In This Issue:  | | • | BREWER PROMISES REFORMS AFTER CRITICAL LAUSD REVIEW | | | • | PROGRAMS HELPING STUDENTS CLIMB TO HIGH-PAYING JOBS | | | • | LAUSD TO GET MORE FUNDING FROM STATE PROGRAM THAN EXPECTED | | | • | CHARTER MANIA ISN'T GOOD FOR L.A.: The LAUSD rubber-stamps small charter schools at its own peril, diverting badly needed funds. | | | • | COURT REJECTS MAYOR'S PLAN + LA MAYOR STRUGGLES WITH BIG AGENDA + LAUSD CLAIMS REOPENING SCHOOLS IS TOO COSTLY | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | • The pursuit of knowledge is a war on ignorance; metaphors are not supposed to have a body count. Students and teachers are supposed to walk away changed and even scathed, but unharmed.
• The nickname “Hokies” – as applied to sports teams, students and alumni was once comedic; now, in an instant: tragic.
• In the summer of ’66 between my high school graduation and entry into college - as a misbegotten foreign war slipped into unpopularity - a gunman climbed up into a tower at the University of Texas and picked off students after first killing his wife and mother to spare them from the embarrassment of what he was about to do. At the end of the day 16 people were dead and 31 wounded; one of the wounded died 35 years later from complications (Where is the novelist/playwright to tell that story?) – bringing the death toll to 17. The shooter was a Texas-American – Texas carried the guilty baggage of an earlier Texas shooter from another tower …and the media was all over that at the time.
• On Monday, as my daughter is poised between her junior and senior year and another war plunges in the ratings, another gunman has shot up the Virginia Polytechnic Institute after apparently first taking care of some personal business. 33 are dead, at least 15 wounded.
• The shooter was not born but raised an American; the media muses upon and anti-immigrant hysterics would attach some culpability to his place of birth. Gentle reader, his act was indisputably American.
• The word ‘random’ gets applied to these incidents – and to Columbine, Jonesboro, Stockton and Nickel Mines – and the other intervening repeated singularities – including shootings at and around our own schools. The only thing random is the differentiation of victims. Randomly some die, some are wounded. The rest of us go into shock or denial.
• We cast about for someone or something to blame. Lax gun laws or the perverse/obverse: a ‘Violence Free/Firearms Forbidden’ zone on campus (“If the students were allowed to carry guns this wouldn’t have been as bad.” Mental illness. Porous borders. Secular humanism. Street gangs. Liberals or conservatives run amok. “The fault,” the bard tells us, “lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Walt Kelly in the person of Pogo Possum seconds Shakespeare’s argument: “We have met the enemy …and he is us.”
• ‘Nuf said? Not hardly.
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PARENT SUMMIT: Saturday was the 11th annual LAUSD Parent Summit @ the Convention Center — a fine event bringing together 3000 parents, district leadership and staff for workshops, discussion, networking and lunch. Once a year is not enough. The backstory here and across the state and nation seems to be a drumbeat for more meaningful Parent Involvement – not fliers-in-the-backpack minimal compliance with NCLB but true outreach and interactive accountability — and for some real articulated professional development including parents and the community in the creation of policy, curriculum and planning.
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EVER•GREEN: Function: adjective
1 : having foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season -- compare DECIDUOUS
2 : retaining freshness or interest : PERENNIAL
Function: noun
1 : an evergreen plant; also : CONIFER
2 plural : twigs and branches of evergreen plants used for decoration
3 : something that retains its freshness, interest, or popularity : ALWAYS NEW
- Webster Online
At Friday afternoon’s Audit, Business and Technology Committee of the Board of Education [held while Superintendent Brewer was holding his press conference about the Evergreen Report (see below)] David Holmquist, the supe’s point person on the BTS Payroll Crisis and triage began his remarks by stating that the rollout of BTS Revision 3 was his and the District’s first priority. Boardmember Tokofsky interrupted, saying the board had been informed by the supe earlier in executive session that there would be no rollout of Revision 3; R.3 was “a no deal”. Holmquist left to confer with the supe and returned to say that R.3 was still on the table. Tokofsky repeated that that was not what the board had been told. What is said in executive session is supposed to stay in executive session – but public trustees hold the public trust.
The Evergreen study is not new material but a review and repackaging of pervious reports; it and they have much to say about accountability and communications – and the lack thereof in LAUSD. How much evidence do we need, how many times does it take? How unusual does business-as-usual need to be?
