text:
Grupa wileńska (również dziesiątka wileńska) – określenie dziesięciu postkomunistycznych państw kandydujących do NATO przed rokiem 2004. Utworzono ją w Wilnie, od którego wzięła zresztą swoją nazwę, w maju 2000. Jej celem była ogólna współpraca wszystkich członków, wymiana informacji i wzajemny lobbying w stolicach krajów Paktu Północnoatlantyckiego. W 2004 siedem państw wileńskich dopięło swego, w 2009 udało się to kolejnym dwóm. Obecnie z pierwotnej dziesiątki jedynie Macedonia Północna pozostaje poza strukturami NATO.

Grupa wileńska wybrała sobie następujące motto:
Chociaż każdy kraj należy oceniać indywidualnie, wierzymy, że integracja wszystkich tych demokracji okaże się sukcesem dla Europy i NATO.

W skład grupy wileńskiej wchodziły następujące kraje (w nawiasach podano daty ich wejścia do struktur Paktu):
  (2009)
  (2004)
  (2009)
  (2004)
  (2004)
  (2004)

  (2004)
  (2004)
  (2004)

Akcesja do NATO
Podczas szczytu w Stambule 29 marca 2004 do NATO dołączyły następujące państwa grupy wileńskiej: Bułgaria, Estonia, Łotwa, Litwa, Rumunia, Słowacja i Słowenia. Albania, Chorwacja i Macedonia miały pójść w ich ślady 1 kwietnia 2009, na dwa dni przed szczytem w Strasburgu i Kehl, lecz na skutek sprzeciwu Grecji, która uważa, że Macedonia uzurpuje sobie prawo do tej nazwy, kraj ten musiał pozostać jako jedyny z całej grupy - poza strukturami NATO.

Można uznać, że z chwilą dołączenia do Paktu Albanii i Chorwacji grupa wileńska przestała istnieć.

Zobacz też
 Karta Adriatycka – analogiczne ugrupowanie aspirantów do NATO z Bałkanów Zachodnich.
 Grupa Wyszehradzka – regionalna inicjatywa Polski, Czech, Słowacji i Węgier, wcześniej koncentrująca się na dołączeniu tych krajów do Unii Europejskiej.
 GUAM – Organizacja na rzecz Demokracji i Rozwoju czterech krajów WNP: Ukrainy, Gruzji, Azerbejdżanu i Mołdawii.

NATO


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There's lots of information out there for writers about how to write, and for editors about how to edit. But not much about how to interact with each other. It used to be that authors and editors were separated by a publishing house. These days, more of us are on our own to put a book together, in a direct business relationship that's foreign to both.
This is particularly true in fiction. Both the writing and editing professions are unlicensed and unregulated, so it's up to us to operate like pros. The fragmentation of the traditional publishing industry has revealed just how much time, just how much work, and just how much cost was once covered by the institution. A small percentage of us ever saw this, and fewer of us will as time goes on.
While all writing is about communication and expression, and all writers are invested in their work, nonfiction's purpose is to convey information, and fiction's purpose is to tell a story. This makes novel-writing a literary art, and most authors have an intense, deep involvement in their work that's hard for some editors to understand. It's likewise hard for some authors to understand that successful art requires mastery of craft—which is where editors are best suited to help.
1) Creation (art; "right brain" thinking)—This is the author's time: story conception and evolution, establishment of voice, expression of emotion. The process can involve many drafts and revisions. It's not the time for editing, unless the author needs help and wants a developmental edit.
2) Refinement (craft; "left brain" thinking)—This is the editor's time: ironing out structural wrinkles and polishing up prose. Line editing and copyediting occur at this stage, though developmental editing may be appropriate if the book is stuck. Either way, it's the author's time to start learning how the work will be received by others.
3) Presentation (formatting and marketing; "right brain" and "left brain" thinking)—Time for business. Here the book becomes a product to be packaged, when the author must commit to a publishing plan and interact with proofreaders, agents, designers, compositors, and marketing/publicity people. The editor is out of the picture unless they offer some of these services. While all parties need to think creatively for best effect, what puts the book out there is mainly legwork and rational thinking, conforming to submission or publication requirements.
A successful author-editor relationship relies on both parties understanding which service is appropriate for the book and budget.
1) Copyediting—A nuts-and-bolts exercise that polishes the manuscript for submission to an editor or agent, or prepares it for self-publishing. Copyediting focuses on clarity, consistency, and correctness regarding spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, and factual accuracy, involving minimal touching of text by the editor. It's generally done in one round and the author accept or rejects changes and moves on.
2) Substantive (line) editing—Enhanced copyediting, more of a decision-making, quality-imposing process where text is analyzed and revised at the sentence (line) level. The editor often inserts queries pertaining to logistics and scene choreography, appropriateness to genre, story arc and character development, genre conventions, voice, etc. It's generally done in one round, though it may go back and forth between parties two or more times. No editorial rewriting is done beyond small cutting or consolidating, transition smoothing, or minor paragraph resequencing for clarity.
3) Developmental editing—A roll-up-your-sleeves-and-dig-in process that embraces a book's overall concept, flow, and structure as well as phrasing and all other detail. It's the most hands-on by the editor, and most interactive between editor and author; it takes the most time, costs the most, and has the most profound impact on an author's work. It usually requires at least two rounds of backing and forthing. Best done when the author is still struggling with the first draft and harnessing ideas, but it's also appropriate when a book is stuck.
Note: EDITING IS NOT PROOFREADING! That occurs when a book is ready to go out into the world, and is done only to ensure that no lingering bloopers remain after editing and revision. Proofreading is a separate service at a separate price, best done by a separate person.
1) Communication—Both parties should agree (in writing) on service specifics, schedule, costs, expectations, format for submission and delivery, and anything else of concern before starting the job.
2) Trust—The author needs to believe that the editor does not intend to price gouge, steal their work, or rewrite it; the editor needs to believe that the author intends to pay and engage in the process with an open mind and positive attitude.
3) Respect—Both must recognize that editing a manuscript is a business transaction, with one person providing a valid product, and the other providing an expert service.
1) You're on the same side, wanting the book to be the best it can be and your talents to be appreciated.
2) You need to let go. The rules of language are important for structure and communication, but sometimes need to be relaxed. Fiction, as an art form, is allowed to break the rules if that serves the story. Likewise, not every word an author writes is a precious jewel. There is room for improvement in everyone's work. Editing should be directed toward balancing the artist's voice and vision against reader comprehension. Both parties must remember that perfection is unattainable, and there comes a time when a work is as good as it needs to be and should go out into the world rather than reworked indefinitely.
3) Both your viewpoints are valid. All art is subjective, and what's good and right and beautiful or awful will vary widely between people. The author is the deciding party about content, though a wise author will consider all editorial input before rejecting it, because you both want the book to find its audience and be well received.
There used to be only one path to publication (two, if you count the much-maligned vanity presses). Now there are three alternatives, for print and/or electronic publication.
In general: The author owns the copyright, but the difference with publisher types lies in who owns the ISBN, who controls what rights, how much money the author pays out and gets back, quality of the final product, and how much marketing the author has to do.
Independent publishers (a.k.a "indies," a term used for both publishers and authors) have different criteria, and are where most of today's books find a home.
This realm comprises the "Big Five" (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan); also, small or niche indie presses. The company pays the author. There may be an advance against royalties; definitely royalties based on sales. A manuscript is submitted via agent or direct to editor. Once accepted, a book is worked on by in-house developmental and line editors, often asking for significant changes, then usually farmed out for production work.
Traditional publishers have been forced by the marketplace to focus on novels that will sell in large numbers, i.e., blockbusters, genre series, and the occasional surprise. These same works are what agents are looking for, because they make their living from sales. Thus, getting traditionally published has become an intensely competitive challenge for authors, and their books must not only meet high standards of excellence but also fit within certain conventions.
The ISBN is in the publisher's name. Rights are divided and sold separately. Contracts are deep and often tricky. The author has little or no control, but in exchange does not have to do any of the production work or handle the business aspects. These days, unless a star, the author often has to participate in marketing.
This is what many people mean by "self-publishing." The author chooses who will publish the novel and either pays the company for services, or loses some of the revenue in fees to the company. Popular author-service companies include CreateSpace, Kindle Direct, Lulu, Book Baby, and Smashwords. These may produce e-books only or offer a print-on-demand option, sometimes print runs as well. Generally there are no "gatekeepers," i.e., people who accept or reject a submission. The author can purchase a full package or separate services, and receives a royalty based on sales, often minus production costs. Performance quality from these companies is all over the map. It's the least expensive option but contains high risk.
The ISBN is in the company's name unless the author signs up for a special service (usually for an extra fee). Author control varies per vendor, but the author is in charge of results.
Here the author carries all the risk and gets all the reward by becoming a publishing business. Author owns the ISBN, pays vendors of choice for all production services, or else does them him/herself. The most common print-on-demand partner is Lightning Source/Ingram. Some author-service companies offer distribution deals separate from production, so a self-publisher can arrange all the production work then provide a distribution-ready file to the service company. Self-publishing is time-consuming, expensive, gratifying, and potentially lucrative—but not for the faint-hearted.
Authors can use different publishing channels for different purposes. The author-services and self-publishing options are great for reviving a backlist or bringing out a book that falls between commercial categories. The decision of which route to take is now a major part of an author's plan for a novel. Editors can help authors make that decision, and/or edit the manuscript with certain publishing parameters in mind.
It helps both parties to base an estimate on an edited sample (1 to 5 pages) from the book.
Because editing is an open vs. regulated profession, rates charged by individuals run the gamut. They tend to reflect the editor's experience—meaning, super-cheap rates reflect less experience, while the highest rates reflect mastery and author demand. Most independent editors price their services in the middle, within the parameters posted by the Editorial Freelancers Association (www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php).
1) Hourly—The most comfortable way for many authors and editors to work. However, it can get away from them if the job is not well defined.
2) Unit—A way of preventing surprises. It is based on something measurable, such as page length (industry standard is defined as 250 words per page) or word count (most commonly determined by MS Word's counting feature), based on the incoming manuscript—not the edited version.
3) Fixed—A project fee arrived at by estimating hours and word or page count, rounded into a fixed amount based on the editor's experience with variables that consume billable time. In a fixed-rate job, any follow-up editing of revised material is either built into the project rate or billed at an hourly rate as a separate transaction, since the lion's share of the work has been done.
While every editor has a preferred method of estimating and billing, most will discuss alternatives if an author has a different preference.
Next PostCan You Believe It? Does Your Storyline Need To Connect With Reality?


