Sunday, October 30, 2011

Students ought mot Be a means of profit.

Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 30•Oct•2011 Halloween Eve
In This Issue:
A PRIMER ON CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORM
PENSION REFORM’S IMPACT ON TEACHERS: Brown would raise new teachers' retirement age to 67
NCLB: END IT, DON'T MEND IT
LIBRARIES CAN'T RUN THEMSELVES
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?


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LA Times: October 25, 2011: "For almost a week, Nate Grant has sat cross-legged on a wall at the Occupy Wall Street encampment, holding a cardboard sign that bears his scrawled grievance: 'Students Ought Not Be a Means of Profit.'"

The article [http://lat.ms/sKX7jt] is about the nation's almost $1 trillion student loan debt. But the scribbled sentiment is just as true of the privatization and corporatization of public education. AKA School Reform®.

Following is an essay; A PRIMER ON CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORM on exactly what's going on. I recommend it and the longer form fifty-on minute speech by Stan Karp from which it was culled. If the essay and the speech are both too long for your attention span or valuable time, please take away these two quotes, tweets from the front line of the counter-revolution:

● “Fighting Broad and Gates is like whack-a-mole. Their network is stronger than ours at this point, but our own efforts are building and resonating.”
●"And in the current education reform debates, saying poverty isn't an excuse has become an excuse for ignoring poverty."


Karp describes the efforts in New Jersey to fight off the menace.


THE BATTLE IS BEING WAGED NOW IN COLORADO as you read this. See: BIG MONEY, BAD MEDIA, SECRET AGENDAS: Welcome to America's Wildest School Board Race | http://bit.ly/uhlEDR

A 4LAKids correspondent from SaveOurSchools Colorado writes:

"As many of you know, there is quite a heated commotion regarding the school board candidates in Denver. The Mayor is even thinking about taking mayoral control over our school board if he does not like the outcome of the election.

"Please take the time to research the different candidates in your district and to find those who say they will support our 4 guiding principles.

● Equity in public education funding.
● Stop the privatization of public schools.
● End testing used for high stakes purposes, such as teacher, student, and school evaluations.
● Strengthen curriculum by including teacher and community voices: Education reform designed by parents, teachers, and communities and not corporate interests.



THE NEXT BIG BATTLE MAY BE IN SAN DIEGO, where the school district is poised on the precipice of insolvency, state take-over and all that that entails.

With all of California's challenges and a few of their own ["Citing the district’s 'substantially narrowed financial flexibility', MOODY'S DOWNGRADES SD UNIFIED'S CREDIT RATING from Aa1 to Aa2 | http://bit.ly/taCFWB]. SDUSD has been increasing class sizes and laying-off teachers. Furloughs, reduced school year, eliminating programs. That hasn't been enough – but the cuts have created excess capacity (20:1 with 60 kids uses 3 classes; 30:1 with 60 uses 2, leaving one vacant; no arts requires zero classrooms) Now they are considering consolidating schools and closing some to save more money.

Some think they may be able to sell the surplus real estate to generate money.

This is as false as economy gets

1. The real estate/ building development market is not in a recession, it's in a depression.
2. Closing a school costs money – and reopening after it's closed for a couple of years really costs big money,
3. A school standing vacant in a community depresses property values – creating bad feelings, perpetuating the economic downturn and lowering the tax base …in turn lowering the school's revenues.
4. California Prop 39 says that a vacant "surplus" school must be offered first to a charter school. Creating a vacancy will draw in charter operators (as well it should. An empty school is an abomination to the Lord and any school is better than no school – I'm sure it says that in the Bible somewhere.)
5. A charter will draw students from District schools (especially the ones moved away from their neighborhood school), drawing away even more revenues. And the slippery slope to insolvency becomes a high speed on-ramp.

And, quoting from 4LAKids favorite list of enough-bullet-points-for-a-machine-gun:
By the numbers - HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT IS INFECTED BY THE BROAD VIRUS | http://bit.ly/ByTheNos
#1. Schools in your district are suddenly closed.
#2. Even top-performing schools, alternative schools, schools for the gifted, are inexplicably and suddenly targeted for closure or mergers.

►UPDATE: It looks like the SDUSD Board is about to reconsider - see: REPRIEVE IN WORKS FOR S.D. UNIFIED SCHOOLS | http://bit.ly/vcZyYa

THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE – publisher of City Journal – a noted Reform® Supporter* – is up in arms because the Occupy LA folks and the Occupy LAUSD folks are liberals and progressives and …OMG! – Democrats who know each other AND share common values beyond a love for sleeping al fresco. http://bit.ly/rE9Fwn If God wanted us to live in tents why did He build the W Hotel? What else is a conspiracy but this?

Now I admit that Occupy LAUSD is an unholy owned subsidiary of Red-Shirts-on-Tuesday UTLA …but I don't go so far as to equate the colors of their shirts with soviet communism. And of course, the closeness between the civic minded folks behind Don't Hold Us Back® and Dr. D's Los Angeles Fund for Public Education and their billionaire friends and charter school associates is not collusion but a confluence of coincidence+collegiality.

City Journal proves whatever their point is (ADD is its own reward) by quoting "Los Angeles Education blogger Anthony Krinsky" - (Who you say? His blog has 29 followers!) who claims that "despite three consecutive years of layoffs, we (perhaps he has a mouse in his pocket?) have more teachers per student than we had 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and 20 years ago.” If you want to take this math up with Krinsky, you can find his email address at StopUTLA.com. I'm not going there; I have enough crazy relatives to make new crazy friends.

Public pensions? They aren't even a problem and they're being fixed. See: PENSION REFORM’S IMPACT ON TEACHERS

Diane Ravitch in NCLB: END IT, DON'T MEND IT points out that some things are so bad they can't and shouldn't be fixed. The NY Times, in THE WRONG FIX FOR NCLB calls for a total overhaul.

And UCLA IDEA, in the news that doesn't fit: SCIENCE & TECHNLOGY, THE NEWEST FRILLS tells why. Sure test scores are improving - but it’s only English language scores and math scores. Those scores can determine schools’ reputations and sometimes their survival, not to mention educators’ jobs and salaries. Gains are at the expense of subjects not tested. First to go were courses related to students’ health and well-being, such as driver’s ed, cooking, aerobics, etc. Next, the arts hit the chopping block: choral and instrumental music, art appreciation, drawing, etc. Then civics and social studies. And now, science and technology are endangered.

