Education | 89.3 KPCC

Arts in schools: Unusual charters use dance, string instruments to motivate students

Mary Plummer — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:00:28 -0700

Dance Advisor Sarri Sanchez leads a mixed-grade dance class on Tuesday, May 7 at Renaissance Arts Academy in Eagle Rock. The charter school has 350 students ranging from sixth to 12th grades.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

When Arturo Haro enrolled in Renaissance Arts Academy in the sixth grade, his music world consisted of reggae, rap and hip hop.

Then teachers handed him a viola. When he first carried the instrument home to Highland Park, some of his neighbors thought it was a gun.

"I honestly never knew what a viola was until I came here," said Haro, now a junior. "Having that instrument in my hands, it was like, wow, I’ve never had that feeling before."

Learning the instrument has helped him see life differently. At home, he now listens to classical music to help him focus. His grades have improved and his teachers said he's become a more serious student.

Renaissance Arts is an unusual charter school that incorporates string instruments and dance into its everyday curriculum. It is one of a handful of charter schools in L.A. Unified that are using arts not to create the next generation of artists, but to inspire regular students to stay in school.

Haro, for instance, wants to study architecture or engineering.

The school is remarkably successful. Renaissance Arts' most recent API score was 906 out of a possible 1,000. Its graduation rate was 100 percent. Ninety-seven percent of its students attended college.

About a block north of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, Gabriella Charter School shares a campus with Logan Street Elementary School. It also has an arts-based curriculum.

It incorporates nearly five hours of dance per week into the regular school day for first through eighth graders. Kindergartners dance 45 minutes per day. But it's not trying to train the next Mikhail Baryshnikov, either.

"There are a lot of schools that are performing arts schools and so the goal is to come to the school and train to be some sort of performing artist. Our students are not that," said Sophia Stoller, a dance teacher at the school. "The purpose is to really kind of reinforce their academic performance through art."

Gabriella is a high performing school; its API testing score is 894, more than 100 points above the district-wide average. Most Gabriella students come to the school with no background in dance.

But teachers and administrators at the school said dance has helped students succeed academically.

"What it allows students to do is to really set a lot of goals, learn how to receive feedback, learn how to work in a team, which are all skills that are helpful in the classroom and in life," said Principal Lisa Rooney.

One benefit of Gabriella's dance-based program, she said, is that it gives kinetic learners a chance to experience success – often for the first time.

"They have more energy, they're more awake, more aware," said first grade teacher Nicolette Zimmerman. Students at Gabriella can sustain their concentration better than at other schools where she's taught, she said -- something that's often a challenge for younger students.

Students spent most of this semester preparing for their end of year performance, which will take place tonight at USC's Bovard Auditorium and feature dance styles from around the world. Second grader Joseph Oliveros will play a surfer at the beach.

"We can’t wait until we perform the dance so all our parents see it. I bet they’ll be really proud of us," Oliveros said. He paused and added: "Really proud."

Founders of both schools say their vision wouldn’t have been possible outside of the charter world. Freedom from rules allowed them to create a school environment that’s entirely unique, they said.

But arts-based charter schools are far from common. Out of the 229 charter schools in LAUSD, fewer than 10 are arts schools. Steven McCarthy, the district's K-12 arts coordinator, estimates there are about 80 arts-focused schools in the entire school district.

"A lot of the energy and philanthropy and excitement around charters has not embraced arts as a priority, and again I think it comes back to the resource shortage," said Mark Slavkin, a former president of the LAUSD board. As Vice President for Education for The Music Center, he's in charge of its programs to teach arts.

He said part of the reason arts programs are often less available in charters than they are in traditional schools is that charters tend to be small and, as a result, so are their budgets.

Arts programs are expensive. Instruments are costly and they require upkeep. There are also costumes and royalty fees for stage productions.

Renaissance is also different in another way. The school is not divided into academic classrooms. Pods of students sit in small groups around teachers who work off mobile white boards. All of them share a big warehouse-type building that used to belong to the discount department store Dillards. Yet it's remarkably quiet.

"Sometimes people will come in and say, 'Oh, this is, it's great. When are you going to finish putting up the walls?' And it’s like, 'No, no, no, it is finished," said Sidnie Myrick, one of the school's co-founders.

Only the music lessons are held in rooms with doors, that border the main room.

The open floor plan is meant to foster collaboration and cross subject learning. Students aren’t divided by grade, either.

