KPCC: Stories by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

Trigger cuts: Some schools ready, some schools not

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:11:35 -0800

Credit: lukesaagi (cc by-nc-nd)

News of a likely one and a half billion dollar midyear cut to California public schools is sinking in across the state. While these trigger cuts may take a few months to materialize, KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports some districts aren’t worried.

The trigger cuts would be terrible news for several school districts. Inglewood Unified, for one, has told the state it will run out of money before the school year is out.

Riverside Unified, says Superintendent Rick Miller, will tap into reserve funds.

"Nobody in this district, I think, will see any changes in this year, in basically the second semester which is what we’re talking about," Miller said.

The problem, Miller says, is the district will have to make cuts later to replenish the reserves as required by state law.

Arcadia Unified, says Superintendent Joel Shawn, planned for the trigger cuts by slashing $5 million from its budget last June.

"We reduced staffing and we agreed to take, teachers took seven furlough days and everyone else took five furlough days. We reduced the school year by five student days," Shawn said.

A school district’s largest expense is teacher salaries. That’s what Capistrano Unified will target, spokesman Marcus Walton says, when trigger cuts force the district to reopen negotiations with its teachers’ union.

Everything would be on the table, from salary reductions to furlough days. A shortfall in expected revenue will trigger the midyear cuts to schools, universities, and other public agencies. The governor’s office is expected to announce the midyear cuts in a few weeks.

Public school advocates are expected to pressure lawmakers to take their finger away from the trigger and find the funds elsewhere in California’s tight budget.

Cal State faculty, students stage 1-day strike for pay raise

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:40:50 -0800

Faculty at Cal State Dominguez Hills walked off the job today to pressure the university to grant them a .25 percent pay raise. The strike is part of a one day strike at two campuses organized by the system-wide union that represents faculty at 23 campuses. Credit: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

The union that represents California State University faculty has staged a one day strike today at two campuses, one in Southern California, the other in the Bay Area. The union's trying to pressure the university to give faculty a one quarter of one percent pay raise.

The California Faculty Association, which represents about 23,000 professors, lecturers, coaches, counselors and librarians, authorized the one-day strike at the East Bay and Dominguez Hills campuses.

Protesters began arriving early in the day at the Dominguez Hills campus in Carson, wearing red T-shirts bearing the words "enough is enough" and carrying picket signs.

Protesters carried a 10-foot-tall puppet bearing a likeness of CSU Chancellor Charles Reed with a grimace on his face and two fistfuls of cash.

Physics professor Jim Hill is one of about a dozen people protesting at the northwest corner of campus.

Hill said the strike is not just about the pay raise.

"It's mainly about the quality of education and the quality of our system," Hill said.

He said the system as a whole has struggled with several issues throughout the years, including a lack of pay raises and the constant hiking of tuition and fees.

"The leadership of this institution is using faculty, students and staff as if they were ATMs," said Lillian Taiz, a professor of history at Dominguez Hills and president of the faculty association. "They turn to us to bail out the university."

CSU administrators say the pay raise faculty is asking for would amount to $20 million and the university can't afford it.

The CSU system, which has more than 400,000 students, lost $650 million in state support this year and expects to lose another $100 million because of a projected shortfall in state revenue.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed has said paying the faculty raises would mean offering fewer classes for students while the system is cutting its budget by $750 million.

Today's strike was the first faculty walkout in the history of the 23-campus system. The protest comes one day after Cal State trustees approved a $500 tuition increase in anticipation of budget cuts.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Arrests follow violence at Cal State meeting over $500 tuition hike

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:45:46 -0800

Protesters smashed one of the large glass doors leading into the CSU Board of Trustees' headquarters on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011. Credit: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

Violence interrupted the Cal State University Board of Trustees meeting today as trustees were poised to vote on a tuition increase. The trustees reconvened elsewhere and voted to approve the $500 increase for undergraudates for fall 2012, a 9 percent hike, bringing tuition to nearly $6,000. With fees, students will pay about $7,000 per year.

