In This Issue:  | | • | AS U.S. AID GROWS, OVERSIGHT IS URGED FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS | | | • | THE CHARTER SCHOOL TEST CASE THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN + smf's 2¢ | | | • | LA SCHOOL DISTRICT, STATE OF CALIFORNIA SUED OVER TEACHER LAYOFFS | | | • | A Reduction in Ethics | | | • | 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: | | | | TUESDAY'S BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING PROVED VERY INTERESTING; it's not often one can say write or even think that with today's tightly run board agendae.
Sometime/somewhere between the introduction of the Public School Choice Resolution and the charterization of LAUSD the board wandered off script.
Sometime was Tuesday/Somewhere was the LAUSD Boardroom: At least for the moment he magic bullet of charter schools has been dodged.
Make no mistake – the superintendent's recommendations in themselves looked at charter school operators carefully and critically – but the board ended up being even more skeptical.
WHAT HAPPENED:
1.There have been a number of studies and reports recently – data driven/research based – that have been critical of charter schools' academic progress, service of special needs students and ADA compliance.
2.The PSC advisory voting process, flawed as it was, engaged the community. Four times as many voters voted as were expected – in the rain with a poor notification process. ("Poor" being a generous adjective.)
3.The Scholastic controversy may have weakened the superintendent's credibility among the boardmembers.
4.There was a backlash to the unabashed lobbying, hectoring and threats from charter proponents – who packed the boardroom and the speakers' lists. Certainly the threat to “Pull the parent trigger” backfired – as Boardmemeber Zimmer said: “You can't declare war on people and not expect them to act like combatants.”
5.The charter community turned out and/or bused in as many as 3000 parents – many of who camped out on the sidewalk overnight to monopolize seats in the boardroom and the all important speaker spots. UTLA President Duffy was heard railing at his troops for only turning out 300 ...but maybe their small quiet voice was easier to hear?
6.Maybe the board just woke up Tuesday morning and came to their senses?
THE SECOND OUTCOME WAS THE COLLAPSE OF THE SIX VOTE LOCK-STEP BOARD MAJORITY ALLEGEDLY CONTROLLED FROM THE MAYOR'S OFFICE. Hopefully this will result in a more pragmatic, responsive and yes – transparent and accountable – board. But one that avoids previous LAUSD Bd of Ed's tendency to micromanage. Sporks anyone?
APPLYING THE TESTS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE: The first test and vote followed the formula and scenario of The Great Unwritten Rule of Politics: “Thou shalt not mess in another politician's bailiwick”. Boardmember LaMotte (“The Great Outsider”) challenged a recommendation for her district and the board majority predictably supported her. Barack Obama Middle School's forced co-location with a charter was derailed for good and politic reasons.
In the very next test Board President Monica Garcia broke The Great Unwritten Rule and challenged a superintendent's recommendation in Boardmember Yolie Flores district. This amounted to betrayal: Flores is the author of the PSC Resolution and the champion of the supe's recommendations – she had been a loyal ally of Garcia and seemed genuinely upset if not blindsided. Yolie angrily resisted the change, lines were drawn and Monica's resolution held ... from this point on all bets and deals were off: It was SURVIVOR: BEAUDRY at the tribal council and no one had immunity. And in the first two votes the charter juggernaut – and the powerhouse charter management organizations of ICEF, Green Dot and The Alliance for College Ready Schools were sidelined in favor of homegrown teacher/school/collaborations.
Following those first two acts the rest of the drama was anticlimax. The award of Gratts Primary Center to Para los Niños (a darling of the mayor and unpopular in Gratts community) was strangely amended with a promise to amend the amendment next year into a compromise to be arrived at later.
Exploring the new possibilities an attempt to somewhat challenge all charters was somewhat defeated – but in subsequent breaths the charters' rejected efforts were praised ...recalling Antony's oration in Shakespeare's Caesar. Real questions were left on the table unanswered; real issues unresolved.
So gentle reader, much happened. If you had a white shirt, a good seat in the boardroom and a bad sleep on the sidewalk the status quotient has preserved. The Pilot Schoolers (in red) – whose projects aren't really pilots – held the day over the charter operators, whose projects weren't really charters.
Maybe not-really reality won. I hope a small victory was won for kids.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
AS U.S. AID GROWS, OVERSIGHT IS URGED FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS
By Sam Dillon| New York Times
February 24, 2010 -- WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to significantly expand the flow of federal aid to charter schools, money that has driven a 15-year expansion of their numbers, from just a few dozen in the early 1990s to some 5,000 today.
