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| | CUCPTSA Legislation Newsletter – November 2009 Posted by Admin on Monday, November 09, 2009 - 04:22 PM
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|  LOCAL
CUSD Special Board Meeting
The CUSD Board of Trustees called a special meeting on Saturday October 24. They announced that they were going to retain counsel to represent CUSD in connection with the decision on September 30 of the OC Committee on School District Organization. CUSD is seeking a change in the date of the election to potentially change the way we vote for trustees from June 2010 to November 2010.
CUCPTSA Position on Changing the way in which Trustees are Elected
Once it was announced that this issue was to become a ballot measure in June 2010, a committee was formed to determine if PTA can take a position on the issue, and if so, to determine a position. However, since CUSD is seeking to change the date of the election to November 2010, the committee is on hold until the election date is confirmed.
CUSD Budget
The CUSD Board is continuing to attempt to identify $25 million in cuts from the 2010/2011 budget. Discussions are being held at each monthly CUSD board meeting leading to a first interim report to OCDE in mid-December. At the board meeting in October, cuts could only be identified totaling $9 - $10 million. These potential cuts included the elimination of: 1st grade CSR, the IB program, block music, sports and activities programs, as well as the closure of small elementary schools. Mid-year cuts are still unknown, but if they do occur, will hopefully be offset by the federal stimulus money (amount not yet released).
Negotiations
CUEA (Teachers) – The parties met on October 22 and were released by the mediator to the Fact Finding stage of negotiations. Dates have not yet been set for the Fact Finder to begin meeting with both parties. However, on a positive note, both the District and CUEA have agreed to offer another health benefit plan option, referred to as “Option C”. There will be a financial incentive of $1000 for those members who change plans the first year, and a $500 incentive for participation the second year. The district needs a minimum of 215 employees to change plans to realize any cost savings. Both CUEA and CUMA memberships have agreed to offer this plan to their membership. The more who change, the greater the savings.
CSEA (Classified Staff) – At the negotiation session on November 3, CSEA presented their interests for changes in contract language. The meeting was fruitful in that CSEA was able to finish all of their suggested language changes for the collective bargaining agreement. The district team informed CSEA that they will take their interests under advisement and will provide a response to CSEA at the next negotiation session scheduled for November 17. From the initial presentation by CSEA, it appears there are common interests in language changes. There was also a discussion of having Interest Based Bargaining training in the future.
Teamsters – The District team has met with the Teamsters and is making progress on contract language changes that will save the District money. To date there are several items that both parties believe will be language changes that each side can live with. The most recent meeting was October 27, with another meeting to be scheduled shortly.
CUCPTSA Legislation Team Facebook Page
The CUCPTSA Legislation Team received approval from CUCPTSA Council to create a Legislation Team Facebook group page and it is now live. This page will be used for networking with key education policy stakeholders at the local, state, and federal level.
STATE
Race to the Top update
This week, both the Senate Education Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee passed SB X5 1 Public Schools (Romero) and SB X5 2 Public data (Simitian). The bills will now go to the Assembly.
SB X5 1 provides for turning around historically low-performing schools, uses data to improve instruction and student performance, removes the state's cap on the number of charter schools, authorizes open enrollment for students in low-performing schools, and requires the state to develop a plan to implement reforms that will make California competitive for a Race to the Top grant. Moreover, the bill puts California in compliance with the federal requirements for the Race to the Top grant and requires the state to apply for the Phase 1 funding.
SB X5 2 is more limited in scope than SBX5 1. Simitian’s bill speaks solely to the data issue and the use thereof.
The California State PTA has sent a letter to Senator Simitian in support of SBX5 2. In the case of SBX5 1, the State PTA sent a letter to the authors stating that it “Supports if amended.” The areas of open enrollment, charter schools and turning around underperforming schools are of concern. Please see www.capta.org for the full text of the letters.
State Governance Reform
On October 28th, Repair California (Bay Area Council) turned in ballot language to call the first Constitutional Convention in California in more than 130 years.