Myrick runs the school with PK Candaux. They both also work as teachers, but Renaissance Arts doesn't use that word - teachers are called "advisors" and students are "scholars."

This is the school's tenth year in operation.

Luisangel Ocon, 17, said he feels privileged to be attending the school. Like students at many charter schools around the state, he was admitted by lottery. He wants to become a doctor, but is grateful he got to learn the viola.

"The overall nature of it is to combine everything," he said. "It's such a great fusion of all the arts and all of the liberal arts and all of the sciences."

About this map: This map shows charters schools in Southern California that specialized in fine arts education, based on data provided by the California Charter Schools Association.

A teaching approach for slow learners gaining wide appeal

William Celis — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:00:28 -0700

Alezander Duran reads "Flyboy of Underwhere" by Bruce Hale.
A teaching method used for slow readers increasingly helps all students.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Want to help your kids improve their reading skills over the summer? You may want to try a teaching approach designed three decades ago for slow readers – educators are having success using it with all students.

Reciprocal teaching, deconstructs the reading process into four components:

Predicting, which is skimming a sentence, paragraph or passage for a sense of the topic;
Questioning, which involves asking questions about the material as you read;
Clarifying, which is wondering about information you did not comprehend by reading ahead or asking a teacher, parent or friend;
And summarizing, which is recalling the material you just read.

Sounds complicated, but it’s really about sitting down with your kids and reading something aloud with them and interjecting with the occasional question, such as “what do you think will happen next?” or “do you know what that word means?” or “what has happened so far in the story?”

The teaching method was first developed in 1984 by then-University of Illinois professors Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar and the late Ann L. Brown. The approach is now widely used in the U.S. and Canada and broadly taught and discussed in U.S. teacher training programs.

In recent years, reciprocal teaching has been used with readers of all levels and even to teach other subjects – history and math, for example -- for one simple reason: students benefit from the more structured approach to reading. Give it a try.

Have other tips to help kids improve their reading skills over the summer? Leave them in the comments below.

Hawaii's experiment in fixing schools may hold lessons for California

William Celis — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:21:10 -0700

Hawaii's $75 million school improvement campaign feeling growing pains.; Credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

If there was ever doubt about the challenge of school reform, Hawaii’s multi-million dollar campaign is an expensive reminder of how difficult it can be. An ambitious plan to extend the school day by an hour has been scaled back to a small number of schools as the state grapples with growing pains and learning what worked and what did not.

The school-day expansion was funded by a $75 million, four-year Race To the Top grant in 2010. Hawaii was only one of a dozen to receive the grant from the Obama Administration. The state promised to use the money to build better data systems, expand science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and improve academic performance at 19 lagging schools. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education lauded the state’s efforts.

As part of the reform efforts, Hawaii ran an extended day pilot program at 19 campuses during the 2012-13 school year. An extra hour was added Monday through Thursday and teachers got another dozen days of training.

But only two of the 19 schools are close to signing agreements to continue the extended-day program next year.

Al Nagasako, executive director of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, told the Associated Press that the state didn’t give schools enough guidance on how best to achieve results, and it was hard to measure the effectiveness of any one change with so many going on at once.

Teachers also complained about the stress, saying the extra hour cut into family time, especially for those with long commutes to remote rural schools.

Arts Ed UK style: a look at the movement abroad

Mary Plummer — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:00:35 -0700

High school students dance in an after-school program. In England, lawmakers have debated whether to include the arts in the English Baccalaureate.; Credit: Mae Ryan/KPCC

American educators aren't the only ones concerned about the loss of arts education in schools. Some lawmakers in England have pushed to include the arts as the "sixth pillar" of the English Baccalaureate, a performance measure for high school students more commonly known as the Ebacc.

The five pillars currently include English, science, math, languages and a humanities subject like history.

Wendy Earle, a researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, recently wrote an essay critiquing the current conversation in England around arts education. She said even arts education has a "get-the-grades emphasis" in England. She argues that the discussion in the UK around arts education has been too narrow and exaggerates the potential of the arts to solve social problems.

Instead, she said arts ought to be taught for its own sake, so children "can learn about some of the greatest artistic achievements of the past and enjoy their own artistic experiments."

The piece appeared in Spiked, an online magazine. Its lead editor is Brendan O'Neill, a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor.

The piece includes an interesting history of arts education in the England.

