In This Issue:  | | • | QEIA + SB 84: A CALL TO ACTION | | | • | GARFIELD HIGH IS ELIGIBLE FOR TAKEOVER: Control of the East LA school, setting for 'Stand & Deliver,' could shift because of its low academic standing | | | • | A DOZEN LAUSD SCHOOLS COULD BE TAKEN OVER BY INDEPENDENT OPERATORS UNDER NEW PLAN …it’s actually three dozen, but who’s counting? | | | • | KEY TO IMPROVING SCHOOLS LIES WITHIN THE CLASSROOMS | | | • | HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | LA Times reporter Howard Blume seized on the ‘Stand and Deliver’ theme for his reportage on the Great Schools Giveaway, evoking the 1988 Film about Jaime Escalante at Garfield High. Few who have seen the movie can forget the sinister cabal of unenlightened educators who are Escalante’s antagonists – shallow and white, of limited imagination: "you can't teach logarithms to illiterates". As two dimensional a portrayal of educators as ever graced celluloid. And probably a spot-on generalization of their kind at the time.
And unfortunately, some remain. The soft bigotry of low expectations. La intolerancia de las bajas expectativas.
S&D was a true story: Escalate, the AP Calculus students in the story and the school administrators were real and something like the movie. And, because their lives didn’t play out and tie up neatly in 102 minutes, far more complicated.
But 4LAKids has never met a metaphor it didn’t want to mix …or an irony it didn’t want to cast into a larger allegory.
"Stand and deliver", Wikipedia reminds us, is a command used by highwaymen to make travelers halt and surrender their valuables. That is the metaphor and the reality of what’s going on in LAUSD today.
The Board of Education, using tools provided it under No Child Left Behind, proposes to do what it isn’t just legally empowered to do – but indeed has been lax in doing: Putting new management in place at identified underperforming - and let me use the F-word here: “Failing” schools.
The school board decided long ago that A – if not THE – major part of the solution to underperforming schools was to solve overcrowding by building new neighborhood schools, getting kids off the bus and off of year round calendars.
Current board members may not have been involved in that decision – sometimes I wonder if they even voted for the bonds. But they have inherited it and all that comes with it: The promises made, the debt obligation and the bond language. Please excuse this lecture in Poli Sci 101 but elected officials cannot repudiate piecemeal the policies and obligations of their predecessors and just walk away …that just isn’t how representative democracy works.
NCLB empowers the board – indeed it mandates the board to take some of the actions it has taken to reconfigure and turn around low performing schools. And inviting other operators – charters included – in is foreseen in NCLB.
►HOWEVER I - Questions arise over whether charter schools (which are Schools of Choice – parents can freely choose to send their children to them or to another program) can be traditional attendance-zone neighborhood schools (which are NOT Schools of Choice). The California Charter Law is quite clear in defining charter schools: THE HYBRIDS PROPOSED HERE ARE WELL OUTSIDE THAT DEFINITION.
►HOWEVER II – There is no authority in NCLB or California Law whatsoever about taking over or transferring governance of new schools with no track record of underperformance to outside operation. Yet – and this is underreported in the media, in addition to the 12 LOW PERFORMING “FOCUS” SCHOOLS ‘up for grabs’ under the Public Schools Choice Resolution:
• BURBANK MIDDLE SCHOOL
• CARVER MIDDLE SCHOOL
• GARDENA HIGH SCHOOL
• GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOL
• GRIFFITH-JOYNER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• HILLCREST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• HYDE PARK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
• JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL
• LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL
• MAYWOOD ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL
• SAN FERNANDO MIDDLE SCHOOL
• SAN PEDRO HIGH SCHOOL
•
THERE ARE 24 BRAND NEW SCHOOLS:
• Gratts PC -- 400 students with a cost of $66,877,385
• Valley Region ES #6 -- 950 students with a cost of $59,861,759
• Valley Region ES #7 -- 800 students with a cost of $62,224,883
• Valley Region ES #8 -- 725 students with a cost of $f 48,567,191