text:
Home / Questions / Which of the following are runner-up companies that aggressively attack competitors to get
Which of the following are runner-up companies that aggressively attack competitors to get
Which of the following are runner-up companies that aggressively attack competitors to get more market share?
[A]Market leaders
[B]Market challengers
[C]Market followers
[D]Market nichers
Use the result of Problem 35 to find the single mode condition Use this condition to find the maximum allowed thickness of the active layer for a 13 µm semiconductor laser How does this value
Use the result of Problem 3.5 to find the single-mode condition. Use this condition to find the maximum allowed thickness of the active layer for a 1.3-µm semiconductor l...
The Discount on Bonds Payable account a. is an expense account. b. is a contra account to Bonds Payable. c. is expensed at the bond's maturity. d. is a miscellaneous revenue account.
The Discount on Bonds Payable account a. is an expense account. b. is a contra account to Bonds Payable. c. is expensed at the bond's maturity. d. is a miscellaneous ...
Dunlap Corp has a market capitalization of 100 million and 25 million in outstanding debt Dunlaps equity cost of capital is 10 and its debt cost of capital is 6 What is Dunlaps unlevered
Dunlap Corp. has a market capitalization of $100 million, and $25 million in outstanding debt. Dunlap's equity cost of capital is 10%, and its debt cost of capital is 6%....
The following graph shows the value of a stocks dividends over time The stocks current dividend is $100 per share and dividends are expected to grow at a constant rate of 450% per year The
The following graph shows the value of a stock's dividends over time. The stock's current dividend is $1.00 per share, and dividends are expected to grow at a constant ra...
Nico bought 100 shares of Cisco Systems stock for $30.00 per share on January 1, 2013. He received a dividend of $2.00 per share at the end of 2013 and $3.00 per share at the end of 2014. At the end
Nico bought 100 shares of Cisco Systems stock for $30.00 per share on January 1, 2013. He received a dividend of $2.00 per share at the end of 2013 and $3.00 per share at...
Phenyx Pharmaceuticals has just announced the development of a new drug for which the company is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration FDA If approved the future profits from
Phenyx Pharmaceuticals has just announced the development of a new drug for which the company is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If approved...
What is the best test of an economic theory? a. the rigor of its mathematical formulation b. its ability to explain and predict c. the accuracy of its assumptions d. the level of real-world detail i
What is the best test of an economic theory?a. the rigor of its mathematical formulationb. its ability to explain and predictc. the accuracy of its assumptionsd. the leve...
Based on the table below, calculate producer surplus for each producer when the market price is $12. Sellers Willingness to sell one unit A $21 B $4 C $30 D $14 E $12 F $15 G $51 H $9 I $23
Based on the table below, calculate producer surplus for each producer when the market price is $12.SellersWillingness to sell one unitA$21B$4C$30D$14E$12F$15G$51H$9I$23
Light bulbs manufactured by a certain factory last a random time between 400 and 1200 hours. What is the probability that of eight such bulbs three burn out before 550 hours, two burn out after
Light bulbs manufactured by a certain factory last a random time between 400 and 1200 hours. What is the probability that, of eight such bulbs, three burn out before 55...
Central Enterprises is suffering an economic downturn, and the workforce needs to be reduc
Central Enterprises is suffering an economic downturn, and the workforce needs to be reduced. Upper-level managers are debating the costs and benefits of various employee...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home General News World News Turkish president calls for ceasefire as civilians flee Idlib
Turkish president calls for ceasefire as civilians flee Idlib
Tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing towns in Idlib as the Syrian army intensifies its offensive.
Russian-backed troops encircled a Turkish observation post on the approach to Maarat al-Numan in an offensive into the last significant rebel pocket in Syria.
It's the first major bout of fighting since Turkish, Russian and Iranian leaders agreed in September to "de-escalate" conflict in Idlib.
It has displaced at least 80,000 civilians across the towns, with cars and trucks loaded with people's belongings seen heading north to the border crossing of Bab al-Hawa.
Image: Hundreds of people have left the region
A spokesman for Turkish president Recep Erdogan said they have asked Russia for a ceasefire.
The spokesman said Russia told Turkey they will try to stop attacks in Idlib.
A Turkish delegation travelled to Moscow on Monday to discuss developments in Libya and Syria while civilians began to leave the region.
More from Syria
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "alarmed by the scale of the military operation and reported attacks on evacuation routes" used by civilians fleeing.
The spokesman added: "The Secretary-General reminds all parties of their obligations to protect civilians and ensure freedom of movement."
Eight people died, including five children, when bombs dropped by Russian jets struck displaced families while they sought shelter in Jubas.
At least 12 other people were killed this week when Russian and Syrian air force jets hit civilian convoys on main roads as people fled near Turkey.
Abu Abdallah, displaced from Maarat al-Numan, said: "We ran away from the rockets, barrels and explosive shells. We are asking for God's mercy and the United Nations to see what happened to us because of Bashar and Russian army.
"They are killing us."
Image: Russia has said they will order a ceasefire
Nooman Bader, another displaced civilian, said: "The warplanes of criminal Bashar al-Assad hit us with everything; shells, bombs. We pulled out people from under the wreckage.
"We could not stay anymore. We could not get anything with us. We just left our homes and ran away. We sat in the streets."
Imam Mohamed Abdallah told Reuters: "Shells and aerial bombing, every five minutes there are explosions from barrels and shells. We ran away to hide from shells until we found a car. We left with only our clothes on, with our pyjamas.
Special report: War crimes evidence in Syria
"We did not find homes or anyone to help us and children were crying when they saw the shells. We came to the mosque to hide until we found a way. Maarat was totally destroyed, what is in Maarat? Why are they bombing it all day? We ran away.
"Once we found a car we got in it my wife, children and I."
Insurgents controlling Idlib, which is on the border with Turkey, include the Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham and Turkish backed rebel factions.
Maarat al-Numan had been a refuge for families who fled other areas of Syria which had been recaptured by Damascus during the eight and a half year civil war.
A Russian-led aerial bombing campaign has helped Syrian government forces close in on the strategic city.
Scores of civilians have been killed in this offensive.
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text:
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    Date: 2015-12-25
*/

