In my day job, I create web tools to display achievement data and best practice information about California public schools. So, I have a little experience working with school data and presenting it.

Today, Governor Schwarzenegger's office released SchoolFinder.ca.gov, a new web site designed to bring "together information about California’s schools and makes it easily accessible for parents." I have admit that I'm completely underwhelmed. The interface to finding your school is fine, but once you've found it, other than a cool map which shows a dot nearby your school (school campuses are too large to be accurately located on the map), the provided information is really too basic to be useful.

The only academic performance data provided is a single year's school-wide Academic Performance Index (API). How are parents supposed to know if a school is improving or declining? How is a parent supposed to know if their African American or Hispanic student will have a good opportunity for success? Without individual subgroups scores or results over time, this site is basically useless for school choice decisions. Parents would be much better served by visiting Just for the Kids - California.

The only financial data provided is a single $/ADA figure for the district. There are no details on revenue or expenditures on the site and nothing giving the parent any clues as to whether funding has been increasing or decreasing or how it is being spent. Parents would be much better served by visiting Ed-Data.

With the exception of the maps, there's nothing on this site that isn't done better by commercial sites such as GreatSchools or the non-profit SchoolDataDirect. Considering that Microsoft and Google were involved in this project, it is quite surprising that this web site is so completely devoid of valuable information.

Even though the State Board of Education has made the decision that 8th graders will be tested in Algebra, the argument over the decision continues in the press. Here are a couple articles for your consideration, one on the pro-Algebra side and one on negative side.

I thought this Ventura County Star opinion piece was pretty representative of the pieces that seem to suggest that this decision is one of the worst ever made by the State Board.

Here is a story of two young men of my acquaintance, both products of the California public schools.

Both enrolled in algebra in the eighth grade.

One, perhaps because of an innate aptitude for math or perhaps because of the skill of his sixth- and seventh-grade math teachers, fared well. The class became the gateway for higher-level mathematics, progressing ultimately to calculus and beyond.

The other, although cautioned that he might not be quite prepared for eighth-grade algebra, decided to take on the challenge. He failed the course, but used it as a kind of hard-knocks preparation-for-algebra class for which he got a ton of frustration and no credit. The next year, in the ninth grade, he took the course again and excelled.

From these experiences, this is my conclusion: Some students are ready to take algebra in the eighth grade, while others need another year of development and preparation.

Now, I'm just a dad and have an admittedly small sample of personal experiences upon which to base this opinion. But the evidence is that my own very limited qualifications are superior to those of the majority of the state Board of Education.

Last week, acting hastily and without the benefit of research data to justify the decision, the board voted to require that all eighth-graders be enrolled in algebra beginning in three years.

Actually, I believe the decision didn't have any to do with enrollment, but rather said that 8th graders will take the Algebra I California Standards Test (CST) rather than some kids taking a General Math CST based on 6th and 7th grade standards and the rest taking Algebra I or higher tests. As I understand it, the US Department of Education told California that it had to give one test as a measure of 8th grade math proficiency, not two and certainly not one based on standards from lower grades.

I thought it interesting in this piece that even the student who failed Algebra I in 8th grade, took it again in 9th grade, not only passed it, but excelled. That doesn't seem like a terrible thing.

This Riverside Press Enterprise editorial took the opposite position.

The state Board of Education's decision last week that requires schools to teach algebra in eighth grade closes a gap between stated expectations and daily practice. California gains little by setting high standards and then creating loopholes that allow schools to ignore those benchmarks.

The state board made the right choice, however. And the discussion needs to turn from hand-wringing over the algebra standard to the more crucial task of improving students' grasp of that subject.

The board's decision stemmed from a federal order in February to revise the state's eighth-grade math test. The federal government said the state could no longer test some eighth-graders on algebra and others on general math. The general math test covers material taught in lower grades, but federal law requires states to test eighth-graders on eighth-grade course content.

The board had contemplated a new test that would still allow eighth-grade students to bypass algebra. But the board members decided instead to make all eighth-grade students take the algebra test -- in essence, requiring those students to take algebra. About half of the state's eighth-graders now take the algebra test.

