In This Issue:  | | • | L.A. TEACHERS UNION SEEKS TO HALT SCHOOL DISTRICT INITIATIVES | | | • | MAYOR SAYS TEACHERS SHOULD EARN TENURE IN FOUR YEARS – NOT TWO | | | • | CALIFORNIA’S REVENUE SURGE MIGHT STYMIE EFFORTS TO STABILIZE FINANCES: | | | • | Data-Driven Instruction, Results-Oriented Improvement + Evidence-Based Education: DATA-DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION | | | • | 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: | | | | You probably noticed that the world failed to come to an end yesterday, purportedly the 7000th anniversary of the Biblical Flood - though the irony of the anniversary is probably not lost in Cajun Country. Laissez les bons temps rouler, rouler vous rivière boueuse.
Had the world actually ended the L.A. Times headline would've read: "LAUSD, UTLA REACH ACCORD, TIMES APPROVES".
But it was: "L.A. TEACHERS UNION SEEKS TO HALT SCHOOL DISTRICT INITIATIVES" ...thus we know that nothing has changed much
But wait ...it has!
● THIS YEAR @ THIS TIME: The national news is LAUSD attempting to get rid of school librarians.
● LAST YEAR @ THIS TIME: SUPERINTENDENT CONSIDERS LIBRARY STAFF "ESSENTIAL"
from the 20 May 2010 Galatzan Gazette - Boardmember Galatzan's weekly e-newsletter | http://bit.ly/bHLte8
"Superintendent Cortines said this week he will ask local district superintendents to conduct an inventory to determine if library aide positions are being funded for next year at individual school sites. Speaking at the Committee of the Whole [of the Board of Education] meeting, the Superintendent also asserted that libraries must be administered by"professionals" rather than volunteers, as is the case at some schools.
"The Superintendent made his remarks in response to comments from library aides, several from schools in [boardmember] Tamar [Galatzan]’s district, decrying severe cuts being proposed for the library program.
"He called libraries and library aides "essential" and stated unequivocally that neither high schools nor middle schools should be without a library. The Superintendent did remind the Board, however, that because of the budget crisis, there will be less money for libraries next year."
I WAS AT A GATHERING OF PARENT LEADERS from across the state Friday in Sacramento.
Even before we discussed the state budget and the May Revise the topics were, in this order:
1. School Librarians in LAUSD
2. The Get Out of Parking Tickets Free 'Gold Card' scandal in L.A, and
3. How and why was Mayor Tony presenting himself as some sort of an expert at the English Language Learner conference in Sacramento the day before? (I may have initiated the librarian talk ...the rest came from others.)
AS A RECOVERING SCREENWRITER I cannot help but consider the the visual metaphor: The cover of this week's New Yorker is the image of the two famous stone lions guarding the entrance
of the New York Public Library – underwater.
THE GOVERNOR'S MAY REVISE seems at first a shining light at the end of a long dark tunnel. $6.6 billion in unanticipated revenue. An act of God that saves California and public education – and the legislature from doing anything,
Not so fast.
This is good news, but it's the "I've got good news and bad news" kind of news. The good news is that the $6.6 billion with-a-B means $3 Billion with-a-B for K-12. But, depending on how you count it, K-12 has been cut between $19 and $25 Billion with-a-B in recent memory – and paying back that debt to California's schoolchildren is going to take more than than good intentions and a revenue spike, And, the red+blue crowd in Sacramento - thinking they been saved (or worse yet, are saviors) will become reliant on the Miraculous Windfall that Saves the Day Just Before The Apocalypse, ...before the problems of boom-and-bust revenues and two-thirds majorities and no-new-taxes pledges - and the concentration on election over service are addressed.
Repent!
- and ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
L.A. TEACHERS UNION SEEKS TO HALT SCHOOL DISTRICT INITIATIVES
UNION OPPOSES TESTING OF A NEW TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM AND WANTS TO THWART PLANS TO HAND OVER SOUTH LOS ANGELES CAMPUSES TO A CHARTER ORGANIZATION.
By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/mxIJph
May 21, 2011 - The Los Angeles teachers union is seeking a court order to halt key initiatives favored by the new L.A. schools superintendent, the Board of Education and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
If successful, the legal action would suspend pilot testing of a new evaluation system that would use students' scores on standardized tests as one measure of teacher effectiveness.