But in the first Congressional hearing on rewriting the No Child Left Behind law, lawmakers on Wednesday heard experts, all of them charter school advocates, testify that Washington should also make sure charter schools are properly monitored for their admissions procedures, academic standards and financial stewardship.
The president of one influential charter group told the House Education and Labor Committee that the federal government had spent $2 billion since the mid-1990s to finance new charter schools but less than $2 million, about one-tenth of 1 percent, to ensure that they were held to high standards.
“It’s as if the federal government had spent billions for new highway construction, but nothing to put up guardrails along the sides of those highways,” said Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.
Charter schools operate mainly with state financing, and with less regulation than traditional public schools. A provision of the No Child law offers federal startup grants, usually in the range of $150,000 per school, to charter organizers to help them plan and staff a new school until they can begin classes and obtain state per-pupil financing.
The federal money has provided crucial early support to many successful charter schools, but has also attracted many people with little education experience who have opened chaotic schools that have floundered.
The administration’s proposal for rewriting the law would increase federal financing for charter schools to $490 million in 2011 from about $256 million in 2010. It would also, for the first time, allow the funds to be used to finance additional schools opened by a charter operator, if the original school has been successful.
Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who is the committee chairman and helped write the No Child law, said in opening the hearing that the law’s requirements for annual testing had placed a spotlight on students across the nation who were falling behind.
“But we also know the law didn’t get everything right,” he said, “and we cannot afford to wait to fix it.”
Much debate on Wednesday focused on whether charter schools educate disabled children in the same proportion as regular public schools.
Thomas Hehir, a Harvard education professor, said that national research on that question had been inadequate, but that his work in the San Diego, Los Angeles, Boston and other school systems had shown that “charters generally serve fewer children with disabilities than traditional public schools.”
Furthermore, Mr. Hehir said, charters in some cities educate only a minuscule proportion of students with severe disabilities like mental retardation, in comparison with regular public schools. That, he said, undercuts the assertions by some that charters are outperforming regular schools.
Eileen Ahearn, a project director of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, said that charter schools faced unique challenges in educating disabled students but that many nonetheless do so successfully.
THE CHARTER SCHOOL TEST CASE THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN + smf's 2¢
IF THEY HADN'T BEEN MOSTLY SHUT OUT OF BIDS TO RUN A SLEW OF NEW L.A. UNIFIED CAMPUSES, THE GROUPS MIGHT HAVE DEMONSTRATED HOW THEY HANDLE STUDENTS WITH CHALLENGING NEEDS.
By Howard Blume | LA Times
February 26, 2010 -- Los Angeles school officials lost a chance this week to test whether the booming charter movement can take on all the problems of the district's traditional, and often troubled, schools.
On Tuesday, the Board of Education denied proposals from three major charter organizations that had sought to run newly built neighborhood schools, which would have included substantial numbers of limited-English speakers, special education students, foster children and low-income families.
That is exactly the population that charter schools have been criticized for not sufficiently reaching.
Charters are independently managed and exempt from some rules that govern traditional schools. They're also schools of choice -- campuses that parents seek and select. And researchers have found that charters enroll fewer students with more challenging, and often more expensive, needs.
Over the last six months, charters have competed to run 18 new campuses as well as 12 low-performing ones under a Los Angeles Unified School District reform plan adopted in August by the Board of Education.
And in this instance, charters agreed to operate by more inclusive rules in exchange for access to state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar campuses.
"This would have been an opportunity to have [charters] rise to the challenge as we in the district do every day in serving these populations at an equal level," said board member Yolie Flores, who brought the school-control proposal to the board in August.
In the end, the board turned down all but four charter bids, opting instead primarily for internal, teacher-led proposals. Even though the district has struggled most with improving secondary education, no charter received a high school and only one, Magnolia Science Academy, will run a middle school -- on a campus it will share with a separate teacher-run school.
The teachers union fought hard to limit the charters. Every new charter would have effectively reduced the union's membership -- potentially corresponding to more L.A. Unified layoffs during the current district budget crisis. And a growing nonunion charter workforce gradually reduces union clout not only on pay and benefits issues, but also on matters such as class size and the direction of future reforms.
The union's pressure on board members got a boost from Maria Elena Durazo, who heads the L.A. County Federation of Labor and who personally called on board members the day before the vote.