var app = {
    self : {},

    onDeviceReady : function () {
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        if (device.platform === "iOS") {
            alert("got iOS.");
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            // http://www.mzcart.com/javascript-how-to-addremove-css-class-from-a-dom-element/
            document.getElementById('exitApp').classList.add("hidden");
            // deals with post-iOS-7 change that covers the status bar
            // http://coenraets.org/blog/2013/09/phonegap-and-cordova-with-ios-7/
            document.body.style.marginTop = "20px";
            // hide the Splash Screen for iOS only
            navigator.splashscreen.hide();
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//
// Wait for PhoneGap to load
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


7/11/2011 · WARNING: You MUST watch this video all the way to the end to get your ex boyfriend back this simple, push-button way. Watch the video on this page and learn how to use tiny little text messages sent from the cell phone you have in your pocket right now to crawl deep into your ex boyfriend's or ex husband's mind and reawaken his... Read Our Expert Reviews and User Reviews of the most popular how to get revenge on your ex wife here, including features lists, star ratings, pricing information, videos, screenshots and more.
Read Our Expert Reviews and User Reviews of the most popular how to get revenge on your ex wife here, including features lists, star ratings, pricing information, videos, screenshots and more.... An adequate lumpectomy in this instance may lead to how to get your man back from another woman an unacceptable aesthetic outcome, and the patient may actually prefer getting mastectomy with plastic cosmetic surgery reconstruction.
Christina Wilson enlisted stylist Amanda Sanders for a wardrobe overhaul when she moved back to Manhattan after splitting from her ex-husband.
Revenge on the Ex-wife (self.ProRevenge) submitted 4 years ago * by senoringognito The ex: Ex wife was psychologically abusive to me and the kids, was a consummate liar and manipulator and did all she could to ruin me financially during and after the marriage.
They' re use to be soulmates but now they've broken up. Haunted by revenge fantasies? Still want to get back at your ex? Try these therapeutic exercises. They' re use to be soulmates but now they've broken up. Haunted by revenge fantasies? Still want to get back at your ex? Try these therapeutic exercises.


text:
Staten Island woman suddenly attacked by neighbor while sitting in car, police say
By Josh Einiger
STATEN ISLAND (WABC) -- A woman was just sitting in her car when she was allegedly beaten up by one of her neighbors in Staten Island.
The video is shaky, it's taken from a distance, but it's more than enough to see the violent attack, as the man in red yanked open his victim's car door.
"Once he had the door open he went wild," said Janet Grube, the victim.
And then he punched her again and again and again, stopping only after a Good Samaritan walked up.
And then, as the victim got out of her car, one more punch.
"He was just pummeling and pummeling," Grube said, "all on my face. Closed fists."
Grube wound up battered and bloodied. She is convinced that this all happened because of a misunderstanding.
The attacker, identified by police as 54-year-old Timothy Adrien, is Grube's upstairs neighbor.
She thinks he blames her for previously calling police on him. Though she says that just isn't true.
Whatever the motive was, cops arrested Adrien and charged him with third degree assault.
Grube says she's afraid for her life.
"I don't even understand how a person like this can do so much harm, because he's full of rage," Grube said.
new york cityattackstaten islandsurveillance video


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This workshop will offer the opportunity to learn how to adjust the hips, realize what is a bit off, and activate muscle groups that for number of reasons decided to get "lazy".
The cooperation of hip alignment, gluteal balance, rotators, flexors and extensors of the hip has immense rippling effect on what is happening in the back or downstream - hence we will look at the two gateways.
You will end up with some great takeaways and a few tools you can use; in yoga practice or on their own.


text:
Q: VNC x0vncserver "password" parameter not working as expected I'm trying hard to configure sort of "desktop sharing solution" on Linux Mint 19.2 MATE. I basically need a way for tech support to provide assistance for remote user on his very desktop.
The idea is when user needs help he contacts t-support, then presses magic icon on desktop which:

*

*generates and shows one time password for session (makepasswd -string 1234567890 -chars 8)

*initiates x0vncserver (tigervnc-scraping-server) with said password.
Then user supplies password to t-assistant, t-ass connects to user's desktop and helps him out.
The problem is that despite x0vncserver has two distinct params (password and passwordfile) it won't allow to connect with only "password" param specified with error "No password configured for VNC Auth" and I can't use vncpasswd util to configure password file because it won't allow me to supply desired password as parameter to this command
So any help is appreciated.

A: Ok, it's quite simple in Linux, actually. Linux allows to supply replies to vncpasswd prompts right away:
$ printf "MYPASSWORD\nMYPASSWORD\n\n" | vncpasswd