The legal action also would thwart plans to hand over all or part of two long-struggling South Los Angeles campuses to a charter school organization. Los Angeles Unified School District officials want Green Dot Public Schools to take over all of Clay Middle School and about half of Jordan High School.
Charters are independently managed and can hire teachers and other employees from outside the school system. The restaffing of Jordan is under way.
The attempt to halt the proposals took the form of a filing Friday by United Teachers Los Angeles with the state's Public Employment Relations Board. The union wants the employment board to file a court injunction on its behalf. If successful, the district-favored reforms would be placed on hold while the employment board weighs their legality, a process likely to stretch over months. That action could delay the district strategies for at least a year.
The injunction is needed, said union attorney Jesus Quinonez, because otherwise it would be difficult, if not impossible, to undo actions that he said are illegal.
The union's underlying claim is that L.A. Unified has violated collective bargaining laws. The district has not followed through with negotiations over new teachers' evaluations, the union says, and has attempted to make illegal side deals with individual teachers by offering incentives for them to try out a new evaluation approach.
"The evaluation system needs to be negotiated," said union President A.J. Duffy. "We should be at the table before this thing gets rolled out. We should look at their piece. They should look at our piece and we should try to meld the two together. This is not what they're doing."
District officials say their actions are legal and in the best interests of students. Many teachers are eager to move forward with an improved evaluation system, said L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy.
The filing also opposes the district's attempt to mandate so-called thin contracts for a school's improvement plan. These abbreviated work agreements could "impose working conditions at a school that are not permitted by the full union contract," said Quinonez.
Deasy said he found the union's action on this front disheartening, saying it could frustrate the ability of teachers to adopt work rules at their own schools that would improve learning.
Villaraigosa accused the union of restricting the reform efforts of groups of teachers.
"The teachers themselves," he said, "are putting students first — before their union — and calling for the freedoms and flexibilities they want to improve student learning and grow as educators."
A separate union court action, filed previously in Los Angeles County Superior Court, also challenges the legality of handing over Clay and Jordan to a charter operator.
MAYOR SAYS TEACHERS SHOULD EARN TENURE IN FOUR YEARS – NOT TWO
by Jason Song - LA Times/LA Now --http://lat.ms/k56QJ6
May 19, 2011 | 4:22 pm -- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in a speech in Sacramento on Thursday, called for doubling the amount of time it takes for teachers to earn tenure, linking students’ test scores to teachers’ evaluations and ending layoffs based strictly on seniority.
Villaraigosa has made similar remarks, but his speech at a teacher evaluation conference hosted by the Education Trust-West had new details of what he wants to include in teachers’ evaluations and how he wants to change tenure.
Evaluations, which are based almost entirely on subjective measurements, should include students’ test data, including how well they have performed on standardized exams over time, Villaraigosa said, according to his prepared remarks. Performance reviews should also include classroom observations, peer evaluation, as well as an instructor's contributions to the community, including giving students extra help, coaching a sports team or chaperoning a club.
"Those things have a tremendous effect on kids, their sense of self and they way they learn," he said.
A new evaluation system that includes multiple measures should help administrators and teachers make more informed personnel decisions, Villaraigosa said.
"We wouldn't have to rely on something as arbitrary as seniority to make important decisions for us," he said.
Currently, teachers with the fewest years of seniority are laid off first during economic shortfalls and instructors with the most seniority generally have first pick of school and classroom assignments. A bill in the state Senate that would have allowed performance to be included in layoff decisions failed to make it out of committee last week.
The mayor also called for extending the time it takes for teachers to earn tenure, or permanent status, to four years. Currently, teachers can be fired for almost any reason during their first two years but are entitled to go through an often lengthy termination process after that.
Villaraigosa acknowledged that he has no formal authority over state legislators or city schools, even though he heads a nonprofit group that runs some Los Angeles campuses and has backed candidates for school board.
"But I do have a bully pulpit and I will continue to use it," he said.
_________
●●smf's 2cents: The Mayor has no formal authority over state legislators or city schools.
Who paid for his air travel to and from Sacramento?
Who paid his salary?
Who paid for his staff support and travel to and from the airports?
Who paid for his security detail?
How much did it cost?
Was it worth it?
CALIFORNIA’S REVENUE SURGE MIGHT STYMIE EFFORTS TO STABILIZE FINANCES:
THE $6.6-BILLION OF UNANTICIPATED REVENUE MAY RELIEVE SOME OF THE PRESSURE CAUSED BY CALIFORNIA'S HUGE DEFICIT, PERHAPS WEAKENING GOV. JERRY BROWN'S ARGUMENT FOR TAX EXTENSIONS.