THE LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD HAS RECONFIRMED THE REIMPLEMENTATION OF THE EARLY START CALENDAR. Mark it on your calendar in pencil - this may change again when the real budget numbers become more clear. http://bit.ly/uR9Rif

IF WE IGNORE IT MAYBE PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE WILL GO AWAY? The public is apparently staying away from the PSC v 3.0 community meetings in droves – and – unreported in the media - ten schools were taken off the list. | bit.ly/rYXk21

CALIFORNIA EMPLOYS FEWER SCHOOL LIBRARIANS THAN ANY OTHER STATE according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Here, there is one school librarian for every 5,965 students; the national average is one librarian to 865 students. | LIBRARIES CAN'T RUN THEMSELVES

LOS ANGELES COUNTY HAS BOTH FEET FIRMLY PLANTED IN DENIAL+STONEWALLING.
● First we had the Community College School Bond Funding Fiasco, with the LACCD refusing to cooperate with the State Auditor on the Van de Kamps satellite campus investigation – prompting the auditors' accusation of wrongdoing – evidenced in the court case following.
● The issue of brutality in the jails produced indignant denial from the Sheriff.
● Now it turns out that the Board of Supervisors refused to cooperate with a state audit of the county's foster care system and Child Protective Services. LAT: "Auditors had sought to include data from Los Angeles County, but the county Board of Supervisors rebuffed subpoenas for child death information and hired outside lawyers to fight the inquiry, arguing that many of the records were subject to attorney-client privilege." | http://lat.ms/uKDrKd

Children were at risk – wards of the county - but the county supes protected their petty fiefdoms. Like the Sheriff the BOS are now promising to cooperate.

"How many deaths?" the song asks, "...will it takes 'till he knows…"


IN CLOSING: The Alliance of College Ready Public (Charter) Schools– when they applied to lease part the satellite community college campus at the former Van de Kamps bakery in Northeast Los Angeles testified before the Community College District Board about how resilient and agreeable they are. Charter schools often move from location-to-location, their chief operating officer said; incubating in one spot – growing in another - before finding a final home at a third.

Now a judge has ruled that Alliances' lease at Van de Kamps violates LACCD's Environmental Impact Report for the site. (To be clear: the alleged wrongdoing is the college district's, not the school's.) see: Court Rules LA Community College District Violated Environmental Laws in Turning Van de Kamps Campus over to Charter School and the Mayor's Workforce Programs | http://bit.ly/tDxXNI

● Irony Alert: The school in question is ALLIANCE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY HS; yet its occupancy violates the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA).

And now Alliance's CEO - in a filing with the court [http://scr.bi/u9Ge9g] - claims they will have to close shop and toss the kids out onto the street – or to the Los Angeles Unified School District -- because they couldn't possibly move.

And, if you look at that filing closely, on page 1, Line 20, you will see that the lead Real Party of Interest is ALLIANCE FOR COLLEGE READY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, a private school….

And so it is. Or maybe isn't.

¡Onward/Adelante! – smf


* Like an Athletic Supporter ...only with deep pockets!


A PRIMER ON CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORM
By Stan Karp - from Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet/The Washington Post | http://wapo.st/vRbz5n

Note: This is an edited version of a commentary given by Stan Karp , a teacher of English and journalism in Paterson, N.J., for 30 years. Karp spoke on Oct. 1 at the fourth annual Northwest Teachers for Justice conference in Seattle. He is now the director of the Secondary Reform Project for New Jersey’s Education Law Center and an editor of the 25-year-old Rethinking Schools magazine.

“CORPORATE EDUCATION REFORM” refers to a specific set of policy proposals currently driving education policy at the state and federal level. These proposals include:

• increased test-based evaluation of students, teachers, and schools of education
• elimination or weakening of tenure and seniority rights
• an end to pay for experience or advanced degrees
• closing schools deemed low performing and their replacement by publicly funded, but privately run charters
• replacing governance by local school boards with various forms of mayoral and state takeover or private management
• vouchers and tax credit subsidies for private school tuition
• increases in class size, sometimes tied to the firing of 5-10% of the teaching staff
• implementation of Common Core standards and something called “college and career readiness” as a standard for high school graduation:

These proposals are being promoted by reams of foundation reports, well-funded think tanks, a proliferation of astroturf political groups, and canned legislation from the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC).

Together these strategies use the testing regime that is the main engine of corporate reform to extend the narrow standardization of curricula and scripted classroom practice that we’ve seen under No Child Left Behind, and to drill down even further into the fabric of schooling to transform the teaching profession and create a less experienced, less secure, less stable and less expensive professional staff. Where NCLB used test scores to impose sanctions on schools and sometimes students (e.g., grade retention, diploma denial), test-based sanctions are increasingly targeted at teachers.

A larger corporate reform goal, in addition to changing the way schools and classrooms function, is reflected in the attacks on collective bargaining and teacher unions and in the permanent crisis of school funding across the country. These policies undermine public education and facilitate its replacement by a market-based system that would do for schooling what the market has done for health care, housing, and employment: produce fabulous profits and opportunities for a few and unequal outcomes and access for the many....

Standardized tests have been disguising class and race privilege as merit for decades. They’ve become the credit default swaps of the education world. Few people understand how either really works. Both encourage a focus on short-term gains over long-term goals. And both drive bad behavior on the part of those in charge. Yet these deeply flawed tests have become the primary policy instruments used to shrink public space, impose sanctions on teachers and close or punish schools. And if the corporate reformers have their way, their schemes to evaluate teachers and the schools of education they came from on the basis of yet another new generation of standardized tests, it will make the testing plague unleashed by NCLB pale by comparison.

Let’s look for a minute at what corporate reformers have actually achieved when it comes to addressing the real problems of public education:

First, they over-reached and chose the wrong target. They didn’t go after funding inequity, poverty, reform faddism, consultant profiteering, massive teacher turnover, politicized bureaucratic management, or the overuse and misuse of testing.

Instead, they went after collective bargaining, teacher tenure, and seniority. And they went after the universal public and democratic character of public schools.

Look again at the proposals the corporate reformers have made prominent features of school reform efforts in every state: rapid expansion of charters, closing low performing schools, more testing, elimination of tenure and seniority for teachers, and test-based teacher evaluation.

• If every one of these policies were fully implemented in every state tomorrow, it would do absolutely nothing to close academic achievement gaps, increase high school graduation rates, or expand access to college.

• There is no evidence tying any of these proposals to better outcomes for large numbers of kids over time. The greatest gains in reducing gaps in achievement and opportunity have been made during periods when concentrated poverty has been dispersed through efforts at integration, or during economic growth for the black middle class and other communities, or where significant new investments in school funding have occurred.

Or take the issue of poverty. Most teachers agree that poverty is no excuse for lousy schooling; much of our work is about proving that the potential of our students and communities can be fulfilled when their needs are met and the reality of their lives is reflected in our schools and classrooms. But in the current reform debates, saying poverty isn’t an excuse has become an excuse for ignoring poverty.

Corporate reform plans being put forward do nothing to reduce the concentrations of 70/80/90% poverty that remain the central problem in urban education. Instead, educational inequality has become the entry point for disruptive reform that increases instability throughout the system and creates new forms of collateral damage in our most vulnerable communities.