Critics, including state schools chief Jack O'Connell and the California Teachers Association, argued that schools needed additional resources to meet that mandate. Without extra tutoring, additional qualified math teachers and more preparation, students will fail, critics said.

That argument confuses resources with standards. Yes, schools will need to do a better job giving students in lower grades the foundation necessary to master algebra. And the state needs to increase the number of specialized math teachers.

I think one of the biggest reasons that students are having difficulty in Algebra I in the 8th grade is poor math instruction in prior years. If students are scoring below basic or far below basic in 7th grade math and earlier, it shouldn't come as big surprise that they're having difficulty in Algebra I as an 8th grader. Opponents of the decision argue that it will cause more dropouts, but I would suggest that students who are going to fail 8th grade Algebra probably also failed earlier math tests. This one test isn't going to change that situation.

I do believe that in the long run, this decision will have a positive impact. The California High School Exit Exam has focused attention on students having basic skills and language arts and math and this has led to new interventions for students who aren't ready to pass the test. My hope is that this change will increase the pressure on elementary school teachers to step up the quality of their math instruction and encourage schools to create math interventions to make certain students are prepared for 8th grade Algebra I. Those would be positive changes.

This San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece by Claudia Ayers, a retired math teacher, caught my attention. Claudia connected the recent Algebra decision with the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).

It isn't absurd enough that we test high school students with a High School Exit Exam that is pretty much on a par with the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) required of teachers, but now we are all congratulating ourselves with a decision to test eighth graders for algebra. At least state schools chief Jack O'Connell has learned from his own past mistakes and opposed this decision. If only he had the guts to say he blew it on advocating for the exit exam, which is not only a complete waste of tens of millions of dollars, but sends more and more kids into the streets and trouble with the law when they fail to graduate because they do not test as well as others. (About 10 percent of high school students must "fail," otherwise it isn't a "test.")

This first paragraph started my alarm bells ringing loudly. The first point she made was that the CAHSEE "is pretty much on a par with the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) required of teachers." Doesn't the CAHSEE test 8/9th grade math and 10th grade language arts? No wonder our students are having difficulty in passing the CAHSEE if their teachers are only skilled enough to pass this minimal test. Since the "B" in the test's name stands for "Basic", I think we probably should expect more from our teachers. This test just verifies basic skills.

The second problem with the paragraph is the assumption that "more and more kids" are being sent into the street by the CAHSEE. Certainly, having a bar for graduation is going to cause some students to not receive a high-school diploma who would have previously done so. The evaluation of the CAHSEE by HumRRO found that the graduation rate only dropped by 4 percentage points after CAHSEE implementation. That's a pretty small change. Other reviews of CAHSEE results found that the vast majority of students who didn't pass the CAHSEE also didn't meet other requirements for graduation such as being short of credits, missing required courses, etc.

The final comment, "About 10 percent of high school students must 'fail', otherwise it isn't a 'test.'" is completely wrong. In days past, when we used primarily norm-referenced tests, which are graded on a curve, we did have expectations about a certain percentage of students failing. Criterion-referenced tests, such as the CAHSEE, are strictly pass/fail, so all students can pass the test if they score above the passing threshold. Since the test is at the 8/9/10th grade level, isn't it reasonable to expect our high school seniors to pass it before receiving a diploma?

The only good news from this opinion piece is that Claudia is retired. At least she's not teaching our children any longer. We need fewer teachers like Claudia and more teachers that are focused on getting all of their students to grade-level, every year. If students are at grade-level every year, when they get to high school, they'll be prepared to pass the CAHSEE and prepared to enter college or the world of work.

I thought this Slate.com article was very interesting.

Firing bad teachers may seem like a rather obvious solution, but it requires some gumption to take on a teachers union. And cleaning house isn't necessarily the only answer. There are three basic ways to improve a school's faculty: take greater care in selecting good teachers upfront, throw out the bad ones who are already teaching, and provide training to make current teachers better. In theory, the first two should have more or less the same effect, and it might seem preferable to focus on never hiring unpromising instructors—once entrenched, it's nearly impossible in most places to remove teachers from their union-protected jobs. But that's assuming we're good at predicting who will teach well in the first place.