The voters will be asked to:
1. Amend the Constitution to permit them shelves to call a convention; and
2. They’ll be asked to actually call it.
The immediate next step is to await title and summary from the Attorney General. Once issued, the race will be on to collect approximately 1.4 million signatures. Then, voters will decide on calling the Convention on the November 2010 ballot, the Convention would be held in 2011 and its proposed reforms would require voter approval in one of the three scheduled statewide elections in 2012. The convention would consider changes only to the state’s governance system: the budget process; the election and initiative process; restoring the balance of power between the state and local governments; and, creating new systems to improve government effectiveness.
(Courtesy Bay Area Council – Oct. 30, 2009)
On October 30, the California Forward Action Fund submitted a pair of nonpartisan initiatives to reform the state budget process and protect funding for local services. Both of the initiatives, the “Best Practices Budget Accountability Act” and the “Community Funding Protection and Accountability Act”, would amend the state Constitution. Each will require 694,354 signatures by April 16, 2010 to be placed on the November 2, 2010 ballot.
The Senate and Assembly select committees on Improving State Government are each comprised of 10 members -- seven Democrats and three Republicans. Committee Chairs Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Assembly member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) convened the first joint hearing on October 22. Panelists included: State Treasurer Bill Lockyer; Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor; Bill Hauck, California Constitution Revision Commission; and Fred Silva, California Forward. The panelists discussed the problems in the Legislative branch and possible reforms such as cutting down the hundreds of bills introduced in a session, loosening term limits, bipartisanship, two-year budgets, performance based budgets, and a “pay-as-you-go” model for new programs. The hearing can be viewed at www.calchannel.com/channel/viewvideo/782. There will be more hearings to follow.
Election Outcomes and Updates
John Garamendi is the new U.S congressman from the 10th District as a result of winning a special election on November 3. Gov. Schwarzenegger is expected to appoint a new lieutenant governor and the Legislature has 90 days to confirm or reject his choice. Sen. Abel Maldonado (R), Sen. Dave Cogdill (R), and Assembly member Mike Villines (R) are among the names mentioned as possible appointees. The lieutenant governor serves as the state's acting leader whenever the governor leaves California, as the president of the state Senate in name with the power to cast a tiebreaking vote, member of the University of California Board of Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees, and member of the State Lands Commission and other panels.
Democrat Gavin Newsom dropped out of the race for governor on October 30.
State Budget Update
AB 17XXXX, passed this summer, will increase tax withholdings schedules by 10% starting November 1, 2009. This equates to a $1.7 billion; 0% interest loan to the State to fill budget gaps. Workers' annual tax bills won't change and taxpayers will be repaid in April by receiving a larger tax refund or owing fewer dollars in taxes.
Mike Genest, Department of Finance Director, has announced he will leave office this year before the Governor produces his final January budget proposal. Genest has been director since December 2005.
FEDERAL
NCLB/ESEA
The Obama administration looks very highly on value-added evaluations that focus on using pupil assessment data to evaluate teachers and schools. The use of pupil assessment data is part of both the Race to the Top and NCLB/ESEA reauthorization discussion. Value-added is an economic term. It is the difference between the cost of material and labor vs. the sales cost. For education, the value-added model is a way to monitor a child’s academic growth. The model requires three years of base-line test scores. These are put into a statistical model, which creates a prediction of where the child will score in the next year. If the child scores above or below this prediction, it is referred to as the teacher affect. This gives a measure of a child’s academic growth. It also gives a way to evaluate teachers.
For more information about the value-added model, see a recent L.A. Times article on the subject: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teacher-eval18-2009oct18,0,4471467.story
NAEP Test Report
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) issued a report examining NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) results for all states from 2005-2007 to determine how state proficiency standards should be ranked. California is ranked 6th for 8th grade reading, and 11th for 4th grade reading, and 19th for 4th grade math.
ARRA
No updates yet from the CDE about pending Title I, IDEA or SFSF allotments. All recipients of ARRA funding have started to file quarterly reports, which are available on-line at the CDE and at the federal recovery.gov website, detailing the amount of money received, amount spent, and jobs saved or created. You can access detailed information about ARRA funding at the school district level by going to http://www.cde.ca.gov/ar/rr/index.asp, scrolling down to ARRA Section 1512 Reported Data, and selecting one of the subcategories (IDEA, Title I, SFSF, etc.).
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