Win $1,000 for Your Public School on The Loh Down on Science

Mother, writer, performer, radio personality and former Valley resident Sandra Tsing Loh launched a science contest on KPCC this month that gives schools a chance to win $1,000, and learn some weird science facts, too.

Her KPCC science module The Loh Down on Science is mid-way through a May “Win $1,000 for your public school” contest. May is the kick-off contest, but Loh said she hopes to run the science contest quarterly starting next fall.

But in case you are just finding out about the contest RIGHT NOW (May is already half over) Loh said that technically if a school signed up this week and got about 150 people to sign up, they could still win.

This is how it works: A school signs up. Every player who signs up earns 10 points for the school. Every day a player logs onto the website Monday through Friday and answers a “Question of the Day” that player earns one point for their school. Answers to questions are mailed out the next day—and the school with the most participation wins.

To be clear: you win by participating, NOT by getting the answer right.

Past questions have included:

Which of the following ice-creams (as far as we know) does NOT exist?

Is there a connection between concentration and creativity?

Or today’s question:

Question of the Day:
(no Wikipedia—just think!)

A quark is an elementary particle that comes in six "flavors" -- up, down, strange, charm, bottom, top. Murray Gell-Mann got the name "quark" from:

a) A line in Finnegan's Wake by Irish writer James Joyce

b) A holey German cheese (quarkbutterkase) it is said to resemble

c) Five physical "principles": Quality, Unity, Angle, Rotation, Knowledge

You may ask, why is Loh doing this?

Loh’s show Loh Down on Science has been running since 2005. She has two daughters in public school—both of whom will be attending Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks next fall. And yes, she does care about science. Loh said many of us have a picture of science as being a scary, remote, confusing thing done by “elderly Cryptkeeper-type men in white lab coats who smell like chemicals.” She wanted to begin a cultural shift where science education was not competitive and hierarchical, but social, playful and open ended in stimulating our capacity to wonder and be curious.

“In short, science and scientists come in all packages,” she said. “I’m excited to think our next Nobel Prize winners are right now students in our great LAUSD schools.

But it's not just that. Loh said that as an LAUSD mom who has spent almost a decade fundraising for schools, she said she wishes she could get more dollars into classrooms without making her kids into miniature salespeople.

"As a shout out to my fellow long-suffering parents out there, I wanted to design a fundraiser where a great school wins $1,000 and our only carbon "footprint" left behind is that kids and families have learned some fun science," she said. 

Loh said so far 34 schools (from boutique schools like Marengo and Ivanhoe to Green Dot Schools like Locke Tech High) have signed up, 500 players are playing (from Denver to Australia), and a couple of LA schools have actually gone insane over it.

So far the only Board District 3 that is participating is Valley Alternative Magnet.

Loh’s challenge to Valley schools: “It’s science, it’s fun, it’s family, it’s schools, it’s LA (mostly)! But I wonder, where’s the Valley? Are we going to let Highland Park, Glendale, Pico Rivera, South Pasadena, and even Denver kick our you-know-what’s?

To participate, please visit:

http://lohdownonscience.org

From A Sand Pit to Two Olympic Medals

Dr. Lee at the OlympicsImagine trying to dive--or cannon-ball or belly-flop, for that matter--not into a pool full of water, but sand. 

That's how LA-born Sammy Lee first started as a professional diver. He would later go on to be the first Korean American to win an Olympic gold medal--twice.

In 1930s Los Angeles, racial discrimination prevented people of color to swim whenever they wanted. At Sammy's Pasadena pool, he could only dive on Wednesdays. (Called "International Day", it was the day before the pool was drained and refilled with clean water.)

One doesn't exactly get to the Olympics practicing once a week, so Sammy's coach dug a pit in his backyard and filled it with sand. Six days a week, he would dive into the sand pit; one day, in the Pasadena pool on International Day. 

Sand or water, it ended up not mattering to Sammy. He won gold in the 1948 London and 1952 Helsinki Olympics.