It turns out we aren't. For instance, in 1997, Los Angeles tripled its hiring of elementary-school teachers following a state-mandated reduction in class size. If L.A. schools had been doing a good job of picking the best teachers among their applicants, then the average quality of new recruits should have gone down when they expanded their ranks—they were hiring from the same pool of applicants, but accepting candidates who would have been rejected in prior years. But as researchers Thomas Kane and Douglas Staiger found, the crop of new teachers didn't perform any worse than the teachers the school had hired in more selective years.

This unexpected result is consistent with the findings from dozens of studies analyzing the predictors of teacher quality. Researches have looked at just about every possible determinant of teaching success, and it seems there's nothing on a prospective teacher's résumé that indicates how he or she will do in the classroom. While some qualifications boost performance a little bit—National Board certification seems to help, though a master's degree in education does not—they just don't improve it very much.

I'm not sure this result is really that surprising. To me, good teaching is a bit science and a bit art. You can't tell is someone is a talented singer or violinist based on their resume. You have to hear them play. I believe that teaching is the same. It is is difficult to determine if someone is a good teacher solely based on their resume, an interview and a couple reference calls.

Since firing a bad teacher is almost impossible, that's one reason why I support lengthening the time that it takes for teachers to gain tenure. With just two years of time, there really isn't much time for intervention to help poor teachers improve. In the present system, a principal only has a couple years to assess the teacher's skills and help them to improve their classroom skills before they have to make a judgement on whether they should continue teaching. I think beginning teachers need and deserve the time to perfect those skills.

I guess is shouldn't surprise me that Daniel Borenstein is confused about California's accountability system. In this article, he actually talks about how confusing this have become.

Welcome to the perplexing world of academic performance measures. California public schools are caught between two masters, the state and federal governments.

Across California, 40 percent of kindergarten through 12th grade schools have been deemed failures under one system and successes under the other, while 23 percent are failing both standards.

The system confuses parents, exasperates school administrators and wastes millions of dollars that are spent on overlapping reform efforts.

School officials have known for years about the problem but have been unable to get the state and federal governments to agree on a single set of measurements and remedies.

The seriousness of the problem was outlined last month in a report by the state's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office, which concluded that "the state and federal systems form a labyrinth of duplicative and disconnected program requirements that send mixed messages to teachers, parents, schools and districts."

Where Daniel is really confused is where he talks about some of the confusing aspects of the having dueling state and federal accountability systems.

Nevertheless, let's try to understand some of the highlights, starting with the testing system. The good news is that the state and federal programs both use the same set of results from the Standardized Testing and Reporting assessment. But that's where the symmetry ends.

The state sets a target average score of 800 for individual schools, while the federal government's "proficiency" benchmark is 875 and applies to schools and districts.

Failure to attain the required targets pushes schools or districts into reform programs, under which their progress is reviewed annually. But the programs and penalties are different.

Under the state program, failing schools can volunteer to receive funding, but, if they do, they face state monitoring and sanctions, including ultimately the appointment of a state trustee, if they fail to improve. Under the federal program, low-income schools and districts that fail to meet the requirements are placed in an improvement program.

Students attending those schools must be given the option of transferring to better schools in the district.

Under both programs, schools or districts can exit the reforms if they show improvement. But, of course, the measurements for improvement are completely different. The state gives schools credit for making incremental progress toward the 800 score. The federal system, on the other hand, sets rigid benchmarks for the number of students who meet the 875 threshold: By 2014, all students must reach that level.

That federal goal, of course, is absurd. It can't be reached because, no matter how good the program, some students are bound to fall short. Unfortunately, there's resistance in Washington to relaxing that requirement for it might be perceived as backing away from school reform.

