michael Shane Ellis. His election was very controversial due to his lack of residency, though approved by City Attorney for the ballot despite not have established 30 day residence in the district, his only being on the ballot because of his relationship with now fired Executive Director of the Teachers' Association of Long Beach, Scott McVarish, and his complete lack of relationship with our community. Ellis' tenure on the school board brought more publicity to the board than ever before due not only to his election showing the attempt by TALB to take control of the school board, but subsequent reports of his being fired from a prior teaching job due to drinking in front of students, his multiple arrests for alcohol related incidents, the District's inability to prove his residency and finally his failure to show at scheduled school board meetings. In the middle of all this members of the community, led by the Greater Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, attempted to recall Ellis but the effort failed due to lack of the required number of signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

In August Ellis taped to the office doors of the other elected members of the Board of Education a letter of resignation effective September 1, 2009. While the members of the board have been doing research to determine how to vacate Ellis' 3rd District seat, the letter of resignation appears to have solved their problem, and that of the community--he finally is giving up a seat he had no interest in retaining once his mentor and puppet master McVarish was forced out at TALB.

Now the District has a big problem. Like many municipal bodies it is suffering from severe financial difficulties, overwhelmingly because of the State of California and its inability to properly budget the past decade. Because of the pending vacancy of the 3rd District Seat it must declare a special election to fill the seat. What makes this pill particularly hard to swallow is that the 3rd District seat comes up for regular election on April 13, 2010. Because of the City Charter if the Board of Education declares the seat vacant on Tuesday it must call a special election to fill the seat within 120 days of the seat being declared vacant--provided the regularly scheduled election is not within 120 days of the seat being vacant.

The special election will cost the District approximately $200,000. That pays for a couple of teachers plus benefits, or a lot of dry erase markers. That is too much money for a broke district to spend to fill a seat for four or five months.

It is my opinion that the current members of the Board of Education should look to use procedural rules to not accept Ellis' resignation; vote to postpone the vote on Resolution No. 090109-B or vote to reject it. What happens if the vote to declare the seat vacant fails? What happens if the board votes to hold over the declaration? The City Charter says the election must be within 120 days of the seat being declared vacant but what if such a declaration is never made?

The current members of the Board of Education, District 1 Member and President of the Board Mary Stanton, District 2 Member Felton Williams, District 4 Member Jon Meyer and District 5 Member David Barton, are smart and responsible officials. They work with an excellent staff at LBUSD led by Superintendent Chris Steinhauser. On this matter they have received briefings and advice from the district legal department on interpretations of the various rules regarding Ellis. At this point the board needs to take what may be a risk, but for $200,000 seems to have a pretty good return--postpone the vacancy of Ellis' seat until December. At that time the seat can be declared vacant and be filled during the regularly scheduled elections which will also see Stanton and Barton up for re-election.

But what of the people of Ellis' District 3? Do they not deserve representation? Sure they do, and they elected a representative who abandoned them. They failed to sign petitions to recall the representative they had despite the numerous reports on his short-comings as their representative. Because of their poor decisions regarding Ellis it is expected that the entire District suffer a loss of $200,000? Much of the money in the LBUSD goes into the 3rd District as it encompasses some of the poorest areas of the City. The schools within the 3rd District have more special needs programs and assistance than the other LBUSD schools and because of this the $200,000 cost of the special election might disproportionally affect the 3rd District--in essence it is in their best interest as well to keep the seat vacant until the regularly scheduled election on April 13, 2010.

School board members are often great community members who feel the need to help their communities and serve on the board. It is a mostly thankless task, it does not have any of the publicity of a City Council or other elected body. Go to any campus and ask parents dropping off kids who their School Board representative is and almost all of them will not be able to answer. Ask most of the teachers who represents their school and most will be unable to answer. Generally the members do not think in political terms or find ways to skirt the laws while not breaking the laws--something more polished politicians become rather adept at doing. They read the law and follow it.

In this case it is my hope that for the greater good of the students, teacher and administrators of the entire Long Beach Unified School District that the Board of Education reads the law from a different perspective, with the perspective of what if we do not make any declaration of vacancy?