Onward! —smf
BREWER PROMISES REFORMS AFTER CRITICAL LAUSD REVIEW
by Joel Rubin and Howard Blume, LA Times Staff Writers
April 21, 2007 — In the wake of a top-to-bottom review that harshly portrays the Los Angeles school system as inefficient and ineffective, Supt. David L. Brewer on Friday promised to quickly bring in outside experts, hire a chief academic officer and elevate almost all schools to academic success by 2013.
Using unsparing language, the sweeping analysis of the Los Angeles Unified School District by a consulting firm highlights serious shortcomings in instruction and fiscal management in the nation's second-largest district.
After becoming schools chief in November, retired Navy vice admiral Brewer called for the report to learn what was working and what wasn't, and to create a road map toward reforming the mammoth district with its roughly 78,000 employees, 700,000 students and $11-billion total annual budget.
The 115-page report — based on previously conducted audits and analyses as well as interviews with more than 100 district employees — describes an operation beset by an almost complete lack of accountability or consequences for poor performance, running from the most senior staff to school principals. Job descriptions are often unclear and evaluations rarely pegged to improved district performance, while communication among various corners of the organization is muddled or nonexistent, the report found.
"The most apparent and inhibiting deficit standing in the way of instructional coherence in LAUSD today is a lack of accountability," said the report by Florida-based Evergreen Solutions. "Currently, directives are given but few, if any, consequences are enforced for noncompliance."
Perhaps the overriding message in the report is that past recommendations, made in one study after another, have rarely moved from paper to reality. In an interview, Brewer promised that things would be different this time.
"We're going to set up a 21st century organization that is execution-oriented," he said. "The culture is going to change."
The first step, he said, is bringing in a temporary "transformation team" composed of outside experts who will be on the job by mid-May. Brewer said he will present his own 5-year strategic plan by June 30.
Brewer said he would initially focus on instruction "because that's our core mission. And the next thing is … the budget. We have to make sure we get our finances and instruction properly aligned."
Permanent hires will include a chief instructional officer — tacit acknowledgment that Brewer is not a career educator.
The school system has two top administrators for instruction, one for elementary schools and one for secondary schools. A key finding of the audit is that there is no effective alignment between the two divisions.
In one example, the report noted students' high failure rate in algebra and criticized officials for not better preparing students in math when they are younger.
The report further questioned why the department in charge of elementary students who speak limited English is separate from the one that handles older students: "The use of multiple, often duplicative, and sometimes conflicting programs, such as those for students who are not fluent in English, fragments instruction and confuses students."
The school district also has failed to replicate programs that are successful. In one example, "principals of schools that had made exceptional progress in raising student achievement reported to the board and identified five strategies they believed had contributed to their success. When asked what had been done in the district as a result of that report, the answer was 'nothing.' "
Brewer also promised another new senior-level hire who will oversee ongoing training for teachers, administrators and other staff. The study criticized the district in this area.
The idea of a senior training official "sounds smart," said Ronni Ephraim, chief instructional officer of the elementary division. "The district spends a lot of money on professional development, and some of that has paid great dividends." But this training is managed by administrators in different departments who don't coordinate with each other: "An office like this can help us."
She added that the audit's criticisms didn't offend her: "I don't think Evergreen was tasked with looking at all the good things that we've done since 1999. This is a plan for how we move forward."
Brewer volunteered specific, ambitious academic benchmarks. He said that by 2013, he intended to have more than 90% of schools surpass a score of 800 on the state's Academic Performance Index. The index grades schools on a scale from 200 to 1,000 based on student test scores in math, English and other subjects; the state's goal for every school is 800. Only five of L.A. Unified's five dozen comprehensive high schools surpassed 800 in 2006.
"It will take time to do this, but we are going to get started right now," Brewer said.
Brewer replaced former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer who, in his six-year tenure, concentrated mainly on new school construction and improving reading and math in the elementary grades through a uniform curriculum. The Evergreen report recommended further expansion of that approach to upper grades.
The consultants, paid $350,000 so far for their work, found that the district had made somewhat better progress on its business side, citing the rollout of a $95-million computer system that, despite continuing widespread problems with payroll, is expected to streamline purchasing, budgets and other tasks.
A teachers union official had some reservations about the proposed transformation team.
"We would have concerns about bringing in outside consultants who probably charge a lot of money," said Joshua Pechthalt, a vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "There are 100,000 district employees. Tapping into that body of knowledge may be a better way to go. Supt. Brewer did indicate he wanted us to look at this report and give him feedback on it. I take him at his word."