One of the large glass doors leading into the California State University Board of Trustees' headquarters was smashed as protestors tried prying it open while officers held it shut. This followed the trustees going into recess when protestors would not stop talking after the public comment period ended.

University police used pepper spray on protestors. Three officers were injured and four protesters were arrested. About two dozen university police officers in full riot gear stood in front of headquarters to keep protesters at bay. There were around 150 protesters outside.

A few protesters forced their way in earlier to the Long Beach meeting and had an altercation with officers. At least three were taken away by officers.

Following the altercations, protesters dispersed.

Students have been demonstrating at the trustees meeting and on several campuses across the state.

The trustees say tuition will go up next fall unless state lawmakers boost funding for higher education. University officials said they’d hoped to avert the increase with an extra $138 million from the state. California’s $13 billion budget shortfall projection, announced Wednesday, makes that an unlikely prospect.

James Henderson is the dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences at Cal State L.A. He says he knows the chance the state will boost higher education funding is slim.

“I don’t think anyone has the sense there’s money just laying around the state is looking for a place to invest," Henderson said. "But I also think it’s a question of what are our priorities as a state. And where do we feel we need to invest."

He says CSU students face big challenges. "Our students are working 30 or 40 hours a week. They’re taking care of family members. They’re working two or three jobs. And they’re trying to get an education. And for them an increase of 9 percent is a lot. It's really difficult."

With the increase, tuition in the CSU system next fall will be triple what it was a decade ago.

UC Regents could soon adopt a similar tuition increase plan.

Cal State Long Beach senior James Suazo participated in a demonstration earlier today. He told KPCC’s Larry Mantle that CSU trustees should have considered other options.

“They needed to create a campaign to tax the wealthiest 1 percent," Suazo said. "They need to close the corporate loopholes created by Prop 13. They need to advocate on behalf of students that we can’t afford these and that we need to take the money from the people who have the money, which is the 1 percent, which is the banks, because students cannot afford this. And we can’t afford these attacks.”

KPCC's Mike Roe contributed to this story.

LA Unified teachers ask their union to yield on evaluations

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:27:19 -0800

L.A. Unified’s administration and teachers’ union have locked horns this year over whether to consider student progress in teacher evaluations. Some teachers hope the union will yield some ground after they submit a petition to its officers today.

The group submitting the petition calls itself Teachers for a New Unionism. Their petition makes a broad request for union leaders to negotiate a teacher-driven evaluation system. James Encinas, an L.A. Unified elementary school teacher for 15 years, believes union leaders are out of step with how a significant part of the membership views evaluations.

"I wouldn’t have a problem with having the value added be a small part of that process, 10 to 15 percent for me. But again, that’s what the conversation needs to be about," Encinas said.

Value-added is the formula that uses student progress on standardized tests to evaluate teachers’ job performance. There’s a lot riding on whether the school district adopts value-added. The teachers’ union president calls it a flawed method. L.A. Unified’s superintendent says it should be one of several factors that measure whether a teacher is effective.

CSU chancellor to faculty: No pay raise

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:56:34 -0800

At right, California State University Chancellor, Charles Reed. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Three days before a planned faculty strike at two campuses, California State University’s chancellor reiterated in a teleconference this morning that the university system can’t afford to offer professors a pay raise.

In stalled contract talks the California Faculty Association has requested a quarter-percent pay raise for faculty at the system’s 23 campuses. University Chancellor Charles Reed said that translates to $20 million a year.

"The only way that we could do that would be to take it from students in the sense that we would have to divert the money from classes and sections and offer fewer classes and sections to students," Reed said.

In protest, the faculty association is moving forward with a one-day strike this Thursday at Cal State Dominguez Hills in south L.A. County and Cal State East Bay in northern California.

Reed said he believes most professors at those campuses will show up to work. Don’t count on it, the California Faculty Association responded. It plans to bus professors from other campuses to support the strike. Cal State is stepping up security on the campuses, the chancellor said, but the system hasn’t made plans to hire substitute professors if faculty don’t show up to work.

