In This Issue:  | | • | L.A. UNIFIED TO ALLOW PARENTS TO INITIATE SCHOOL REFORMS | | | • | L.A. SCHOOLS LEADER CONSIDERS SHORTENED SCHOOL YEAR TO BALANCE BUDGET, LEAVES TOWN | | | • | MANY L.A. STUDENTS NOT MOVING OUT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSES | | | • | PLENTY OF QUESTIONS BUT NO EASY ANSWERS IN WAKE OF GANG RAPE: Brutality of the incident at Richmond High is hard to fathom. | | | • | 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: | | | | LEWIS CARROLL gave us the word "Curiouser" - as in: “'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)".
I have used the word before in describing the goings-on in LAUSD, and have also resorted to 'Wonderlandian" and "Carollian" - but the curiousness often exceeds the positive/comparative/superlative adjective taxonomy. I don't dare to go for "Curiousest" because there's always next week …or the one after that when the superintendent returns from his junket to China.
What curiosities have we this week?
THE SUPERINTENDENT AND THE BOARD have set sail in the ship of Public School Choice, with what passes for a plan settled upon, and with pretty much everyone unhappy - but the votes counted and secured nonetheless. The plan, which the media had formerly described as Boardmember Flores Aguilar's Resolution (discounting the mayor's fingerprints) is now the Superintendent's Resolution according to The Times. The amendments that make it Cortines' - notably the "Parent Involvement" piece - have even more of the mayor's fingerprints, if not DNA. Or the left-behind e-evidence that MSWord leaves when docs are edited on city hall computers. [To be fair: when out of town - even only as far a Pasadena - the mayor claims authorship of the plan.]
RE: THE PARENT INVOLVEMENT PIECE
• I live and die Parent Involvement, I deeply resent it when anyone puts a feather as ugly as this one in their cap and calls it "Parent Involvement"… it's pure "macaroni"! And I'm being politically correct only so this gets past the LAUSD 'naughty language' e-mail censor software! (see http://bit.ly/11psvn and the Gübernator's acrostic to see clever ways to elude censorship without deleting explicatives)
• The parents that "insisted" on this are the Los Angeles Parents Union aka Parent Revolution, a wholly owned subsidiary of Green Dot Public Schools.
• Ben Austin, the executive director of the LAPU, worked for the mayor before he became a Green Dot employee, first in the Green Dot takeover and now as LAPU/PR chief. Austin was the mayor's choice for a school board seat - but his nominating petitions were circulated his in the wrong school board district. "Picky…picky …picky" as comedian and perpetually failed presidential candidate Pat Paulson used to say.
• If Parent Involvement in identifying PSC Schools is so critical why was parent's majority opinion not sought in the current go round? I doubt if 50%+1 of the parents in the existing schools listed are so anxious to put their schools up for grabs. And the parents at the new schools being offered up haven't even been identified yet
• From the Green Dot Mantra/Six Tenets: #3 EMPOWER PRINCIPALS, TEACHERS, PARENTS AND STUDENTS TO OWN ALL KEY DECISIONS RELATED TO BUDGETS, CURRICULUM AND HIRING. I don't see any ownership - let alone empowerment - of anyone except the supe and the school board in the PSC Resolution.
AN ASIDE: Last Sunday I attended the ten-year anniversary celebration of the Advancement Project; it was a great event among great folks celebrating great accomplishments …and the Washington Prep Jazz Ensemble played beautifully . . . but cool! At the event Mayor Tony was a speaker, presenting an award to Chief Bratton. The mayor (who pronounces his title as if it were the name for a female horse: Not a Stallion but a Mare) used the opportunity and the microphone to trumpet his successes in taking over the school district (really?) and in running the schools he does run (really²?) and the failures of LAUSD, resorting to the tired and statistically dishonest 50% dropout rate number and acknowledging none of the recent progress made. Standing up and shouting: "You lie" seemed an option…but I didn't want to embarrass our hosts or my wife, seated next me. Afterward I confessed my temptation and she suggested that I should've thrown my shoe as well.
BELOW you will read of actual failure - failing to teach English Language Learner students English. True bilingual youngsters who are redesignated as proficient in English have the highest success rate in college - it's a better marker for success than high SATs, straight A's or socioeconomic advantage. This is not new news, this is known fact. The challenge is great but that LAUSD fails in this is abject failure. And I still have both my shoes.