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


After two teachers' strikes in as many months in California, it is too soon to tell whether the labor disputes in Oakland and Los Angeles presage a new era of school-based activism.
But regardless of what comes next, this year's strikes had much in common, and yielded valuable lessons and insights for other districts where labor troubles may also be brewing.
Both strikes were relatively short, lasting about a week. The timeline was shaped by the troubled finances of both districts that couldn't afford to lose excessive amounts of state funds they receive based on student attendance. Teachers also couldn't afford to lose excessive wages by being out on strike for a lengthy period, or to take money off the bargaining table that could have been used to meet some of their demands. So there was pressure on both sides to resolve the strike within a reasonable amount of time.
In both cases, teachers appeared to come out ahead, achieving gains they might not have won without a strike. In Oakland's case, teachers earned a gradual salary increase of 11 percent — more than double the 5 percent the district offered before the strike began — although most of the gains will only come in the 3rd year of the agreement. In the case of Los Angeles, on the salary front teachers got less than what they demanded initially, and settled for the 6 percent the district had already offered. But they did get commitments from the district to reduce class sizes and significantly increase support staff like counselors.
In both Oakland and Los Angeles, the strikes demonstrated deep public support for the teachers. It suggests that the days when teachers were held solely responsible for seemingly every shortcoming in the state's public schools, along with the success or failure of their students, are over, at least for now.
In both conflicts, the teachers unions and their allies are looking to Sacramento, as well as voters, to approve more funds as a key element in making the agreements enforceable. But it is not clear where those funds would come from. Neither Gov. Gavin Newsom nor the Legislature has made any commitments beyond the funding increases that Newsom requested in his proposed budget in January. In Los Angeles the strike did push the school board to place a long-delay tax on real estate parcels on a June 4 special election ballot. If approved, it would help erase the district's projected $500 million shortfall. Whether it will pass is another matter: it will require voters to approve it by a two-thirds margin, which the last parcel tax measure nearly a decade ago failed to get.
Unaddressed in both Oakland and Los Angeles are deeper structural issues, such as the impact of declining enrollments, the crushing costs of meeting pension obligations, and stratospheric housing costs.
Whether these underlying forces will trigger further strikes — still a relatively rare event in California — is hard to predict. In only one other California district — San Ramon Valley Unified centered in Danville, a wealthy suburban community to Oakland's east — have teachers actually authorized their union to call a strike if contract negotiations break down, although labor conflicts are brewing in other districts like Sacramento City Unified and Fremont Unified just south of Oakland.
Those realities will make recruiting teachers an ongoing challenge, even as districts struggle to find teachers in key areas like math and science and special education. And it will continue to create churn in the labor force, with some teachers being tempted to leave so they can live in districts where living costs are lower — or to leave the profession altogether.
That may help explain the surprisingly large proportion of teachers in Oakland — 42 percent — who voted against ratifying the agreement. This is one area where the Oakland strike outcome differed from Los Angeles, where only 18 percent of teachers voted against the contract. While making some significant gains at the bargaining table, many Oakland teachers sent a message that they were hoping for more.
Louis Freedberg writes about education reforms in California and nationally, and is the executive director of EdSource.
The unwisdom of the scheme, however, is already taking its toll on its plausibility. While the sheer weight of facts will nudge officials toward a more prudent course, it's important for Californians to recognize in advance that the plan isn't right for the state.
To begin with, there's the cost. Already, taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to fund preschool for 175,000 kids. Legislation introduced by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, to expand preschool coverage to 100,000 additional children could cost up to $1.5 billion, according to EdSource.
It was former United Nation's Ambassador and U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who famously said "everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts." That quote came to mind in the wake of American College Testing (ACT) releasing their latest batch of test scores revealing American high school seniors readiness for college.
ACT reported that only 60 percent of high schoolers met collegiate success benchmarks in English, 46 percent in reading, 40 percent in math and 38 percent in science. Every category – yes every category – showed a decline from the previous year. Our schools are going backward and taking our students with them.
Moynihan's quote comes to mind because the American education establishment – I like to call it the Blob – tries to obscure continuously falling and failing test scores with a dust storm of opinions from "experts." ACT doesn't deal in opinions of any size, shape or form. They deal in facts, and in this case the adjectives "cold" and "hard" are exceptionally appropriate.
The cold hard facts are that only 36 percent of our seniors met "college ready" benchmarks in all four categories tested. That means almost two-thirds of our students are on the path to failure once they get to college.
The cold hard facts are that the establishment is dysfunctional for millions of America's students, and is giving the worst education to those most in need, as Hispanic and African American students continue to lag behind their peers in every category tested. This is academic malpractice.
Moynihan was a fairly doctrinaire New York liberal for his times, but a thoughtful one never constrained by ideological straitjackets. He was an early and vocal supporter of school choice. The concept – which now applies to a number of opportunities states have created to expand options for students outside of their ZIP code – was a favorite of Moynihan's. Moynihan passionately believed in giving parents the power to guide their kids' education. He would be appalled that the ACT scores show that Hispanic and African-American students continue to lag behind their peers in every category tested.
All of America should be equally appalled. For 25 years now the Center for Education Reform (CER) has sounded the alarm about falling test scores and failing students. We believe, and statistics show, that we must transform education – not just tinker with systems and not just give parents more options to choose outside of their zoned schools. That is necessary but not sufficient. No,we must truly redesign the process and what we expect from educators, students and yes, the Blob. Education must become personalized to every child, every student. The vision for a 21st century education system, well articulated by iNACOL's Susan Patrick, challenges us to use our tools & modern day technologies to help students achieve competency, not just finish a grade, before moving on. "Moving toward a competency-based education model requires fundamental shifts in the systems, structures and assumptions that the traditional model of education is rooted in. We need bold leadership to transform K-12 education systems and policy. We need to build collaborative and distributed leadership at all levels of the education system to lead this transformation," says Patrick.
And that's just the beginning. In the coming days CER will release its annual Parent Power Index (PPI), ranking the states on how much power they afford parents to drive their family's education, and for the first time, taking a look at what states do to foster personalized learning, making schools student, not system centered. Such innovations in teaching and learning, along side the critical lever of expanded education opportunity so that no child is confined to a failing school because of their zip code, are critical to our nation's future if we are to arrest the lagging education indicators that inhibit a productive future for tens of millions of Americans. As our nation moves toward yet another election, these issues should guide everyone's decisions. Without informed and bold lawmakers at every level, we simply won't change the status quo.
I think Daniel Moynihan would agree. These are not opinions. They are facts.
Jeanne Allen is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform.
Cox seemed to suggest in a statement to the newspaper that he engaged in some hyperbole: "Of course our teachers will never approach the pay of a Beyonce or a Lebron, but quite frankly, our classroom teachers influence, inspire and change the arc of more lives than even these music and athletic superstars." But his idea of instituting a form of merit pay makes a lot of sense. Despite the naysaying, every successful enterprise is, to some degree, competitive.
Merit pay is a simple concept. It allows school administrators to pay good, effective teachers more than mediocre or poor-performing teachers. It allows signing bonuses and performance-based rewards. The obvious corollary is that it also allows them to pay bad or incompetent teachers lower salaries. In a truly competitive educational model that goes beyond this simple idea, school officials could even – get this – demote, discipline or fire teachers who aren't making the grade. That's how it works in almost any private business, and even private schools.
To make matters worse, it's nearly impossible to fire public-school teachers provided they show up for the job. School districts have "rubber rooms," where teachers deemed unfit for the classroom twiddle their thumbs and collect full pay and benefits while their cases are adjudicated for months and even years given all the union protections against firing. It can cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars to go through the firing process, so most don't bother.
That leads to an annual, cynical process called the "dance of the lemons." As Peter Schweizer explained for the Hoover Institution, "Often, as a way to save time and money, an administrator will cut a deal with the union in which he agrees to give a bad teacher a satisfactory rating in return for union help in transferring the teacher to another district. The problem teacher gets quietly passed along to someone else. Administrators call it 'the dance of the lemons' or 'passing the trash.'" These cases usually involve teachers accused of some terrible action, but it's functionally impossible to get rid of or pass along teachers who are merely incompetent. I recall when John Stossel showed a long flow chart of how to fire a teacher in New York City. The audience was stunned. Then Stossel, held up more pages of the chart. It's crazy and the results are insane.
In 2012, nine California public-school students filed a lawsuit against California and the CTA arguing that the state's system of teacher protections violates the state constitution's promise of an "effective" education. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu ruled on behalf of the students. He invalidated teacher tenure and other work rules because they assured that a percentage of "grossly ineffective" teachers would be left in the classroom, wreaking havoc on the future of many thousands of students, especially those in poor school districts.
In his decision, Treu noted that "an expert called by (California school administrators), testified that 1 – 3 percent of teachers in California are grossly ineffective. Given that the evidence showed roughly 275,000 active teachers in this state, the extrapolated number of grossly ineffective teachers ranges from 2,750 to 8,250." That's a lot of bad teachers, and a depressing number of students who suffer in their classrooms. But Treu's decision was overturned on appeal, and the appeal was upheld by the California Supreme Court. But the facts are the facts, even if the court was unwilling to back a decision to shake up the state's public-education system.
This is what happens when the educational system is not a "competitive endeavor," but rather a union-controlled, government monopoly. It means that good teachers cannot be rewarded. Great teachers cannot easily be recruited. Grossly ineffective teachers cannot easily be removed. And mediocre ones have few incentives to improve. Imagine how this system would work in your particular profession or business. How well would it do if the worst are protected, the best are neglected and the so-so ones are rewarded?