The “disruptive reform” that corporate reformers claim is necessary to shake up the status quo is increasing pressure on 5,000 schools serving the poorest communities at a time of unprecedented economic crisis and budget cutting. The latest waiver bailout for NCLB announced recently by Education] Secretary [Arne] Duncan would actually ratchet up that pressure. While it rolls back NCLB’s absurd adequate yearly progress system just as it was about to self-destruct, the new guidelines require states that apply for waivers to identify up to 15% of their schools with the lowest scores for unproven “turnaround” interventions, “charterization,” or closing.

Teachers and schools, who in many cases are day to day the strongest advocates and most stable support system struggling youth have, are instead being scapegoated for a society that is failing our children. At the same time, corporate reformers are giving parents triggers to blow up the schools they have, but little say and no guarantees about what will replace them.

The only thing corporate ed reform policies have done successfully is bring the anti-labor politics of class warfare to public schools. By overreaching, demonizing teachers and unions, and sharply polarizing the education debate, corporate reform has undermined serious efforts to improve schools. It’s narrowed the common ground and eroded the broad public support a universal system of public education needs to survive.

For example, there is actually a lot of common ground on the need to improve teacher support and evaluation. There’s widespread agreement among educators, parents, and administrators on the following suggestions for improvement:

• better preparation and evaluation before new teachers get tenure (or leave the profession, as 50% do within 5 years)

• reasonable, timely procedures for resolving tenure hearings when they are initiated

• a credible intervention process to remediate and if necessary remove ineffective teachers, tenured and non-tenured

Good models for each of these ideas exist, many with strong teacher union support, but overreaching by corporate reformers has detached the issue of teacher quality from the conditions that produce it.

Their experiments are staffing our most challenging schools with novices or Teach for America temps on their way to other careers. Corporate reform plans are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into data systems and tests designed to replace collaborative professional culture and experienced instructional leadership with a kind of psychometric astrology. These data-driven formulas lack both statistical credibility and a basic understanding of the human motivations and relationships that make good schooling possible. Instead of “elevating the profession,” corporate reform is downsizing and micromanaging it.

Right now, my home state of New Jersey is getting ready to implement a so-called “growth model” developed in Colorado, where they are now giving first graders multiple choice questions about Picasso paintings and using the results to decide the compensation level and job security of teachers.

This is not “accountability.”



A VIDEO and the FULL SPEECH can be found here.



PENSION REFORM’S IMPACT ON TEACHERS: Brown would raise new teachers' retirement age to 67
By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/vvYEy1

Under Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to rein in pension costs, future teachers would work years longer before they could retire with smaller pensions. Current teachers and administrators would soon pay about 1 percent more out of their paychecks toward their retirement. And both current and future educators would be unable to retire, then turn around and return to the classroom full time.

Brown’s pension reforms would uniformly apply to all public employees, state and local, municipal and school. They would significantly decrease benefits, especially for new workers, and lower the risk for governments, by raising the retirement age from as early as 55 to 67 for all new non-safety employees, and by replacing a significant portion of a defined benefit plan with a defined contribution plan similar to a 401(k).

“This is a decisive step forward,” Brown said at a press conference. “The plan will make the pension system more sustainable and fair to taxpayers and the employee.”

Brown’s plan would reduce the state’s pension costs by billions of dollars over the next 30 years. What it would not do, because it applies primarily to new workers, is solve the current huge unfunded liability facing most pension plans. That includes CalSTRS, the nation’s largest pension fund for educators, which is currently only 71 percent funded and could run out of money in 30 years unless the state pays in hundreds of millions of dollars more per year. Nothing in the plan would address the unfunded liability issue, and Brown indicated he doesn’t intend to do so next year.

Here’s how Brown’s 12-point plan would appear specifically to affect to CalSTRS members. The governor has presented only an outline; details aren’t clear on a lot of important aspects, such as terms of early retirement. Brown also indicated he favors a cap on defined benefits, affecting higher-paid administrators and superintendents, though he didn’t specify what the level would be.

A shift to splitting the contributions of annual normal pension costs between educators and the state/school districts. Current teachers pay 8 percent of their pay toward retirement; districts pay 8.25 percent, and the state 2.017 percent. That adds up to 18.25 percent. (The state pays another 2.5 percent into a cost-of-living fund.) But the key word is normal costs, says Ed Derman, CalSTRS Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Plan Design. That means ­the annual contributions needed to meet actuaries’ assumptions of pension payouts and revenues not funded by investment returns. That, he says, is currently 17.7 percent. A split of that would be 8.85 percent, so CalSTRS members can expect to pay about 1 percentage point more of their pay, phased in. (Update: School employees who pay into CalPERS– non-classified workers like custodians and secretaries – would be affected more, Sheila Vickers, Vice President of School Services of California, reminds me. They current pay 7 percent of their pay to retirement, while the district contributes 13 percent. Under the 50-50 split, which would be phased in, districts would save money, while employees would pay more.)

However, if the CalSTRS board lowers its expected rate of return on investments, now 7.75 percent, as critics have called for, the contribution rate would increase. Again, this doesn’t take into account the additional payments needed to meet a $56 billion unfunded liability. Based on court decisions, that would be entirely the state’s burden and could raise the state’s contribution by 14 percentage points to 32.25 percent of payroll – a whopping extra burden on taxpayers.

A new hybrid plan for new teachers that introduces a defined contribution component. Because CalSTRS members do not pay into or receive Social Security, the defined benefit plan would cover two-thirds of the pension benefit and the defined contribution would cover a third. The target pension that teachers/administrators would receive would be 75 percent of their salaries after 35 years of work (with a cap for some higher-paying jobs). That would be less than currently received under CalSTRS. Teachers who retire at age 64 with 35 years in now can retire with 84 percent of final pay, with an additional 2.4 percent for every year beyond that.

A higher retirement age for new teachers. Saying, “We have to align retirement ages with actual working years and life expectancy,” Brown’s plan would raise the retirement age to 67, the current age for full benefits under Social Security. Currently, teachers who retire at age 60 after working 35 years receive 70 percent of full salary (2 percent times 35 years). Under Brown’s plan, they could not draw full retirement for another seven years, saving the system $364,000 for a teacher who made $70,000 a year.

Anti-spiking protections for new employees. To avoid perks thrown in during the final year to boost pensions, pensions would be based on the average of an employee’s final three years. Bonuses, unused vacation, and sick pay would no longer count toward compensation.

No more double dipping. Raising the retirement age will discourage a revolving door of having public employees, including teachers and superintendents, retiring one day and returning the next in a new full-time job. Brown would restrict retirees on public pensions to working 960 hours or 120 days per year for a public employer – about two-thirds of a school year.

Bans on retroactive pension increases and the purchase of additional retirement service credit for time not actually worked., known as “airtime.” Districts had offered this as a way of encouraging early retirement.


HURDLES, RESISTANCE IN LEGISLATURE

Brown wants to put the uniform changes on the November 2012 ballot as a constitutional amendment. That would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature – a formidable hurdle, given expected union opposition to the biggest changes, like raising the retirement age, and to circumventing negotiations via the ballot.