Even with this discrimination growing up--and subsequent discrimination when he was turned away from buying a house in 1950s Orange County--it didn't stop Sammy from having an Olympic life out of the pool. He was a student-athlete at USC, served in the US Army Medical Corps in the Korean War, had a lifelong career as an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, and coached other Olympic athletes. 

This Tuesday, the LAUSD Board of Education unanimously approved the naming of a new elementary school as the Dr. Sammy Lee Medical and Health Sciences Magnet School, in South Los Angeles. It is the first school in Los Angeles named after a Korean American. 

His commitment to academic excellence, dedication to medicine, and resolve against discrimination makes him a role model for all Angelenos--a role model that LAUSD is immensely proud of having adorn the halls of the new magnet school. 

CSUN AND LAUSD TEAM UP TO TRAIN TOP-NOTCH TEACHERS

Tucked away in our own backyards, there in an institution of higher learning producing more teachers than the entire UC System.  California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has much to be proud of- including it credentialed a National Teacher Of The Year recipient.  To continue training the best teachers it has entered into an innovative agreement with LAUSD to attract, support and retain its graduates working in district schools. 

A prestigious CSUN alumna Rebecca Mieliwocki received the nation’s highest teaching honor.  Ms. Mieliwocki is a 7^th grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School and was named the 2012 National Teacher of the Year.  She received her single subjects teaching credential from CSUN.  Her belief is that teachers should not only place high standards for their students but themselves. 

In Board District 3, represented by Tamar, of the 20 new classroom teachers hired in 2011-2012, eight received their teaching credential from CSUN.  In fact, the California State University system as a whole produced approximately 48% of new California teachers (6,479 of 13,300) in 2011-12.

LAUSD entered into a first of a kind agreement with CSUN and eleven other universities to share data about recent graduates and how they are faring in teaching jobs.  The goal is to recruit the best teachers, provide on the job support, and retain them.   If new teachers need additional support, the District will notify the institution of higher learning so curriculum can be tailored to address need. 

Similar to the way medical interns are paired up with an experienced physician, new teachers will train under the tutelage of a District-identified master teacher.  CSUN hopes these efforts will help the District to reach it's goal of retaining 80% of new teachers during the first three years. 

CSUN offers 29 pathways for individuals interested in a career in teaching.  Programs range from exposing high school students to the profession to mid-career professionals, to professionals interested in changing careers.  One of the options is a unique partnership between CSUN and the District called the Urban Teacher Residency Program, which expedites credentialing of teachers in mathematics, science, and special education. 

Jacob Young, 27, got his preliminary teaching credential from CSUN and is now at Knollwood Elementary School whre he teaches a special day class for children in kindergarten through second grade with high functioning autism. A mentor from ESC North visits him every Friday. He will begin classes again this fall at CSUN to get his clear credential. Young said the best thing about the CSUN program is the support from both the school and the District.

"Any issue I have, I can go to LAUSD, or bring it to my professors, and I immediately get a response," he said.

For more information: visit CSUN, Michael D. Eisner College of Education website at http://www.csun.edu/education or contact LAUSD Recruitment Office at 213-241-5300 or email your questions to recruit@lausd.net. 

School Board Recognizes 2013 AcaDeca Champions

The Granada Hills Charter High School Academic Decathlon Team, who won the 2013 National Academic Decathlon, with their coaches. Granada Hills Charter Decathletes are Jenny Baek, Jake Chong, Bea Dimaunahan, Faria Ghori, Rina Kim, Kailin Li, Kimberly Ly, Kelly Ma, and Hamidah Mahmud. Their coaches are Mathew Arnold, Spencer Wolf and Nick Weber.

At a packed Board meeting Tuesday, Superintendent John Deasy and the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education recognized the amazing achievements of the winning Academic Decathlon teams from Granada Hills Charter High School, El Camino Real Charter High School and Franklin High School.