Although Supt. Ramon C. Cortines favored mostly internal proposals, he had also recommended giving schools to Green Dot Public Schools, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and ICEF Public Schools, which all came away empty-handed. All are charter management groups with a track record in the city.
Flores, the author of the reform strategy, had argued that Cortines' recommendations should be followed without exception.
Charter critics, however, focused on the fact that 11.2% of district students are disabled, compared with 7.4% at local charters. A third of students at traditional schools are learning to speak English, while the figure is 22% at charters, according to district data.
Charters should not be allowed to run new schools, paid for by taxpayers, that were intended for all children, said A. J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
Charter advocates lobbied hard. And they argued that the district's higher special education population stems from the neglect of many students' academic and social needs. The result, they said, is behavioral issues that are later misidentified as disabilities. They also fault the quality of the district's services to special education students.
Charters lost their bids for a variety of reasons.
Cortines had wanted ICEF to share a new middle school with a teacher-led program. But board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte said the campus wasn't built for two operators. And besides, she said, the district had hired a principal and worked on its own version of the school well before the school-control competition intruded.
(One of her grandsons attends an ICEF school, but she has been a consistent charter critic and an ally of the teachers union.)
Green Dot and the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools lost out at the new Torres high school complex east of downtown. Board President Monica Garcia cited the need to respect the long-term efforts of teachers and community groups who put forward competing plans.
Functioning as a neighborhood school remains beyond the experience of nearly all charters except Green Dot, which broke ground by taking over low-performing Locke High in July 2008. It has struggled with the challenge of managing a typical urban population.
"People are moving in and out of homeless shelters and housing projects in the neighborhood," said Green Dot Chief Executive Marco Petruzzi. "Fifteen to 20 kids show up almost weekly."
And at Locke, Green Dot has had to serve more disabled students than the typical charter. "It's the right thing to do and also presented us with a learning challenge in dealing with higher-severity cases," Petruzzi said. "And it creates budget pressures that are very large."
There could be a trade-off for pushing charters into the cold: The charters can still play by the old rules.
Already, L.A. Unified has over 160 charters, more than any other district. Valid charter petitions can't be denied, and 20 are in the pipeline. And those would operate under the ground rules that critics find objectionable.
●●smf's 2¢: There is evidence – the all important data we so want to be driven by – that generally charter schools underserve students with disabilities, special education kids and English language Learners.
I believe enlightened charter school counselors and administrators steer kids and families with special needs to their neighborhood schools when those schools are best equipped to serve those populations – that choice is the right choice for kids. However [remember, there's always a 'however'!] that is also a decision that saves charter schools money.
When a charter operator suggests a transfer because it's in the best interest of the child they should be nominated for sainthood; when the make the decision to save the charter school money they should be doomed to an eternity in Dante's fire. Only the Ultimate Judge can decide … but He (...or She) is capable following the money.
The article above suggests that we give charter school operators another chance.
I don't know when Howard Blume wrote this article, but I want to remind him of a quote quoted by State Superintendent candidate Tom Torlakson in debate held earlier in the day of publication – a debate Howard attended. Tom gave us Einstein's definition of Insanity: “to keep doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result”.
There is an established pattern of charter schools – and charter operators operating neighborhood schools – 'pushing out' special ed, disabled and English language learners. I would like to say there's no denying the evidence --- but charter proponents – stuck in denial – do.
Denial is the longest river. However2: I argue against putting more kids– general ed, special ed, ELL, disabled or those whose parents wear white t shirts into programs to prove what what is already evident.
The very fact some charters can claim that ALL their kids go on to college proves there is cherry-picking afoot: ALL the kids from Harvard Westlake or Choate or Exeter don’t go on to college!
There is a need for a challenge to charter schools’ service of disabled, special ed and English Language Learner populations – and that that challenge probably needs to be in court. Our legislature and the US/Obama/Duncan Dept of Ed are so lobbied by the charter proponents they have become blind to the very data they claim to be driven by.
Los Angeles – the most charter saturated district in the nation - is the place where the case should be heard ...though ultimately it will be decided in courts of appeal and higher.
I've written this earlier: LAUSD’s Public School Choice Resolution does not create charter schools. I would create a hybrid: Neighborhood schools run by charter management organizations; a completely different beast with a sorry record of it's own ...most unspectacularly in Philadelphia.