Threats of violence force UC Regents to postpone meeting

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:30:54 -0800

Officials at the University of California said today they’re postponing their planned regents meeting in San Francisco after they received credible threats of violence.

In a statement, UC President Mark Yudoff and regents Sherry Lansing and Bruce Varner said police warned them last week that “rogue elements” planned to infiltrate peaceful protestors at the Wednesday and Thursday meetings this week. Police told UC leaders there was a “real danger of significant violence and vandalism.”

So after a recommendation from police, the UC leaders decided to schedule the meeting for another date — and possibly another location. They said in the statement that a tuition increase "was never part of the agenda for this meeting."

The Bay Area's become a simmering pot of anti-Wall Street activism as authorities have moved to dismantle the Occupy Oakland protest while UC officials faced criticism after university police in riot gear last week hit students with batons to hold back a protest at UC Berkeley. Students at that campus plan a walkout this week.

Casey Wasserman donates $4 million for LAUSD classrooms

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:44:28 -0800

The late Hollywood studio chief Lew Wasserman’s charity announced Monday it’s donating $4 million to Los Angeles Unified schools. Half the contribution takes the form of gift cards to 600,000 L.A. Unified families.

Each Wasserman Foundation gift card will be worth $15. The catch is that recipients may only use the money on the charitable web site, DonorsChoose.org.

The site is full of L.A. Unified teachers’ requests for supplies — printers, dry erase boards, books and the like.

Wasserman Foundation President Casey Wasserman’s announcing the $4 million donation to L.A. Unified schools with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy called the announcement a "desperately needed boost'' at a time of continuing massive budget cuts to public schools.

Of the total, $2 million will go toward the gift cards, another $2 million will match donations the school district’s lined up. Foundation officials say gift cards will not go to the families of L.A. Unified charter school students.

The foundation also announced a commitment for the next two years to match every dollar that is submitted on the www.DonorsChooseLA.org website to fund LAUSD public and charter school initiatives.

"I hope this project sparks tens of thousands of Angelenos to become micro-philanthropists by aiding critical teacher requests and creating a more robust learning environment for our kids," Wasserman said.

California parents meet in LA to organize for state initiative

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:45:16 -0800

Public school parents from different parts of the state are meeting in Los Angeles though the weekend to draw up a statewide ballot initiative they say would give parents a bigger role in education policy.

Organizers haven’t worked out many details about the initiative, except that they want it on next year’s November ballot.

Educate Our State co-founder Teri Levy says that’s so voters can "move a collaborative framework with teachers and parents and administrators to improve the quality of education, which encompasses teacher evaluation, student achievement and professional development."

The group operates independently of other large organizations, Levy says. She adds that about 100 participants are in Los Angeles to learn what it’ll take to carry out their goals.

The group includes the California PTA, Invest in PUSD Kids, and Bay Area education advocates in a list of "like-minded" organizations.

Correction: The original story incorrectly stated that the California State PTA had endorsed Educate Our State. Apologies.

Congresswoman and LA band tackle mental health needs

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:21:55 -0800

Southeast L.A. County congresswoman Grace Napolitano teamed up with the members of L.A. roots-party band Ozomatli on Thursday to try and raise more money for public school mental health services.

Napolitano has written a bill she calls the “Mental Health in Schools Act of 2011” It would make available $200 million of grants for public schools nationwide, "that would be interested in putting on site, technicians to be able to deal with pressures" students have, Napolitano said.

During a panel at Cerritos College, Napolitano told students that therapy might have helped her late husband overcome the alcoholism that ultimately killed him. Ulises Bella of the band Ozomatli also spoke on the panel. At a meeting in Washington DC earlier this year, he told the congresswoman that group therapy has kept the band together.

"As far as a band, in a lot of ways we are a micro of the macro of the society, we’ve had to deal with addiction, alcoholism, we’ve had to deal with mental health issues, people breaking down mentally," Bella said.

Active Minds, a student group founded to help compensate for the absence of a full time mental health professional on the campus, organized the event. Laura Munro co-founded the group last year.