• Valley Region ES #9 -- 800 students with a cost of $f 57,818,486
• Valley Region ES #10 -- 650 students with a cost of $f 36,548,280
• Central Region ES #13 -- 875 students with a cost of $75,512,417
• Central Region ES #15 -- 575 students with a cost of $70,931,735
• Central Region ES #16 -- 675 students with a cost of $66,748,089
• Central Region ES #17 -- 725 students with a cost of $64,486,404
• Central Region ES #18 575 students with a cost of $54,465,009
• South Region ES #1 1,050 students with a cost of $85,379,327
• South Region ES #2 -- 1,050 students with a cost of $97,156,182
• South Region ES #3 -- 775 students with a cost of $81,238,658
• South Region ES #4 -- 775 students with a cost of $86,419,831
• South Region MS # 2A -- 1,404 students with a cost of $127,675,163
• South Region MS # 2B -- [students + cost included above]
• South Region MS # 2C -- [students + cost included above]
• South Region MS #6 -- 1,404 students with a cost of $136,636,484
• Esteban E. Torres HS #1 -- 2,322 students with a cost of $206,707,370
• Esteban E. Torres HS #2 -- [students + cost included above]
• Esteban E. Torres HS #3 -- [students + cost included above]
• Esteban E. Torres HS #4 -- [students + cost included above]
• Esteban E. Torres HS #5 -- [students + cost included above]
TOTAL 16530 students with a cost of $1,485,254,653
… That’s an outstanding bond-funded debt obligation of $1.5 billion ...“up for grabs.” When one includes the debt service (interest) on the bonds the taxpayers obligation is somewhere between $2.5 and $3 billion.
• The framing of “Focus Schools” prompted an educator/expert on standards to quip: “What? Are we not going to focus on the other ones?”
• In Cortines defense, he has written: “All 856 schools, including charters, will continue to focus on ensuring all students are college prepared and career ready and ensure standards are being covered in all classes”
All well and good...
• But if those 856 schools ‘continue to focus’ with the same intensity and urgency won’t the result be the same?
• ‘College prepared and career ready’ has become a throw away buzz-phrase.
• And there is little-to-no accountability or evidence – and data to the contrary - that charters are meeting the standards -- adherence to some of which are waived in law and/or practice.
Superintendent Cortines says in his memo accompanying the Focus List: “I received several phone calls and emails expressing concerns about being a potential ‘focus school’ or being ‘taken over by private operators’.” He continues “I do not support the concept of handing over schools to outside providers or hostile takeovers…”
But, gentle readers, if that’s not exactly what’s going on here, what is?
¡Onward/Hasta adelante! - smf
QEIA + SB 84: A CALL TO ACTION
DEAR GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: PLEASE FULLY FUND THE QUALITY EDUCATION INVESTMENT ACT AND MAKE GOOD ON YOUR, AND OUR, OBLIGATION TO CALIFORNIA’S SCHOOLCHILDREN. PLEASE SIGN SB 84.
by smf for 4LAKids
The Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) is actually an out of court (but court approved) settlement of a lawsuit between the California Teachers Association and Governor Schwarzenegger when the governor undercut the Prop 98 constitutional guarantee of MINIMUM levels of funding for public education – in essence borrowing the kids education money (which he is allowed to do) – and then attempting through a political gambit to not pay it back (which he can’t).
In the latest budget run-around the Sacramento the politicos attempted to use Federal Stimulus funds to refinance QEIA. The feds balked – they weren’t interested in paying back outstanding loans or court settlements. SB 84 is a bill to restore QEIA funding – which targets schools most in need. It passed both houses of the legislature and sits on the governor’s desk, awaiting his signature.
Vetoing it – or reducing funding - would renege again on his promise to make good the past obligation. Stranger things have happened.
The poster child for QEIA funding is Hollywood High School, famous for being famous, overcrowded, socioeconomically challenged – and enjoying a renaissance: the high school with the second highest API score improvement in the state (the first was a 150 student HS in Northern California). At HHS QEIA money is used to reduce class size in critical English and Math programs. Without QEIA HHS will be giving back some of those hard won API points. LAUSD has 88 QEIA schools with much the same story.
