New legislation

Just got my weekly child care legislation update, and there are some interesting bills.

• SB 1126 would basically require agreements between CSUs and community colleges so that community college ECE classes would transfer as upper division major classes at CSUs and hopefully UCs.
• AB 2323 would allow CDD contractors to who under-earn to carry over up to 20% of their contract to the next fiscal year. Contractors who over-earn can be reimbursed up to 10% from the following year's funds. This is really cool and is obviously part of the effort to reduce under-earned contracts. I don't have any inside information, but it smells like something CCDAA and CDD would be collaborating on.

One reason these have a chance in hell is they wouldn't cost any money.

ELQIS data meeting

Off to the ELQIS data meeting this morning. Hope to see you there. I have high hopes for this group.

Update: Well that was a disappointment. I got an email from our local office of education a few days ago inviting me to my usual video conference site, since I was on their list from before, but when I got there, it wasn't a video conference at all but video streaming. We could watch them on TV together, but we couldn't participate. I didn't bother. I went to the conflicting meeting I had been going to miss, where at least I could participate.

I've read the interim report, and I'll read what comes out of today, but I can watch them on TV in the privacy of my own office, where the coffee is better, the chair softer, the bathroom closer, and I can put it on pause when I need to leave the room.

The whole idea of replacing video conferencing with video streaming is a big disappointment and will reduce participation. What are they thinking? It must be a budget decision. Otherwise it's dumb.

Draft competencies are out

Draft competencies are out. This is what CDE thinks a teacher ought to know and be able to do.

CDE management bulletins on CSPP

CDE has released a management bulletin on enrolling or transferring kids into CSPP and one on when 3  year olds can be transferred into it.

ELQIS and grade Pre-K

David Gordon is superintendent of schools in Sacramento. He is also chair of the ELQIS workforce subcommittee. He's been on this and that committee and board.

Mr. Gordon has a masters in educational administration from Harvard. He has received many honors and is esteemed by people I admire, as well as by the governor.

For all his deserved acclaim, Mr. Gordon has one fault, and it's a big one: He believes that anyone with an elementary credential is qualified to teach preschool, and therefore we have no need for community colleges in developing the child care workforce, because apparently you need a BA to teach preschoolers, but it doesn't have to be in ECE. Imagine: The guy in charge of the workforce committee thinks that if you know how to teach elementary school kids, you can effectively teach preschoolers, but if you have an AA in ECE, you can't.

This is silly, and it's dangerous, because of what I talked about a couple of weeks ago, that preschool will become grade Pre-K in the P-12 system, and they'll just push the elementary school curriculum down a year.

I don't have time this minute to look up the research, but I'm pretty sure I remember studies showing that, while a BA is better than nothing in affecting child outcomes, it is not better than an AA in ECE. I hope somebody reminds me to find it and post it (or grovel, if I'm misremembering), because if that's true, requiring a BA is a waste of time and public money and a waste of people with an AA in ECE.

The workforce committee's next meeting is November 12 at two sites:

Sacramento County Office of Education
10474 Mather Boulevard, Mather Room
Sacramento, CA 95655

and

San Diego County Office of Education
6401 Linda Vista Road, Learning Lab 4
San Diego, CA 92111

The website doesn't give a time, and the agenda isn't posted yet, but previous meetings were 10 to 2:30.

Your tax money at work

CDE just gave several dozen data discs to people at a meeting. They were all CD-RW instead of CD-R. I wonder how much CDE would save every year if they used the cheaper discs.

Management Bulletin 09-18

Management Bulletin 09-18 was distributed today, implementing previous legislation.

• Limits when APPs can pay a daily rate
• No family fee for families getting Cal WORKS cash aid