Granada Hills won the national Academic Decathlon Championship in Minneapolis this year, taking home the national title for the third consecutive year. El Camino came in second at nationals, and won the famed Super Quiz.  And Franklin High School won the national online competition.

Both El Camino and Granada Hills are in Board District 3.

No other school district in the country made such a spectacular showing. Never before has LAUSD dominated the competition so completely.

“I just want give a special thank you to the teachers and administrators who support this program,” Tamar told the students and their coaches who had driven downtown for their special recognition. “We don’t pay teachers enough for all their time and effort. You have made a difference in these children’s lives.”

 Academic Decathlon was created by Robert Peterson in Orange County for local schools in 1968 and expanded to a nationwide setting in 1981. The Academic Decathlon is a long, strong, proud institution at the Los Angeles Unified School District, that has had strong support from the central office over the years. Under the coaching of David Tokofsky, Marshall High School won the first National Championship for LAUSD in 1987. LAUSD has been a contender on the national stage ever since.

“It is a tradition that has become institutionalized,” said Cliff Ker, the District’s coordinator for Academic Events. “Our kids are matching up with the best and the brightest from across the country and excelling and winning.”

Pictured here are the members of the El Camino Real Charter High School Academic Decathlon Team and their coach. Members include: Jenny Chi, Ranbir Dhillon, Peter Do, Jacob Hehir, Brennan Lincoln, Melissa Ngu, Tyler Wong , Johnathan Yih, Julian Zano. Their coach is Stephanie Franklin.

Fans of the program say one thing that makes it unique is that A, B and C students participate. And the experience takes every student to a new level of achievement. Ker and the coaches say that every kid that participates develops confidence in their ability to take on any academic challenge. There are girls who were going to be literature majors, who decide to become engineers. And kids who were going to drop out of school, but end up going to Berkeley. These are not hypotheticals. These are real students who lives were changed by the Academic Decathlon.

Stephanie Franklin, the AcaDeca coach at El Camino, said the team gives her kids a home, a family, a community, a reason to stay in school.

“It is amazing what this is doing for kids—the 2.0 students,” she said. “They say this helped them find something at school that they loved.”

High teacher expectations are the best predictor of student success. These teachers who are AcaDeca coaches are a living example of how setting unbelievably high standards can yield unbelievable achievements.

 “This is a vehicle for kids to find a voice and do great things,” said Franklin, from El Camino.

After words of praise and congratulations from the Board and the Superintendent, Tamar presented the teams from her district with a certificate.

But every team who participated from the South Side to the Valley deserves recognition. All those students gave up their summers, their winter break and their weekends to study all things Russian for a year.

As one winning coach put it: “We brought home the plastic, but all these LAUSD students worked equally hard.”

What Is the Future of Affiliated Charter Schools?

Affiliated Charter Schools, long a hybrid model and concentrated largely in the San Fernando Valley –look like they will lose their special state funding in the near future.

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget for 2013-14 includes an ambitious restructuring of education funding. Under this Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), the vast majority of categorical programs will be combined into a simple and transparent allocation to school districts. As a result, Affiliated Charter Schools Categorical Block grant will disappear.

In other words, since affiliated charter schools got their chunk of money from that categorical block grant, new applicants—whose applications were due in March--are out of luck.

Existing affiliated charter schools will get their funding for one more year.

The LCFF also includes a proposed weighted student formula, which allocates money based on the amount and concentration of low-income students and English Language learners in a school district.

When and if the plan is fully implemented (in five to seven years), districts would receive roughly $6,800 per pupil and an extra 35% for each English learner and low-income student. In LAUSD nearly 80% of the students are eligible to receive free and reduced lunch (Title I), and many are English learners.

According to the proposal, how that money is distributed to schools will be decided by local schools boards.

But for the many Valley schools that have gone affiliated in recent years to stay afloat financially, this proposal comes as a blow.

Affiliated Charter status brings curricular and other freedoms, in addition to the cachet that comes with the charter name. But most schools went affiliated for the additional funding.