"To try to get past the stigma that mental illness has and realize that thre are people who want to help and will help you, that there’s hope for a life besides the mental illness that doesn’t have to dictate your life, there’s more," Munro said.

Munro’s lived it. A depression diagnosis several years ago and professional help has improved her life. The event’s success gave Munro and others a second reason for hope. This academic year, Cerritos College found the money for an on-campus mental health professional to help students.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified student group Active Minds as "Creative Minds." Our apologies for the error.

ACLU alleges widespread student cell phone privacy violations

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:00:33 -0800

A cell phone. Credit: Mike Fisher/Flickr

A report out Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union alleges teenagers’ privacy rights are often violated by public school administrators who confiscate student cell phones.

The problem, the ACLU says, is when administrators confiscate student cell phones, they find all kinds of information, some related to a suspicion the teen has broken the law or a school rule, some of it unrelated. A broad search of a cell phone can reveal a student’s personal or family financial information, romantic relationships or sexual orientation that a student may not want others to know about, according to the ACLU.

The ACLU report recommends districts train personnel to use specific and objective facts to search cell phones and to stop searching cell phones to find misconduct by other students.

In a memo to superintendents, Orange County Office of Education officials forwarded the ACLU report and did not criticize the findings. The memo recommended that administrators conduct cell phone searches only if they believe a student’s used the device to break the law or a school rule, not when a student’s violated the school’s cell phone possession rule.

LA community colleges move to end construction contract

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:45:36 -0800

The Los Angeles Community College District has been under fire for waste and mismanagement in its $6 billion construction program. The district announced Wednesday that it’s taking steps to terminate its contract with a large construction management company.

In a statement announcing the decision, Chancellor Daniel Lavista criticized New York-based Turner Construction for its handling of projects at West Los Angeles College. Among other things, he said the company allowed various contractors to work without written agreements or bids.

“By informing Turner of our intent to terminate its college program management contract, we are making it clear that no waste or mismanagement in our building program will be tolerated,” Lavista said.

The construction program includes projects at each of its nine campuses: Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Mission College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, East Los Angeles College, Pierce College, Los Angeles Valley College, Los Angeles Harbor College, Los Angeles Southwest College, and West Los Angeles College.

A series of reports by the L.A. Times and an audit by the California's State Controller detailed millions of dollars in unfinished projects and poorly constructed buildings. The controller’s audit faulted lack of oversight by LA Community College District administrators and by an independent committee. The district has also acted to terminate the contracts of two other construction companies.

“We will not tolerate shoddy work or underperforming firms at LACCD. Today’s actions are another step in our efforts to reform the building program. We are committed to taking whatever steps are necessary to protect the taxpayers of Los Angeles, including terminating multi-million dollar contracts,” trustee Miguel Santiago said in a written statement.

A vice president for Turner Construction said the company stands behind its work for the college and is confident it’ll resolve its contractual issues. The college district will take up Turner’s contract termination at a hearing next month.

Kevin Dow, a vice president for Turner Construction Co. said the company stands behind its work for the college and is confident it’ll resolve its contractual issues. "Turner has operated in the best interest of the college," Dow said. The college district will take up Turner Construction Co.'s contract termination at a hearing scheduled for December 12.

This story has been updated.

LA Unified and teachers union at odds over reforms

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:32:00 -0800

A student on his way to school walks past a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school, in Los Angeles, California on February 13, 2009. Credit: Robyn Beck/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers union have been unable to find acceptable common ground in a contentious program after a November first negotiating deadline.

The program is called Public School Choice. For the last two years it has accepted bids over the administration of dozens of new and low-performing L.A. Unified Schools. Board members created the program out of frustration over improvements they said were taking too long.

In-district and outside groups, including charter school companies, have won those bids. Supporters of the reform say giving these groups a chance to improve schools will speed up improvement that'll spill over into neighboring, traditional schools.

