It's Not Too Late!

From: Michelle Herczog
Subject: Good News for Social Studies - Your Help Needed by Friday, Jan. 17
This message has been cross posted to the following eGroups: NCSS Board of Directors and Citizenship Community .
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This week, we got to see the funding bill for the rest of 2014, and it had good news for civic learning! For the first time in years, a Department of Education competitive grant program for professional development included a priority for civic learning - and civic learning was the only topic area called out by Congress. This seemingly mild reminder sends a strong signal to the Department of Education that Congress would like to see funds made available for professional development in this area. The language was included at the request of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, at the urging of Steve Armstrong, NCSS President and Connecticut resident. 


What can you do? Call your Senators before Friday and leave a message with the front desk to say " The omnibus appropriations bill has good language for civic learning, and as a constituent and advocate for the social studies, I urge my Senator to vote yes." You can reach the Senate operator at
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/edseed/index.html (please note the language at this site at the Department does not reflect this very recent development).

California Council for the Social Studies Spotlights the Legislative Breakfast

As Chair of the Governmental Relations Committee of the California Council for the Social Studies, I am pleased to invite you continue our conversations about the next steps we can take together to advance social studies education in California. Many social studies organizations will participate.

The next California Council for the Social Studies state conference in Los Angeles at the LAX Sheraton will include our annual Legislative Breakfast on Saturday, March 8 at 7:00 a.m.  Professor Joseph Kahne will receive the CCSS Civic Action Award for his extensive research and publications on civic education and the impact of civic education on students. Professor Kahne will update us on the latest developments in the world of civic education. We will have updates on state and national efforts supporting social studies education.

If you have not yet registered for the CCSS Conference, you can do so online at CCSS.org; you can also register for the Breakfast (an extra $15) when you register for the Conference. If you have already registered for the conference and not the Breakfast, emailMarie@ccss.org to register for the Breakfast.

Immediately following the breakfast, the CCSS Governmental Relations Committee will host a meeting among social studies organizations, continuing past conversations about working together to advance the cause of social studies education in California. The rapid changes in the assessment/accountability picture in California are creating major changes in how learning is evaluated and measured. We as social studies leaders need to discuss ways we can both participate in forming the new assessments, and in how we can work together to ensure these improvements are implemented.

Coalitions can be very powerful. Recently, CCSS, the English Language Learner community, and the state science teacher association working together convinced the Instructional Quality Commission to unanimously agree to make substantial changes to requirements for EL materials the IQC would send on to the State Board for adoption. The EL community wants EL students to receive the academic content and substance of the whole curriculum, and CCSS certainly agrees with that goal. Working together got it done.

The agenda for our conversations will include state and local considerations:

1) CCSS Legislative Analyst Fred Jones' updates on the latest developments in Sacramento, especially the new just introduced Senate Bill 897 (Steinberg)  that calls for CDE to consider inclusion of History social science and also the social studies C3 Framework in state grant requirements and as part of some career pathway consortium funding.

2) Conversation about the possible ways social studies can play a part in the accountability provisions of the new Local Control Funding Formula, and in providing assistance to local districts as they create their local assessment/accountability plans.

Districts will be required to make a yearly report on how they are using their new state funding to 'advance' learning for low SES, EL and foster care students, and also for all students; said reports will need to be in addition to state accountability and Academic Performance Index (API) that has been suspended but that is slated to return. These individual district reports can be 'qualitative' as well as 'quantitative', so will not have to be limited to numerical reporting. Thus a host of performance types of student learning activities including project and problem based learning and academic competitions in all social science content areas could be used by districts for part of this annual report. Some of these activities could meet Common Core ELA requirements. The State Board of Education will be adopting specific criteria and definitions for the local accountability measures. Its January 2014 meeting will see some of the criteria put in place. We will know by March wh
at the SBE decides at its January meeting. The requirements are outlined in the SBE Agenda for January 2014, Item 21, Document 3, which references measuring progress toward 'state priority areas' detailed in Ed Code Sections 52060 and 52066. These repeatedly state the need for students to receive instruction in all core content areas.