The majority of the schools in this situation are in my district in the San Fernando Valley (There are 32 in the Valley right now, and about nine more applied to become affiliated next year).

Schools where fewer than half the students are eligible for free and reduced lunch do not receive Title I funding—which can amount to between $150,000 and $600,000 depending on the size of the school.

Financial instability has kept these so called “non-Title I schools” lurching from one year to the next. In April, Dr. Deasy and I were invited by the Affiliated Charter principals to speak at a meeting. 

Principals told Dr. Deasy that without the affiliated charter grant, they barely have enough money to function.

“I had $20,000 in my whole budget,” said one West Valley Principal, who now receives $180,000 as an affiliated charter. “I could not pay for paper and my copier contract.”

Most affiliated principals said they use their block grant funding to pay for interventions for their neediest and lowest-achieving students.

These schools have innovated and scrambled, year after year, to do what they need to do for their students. Let's not confuse equality of funding, which no one is advocating, with the target -- equitable funding.

-Tamar

Note: On May 20 I will hold my next Valley Schools Task Force meeting at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School from 6-8 p.m.. District staff will talk about the state budget, the Local Control Funding Formula, and what both mean for the future of Valley Schools. Please go to the Galatzan Gazette (www.galatzangazette.com) for more information.

This column originally appeared in the Studio City/Sherman Oaks/Encino News and the NVRCC community paper.

Next Valley Schools Task Force is May 20th from 6-8 p.m.

Spanish version

The Tech Gurus of Board District 3

Gene Wong, Madison Middle School's Intervention Support Coordinator, and effectively the school's on-site tech coordinator. He and his partner Louis Tapia will launch their Kindle the Passion Academy next fall, which will focus heavily on technology.

As the Los Angeles Unified School District prepares to launch the first phase of a technology plan intended to equip every student with a computer tablet, top officials are in search of a rare and elusive breed: tech-savvy teachers who have experience weaving technology into the curriculum, and are ready to share that knowledge with others.

At Madison Middle School in North Hollywood you can find two brilliant examples: Gene Wong and Louis Tapia.

While the two teachers—who work as partners—are not part of the official $50 million Phase I of the District’s Common Core Technology Project Program, they have been quietly putting together a technology-based instructional program over the past 15 years.  They are, in effect, the District’s early adopters.

Madison Middle School is a 100% Title I school, with about 1600 students. Enrollment has been steadily declining over time.

Wong has been teaching and working at Madison for 17 years. Tapia has been there for 16. Both are young, energetic, passionate and love what they do. Wong is trained as a science teacher, Tapia as a history teacher.

 “We had a shared passion to make sure our kids get what they need,” said Wong, who today serves as Madison’s Intervention Support Coordinator, but effectively is the tech coordinator for the site. “We both believe that kids who are stuck in the middle, or at the lower end, don’t get the services they need. They just get forgotten a little bit. They don’t deserve to be forgotten.”

Teacher Louis Tapia of Madison Middle School works with a student on her factoring skills. Tapia is adept at using technology to engage and evaluate students.

The Journey

Over their 16-year partnership—which Wong refers to as “the journey” --Tapia and Wong have worked to equip the school with technology and to create lesson plans that use the technology in creative ways. They have trained every teacher at the school to use laptops, and they have done intervention for math and language arts using technology. They have brought in computer systems that made it easy for anyone—teachers or students—to use technology. About ten years ago they started getting teachers into hybrid learning—creating an on-line classroom parallel to the traditional classroom—so kids could go home and interact with teachers and fellow students digitally. (Wong and Tapia estimate that 60% of their students have access to technology at home.) More recently, with the introduction of the iPad, Wong and Tapia have taught teachers to use iBooks Author to write their own textbooks.

Their work has not gone unnoticed. In 2003 Wong won the Apple Distinguished Educator Award. Many public school teachers who earn this award go on to work for Apple. Wong stayed at Madison, because he loves the kids.