Here's an excerpt:

Too many of those working in contemporary education see the arts as having a moral mission. They view the arts as a means to promote empathy, raise environmental awareness, or inculcate anti-consumerism. The National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD), for example, even provides a series of teaching case studies to show how the arts can be used to help children to explore their identity and community, to find out about the Holocaust, and learn about recycling.

The conclusion is difficult to avoid: the future of art is seriously at risk, not because the government does not recognise its importance, but because so little art is taught, even under the guise of arts education.

Do you think arts education at the K-12 level should be used to tackle social issues? What type of arts ed efforts do you find to be the most beneficial? Let us know in the comments below.

Jury: Los Angeles Unified School District must pay $1.4 million in sex assault case

AP — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:46:56 -0700

A student on his way to school walks past a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school, in Los Angeles, California on Feb. 13, 2009.; Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Jurors say Los Angeles Unified School District officials must pay a special needs fourth-grader $1.4 million after she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male classmate in Chatsworth.

The Los Angeles Times reports Santa Monica jurors decided on the sum Tuesday night, following an eight-day trial that found poor program supervision at Superior Street Elementary was to blame.

The boy assaulted the girl behind a shed and tree in spring 2010, at a supervised after-school program.

Court records say one staffer supervised as many as 100 students, giving the 10-year-old boy opportunity to take the 9-year-old girl to locations on campus and force her to submit to and perform sex acts.

They were caught the fifth time after a teacher heard them.

The school district didn't immediately provide comment.

Teacher victory in LAUSD board race may not bode well for superintendent

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:03:55 -0700

LAUSD teacher Monica Ratliff won a seat on the LA Unified Board of Education on Tuesday.
; Credit: Rebecca Hill/KPCC

Teacher Monica Ratliff’s win of an open seat on L.A. Unified’s Board of Education Tuesday could provide some discomfort for the future of Superintendent John Deasy’s reform agenda.

Ratliff, a lawyer-turned-elementary school teacher, ran a bare-bones campaign. Many who donated money and volunteered were fellow teachers upset with Deasy’s focus on student test scores and charter schools.

“I think he follows an agenda of the so-called school reformists, the business model, very closely,” said adult education teacher Matthew Kogan, who walked precincts for Ratliff. “It’s a very narrow model and there’s a lot of hostile things about it towards teachers."

Kogan likes the nuanced position on Deasy taken by Ratliff, who approves of some of the superintendent's actions, but opposes other policies.

Kogan comes out of this pivotal election frustrated with his teachers’ union because it endorsed both candidates and didn’t open its campaign war chest for Ratliff, who’s a union representative. United Teachers Los Angeles president Warren Fletcher answers that he wouldn’t change what the union did in this election.

“We’re happy with the outcome, we’re happy that we’re going to have a working teacher with a classroom perspective on the school board,” Fletcher said.

The Coalition for School Reform is not happy with the results. Its donors and leaders, including L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, billionaire Eli Broad, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, wanted to strengthen Deasy’s support on the board. And that’s why the group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for Ratliff’s opponent in the runoff, Antonio Sanchez — a former Villaraigosa staffer.

SEIU Local 99 also supports Deasy and spent a lot of money on Sanchez’s campaign.

“We feel that he’s been someone who keeps the focus on the students, on the needs of the community,” said the union’s spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos, “and also really values the contributions of the support staff, of the cafeteria workers, of the custodians, and bus drivers in our schools.”

Few observers believe the board will immediately fire Deasy. Ratliff, they say, will join a minority of board members who’ll give stronger scrutiny to his proposals for improving schools.

“For me it sends a clear message that billionaires can’t just buy elections,” said Sean Abajian, an adult education teacher who donated money and helped Ratliff's campaign. “This is a historic upset for us in Los Angeles.”

Ratliff will be sworn in as L.A. Unified’s newest board member in July.

Cal State LA gets new president as CSU fills 5 openings

AP with Ed Joyce — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:42:19 -0700

The California State University Board of Trustees Wednesday appointed William A. Covino as President of California State University, Los Angeles. Covino was one of five new presidents appointed by the CSU trustees.
; Credit: Cary Edmondson

Five of the California State University's 23 campuses are getting new leaders, including California State University, Los Angeles.

The university's Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that it had approved a round of presidential appointments. Three of the positions were filled by administrators who have held the posts on an interim basis since last year, while two went to officials working at different campuses from the ones where they will hold the top jobs.