This issue of 4LAKids has already had two laundry lists of schools; with apologies, here’s the QEIA list:
• Abraham Lincoln Senior High
• Academic Performance
• Alain Leroy Locke Senior High*
• Andrew Carnegie Middle
• Audubon Middle
• Bell Senior High
• Belmont Senior High
• Belvedere Middle
• Berendo Middle
• Bret Harte Preparatory Intermediate
• Bridge Street Elementary
• Charles Drew Middle
• Charles Maclay Middle
• Chester W. Nimitz Middle
• CIVITAS School of Leadersp
• Crenshaw Senior High
• Daniel Webster Middle
• David Starr Jordan Senior High
• David Wark Griffith Middle
• Edward R. Roybal HS
• Edwin Markham Middle
• El Sereno Middle
• Elizabeth Learning Center
• Evelyn Thurman Gratts Elementary
• Evergreen Avenue Elementary
• Farmdale Elementary
• Fernangeles Elementary
• Florence Nightingale Middle
• Francisco Sepulveda Middle
• George Washington Carver Middle
• George Washington Preparatory High
• Glenn Hammond Curtiss Middle
• Gulf Avenue Elementary
• Helen Bernstein
• Henry Clay Middle
• Hillcrest Drive Elementary
• Hollenbeck Middle
• Hollywood Senior High
• Horace Mann Junior High
• Huntington Park Senior High
• Hyde Park Blvd. Elementary
• James A. Garfield Senior High
• John Adams Middle
• John C. Fremont Senior High
• John Muir Middle
• Johnnie Cochran, Jr., Middle
• Joseph Le Conte Middle
• Langdon Avenue Elementary
• Leichty MS
• Los Angeles Academy Middle
• Los Angeles High School of the Arts
• Los Angeles Senior High
• Los Angeles Teacher Preparatory Academy
• Magnolia Avenue Elementary
• Main Street Elementary
• Malabar Street Elementary
• Manchester Avenue Elementary
• Manual Arts Senior High
• Mark Twain Middle
• Mary McLeod Bethune Middle
• Miramonte Elementary
• Napa Street Elementary
• Nevin Avenue Elementary
• Northridge Middle
• Olive Vista Middle
• One Hundred Fifty-Third Street
• One Hundred Seventh Street Elementary
• One Hundred Twelfth Street Elementary
• Pacoima Middle
• Park Avenue Elementary
• Phineas Banning Senior High
• Ritter Elementary
• Robert E. Peary Middle
• Robert Louis Stevenson Middle
• Samuel Gompers Middle
• San Fernando Middle
• School for the Visual Arts & Humanities
• Seventy-Fifth Street Elementary
• Sun Valley Middle
• Susan Miller Dorsey Senior High
• Sylmar Senior High
• Tenth Street Elementary
• Theodore Roosevelt Senior High
• Thomas A. Edison Middle
• Thomas Jefferson Senior High
• Trinity Street Elementary
• Van Nuys Middle
• Vermont Avenue Elementary
• Virgil Middle
• Vista Middle
• Weigand Avenue Elementary
• West Adams Preparatory HS
• West Vernon Avenue Elementary
• Western Avenue Elementary
• Wilmington Middle
• Woodcrest Elementary
• Woodrow Wilson Senior High
►YOUR CALL TO ACTION: Write, call, fax, e-mail or otherwise buttonhole the governor (he lives in LA, eventually he has to go to Trader Joes!) and ask him to sign SB 84. If your school, or your child’s school, is a QEIA school - tell him that. This advocacy is on behalf of special interests – your and our special interests are the children. He should be so especially interested also!
GOVERNOR'S OFFICE:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160 ( new number )
LOS ANGELES OFFICE
300 South Spring Street
Suite 16701
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Phone: 213-897-0322
Fax: 213-897-0319
GARFIELD HIGH IS ELIGIBLE FOR TAKEOVER: Control of the East LA school, setting for 'Stand & Deliver,' could shift because of its low academic standing
By Howard Blume | LA Times
September 26, 2009 -- Garfield High, which became nationally known as the real-life setting for the film "Stand and Deliver," will be among the initial 12 local campuses, including six high schools, eligible for takeover because of persistent academic failure, officials announced Friday.
The nation's second-largest school system will invite bidders from inside and outside the district to run these schools next year through a proposal process that is still being developed.
The Los Angeles Board of Education authorized this school-control plan in August; it applies to low-achieving existing schools and to 51 new campuses set to open over the next four years in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Garfield, which for decades has served a largely immigrant Latino population in East Los Angeles, reached a high-water mark in the 1980s, when math teacher Jaime Escalante built his famed calculus program.