Some facets of Brewer's reform plan may require negotiating with employee unions. All of its major provisions would need school board approval.
The report comes as district senior staff braces for an expected shake-up by Brewer in coming months and elected school board members recover from a protracted battle with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has campaigned aggressively for substantial influence over the district.
Indeed, some of the report's most scathing conclusions echo criticisms by the mayor over the last year. "The current culture in LAUSD is one typified by not responding to priorities and deadlines, and there is no sense of urgency among managers," the consultants wrote.
Board President Marlene Canter chafed at such words, saying, "I don't think it's necessary. When we're asking for a tool we can utilize to help us improve, you don't need to use that type of language."
Canter nonetheless said she hoped the report would help Brewer.
Board member David Tokofsky agreed: "It's recycled material, but it's a one-spot look for the superintendent to see some of what's come before him and what's in front of him. "As for the school board itself, Brewer elaborated on the consultants' analysis. The board, he said, needs to focus more on policymaking and less on trying to run the school district. Its bureaucracy, Brewer added, was largely to blame for such micromanaging, saying staff members have made the board "work too hard to get information."
The superintendent added that Villaraigosa could play a vital role, but stopped well short of offering the sweeping involvement sought by the mayor. The courts have thrown out as unconstitutional a law that would have given Villaraigosa control over three high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them.
Janelle Erickson, an aide to the mayor, said Villaraigosa had been briefed on the report. It "makes clear what teachers and parents have been telling us for years: that the massive central bureaucracy is … stopping any real reform effort," Erickson said.
The mayor, Brewer said, is "welcome to make an offer" of how he'd like to be involved. Rather than running a group of schools, "I would like to see the mayor help me out with the entire district."
*
EXCERPTS / 'There is no sense of urgency'
• "Local district superintendents have not been given the authority, responsibility or human/fiscal resources to accomplish their mission."
• School-board "adopted policies either do not exist, are outdated, or, in many cases, administrators are not aware of the adoption of a board policy; the board's policy manual has not been updated in decades."
• "There is no linkage between planning and budgeting. Consequently, there is little evidence that fiscal resources are being directed to support district goals."
• "The lack of accountability is pervasive throughout the organization at all levels. The current culture in LAUSD is one typified by not responding to priorities and deadlines, and there is no sense of urgency among managers."
• "The Information Technology Department (ITD) is too isolated from its clientele. Furthermore, LAUSD lacks an accountability program for information technology. ITD has never prepared a long-range strategic plan for information technology."
• "Currently, directives are given but few, if any, consequences are enforced for noncompliance."
• "Interviewees expressed a concern regarding the achievement levels of LAUSD students on Algebra I. However, the elementary and secondary departments have not yet developed a cohesive approach … that will create a sound foundation for student success."
• "The use of multiple, often duplicative, and sometimes conflicting programs, such as those for students who are not fluent in English, fragments instruction and confuses students who are not conversant in English in the first place, by teaching them skills in different ways with different programs."
• "By its own calculations, LAUSD estimates the cost of deferred maintenance to be over $6 billion. This huge burden has resulted in a nearly total emphasis on a daily response by maintenance to emergency calls."
• "The current average of the bus fleet is 19 years ….The Evergreen Team has never seen 19 years as the average age."
—from Evergreen Report – highlights compiled by Howard Blume and Joel Rubin
PROGRAMS HELPING STUDENTS CLIMB TO HIGH-PAYING JOBS
L.A. SCHOOL DISTRICT MAY EXPAND POPULAR POWER-LINE CURRICULUM TO SAN PEDRO'S HARBOR OCCUPATIONAL CENTER.
by Paul Clinton, Staff writer | Daily Breeze
April 16, 2007 — Houston Magee never seriously considered college.
But now, five years after graduating from San Pedro High, Magee is lining up a $70,000-a-year job as a power-line worker scaling 45-foot electrical poles.
Magee, 23, has completed a career and technical program -- a partnership between Los Angeles Unified and several utilities -- that gave him the skills for the job.
"I wanted to learn a skill or craft," Magee said. "Sometimes getting to the books gets boring."
Five days a week, Magee attends classes at East Los Angeles Skills Center, then drives to Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center in Harbor City, where he works as a laboratory assistant.
Students like Magee who have a high school diploma and career certification may be the wave of the future in Los Angeles Unified.
The district is rethinking its vocational program and considering a partnership with California State University schools to align curriculum.
Under one element of a reform plan circulated by Superintendent David Brewer, students graduating high school would receive a "triple crown" -- a high school diploma, career skills certificate and a community college associate degree.
