Other Miscellaneous CANEC Conference Notes:

• Scantron has a web based tool that I would like the English P2 to look at. It offers the ability to have students sit down at a computer and take a test (eg: each trimester). The results are digested and displayed in a variety of reports that give the teacher info on students progress relative to the standards.
• A presentation given by a consultant (a woman born in Russia, raised in Argentina, attend a Dual Language school in Spanish and English. She was speaking about teaching with standards. In the course of the presentaion she made a point, that in order for skills learned in Spanish to transfer to English the skills need to be taught concurrently. If we teach literacy skills in Spanish K-3, and then expect those skills just to be in place when they start reading in English in the 4th grade, the skill transfer goes into a black hole. When we teach in one language, there have to hooks in the other language where the learning can connect.
  • Non-sequitor: I taught it but the students didd not learn it....
  • The STAR Map: http://www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/star/resources/blueprints.html
• How big is the deficit? According to Supt. O'Connell $35B = 9 UC campus budgets, all the CSU budgets, the cost of incarcerating all the felons in prison, and some other items...
  • He also talked about the ELD gains reflected in the CELDT results 2001 to 2002. Of course, Ron Unz is taking credit. This percentage increase will need to be the minimum accepted level for us. Check out the report here: http://goldmine.cde.ca.gov/news/releases2003/rel16.asp
• Jerry Brown said that since he was Governor there are 25,000 more laws on the books.
  • Mayor Brown talked about Diversity v. Standardization....that the Charter movement is about diversity (hence we are deviants) but we are being hammmered into conformity by the API hammer.
  • Children are not creatures of the state, they are members of families who should have the right to choose what kind of schools they want their children to attend.
  • Competition is supposed to be healthy.
  • You must be able to risk failure or you just have mediocrity.
  • Defence of being different should be made without apology.
• In a session on renewal, the API hammer is pre-eminent...but in a discussion with a fellow from the National Assoc. of Charter Authorizers, he talked about establishing a Performance Agreement that would include the API as well as other indicators relevant to the unique nature of the charter school.