News analysis By Evan Halper and Anthony York, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/mwPujW
California's budget
Gov. Jerry Brown points to a chart as he introduces his revised budget proposal at the Capitol in Sacramento on Monday. State revenue has increased to a projected $6.6 billion beyond expectations. (Ken James / Bloomberg)
May 18, 2011- Reporting from Sacramento— The cash pouring into state coffers may seem like good news for Gov. Jerry Brown, who this week announced a surprise $6.6-billion surge. But the joke in the Capitol is that he might have served the public better by burying the windfall in the backyard.
Propelled by the higher wages and investment incomes of the rich, the new money could actually stymie meaningful change in California's broken budget system, experts say, leaving state books unbalanced indefinitely.
"It's going to relieve some of the pressure, which is exactly what Jerry Brown did not want," said Christopher Thornberg, a principal at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. "If he could've taken that money and stuck it under a pillow, where nobody can see it, I'm sure he would have liked to."
The dilemma is part of a familiar pattern in California, where state funds are at the mercy of taxes paid by top earners whose bank accounts are subject to unpredictable swings. One bad year for them can, and does, throw state finances into turmoil. Alternately, the accounting misery is quickly forgotten when the economy starts to rebound and tax receipts mushroom.
The boom-bust cycle creates instability that makes employers anxious, cripples the ability of public schools and universities to plan, throws into disarray efforts to overhaul California's deteriorating infrastructure and causes other problems. The potential cures are not complicated, but they are politically painful.
Placing strict limits on spending — especially during good times — and bolstering the state's rainy-day fund would require lawmakers not to use revenue spikes to reinvest in programs that for years have been pummeled with cuts.
Restructuring the tax code is an unpopular idea among those who don't want to see the rich pay less. Leaving it in place but maintaining higher sales, car and income levies, as Brown is proposing, may be difficult to sell to voters who believe the government poorly manages the money they already provide.
It takes an emergency to move such policy changes forward, experts say, and a simple blip in revenue can cause momentum to die.
Steve Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said voters accustomed to a steady drumbeat of budget gloom may mistakenly believe that a little more money means that the hard times are over, or at least coming to a close.
"It's ironic," he said. "It is good news that can become bad news for solving the problem."
Even the star power and public relations juggernaut of then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who ejected a sitting governor in a historic recall by promising to impose fiscal discipline, didn't help. He couldn't keep lawmakers and the public focused on the task once revenue began seeping back, in the middle of his tenure.
"You have to have some discipline, and it's hard to exert when everyone thinks things are looking better," said Mike Genest, who was Schwarzenegger's budget director. "The political analysis seemed to be that when you have this much money, it is pretty hard to tell people you need to cut the budget or raise taxes. So we stopped trying for two years," putting the administration's energies elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the deficit lingered in the background. As soon as the state dipped into recession again, the state's fiscal crisis was worse than the one Schwarzenegger had inherited.
Like governors before him, Schwarzenegger nagged lawmakers repeatedly to confront California's underlying fiscal problems when money was in hand. But they had long since abandoned the cause.
"Individual legislators all understand what it means to be responsible," Genest said. "But the Legislature as a body is inclined to act incredibly irresponsibly, especially at times like this."
Then-Gov. Pete Wilson, after addressing a historic state budget crisis with painful tax hikes and program cuts in the early 1990s, emerged determined to fix the underlying problems. After years of stagnant revenue, he gathered a group of lawmakers, seasoned bureaucrats and academics to search for ways to change the budget process through a constitutional revision.
But when the economy began to rebound toward the end of Wilson's second term, "all the reforms we'd been talking about just evaporated," said Jim Mayer, a former member of the Little Hoover Commission, a government oversight panel that worked with the group.
Mayer is now executive director of the think tank California Forward, which is seeking solutions to the state's financial problems. He said Brown, who has vowed to stabilize the budget for the long term, now faces the same challenge.
"When the revenue starts rebounding, the first thing people forget is how bad the crisis was," Mayer said.
Brown sent a shot across the Legislature's bow Monday in unveiling his latest budget plan, saying that the state faces a menacing "wall of debt" and that the new revenue would make only a dent in it. He said more taxes are needed to put the state on sound financial footing. He made clear that he would not agree to accounting shifts and gimmicks to balance the budget, especially now that the deficit could be reduced significantly by honest means.