"(Brewer) is formally and actively linking the middle school right through the community colleges," said Alan Helfman, spokesman for the district's adult education division.
The power-line program -- one of at least 75 certification programs the school district offers -- has gained in popularity in recent years. Now offered at only two LAUSD campuses, East Los Angeles and the Pacoima Skills Center, the program is expected to expand to other sites such as the Harbor Occupational Center in San Pedro, Helfman said.
LAUSD isn't alone in rethinking career education. In November, voters handed $500 million to state career and technical programs as part of the $20 million Proposition 1B. Los Angeles Unified will be eligible for a portion of that money.
Vocational programs offer an important alternative to the college track, said Lisa Snell, education director at Los Angeles think tank Reason Foundation.
"A lot of vocational markets can't get workers from truck drivers to auto mechanics," Snell said. "In some ways, a lot of these jobs pay much more than getting your four- or six-year degree."
Magee was on a waiting list -- which has surged to 1,000 names -- for more than year before he was admitted to the skills center.
He completed 600 hours of course work that resembles more of a job site than a classroom.
For three days a week, students gather to mount 45-foot poles using safety belts and leg-fastened spikes known as gaffs to shimmy.
They work in teams with advanced students taking on supervisory roles as "yard dog" and quartermaster to mimic an actual workplace. The yard dogs keep workers on task, while the quartermaster provides food and supplies.
Students also learn applied mathematics and electrical theory in a classroom setting.
"The structure of our program is student-led," said Chuck Burnett, an instructor and recruitment executive at Southern California Edison.
Edison, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and utilities in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena hire many of the graduates, Burnett said.
LAUSD TO GET MORE FUNDING FROM STATE PROGRAM THAN EXPECTED
THE MONEY TO REDUCE CLASSROOM SIZES WOULD GO TO MORE THAN 80 CAMPUSES, WHICH COULD GET AS MUCH AS $1,000 MORE PER STUDENT FOR SEVEN YEARS.
by Howard Blume, LA Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007 — A massive new state program to reduce class sizes will benefit the Los Angeles Unified School District more than anticipated. District officials had expected the state to fund about 80 local schools. Instead, the actual number is likely to be 86 to 93 campuses.
That's just a handful more, but for those extra schools, it will be a bit like winning the lottery. These schools will get as much as $1,000 more per student for seven years.
The money is part of a $3-billion settlement to a lawsuit filed against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by the California Teachers Assn. and state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. They had alleged that Schwarzenegger broke an agreement, made early in his administration, to fully fund public schools.
All parties agreed that the settlement money should be used to reduce class sizes and increase the number of counselors at California's lowest performing schools.
To increase the amount of dollars for each school, they also decided to fund about one-third of the 1,455 eligible schools. Doing the math, local officials figured they would receive money for about 80 schools.
They did better because 195 eligible schools elsewhere in California didn't apply.
L.A. Unified also did well because officials persuaded all but two of its eligible schools to submit applications.
For more than 60% of schools, this is an act of charity. They were too low on the district priority list to have any hope of receiving this funding.
But by submitting an application, they increased the number of L.A. Unified spots in the lottery.
A final group of schools won't be selected until May because other factors will affect the lottery list.
For one thing, at least one school must be chosen from every county.
▲smf’s 2¢: It is wonderful that many schools – including many in LAUSD – will get “additional” funding in this “massive ‘new’ state program”. But “additional” isn’t in quotation marks in some sort of typographical error. This money was always rightfully the schools, “borrowed” from the Prop 98 constitutional guarantee and cut from previous school district budgets – from every district and every school in the state – by legislative and gubernatorial fiat …promised and then withheld by the once and future “Education Governor” and pried lose by a lawsuit. The fact that schools need to apply for their money is preposterous – the actuality that it is being distributed though a lottery is outrageous. When you borrow stuff you return it to who you borrowed it from – with no strings attached.
CHARTER MANIA ISN'T GOOD FOR L.A.: The LAUSD rubber-stamps small charter schools at its own peril, diverting badly needed funds.
Op-Ed in the LA Times by Ralph E. Shaffer and Walter P. Coombs, professors emeriti at Cal Poly Pomona.
April 19, 2007 — Listening recently to Steve Barr, the charter school movement's fair-haired boy and founder of the ever-expanding Green Dot Public Schools company, you'd think that the Los Angeles Unified School District is on a mission to kill charter schools. "Now we're outsiders," Barr fumed March 29, after the school board initially rejected his plan for eight new schools in South Los Angeles. "I really have a hard time finding any reason to continue talking with this district."