Under his leadership, dozens of students passed the Advanced Placement calculus test every year, a rare feat even at the nation's elite schools.
Last year, only 5% of Garfield students tested as "proficient" in any math class.
"All these schools need the attention that this will focus on them," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, author of the policy.
Other schools include:
* Maywood Academy in the southeast Los Angeles County city of Maywood. The school opened four years ago. Maywood city officials are interested in obtaining substantial control over the school, said City Councilman Felipe Aguirre.
* Jefferson High in Central-Alameda. District officials successfully opposed a previous charter conversion attempt by Steve Barr and his Green Dot Public Schools. Barr later engineered a takeover of Locke High.
* Lincoln High in Lincoln Heights. Teachers helped staff a volunteer summer school after budget cuts slashed district offerings. One potential course that failed to attract sufficient enrollment was an activism seminar with the proposed class project of recalling Flores Aguilar because she voted for budget cuts that resulted in layoffs.
* Burbank Middle School in Highland Park, where parents have long worried about gang influence on campus. The school also has two new magnet schools that, some argue, already are the basis of a promising reform.
* San Fernando Middle School, the only Valley campus.
The other schools are Gardena High, San Pedro High, Carver Middle School in South Park, Griffith Joyner Elementary in Watts, Hillcrest Elementary in Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw, and Hyde Park Elementary in Hyde Park.
L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said that being on the list "should not be viewed as a negative" and that "this process is about providing our schools with the appropriate supports."
More than 250 schools are eligible under the board resolution, which applies to schools that consistently failed to meet federal benchmarks for at least three years.
Cortines refined the formula as recently as midweek, finally deciding that the "focus" schools, as he called them, would meet additional criteria: fewer than 21% of students proficient in math or English and no school-wide improvement on the state's Academic Performance Index, which is largely based on standardized test scores.
In addition, high schools would have a dropout rate greater than 10%.
Garfield qualified easily.
The school also owns the lowest rank, 1 of 10, when compared with schools statewide. But that does not make Garfield's selection incontestable.
When compared with schools that serve similar students, Garfield rates a 6 of 10, which puts it in the upper half of state schools.
And although Garfield dropped three points on this year's Academic Performance Index, it had improved by 44 and 25 points the previous two years, among L.A. Unified's better gains.
Garfield's uncertain future has engendered fear and anger among the faculty, said social studies teacher Brian Fritch.
"We have a lot of teachers confused about what the next step will be," he said. "People don't feel included in the process and feel rushed."
Fritch is hustling to organize an internal reform proposal.
Junior Karen Flores, 16, said she and her classmates are worried about the loss of cherished Garfield traditions and a disrupted senior year, with the potential to affect classes and college applications.
"It feels like people are giving up on us," she said.
Garfield became a reform battleground as a target of the Parent Revolution, which emerged out of Green Dot.
Its organizers have asserted that they have signatures from dissatisfied community parents equal in number to more than half the Garfield student body and that the district must either improve Garfield or face competition from start-up charter schools that would surround it.
Green Dot has agreed to step aside and let another charter group, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, manage new charters near Garfield.
Alliance chief executive Judy Burton said she's interested in submitting a proposal both for Garfield and for a new high school, under construction, that will relieve Garfield's overcrowding.
A DOZEN LAUSD SCHOOLS COULD BE TAKEN OVER BY INDEPENDENT OPERATORS UNDER NEW PLAN …it’s actually three dozen, but who’s counting?
By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Daily News
09/25/2009 02:16:10 PM PDT -- A dozen low performing Los Angeles Unified schools could be taken over next year by independent operators under the district's new reform plan, officials said Friday.
Releasing the list of chronically under-performing schools, including San Fernando Middle School, paves the way for charter school organizations, the teachers' union and other non-profit groups to submit proposals to operate the schools.
Under the original guidelines of the "School Choice Plan" approved by the LAUSD board in August, 302 new and underperforming schools were eligible to be taken over. The plan called for all schools who had failed to meet federal test goals for more than three years to be included on the list.
But the district only selected 36 schools - 24 new campuses and 12 under-performing sites - to ensure that every "focus" school, as LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines has coined them, received the proper amount of attention.