As a final note, the debate over merit pay reinforces the wisdom of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Janus decision, which declared that teachers and other public employees are not required to pay union dues even to support collective-bargaining purposes. Justice Samuel Alito, wrote for the majority that such bargaining often involved "fundamental questions of education policy," so it's antithetical to the First Amendment to compel people to support ideas to which they don't agree.
"Should teacher pay be based on seniority, the better to retain experienced teachers?" Justice Alito asked. "Or should schools adopt merit-pay systems to encourage teachers to get the best results out of their students?" Public-school teachers no longer are forced to subsidize the opposition to merit pay and to reforms to the current tenure and seniority based system, but there's still a long process ahead to move toward the idea that Cox touted.
From the Independent Financial Review Panel's report of Los Angeles Unified School District emerges a dire picture that should alarm parents, educators and community stakeholders alike. It found that maintaining the status quo would grow the budget deficit to about $600 million by 2019–2020, concluding that failure to act would have real ramifications for the district's 550,000 students including financial insolvency and even state takeover. For years district officials have avoided substantive reforms, but the warnings of distant fiscal calamity have now become a reality that leaders must address head-on. While the path ahead involves many difficult decisions and political headwinds, the process of right-sizing LAUSD presents an opportunity to lay the foundation for a 21st-century education system that's productive, agile, and responsive to the needs of students and communities. In other words, right-sizing isn't about budget cuts and layoffs, but rather optimizing all facets of operations with the goal of providing high-quality options to all students at a cost that aligns with revenues. To do this, LAUSD leaders should focus on five key reforms.
LAUSD has little control over rising pension contributions because reducing these obligations requires state-level reforms. However, general staffing surges that are not supported by enrollment can increase pension costs, since the district must make pension contributions for each new hire.
Further, LAUSD does have discretion over OPEB costs as well as health and welfare benefits for active employees. The district has several significant cost-saving options available to it, ranging from ending retiree health care benefits altogether to engaging in a variety of cost-sharing and cost-reducing strategies.
At its August 2017 board retreat on reducing health care costs, LAUSD staff presented five cost-saving options, as shown in Table 20.
Ultimately the board upheld the status quo for health care benefits for another three years at an annual cost approaching $1 billion.
Improve student attendance ($45 million): Because the state of California provides revenue based on Average Daily Attendance, LAUSD loses money with every student absence from school. Increasing the district's attendance to just the statewide average—a relatively low bar to achieve—would generate an additional $45 million per year. Of course, this would not only help boost LAUSD's bottom-line but also improve academic outcomes such as graduation rates and college and career readiness. In 2009–2010, Long Beach Unified shifted 10 of its social workers and counselors to working with campuses on truancy issues to increase student attendance. The chronic absence rate in Long Beach Unified dropped from 19.8 percent in 2011 to 10 percent by 2014. By 2015, the school district's overall attendance rate was 96.17 percent up from 96.01 percent in 2014 and above the state average.
Improve staff attendance ($15 million): Currently, only 75 percent of LAUSD staff members have strong attendance as defined by the district. Bolstering this number to 90 percent would save about $15 million on substitute teachers while also providing students with more stable classroom environments. To save even more money, LAUSD could require select administrators to substitute teach five days per year, a policy that saved Scottsdale, Arizona about 7 percent of their substitute budget and also allowed district staff to stay connected to the classroom.
The reality is that LAUSD's financial quagmire requires district leaders to make substantive cutbacks in both staffing and schools. Even though its declining enrollment has necessitated a reduction of about 10,000 staff, LAUSD has actually increased staffing levels in recent years while seeing costs associated with salaries and benefits also rise. This problem will only magnify if projected enrollment declines continue to hold true.
To start, LAUSD must recognize that the lion's share of new hires have been administrative staff, even during declining enrollment. Therefore, district officials should first evaluate every central office staff position as part of its school finance overhaul.
Next, teacher layoffs are unavoidable but LAUSD can approach them in a manner that will help increase student outcomes even as overall staffing levels decrease. Importantly, district and union officials should work together to review and renegotiate factors that hamstring flexibility and do nothing to further student achievement, such as automatic pay increases, rigid staffing requirements, and termination provisions that favor costly teachers with seniority. For example, Boston Public Schools replaced a seniority-driven system by renegotiating its collective bargaining contract to give more autonomy over staffing to school leaders, and Hartford Public Schools' contract now provides principals with more flexibility over things such as scheduling. Increasing district and school-level flexibility will not only minimize staff reductions and protect against future layoffs, but also help ensure that the district retains its highest-performing talent in the process. LAUSD should also follow the Independent Financial Review Panel's guidance by offering early retirement incentives to senior staff and help reduce the percentage of teachers who have reached the maximum salary level, which is currently 10 percent higher than the state-wide average.
Los Angeles also has declining enrollment without ensuring that all school sites are self-sustaining. While many other large urban districts with significant enrollment declines have worked to close and realign some schools to save money, LAUSD continues to keep under-enrolled schools open, even as it has opened many new schools over the last decade. In some areas of the district where school sites are very close to one another, the older schools have lost enrollment to newer schools. The district has not released a transparent recent report about the current capacity from one school to another or identified which schools may be under-enrolled and subsidized by the district.
If we assume that LAUSD still has the capacity for 670,000 seats, then the current enrollment level of 500,000 students means that it is past time for the district to do a transparent audit of school capacity and how it might save money by closing the most under-enrolled schools. Independent charter schools have used some of this excess capacity for their students, but a transparent examination would ensure that the district can accurately assess all its financial options. In addition, evidence shows that closing the lowest performing and most under-enrolled schools can improve the quality of education for the most disadvantaged students.
A growing body of research indicates that school closure increases educational opportunity so long as students have access to better schools. Closure students who attended better schools tended to make greater academic gains than did their peers from low-performing schools in the same sector that remained open.
A new report on LAUSD's real estate assets by the LAUSD Advisory Task Force calls for the district to "analyze the current occupancy of core District assets to determine whether consolidation of and/or relocation of certain tenants to more optimal locations could create savings, maximize revenue, and/or reduce functional obsolescence." With a more thoughtful approach to managing individual school sites and vacant property, the district could actually raise money with long-term leases to charter operators or with other commercial or community uses of their underutilized real estate assets. In addition, school consolidation could help ensure every school has more qualified staff, rather than distributing LAUSD's scarce resources over too many school sites.
When LAUSD keeps open schools that are under-capacity, district-wide personnel may continue to grow while individual school communities feel staff shortages at the school level. This is because each school, independent of enrollment, requires a certain fixed number of staff positions, some of which may be vacant as enrollment shrinks. As the Los Angeles School Report noted in a May 2016 feature, former Superintendent Michelle King cited feedback from a principals' survey she received that "showed principals expressing frustration with a lack of clerical staff, a lack of time to complete tasks and limited opportunities for instructional training. 'Principals say there are not enough hours in the day to get everything they need done and improve teaching and learning due to a lack of sufficient personnel,' King said." In this way, the district can have too many employees that are unsustainable given the current level of enrollment and district revenue, while individual schools can also be under-staffed and stretched thin.
But when schools consolidate, fewer fixed staff positions are needed and are more likely to be filled. The district is staffing too many schools at an inadequate level and could increase staff and school support at individual schools by consolidating and closing some schools. LAUSD needs to make a transparent accounting of site-based enrollment, spending, and revenue based on the students who are enrolled at each site, examine how each school uses resources, and determine how that impacts the district as a whole. Until that is accomplished, the district will continue to have too many staff members that are not effectively deployed to best serve the needs of students.
Over a six-year period, LAUSD's enrollment fell by nearly 100,000 students, about half of which is due to families choosing charter schools, with many others opting to enroll in traditional public schools outside of the district. With forecasted student attrition of 2.8 percent per year and lackluster outcomes in many of LAUSD's schools, fundamental changes within classrooms are clearly in order. The Independent Financial Review Panel found that "there may be lessons to be learned from the migration of students to charter schools" and "it is very important that the District carefully analyze charter programs and focus on which students are leaving and why" so that LAUSD can ultimately improve its programmatic offerings for families. More bluntly, the days of district monopoly and residential assignment are coming to an end, and if LAUSD is going to attract and retain students then officials must be more responsive to parent needs. Fortunately, numerous districts across the U.S. have already undertaken substantive reforms to adapt to this new operating environment, and LAUSD has much to learn from them. One prominent example is Denver Public Schools (DPS).
DPS has adopted "portfolio management," a model in which a district's primary role is to approve operators, provide support, and evaluate school outcomes. Portfolio management is based on the belief that school-level autonomy drives performance by allowing school leaders and teachers to more effectively meet student needs. While traditional districts tend to prescribe a one-size-fits-all model by mandating inputs (e.g. staffing ratios, curriculum, etc.) portfolio management recognizes that each school has unique challenges and is thus more concerned with holding educators accountable for outcomes rather than how they operate. Ultimately, this helps to promote a diverse supply of schools that, when combined with a strong intra-district choice policy, can give parents more meaningful options that in turn help improve overall satisfaction and retention. As part of its strategic roadmap, The Denver Plan 2020, DPS is striving to have 80 percent of its students attending a high-performing school by 2020.
