By Gary Cohn

Sandy Hellebrand was concerned. She needed to find a school that could educate her son Gabriel, who has autism and was about to enter high school.

Hellebrand thought she had found the perfect solution: She would enroll Gabriel and her two younger children in Sky Mountain Charter School, one of a rapidly-growing number of virtual schools in California and across the country.

After all, she reasoned, the school would provide excellent online instructional materials and instructors to guide Gabriel’s individual needs. Since Sky Mountain is a publicly funded school – although not a traditional brick-and-mortar one – the state of California would pay for her children’s education. And Hellebrand and her husband Rob, a public high school teacher, would receive about $1,800 a year for each of their children to help defray their costs of educating them at home.

“The idea is fantastic,” she says in an interview with Frying Pan News. Hellebrand, who lives in Oak Hills, in the northern high desert of San Bernardino County, ticks off the benefits of virtual schools and the education specialist she knew Sky Mountain would provide for Gabriel: “The resources, the supplies, another brain and another set of eyes. It gives the ability to tailor [an education program] to each kid.”

The only problem was that Sky Mountain never accepted Gabriel.

“We have received your Student’s Enrollment Application, and are honored that you are considering our school for your child’s education,” Sky Mountain wrote the Hellebrands in February 2012. “Unfortunately, we were not able to place your student with an Educational Specialist for the school year.”

Hellebrand says that this was just the latest brush-off Sky Mountain had given her efforts to enroll Gabriel during two years and believes Gabriel’s autism played a role in the school’s decision.

“I feel very disappointed and burned,” Hellebrand says. “It’s a school that takes tax money. If you do that, you need to serve the community. I don’t know how they can pick and choose like that.”

When asked about Hellebrand’s comments, Randy Gaschler, founder and president of Innovative Education Management, which manages Sky Mountain and other virtual schools, said he didn’t have the specifics on her son’s case. Gaschler denies his schools bar students with disabilities.

“We don’t have any sort of policy like that,” Gaschler says. “We have hundreds of special-education students in our schools. We do everything we can do to make sure we are in compliance. We don’t deny any student admissions to our schools because they are a special education student.”

According to the National Education Policy Center, there are 311 full-time virtual schools nationwide with an estimated 200,000 students. Supporters claim online schooling will revolutionize teaching and learning, reducing the cost and increasing the availability of high-quality education. Virtual education has grown rapidly over the past decade to become an integral part of the education reform movement.

It has also emerged as a tool of choice in the bitterly partisan campaign to privatize education. One key player in this campaign has been the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-controlled generator of far-right legislation, including Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground gun law and a 2012 Michigan law that hobbled unions’ ability to collect membership dues. The expansion of virtual schools has been made possible by numerous bills passed by state legislatures across the country and has been fueled partly by ALEC. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, ALEC-crafted legislation promoting virtual schools has been adopted in Tennessee and Florida.

Virtual education has many formats. They include full-time kindergarten through 12th grade schools, as well as single courses that allow students to explore a subject not available in their brick-and-mortar schools – say, a high school student who wants to take calculus in a rural high school that doesn’t otherwise offer the subject.

Some virtual education programs require students and teachers to be online at the same time; others allow students and teachers to visit online courses at their own convenience. Another format, known as blended education, combines online work with traditional in-person classroom education.

Sandy Hellebrand’s disappointing experience with virtual schools is far from unique and questions are increasingly being voiced about the performance and accountability of virtual schools. Adequate Yearly Progress – or AYP – is an accountability measure required by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that determines how every public school and school district in the United States is performing academically. In California, only six of 31 virtual schools met the Adequate Yearly Progress measure.

Interviews with people who have studied the performance of virtual schools have revealed concerns about their performance and accountability, and about whether some of their operators are making big profits while failing to deliver a good education. Particularly damning are charges that such schools either refuse to accept children like Gabriel Hellebrand or troll for disadvantaged students in order to pad out enrollment.

“The virtual schools are gaming the system,” says Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University whose expertise is evaluating school reforms and education policies. “They get [public] funding based on the number of students they get in the door. Then many of these students struggle and fail and leave.”