But the school board's spine softened last week, and the new Green Dot schools got the OK to open in 2008. That's more like the way the district has been operating: rubber-stamping new charters left and right. It continues this way at its own peril.
L.A. Unified, the second-largest school district in the country, is the epicenter of the burgeoning charter movement. The district already has more than 100 charter schools, and about 5% of its students are enrolled in them.
Charter schools, which were authorized by state legislation in 1992, are touted as models of innovative education, publicly financed but free of many restrictions placed on conventional public schools. The LAUSD authorized its first charter in 1993. The number grew slowly until 2001, then escalated dramatically. An overly enthusiastic Barr anticipates that by 2016, 75% of LAUSD pupils will be in charters.
Anyone can play superintendent. The request can be rejected only if the petitioner doesn't have a feasible educational program or sufficient financial resources to get a school started — which seems to be why the school board changed course on Green Dot last week. Only the most questionable proposals are denied, such as a 1997 request to the LAUSD for a charter based on L. Ron Hubbard's educational theories.
California law even pays charters to home-school kids. How long before some wag suggests that we simply shut down all public schools and home-school everyone?
Critics often suggest that it's teachers unions that stand in the way of progress, opposing charters and their innovations — even though it's teachers who have for years demanded freedom to innovate in the classroom. But any union opposition to charters largely evaporated in 2000. To gain support for passage of a ballot measure lowering the percentage of votes required to pass school bonds, the union's successful initiative contained wording allowing charters to receive bond money.
So now, under Proposition 39, districts provide charters with bond money for construction. And, like conventional schools, they receive state funding. Charters also twist arms at local school boards to gain multimillion-dollar loans.
And what do taxpayers get in return? A growing fight over education money and schools that are, at best, unorthodox.
The most controversial is surely Academia Semillas del Pueblo in El Sereno. Last year, right-wing blogs and radio raised an outcry because of reports that it promoted a Latino-separatist agenda and taught the indigenous Mexican language Nahuatl and Aztec mathematics. The school, where test scores haven't risen in five years, nonetheless got its charter renewed last month. The Accelerated School, a South Los Angeles charter school, was among the first to try Yoga Ed., a yoga-based program developed, critics claim, by a "New Age nut out to brainwash young minds."
Curriculum disputes aside, a continuing statewide scandal has revealed misused funds and loan defaults. The Accelerated School defaulted on a multimillion-dollar LAUSD loan. Gorman Charter, which operates in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, was cited for misuse of $7.7 million after an audit. Other for-profit charters, where owners were lining their pockets, have been shut by the state and county.
Can charter schools in Los Angeles do a better job than conventional ones? A good deal of anecdotal evidence inflates charter schools' accomplishments. But test scores raise doubts.
The 2006 Academic Performance Index incorporates standardized test results into a school score between 200 and 1,000. The statewide average, for grades 2-11, is 721. LAUSD conventional schools, with 95% of the district's students, scored 700. LAUSD charters, with only 5%, did only slightly better at 708. That's an insignificant difference considering that charters have a select clientele, siphoning off kids with the most-engaged parents.
Charter mania won't end soon. Too many advocates benefit from the system. Leftists see charters as a way to promote their agenda. Right-wingers use them to advance 19th century educational theories.
But in our zeal to try something new, we've created a competing educational system that is largely unregulated and potentially disastrous. Turning over our schools to self-proclaimed reformers and for-profit business is a sure-fire way to end California's proud history of free, universal public education.
COURT REJECTS MAYOR'S PLAN + LA MAYOR STRUGGLES WITH BIG AGENDA + LAUSD CLAIMS REOPENING SCHOOLS IS TOO COSTLY
►COURT REJECTS MAYOR'S PLAN TO ASSUME PARTIAL CONTROL OF LAUSD: Court Says Voters' Rights At Issue
from nbc4.tv
April 17, 2007 — LOS ANGELES — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to assume partial control of the Los Angeles school district was unanimously rejected Tuesday by a state appellate court panel that questioned its impact on voters' rights.
The three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal heard two hours of oral arguments from attorneys for the mayor and the board of education on April 2, with Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles Parents Union attempting to convince the justices to overturn a judge's Dec. 21 ruling that the law creating the mayor's plan is unconstitutional.