New data by the advocacy group Parent Revolution show that 234 LA Unified schools scored in the bottom two levels — orange or red — for both English and math on the California accountability dashboard. In the 2016–2017 school year, 155,779 students were enrolled in those 234 schools. LAUSD has 34 schools that are red in both English and math. Last year those schools enrolled 26,400 students. At a minimum, 30 percent of LAUSD students could use a higher-performing school.
Currently, LAUSD employs an antiquated school finance system. Instead of providing principals with actual dollars based on students, it allocates staffing positions that are determined using rigid ratios and district-wide average salaries. As Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab explains, "The district sends out teachers, principals, administrative assistants, lunchroom staff, librarians, and the like, and pays the bills out of the district coffers. Schools do not have their own bank accounts, nor do they receive reports that show the true costs of the resources that land in their buildings." As well, according to Harvard researcher and former LAUSD budget director Jon Fullerton, the district's budgeting systems "do not connect automatically with accounting systems, and both may be isolated from the human-resources systems that track who is hired, when, and for how much." As a result, funding is delivered to schools in a manner that is non-transparent, inequitable, and less responsive to enrollment changes. This makes it difficult to provide leaders with valuable data that could help the district become more productive with its education dollars.
To modernize its school finance system, LAUSD should allocate dollars on a per-pupil basis by adopting student-based budgeting, a funding portability framework that sends dollars to schools rather than staffing positions. This not only promotes equity and portability across schools within the district, but it also empowers principals to have more decision-making authority over how dollars are ultimately spent. Allocating funding to schools in per-pupil terms would promote greater efficiency by allowing dollars to grow and contract in direct proportion to student needs. In this way, student-based budgeting would allow principals to make their schools more responsive to parents' needs, increasing the likelihood of higher enrollment and potentially generating new revenue at the school level.
Moreover, when money goes directly to schools on a per-pupil basis, it becomes clear which schools are unable to financially sustain themselves and which schools may be candidates for consolidation to avoid insolvency. As part of this shift, LAUSD can also empower principals to purchase certain services from either the district or external vendors to optimize pricing and quality, which are often constrained by district contracts. This allows school leaders to make better use of their budgeted dollars while also helping to address central office bloat. Given LAUSD's financial position and need to reduce personnel, student-based budgeting would allow school-level staffing based on the funding resources generated by the students in the school.
Funding systems should be as simple and transparent as possible.
Per-pupil funding should be based on the needs of each student.
Per-pupil funding should follow the student to the public school of their choice.
Principals should receive actual dollars—not staffing positions or other allotments—to spend flexibly based on school needs.
Funding allocation principles should apply to all sources of education revenue.
There has been a philosophical change: the principal is the CEO of the school. The central office is there to support them. We inverted the pyramid so that the principal is on top, telling the central office what they need, rather than on the bottom. That's required a cultural change and huge structural changes in the district.
LAUSD has already laid the foundation for this reform by piloting autonomous schools through its Belmont Pilot Schools Network, which started in the 2007–2008 school year. In the 2017–2018 academic year LAUSD allocates $46 million to 83 schools that receive their resources based on a per-pupil formula that is allocated directly to schools. In these schools, principals have more autonomy to purchase school-based staffing and differentiated district support. LAUSD should take the next step by adopting a district-wide program as numerous districts such as Boston Public Schools, Houston Independent School District, and New York City Department of Education have already done.
goals, but would instead set the benchmarks and goals for the district.
In order to measure progress and monitor performance, LAUSD should revamp its knowledge infrastructure to better integrate key information systems. This means going beyond merging budgeting, accounting and human resource data by ensuring that student enrollment and achievement data are also readily available for cross-referencing analysis. This would ensure that individual school leaders and district leaders have the tools necessary to make sound financial decisions that are driven by academic strategy and outcomes.
For example, district leaders should know not only exactly how much is spent on each school but also how dollars are allocated across classrooms and courses. Disaggregating data to per-pupil terms at the classroom-level would help school leaders and district administrators assess the alignment of funding with strategic instructional intent and student outcomes, and more effectively consider trade-offs in how money is spent. This is especially important since research has shown that districts allocate funding in a manner that doesn't align with stated priorities such as focusing on low-achieving students, a fact that leaders are often unaware of given antiquated accounting and budgeting practices. For example, a district may say its goal is to improve 3rd-grade reading and then spend all of its resources on high school AP classes. Without attaching school- and classroom-level expenditures to instructional priorities, school leaders, and districts have little information about how they are targeting resources to instructional priorities.
Such transparency would help LAUSD's current measurement of progress, as the district doesn't track or publicly report its allocations at the school level based on student characteristics. As a result, education stakeholders and policymakers cannot easily determine if the new LCFF revenue, which the California Legislature intended to help high-needs students, is boosting spending in the schools these students attend. As Marguerite Roza noted in a recent report evaluating California's LCFF revenue, "this lack of financial transparency makes it difficult to assess the degree to which LCFF is delivering—or not delivering—on the state's pledge to drive resources to the highest-need students." A more transparent student-based system would allow district leaders to track these dollars and make more informed decisions about how best to use the district's scarce resources to improve student outcomes.
Student-based budgeting has helped other districts determine which schools should be closed or consolidated and which schools should be expanded or replicated. For example, after adopting student-based budgeting, the Denver school board approved the closing of eight schools that were under-enrolled and low-performing. The board projected that the realignment of students from these schools to higher performing schools would achieve projected yearly operating savings of $3.5 million. Those resources were used to improve the education of students who were affected by the school closures, delivering additional resources to under-performing schools, and creating funding opportunities for new schools and new programs. In addition to the standard per-pupil revenue that followed students to their new schools, the district reinvested $2 million, or 60 percent of the savings from school closures, into the schools of reassignment. In this way, a student-based budgeting funding system is an important modern financial tool that can help right-size LAUSD's financial ship.
The Los Angeles teachers union announced Friday that it has scheduled a strike-authorization vote for later this month.
A strike would not be automatic, even if a majority of members vote yes. But such a result would give union leaders the authority to call a strike without returning to members for another vote. Having members authorize a strike is a well-established pressure tactic, and once in a while, a strike does occur.
United Teachers Los Angeles scheduled the vote after the state's Public Employment Relations Board agreed with the union that talks were deadlocked.
California's public schools have enjoyed a remarkable restoration of funding since the bone-deep cuts they endured during the recession, but many are now facing a grave financial threat as they struggle to protect pensions crucial for teachers' retirement.
Over the next three years, schools may need to use well over half of all the new money they're projected to receive to cover their growing pension obligations, leaving little extra for classrooms, state Department of Finance and Legislative Analyst's Office estimates show. This is true even though the California State Teachers' Retirement System just beat its investment goals for the second straight year.
Some districts are predicting deficits and many districts are bracing for what's to come by cutting programs, reducing staff or drawing down their reserves—even though per-pupil funding is at its highest level in three decades and voters recently extended a tax hike on the rich to help pay for schools.
The situation could become even more bleak if California's economy doesn't keep growing.
If there's another recession – which economists say is increasingly likely given the record length of the expansion underway now – the higher pension payments scheduled could push some districts deeper into the red, Legislative Analyst's Office data indicates.
"Building maintenance could suffer, grounds care could suffer, class size could suffer, instructional coaches could suffer, athletic programs could suffer, technology could suffer, intervention programs could suffer" Fine said.
The problems stem from the state Legislature's reticence to mandate steeper payments into the California State Teachers' Retirement System. The system was badly underfunded and careening toward collapse four years ago when school districts, teachers and the state all agreed to pay more to reduce its unfunded liability, which now stands at $107 billion.
No matter how burdensome the larger and larger pension payments may be, actuaries say they're necessary to protect teachers' hard-earned retirement and prevent the system from running out of money. Teachers don't get social security, and unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year.
The Brown administration has directed an additional $20 billion to the state's public schools since 2013 and says districts have had plenty of time to plan for the pension payments ahead. But many school leaders and advocates want the state to invest even more, especially since California still ranks near the bottom in per-pupil spending compared to other states.
Meanwhile, the state's largest teachers union is downplaying the problem and encouraging its members to bargain for raises. California's teachers may be among the nation's most generously paid, but they say the money doesn't go very far because the state's cost of living is so high.
School officials are left with a Gordian knot of politically charged problems, forced to make escalating payments into the pension fund while trying to elevate disadvantaged students' sagging classroom performance, which remains among the country's worst despite the state's big investment in their learning through a policy championed by Brown.
"We need to graduate more kids and close academic achievement gaps, but we can't move the needle when costs are rising like this," said Dennis Meyers, executive director of the California School Boards Association, who stressed that his group is not seeking to reduce teachers' retirement benefits.
Each of California's school districts is bound to tackle these challenges differently, so CALmatters visited three of them whose circumstances are emblematic of what others across the state are experiencing. During those visits, we spoke with the people working to solve the problem.
Fremont Unified devotes a greater share of its budget to salary than any other district in the state (discover the percentage devoted to salaries at each of California's school districts here). So when the largest pension payments are phased in, Fremont will be hit especially hard. That means the district's budget could face cuts even as enrollment in the Bay Area school system grows.