The schools getting fresh faces are two of the system's biggest - Cal State Los Angeles, which enrolled nearly 22,000 students in the fall, and Cal State Fresno, which has nearly 23,000.

Dr. William Covino, Fresno State's vice-president for academic affairs, was picked to run Cal State L.A.

"I am honored to join a university as outstanding as Cal State L.A. and look forward to engaging with students, faculty, alumni and the community to build on its strengths and create opportunities for the future,” said Covino in a news release. “The university is uniquely positioned in a global center for the arts, technology and the economy and it boasts a student population as diverse as the city it serves. Cal State L.A. truly reflects the changing face of California in the 21st century.”

Covino succeeds retiring President James M. Rosser, who has been the president of Cal State L.A. since 1979.

A vice chancellor at UC San Francisco, Joseph Castro, was selected to lead Fresno State.

New study weighs risks, opportunities of using test scores to evaluate Pre-K teachers

Deepa Fernandes — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:26 -0700

Teacher Susan Lopez reads a story along with her transitional kindergarten students.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Evaluating teachers based on student performance is one of the most controversial issues in education today. Pre-K to 3rd grade teachers have been exempt from this scrutiny, since their students don't take standardized test.

A new report by the New American Foundation looks at whether these teachers should also be evaluated based on student achievement.

“Research has confirmed, time and time again, that the quality of instruction and the quality of learning opportunities in children’s formative years sets the foundation for their success as students, and, later, their success as adults,” said Laura Bornfreud, the report's author.

The report, “An Ocean of Unknowns. Risks and Opportunities in Using Student Achievement Data to Evaluate PreK-3rd Grade Teachers,” stopped short of giving a recipe for how evaluations should take place.

It's more complex in these early grades. The report lays learning and other development students should pick up by the third grade: not just literacy and numeracy, but also social-emotional, physical and cognitive skills.

“Determining growth measures for these grades is among the most complex pieces of teacher evaluation reform,” Bornfreud said. It’s hard enough to devise a test to see what a preschooler has learned, let alone use such a test to then accurately evaluate the teacher.

The report breaks down the ways different states and school districts approach student and teacher assessment, finding “opportunities” and “risks” with all approaches.

Study authors mapped which states have upgraded their teacher evaluation policies since 2009. California is in the minority of states that have not upgraded standards in several years.

One of the report’s conclusions is that any system where teachers set goals and measures for students' growth when the teachers compensation and jobs depend on the outcome of those measures "is rife with problems."

High school musical theater students take over Pantages, winners to compete in NYC

Mary Plummer — Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:26 -0700

Calabasas High School students perform "Cool" from their production of West Side Story at the Pantages Theatre.; Credit: Mary Plummer/KPCC

Top musical theater students from around Southern California filled the audience of Hollywood's Pantages Theatre Sunday. They weren't there to see Wicked -- these students were invited to their very own awards ceremony, one that offered more than just a trophy.

The Jerry Herman high school musical theater awards selected winners in everything from best costume design to best musical for school productions held around Southern California this school year.

Six finalists for the best male and female lead roles performed on stage for a chance to win the top prize: an all-expenses-paid trip to New York for the national competition. Most students spent months practicing their parts.

"Throwing up is a definite possibility," finalist and high school junior Gabriella Certo said backstage as she waited to hear who had won. "Broadway's been my dream since I was a little kid."

Winners in New York will receive scholarship money - last year they got $10,000 each.

And the winners for top lead were: Natalia Vivino and Anthony Nappier.

"I am feeling over the moon," said Vivino, 16, a junior at Santa Susana High School in Simi Valley. "I feel like this is some sort of dream, I was not expecting this at all."

Nappier, 18, a senior at Arcadia High School, gave up the football team to dedicate more time to theater. He said he doesn't regret it one bit. His performance as Aldolpho from the musical comedy "The Drowsy Chaperone" brought many in the audience this weekend to their feet.

"It felt like I was winning a Tony," Nappier said. "I got up there and I am hoping to hear my name and then you hear you’re name and then you’re like did that just happen?"

Hollywood High School also won for Best Musical for its production of "In the Heights."

The night felt very Hollywood.

Vivino and Nappier breathlessly thanked everyone from family members to the Pantages sound engineers in their on stage acceptance speeches.

Celebrities like director Kenny Ortega, who was a guest judge, amped up the night's star power.