MEANWHILE: The superintendent proposes - albeit as a worst case scenario - to reduce the school year … and then leaves town. Maybe on his way back from China he can stop in Hawai'i and see how well reducing the school year has been received by parents there. Or teachers, principals or students. We ran four election campaigns for Props K, R, Y and Q guaranteeing a 180 day traditional calendar; the voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of this. Oh well, another promise made to the voters and taxpayers potentially broken.
FINALLY: How about a cost accounting on how much it will cost the District to implement the Public School Choice Resolution? Every Board Report and Resolution has a statement about Budget Implications attached; this implementation cries out for a definitive, comprehensive and auditable BUDGET IMPLICATION REPORT.
• How much has the effort to date cost?
• How much will it cost in operation and administration costs to implement the resolution over the next five years?
• What is the impact on the Districts General Fund and on the Bonded Indebtedness? Immediately, short term and long term.
• Factor-in contesting a lawsuit. • How much will it cost of LAUSD prevails in court? • How much if it fails?
• How much in lost ADA income as money goes to outside operators? What is that impact on the general fund?
• What is the fiscal impact on LAUSD over time?
• How will spending money in this way benefit children and improve student outcomes …and how will this be measured?
• And take into account 4LAKids quote o' th' week, from Larry Sand's op-ed in the Daily News: "It is important to note that rarely are children considered when … issues are debated. Children are left behind as incidental parties or annoyances in arguments between grown-ups."
¡Onward/Hasta adelante! -smf
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AFTERWARD: In the last few weeks it's become hard to pick up the paper and not read a about a calamity at a high school football game: the collapse and death of the Young Hollywood High player, the post-game shooting at Fairfax - and this week the post-game shooting murder of a young student at Long Beach Wilson. Also this week, in Richmond California, the Richmond High Oilers won their first homecoming game in nine years by defeating the cross-town rivals Kennedy Eagles, 22-17. A homecoming dance - and unspeakable tragedy - followed as a fifteen year old student was gang raped outside the dance.
Last week was Red Ribbon Week.
RED RIBBON WEEK is an alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention awareness campaign observed annually in October in the United States. Red ribbons are handed out to students - the chain link in festooned in red crêpe paper at elementary schools. Last week every student in LAUSD was supposed to get a red plastic bracelet along with the educational message about being drug and violence free. Richmond and Long Beach are not LA …but we have nothing to celebrate. Long Beach Wilson could the school we attend or teach at; Richmond High our neighborhood school. The dead teenager in Long Beach, the gang raped sophomore in Richmond are our classmates, girlfriends, sisters, students, daughters. The truth is we need to celebrate Red Ribbon Lifetimes . . . or we will be festooning caskets and grave markers every week, forever.
L.A. UNIFIED TO ALLOW PARENTS TO INITIATE SCHOOL REFORMS
UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENT'S SCHOOL-CONTROL RESOLUTION, LOW-PERFORMING CAMPUSES CAN BE FORCED TO UNDERGO MAJOR CHANGES IF A MAJORITY OF PARENTS DEMAND IT.
By Howard Blume | LA Times
October 28, 2009 -- For the first time in Los Angeles, parents will be able to initiate major reforms at low-performing individual schools, rather than waiting for the school district to make changes, under a plan unveiled Tuesday.
This new parental power has emerged as part of a school-control resolution that allows for groups inside and outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to take over campuses. Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has included 12 underachieving schools and 18 new campuses in the process, but the parent option could add others to the list, especially in future years.
Under Cortines' plan, a majority of parents at a school could trigger reforms at a local campus. Parents whose students are matriculating from one school to another also could take part.
Parents, Cortines said, "have a right to be involved in the process."
But the superintendent's plan doesn't go far enough for school board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, the primary author of the school-control resolution, which was approved in August. She supported allowing more parents the ability to trigger reforms. The parents of a preschooler, for example, should be able to sign the petition for a middle school or high school, she said.
Her position aligns with that of Ben Austin, executive director of the Parent Revolution, a nonprofit closely affiliated with Green Dot Public Schools, which operates local charter schools. Austin has lobbied for the widest possible version of parent participation because, he said, improving a school can consume several years. The parent of a young child should have the right to set in motion changes to that child's future middle school, he said.