"There is something infantile about the idea that we spend and then we borrow," he said.
Republicans, whose votes Brown needs to carry out his plans, responded with defiance, saying the unexpected revenue is reason enough for the governor to abandon his push for more taxes. The GOP members of the Assembly had earlier crafted their own budget that Brown said would leave the state with deficits for years to come.
Some say Brown missed an opportunity by not reaching an accord with Republicans earlier this year. Now, the extra money can be used to blunt the pain of budget cuts that might have moved voters to support Brown's plan, said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who was a senior advisor to Schwarzenegger.
"You need to capitalize on a crisis while you have it," he said.
●●smf: Begging to differ with Mr, Sutzman or the Times reporters, I believe the operative quote is:
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
– Rahm Emanuel, quoted in the N.Y. Times November 6, 2008
* Times staff writer Jack Dolan contributed to this report.
Data-Driven Instruction, Results-Oriented Improvement + Evidence-Based Education: DATA-DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
WHY AMERICAN EDUCATORS NEED A REFORM ALTERNATIVE —AND WHERE THEY MIGHT LOOK TO FIND IT!
By Dennis Shirley & Andy Hargreaves | Education Week Vol. 26, Issue 06, Pages 32-33 | http://bit.ly/iXCzB7
●●smf: I was directed to this article by a 4LAKids reader+contributor. Thank you! It's just as true now, five years later, as it was when first published. Only more so!
image October 4, 2006 - Every few years in American education, a new slogan is coined as the Next Big Thing. Total quality management, shared decision-making, and outcomes-based education all marched across the educational landscape once, grabbing headlines, filling copy—and leaving little improvement in learning in their wake.
< illustration—Bob Dahm
Right now, data-driven instruction, results-oriented improvement, and evidence-based education are the watchwords. They show up everywhere—from state education department Web sites to principals’ and superintendents’ job descriptions—insisting that instructional practices should be driven by the analysis of student-achievement data as measured by prescribed standardized tests. Of course, data-driven instruction sounds tough and businesslike. No need to actually think about what you’re doing, just let the data drive you.
Teachers are no longer the drivers of reform, but the driven. Many teachers and schools, in fact, are being driven to distraction. Under the pressures of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and its mandate for “adequate yearly progress,” teachers in struggling schools are being told that only results matter—and even these rarely extend beyond tested achievement in literacy and math. In hurried meetings after school, educators go through endless reams of performance data, targeting the problematic cells where results are defective—a subject department here, a grade level there, a group of male minority students elsewhere.
With AYP deadlines looming and time running out, teachers have little chance to consider how best to respond to the figures in front of them. They find themselves instead scrambling to apply instant solutions to all the students in the problematic cells—extra test-prep, a new prescribed program, or after-school and Saturday school sessions. There are few considered, professional judgments here, just simplistic solutions driven by the scores and the political pressures behind them.
Data-driven instruction obliterates the crucial fact that to be effective, educators have to use many different kinds of information to think about what they are doing in classrooms. While statistics can be immensely useful, they do not automatically point to which instructional approaches will work best with the diverse learners that make up a school’s classes, or a nation’s schools. One child may struggle with underperformance because she has difficulties with reading, a second because he has a turbulent home life, and a third because she is a recent immigrant learning English as a second language. Faced with such diversity, teachers and educational leaders have to be intelligently informed by evidence, not blindly driven by it to teach a certain way.
When such evidence points to apparent performance problems, we can find ourselves in a position familiar to players of the popular board game Clue: The data indicate that an achievement crime has occurred, but they don’t tell us who did it, with what weapon, or in which room. Once performance problems have been exposed, instead of rushing to judgment about what must be done, we need more evidence, deeper reflection, and further inquiry before we act. Our instructional choices should be based on all kinds of evidence and experience, processed together in professional learning communities that help us identify common problems, swap ideas and strategies, and develop and deploy our own school-based assessment instruments. Mindful teaching needs to be evidence-informed, not data-driven.
Better alternatives already exist. This has become clear to us through a series of visits to schools in England. There, we have led a research team evaluating the Raising Achievement Transforming Learning, or RATL, project of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, an organization that coordinates many of the state secondary schools across the country. RATL comprises more than 330 English secondary schools. To be eligible to join the project, the schools first had to be identified as underachieving, as defined by a composite of diverse pupil-test-score data. In its first two years, student achievement at project schools has risen steadily, and, in almost three-quarters of them, strikingly so. How has this happened?