Ortega, a longtime collaborator with Michael Jackson, worked on what was to be Jackson's final "This Is It" tour. When a group of high schoolers surrounded him in the Pantages auditorium, they seemed to focus on another part of his career: Disney's "High School Musical" series.

Students shouted, "I love you Kenny!" and yelled "success" when he agreed to meet them after the show for a photo.

This year's ceremony is a big upgrade from last year when there were no performances or trophies, just informal auditions.

"We wanted them all to know that this is a possibility," to one day perform on a stage like the Pantages, said Paul Gleason, director of Education and Outreach for Nederlander, which owns the theater. Gleason hopes the event inspires kids to dream big and pursue careers in the arts.

One of last year's winners, Cortines high school senior Mason Alexander, was also selected as a finalist this year. He has some advice for this year's winners.

"You have to be a sponge, New York is intense," he said. "They throw a lot at you, you are there for a week and at the end of the week you put on a big show at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway."

CORRECTION: A previous version of this web story incorrectly identified Anthony Nappier's school. He attends Arcadia High School. KPCC regrets the error.

CSU trustees hope online classes will ease bottleneck on required courses

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:51:42 -0700

Officials said more online courses will help students at California State University, Los Angeles and other campuses complete graduation requirements.; Credit: Cal State LA

California State University officials today laid out to its trustees how the university plans to ease students' access to required courses in the fall -- a huge problem that affects tens of thousands fo students at all 23 campuses.

During a trustee meeting in Long Beach, Cal State officials said budget cuts have led to bottlenecks in lower level classes such as college algebra, general education biology, and micro economics.

“We have 22 courses across the CSU where we have high enrollment and also low success in those students completing those with good academic grades,” said Gerry Handley, head of CSU’s Academic Technology Services.

The university is counting on a $10 million allocation proposed by Governor Jerry Brown to tackle the problem.

Handley said the money will be spent on a three-pronged plan:

Increase online class options so that students can take a required class online at another Cal State campus.
Improve pass rates for these classes so students don’t have to take the class again, which would reduce demand on the courses.
Improve academic counseling, which officials said will help students complete general requirements for their majors.

Critics of the university’s efforts to expand online class offerings said the experience with remedial classes shows pass rates drop when courses are offered online. Cal State officials don’t dispute that – but say they’ll make sure an online class is the same quality as an on campus class.

UC schools draw record application numbers; UCLA as exclusive as Tufts — for state students

William Celis — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:50:29 -0700

Lucky UCLA students sit around the Bruin Bear statue during lunchtime. The school has become as competitive as Tufts and Cornell, according to a recent article.; Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

The University of California system remains a popular destination for incoming freshmen – and getting into UCLA is now as hard as getting into Tufts and Cornell, at least for California students.

The 10-campus U.C. system drew nearly 140,000 applications for the undergraduate class, according to Ralph Becker, a columnist for College Counseling. He said UCLA led all UC campuses with 99,000 applications, which include community college transfers. Berkeley came in second place, with a record 67,600 applications, and UCSD followed with 67,400.

UCLA reported an in-state admission rate of 17.4 percent, Becker said, a level comparable to Cornell and Tufts, two of the nation’s most selective universities. Overall, the 10 campuses accepted 82,850 freshman, for an average acceptance rate of 59 percent. Berkeley and San Diego campuses were more exclusive than the average.

The numbers show that despite the rising expense and increasingly competitive nature of college admissions, many Americans clearly still consider higher education a calling card they can’t do without.

But the prestigious public U.C. system is changing in one profound way: out-of-state students increasingly make up more of its enrollment. About a third of the 14,100 freshmen admitted at Berkeley, for instance, come from a state other than California.

These out-of-state students pay premium tuition for being nonresidents. At current tuition rates, they would bring in $112 million for UC coffers, Becker wrote. As college tuition increases for in-state students slow, many public university systems, including the UC system, will continue to see out of state admits as a revenue source.

According to the American Council on Education, tuition growth last year was 4.8 percent, the lowest increase in more than a decade.

LA Unified candidates Monica Ratliff, Antonio Sanchez square off

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:28:33 -0700

(L) District 6 School Board Candidate, Monica Ratliff, in her classroom at San Pedro Street Elementary. (R) District 6 School Board Candidate Antonio Sanchez.; Credit: Rebecca Hill/KPCC

With less than a day before elections the candidates for the pivotal L.A. Unified school board district 6 race squared off on key classroom policies on KPCC’s Airtalk. The candidates tried to highlight policy differences -- but they didn't appear as wide as each candidate contends.