Miron was one of the authors of an exhaustive 2013 study of virtual education published by the National Education Policy Center, an influential research center located at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Luis Huerta, an associate professor of education and public policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, says that in their efforts to drive up profits, many cyber schools target high-risk students who will benefit the least from a virtual education.

“The existing structure simply does not work for high-risk kids,” he says. “They demand the least in services. That yields the highest profit margin for providers.” In other words, some virtual schools covet high-risk and inner city students because they bring in revenue from states while typically requiring fewer teaching resources.

The NEPC report said that in the 2011-2012 school year, K12 Inc., the largest for-profit operator of virtual schools, enrolled 77,000 students. Yet as the number of virtual schools nationwide continues to grow, so do questions about their performance and practices. “On the common metrics of Adequate Yearly Progress, state performance rankings and graduation rates, full-time virtual schools lag significantly behind traditional brick-and-mortar schools,” the NEPC report states.

“Across the board, we found very poor performance,” says Miron.

Susan Patrick, president of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a Vienna, Virginia-based organization that supports online and blended learning, agrees that more accountability is needed.

“Some students are being served really well and find [virtual schools] a lifeline,” says Patrick, a former director of the Office of Education Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. “Some are not being served well. The programs not doing a good job should be shut down.”

She adds, “We are calling for highest measures of accountability and performance metrics that look at outcomes based on individual student learning.”

In most states, virtual schools are funded at a similar level to that of traditional brick-and-mortar public and charter schools.

Luis Huerta and others say there is a need to examine whether those funding formulas are fair – or whether they unduly enrich the operators of virtual schools.

“There’s a significant difference in overhead in running a traditional brick and mortar school and running a virtual school,” says Huerta.

Nearly everyone who has studied virtual education agrees on two points. Virtual education, in some format, is likely to expand in the years ahead. And as it does, there is a crucial need for better research, accountability and transparency.

“It’s an exciting model that not going to disappear,” says Miron of Western Michigan. “We need to stop the growth so we can figure out why performance is so bad, and so we can get the right funding and accountability [mechanisms] in place.”

(Gary Cohn writes for Frying Pan News.)

New Poll shows big majority for potential future ballot measure

by Brian Leubitz

It has been almost three years since Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization measure, was narrowly defeated at the ballot. But in that time, both events and the passage of time has moved the issue forward.  Very quickly from the 47-53 position in Nov. 2010:

One, which the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California released last month, found that 60 percent of likely voters overall backed legalization. A survey by San Francisco pollster Ben Tulchin, commissioned by the ACLU and released Thursday, found that 65 percent of 1,200 respondents considered likely to vote in 2016 would support a measure to tax and regulate marijuana. (SF Chronicle)

And along with that poll numbers they released, ACLU of Northern California is teaming up with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom to form a “blue ribbon panel” to discuss how best to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. While Prop 19 had some strong regulations to make the transition smooth, we’ve seen a lot of disorganization and confusion with Washington’s measure.

Who knows what will come out of the blue ribbon panel, but it seems that 2016 will feature a marijuana legalization measure. And because it is likely to pass, it is important that it be done in the right way to make the change as painless as possible.

Adam Nagourney is already famous as the New York Times journalist always eager to write “Democrats in disarray” stories. But of all of the slanted stories he has written over the years, this one about California has to be the worst.

Nagourney looked at California’s resurgent economy and drama-free politics after the 2012 elections gave Democrats a 2/3 supermajority in all houses and put Democrats into every statewide seat, and decided that the reason for it was–wait for it–centrist reforms. No, really:

Adam Nagourney is already famous as the New York Times journalist always eager to write “Democrats in disarray” stories. But of all of the slanted stories he has written over the years, this one about California has to be the worst.

Nagourney looked at California’s resurgent economy and drama-free politics after the 2012 elections gave Democrats a 2/3 supermajority in all houses and put Democrats into every statewide seat, and decided that the reason for it was–wait for it–centrist reforms. No, really:

Lawmakers came into office this year representing districts whose lines were drawn by a nonpartisan commission, rather than under the more calculating eye of political leaders. This is the first Legislature chosen under an election system where the top two finishers in a nonpartisan primary run against each other, regardless of party affiliations, an effort to prod candidates to appeal to a wider ideological swath of the electorate.