Don't blame just the feds. State officials are making the problem worse. The federal government allows each state to define proficiency. And it was California policy makers who set the 875 score as the measure of proficiency. (In other words, the state is setting a higher bar for meeting the federal standards than it set for meeting its own state standards.)

It's a ridiculously high level that represents college entrance level preparation. Most other states have set lower measures for proficiency. And many of them, as a result, have fewer schools failing the federal requirements.

While Daniel's 800 vs. 875 argument might be interesting, it is pointless. The Federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals have nothing to do with the 800 or 875 scores, which are part of the Academic Performance Index (API), California's system. What AYP is concerned about is the percentage of students who score proficient (at grade level) on the California Standards Test (CST) Language Arts and mathematics tests. The API uses a combination of measures, including those scores, as well as science, history/social science and even the California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA), and the California Achievement Test, Sixth edition (CAT/6) (which by the way is a norm-referenced test -- think bell curve). For high schools, both systems actually use the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) from 10th graders as the measurement of choice. The weights of these various tests in the API change frequently and the Scale Calibration Factor (SCF) gets changed each year to further confuse even the single API measurement.

On the other hand, the AYP system looks only at the percentage of students reaching grade-level on two individual CST or CAHSEE tests. Being at grade-level is a concept that most parents can understand. They want to know if their student is at grade-level or not. The advantage of the AYP is that you can compare the percentage of students at grade-level from year to year while the API's complex formula prohibits those year-to-year comparisons.

Contrary to what Daniel suggests, the AYP isn't some "rigid benchmarks for the number of students who meet the 875 threshold", but instead has minimum percentage of students that need to reach grade-level. That minimum percentage was actually determined by the California Department of Education as part of their No Child Left Behind (NCLB) implementation plan.

Also contrary to what Daniel suggests, the goal of getting all students to grade-level is not absurd. California set academic standards, created tests to measure students' mastery of those standards and asks school districts to work to get students to meet those standards. That's grade-level proficiency.

Further, research has found that the skills necessary to be ready for work are the same as those required to be ready for college. So, contrary to what Daniel suggests, proficiency or being at grade-level is not too high of a bar to expect from our students. If we want students to leave high school prepared for either college or the world of work, meeting California's academic standards is where they need to be.

Daniel seems to think that California should follow the lead of other states, who rather than improving the education of their students, have lowered their standards in order to allow more students to be proficient. Those fudging of the number schemes are dishonest and immoral. They're doing their students a huge disservice by making them believe that they're prepared for life when in fact they're not. The answer isn't lowering the standards. The answer is improving our teaching strategies.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (that's like a CD kids), there are schools across the state that are getting much higher percentages of their students to grade-level. Many of these schools have high minority and high poverty populations. They've found the strategies that work. They're not making excuses. They're doing what is required to help their students be prepared for work or college. The answer is modeling the practices of these high-performing environments at more schools.

In the real world, people learn from the winners. Auto racing is a good example. The cars are fundamentally the same. There are strict rules which prevent "cheating" and give everyone a pretty even playing field. If one car is winning consistently, the competitors don't make excuses or ask for the bar to be lowered. They look to see what that team is doing differently. They make changes in their strategies to incorporate new ideas. That's what needs to happen in public education. Rather than making excuses for why students aren't learning, school districts need to learn from the winners and incorporate their strategies. That's what will allow all of our kids to leave school ready for college or the world of work.

This Associated Press story which appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune caught my attention. While cheating on tests isn't new, I thought what was interesting was how the kids were cheating.

The testing service began an investigation after school officials suspected some students cheated on the exam. The probe revealed some students cheated on their statistics and economics tests by swapping formulas over cell phone text messages, Fish said.

How in the heck could the people administering the test not see kids sending or reading text messages? Even if the kid had their phone in their lap, I can't imagine how the staff wouldn't see it, or the apparent sudden interest that students had in their lap? Even discounting the technology, might that not suggest a paper hidden in their lap? Weird.