EINSTEIN MEETS AESOP: OLD DOG/NEW TRICKS+THE LEOPARD WITH THE CHANGEABLE SPOTS: The board did vote to let charter operators have full control of three campuses and partial control of another. I truly hope they are able to serve all kids on those campuses; if they do more power to them!
And looking reality full into the eye: LAUSD has financial difficulties enough without having to prosecute a lawsuit vs. charter schools that will be defended by deep-pocket Silicon Valley and Westwood billionaires who are true believers in charters and have packed the State Board of Ed and a lot of the legislature with drinkers of their flavor of Reform Kool-Aid.
LA SCHOOL DISTRICT, STATE OF CALIFORNIA SUED OVER TEACHER LAYOFFS
By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- Civil rights groups sued the Los Angeles Unified School District and the state on Wednesday, claiming thousands of teacher layoffs will deprive inner-city children of their right to an education.
The budget-cutting dismissal of 2,100 permanent teachers last year disproportionately affected three schools in low-income and minority areas, violating the state constitutional right of students to an equal and proper education, according to the lawsuit.
The district could eliminate another 5,000 jobs during the 2010-2011 school year. The 650,000-student district, the nation's second largest, has seen its funding slashed as the state struggles to close a massive budget deficit.
Some inner-city middle and high schools in Los Angeles could lose up to 40 percent of their teachers in the upcoming cuts, according to an analysis by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Superintendent Ramon Cortines declined comment on the lawsuit, citing a district policy that prohibits speaking about pending litigation.
__________________________________________
►ACLU PRESS RELEASE: http://bit.ly/cBQ5iT
►Read the full statement of Mark Rosenbaum, ACLU/SC chief counsel. http://bit.ly/909bc9
►Read the full statement of Sharail Reed, 8th grader and member of the AVID program at Markham middle school. http://bit.ly/b5XiQm
►Read the full statement of Concepciona Manuel-Flores, 7th grader at Markham middle school. http://bit.ly/cRKZA8
__________________________________________
The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and asks a judge to block any more budget-related layoffs at the three schools for the 2010-2011 school year. The lawsuit also wants to bar future layoffs that affect a higher percentage of teachers at those schools than at other district campuses.
Effectively, that could require the state to rescind its funding cutbacks.
"If the government can bail out bankers on Wall Street, they can bail out students in Watts and Pico Union," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, one plaintiff in the case.
While the layoffs are meant to be districtwide, state seniority rules mean the newest teachers go first. Many of them are in schools in tough, poverty-stricken neighborhoods that see a higher teacher turnover.
School districts around the nation are suffering financial crunches. The National Education Association estimates that some 34,000 teaching jobs will be eliminated this year.
Rosenbaum said he did not know whether other ACLU chapters planned to file similar lawsuits, but he called the layoffs "the civil rights issue of our day."
"I don't think we should have to run into a courtroom so that students can learn from teachers that they love," he said.
The lawsuit argues that more than half the permanent teaching positions in the Los Angeles district were lost at Gompers, Liechty and Markham middle schools. Transferred senior teachers and substitutes took over to fill some of the vacancies. But the civil rights groups claim that created a revolving-door situation that harms the learning process.
Some classes have seen as many as 10 teachers in the first four months of the current school year, Rosenbaum said.
"In my history class this year I had so many different teachers that it was a blur," said Sharail Teed, an eight-grader at Markham Middle School in Watts who is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
A Reduction in Ethics
by smf for 4LAKids
In a heartfelt email to “Friends and Colleagues” on Monday Yea-Lan Chiang – the LAUSD Ethics Officer announced she would be leaving the District effective March 15 – a part of the downsizing and reduction in force – a change in direction – a door opens, another closes.
There will be folks in the field and guardians of their shrinking budget-line-items who will throw up their hands: “OMG, They have an ethicist at Beaudry!”
Certainly the current regime had little use for an ethics office – but that reflects upon their priorities, not on the work of the office. Perhaps LAUSD can no longer afford afford an ethicist ...but we (“We have met the enemy and he is us!) can't afford to be without ethics.
Ethics and fairness and goodness and values and moral philosophy are pins upon the heads of which unlimited angels dance; we are are charged with raising and educating future generations of our a City of Angels, We are neither angels nor saints ourselves - we are not without our challenges.
We have had our dilemmas and temptations. But the facilities team with whom I work has negotiated a minefield populated with billions of dollars without scandal in a city whose government has a love affair with developers and their money.