First, RATL is the antithesis of top-down improvement. Its principals receive the equivalent of about $16,000 each year to spend on whatever they deem best to raise pupil achievement. School leaders provide project members with a menu of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies that have had proven success when applied elsewhere. Schools are then networked with each other, attached to coaching principals from high-achieving mentor schools, and offered regional conferences to help principals understand what their pupil-achievement data mean and how best to capitalize on the information with their teachers. By following a teacher-friendly principle of schools helping schools, and providing principals and teachers with considerable latitude in defining and addressing problems, the network has achieved rapid and impressive success.
Second, the project has a key cultural component that is based on the insight that test results rarely present self-evident instructional strategies to address the needs of struggling pupils. Rather, the data are, in and of themselves, often ambiguous, reflecting the nonlinear, and sometimes ingenious, ways that diverse learners acquire knowledge. As a consequence, project leaders do not rush from diagnosis to action, but emphasize the intermediary step of professional reflection and analysis. This step requires deep cultural change in many schools, as teachers work to shift their school culture from one of isolated instructors responsible only for their own pupils, to one of lifelong learners with the mission of improving the education of all learners in a school. As part of this cultural transformation, RATL leaders try to ensure that pupil-achievement data are embedded in school-based cultures that appreciate the value of tests, but are not limited to them.
Data-driven instruction obliterates the crucial fact that to be effective,
educators have to use many different kinds of information to think about what
they are doing in classrooms.
In a country that has just abolished national achievement targets (with Wales going even further and abolishing standardized tests), RATL schools now have the freedom to set their own ambitious goals and targets, instead of frantically trying to comply with targets imposed by others. They emphasize that much school improvement involves cultural change, and that it takes time and professional sophistication to understand what test scores can and cannot tell us. In this model, careful scrutiny and discernment, not “drivenness,” are valued, and indeed are viewed as the heart and soul of successful educational change.
Third, RATL’s consistent focus on pupil achievement has not distorted or diminished the curriculum in ways that are becoming increasingly evident in many American schools. Here, standardized tests often have become the curriculum. In England, many principals have used the RATL funds to support art projects, physical education, or foreign-language courses. Principals of RATL schools in poor and working-class communities try to both broaden and deepen the curriculum to give all children multiple opportunities to flourish academically. In the United States, on the other hand, the achievement gap in tested performance coexists with a widening learning gap between functional basics for the poor and working class and an enriched and enlarged set of learning experiences for the privileged in the suburbs—where schools are free of many testing constraints and can (and do) fly far beyond the standards.
Evidence and experience, teachers working with teachers, schools helping schools, and continual reflective inquiry by educators—this path to improvement offers students so much in terms of teacher professionalism and creative responses to the on-the-ground realities of classrooms and schools. Do we American educators dare to learn from our British counterparts? Can we apply the inventiveness of professionals collaborating at their best, rather than adhere blindly to the fad of the moment marketed as “data-driven instruction”?
- Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves are professors in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
►COMPARE+CONTRAST:
BEHIND GRASS-ROOTS SCHOOL ADVOCACY, BILL GATES: By SAM DILLON New York Times | http://nyti.ms/ko6FBZ Published:... http://bit.ly/kXGFQG