7/8 Update: Friend of Dave Bob pointed out that his company has cell phone detectors that the school could have used to detect the presence of operating cell phones, even phones in stand by. Hopefully this school will now be in the market for some of these. From another article I read, it seems that the school had an insufficient ratio of proctors to test takers and they had the student's chairs too close together. Both of these issues led to the problem.

As I read news stories about the latest happenings in Sacramento, I often ask myself the question, "What are they thinking?" This Flashreport opinion piece by Assembly Republican Caucus Chairman Bob Huff is no exception. In his smackdown of democratic education priorities, Assemblyman Huff points out the opposition to SB 1105 Margett, which would "revoke the teaching credentials of those convicted of sex offenses, drug crimes and other violent crimes if they plead guilty or no contest." He goes on to talk of the opposition to the bill by CTA:

I was surprised to hear representatives of the California Teachers Association testify in opposition. Keeping sex offenders and other dangerous individuals out of our schools should be something we can all agree upon. It is just plain wrong to put both students and teachers at risk in our schools just to keep more dues-paying union members on the payroll.

I verified on their site that they oppose the bill and according to Assemblyman Huff apparently testified against the bill. I just don't get it. I'd love to hear their justification for opposing the bill. It seems like a no-brainer.

The education code already requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to revoke the credential of any teacher or administrator:

• who has been convicted of any sex offense defined under Education Code Section 44010
• who has been convicted of any narcotics offense defined under Education Code Section 44011
• who has been convicted of any crime listed in Education Code section 44424, or
• who has been found to be insane by a federal or state court
• who has been judicially determined to be a mentally disordered sex offender under the law.

This measure simply adds pleas of no-contest to this process. From reading the bill's legislative analysis, it appears that a no-contest plea wasn't considered a "conviction" under this process. That's a pretty big loophole. I'd love to CTA's excuse for opposing this bill. I've searched their site, but I haven't been able to find it. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

I thought this Los Angeles Daily News opinion piece by Assemblyman Roger Nielo raised an interesting point. Are teachers intentionally using children in their advocacy efforts?

As vice-chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, I receive many letters of concern about California's budget from across the state, which I expect and welcome. However, the current budget situation has introduced me to an alarming advocacy tactic. Some schools have discovered - and exploited - a whole new cadre of lobbyists: third-grade students.

Recently, I began receiving numerous handwritten letters from classrooms across California about the education budget. What troubles me about some of these letters is their coerced and fear-injected tone.

Consider a few excerpts, and bear in mind that the letters from each individual classroom bore striking similarities in subject matter, suggesting that their content was coached.

A watercolor of two children crying, saying "We'd be sad if you took our money away."

A picture of four children, crying, standing on the playground. "Please don't take money from our school or we can't play ball wall and we want our class room aide, Kamala and we won't have drawing and writing supplies, and our art teacher Jan and our music teacher Mr. Sousa."

A letter begging not to close the child's school, noting that this school "is very special because, it is close to our homes, it has the best teachers, and we do many fun learning activities."

It concerns me more that these youngsters would in some way feel responsible for their school's financial situation. I have to wonder what kind of information these children are being given.

Are they being told the ramifications of a tax increase? Are they being informed of the recent economic climate and how the economy generally runs in cycles? How much information are they receiving about the other major areas funded in the state budget, such as funding for public safety and aid to vulnerable populations?

Involving schoolchildren in this capacity is manipulative at best and psychologically damaging at worst.

I can't help but agree with Assemblyman Nielo. I wonder how much time these teachers are taking from classroom instruction in the content standards to create these little advocacy pictures. In my mind, this is an abuse of the teacher - student relationship. If it matches the curriculum and teachers want to present both sides of a political issue for classroom discussion, I don't have a problem. Where I think they've crossed a line is when they only present one side or present both sides and ridicule the position they don't share.

I believe the best journalists are those who make such an effort to be fair that you are unable to determine their own position on an issue. I believe that good teachers should be the same way. Of course teachers are entitled to their own political views, but they need to keep those views out of their classroom. Students should be allowed to hear both sides and make their own decisions. That's an important skill that these students probably aren't going to learn from their teacher.