Sacramento City Unified knew that larger pension payments were coming and saved money to prepare for them. Then the local teachers union criticized the district for hoarding cash and threatened to strike. Now, the contested funds are being used to finance a raise that teachers say is long overdue and that the county superintendent believes the district can't afford.
And in Los Angeles, growing demand for charter schools and a dwindling birth rate has led to declining enrollment in the district's own schools, which means pension payments will rise even as the district's state funding shrinks. School officials recently predicted that a quarter billion dollar budget deficit was just two years away.
Raul Parungao's distinctive grin and his cheery demeanor belie his concern about Fremont Unified's finances.
Situated between Oakland and San Jose in the pricey Bay Area, the school system pays its employees more than most. That makes it a desirable place to work but also means it will be hit especially hard when the largest payments required under Brown's pension plan are phased in.
Even though revenue is rising because enrollment is growing, the district must hire and pay more employees to serve them. And over the next three years, while Fremont predicts its revenue will grow by $26 million, a 7 percent bump, it also expects its employee pension and health care costs to climb by $14 million, a 23 percent surge.
Meanwhile, Fremont's teachers just won a small raise after months of protracted negotiations.
The current pay scale is competitive, with veterans making $114,000 a year, but leaders of the local union say about half of teachers still don't make enough to live in the district and must commute from up to an hour away.
But no matter how tough it may be for the district to afford this 1 percent pay hike, teachers deserve one, said Victoria Birbeck, the union's president.
The district stretched to offer teachers a raise last year and even had to shift its budget by millions of dollars to accommodate that 2 percent increase, which came after a 13 percent bump over the prior three years. Plans to upgrade students' textbooks and computers were postponed and class size for kindergarten, first and second grade students increased slightly.
Given the district's rising pension and other fixed costs, the new agreement's $7 million price tag will be tough to accommodate. Still, Michele Burke, one of the district's board members, acknowledged that for many teachers, $1 spent on pensions isn't as good as $1 spent on salary.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg only worked with a few key players one weekend last fall when he helped broker a deal to avert a citywide teacher strike, and former school board president Jay Hansen was one of them.
Hansen had tried for months to negotiate the terms of a pay increase for the city's 3,000 teachers, but the district and leaders of the local teachers union were far apart and neither side would budge. An acrimonious relationship between the two camps was partly to blame for the impasse.
At issue during the talks was the $81 million sitting in Sacramento City Unified's savings account, a sum the district had built up over several years with spoils from California's booming economy.
The union said the money should go toward class size reduction and raises for teachers that would make the district a more attractive place to work. Sacramento educators are paid less than their peers in nearby districts, but they also receive more generous lifetime health benefits, records show. The district said that it had saved the money to help cover rising pension and employee health care costs in the lean budget years ahead.
In the end, Steinberg helped craft an agreement that gives Sacramento teachers an 11 percent raise over three years. But just a few weeks after Steinberg announced the deal during a celebratory news conference on the steps of City Hall, Sacramento County Superintendent Dave Gordon delivered some bad news: the district can't afford it.
The district's own budget offers proof of Gordon's concerns.
Even though Hansen had been the union's adversary during months of stalled contract talks, he defended the district's decision to offer teachers a raise, calling it "the right thing to do" despite the school system's escalating pension and health care costs. "We did it anyway," he added.
"A strike would have been calamitous for everybody," he said. And Sacramento isn't the only place in California where teachers are thinking about a show of force. At least half a dozen other local unions fighting for higher wages have held labor actions in recent months.
In an interview with CALmatters that union leaders cut short after refusing to answer some questions, Executive Director John Borsos rejected any suggestion that the district won't be able to afford the contract it recently signed or that it ever claimed to have needed the money stockpiled in its savings account to cover rising pension costs.
Gov. Jerry Brown promised his 2014 funding plan would shore-up California's teacher pension system, but at least one young Los Angeles teacher, Josh Brown, says he's not counting on it. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School special educator is so worried about the system's solvency that he has an alternative retirement plan: using a portion of his salary to invest in the stock market.
The largest payments required under the plan will be tough for many districts to manage, but they're going to be especially vexing for large urban districts like Los Angeles Unified, which lost 100,000 students in the last decade and expects to shed more (here's the toll of that under-enrollment, school by school). That's a problem because California's schools are funded on a per-pupil basis and fewer students means less money.
In Los Angeles, the swift enrollment decline is due to a dwindling birthrate and growing demand for charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run, meaning their budgets are separate from the district's.
Over the next three years, the district anticipates its employee pension and health care costs will climb $90 million, a 5 percent increase, while its revenue dips about $270 million, a 4 percent decline. The result is a $258 million budget deficit in 2020 that the district can no longer paper over, push off or ignore.
The district plans to tackle the deficit with a one-time $105 million bailout from the state and central office staff reductions. But observers says officials will soon need to consider some painful measures it has so far been able to avoid, like boosting high school class sizes or closing schools with dwindling numbers of students.
At least 55 schools across the district are under-enrolled by a quarter, and ten of those are half empty, a CALmatters analysis of building capacity and enrollment data shows.
"Our costs are rising, and as a result, there are hard choices and trade-offs to make each time we look at the budget," said Scott Price, the district's chief financial officer.
Parent Paul Robak fears that if the district doesn't tackle its budget problems soon, it could be taken over by the state. At a recent board meeting, he urged the members to reject a healthcare spending plan that would further squeeze the budget. The members listened and thanked him for testifying before approving the agreement.
Board member Kelly Gonez also acknowledged the district's budget woes and the pressure of rising pension and health care costs but said officials should be trying to ease the pain by finding new sources of revenue, not by making cuts. All but one other board member declined to comment.
Even as a fiscal crisis looms, Los Angeles teachers are negotiating for a raise.
United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl declined CALmatters' request for an interview. However, at a Pepperdine University event held before the state bailout was announced, he pledged to keep pushing for more money and predicted that the state would come through.
Flooded with calls from anxious school officials, Sen. Anthony Portantino of La Canada Flintridge and several other Democrats pushed earlier this year for a fix that would boost districts' funding by $1 billion a year. In the end, Portantino convinced Brown to include about half as much in the state budget he signed a few weeks ago.
He insisted that the money be "flexible," meaning districts may use it to cover rising pension costs or for anything else. But California's schools are still underfunded compared to other states, and to better fulfill their responsibility to students and taxpayers, that must change, he said.
In the meantime, Fine hopes a recession doesn't strike soon and that districts can manage their budgets without needing to make cuts or send out pink slips. He was a deputy superintendent in Riverside during the Great Recession and remembers how painful it was to carry out round after round of layoffs.
A new study raises fresh concerns about the giant Los Angeles Unified School District and whether it shows good faith in its dealings with struggling schools in poor minority communities.
The Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution group, which focuses on improving education and increasing educational opportunities for poor minority students, analyzed 44 LAUSD schools with weak test scores last school year. At these schools, only 20 percent of students met or did better than state math standards and only 28 percent in English.
Yet last school year, 68 percent of teachers in these schools were not subject to official evaluations – either through oversight or via exemptions ordered by their principals. Of teachers who were evaluated, 96 percent were found to meet or do better than district performance standards. Over the past three school years, the figure edged up to 97 percent getting positive evaluations – meaning only about one in every 30 evaluated teachers is found wanting.
The findings parallel those that emerged from the landmark Vergara v. California lawsuit, in which nine students from state public schools represented by civil-rights attorneys hired by the Students Matter group alleged five state teacher job protection laws were so powerful that they had the unconstitutional effect of keeping incompetent teachers on the job and funneling them toward schools in poor communities.
Evidence presented by the plaintiffs in the case showed that only 2.2 teachers on average are fired each year for unsatisfactory performance in a state with 275,000 teachers at its public schools.
The case's primary focus was on Los Angeles Unified. In a twist that few expected, some of the most powerful testimony against the teacher protection laws came from then-LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. He testified in early 2014 that even if a teacher were "grossly ineffective," it could cost the district millions in legal bills to fire the teacher.
Later that year, state Judge Rolf Treu agreed with the plaintiffs that the five teacher protection laws unconstitutionally deprived the students of their right to a good public education. Treu likened the laws' effects to those of segregation before the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Treu's decision was overturned on appeal on the grounds that the trial failed to clearly establish a factual nexus between student performance and the job protection laws.
But education reformers were somewhat heartened by what happened next. Three members of the California Supreme Court wanted to hear an appeal of the appellate ruling, suggesting at the least some interest in Treu's reasoning, which was mocked as novel and weak by attorneys for teacher unions. While they were voted down by the state high court's other four justices, they could be a factor in future litigation.
As for Los Angeles Unified, litigation over school practices affecting minorities and high-needs students has been common for decades. In September 2017, for a recent example, the district reached a $151 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over the improper diversion of Local Control Funding Formula dollars that were supposed to be used to help struggling students in poor communities, especially English-language learners.
LAUSD was also the target in 2010 of what a federal government statement called "the first proactive civil rights enforcement action taken by the Department of Education under the Obama administration" – prompted by what then-Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the district's failure to adequately educate many Latino and African-American students. The case was settled in 2011 after the district agreed to make several substantial changes meant to improve these students' performance.
But evidence presented in the Vergara case showed no subsequent gains by these student groups.
Los Angeles Unified has 640,000 students, making it by far the largest school district in California. Only the New York City school system, which has about 1 million students, is larger in the U.S.