Their years of experience bringing tech into a school give Wong and Tapia insight into both the pitfalls and potential the district may face as it prepares to bring technology to every student.

Wong acknowledges there are a lot of teachers who are resistant to technology. Using tech in the classroom is out of their comfort zone, he says, and he gets it. But he also sees the incredible potential. In the traditional classroom, he says, the bottom students fall behind and the really advanced students are held back. Technology, he says, allows teachers to personalize lessons. The slower students can get the help they need, and the advanced students can move ahead.

Wong also believes that technology can unleash teachers’ imaginations, and allow them to teach in whole new ways.

 “If teachers’ creativity kicks in, and they see what they can do, the world opens up,” he says.

Top district officials have made the trek out to Madison see Wong and Tapia, and check out their work. District staff from ITD, ESC North and the Superintendent’s office have all visited.

What It Looks Like

A peek into a Tapia’s classroom gives a concrete example of how it all works.

Tapia (who also teaches math to students who need extra help) stood in front of the class teaching half the class a lesson in factoring. His teaching was animated, lively, focused. The other half of the room did drills on iPads—each working at their own individual level. As they passed one level, they would move onto the next.

Suddenly Tapia stopped the whole class. The students logged onto a factoring game challenge that Tapia had created. Even Principal Estelle Baptiste grabbed an iPad and gave it a shot. Numbers drifted down the screen and students had to correctly guess the factors before they disappeared. There were three levels: Grasshopper, Apprentice and Master. They had 10 minutes to get a high score. A timer counted down at the front of the room. A competitive energy filled the room. Tapia shouted out encouragement, challenges.

When the game ended the kids went back to their lessons, re-energized and alert.

 “With so many different student strengths and weaknesses in my classroom, the technology allows me to truly meet and address their individual needs and skill levels,” Tapia explained later.

A Vision for the Future

Now Wong and Tapia have a new plan:  Next fall they will launch the Kindle the Passion Academy—a 500-student Academy with 18-19 teachers at Madison. The name comes from a Yeats poem.

 “We want kids to have kids excited about learning,” said Wong. “If they are going to be passionate, they need to find a passion in life. Instruction will help them get there.”

The program has four main components—all of which involve technology: to create a great a goal-setting culture at the school, to improve literacy, by increasing vocabulary, teaching comprehension, and focusing on depth of knowledge. (students would use technology to give every student access to a virtual library that would get students who never go to the real library a whole universe of books), to use technology so that kids will learn in a 21^st century way, and give teachers the ability to assess students and provide immediate feedback, and to engage in linked learning.

 “We follow a simple saying: ‘Go big or go home,’” said Tapia. “Our mission is to fundamentally change how we impact our underserved minority kids. We have a vision that not only includes technology but a sound instructional framework that focuses on adolescent literacy and goal setting.

 “We hope to turn a mere kindle into a passion for learning.”

Eventually Wong and Tapia hope to have iPads for every student in the Academy. They will start next fall with 1:1 iPads for seventy 6^th graders. The technology was funded through a grant.  The rest of the students will use iPads from two mobile iPad carts—or work from one of Madison’s four fully functioning computer labs.

 “We are pioneers,” said Wong. “We want to be a pilot for the whole District.”

Three-peat Champions: Granada Hills Charter High School Wins 2013 U.S Academic Decathlon

Two LAUSD High Schools Battled for the U.S. Academic Decathlon Crown

LOS ANGELES —Three-peat! Three-peat! Three-peat!  Granada Hills Charter High School students are celebrating, not one, not two but their third consecutive title as U.S. Academic Decathlon champions.

Representing California, the independent public charter school today won the 2013 U.S. Academic Decathlon competition in Minneapolis. The victory earned the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) its 14th national title.

Over 450 students from the United States and London gathered at the Hilton Minneapolis April 25-27 to compete in the 2013 United States Academic Decathlon National Competition. 