I've long said that it is surprising that more civil rights leaders aren't getting involved in education reform. It is clearly a civil rights issue. It is nice to read this story:

If Johnny can't read and Sally can't add, it's often because of the color of their skin and their ZIP code, educators and activists said Wednesday.

The heads of the New York City and Washington, D.C., school systems joined with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton and others to press for a shake-up of public schools from coast to coast to narrow the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. The group called the gap the nation's most pressing civil rights issue.

By the time they near high school graduation, black and Hispanic teenagers on average have math and reading skills no higher than that of white middle-school students four years younger.

Nationally, 55 percent of black males graduate high school on time, compared to about 78 percent for whites, according to recent data released by Education Week with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“All the numbers, no matter how you look at it, are shocking,” said Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City school system, the nation's largest.

Klein, Sharpton and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee appeared together to announce the creation of the Education Equality Project, an advocacy group to reform a public education system they say has been paralyzed by special interests like teachers unions as well as political and parental indifference.

The real question is now whether this new group actually brings forward any meaningful proposals or if it just ends up being lip service.

I'm really blown away by the arguments of the "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" outlined on their web site.

Despite the impressive academic gains registered by some schools serving disadvantaged students, there is no evidence that school improvement strategies by themselves can close these gaps in a substantial, consistent, and sustainable manner.

This is the same argument that protectors of the status quo have been using for years, that the causes of poor academic achievement are completely outside a school's control and thus the only way to improve academic achievement is to solve poverty, parental apathy, ethnic minority attitudes towards education, etc. Of course, at the same time many of these same organizations call for additional funding for public education without explaining how more money will help them solve these problems that they insist are outside their control.

This group calls for more funding for preschool, kindergarten, summer school, school to work and after school programs. They seem to avoid the "if we only had enough money" argument.

They downplay the success of schools in closing achievement gaps and improving the academic achievement of poor and minority students as inconsistent and unsustainable. This sort of reminds me of the "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" line from the Wizard of Oz. They don't want anyone to be "confused" by the successes of some schools. The primary reason for this is that it doesn't match their point of view. If school reforms can make a difference then their argument is null and void.

I just don't buy it. How do they explain the success of hundreds of schools in California alone at getting greater percentages of poor and minority students to grade-level proficiency? As I've said before, even if they're right that the sole cause of poor academic achievement is these outside factors, then we need to modify instructional strategies to meet these additional challenges. We can't just accept poor academic achievement as something out of our control. These students need help now.

The line which really makes it clear that their purpose is to protect the status quo is this one:

Second, the broader, bolder approach pays attention not only to basic academic skills and cognitive growth narrowly defined, but to development of the whole person, including physical health, character, social development, and non-academic skills, from birth through the end of formal schooling. It assigns value to the new knowledge and skills that young people need to become effective participants in a global environment, including citizenship, creativity, and the ability to respect and work with persons from different backgrounds.

Whenever people start talking about the "whole person", rest assured that they're talking about reducing our reliance on high stakes testing and eliminating school accountability. While I agree that these other factors have value, how can we worry about them when the majority of our students are unable to read, write and do math at their grade level? Until we can get students to grade-level, we should focus on the part of that person that reads, writes and does math. Once we solve that problem, then I'm all for those non-academic skills. Why would we want to water down our already insufficient efforts at getting students academic skills to focus on non-academic skills?

Unfortunately, this "Broader, Bolder Approach" is just more of the same excuses focused on protecting the status quo of public education. It's too bad. They have a huge list of "important" people supporting this approach. If only those people could put their energy behind reforms that are working in classrooms of high-achieving, high minority schools every day.

It shouldn't surprise me that they're taking this approach. The project is supported by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), who receives a quarter of their funding from unions. I'm sure NEA, CTA, AFT, UTLA and other teacher unions are pretty happy with the work of EPI diverting attention from real education reform.

Of course the real losers in all this are first, the students who are stuck in failing schools and second, all of us who will be paying higher taxes to support these students in their adults live because we've failed to adequately prepare them for work or higher education.