"The citizens of Los Angeles have the constitutional right to decide whether their school board is to be appointed or elected," Justice H. Walter Croskey wrote in the 44-page opinion. "If the citizens of Los Angeles choose to amend their charter to allow the mayor to appoint the members of the board, such amendment would indisputably be proper."
Croskey wrote that the Legislature, which passed the Villaraigosa plan, cannot ignore the constitutional rights of citizens based on the belief the mayor can do a better job of running the schools.
The mayor said his lawyers would review the court's ruling before a decision is made on a possible appeal.
"My first instinct would be to appeal it, and it may be that after reviewing the decision that it might not feasible, frankly," Villaraigosa said.
Attorneys in the case were not immediately available for comment.
During the April 2 hearing, the most pointed questions came from Justice Joan Dempsey Klein, who noted the legislation, AB 1381, is scheduled to expire in six years if eventually enacted into law.
"There are only 'X' number of years to this scheme and then it's all over," Klein said. "Does that coincide with the two terms of the mayor?"
Attorneys for the Los Angeles Unified School District argued that the mayor's plan runs afoul of the Constitution and that the Legislature, by making it law, intended to give him powers beyond those he is granted in his elected job as the city's chief executive.
"It is unabashed that their purpose is to take away power and to give it to somebody else they think would do a better job at it," Fredric D. Woocher, one of the attorneys representing the Board of Education, said then.
The Office of Legislative Counsel twice concluded that the bill was unconstitutional, Woocher said.
AB 1381 -- signed into law last September by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - - would have shifted some of the decision-making authority from the seven- member board to the district's superintendent.
The law also would have created a Council of Mayors, giving a significant role to Los Angeles' mayor in managing the nation's second-largest school district, and granted individual schools greater control over their budgets and curriculum during a six-year trial period.
The mayor and a Community Partnership for School Excellence also were to have been put in control of a "demonstration project" made up of the district's three lowest-performing high schools and their feeder campuses.
The LAUSD and a coalition of district parents, students, administrators and the League of Women voters filed suit Oct. 10 challenging the plan.
In her questioning of the attorneys, Justice Klein asked whether Villaraigosa could have obtained some of the same goals by working within existing law and focusing on such areas as charter schools.
"Speak to me about the right of the people to have a voice with the mayor sitting on top of the heap," Klein asked attorneys for the mayor.
Justice Patti S. Kitchings queried the mayor's lawyers about whether giving Villaraigosa such powers is in conflict with findings by the city Charter Commission that the mayor does not have control of the schools.
"This would be getting around the decision of the local Charter Commission, would it not?," Kitchings asked.
Croskey wanted to know whether the plan "undermines rights people have to elect that governing (school) board. That right goes right out the window, doesn't it?"
But Daniel Collins, an attorney for Villaraigosa, argued "the votes of no one are being diluted." He said the bill instead establishes a re- delegation of duties.
Deputy Attorney General Susan K. Leach, representing the governor, argued the legislation would still leave the school board with significant powers, including control over the budget and of employee contracts.
AB 1381 was scheduled to become law on Jan. 1. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra I. Janavs threw it out entirely just before Christmas, saying it transferred management and control of LAUSD schools to entities that are not part of the public school system.
The law also wrongly removed LAUSD schools from the exclusive control of the officers of the public schools, Janavs concluded. She called the changes under AB 1381 "drastic" and "unprecedented."
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►LA MAYOR STRUGGLES WITH BIG AGENDA
by Michael R. Blood Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press
April 17, 2007— LOS ANGELES – (AP) – His thousand-watt smile turned into a thousand-mile stare when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa learned that Los Angeles lost its chance to host the 2016 Olympics. The episode could be a metaphor for an administration endeavoring to fulfill its promise.
Approaching the midpoint of his four-year term, there's no question the freshman Democrat has given the office a jolt of youthful brio and a sense of purpose that defies its limited powers.
Villaraigosa has added hundreds of officers to the woefully understaffed Police Department, and a shaky budget hasn't deterred him from targeting more potholes and extending library hours.
But his signature plan to seize control of local schools — the issue that defined his candidacy — was declared unconstitutional Tuesday by a state appeals court. He's on a crusade to reduce gang violence, but it continues to take a toll in troubled neighborhoods. LA traffic remains LA traffic.
Plans to remake a forgettable downtown into a 21st century landmark and extend the subway system remain mostly on the drawing board. And a shocking case of homeless dumping — a hospital van left a paraplegic man crawling on Skid Row — was a reminder of the city's long-standing inability to help those most in need.