How can we best connect with districts and county offices to help with these new local assessments?

3)  Conversation about ways to support the inclusion of performance assessment in social studies in the yet-to-be-designed 'next generation' California state assessments, which will be in addition to the ones for the common core English Language Arts and math standards that will be field tested around the state this spring (by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC).

The additional state assessments, to start sometime after 2016, will include History social science as part of 'the whole curriculum' as defined in last year's AB 484 (Bonilla), now chaptered into law. The Superintendent's Report to the State Board of last January said that higher level thinking based assessments were necessary as a replacement for the 'outdated' California Standards Tests. Educational Testing Service reported to the State Board in May that performance assessment was both desirable and possible in large scale statewide assessments. For ETS to say that means it can be done!

What channels exist, or can be leveraged, for social studies organizations to participate in designing statewide assessments? What ideas can be suggested for quantifying results of large scale assessments, for inclusion in the API calculation formula?

4) Show and Tell: What have social studies organizations been doing that advances the cause of social studies, and/or of assessment of social studies, or that could be used in local or statewide assessment programs? What current problem or project based learning activities could be used, or modified for use, in local or stateside assessment programs? Which of these might also meet ELA and/or Fine Arts standards?

5) Conversation about next steps.

I am looking forward to hearing your ideas as we continue our conversations about advancing the cause of social studies education in California.

Jim Hill

Chair, Governmental Relations Committee
California Council for the Social Studies

CCSS 53rd Conference Keynote Speaker: Sylvia Mendez

California Council for the Social Studies 

proudly presents 

Sylvia Mendez at the 53rd Annual Conference

In 2011 President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Sylvia Mendez.  As the eight year old daughter of Mexican and Puerto Rican immigrants, Mendez paved the way to desegregating American schools and ushering in an era of civil rights in the famous 1946 case, Mendez v Westminster.

Before the final 1947 victory California schools segregated Mexican Americans from Anglo schools.  The defense claimed that "Mexican American children possessed contagious diseases, had poor moral habits, were inferior in their personal hygiene, spoke only Spanish and lacked English speaking skills." (Mendez v Westminster Case.blogspot.com) The Mendez family filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 5,000 families insisting that segregation of schools violated the fifth and fourteenth amendments.  

Federal judge, Patrick J. McCormick ruled in favor of the Mendez family finding that the policy of segregating Mexican Americans violated the fourteenth amendment, lack of due process and equal protection.  The Court of Appeals backed up McCormick's ruling in 1947 resulting in a California bill ending segregation in California.  This bill was signed into law by Governor Earl Warren in June of 1947.  Mexican American students began attending integrated public schools in Orange County in September.

Mendez went on to complete her Associate Degree at Orange County Community College, Bachelor's Degree at California State University, Los Angeles, and was recently awarded a Doctorate Degree from the University of New York.  She worked in the nursing profession until she retired

Today Sylvia Mendez speaks around the country and abroad encouraging students to get an education and claim the rights protected for them by her parents in the landmark case.  She will be speaking at the CCSS 53rd Annual Conference in Los Angeles Saturday, March 8th at 5:00 p.m.  Click here to register. 

For additional information about Sylvia Mendez and the Mendez v Westminster case check out these sources.

http://mendezwestminstercase.blogspot.com/2007/08/mendez-v-westminster-case.html

http://sylviamendezinthemendezvswestminster.com/

Student Benefits of Civic Learning in K-12 Classroom

Dear Civic Learning Task Force,

With many thanks to Alice Petrossian, Carol Kocivar, Cindy Marks, Michelle Herczog, Superintendent Gordon, and Justice McConnell, the Task Force has developed the attached document which outlines the ways in which Civic Learning Benefits the State Board of Education’s Local Control Funding Priority Areas.  And with many, many thanks to Justice William Murray of the 3rd District Court of Appeals, he will be providing brief testimony and delivering this document to the State Board of Education at their meeting tomorrow, 1/16 – if you are watching, he will likely speak at approximately 9:15 a.m.