Leading up to the meeting, Austin, Flores Aguilar and their allies thought their position had prevailed. But Cortines refused to go that far.
In an interview last week, he said he didn't want the views of parents currently attending a school trumped by those of parents not enrolled, especially those who might be ill- informed. He stuck to that position Tuesday.
"Those same parents . . . won't even go and visit the middle school," Cortines said. "What they're doing is making judgments based on rumor or what they've heard."
Other complaints have come from the operators of charter schools, which are independently run but publicly funded. They contend that new restrictions in the reform resolution will limit their ability to manage academics and control costs, and they are threatening to pull out of the process entirely.
Cortines also opened the door to the possibility of allowing a majority of a school's staff to set off reforms. The rules for opening up additional schools to sweeping reform are still being developed and debated, so they're unlikely to result in more schools joining this year's list of 30 campuses, officials said. Cortines will recommend reform proposals for those schools in February.
L.A. SCHOOLS LEADER CONSIDERS SHORTENED SCHOOL YEAR TO BALANCE BUDGET, LEAVES TOWN
by Howard Blume| LA Times LA Now blog
October 29, 2009 | 11:39 am -- Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has asked his chief financial officer to study the possibility of shortening the school year to offset part of an expected shortfall of at least $500 million, The Times has learned.
The strategy, if adopted for the 2010-11 school year, would run counter both to the direction of national reform efforts and to the wishes of Cortines, who agrees with research touting the benefits of an extended academic calendar.
"You know I fought fiercely for a longer school year and a longer school day," Cortines said.
At this week's school board meeting, Cortines said he had no alternative but to consider all options. He added that some strategies had to remain off the table. He’s unwilling, for example, to make class sizes larger in middle and high schools. Classes are too large already, he said. Nor would employee furlough days be sufficient to make up the dollar shortfall. Cortines also stipulated that he would not shorten the school year for overcrowded, year-round schools, which operate on overlapping schedules that reduce each student's school year by 17 days.
Furlough days and shortening the school year would have to be negotiated with employee unions, said district spokeswoman Lydia Ramos. Cortines will review the internal analysis from Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly when he returns from a weeklong trip to China, which began today, Ramos said.
MANY L.A. STUDENTS NOT MOVING OUT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSES
ALMOST 30% OF THOSE PLACED EARLY ON IN SUCH PROGRAMS IN L.A. UNIFIED WERE STILL IN THEM WHEN THEY STARTED HIGH SCHOOL, STUDY SAYS. THE SOONER STUDENTS MOVED OUT, THE MORE THEY EXCELLED.
By Anna Gorman | LA Times
5:50 PM PDT, October 28, 2009 -- Nearly 30% of Los Angeles Unified School District students placed in English language learning classes in early primary grades were still in the program when they started high school, increasing their chances of dropping out, according to a new study released Wednesday.
More than half of those students were born in the United States and three-quarters had been in the school district since first grade, according to the report by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at USC.
The findings raise questions about the teaching in the district's English language classes, whether students are staying in the program too long and what more educators should do for students who start school unable to speak English fluently.
"If you start LAUSD at kindergarten and are still in ELL classes at ninth grade, that's too long," said Wendy Chavira, assistant director of the policy institute. "There is something wrong with the curriculum if there are still a very large number of students being stuck in the system."
Researchers tracked the data on 28,700 students from the time they started sixth grade in 1999 until graduation in 2005. They found that students who were moved to mainstream classes by the time they were in eighth grade were more likely than students who remained in English language classes to stay in school, take advanced placement courses in high school and pass the high school exit exam.
Mary Campbell, who is in charge of English language learning programs at L.A. Unified, said students must learn English as well as the grade-level material to move into mainstream classes. That often takes longer than learning the language, she said.
"We are aggressively looking at supporting these longtime English learners to ensure that they get the support needed to reclassify in a timely manner," she said.
The vast majority of the students in the segregated language classes are not recent immigrants but rather U.S.-born youths, according to the study. Nearly 70% of all students ever placed in the English language learning program were born in the United States.
Previous studies have shown that English language learners generally score lower on standardized tests than their English-only classmates for various reasons. Other studies have shown that students in English language classes are usually placed with less experienced teachers, focus on language skills rather than content and are segregated from students who speak English.