Two months ago, school board members voted a significant change to Public School Choice. Under the modification, the campus plans submitted by in-district groups would get priority over those from outside groups. The change would also give campus administrators control over hiring, funding, and performance evaluations. That would be a major change over how schools in the system are usually run.

The changes are generating controversy because L.A. Unified's powerful teachers' union, United Teachers Los Angeles, must agree to them before they can take affect.

A Nov. 1 deadline for such an agreement came and went. Neither side has said a deal is dead.

A coalition of groups calling itself "Don't Hold Us Back" have carried out a publicity campaign urging an agreement. Many of the groups in the coalition have sided with past reforms championed by L.A. Unified’s superintendent and the current board president.

The coalition doesn’t specify which side it supports even as it calls upon the district to reward teachers when their students excel.

Cal State faculty to strike at two campuses Nov. 17

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:53:00 -0800

California State University Dominguez Hills is one of two campuses approved for a one day strike on Nov. 17. Credit: Coolcaesar/Wikimedia Commons

The union that represents faculty, librarians and other workers at the California State University (CSU) system today approved a one day strike at CSU Dominguez Hills in southern L.A. County and Cal State East Bay in Northern California. The strike is scheduled for Nov. 17.

The California Faculty Association and the university's administration are deadlocked on a new labor contract. The association says the stumbling block is its request for a .25 percent pay raise for the union's 23,000 members. Cal State says it can't afford the raise.

The association's president, Lillian Taiz, said members have voted for the last several weeks overwhelmingly in favor of a one day strike.

"It's very clear from the results that our members are angry and are willing to take this kind of action to get the attention of the chancellor and get him to take a new approach to his misplaced priorities for the California State University," Taiz said.

It's the first time the California Faculty Association has voted to go on strike. The association has organized informational pickets at some campuses this week. Officials at Cal State Dominguez Hills say the administration will keep the campus open and students are expected to attend classes during the November strike.

LA Unified holds first positive behavior symposium

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:20:03 -0700

A student on his way to school walks past a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school bus. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Some 350 Los Angeles Unified educators attended a first-of-its-kind symposium Wednesday on how schools can improve student behavior.

Discipline problems are frustrating to teachers and contribute to students’ poor academic performance and drop out rates.

At the symposium, one education scholar told participants why harsh discipline doesn’t compel students to behave. Another speaker, this one a public interest lawyer, said more people need to advocate on students’ behalf.

L.A. County Juvenile Court Judge Donna Groman told the group that time in juvenile hall doesn’t help all students who break school rules — so that’s why she'd like to keep more in class.

"We don’t always know that you have a plan that you’re implementing; and that this youth is changing for the positive — and because we see a report that says missed 10 days of school, off they go to juvenile hall," she said. "And that defeats everything you’re trying to do."

The plan that’s generating a sea change across LAUSD campuses is called "School Wide Positive Behavior Supports."

Sharon Katz is a principal at a South L.A. elementary school, after the symposium, she said she’d return to her campus with ideas to reward good behavior with a little fun. "We can play a bingo game and when they fill out a bingo card for good behavior we can recognize them for that. She had some good ideas: A pie eating contest. "I think my kids would enjoy watching my teachers eat pie and getting all messed up. There was a principal here cut his head into a Mohawk and painted it pink for some time, I would go for something like that, too," she said.

L.A. Unified’s local district seven includes more than 80 schools. Each one sent representatives, and a few included parents. Elementary school teacher Baadia Daaood said the conference gave her some ideas for ramping up parent involvement. "Some of the parents are just not available for one reason or another to really devote the quality time that children need, and I just think that the children want more quality time and they want to feel like they’re cared for," Daaood said.

Toward the end of the symposium, school representatives wrote down what they’ll do to make the district’s positive behavior policy work. Administrators said they plan to visit schools from time to time and carry along copies of those pledges.

LAUSD rehires 300 employees after union endorses agreement

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:13:18 -0700

File photo: A student on his way to school walks past a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school bus. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

More than 300 employees laid off by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are going back to work. The California School Employees Association (CSEA), which represents the workers, approved the agreement on Tuesday.