They are the intractable problems of urban America. But Villaraigosa, the city's first Hispanic mayor since the 19th century, "satisfies a lot of public whims, seeming to try to do everything he can on every issue," said Jaime Regalado of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles.
"What he's selling is the energy and the vision thing," Regalado said.
To others, he's overreached.
"You can't have your hand in every pot," said loan underwriter Larna Hayden, 57, who voted for the mayor. "The school district needs to handle its own business."
Villaraigosa, 54, was elected in May 2005 after the lackluster term of James Hahn, whose self-described "charisma deficit" appeared ill-fitted to the nation's second-largest city. The interracial coalition that vaulted Villaraigosa into office earned him comparisons to Tom Bradley, who made history in 1973 when he became Los Angeles' first black mayor.
His be-everywhere, do-everything attitude has inspired residents. But Villaraigosa got a stinging reminder Tuesday of challenges ahead — a state appeals court ruled that the law that would have granted him a hand in running the school district was unconstitutional, upholding an earlier decision. The court depicted the law as a clumsy attempt to strip power from the elected school board, based on an assumption Villaraigosa could do a better job.
"In political terms, he's been pretty much a sensation," said political scientist Raphael Sonenshein of California State University, Fullerton. "On the policy side, he's taken on a whole bunch of things that are awfully hard."
Villaraigosa spokesman Sean Clegg said the mayor "is in the education-reform business to stay. ... He'll be looking at other pathways to reform."
The mayor is planning to sketch out details of his new gang strategy Wednesday in his annual state of the city speech. It will merge aggressive law enforcement with services and prevention programs in an attempt to steer youth away from the lure of crime.
A high-school dropout from a broken home who went on to become speaker of the state Assembly, Villaraigosa's image is defined by his buoyant personality and ubiquitous presence. But that has its limits as he grapples with issues that have defied his predecessors, from knotty traffic to a lack of affordable housing.
The city's economy is doing well, in large part because of tourism and international trade, but trouble in the residential home market could crimp city revenue. He recently told department heads to reduce spending by 5 percent.
He has said the future of Los Angeles, with a population verging on 4 million, is perched between "immense possibility and ... profound uncertainty." In typical style, he often urges supporters to increase their ambitions, not be deterred by setbacks.
When asked if the city would pursue the 2020 Olympics after Chicago won the right to compete for the 2016 games, he said, "Without question."
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►LAUSD CLAIMS REOPENING SCHOOLS IS TOO COSTLY
by Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer | LA Daily News
04/16/2007 — Los Angeles Unified has five shuttered campuses — four of them in the San Fernando Valley — but says it would cost too much to reopen the schools despite the pleas for classroom space from the booming charter movement.
And charter operators also say they can't afford — and shouldn't have to pay — the multimillion-dollar cost of renovating the decrepit campuses and preparing them for students.
Still, with state money available for charter development and charters a key issue in the upcoming school board race, officials on both sides now say there may be a way to work together to help the independent campuses evolve.
"These seats cost money," said Greg McNair, the district's chief administrator for charter schools.
"If they want to partner with us in identifying the cost there in order to make an intelligent decision about whether they want to pay the cost, I'd be happy to do that, but that just hasn't happened yet.
"I think this should be a joint venture between the district and charter schools, not just this constant complaining and haranguing about nothing's happening," he said.
Caprice Young, who heads the California Charter Schools Association, said she's prepared to discuss reopening the schools as charters, but was skeptical of the district's commitment.
"What our experience has been is we have meetings and meetings and meetings in rooms full of 30 district staff, none of whom have the power to make a decision," Young said. "We're ready to meet on it and we'd like to get schools in those campuses, but so far that hasn't been our experience.
"They're all talk and no action, but we're ready to get it done."
The dilemma is exemplified by Highlander Road Elementary in West Hills, which was closed 18 years ago because of declining enrollment in the area. Currently used for storage, the campus was offered by Los Angeles Unified to a charter, but operators refused because of the $11 million cost to get it ready for students.
Charter officials note that voter-approved Proposition 39 makes the district responsible for providing them with classroom space and say LAUSD should foot the bill.
District officials say that money — about $85 million remains — is earmarked to relieve classroom overcrowding and cannot be used to build outdated buildings up to code.
Still, Tamar Galatzan, who is challenging school board member Jon Lauritzen in the May 15 runoff, said she would make it a priority to get the shuttered campuses reopened if she's elected on May 15.
"One of the first issues I intend to pursue is how to turn Highlander Road and other closed school sites into thriving schools once again," she said during a news conference last Thursday in front of the campus.