"The United States has never learned what is the best way to teach English to English learners," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. "That's really a shortcoming."
The sooner students switch to regular classes the better, the new study showed. Students who moved out of English classes by third grade scored up to 40 points higher on standardized tests than those who stayed in the classes. If the students moved by fifth grade, they scored about 10 points higher than their peers.
And in some cases, students who were in English learning programs and then moved out performed better than students in English-only classes.
All students who speak a second language at home must take a test to see whether they should be placed into classes for English learners. Once they are enrolled, they must take another test to get out. But Pachon said the process to get in is easier than it is to get out.
Though the study didn't determine why students were staying in English language programs for so long, researchers say schools may avoid moving English learners into mainstream classes to keep test scores high.
Additional coverage and an update: http://bit.ly/3DA7RT
PLENTY OF QUESTIONS BUT NO EASY ANSWERS IN WAKE OF GANG RAPE: Brutality of the incident at Richmond High is hard to fathom.
By Sandy Banks | LA Ttmes columnist
October 31, 2009 - The sense of horror seems to be fading at Richmond High -- the Northern California school that made news around the world this week after a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped outside a campus homecoming dance while a crowd of students watched but did nothing to intervene.
Local school board members in this East Bay city near Oakland want to promote safety measures -- fences, lights, security cameras -- on the drawing board for years, now about to be delivered.
Richmond High students want outsiders to stop calling them animals and savages. "We feel like they're blaming the school," an angry senior complained at a school board meeting I attended Wednesday night. "It wasn't nobody's fault," she said. "People shouldn't be pointing fingers."
And school officials are making sure to emphasize the tragedies that didn't happen.
The homecoming dance "was a success in terms of safety because nothing happened at the event," a campus police officer announced. "We have a safe environment at Richmond High."
And I wondered if that made the students feel better, as I surveyed the secluded swath of campus where the sophomore girl was raped and beaten for two hours last Saturday night while the partygoers danced in the gym.
Police said as many as 10 people participated in the attack while 20 others watched -- jeering, taking photos and messaging friends to join them.
The sideshow went on until almost midnight, when police were called by a girl whose boyfriend had turned down the invitation to come have sex with "a drunk girl." Officers found the victim cowering under a bench, half-naked, intoxicated and semiconscious.
The girl was hospitalized for four days. Five suspects face felony charges.
I've thought about the theories offered by experts this week to explain the brutality of the attack and the onlookers' passivity.
They blamed music and video games that glamorize violence; desensitized men who treat women like pieces of meat; the disengagement of young people in a world ruled by technology, where real life is what's on YouTube. Or the powerlessness these disenfranchised kids feel in their violent neighborhood and fractured families.
All of it rang true to me. But it wasn't enough, so I headed for Richmond High and found students struggling to understand how their campus had become the latest example of urban depravity.
Their theories are drawn from campus gossip and what their own lives in this working-class town have taught them.
The troublemakers at Richmond are emulating what they see in popular culture. "A lot of them, they don't think they're going to be successful," said junior Olachi Obioma. "They've already been judged, so they go with that. They drink, they smoke, they pop pills. It's the 'bad boy' culture. That's how they see themselves."
And the girls are saddled with similar pressures. "It's our mentality that's wrong," said junior Kami Baker. "Look at our pop culture. The way the girls dress, the way the guys use them for sex and the girls keep going back. . . . It's hard for some girls to rise above that."
Kami is a friend of the girl who was raped. The last time she saw her, they were dancing together at homecoming. "She looked so happy, so pretty" in a sparkly purple dress, dangling earrings and silver heels.
"People are saying it's her fault because she got drunk. But that could have been me. They beat her up and no one did anything to help her."
Explain that, I asked the students I talked to. And their explanations were as good as the experts':
The kids who watched were scared to tell, afraid that "snitching" would make them targets.
Or they thought the girl was a willing participant; that it might be a gang initiation ritual. Guys get "jumped in" to gangs, girls get "sexed in," some said.
Or they didn't intervene because they didn't know the girl and didn't feel compelled to help a stranger. On a big, racially mixed campus like Richmond, you stick with your own and mind your business.
Or, they were simply so shocked their minds went blank.
"Maybe they were just caught in the moment," suggested Olachi, who wore a "Stop Violence Against Women" button pinned to her backpack.