Sure, crummy things have happened, sprinkled with a a modicum of wrongdoing and illegality – but our multi-billion-dollars-in-public-funds megaproject has moved from where we were (mired in a scandal of not having built a school in thirty years and sucked into the toxic quicksand of the Belmont Learning Center) to where we are now – almost done - without a Sixty Minutes investigation, an indictment or a staged-for-TV perp walk.
Much of this is do to with ethics policies and guidelines and training from Yea-Lan Chiang and the Ethics office. Lobbyists and contractors and consultants and employees alike have generally been kept honest and have done their work – ethically and with excellence.
Yea-Lan has been a quiet force in her office on the 20th Floor at Beaudry, not the ethics police or an attorney or even a watchdog – but a listening ear and careful questioning voice – a gentle reminder that the areas between legal and illegal and right and wrong are shaded not in just in black and white and gray zones. ...but a rainbow of possibilities to do well and good.
“You”, she says of the people she has served, “Initiate the uncomfortable but clarifying conversations that are necessary to ensure quality and equity. You remain passionate about honoring our students and our people with excellence, fairness and care. You are, in short, the heart of this organization and its greatest gift”
Others may have initiated those conversations, but Yea-Lan facilitated them.
In the seven years since she took over as Ethics Officer much has been accomplished – the launch of the district-wide Ethics Booster and “Gray Zone” film, the passage of two model public integrity codes, the creation of the Electronic Lobbying Filing System, the increase in financial disclosure via greater compliance with Form 700s, and the recent completion of LAUSD's online Ethics University.
Yea Lan says she is most proud of is the work achieved through the Ask Ethics Helpline, [(213) 241-3330] in her words “Supporting individuals at all levels of the organization in making better choices that honor the public’s trust and that take into account the ethical ripple effect we create as public school officials”
“Through the transition plan that Chief Operating Officer David Holmquist and I have been working on since January,”the ethics work at LAUSD will continue and with strong leadership support', says Yea Lan, “ Ethics advisor Darlene Vargas, whom I place great confidence in, will help to helm the transition.
“I only wish,” she says “ that more people inside and outside of our organization would appreciate what Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco says about you "quiet heroes", that you “make an organization—and indeed the world—a better place.”
Yea-Lan says in her farewell: “I want to conclude by expressing my deepest heartfelt thanks to all the “quiet heroes” in this organization who give their very best, day in and day out. You work responsibly, inconspicuously, behind-the-scenes with thoughtful consideration, good planning and integrity in all that you do. You tackle the many endless details that others overlook.”
“I thank each of you for being my inspiration all these years, starting from my own early days as a child of this district. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Thank you, Yea-Lan. You will be missed.
http://ethics.lausd.net
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
OH, SAY, CAN YOU SAY THEM: Being word 'pronouncer' at a spelling bee is harder than it looks: By Sandy Banks, Los ... http://bit.ly/bTZelp
LET’S TALK ABOUT CHARTER SCHOOLS AND RACE: By Leonard Isenberg & Anthony Holland in PerDaily.com | http://bit.ly/d... http://bit.ly/diIDa5
LAUSD DISCOVERS “LOCAL CONTROL”: Themes in the News for the week of February 22-26, 2010 By UCLA/IDEA Staff ... http://bit.ly/9boAfB
SCHOOLS, FAMILIIES STRUGGLING TO PAY FOR AP EXAMS: BY JORGE BARRIENTOS, Bakersfield Californian staff writer F... http://bit.ly/cwgG9B
STATE DELAYS LIST OF LOWEST PERFORMERS: By John Fensterwald | The Educated Guess February 25th, 2010 -- State and... http://bit.ly/ax3D2Y
EXPANSIONS OF STATE VOUCHER PROGRAMS GAIN MOMENTUM: By Lesli A. Maxwell | EdWeek | Vol. 29, Issue 23 Element... http://bit.ly/9ymQNS