The nine-member team scored 54,652.93 points out of 66,000, beating 52 other high school academic decathlon teams across the U.S. in this year’s rigorous scholastic battle. 

“In having the top two teams in the country, LAUSD this year exceeded our own amazingly high standards in the academic decathlon,” said Superintendent John Deasy.  “I’m so proud of Granada Hills Charter High School, for proving once again that when it comes to the Academic Decathlon, our District is way ahead of the competition.” 

School Board Vice President Tamar Galatzan said, “Congratulations to Granada Hills Charter High School for winning the 2013 U.S. Academic Decathlon.  It is a testament to the students’ commitment to academic and personal development. The top two national competitors hail from my board district in the San Fernando Valley. Their performance showcases the outstanding education taking place in local public schools.” 

Members of Granada Hills Charter High School’s winning team are: Jae Kyung Chong, Seung Woo Baek, Hamidah Mahmud, Kelly Ma, Kimberly Ly, Kailin Li, Dayoung Kim, Faria Ghori, and Beatrice Dimaunahan.  The Coaches are Matt Arnold, Spencer Wolf, and Nicholas Weber. Top-scoring students were honored with individual medals and trophies for academic achievement at an awards ceremony held in Minneapolis where the winning team was announced.

During Friday’s competition, El Camino Real students won first place in the Super Quiz event.  Overall, the former Academic Decathlon champs came in second place at the 32nd U.S. Academic Decathlon competition. El Camino Real High School has won nine titles and six national championships.

The academic decathlon is a team competition in which students battle their intellectual skills with students from other schools. They are tested in 10 categories: art, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, mathematics, music, science, social science and speech. This year’s study subject: Russia

In February, Granada Hills won the 2013 LAUSD Academic competition and subsequently secured first place honors at the state contest.   At that competition, El Camino Real Charter students also placed second, allowing the team to compete nationally.

Teams from California have won 11 consecutive national titles, while dominating competitors. State teams have failed to place first or second only once in 31 years. Overall, Granada Hills has won three national and three state titles.

“This is my 13th nationals and by far the most exciting,” said Cliff Ker, coordinator for the LAUSD Academic Decathlon. ” It was a close race between Granada and El Camino.” All the kids and the coaches are so wonderful and they worked hard for this event.” I also want to extend my praise and support to Franklin High School who participated in the Academic Decathlon online competition.”

“Congratulations to all the students and coaches who participated in the academic decathlon. It was a remarkable and unforgettable competition.”

Valley Schools Continue to Win Accolades

Yesterday, seven schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were recognized by the California Department of Education for sustained academic achievement among students from low-income backgrounds. 

Vintage Math/Science/Technology Magnet in North Hills and Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Lake Balboa were the two schools in the Valley that made the cut for the 2013 Title I Academic Achievement Award. They finished among the top 1% of schools nationwide, and only 8 LAUSD schools met the criteria this year.

That criteria includes meeting a variety of measures, such as receiving Title I funds, having at least 40% socioeconomically disadvantage students, and maintaining growth in test and overall Academic Performance Index (API) scores. 

We're incredibly proud of Vintage and Daniel Pearl. With all of the challenges schools face these days, their achievement is a welcome reminder of the immeasurable value of public education--the value of giving every child a quality education. 

Daniel Pearl and North Hollywood in Top 3% of Schools Nationwide

Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Lake Balboa, and North Hollywood High School in North Hollywood, have done Board District 3 proud.

In the latest US World News and World Report education rankings, Daniel Pearl and NoHo ranked #771 and #769 (respectively) out of 21,056 high schools in the United States. This earned them the coveted "Silver Medal" distinction and put them both in the top 3% of the country's schools. 

US World News used a methodology that took into consideration three criteria: students' performance compared to the average performance of students in that individual state; percentage of least-advantaged students performing better than similar students in the state; and, finally, the use of test data from Advanced Placement / International Baccalaureate programs. 

Congratulations to both schools--keep up the outstanding work!