She wasn't at the dance and didn't know the victim, but believes she would have tried to stop the attack. "I'm surprised that no one went and got a security guard," she said. "But maybe people didn't know what to do. Because we never thought this would happen. So we never learned about it."
::
I thought about all those sexual harassment classes and date rape warnings and "no means no" slogans we offer up to our sons and daughters. While they are binge-drinking, hooking up and freak dancing.
How, when confronted with such an obvious violation of humanity, could so many teenagers fall so short and feel so unashamed about it?
The students I talked to after the fact at Richmond High all said they would have intervened. And yet, none of them denounced the kids who didn't.
I sensed they couldn't reconcile the conflict between their ideals and their reality.
And we can't solve all their problems with taller fences, brighter lights and tighter security.
Kami Baker said she was friendly not just with the victim, but with one of the jailed suspects as well.
"He was a genuinely nice guy," she said. She'd tutored him in English class for one semester, two years back. "He was quiet, kind of shy."
The victim knew him too, she said. And when police found her stripped, beaten and violated, the boy was there.
"I just don't get it," Kami said.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
• 16-YEAR-OLD-GIRL FATALLY SHOT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME IN LONG BEACH: by Cara Mia DiMassa | LA Times LAN.. http://bit.ly/2hp05F
• NAUGHTY ACROSTIC IN GOVERNOR’S VETO MESSAGE: What are the odds? (A lesson in statistical analysis – I swear): B.. http://bit.ly/11psvn
• "The Deal with the Devil(s)": SENIORITY SYSTEM IN LAUSD KEEPS THE GOOD TEACHERS OUT: By Larry Sand | Op-Ed in t.. http://bit.ly/2cg2Zg
• SUMMER AT SCHOOL: "My decision to work for a school district this summer was, in part, a decision to perform wi.. http://bit.ly/3Jq9lJ
• OSCAR DE LA HOYA CELEBRATES THE OFFICIAL GRAND OPENING OF OSCAR De LA HOYA ANIMO CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL: De La Hoy.. http://bit.ly/47svl3
• NEW LEGISLATION FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS COULD HELP LOCAL GROUPS QUEST FOR NONPROFIT MIDDLE SCHOOL: BY GARY WALKER |.. http://bit.ly/3tuqDz
• LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT VISITING SCHOOLS IN CHINA: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer LA Daily News | This article fir.. http://bit.ly/LWMJA
• H1N1 - PTA CALLS ON LAUSD TO EDUCATE AND INNOCULATE PREGNANT STUDENTS & STAFF: by smf for 4LAKids 28 Oct 2009 T.. http://bit.ly/15FZPs
• H1N1 - THREE NEW SWINE FLU VACCINE CLINICS OPEN TODAY IN L.A. COUNTY: County plans to sponsor some public clini.. http://bit.ly/44o06G
• L.A. UNIFIED TO ALLOW PARENTS TO INITIATE SCHOOL REFORMS: Under the superintendent's school-control resolution,.. http://bit.ly/4tYnv
• CALIFORNIA RACE TO THE TOP: You Are Invited to a Meeting with State Leaders about California’s Application for .. http://bit.ly/2KWwv4
• LAUSD PLAN TO HAVE OUTSIDERS RUN 36 OF ITS SCHOOLS NEARS REALITY: Application for outside entities to operate s.. http://bit.ly/11CRTW
• BETTER TRAINING COULD HELP FILL TECHNICAL JOBS: Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, Octob.. http://bit.ly/23Uy6
• CALIFORNIA STUDENTS SQUEEZED OUT OF COLLEGE: Even with new program, college is a less attainable goal for some... http://bit.ly/2V10qW
• LAUSD: EXPLORE TEST TO ASSESS EDUCATION PATHS - or - Oh joy, another test!: the Daily Breeze | From staff repor.. http://bit.ly/89a7S
• SCHOOLS PUTTING DANCE MOVES ON HOLD: "Footloose" revisited?: Contracts have helped tone down the hyper-sexed da.. http://bit.ly/Mds6E
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Wednesday Nov 04, 2009
South Region High School #12: Groundbreaking Ceremony
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
South Region High School #12
8800 S. San Pedro St.
Los Angeles, CA 90003
* 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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