Ultimately the 12 schools selected had to meet additional criteria that included having less than 21 percent proficiency in math or reading and no growth in their state test scores, and more than a 10 percent drop-out rate for high schools.
The other 11 underperforming schools are: Griffith Joyner, Hillcrest Drive, and Hyde Park elementary schools, Burbank and Carver middle schools and Gardena, Garfield, Lincoln, Jefferson, Maywood Academy and San Pedro High Schools.
All of the district's 51 new schools that will be completed by 2012 as part of the district's $20 billion bond construction program will be eligible for take over under the plan, but only 24 will be opening next year.
In the San Fernando Valley that will include elementary schools in Panorama City, Van Nuys, Sylmar, North Hollywood and Canoga Park.
Cortines also released a list of 56 "support and service" schools that he will be watching closely this year. Cortines said he will be setting benchmarks for these schools.
Schools that fail to meet these goals will be part of next year's list of schools that will be up for bid.
Cortines will be submitting final application procedures to the LAUSD board for approval Oct. 27 and expects to have all school operators selected for these 36 schools by February.
KEY TO IMPROVING SCHOOLS LIES WITHIN THE CLASSROOMS
Op-Ed By Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte in the LA Daily News
• Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte is a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education :: 4LAKids missed this Op-Ed when it first ran …but a friend brought it to my easily distracted attention, thank you!.
9/11/2009 -- AS we begin a new school year this week, I want to encourage my colleagues on the Board of Education and everyone else in our community interested in the fate of public education to pause and reflect on the true mission of the school district - providing educational opportunities for children.
This is a mission achieved through instruction. Not construction, not real estate transactions, not purchasing, not transportation, not accounts payable, not bond offerings, not food services, but instruction.
Considering all of the salesmen, lobbyists, politicians, contractors, lawyers, and special interest representatives that show up at my door, it is hard to remember the true mission much less focus on it. But we must. The children of our community are depending on us to serve them and do a good job.
The noninstructional activities the school district finds itself involved in are important, but meant to support instruction and the mission of the school district. Billions of dollars are spent each year to support the good work that needs to go on in the classroom.
Only half of the employees of the district are teachers, but both the money spent and all of the employees are meant to support the mission of providing an education to the children of our community.
Without argument, the school district could do better in the area of instruction. What to do differently is the perennial question, but I believe the district needs to look no further for the answer than down the hall. A successful model for achieving a goal declared by many to be impossible can be found in the school district's very successful construction program.
Nearly 20 years ago, my predecessors on the Board of Education, with laserlike focus, decided to prove to the public that children and families would be better off, and learn more, if they had the choice to attend a neighborhood school on the traditional school calendar.
To accomplish this goal, school district officials knew they would have to convince the public of the need to develop a school facilities program and hire accomplished professionals. Funding was important, but the key to success has been the extraordinary detail of the planning and implementation of the construction program.
That same comprehensive approach must be applied to the instructional program. The steps to build or modernize a school are contained in a multipage flow chart with hundreds of boxes anticipating every step and contingency in construction. Boxes are used for the steps taken to identify the area of our community that needs a school to ensuring that every fire extinguisher is in place and operational before the first student arrives. A hallmark of the school facilities construction program is the step-by-step, no-excuses discipline applied to the task. This may explain why so many of those involved are former military officers.
The school district and the school board need to apply the same laser-beam focus to student instruction with the same intensity and attention to details to accomplish our true mission. We need to plan out the educational path of every child from before they begin school in our pre-K classes to his or her selection of a post high school graduation opportunity.
We must plan for every contingency and add a box to our instruction flow chart when something unexpected comes up so it is never unexpected again. We must prove we can apply lessons learned, replicate success and eliminate the ineffective.
Concentrating on instruction and academic achievement takes at least as much discipline as building a school. School district officials need to look past the distractions thrown at us like cartoon brickbats by those who hide behind the skirts of reform but appear to want to destroy public education.
The public schools, from pre-K through college, are the great equalizer in our country. They are what allow the most recent immigrant, the child from a group home, the paraplegic, and the legacy child at Phillips Andover Academy to all have a chance to attend Harvard University or a public college.
Public schools accept all comers, and work and work and work with children who want an education but have no one to advocate for them.
