Published: 1 years 213 days ago
Sacramento News & Review: Your neighborhood school is in trouble. Even if the physical building is in good shape—a big if—the place may be in danger of closure because of low enrollment or, worse to some minds, low test scores.
At the very least, your neighborhood school has probably recently lost talented teachers and other personnel to budget cuts. And it’s become more and more difficult for parents, especially in low-income neighborhoods, to raise money for after-school programs and field trips.
But many chalk up the declines to substandard schools.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson certainly does. He’s throwing himself into an effort to “mayoralize” the Sacramento schools and loosen the grip of the Sacramento teachers union (see “Waiting for K.J.” SN&R Feature sidebar). To that end, he’s endorsed a slate of reform candidates in this November’s election for Sac City school board trustees.
There are three seats up for election on the seven-member board. The new board will govern a district that is facing its worst financial state in decades, with a superintendent and teachers union that have been at odds since the chief executive, Jonathan Raymond, arrived in the district a year ago.
And several of the school board candidates—not just the ones endorsed by Johnson—are speaking the new language of school reform: more testing, performance pay and tenure reform.
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1861650
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