The deal requires CSEA employees to take four furlough days between January and June of next year. A press release detailed that the district will restore $8 million worth of 2011-12 CSEA-funded positions. The LAUSD Board of Education approved the agreement unanimously and without comment at its October 25 meeting.

"This agreement returns vital staff to many of our campuses." said Superintendent John Deasy in a press release statement. "I applaud CSEA and its members for taking this step. At a time of crippling budget cuts, restoring these positions is especially welcome news for principals, teachers, and parents."

The agreement will bring back 79 financial managers, 98 six-hour library aides, 63 four-hour office technicians, and 60 eight-hour office technicians to LAUSD schools. The school district says the employees should be back on the job by mid-November.

The money for rehiring mostly comes from a $55 million surplus that LAUSD carried over from its last fiscal year. CSEA is urging the district to use those funds to rehire some of the 1200 teachers that lost their jobs to budget cuts this year.

The Associate Press contributed to this report.

LA school mixes empowerment lesson with Halloween parade

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:06:29 -0700

The Halloween parade at Gratts Primary Center near downtown L.A. provided students a lesson in dress up and self esteem. Credit: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

At one elementary school west of downtown Los Angeles, this Halloween provided a lesson in dress up and self-esteem.

Teacher Dolores Gallegos lined up 23 first-graders for the Gratts Primary Center Halloween parade. They’re wearing paper masks and capes in yellow, light blue, and pink.

"We told the kids to tap into their own superheroes and what special powers they have, so on their cape is their superpower," she said.

Some are fast as a lightning bolt; others are quick as a skateboard. Zelina Muñoz-Friedman shepherded her kindergarteners to the parade.

"It’s an important classroom lesson because it’s very important for them to know that there are different types of heroes, superheroes in the community besides police officers and fire people," she said.

Daniel’s in her class. He’s wearing a yellow felt mask.

"My costume is about a little bumble bee," he says. Muñoz-Friedman responds, "What’s this one, which one is this one, what did you do?" And Daniel says, "I did it with a sharpie marker."

And with that he straightened his yellow mask and followed his other superhero friends.

Scholars: New Cal State requirement needlessly weeds out incoming students

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:53:08 -0700

Education researchers are calling attention to a new requirement for many incoming Cal State University students next fall. They say it may effectively block entry to students the school’s already admitted.

Next year, first-year students already accepted for fall classes at Cal State but deficient in English or math will have to enroll in the “Early Start Program.” Those students can take care of the remedial requirement at a Cal State campus, a community college or online.

More than half the incoming freshman class may have to take it. Cal State researcher Kimberly King says the requirement may sound easy to fulfill, but for many students it might not be.

"We already have data based on our research that students from low-income backgrounds, and in particular African-American students, have a higher rate of incomplete applications," King says, "so what that means is that they’re not getting admitted just because they’re not doing some kind of paperwork."

Cal State’s carrying out the policy as it faces two problems: high rates of students not ready for college math and English and enrollment cuts because of reduced state support.

LAUSD to review discipline policies after complaints

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:01:13 -0700

File photo of John E. Deasy, superintendent of LAUSD. Credit: gazette.net

L.A. Unified’s top administrators have agreed to conduct regular reviews of a district discipline policy intended to reduce suspensions and drop-outs.

Four years ago L.A. Unified created the “School-Wide Positive Behavior Support” policy. The policy was designed to address less serious student behavior problems with support and intervention instead of automatic suspensions.

Since the policy launched, a coalition of activist groups has complained to school board members that the district-wide implementation has been spotty. Superintendent John Deasy called for more schools to embrace it. Board president Monica Garcia said the board would review discipline data every three months and discuss what’s working and what’s not.

An academic analysis of L.A. Unified’s new behavior policy recommended that the school district provide training and other support to principals and teachers. Some of the schools that have embraced the policy report fewer student suspensions and higher school-wide academic performance.

Report finds Calif. elementary school science classes lacking

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:06:25 -0700

As technology and science generate more jobs, a new study from several education think tanks and UC Berkeley suggests that students are not getting quality science instruction in the elementary grades.