BEHIND STUDENT SUCCESS, AN LAUSD LIBRARIAN: Rosemarie Bernier, an LAUSD teacher-librarian facing layoff, teaches... http://bit.ly/lARb4b
____________
►MORE LIBRARY MADNESS:
SCHOOL LIBRARIES VITAL FOR STUDENTS: This editorial ran in Wednesday’s Waterloo Ontario, Canada Region Record | ... http://bit.ly/kP7Uu7
LAUSD DOUBTS THAT SEASONED TEACHE-LIBRARIANS CAN TEACH: By Beverly Goldberg, Senior Editor - Published in Am... http://bit.ly/iKLm7m
The Defunding of School Libraries+Librarians: AN OPEN LETTER TO SUPERINTENDENT DEASY FROM THE AMERICAN LIBRARY A... http://bit.ly/lJa1tY
UPDATE ON UPCOMING PATT MORRISON SHOW ON LAUSD TEACHER-LIBRARIANS : appx 2 pm 89.3FM: LAUSD librarians, fighting... http://bit.ly/kVJvAN
LAUSD LIBRARIAN FIASCO IN THE WASHINGTON POST AND ON PATT MORRISON’S RADIO SHOW THIS AFTERNOON: Teacher: 'My emp... http://bit.ly/jVm9zU
L.A. UNIFIED’S LIBRARIANS ON TRIAL: The school district appears determined to cut teacher- librarians.: Op-Ed in... http://bit.ly/kowp34
LIBRARIANS GET THE THIRD DEGREE: Warren OLney ,Which Way L.A.? | Reporter's Notebook | KCRW | http://bit.ly/lWt... http://bit.ly/imlz8M
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: L.A. Unified librarians under siege: L.A. Times 17 May 2011 | http://lat.ms/gqr641 re... http://bit.ly/jxi7NQ
__________________________
ON EQUAL TERMS: Themes in the News for the week of May 16-20, 2011 by UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/mgEncK 05-20-20... http://bit.ly/mH8Voi
JOHN DEASY’S PRESSURE CHAMBER: LAUSD's new leader needs to make things happen fast: By John Fensterwald - Educat... http://bit.ly/jSWHwo
Eastside/Westside Charter Co-locations: SIX EASTSIDE SCHOOLS MAKE SPACE FOR CHARTERS + THREE CHARTER OPERATORS R... http://bit.ly/jpQlah
Gulen: FEDS QUESTION CHARTER SCHOOLS’ FOREIGN-TEACHER HIRING PRACTICES + OBJECTIVES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS WITH TURK... http://bit.ly/jcywfy
MAYOR SAYS TEACHERS SHOULD EARN TENURE IN FOUR YEARS – NOT TWO: by Jason Song _ LA Times/LA Now --http://lat.ms/... http://bit.ly/mSiZXa
Data-Driven Instruction, Results-Oriented Improvement + Evidence-Based Education: DATA-DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION: Wh... http://bit.ly/jVyrJa
CORRECTION/CLAIFICATION ON A-G STORY LAST WEEK: John Rogers of UCLA/IDEA writes 4LAKids 18 May 2011 - The stor... http://bit.ly/mytGyS
CALIFORNIA’S REVENUE SURGE MIGHT STYMIE EFFORTS TO STABILIZE FINANCES: The $6.6-billion of unanticipated revenue... http://bit.ly/lIzerb
SIX FURLOUGH DAYS MAY OFFSET MOST THTEATENED LAUSD CUTS: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Daily News | http:/... http://bit.ly/m6xoxU
UTLA REQUESTs RECISION OF ALL RIFs, LAYOFFS & PINK SLIPS: from the UTLA Website | http://bit.ly/k0uCwf In light... http://bit.ly/k7qydp
Arts+Music Education in LAUSD: WINNING THE FUTURE – LOSING THE PRESENT: by Rubi Fregoso, Associate Producer, Edu... http://bit.ly/jTrtAe
BENNETT KAYSER WINS IN CLOSE SCHOOL BOARD RACE, UNOFFICIAL TALLY SHOWS: by Jason Song | L.A. Times/L.A. Now |... http://bit.ly/js8tQ6
CHARTERS, LAUSD AGREE TO SHARE CAMPUSES: Some schools not happy with arrangements + smf’s 2¢: By Connie Llanos, ... http://bit.ly/k3upWu
California State PTA: MAY REVISE TAKES A POSITIVE STEP - Final budget plan must protect children and our future:... http://bit.ly/mzG7go
THE MAY REVISE: Education spending up / Unexpected state revenue leaps to $6.6 billion [Updated – FULL BUDGET RE... http://bit.ly/kfs3SO
KAYSER, SANCHEZ: 2 vie for LA Unified board seat: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | KPCC | http://bit.ly/jrIZZ5 AUDIO: MP3 ... http://bit.ly/j2njpX
Joint Hearing of the Assembly Education and Health Committees: CALIFORNIA HEALTHY STUDENTS RESEARCH PROJECT: Inf... http://bit.ly/lb9583
THE MAY REVISE: Governor Brown’s revised budget proposal to be broadcast and posted online Monday May 16 @ 11AM:... http://bit.ly/iGKzpU
Sanchez v. Kayser: RIORDAN, BROAD, THE EASTSIDE LATINO MACHINE, AND THE LEGACY OF DISTRICT 2: By Mulholland Terr... http://bit.ly/lsPGnO
A Rant: SEGMENTS+TIDBITS: by smf for 4LAKids 15 May 2011 – 4LAKids has a love-hate relationship with the L.A. ... http://bit.ly/k8j67A
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! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • 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 Brown: 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. THEY DO!.
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