Thanks so much,
Debbie



Deborah Genzer
Senior Court Services Analyst
Court Operations Special Services Office
Judicial and Court Operations Services Division
Judicial Council of California - Administrative Office of the Courts
415-865-8755

Benefits of Civic Learning

CCSS 53rd Annual Conference: Keynote Speaker, Major General Patrick Brady

CCSS WANTS YOU:  DIG IN FOR THE CHALLENGE

Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation

Perpetuating a Legacy of Courage, Sacrifice and Patriotism

PATRICK H. BRADY
Major, U.S. Army  Medical Service Corps, 54th Medical Detachment, 67th Medical Group, 44th Medical Brigade

Reserve officers training was mandatory at Patrick Brady’s college in the late 1950s. He hated it and eventually got booted out. He later got back into ROTC and was commissioned in the Medical Service Corps after graduation.

Brady’s first posting was to Berlin as a medical platoon leader at the time the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961. Soon he was eager for new challenges, so he applied to flight school and became a helicopter pilot. In 1963, he went to Vietnam.

Flying a UH-1 medevac helicopter, Maj. Brady was on his second tour of duty as part of the 54th Medical Detachment in Chu Lai when he volunteered to rescue two badly wounded South Vietnamese soldiers in enemy territory on January 6, 1968. Several attempts had been made to get the men out; all had been aborted because of bad weather. When Brady arrived, thick fog shrouded the evacuation site. He descended slowly until he could make out the shape of trees beyond his rotor blades, then used them to orient the craft and moved sideways toward the extraction point. Despite the close-range enemy fire, he was able to locate the South Vietnamese soldiers and evacuate them.

Not long after this rescue mission, Brady was called to another fogged-in area where American casualties lay close to enemy lines. Earlier in the day, two other U.S. helicopters had been shot down trying to reach the site. Brady lowered his chopper through a space in the fog, orienting himself by a stream bed to get to the wounded. In total, he made four flights over the next hour to rescue all 39 GIs.

On his third mission of the day to rescue more American soldiers, Brady once again put down at a landing zone in enemy territory. During his descent, the controls of his helicopter were hit, but he was able to evacuate the injured.

Back at base, he got a replacement helicopter and returned to the action. On his fourth mission, he was watching another medevac trying to extract members of a trapped American platoon when a mine exploded nearby, causing the helicopter to leave without the casualties. Brady touched down as close to the marks left by the other craft’s skids as he could to avoid mines. The soldiers were reluctant to cross the minefield, so his crewmen had to go get them. All were brought aboard, except for one who was being carried back on a stretcher by two of Brady’s crew members. They had almost reached the plane when one of the stretcher bearers stepped on a mine. The explosion blew a hole in the helicopter and caused every warning light on the control panel to go on, but Brady managed to get the damaged craft off the ground and deliver the six severely injured soldiers to medical aid. Then he picked up a new helicopter and kept flying. In all, he evacuated 51 men that day. Four hundred bullet holes were counted in the helicopters he flew.

Back in the United States, Brady was awarded his second Distinguished Service Cross. The award was later upgraded to a Medal of Honor, which was presented to him by President Richard Nixon on October 9, 1969.

Patrick Brady retired as a major general in 1993. His daughter, Meghan, followed in his military footsteps, entering the Medical Service Corps. She served as a medic in the 1991 war against Iraq. Since retirement, Brady has supported many service organizations. He serves as the chairman of the Citizens Flag Alliance -— a coalition of organizations determined to protect the American flag from physical desecration.

REGISTER BEFORE JANUARY 17TH TO GET EARLY BIRD RATES!

ccss.org