FREMONT STAFF PAYS PRICE WHEN KIDS UNDERPERFORM: LAUSD's drive to reform hits high school hard and fuels a backlas... http://bit.ly/d9OlX3
TO LIVE AND LEARN IN L.A.: by Mikhail Zinshteyn in Tapped – The American Prospect Blog | http://bit.ly/digOs3 Feb... http://bit.ly/aiqI4t
THE CHARTER SCHOOL TEST CASE THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN: If they hadn't been mostly shut out of bids to run a slew of new ... http://bit.ly/cDy1WC
When two local paper editorial boards disagree so fundamentally, does it mean you’ve done the right thing? Or step... http://bit.ly/attjiX
LAUSD TO RAISE FESS FOR AFTERSCHOOL USE OF FACILITIES BY NONPROFITS: The celebrated transparency and accountabilit... http://bit.ly/94X8tW
Study: GAINING GROUND IN MIDDLE SCHOOL -- WHY SOME SCHOOLS DO BETTER: from EdSource Educators widely recognize th... http://bit.ly/9F0c9r
NY TIMES:Oversight Is Urged for Charter Schools | Progress Slow in City Goal to Fire Bad Teachers | Obama Pitches ... http://bit.ly/cKuVN8
GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER APPOINTS FIFTH (AND FINAL?) ED. SEC.: By Lesli Maxwell | Ed Week February 23, 2010 4:34 PM ... http://bit.ly/9OWjbk
L.A. UNIFIED IS SUED OVER TEACHER LAYOFFS AT 3 LOW-PERFORMING SCHOOLS: Suit seeks to prevent further teacher cuts ... http://bit.ly/d52N6w
LA SCHOOL DISTRICT, STATE OF CALIFORNIA SUED OVER TEACHER LAYOFFS: By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer Wed... http://bit.ly/bdB3LG
Letters to the Editor of the Daily News: LAUSD PARCEL TAX: Updated: 02/23/2010 09:41:51 AM PST Re "LAUSD puts par... http://bit.ly/b9pzxO
BIG TEACHER SEES ALL: by Michael McGough | LA Times Opinion LA Blog February 23, 2010 | 6:59 am -- One of the mo... http://bit.ly/d6KSdf
19. COMMUNITY COLLEGES MUST SHARE IN HIGHER EDUCATION RECOVERY: Schwarzenegger's education plan does nothing to help t... http://bit.ly/aam73j 5:31 AM Feb 24th via twitterfeed
RED SHIRTS + WHITE SHIRTS: Audience members react as the L.A. Unified Board of Education decides how to divvy up 3... http://bit.ly/cD44bY
NOVEL SCHOOL PLAN UPHELD: Los Angeles' Board of Education voted Tuesday to hand over some of its public schools to... http://bit.ly/avTLLc
THE DENOUEMENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE: The day that was: Tuesday Feb 23rd as of 8:35 pm: de·noue·ment /ˌdeɪnuˈ... http://bit.ly/9x86xO
STATE TRIMS DEFICIT, BUT KEY CUTS (Education, Health and Human Services) DELAYED: Wyatt Buchanan, SF Chronicle Sac... http://bit.ly/9kMZzQ
PSC: THE MORNING OF THE SHOWDOWN: smf: Today’s board meeting -- where the Board will make the the public school “c... http://bit.ly/assChm
T&A in a blog about education! + LAUSD OPENS THE BOOKS FOR ITS EMPLOYEES: by smf for 4lakids 23 Feb 10 -- We have... http://bit.ly/cF0t5x
LAUSD CHARTER SCHOOLS FAIL TO MAKE THE GRADE IN AREA OF DISABILITIES: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Daily Ne... http://bit.ly/dfTpR6
SNATCHING OUTRAGE FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY: Charles Kerchner - Research Professor of Education at Claremont G... http://bit.ly/cZW4Yh
MR. CORTINES, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!: SICK AND TIRED By Ken Alpern | LA City Watch |Vol 8 Issue 15 Pub: Fe... http://bit.ly/a8JvZ3
Using one-time-money to to pay for ongoing programs: SACRAMENTO SCHOOL DISTRICTS USED STIMULUS FUNDS TO PAY TEACHE... http://bit.ly/ayUsKI
LAUSD BOARD TO DECIDE ON OUTSIDE GROUPS TO RUN SCHOOLS: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | KPCC Monday Feb. 22nd |6:00 a.m. |... http://bit.ly/atIgFZ
HAMILTON HIGH STUDENTS RALLY AROUND A BELOVED OFFICE WORKER: They saved her job for a while. Now they are trying a... http://bit.ly/b5eU3H
INVITING TROUBLE: City Hall, LAUSD officials can seem blind to potential conflicts of interest: LA Daily News Edit... http://bit.ly/chhmLH
Duffy: LAUSD MUST RESPECT VOTE OF THE PUBLIC: By A.J. Duffy - Op-ed in the LA Daily News :: A.J. Duffy is presid... http://bit.ly/9pKrpX
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: 213-241.8700
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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