As any honest observer of California politics will tell you, the non-partisan citizens redistricting commission didn’t result in more moderate legislators. It resulted in more Democrats and less safe Republican seats. Prior to the non-partisan redistricting, institutional Democratic power in the state drew lines to maximize the safety of incumbent legislators, not to maximize the number of winnable seats for Democrats in overwhelmingly Democratic California. When the lines were redrawn to reflect real communities of interest, many Democratic lawmakers in deep blue areas found themselves displaced from their comfortable territories, while many bluish purple areas found themselves realistically able to elect a Democrat for the first time in recent memory. Safe Republican seats also became significantly less safe. More Democrats in office meant crashing through the 2/3 supermajority barrier. It wasn’t centrism that led to a better politics in California, but the utter marginalization of Republicans.

As for the awful top-two system? There is no evidence whatsoever that it has decreased partisanship. In deep blue and deep red areas, it has meant a personality-driven, primary circus atmosphere all the way into November featuring Republican-on-Republican and Democrat-on-Democrat races where party bosses and big money have enormous sway. In a few rare cases it has led to perverse situations: for instance, one Democratic district had a race with many Democrats running and only two Republicans, leading to both Republicans making it to the general election. In order to avoid this situation, party bosses now have even greater incentive to clear the field of challengers to the favored candidate. And in most purple battleground districts, races still came down to a normal Democrat vs. Republican battle–except this time, you can’t vote for a third party candidate at all. In 2006 if you were a progressive unhappy with Dianne Feinstein, you could cast your vote for the Green Party candidate. Not so in 2012: your only choices were Feinstein, the Republican, write-in, or leave it blank.

Of the many, many faults of the top-two primary system, injecting centrism into elections was not one of them.

Even worse, Nagourney tries to bring relaxed term limits into the picture as well:

And California voters approved last year an initiative to ease stringent term limits, which had produced a Statehouse filled with inexperienced legislators looking over the horizon to the next election. Lawmakers can now serve 12 years in either the Assembly or the Senate.

Yes, that’s true, and the relaxation of term limits is a positive development. But to say the passage of that initiative just last year has had a significant impact on legislative culture is ludicrous. It may and likely will have impacts down the road, but the new rules don’t apply to legislators already in office. Since the old term limit rules are a complicated mishmash that, to oversimplify matters, give Assemblymembers six years in office and State Senators eight years (they can hop to the other chamber for a short time afterward as well for a maximum of 12 years total), well under 1/4 of the current lawmakers are governed by the new, more relaxed term limits laws. Moreover, any laws to weaken term limits can hardly be called centrist: it is centrists who have been most influential in strengthening term limits laws, and partisan advocates who have been most vocal about relaxing them.

Meanwhile, these two paragraphs are exemplary of moebius-strip backward thinking:

The fact that these reforms are kicking in at the same time that Democrats enjoy ironclad control of the government makes it difficult to draw long-term conclusions about their effectiveness. Some critics of state governance argued that Democratic dominance and the fact that Mr. Brown has proved to be a moderating force on his party, vetoing certain bills on gun control and immigration, were as much driving factors.

“It’s sort of like the good government community and political elite are doing an end-zone dance at the 45-yard line,” said Joe Mathews, a longtime critic of California’s governance system. “We’ve been in this box for so long, there’s such a natural hunger to say things are doing better that things are going better.”

Let’s get this straight: Nagourney is crediting “good government reformers” for legislative successes that are due purely to Democratic partisan dominance. Then he cites “critics” who say that all this “reform” might be illusory because it may be jeopardized by Democratic dominance that has only been disguised by Jerry Brown’s moderate politics. That’s an incredible little tap dance there, particularly since most of the dysfunction that still remains in Sacramento is caused by Jerry Brown’s unfortunate insistence on austerity economics during a recession, and the fact that lawmakers and even the governor’s own staff have no idea what he will or will not do with his veto pen on any given day. Jerry Brown is a good governor all things considered, but elect a more predictable and reliably progressive governor in California, and the state will run even more smoothly than it does now.