Lead researcher Patrick Shields says high school graduates with a good science background developed it in elementary school.

"This study was really driven by a concern whether or not the state schools were producing students who are ready to enter the knowledge economy and the high tech economy that we have here in the state," says Shields.

Shields says the study examined whether public schools are preparing students for an expanding universe of science and technology-related jobs.

"Unfortunately what we found is that at most 10 percent of the elementary classrooms in the state are really providing students with these high-quality learning opportunities," he says. "Meaning opportunities to learn how to actually learn how to act like a scientist, to do investigations, to discover things, to ask research questions, to collect data, interpret the data and report it out."

Part of the blame, researchers say, rests on the pressure elementary school teachers feel to encourage high performance on math and English standardized tests – often at the expense of other subjects.

Training’s an issue too. One in five California school districts offers elementary teachers professional development in science. That’s not the case at Anderson Elementary in Garden Grove, says principal Lori Rogers. There, teachers get ”science in a box” kits for their lessons.

"Teachers actually leave the classroom," says Rogers, "to go and train with one another to do the experiments and they come back into the classroom."

Researcher Shields says improving science instruction in elementary schools can be as easy as overlapping lessons in multiple subjects.

"What that means is not a longer school day but rather, perhaps the need to integrate science and math and English language arts across the curriculum," he says. "So for example you could be reading books about science, writing essays about science..."

The report concludes that a new roadmap for science instruction will emerge if school districts and the state spend more on the subject, to help turn around the damage budget cuts inflicted in the last decade.

'70s East LA punk rocker Velasquez writes memoir 'Violence Girl'

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:20:31 -0700

The Bags live in San Francisco Credit: Ruby Ray (Creative Commons-licensed)

The band the Bags played an important role in Los Angeles’ late 1970s punk rock scene. The band’s lead singer, Alicia Velasquez, aka Alice Bag, has penned a new memoir, “Violence Girl, From East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage — A Chicana Punk Story.”

The daughter of a Mexican father and Mexican-American mother, Velasquez’s story starts in East L.A.

"I grew up watching Spanish-language movies," Velasquez says, reading from her book. "'Peliculas de la epoca de oro,' films from the golden age of Mexican cinema, were the ones my parents liked best. They’d seen them all before but they never tired of watching Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Libertad Lamarque, Pedro Armendariz and Silvia Pinal on the big screen."

Velasquez’s mother and sister provided the beautiful memories. Her father, some of the worst.

One side of him, she says, showered her with unconditional love. "On the other hand, the other side of my dad, was that he really had a terrible relationship with my mother, and abused her in very violent ways, very savagely. And I had to witness that."

Velasquez says her own aggression burst to the surface later. In 1977, with five friends she’d met on her adventures in Hollywood, she founded the Bags.

She took the name Alice Bag and developed a violent, aggressive on-stage persona. One critic, she says, labeled her a Babylonian Gorgon. The band turned that compliment into a song.

"I’m bouncing on stilettos like a fighter in the ring," Velasquez reads. "I charge out to the edge of the stage, full of adrenaline and fire, singing to the faces in the front rows. They are my current, my source of energy. I urge them to engage. I know there’s something in them, some inner carbonation lying still, waiting to be shaken."

The Bags’ starring role in the L.A. punk rock documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization” sealed the band’s reputation 30 years ago. "It was a blast, it was insane, it could have killed me if I’d let it, and it did kill some people, yeah," Velasquez says.

Velasquez pulled out of the scene when friends started overdosing — and when her own problems got out of hand. Her father’s lifelong push for her to go to college propelled her into the second part of her life.

Velasquez’s book “Violence Girl” is a pedal-to-the-metal memoir, minus the fear that you’ll end up bloodied when the punk rock club engagement turns into a riot.

Velasquez reads from her memoir “Violence Girl” Saturday night at 7 at Antebellum Gallery in Hollywood.

Correction: The number of founders of the Bags was corrected.