“We simply cannot stand for imposing additional retirement rollbacks on millions of workers without bargaining,” Dave Low, representing a coalition of public employee unions, said. The California Teachers Association, still examining the plan, didn’t issue a statement Thursday.

But Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, one of three senators chosen to serve on a new conference committee to deal with pension reforms, called Brown’s plan “substantive and significant” and credited him with making it comprehensive.

Simitian worked for two years, without success, to get an anti-spiking bill passed, and that should have been the easy piece. Now, he said, “with more moving parts, it will be more difficult to develop consensus.” The two-thirds requirement to get it out of the Legislature will be difficult but doable, he said.

Brown will have to thread the needle to win over Democrats who will side with labor and Republicans who will charge he didn’t go far enough with his reforms. Reacting to the proposed hybrid plan, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee, “I believe in defined benefit, because I don’t think that retirement should be based on the ups and downs of what occurs on Wall Street.” (Never mind that when Wall Street tanks, and public pension plans don’t make 7.75 percent returns, taxpayers are left holding the bag.)

But Brown cautioned that voters want pension reform, and implied that a failure to put it on the ballot will hurt chances to pass higher taxes. “Legislators would be well advised to take (pensions) seriously, get it all enacted and get it on the ballot when there are things they will be particularly interested in,” he said.


NCLB: END IT, DON'T MEND IT
by Diane Ravitch in Education Week | http://bit.ly/w46UON

October 25, 2011 9:45 AM | Have you been following the evolving story of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? I have, and it is disheartening. Instead of ditching this disastrous law, senators are trying to apply patches.

Most people now recognize that NCLB is a train wreck. Its mandates have imposed on American public education an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing.

● It has incentivized cheating, as we have seen in the well-publicized cheating scandals in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
● It has encouraged states to game the system, as we saw in New York state, where the state tests were made easier and more predictable so as to bolster the number of children who reached "proficiency."
● It has narrowed the curriculum; many districts and schools have reduced or eliminated time for the arts, physical education, and other non-tested subjects.
● It has caused states to squander billions of dollars on testing and test preparation, while teachers are laid off and essential services slashed. Now we will squander millions more on test security to detect cheating.

Because of NCLB, more than 80 percent of our nation's public schools will be labeled "failures" this year. By 2014, on the NCLB timetable of destruction, close to 100 percent of public schools will have "failed" in their efforts to reach the unreachable goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and math. Has there ever been a national legislative body anywhere else in the world that has passed legislation that labeled almost every one of its schools a failure? I don't think so.

Despite the manifest failure of NCLB, the Obama administration proposes not to scrap it, but to offer waivers if states agree to accept the mandates selected by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The secretary has a great fondness for teacher evaluation, having decided (in concert with the Gates Foundation) that the key to better education is to tie teachers' jobs and tenure to their students' test scores. This, of course, will raise the stakes attached to testing. Mr. Duncan has already used the billions in Race to the Top to bribe states to impose his unproven policies on their schools.

Happily, the latest version of the NCLB reauthorization does not include the teacher evaluation provisions that Mr. Duncan wants. That's good, but not good enough, because many states are already well down that path, not only the 11 that "won" the Race to the Top, but others that wanted to make themselves eligible. Tennessee was one of the "winners." NPR did a story about Tennessee's teacher evaluation program, which explained why the program is so thoroughly disliked by that state's teachers; see this article, as well.

When, if ever, will policymakers realize that they should find ways to support teachers, not to demoralize them? I just don't see how it is impossible to "improve" schools without the active engagement of the people who do the daily work of schooling. There is just so much top-down beating-up that can go on before teachers and principals rise up in protest, especially when so many at the top are not educators.

Lawmakers in D.C. and in the state capitals are not competent to decide how to reform schools and how to evaluate teachers. In what other profession would this kind of interference be tolerated?

The federal government does not know how to reform schools. Period. Congress doesn't, and the U.S. Department of Education doesn't.

The fundamental role of the federal government should be to advance equality of educational opportunity. That's a tall order. Congress should revive the commitments made in 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed: To use federal resources on behalf of the neediest students; to protect the civil rights of students; to conduct research about education; to report on the condition and progress of American education.

So long as Congress tries to breathe life into the moribund NCLB legislation, its members are wasting their time.


LIBRARIES CAN'T RUN THEMSELVES
LIBRARIANS ARE MORE THAN BOOK FINDERS, SHELF ARRANGERS, COMPUTER TECHNICIANS AND SHUSH-ERS. IN A SOCIETY OVERWHELMED BY DATA, THEY ARE THE GATEKEEPERS AND ORGANIZERS OF HIGH-QUALITY INFORMATION.

Op-Ed in the LA Times by Regina Powers | http://lat.ms/uIivrL

October 26, 2011 | California paid for my master's degree in library and information science. While I am grateful to have had the grant and the opportunity to go back to school, I wish now that I had instead trained to be an electrician, a plumber or an auto mechanic. California does not value librarians.

Other states employ an average of one public librarian to 6,250 patrons. As of last year, 3,432 full-time librarians served 37,253,956 Californians. In other words, California librarians were each expected to serve 10,854 patrons. We also employ fewer school librarians than any other state, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Here, there is one school librarian for every 5,965 students; the national average is one librarian to 865 students. (emphasis added)

These statistics do not reflect the library positions that have since been eliminated or the layoffs that have taken place because of the California budget crisis. In our schools, hundreds of librarians, along with thousands of teachers, received pink slips last year. The Los Angeles Public Library eliminated 328 full-time positions in 2010. Three years ago, the city of Anaheim employed about 80 full-time library staff members. Plans are underway to slash that number to 21.

Libraries are one of the few good things that governments eagerly take credit for. Sadly, taking credit for libraries is not the same as supporting them. Federal funding decreased from 0.6% in 1999 to 0.4% in 2008. Public library operating revenue from state sources shrank from 12.8% in 2001 to 8.7% in 2008, an all-time low.

Note that the Public Library Fund — a state program that libraries apply to for direct aid for basic services — has never received the full amount designated for it by the state budget. In the 2008-09 fiscal year, the Legislature appropriated a dismal 12% of its allotted funding. This year, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed eliminating state funding for public libraries entirely. Even though the final budget only cut state funding in half, a "trigger" amendment would cut all funding if state revenue projections fall short. Thus, the library buck has been kicked down to local governments.

Unfortunately, librarians fall under the dreaded category of "public employees." Their salaries account for the majority of a library's working budget. Librarians unions are not as powerful as those of police officers and firefighters, making librarians easier to lay off
Still, the idea of shutting down a library is unpalatable to most officials. So they lay off librarians to keep the buildings open, supporting the illusion that libraries can simply run themselves.