Then there’s this head scratcher:

As Mr. Mathews noted, ballot initiatives continue to be a force for disruption in California governance – the most notable example being Proposition 13, which severely limited the ability of governments to raise taxes. Two years ago, voters rolled back the requirement that two-thirds of lawmakers approve any spending increase, removing a major impediment in Sacramento, but there remains a two-thirds requirement for raising taxes.

Did Nagourney forget that not only did voters erase the two-thirds restriction on the budget in order to give Democrats more functional control, but the two-thirds rule is essentially irrelevant because Democrats now have over 2/3 of both houses? Even if Nagourney wrongly chooses to see the relaxation of the 2/3 rule for budgets as some sort of victory for centrism rather than the victory of Democratic partisanship it is, how is it relevant?

This is golden, too:

J. Stephen Peace, a former Democratic legislator who is head of the Independent Voter Project, which pressed for the top-two voting system, said the very fact of Democratic dominance was actually evidence of how the reforms were changing the way business is done.

“Only with a top-two majority would you have an overwhelming Democratic Legislature which is also the most moderate Legislature in 30 years,” he said. “Look at the Chamber of Commerce job kills list – every measure on it was defeated except the increase in the minimum wage…”

There is reason to think that changes in legislative behavior might get more pronounced with turnover and as incumbent legislators who have not faced competitive elections before begin confronting a more competitive electoral landscape.

“We can already see that these reforms are improving the function of the Legislature and forcing people to come out of their partisan boxes and talk to the broader electorate,” said Sam Blakeslee, head of the California Reform Institute and a former Republican member of the Assembly. “We’re seeing, almost against the odds, a more centrist Legislature, at least when it comes to jobs and budget issues.”

Yes, I’m sure that Republican Sam Blakeslee would prefer to give credit for the state’s successes to “reforms” rather than to his own party’s being utterly relegated to the sidelines. And I’m sure the conservative “Democrat” who pushed the terrible top-two system on everyone while celebrating the positions of the Chamber of Commerce would be pleased to do likewise.

But that doesn’t make it true. The painfully obvious truth is that, as Calitics veteran Dave Dayen notes, California is succeeding because we threw obstructionist Republicans overboard and gave total control of the state’s executive and legislative apparatus to Democrats. Even Adam Nagourney must be able to see that.

But Nagourney has an agenda he clearly needs to push–journalistic standards be damned.

Cross-posted from Digby’s Hullabaloo

by Steve Smith, California Labor Federation

After months of negotiating in bad faith, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) management last night left BART workers no other option but to go on strike. What a shame. It didn’t have to come to this.

With all the misinformation swirling about on the BART strike, there are a few things to clear up.

Here are the three things you need to know about the BART strike (h/t to Pete Castelli of SEIU 1021):

1) The strike is NOT about wages or benefits. BART workers made concession after concession on the economic proposals with the goal of averting a strike. BART workers and management agreed to a deal yesterday on wages, health care and pensions.

2) BART management pulled the rug out from under workers at the last minute by insisting on new workplace rules that infringed on the rights of workers. These new rules included changing the 8-hour workday and curtailing overtime pay and removing protections for workers from punishment and retribution when they report favoritism, sexual harassment and other problems in the workplace.

3) The new rules are NOT needed. BART became the top-rated transit system in America with its current work rules. BART increased ridership from 270,000 riders to 400,000 riders per day with its current work rules. BART management never focused on performance or efficiency issues during bargaining and repeatedly acknowledged that productivity in the system had increased. The fact is that the system is carrying more passengers than ever with fewer frontline workers than ever.

As unfair as the proposals were, the unions didn’t reject them out of hand. They asked for a neutral arbitrator to make the final decision on these new rules. Management flatly rejected that offer. As last night turned into this morning, there was no other option left for workers but to go off the job and onto the picket line.