Former lawyer and current elementary school teacher Monica Ratliff is a union representative with United Teachers Los Angeles. But she said that doesn’t mean she would be in lock step if elected to the seven-member board of education.

“I don’t think that’s actually been indicated by my record so far,” she said.

Ratliff said seniority-based layoffs have hurt schools in poor areas that have high proportions of junior teachers -- so she thinks seniority should be less of a factor when the school district carries out layoffs.

Urban planner Antonio Sanchez, who’s never held elective office but has worked on political campaigns, agreed with Ratliff.

Both candidates, which are vying to represent the east San Fernando Valley, said teacher evaluations should include student standardized test scores.

“I value experience,” Sanchez said “but at the end of the day we should consider experience and effectiveness in the classroom.”

Support for current L.A. Unified Superintendent John Deasy and his policies has become a sort of litmus test for candidates. And here’s where a difference of opinion was in evidence.

“I support his policies,” Sanchez said unequivocally.

“I don’t agree with him on everything,” Ratliff said.

United Teachers Los Angeles endorsed both candidates for the primary elections in March and has stood by its endorsements.

The big money in this school board runoff is coming from independent expenditure committees funded by people who strongly support the idea of keeping Deasy as Superintendent.

UTLA’s criticism of Deasy has been consistent since the Superintendent was hired by a majority of the school board two years ago. The teachers’ union independent expenditure committee has spent no money in the race.

“I would love it if these big donations went directly to the schools because we could buy so much for each school with each of these large donations,” Ratliff said.

Over the weekend, independent expenditure committees supporting Sanchez continued to file with city officials tallies of how they're spending their donations. The most recent filings show more than $2 million spent by independent committees in the primary and runoff elections.

Teaching tips: How to make the last 2 weeks of school memorable

Mary Plummer — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:19:44 -0700

For many Southern California students, summer is just a few weeks away. Getting through the last few weeks of classroom work can be a challenge when summer fun is on the mind.; Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

As teachers and students enter the final weeks of the school year, the temptation of summer - freedom so close, but not quite here - can rattle even the most dedicated pupils. Minds wander, attention spans seem to grow shorter and day dreaming often becomes harder to resist.

And once state testing and finals are done, some teachers can also get tempted into leniency and playing videos.

To help you make it the finish line, Sacramento-based high school teacher and Education week blogger Larry Ferlazzo has come up with a great list of resources for how to use classroom time during the last two weeks of school.

Some of the tips include strategies for how to avoid going into autopilot, engaging students in memorable end-of-the-year field trips, and a helpful checklist for year's-end planning. In addition, Ferlazzo features a bunch of great reading tips from Texas elementary school teacher Donalyn Miller that aim to keep kids' reading levels high during the off months.

Resources from Ferlazzo's post:

Finishing the School Year Strong and Teaching Secrets: The Last Day of School are two pieces I've previously written for Education Week Teacher.

Ideas for English-Language Learners | Celebrating the End of the School Year is a post I recently co-authored for The New York Times Learning Network.

Middleweb has pulled together a very nice collection of related posts and articles.

And, finally, you might want to explore The Best Ideas On How To Finish The School Year Strong.

Do you have any tips for how to make the last two weeks of school memorable and engaging for students? Share ideas or resources in the comments below.

Sanchez, Ratliff face off in LAUSD School Board District 6 debate

AirTalk — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:04:15 -0700

(L) District 6 School Board Candidate, Monica Ratliff, in her classroom at San Pedro Street Elementary. (R) District 6 School Board Candidate Antonio Sanchez.; Credit: Rebecca Hill/KPCC

Tomorrow, voters will be asked to choose between two candidates in a runoff for a seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District board representing the east San Fernando Valley.

Monica Ratliff’s and Antonio Sanchez’s stances on the issues seem similar on many issues, though Sanchez, a rising star in Los Angeles’ political scene, has quite a bit of big-money backers and a political-action committee headed by Mayor Villaraigosa. Ahead of tomorrow’s run-off, the candidates will discuss everything from disruptive students in classrooms to school-served breakfasts.