On school visits, I ask what students think a librarian does. The response is always the same. "Librarians check out books. They read a lot. They tell people to be quiet." These misconceptions are held by adults too. When I told a friend that I was embarking on my graduate degree, he asked, "You need a master's degree in the Dewey Decimal System?"

With that attitude, who cares whether California has any librarians left? Why not replace us with phone trees, self-service checkout machines and volunteers?

But librarians are more than book finders, shelf arrangers, computer technicians and shush-ers. In a society overwhelmed by massive amounts of data, they are the ultimate gatekeepers and organizers of high-quality information.

More important, librarians are staunch advocates for the local communities they serve. They find ways to build collections their patrons need and want, including materials in various languages and formats. They offer guidance to parents who want to raise successful students. They guard historically relevant materials. They motivate and inspire readers. They add depth to teachers' curricula. They quench the thirst of lifelong learners. They do this and more, free of charge to the public.

Over the last decade, California librarians have adapted to overwhelming changes in the systems and quantities of information they provide. They did so with demoralized staff, dwindling funding and fickle legislative support.

Can California afford to lose any more librarians? Per capita, national public library visits rose 19.7% from 1999 to 2008, according to the most recent Public Libraries Survey. . Circulation increased 34.5%, and children's program attendance increased 13.9%.

Who will run California libraries if not librarians? Will volunteers be able to keep up with upcoming technological changes; will they know how to make relevant information easily accessible to patrons who desire to be fully informed, literate citizens? Will less-educated staff know how to conduct high-quality programs; will they know how to provide appropriate reading materials and recommendations that will spark the interest of young minds?

As one resident wrote in a letter of protest to the mayor of Anaheim, "Libraries without librarians are like hospitals without doctors." California cannot afford to lose any more librarians without risking the quality of what is left of our libraries as well.

Regina Powers is a librarian in Orange County.


"SHUTTING A LIBRARY IN A RECESSION IS LIKE SHUTTING A HOSPITAL IN A PLAGUE"

if you agree please sign the White House petition. We must Ensure school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day



HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
THE WRONG FIX FOR NCLB: New York Times Editorial | http://bit.ly/uK3Jgm

Science and Technology: THE NEWEST FRILLS: Themes in the News for the week of Oct. 24-28, 2011 By UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/uMddcS

Pension reform’s impact on teachers; Brown would raise new teachers' retirement age to 67 | http://bit.ly/vvYEy1

TASK FORCE ON STUDENT SUCCESS: Moves toward rationing access to community colleges – Realistic or radical?: http://bit.ly/u1moi1

Just in time for Halloween: THE “‘GOODIE BAG’” MEMO: From: Superintendent John Deasy Date: October 28,... http://bit.ly/tENPb2

"In the current education reform debates, saying poverty isn't an excuse has become an excuse for ignoring poverty." http://bit.ly/auDNT3

“Fighting Broad+Gates is like whack-a-mole. Their network is stronger but our efforts are building+resonating.” http://bit.ly/auDNT3

A PRIMER ON CORPORATE SCHOOL REFORM [Teachers’ Edition]: Stan Karp’s Address to Northwest Teachers for Social Justice |. http://bit.ly/thbz9A

SIGN THE WHITE HOUSE PETITION: Ensure school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available 4 children every day. wh.gov/Tzj

ASSEMBLYMEMBER PEREA DISCUSSES STATE AUDIT ON DEATH & ABUSE OF CHILDREN WITHIN CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES DEPARTM... http://bit.ly/rIm0qG

SUITABLE FOR FRAMING…: http://bit.ly/vGy2kM

CALIFORNIA BUCKS TREND ON TEACHER EVALUATIONS: A report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality* http://bit.ly/um0So6

NOT YOUR MOTHER’s PTA – ADVOVACY GROUPPS RAISE MONEY, VOICES, HOPES: Walton Foundation’s billions meets smf’s 2¢:... http://bit.ly/sodQzk

LAUSD REMOVES 10 SCHOOLS FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE 3.0: http://bit.ly/rYXk21

NCLB: END IT, DON'T MEND IT: By Diane Ravitch in Ed Week | http://bit.ly/w46UON October 25, 2011 9:45 AM | http://bit.ly/uui8V5

COMPANIES, NONPROFITS MAKING MILLIONS OFF TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS PUSH: By Sarah Garland in The Hechinger Report, ... http://bit.ly/t2zeHV

SCHOOLS ROLLING OUT NEW FUNDRAISERS: FOOD TRUCK NIGHTS: Public schools, hit by budget cuts, drops in donations a... http://bit.ly/tmmfI6

OBAMA REDUCES STUDENT LOAN DEBT PAYMENTS + STUDENT LOAN ANGST + CA LEADS U.S. IN COLLEGE COST INCREASE: Obama to... http://bit.ly/tc396i

WHY A SCHOOL DISTRICT REJECTED $2.5 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT + more: By Valerie Strauss, Washington Post/The An... http://bit.ly/siTaR3

BIG MONEY, BAD MEDIA, SECRET AGENDAS: Welcome to America's Wildest School Board Race: ●●smf: If only because there no election in L.A.! ... http://bit.ly/uhlEDR

LAUSD ADOPTS PLAN TO START 2012 SCHOOL YEAR 3 WEEKS EARLIER: By Susan Abram Staff Writer, LA Daily News | http:/... http://bit.ly/uR9Rif

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: LA SCHOOL DISTRICT FAILING ENGLISH-LEARNERS: by Alexandra Babiarz | Contributor, Neon T... http://bit.ly/rG53P4

THEY’RE IN THIS TOGETHER: Teachers can't educate children alone, but they can help show parents the way. A posit... http://bit.ly/sgtFrA

CALIFORNIA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS FAIL TO PROVIDE HIGH-QUALITY SCIENCE INSTRUCTION, REPORT SAYS: --Teresa Watanabe, ... http://bit.ly/rKb68L

EVERYONE CAN ENJOY HALLOWEEN ….even if your parents are a dietitian and a dentist!: by Mary Anne Burkman, MPH, R... http://bit.ly/rJ0uuX

CORAL WAY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: In Miami, School Aims For 'Bi-Literate' Education: by Claudio Sanchez/ NPR Morning ... http://bit.ly/uzoSXP

Edward Avila: LACK OF CONTRACT REFORM® COULD CRIPPLE EDUCATIONAL ADVANCES + smf’s 2¢: Op-Ed in the LA Daily News... http://bit.ly/tBaVNY

RED RIBBON WEEK (Oct 22-30) Alcohol, Tobacco & Drug Awareness: sponsored by the National Family Partnership an... http://bit.ly/rESwYC
24 Oct


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


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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!.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
• To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.