This is BART management’s strike. They own it. And they can put a stop to it at any point in time by simply being reasonable. If management pulls its unreasonable demands on workplace rules or even agrees to let a neutral party decide on them, the strike is over. It’s that simple.

California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski:

Today’s strike was not an outcome workers wanted. But it was the only outcome management would allow. The California labor movement will continue to support BART workers in their fight for a fair contract. We urge BART management to quickly negotiate a fair settlement that allows workers to get back to doing what they’ve done for years — serving the Bay Area community with professionalism, dedication and commitment.

 

by Steve Smith, California Labor Federation

It’s official. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a career politician with backing from a Texas billionaire and former Enron trader, has filed a ballot measure to strip away retirement security from current teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers and other public servants.

According to the Sacramento Bee:

“The Pension Reform Act of 2014” would alter California’s constitution to allow state and local government employers to cut pensions for current workers.

Essentially, this means politicians would have the power to unilaterally slash the retirement of current workers, breaking a promise made to those workers when they were hired. Many of those public workers affected don’t receive Social Security. They have a modest pension that averages around $26,000 per year. They’re not responsible for the financial mess created by the Wall St. collapse, yet politicians like Reed are all too quick to scapegoat them — and out-of-state billionaires like former Enron executive John Arnold are all too happy to exploit them for profit.

This initiative isn’t about giving cities “flexibility,” as Reed and his cronies contend. It’s about blaming the teachers who inspire and motivate our children for a mess that politicians and Wall Street hedge fund managers created. Reed’s flawed initiative won’t bring fiscal stability to troubled cities, but it would drive a lot of talented, dedicated people away from serving our communities. And it unfairly breaks a promise to current workers who often have no other source of retirement.

Reed’s ploy, though, is likely to wither when held up to the light of public scrutiny. Californians don’t like out-of-state special interests like Arnold setting policy for us, nor do we appreciate career politicians with their own agendas pushing flawed proposals.

Californians for Retirement Security Chair Dave Low:

Californians have constantly shown their distaste for measures put on the ballot by Texas interests and secret out-of-state contributors, and we expect this flawed proposal to be no different.

This attack on workers must be beaten back. We simply can’t allow opportunists like Reed and billionaires like Arnold to gut the retirement of California workers. Stay tuned to our blog, www.LaborsEdge.com, for more developments and ways to get involved.

by Steve Smith, California Labor Federation

It’s easy to be pessimistic about the future these days. Tea Party extremists are threatening to push our federal government into default. Federal immigration reform is on the back burner until the shutdown and debt ceiling messes are sorted out. In a host of states, anti-worker governors are hell-bent on gutting workers’ rights while giving more power to corporate special interests.

But in California, a decidedly different story is playing out. The end of the legislative session here brought huge gains to workers and their families that boost our state’s economy and bolster the middle class.

With the federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25, Gov. Brown signed AB 10, taking California’s minimum wage to $10 per hour by January of 2016, a 25 percent wage increase for low-wage workers in the state. While immigration reform is stalled in DC, Gov. Brown signed a slew of bills to protect immigrants and ensure greater inclusion. We’ve tackled the underground economy. Promoted good jobs. Axed a boondoggle of a corporate tax break that wasted taxpayer dollars.

This all comes on the heels of the passage of Prop. 30 in 2012 (which funded our schools and stabilized our budget) and the election of Democratic super-majorities in both the State Assembly and State Senate, ensuring Tea Party extremists couldn’t hold California hostage like they’re doing with the shutdown and debt ceiling debacle in DC.

In short, California is accomplishing what few in Washington DC can even imagine these days: Progress for working people.

California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski:

Labor led the way this year in bringing real equality and progress to working people in California. We reformed tax breaks that cost jobs, we won rights for domestic workers and car wash workers, we brought greater equality to hard-working immigrants, and we began the essential work of rebuilding the state’s middle class. With these new laws, there’s no question that California is the national leader in supporting workers and their families.

Among the notable legislative victories this year were the following bills Gov. Brown signed into law:

• AB 10 (Alejo/Steinberg): Increased the minimum wage to $10 per hour by January of 2016.

