http://rosenblatt.org/blog Reflections and musings on education and other local issues Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:52:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The following letter was sent out jointly from the Superintendent, School Board, and San Carlos Teachers Association today regarding the March 15th day for potential termination notices to teachers. The letter pretty much says it all. To the San Carlos Community, We are writing to inform you about a difficult step ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/03/12/the-ides-of-march/ For the last few months, I've been contemplating putting together a video to explain how education finance works in California. It is an incredibly complex topic, and requires a bit of history and context setting. Doing this was partly inspired by a series of presentations done by SCEF, ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/03/10/video-on-how-california-education-finance-works-and-doesnt-work/ In what can hardly be described as shocking, California was not selected as one of the finalists in the Federal Race To The Top (RTTT) program. 41 states applied to be eligible for this program, which could include awards of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. However, most ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/03/04/race-to-the-top-races-past-california/ I had written earlier that our Superintendent was pursuing a number of "revenue enhancement" ideas to mitigate at least somewhat the painful budget cuts that we need to make. Today, registration opened for SMART-E Camps (Sport, Music, Art, Technology-Enrichment Camps that will be held at Arundel and Central schools ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/03/01/smart-e-camps-registration-open/ The following is a memo sent out from the Superintendent today regarding the budget and the status of the contract negotiations with our certificated teachers' union. I think he sums up the situation very well. ----------- Dear San Carlos Community Members, I write to give you an update on the status ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/02/22/no-one-said-it-was-going-to-be-easy/ Last Fall I posted an entry about our schools' API scores. As I pointed out then, all of our schools have both excellent and improving scores. I have also stated many times that, by design, our four K-4 elementary schools offer an equally excellent education. Although most ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/02/06/we-knew-it-all-along/ Unfortunately a good chunk of the remainder of the school year will be devoted to trying to solve our current budget mess, and this process kicked off in earnest with a Board study session we had on Tuesday, Janaury 26th. With the recently proposed State budget, our friends in ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/01/30/the-tough-work-now-begins/ Last night the school board unanimously approved changing our elementary school boundaries. As I've written in earlier posts, this is a change that has been discussed for a number of years, and the Board made it a priority to complete this year. It was a complex problem ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/01/22/boundary-changes-are-finally-done/ At the Governor's State of the State address, he vowed to "protect education" despite the addititional $20 billion shortfall that the State is facing through next fiscal year. I guess I'm not sure what dictionary he uses, but the word "protect" may have a different definition in his than ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/01/15/with-friends-like-this/ Most folks in any way exposed to the workings of Sacramento know that it's one of the most dyfunctional government systems we have in the country. It's a systematic issue and not one related to specific legislators, as I actually admire many of our state elected representatives. However, ... http://rosenblatt.org/blog/2010/01/09/can-california-government-be-fixed/