Sunday, October 23, 2011

Re-branding/Re-inventing/Reality 101

Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 23•Oct•2011
In This Issue:
STUDY FINDS EDUCATION GAP FOR ILLEGAL MEXICAN MIGRANTS' CHILDREN +smf's 2¢:
OCCUPY LAUSD MARCHES, BUT ‘DON’T HOLD US BACK’ TAKES THE BOARDROOM
LACCD Scandal - ¿2LITTLE/2LATE?: THE CHANCELLOR SAYS ‘HELLO’
THE CLIMATE OF FEAR AT BEAUDRY
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:
Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting "Follow 4LAKids" to 40404
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: an investment we can't afford to cut! - The Education Coalition Website
4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!
4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc.
It's all about one thing or the other.

IT'S FRIDAY EVENING and I'm at a PTA conference in Anaheim – waiting for the next meeting.

I'm sitting in a hotel lobby, doing what writers do. I'm drinking. I'm making notes. I'm observing the parade of humanity.

There's a gaming convention at the convention center next door and the lobby is throbbing with edgy/nerdy twenty-somethings – mostly male, a cast of characters escaped from reruns of the Big Bang Theory. There is also a fair share of characters in costume ranging from what appears to be Balinese Gods and Goddesses to blue skinned Pandorans and silver lamé space bimbos. With the odd Minnie Mouse.

These are people unconcerned about education …they have barely escaped their own.

And virtual is the dominant reality …and nobody gets enough exercise or sunlight.

AMERICAN SCHOOL REFORM HAS BEEN ONGOING SINCE HORACE MANN saw his first school and thought it could be better.

Now School Reform® is a brand - the trademarked property of charter operators and billionaire philanthropists and visionary big city mayors – whether their vision is of the promised land of 100% graduation or the view from higher office.

99% v. 1%: WE HAVE A PHENOMENON UNDERWAY. Or underfoot.

Folks are occupying parks and living in tents and quietly agitating for Change – for something/anything else besides the status quo as administrated by the powers-that-be. No Child Left Behind is the status quo of US education. And our friends in School Reform® are as entrenched in defending+contesting the Status Quo/No-Child's-Line as the Allies and the Central Powers were on the Western Front in WWI.

ON MONDAY THE BRAND NAME REFORMERS took out ads in The Times, Daily News and La Opiñon - and re-invented/rebranded themselves. They are no longer Reformers, No longer NCLBer's – they are now Don't Hold Us Back.org.

"Hurrah!" says The Times and even the progressive blogosphere: "A new voice!" "Another chair at the table."

On a parallel track new group of Teacher-Reformers materialized – sprung from the head of the same Zeus. It was all revealed in a tweet from @Dr Deasy LAUSD (17 Oct – "Am very interested in the thoughtful work of Teachers For A New Unionism in LAUSD. Looking forward to thoughtful dialogue."

“Thoughtful” twice in 122 characters? How – uh - thoughtful.

(You can't tell the players without) A SCORECARD:
● Don't Hold Us Back.org - http://t.co/7uolpkSX
● Teachers for a New Unionism - http://bit.ly/nTW4J2

Please. Everything in How to Tell if your District is Infected by the Broad Virus is happening all at once! | http://bit.ly/BroadVirus

ON TUESDAY – even as the first Don’t Hold Us Back.org activists in white t-shirts took all the speaker's cards in the LAUSD Board Meeting (a tactic they employed when they were Parent Revolutionaries in blue t-shirts) – WE GOT A NEW 'OCCUPY' MOVEMENT: OccupyLAUSD. They marched from city hall and camped on the sidewalk in from of Beaudry in small tents (the sidewalk is narrow and pitches and yaws in every direction – much like the half-a-bubble-off-level interior floors of Beaudry itself). By comparison the park in front of City Hall occupied by OccupyLA is a welcoming spacious expanse.

OccupyLA is loose coalition of folks united only by their dissatisfaction. In contrast OccupyLAUSD is a red shirted cohort from UTLA. (That doesn't make them bad people; they are not bad people!)

So we have three new brands, three new voices ….with pretty much nothing new to say.

I spoke to one of the LAUSD occupiers – who told of an attempted midnight raid by a platoon of school police on their encampment Tuesday night – who changed their minds and tactics when the media showed up. In the current budget crisis I didn't know LAUSD was able to muster a midnight platoon without shutting down a school library and/or eliminating an art program.

History recalls the rout of the Bonus Marchers encamped in Washington in 1932 by General MacArthur under Hoover's orders. When Franklin Roosevelt, the Democratic presidential candidate, heard about the rout of the veterans, he grinned and said to his adviser, Felix Frankfurter, "Well, Felix, this will elect me."

ON THURSDAY A STRANGE BED FELLOWS ALLIANCE WAS FORMED, with Mayor Tony, Supt. Deasy and UTLA president Fletcher blogging in the Huff Post together in support of Obama's Jobs for Teachers legislation | http://t.co/8K7NrZry. But simultaneously – (although not revealed until after the Senate rejected the presidents' plan and the SBA's entities | http://t.co/qaRleEkO) the battle lines were redrawn when the Huff Post reported Friday that on Thursday, the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education sent out an email action alert urging supporters to call and email individual members of the Los Angeles School board, as well as UTLA president Warren Fletcher, and tell them to support Superintendent Deasy's proposed contract changes | http://bit.ly/rdrjKO.

Wait – isn't the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education the special fund administered by the superintendent to support things like Arts Education, PE and Student Health? | http://lat.ms/nCdMa9
Now it's a political action fund to promote the superintendent's agenda in union negotiations?
What, gentle readers, is with that?

Suddenly the reality in the lobby of the Anaheim Hilton seems more real.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf



STUDY FINDS EDUCATION GAP FOR ILLEGAL MEXICAN MIGRANTS' CHILDREN +smf's 2¢:
THEY FINISHED TWO FEWER YEARS OF SCHOOL THAN PEERS WITH LEGAL IMMIGRANT PARENTS. THE RESEARCH ON LOS ANGELES AREA RESIDENTS SHOWS THE NEED TO HELP SUCH FAMILIES BECOME LEGAL, THE REPORT'S AUTHORS SAY.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/neRwbS

October 22, 2011, 7:36 p.m. - The majority of children of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the Southland fail to graduate from high school, completing an average of two fewer years of schooling than their peers with legal immigrant parents, a new study has found.

The study by UC Irvine professor Frank Bean and three other researchers documented the persistent educational disadvantages for such children — who number 3.8 million, with about 80% born in the United States.

The study's authors said their findings highlighted the need to help such families gain legal status and a more secure future, arguing that deporting all of them was unrealistic.

"By not providing pathways to legalization, the United States not only risks creating an underclass, but also fails to develop a potentially valuable human resource," the report said.

Lupe Moreno of the Santa Ana-based Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, however, said the study's findings do not justify granting legalization to undocumented migrants, who she believes should be deported and made to reenter legally. Moreno, the daughter of an illiterate Mexican bracero worker who worked the fields herself but graduated from high school, also blamed schools for failing to help the children of illegal immigrants graduate.

"Amnesty is the wrong solution," she said. "I'm putting it on the schools — they need to do better educating these kids" regardless of their parents' legal status.