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Rebuttal To Teacher Union President On Props 1A-E

On Wednesday the Press-Telegram ran a letter to the editor from Michael Day, President of the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) which I re-print below and link here. Mr. Day uses his letter to try to convince voters why they need to vote "yes" on Propositions 1A through E on Tuesday May 19th; or should I say scare voters into supporting the measures?

I have been publicly critical of Day in the past, most notably several posts I wrote for the Long Beach Post (you can click this link then put TALB in archives section, or for sample see this post); the main source of my criticism was not so much Day as the Executive Director of TALB until his dismissal last year, Scott McVarish. Since McVarish arrived in Long Beach TALB became increasingly militant and power hungry in his attempt to control the Long Beach Unified School District. After a take over of the union by the California Teachers Association and an audit which showed significant malfeasance by more than one staff member at TALB McVarish "resigned." During this period Day was the President of the local and acted very much in concert with McVarish and his plans for controlling the district. Since McVarish has left TALB has been working for their teachers more and against the district less.

With that as background here is Michael Day's letter to the editor on Wednesday May 13, 2009 to the Press-Telegram, my letter will follow:

Propositions support schools

For the last few years the employees and students of Long Beach Unified have dealt with dwindling support from Sacramento while maintaining high academic standards. Because of decreased funding we have seen support for students cut through reductions of specialists, aides, nurses and tutoring programs as the district works to maintain fundamental services for our kids. Even services we used to consider part of our core program, such as libraries, music and counseling, are being pared back to near non-existence.

The public needs to realize how important propositions 1A through 1E are to our schools. We need to support propositions 1A and 1B to restore the $9.3 billion Sacramento has taken from our schools while creating a plan to repay those vital funds. We need to support propositions 1C through 1E to ensure our schools do not suffer billions in cuts next year. We have been getting by the last couple of years, while making great academic gains, but a defeat at the ballot box will only cause suffering for the students we serve and the people who serve them.

For years teachers have been told we must do more with less. But if propositions 1A through 1E do not pass we will do less with less. The public and the politicians demand a great deal of accountability and performance from our schools. And in Long Beach our teachers, administrators and classified staffs meet those challenges. But until the public and politicians
are willing to equate adequate funding with performance we will not have the system our students deserve. Not for a lack of effort on our part but for a lack resolve on theirs. Please vote "yes" on Propositions 1A through 1E.

Michael Day
President
Teachers Association of Long Beach

Today, Thurdsay May 14th, the Press-Telegram printed my rebuttal to Mr. Day (link here, 2nd letter):

Support for schools

Re "Propositions support schools" (Letters, May 13):
Michael Day, president of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, is right: Our teachers, administrators and staff in the Long Beach Unified School District do a tremendous job educating my children and tens of thousands of others. He is correct that every year this job is being done with less and less support from Sacramento.

However, Day and others in Sacramento and in the public employee unions are perpetuating a fallacy in saying we must support Propositions 1A through 1E so our schools and other services will not face more cuts. Even if the propositions pass we will see cuts in services while state government continues to grow.

In the past 10 years the size of the state budget has doubled. Since California must have a balanced budget, this means that revenue to the state has also doubled in the past 10 years. In the past few years our schools have cut computer classes, science camps, counselors, music, reading and arts programs. Our state government has doubled in size and our school programs have been cut with more to follow.

I ask Mr. Day and other supporters of the propositions: In the past 10 years has the quality of education doubled? Has the funding for local schools doubled? While we have seen our taxes increase have we seen a corresponding increase in the level and quality of services delivered? I answer "no" to each of these questions, just as I will also vote on Props 1A-E.

What makes Mr. Day or other supporters of Props 1A-E think that giving Sacramento more money will not lead to even more cuts in funding for local education and programs? Voting "yes" on Props. 1A-E will just enable Sacramento to continue to spend our tax dollars to the benefit of public payrolls with no tangible benefit to our students or our citizens. If you need proof just look at the last 10 years.

Dennis C. Smith
Long Beach

Quit enabling Sacramento while disabling our schools and communities, vote no on Props1A-E!