"We cannot continue to deprive the West Valley and any other neighborhoods in the district of quality schools."
Lauritzen noted that the school board is spending $12 million to reopen Enadia Way Elementary in Canoga Park, and that it may be time to take other campuses out of mothballs, as well.
"We have taken on that bureaucracy when we fought to have one of those schools reopen," Ed Burke, Lauritzen's chief of staff, said of the Enadia Way project. "And now we will fight to open others as we create the need."
The creation of charter schools is an issue that has sharply divided Lauritzen and Galatzan in their high-profile race to represent the West San Fernando Valley on the LAUSD board.
Like the teachers' union that supports him, Lauritzen is a critic of charters, maintaining that students can best be served by working through the district.
Galatzan, who is backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his education-reform movement, maintains that the independent schools offer alternatives that help spur student achievement.
The fact that there are five shuttered campuses in LA — Highlander, Collins Street, Oso Avenue and Platt Ranch in the Valley and 98th Street in South LA — while scores of charters are clamoring for space demonstrates the need for new leadership on the school board, Galatzan said.
"The condition of Highlander School — weeds growing out of the pavement, boarded-up classrooms — is symbolic of the LAUSD's failure to serve the parents, teachers and students of our community," she said.
But LAUSD officials said just a handful of charters have expressed interest in the shuttered schools. Most of the 103 charters are located over the hill, so the Valley campuses don't meet their needs.
Still, the facility shortage has surfaced as the No. 1 impediment to the growth of the charter movement, with many operating out of churches and warehouses with concrete parking lots serving as the playground.
The district is using the empty campuses for adult education, professional development centers, staff offices, and in some cases leasing them out. Highlander was leased for years to a private school until 2004 and is now being used for storage.
LAUSD officials maintain they don't have enough surplus classroom space in their 850 schools to meet the demand voiced by charters. The district is in the midst of a $19 billion construction program, but only after years of not building schools.
"The reality is that the district has what it has and offered what it has to the charter schools under Prop. 39," McNair said. "The district doesn't want to hold anything back.
We've been busing students for over a decade to spaces in the Valley and the Westside because we didn't have space for kids in their neighborhoods."
Two dozen Valley schools were closed between 1970 and 1987, and all but five have since reopened, most for instructional uses, said Guy Mehula, LAUSD's chief facilities executive. The Enadia Way project will bring that number down to four.
"The reason they're not being used as a school right now is they don't have the enrollment in that area to substantiate opening them as a school," Mehula said.
McNair said he's open to conversations with charter operators about reopening shuttered campuses, but noted there's just $85 million to be shared among more than 100 charter schools.
"We should go jointly and make a reasonable evaluation of cost and reasonable decisions on how much we each want to contribute in terms of resources," McNair said. "Saying to one school we'll spend $10 million of the charter bond money to give 300 seats is probably going to make a whole bunch of people upset.
"Charter bond money could be utilized in better ways."
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• Monday Apr 23, 2007
CENTRAL REGION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL #21: Site Selection Update Meeting
Join us at this meeting where we will present and discuss the most suitable site(s) for this new school project.
6:00 p.m. — Harmony Elementary School
899 E. 42nd Place
Los Angeles, CA 90011
• Monday Apr 23, 2007
SOUTH REGION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL #10: Site Selection Update Meeting
Join us at this meeting where we will present and discuss the most suitable site(s) for this new school project.
6:00 p.m. — Menlo Elementary School - Auditorium
4156 Menlo Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90037
• Tuesday Apr 24, 2007
NORMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ADDITION: Open House
Please join us at an Open House to showcase our new classroom building!
2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. — Normont Elementary School
1001 W. 253rd St.
Harbor City, CA 90710
• Wednesday Apr 25, 2007
VALLEY REGION BYRD HS RECONFIGURATION: CEQA Draft EIR Meeting
LAUSD has completed a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for this new school project. The purpose of this meeting is to present the Draft EIR to the community, and receive comments and questions regarding the results of the Draft EIR.
6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. — Byrd Middle School
9171 Telfair Avenue
Sun Valley, CA 91352
• Thursday Apr 26, 2007
CENTRAL LOS ANGELES AREA NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL #3: Construction Update Meeting
6:00 p.m. — McCarthy Contractors Office
(Large Meeting Room)
630 Shatto Place, 4th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90005
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213.633.7493
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213.633.7616
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Marlene.Canter@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Julie.Korenstein@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Mike.Lansing@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Jon.Lauritzen@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
David.Tokofsky@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• Register.
• Vote.
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