The study analyzed data from a 2004 survey of 4,780 adult children of immigrants in the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area. Among them, 1,350 were children of Mexican immigrants; 45% of them had undocumented parents.

The study found that children of illegal immigrants averaged 11 years of education, compared with about 13 years for those whose parents were legal residents. But once illegal immigrants found ways to legalize their status, the study found, their children's educational levels rose substantially.

And the study found that mothers had the largest influence: Children whose mothers were legal residents but whose fathers weren't completed about 12 1/2 years of education. If the father was legal and the mother wasn't, the children finished about 11 years of school.

Bean said children of illegal immigrants face high levels of stress, lack money for academic enrichment activities and, particularly for boys, pressures to work that lead many to drop out of school. The study, however, found no differences in the education levels of boys and girls born to illegal immigrants.

Patricia Quijano, a senior at Edward Roybal Learning Center in downtown Los Angeles, said immigration status definitely matters. A U.S. citizen by birth, Patricia has a 3.8 GPA and dreams of attending a California State University to become a high school counselor. But she said she hasn't been able to qualify for fee waivers, grants or scholarships because her Mexican parents don't have papers and can't document their income.

Her father works for cash at a carwash, earning an average monthly income of $200 during winters and $800 during summers. Her mother is unemployed. And Patricia's minimum-wage job at a Salvation Army after-school program has ended, leaving the family with no money for college applications, SAT or ACT exams, even home Internet access.

Although she has managed to maintain good grades and career ambitions, she said most of her friends with undocumented parents lose hope and give up at school.

"They say, 'My parents weren't born here, so why try hard when I can't go to college?'" Quijano said. But if their parents could become legal, she added, "they would think they had an opportunity so [they] would try hard to make their parents proud."

In contrast, she said her friends whose parents have green cards or are U.S. citizens have more stable lives and are able to get better jobs, scholarships and other benefits.

Since the country heavily depends on the labor of illegal immigrants, politicians should find ways to deal with the problem, Bean said.

"We need the work these people do but haven't figured out a way to make them regular members of society," he said. "So we're reproducing a very handicapped and disadvantaged generation."


●●smf's 2¢: This is a complex and complicated matter. Many children of illegal immigrants are themselves US citizens by birthright. The socioeconomic status of adolescent children of illegal immigrants - no matter what their status - is low – often forcing them to work to support themselves or their families instead of going to school.

The key point is: "…But once illegal immigrants found ways to legalize their status, the study found, their children's educational levels rose substantially" (or anecdotally: "…she said her friends whose parents have green cards or are U.S. citizens have more stable lives and are able to get better jobs, scholarships and other benefits") points out why a path to legal residence and/or citizenship is critical" – and suggests that there be a 'door' for illegal resident parents of US citizens to qualify for legal residence.

Much of the criticism this article has engendered on The Times website (http://lat.ms/pScsRW - some of it of The Times itself) crosses the border into hate speech. And allow me to pile on: As a crummy journalist myself I know that publishing this sort of article and not citing a link to the original scholarship is crummy journalism. The citation follows.


The paper: THE EDUCATIONAL LEGACY OF UNAUTHORIZED MIGRATION: Comparisons Across U.S.-Immigrant Groups in How Parents’ Status Affects Their Offspring



OCCUPY LAUSD MARCHES, BUT ‘DON’T HOLD US BACK’ TAKES THE BOARDROOM
●●smf: At Tuesday’s abbreviated school board meeting - while the 99% were marching, the co-opted representatives of the 1% – in matching “Don’t Hold Us Back” T shirts - took all but two or three of the speakers cards.


OCCUPY LAUSD ALIGNS WITH LOCAL OCCUPY MOVEMENT, WILL MARCH TODAY
By Lindsay William-Ross, LASist.com | http://bit.ly/naaHoF


October 18, 2011 10:20 AM - A group of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers, parents, students, and other district employees will march with the Occupy L.A. protesters this afternoon. The groups will leave the Occupy L.A. site at City Hall at 4 p.m. and head to the LAUSD headquarters on Beaudry for a rally and press conference. Some will set up tents on the sidewalk outside the building to "occupy" the area in protest of education cuts.

Occupy LAUSD says they are part of the 99%, too, and that cuts have caused not only tremendous teacher and school employee layoffs, but also the closing of libraries, and the overcrowding of classrooms. "This smacks of a deliberate effort to defund our schools, label them failures, and then privatize them," says Occupy LAUSD.
The movement is linking the efforts of wealthy local businesses and individuals with current problems, not solutions, in the district:

The LAUSD School Board’s top-down privatization reform efforts have given away public schools to Corporate Charter School management companies, reconstituted schools, closed down Adult Ed. programs, and increased the reliance on high states testing that has narrowed the curriculum. All these so-called “reforms” are driven by multi millionaires Eli Board, the Gates foundation and others, the 1%, who control education policy in Los Angeles.

The group lays out their "central message" as follows:

1. Lower Class sizes, hire back our teachers, counselors, nurses, office workers and all others who make our school communities great.
2. Stop the war on public education. We demand full funding of our schools, an end to layoffs that disrupt our school communities and tax justice for schools and social services.
3. We want to keep Public Schools, PUBLIC! End corporate driven reforms on our schools. End corporate influence of the 1%, Eli Board, Gates etc. on our schools!




►BRINGING A THIRD CHAIR TO THE BARGAINING TABLE

by Charles Kerchner - Research professor, Claremont Graduate University in the Huff Post | http://huff.to/qawNMr

10/18/11 06:02 PM ET - Sometimes the most interesting political commentary is found in the comics... or in the ads.

Monday's editions of the Los Angeles Times, Daily News and La Opinion carried a full-page ad from a coalition of civic and community organizations aimed at influencing the negotiations between the Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers, represented by United Teachers Los Angeles.

The ad itself is pretty bland. "Don't hold us back," is not exactly a searing catch phrase. But the underlying issues are explosive: teacher evaluation, employment security, and school-site determination of work rules.

Essentially, the ad's sponsors are drawing up a third chair to the bargaining table. They are attempting to influence both labor and management, but clearly they are in line with the positions and issues articulated by Superintendent John Deasy last summer. The increasingly bold and strident parent and community voice, amplified and modulated with foundation money, changes the politics of collective bargaining and challenges the union's historic claim on parent loyalty.

In terms of Los Angeles politics, Monday's ads are at least a semi big deal. Usually, collective bargaining holds little interest for parents and their organizations. It's thought to be too boring and technical, something best left to the experts to sort through. But historically, when parent and community voice is activated, it tips the political balance. Decades ago, in The Changing Idea of A Teachers Union, my research colleagues and I examined scores of contract negotiations. We found that the usually silent parents were powerful when they got riled up. Thus, the admonition of political analysis: "When a fight starts, watch the crowd."