We learn over and over that not every child can depend on a parent to keep them safe or ensure they apply to the best possible school. If we were to create an instructional path to success for every child, every child could be nurtured and protected within our education system so those without could fare as well as those holding a silver spoon.
For those who want to minimize the achievements of the school district, they need to reflect upon what the school district can do when it has the support of the community. The successful construction program is matched by many other great achievements, such as the outstanding LAUSD magnet program.
We need to do better for more. And we can if we dedicate as many resources and as much energy to the academic achievement of children as we have to building schools.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
$1.5 BILLION UP FOR GRABS: …but it's not about the money! a 4LAKids Spreadsheet 24 NEW SCHOOLS SUBJECT TO PSC R..
A DOZEN LAUSD SCHOOLS COULD BE TAKEN OVER BY INDEPENDENT OPERATORS UNDER NEW PLAN …it’s actually three dozen, b..
…The other shoe drops: IN ADDITION TO THE TWELVE ‘FOCUS SCHOOLS’ THERE ARE TWENTY-FOUR NEW SCHOOLS ‘UP FOR GRAB
LIST PUBLISHED OF ‘TAKEOVER’ OR ‘FOCUS’ SCHOOLS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE – as chosen by the superintendent: FRO..
9/25 SUPERINTENDENT’S UPDATE ON PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE: from the LAUSD Website Public School Choice 9-25-09 Update
GARFIELD HIGH AMONG 12 SCHOOLS AVAILABLE TO OUTSIDE BIDDERS: by Howard Blume | LA Times LA NOW! blog Septemb..
NYC SCHOOLS ARE OVERCROWDED: City classrooms overflowing with students: Leonie Haimson, President of CLASS SIZE..
Re: A CLOCKWORK BUBBLE: City Council President Garcetti writes from his Blackberry, correcting 4LAKids’ mis / o..
MOST PARENTS WON’T HAVE KIDS GET H1N1 FLU SHOTS, STUDY FINDS: A national survey suggests parents are confused a..
COALITION FILES LEGAL BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF STATE TUITION LAW: by Carla Rivera | LA Times LA NOW Blog September 2..
LAUSD UNION AGREES TO FURLOUGHS: About 1,100 bus drivers will take six unpaid days off this fiscal year to help..
CALIFORNIA DROPOUT RESEARCH PROJECT, CAHSEE POLICY ANALYSIS REPORTS RELEASED: September 24, 2009 NEW: CDRP Poli..
LIMITING SPEECH – LAUSD BOARD CUTS BACK ON PUBLIC INPUT: LA Daily News Editorial Sept 24 -- To say "Shame on the..
UC & CSU WILL GRANT DEGREES TO THOSE SENT TO INTERNMENT CAMPS: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | from the NY Times Septembe..
DROPOUTS COSTING CALIFORNIA $1.1 BILLION ANNUALLY IN JUVENILE CRIME COSTS: Study finds that cutting the dropout ..
SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS SAY UTLA BETRAYED THEM: En español: Maestros Sustitutos dicen que Sindicato de Profesores lo..
Interview with Steve Zimmer: RETURNING TO PUBLIC SCHOOL IS A MITZVAH: By Bill Boyarsky | Opinion in the Jewish J..
LA Times seeks your questions about work and child care: from the LA Times September 23, 2009 -- School has star..
STIMULUS QUIRK LEAVES COMMUNITY COLLEGES WITH $90 MILLION LESS: By Matt Krupnick | Contra Costa Times Updated: 0..
HEALTHY FAMILIES: Governor reverses threat, signs bill to preserve kids' insurance: Matthew Yi | San Francisco C..
CRISIS: LAUSD CUTS DOWN ON COMMITTEES. Move reduces staff time, materials; critics disagree.: By Connie Llanos, ..
VETERAN SUBSTITUTE TEACHERS PROTEST LOSS OF WORK: by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now blog September 22, 2009 | 8..
No budget/No clue: THE CALIFORNIA FIX: Tax commission report falls flat, but it's a start: Pro..
No budget/No clue: THE CALIFORNIA FIX :: Taming the California Beast: So many problems, so man..
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-893-6800
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Yolie.Flores.Aguilar@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...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.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT.
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