• AB 60 (Alejo): Expanded drivers licenses to all Californians, with key protections for immigrant drivers.

• AB 93 (Assembly Budget Committee): Reformed the wasteful Enterprise Zone corporate tax breaks to reward employers who create good jobs.

• AB 241 (Ammiano): Granted daily and weekly overtime protection to domestic workers who have been excluded from most labor laws.

• AB 263 (Hernandez)/AB 524 (Mullin)/SB 666 (Steinberg): Enacted the strongest protections for immigrant workers in the country to stop retaliation when workers speak out about unfair wages or working conditions.

• AB 537 (Bonta): Improved process for public sector bargaining to resolve disputes more effectively.

• AB 1387 (Hernandez): Protected car wash workers by preserving the car wash registry and increasing the bond to crack down on the underground economy.

• SB 7 (Steinberg): Raised wages for construction workers by incentivizing compliance with prevailing wage laws.

• SB 168 (Monning): Helped protect workers working for farm labor contractors by providing successor liability to ensure wages are paid.

• SB 400 (Jackson): Helped domestic violence survivors keep their jobs and promotes a safer workplace by asking employers to work with survivors to identify and minimize the risk of workplace violence.

• SB 770 (Jackson): Expanded paid family leave to include time providing care for parents-in-law, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren.

Learn more about California Labor’s legislative victories in 2013

If America needs a path forward, it ought to be looking to California. Big things are happening here. And we’re just getting started.

Republished with permission from Beyond Chron

by Dean Preston

Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed the most important housing bill before him this year. AB 1229 (Atkins) would have restored to cities the power to enforce inclusionary housing laws that require affordable rental units as part of new construction. The veto was immediately condemned by tenant rights organizations and affordable housing advocates.

Over 150 California cities have inclusionary housing laws. An appellate court created chaos in 2007 by ruling that a local inclusionary law was preempted by the state’s Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a 1996 law that had nothing to do with inclusionary housing. The California Supreme Court refused to review the case, leaving Palmer / Sixth Street Properties v. City of Los Angeles in effect. AB 1229 would have overturned the Palmer decision, clarifying that it is up to cities whether they want to adopt and enforce inclusionary housing laws as a means to increase the supply of affordable rental housing.

The governor’s track record on affordable housing has not been good. As mayor of Oakland, he opposed inclusionary housing. At the state level he vetoed a housing preservation bill (AB 1216) soon after taking office. He dismantled redevelopment and has failed to offset the loss of funding or otherwise increase funding for the development of affordable housing. He has announced no major affordable housing policy initiatives since taking office. His solution to the housing affordability crisis in California appears to be to let the free market do whatever it wants.

Many hoped that the governor would sign AB 1229 as a local control bill. Whether or not he thought inclusionary was a good policy when he was mayor, the thinking was that as governor he might let local cities decide their own fate, as they did before the Palmer decision. Instead, as is clear from his veto message, he did the opposite — prohibiting cities across the state from adopting inclusionary laws because he didn’t like them for Oakland.

“As mayor of Oakland, I saw how difficult it can be to attract development to low and middle income communities,” Governor Brown wrote in his October 13 veto message. “Requiring developers to include below-market units in their projects can exacerbate these challenges, even while not meaningfully increasing the amount of affordable housing in a given community.” Apparently, the Governor believes he knows better than affordable housing experts across the state how to “meaningfully increase the amount of affordable housing.”

A broad coalition of tenant groups, affordable housing advocates, and community-minded developers, supported the bill, as did most major newspapers around the state. Big developers, mega-landlords and realtors fought it with all of their might.

Governor Brown knew the issue here. He prioritized maximizing the profits of developers and realtors over housing struggling Californians.

With rents skyrocketing, the need for affordable rental housing has never been greater. AB 1229 would have expanded the supply of affordable rental housing at no cost to the government.

Advocates cannot allow the gutting of inclusionary housing laws to stand. Through litigation, new legislation and/or a ballot measure, Palmer must be overturned so that cities can once again require affordable rental housing as part of new housing development.