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Afternoon teas are the perfect time to catch up with old friends and satiate your sweet tooth at the same time. Indulge your appetite for conversation and local delights with this Peranakan afternoon tea set as you nosh on favourites like cendol, assorted sandwiches, scones, pie tee, Portuguese tarts, and more.
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Video Game Review – BloodRayne
BloodRayne (2002)
Developer: Terminal Reality
Publisher: Majesco Entertainment/THQ
Platforms: PlayStation 2, PC, Mac, Game Cube, Game Boy Advance
Allow me, for a moment, to take you back in time to 2002. Sony had just released their then "next-gen" console and thematically, gaming had taken a darker, more mystical turn. From SCE Cambridge's tarot-inspired tour-de-force Primal to Konami's personal hell survival horror Silent Hill, horror—or, at the very least, the supernatural—were all the rage.
While both these examples were more serious fare, there was one game that chose to cash in on the supernatural craze but harken back to a day when people played video games for fun. That game was BloodRayne.
The game begins in 1932 with you as the game's titular namesake as she, a "dhampir" (a half vampire/half human) embarks on her first mission for a group of paranormal investigators known as The Brimstone Society. With the help of her mentor; a Tibetan dhampir named Mynce, she investigates and eliminates a strange virus that has been afflicting a small Louisiana town only to find it is connected not only to the occult but the burgeoning threat of the Nazis.
Skip ahead three years, and Rayne is assigned the task of bringing down the Nazis via their "Gegengheist Gruppe"; a fringe group of Nazi occultists who plan to resurrect a demon called Beliar and use him to bring Hitler and the Third Reich to power. Being that this game falls under the "hack and slash" category, what follows is death, destruction and lashings of blood as Rayne tears through Nazi goons with a pair of silver blades attached to her arms and drinks their blood to replenish her health.
See what I mean? (Goretastic.com)
The deeper into the Nazi outpost that Rayne gets, the more it becomes apparent that something horrible is going on as soldiers are taken over by what can only be described as a disembodied spine with a head that has the skin removed. There is a plot to use said beings (called Daemites) as slaves in the coming war. As one would expect, Rayne puts a stop to this, uncovering along the way the true purpose of this expedition; the eye of Beliar.
You do that, officer. (Aoi Anime)
Moving then from the outpost in Argentina to a German castle reminiscent of id Software's Wolfenstein games (and there are nods to Wolfenstein throughout) we are introduced to the notion of different kinds of vampires who thus far had not really featured and are more of a foreshadowing to the game's sequel as well as given all the powers needed to get to the end of the game.
It is at the end that Rayne (spoiler alert!) is informed that her father—a vampire overlord she has been hunting since before joining The Brimstone Society—has been found. A neat set-up for the game's sequel, BloodRayne 2.
I played this on the PS2 and while the controls seem a little clunky in comparison to current gen games or even the "next gen" of the PS4 and Xbox One, there is still a lot of fun to be had with this game. It is refreshing at times that there are no quick-time events to bog down gameplay or drawn out cut scenes that make it feel less like a game and more like a playable movie.
Despite all its twists and turns in order to reach the game's dénouement, the story is fairly straightforward and while the level design is largely linear, there are certain times where it allows you to approach a task (usually the assassination of an officer) in a variety of ways.
Don't, however, expect any sort of stealth sections, this game is balls to the wall action. After all, who needs stealth when everyone is dead? Overall BloodRayne is a bloody good time, a tongue in cheek horror that brings the fun back into gaming. I rate it 8.5/10.
Published July 25, 2014 By Leah MacDonald
Categorized as Entertainment, Reviews, Video Games Tagged Vamped
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