Guests:
Monica Ratliff, elementary school teacher and candidate for school board

Antonio Sanchez, candidate for school board

Money contines to pours, unevenly, into LA Unified school board race

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:30 -0700

District 6 School Board Candidate, Antonio Sanchez is a political newcomer who studied urban planning and worked for Antonio Villaraigosa.; Credit: Rebecca Hill/KPCC

As she walked onto a rally in front of the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters on Tuesday, Monica Ratliff was greeted as a minor celebrity.

Hundreds of union workers were applying pressure on the school board to spend new state revenues on cutting class sizes and rehiring laid-off teachers, counselors, and librarians.

Adult education teacher Juan Noguera spotted Ratliff, who’d just arrived from her job as a fifth grade teacher, and asked if he could take a picture with her.

“Adult Education supports you,” he gushed.

"I support adult education," she replied.

Ratliff said it's this kind of ground-level support that will put her over the top. It's pretty much all she's got. Ratliff has run a part-time campaign on a shoe-string budget.

As election day looms for this year's remaining undecided seat for the L.A. Unified's board, outside groups continue to pour money into the race -- all of it for her opponent, political newcomer Antonio Sanchez.

Political action committees have spent nearly $600,000 on his behalf. The money has gone mostly to targeted full-color flyers and calls to some of the district’s nearly quarter of a million registered voters. Turnout in the city was less than 20 percent in the March primaries -- and isn't expected to improve on Tuesday.

Education researcher Bruce Fuller said Sanchez has a clear upper hand in the race.

“Mr. Sanchez has been out there on the campaign trail, and he has the money, and the discretionary time to be a professional politician," he said. "Ms. Ratliff is still trying to cover her classes and her day job. It’s kind of romantic and appealing that Ms Ratliff is teaching while having a more modest campaign.

"But money matters in terms of giving Sanchez more publicity, more time on the campaign trail,” he added.

Sanchez has been going door-to-door in District 6, which includes his hometown of Pacoima.

On Friday, he stopped to talk to Antonio Martinez, 63, who raised two children in this part of the east San Fernando Valley.

“What changes are you going to make in the schools?” Martinez asked him.

“Right now not all kids are reading at grade level and we have our graduation rate is too low," Sanchez replied. "I grew up in these neighborhoods and I know the challenges these kids are facing.”

Fuller, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, said the outcome of Tuesday's election has implications for all of L.A. Unified. Three of the seven board members oppose huge chunks of the superintendent's agenda. Ratliff could be a fourth -- and that would have an impact on classroom policies.

“This race is really pivotal in terms of whether Mayor Villaraigosa and Superintendent Deasy’s reform agenda is going to continue and take deeper root in the district,” Fuller said.

Ratliff began practicing law in 1997. Nearly a decade later she changed careers, becoming a public school teacher. She serves as a union official for her school and a representative in UTLA's large policy-making body. Along with rehiring teachers who lost their jobs due to years of cutbacks, the union wants to reduce class sizes and improve the way teachers are evaluated.

Sanchez supports charter schools, using student test scores to evaluate teachers evaluations and other so-called reform policies endorsed by Superintendent John Deasy.

The Coalition for School Reform, a charter-friendly PAC created by Villaraigosa, has raised money from wealthy donors here and across the country to influence the race. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $350,000 over the last few weeks, his second large donation.

“I didn’t know that the donation was coming," Sanchez said as he walked the Pacoima neighborhood where he grew up, talking to potential voters. "I didn’t know that this race was going to cost so much. I had no idea.”

By comparison, Sanchez has raised less than $70,000 on his own -- and Ratliff a mere $30,000.

United Teachers Los Angeles -- for decades a force to be reckoned with in school board elections -- has stayed uncharacteristically silent during this runoff election. Records show the union spent no money in the two months since the primaries.

UTLA took the unusual step of endorsing both Ratliff and Sanchez, an urban planner who’s never been a public school teacher.

“Both of them are highly qualified candidates,” union president Warren Fletcher said. “Monica Ratliff is a classroom teacher who’s going to bring that perspective to the school board. And Antonio Sanchez is somebody who has a lot of background in governmental issues.”

Yet two years ago the teachers union spent nearly $1.5 million to support a teacher running against a charter school-friendly candidate.

Ratliff said she doesn't care about the money.

“I believe that I’ve had a lot of support from individuals within UTLA," she said. "There’s been a lot of teachers walking for me. And I believe that I have a lot of support within UTLA.”