So, looking at the ads' sponsors tells us something about how those on the sidelines enter the fight. Although technically leaderless, the coalition grew from a report issued by the United Way and financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition, the ads were sponsored by the Alliance for a Better Community, Families in Schools, Inner City Struggle, Community Coalition, Asian Pacific Legal Center, the Los Angeles Urban League, and Communities for Teaching Excellence. Former school board member Yolie Flores heads the latter. Each of these organizations has been at least somewhat aligned with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the now-thin school board majority.

[smf: the leaders have the checkbook!]


Like the mayor, the heads of these organizations have ties to ethnic communities, roots in civil rights struggles, and sometimes experience in labor activism. Virtually all are Democrats. So, their opposition to the current state of teacher labor relations is significant. "We need to push both sides," said Veronica Melvin, of Communities for Teaching Excellence.
UTLA president Warren Fletcher doubts both the representativeness of the ad's sponsors and their political clout. "They are reflective of the capacity to purchase a display ad," he said with reference to the foundation and school district support that the ad's sponsors have received.

Fletcher also thinks that the union better understands what parents want. He points to the recent school board race between retired educator Bennett Kaiser and Luis Sanchez, chief of staff to board president Monica Garcia. Sanchez lost despite the mayor's support and substantial contributions from unions other than UTLA.

On the sponsor's web page one finds a minefield of issues that not only divide management from union but also challenge traditionalists within the union and school district.

The ad sponsors want to maintain and protect the Public School Choice program, which Flores sponsored, in which the operation of both newly constructed schools and schools that have failed to meet test score benchmarks are put out to a request-for-proposal process. Groups, including teacher collaboratives and charter schools, can write a proposal to run a school. UTLA would love to have the whole thing go away, and they are particularly opposed to putting newly constructed schools up for bid. There are several issues surrounding Public School Choice that the district and union are supposed to resolve by November 1. But the ad sponsor's proposals go well beyond what will be negotiated in the next two weeks.

The ad sponsors also want to lift the cap on autonomous schools, such as Pilots and Expanded School-Based management structures that were embraced by both the school board and UTLA under former president A.J. Duffy. They also want to further open up areas in the city where parents can choose among schools as opposed to having their children assigned to a school, so-called Zones of Choice.

Regardless of whether a school is run by a charter or the district, regardless of whether it is management or worker-dominated, the more autonomy given a school, the larger the threat to the traditional contract. LAUSD is well down the road toward autonomous schools, regardless of what happens with Public School Choice. Nearly a quarter of public school students attend charters, pilots, magnet schools, and other deviations from a conventional district school. Opening up more teacher-led schools, more schools with distinct academic themes -- such as the bilingual immersion schools being designed under Public School Choice -- creates a stronger teacher interest in controlling who works there and under what conditions.

The more autonomy is granted to schools, the stronger the pressure to eliminate "must place" hiring processes in which a teacher, through seniority or other means, is sent to a school regardless of whether his or her skills and interests match the pedagogy and ethos the school is trying to develop and maintain. The more autonomy granted to a school the greater the pressure for elect-to-work agreements in which the school's faculty make up many of their own work rules and new hires agree to be bound by those rules.

These are huge changes from the tradition of a central contract in which one set of rules governs all teachers. So are the issues surrounding teacher evaluation.

Like most of those who call themselves reformers in education, the ad's sponsors want to tie teacher evaluation and compensation to student outcomes. This notion of just rewards and strong incentives has gained so much face validity, that it is hard to oppose, even when most merit pay plans in public education have proven unworkable and short lived.

The problem is that UTLA has been largely mute about alternatives to the current system, which virtually everyone, including Fletcher, agrees doesn't work. But UTLA's lack of a strong viable alternative and opposition to any use of student test score data for evaluation, puts it on the defensive. Fletcher says internal work on developing an "intellectually honest and durable" system is underway, but that it takes time. But time is short because both the school administration and the newly attentive public have approached this round of bargaining with a righteous urgency.

There is good news for unionism in Monday's ad. The organizations behind it see collective bargaining and the contract as a vehicle toward better public education. In this, they differ from the Republican forces that have limited or eliminated public sector bargaining in several states. The cautionary news for UTLA is that these organizations have brought their own demands and their own chair to the bargaining table. And they are impatient.

* * *

Charles Taylor Kerchner is the co-author of Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education and United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society. He is a professor at Claremont Graduate University.


LACCD Scandal - ¿2LITTLE/2LATE?: THE CHANCELLOR SAYS ‘HELLO’
Email Campaign Archive from Los Angeles Community College District | http://bit.ly/qWgpiG

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR, DANIEL J. LaVISTA, Ph.D.

October 20, 2011

Hello:

As many of you know, over the last several months, the District has been working hard to reform our Building Program to ensure that taxpayer dollars are well-spent and properly managed as we rebuild and modernize our nine colleges. As you may remember, on Tuesday, October 18, I announced that LACCD took the most significant action yet in our drive to root out mismanagement and waste when we notified FTR International, Inc. and Gateway Science and Engineering, Inc. of our intent to hold hearings on whether their contract should be terminated. Our action resulted in an article by the LA Times that detailed our decision, which led in turn to today’s Times editorial focusing on the District’s proactive steps to fix the Program. The editorial is titled “ Under Better Construction,” and I’ve included it below along with the Times’ original article.

The District is making progress. While there is much work ahead, we are taking the right steps toward repairing our building program to gain tighter controls.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,



Daniel LaVista, Ph.D.
Chancellor


October 20, 2011
Editorial - Under (better) construction
The Los Angeles Community College District takes steps to address shortcomings in its building program.

Years after a multibillion-dollar construction program left the Los Angeles Community College District with problem-plagued new buildings, the district's board of trustees is taking measures to oust its contracting firm and a construction management company. Finally.

These are obvious and badly needed moves to reform a building program responsible for erecting, among other travesties, a health and science center at Valley College where floor and ceiling tiles were askew, spigots weren't lined up with sinks and the air temperature control was nonexistent.

District leaders have been slow to acknowledge the magnitude of the construction disasters — outlined in a six-part series in The Times earlier this year — and have been defensive about their share of responsibility for poor oversight. Only a couple of months ago, they questioned state Controller John Chiang'scritical audit of the program, which accused officials of "shoddy fiscal management."

But there are signs that the district chancellor, Daniel LaVista, and the current board — which includes two newly elected members — are serious about making changes. District officials have initiated proceedings to bar FTR International, the contractor responsible for the health and science center, from doing any further work on district campuses for up to five years. They also announced that they have taken steps to fire a construction management company, Gateway Science and Engineering, for poor administration. Last month, the board announced that City Controller Wendy Greuel wouldinvestigate allegations that the district's inspector general, who functions as an internal watchdog, might have been improperly hired; initially, LaVista had rejected Chiang's request for just such an outside investigation. The Los Angeles district attorney has also recently opened a preliminary inquiry into allegations of irregularities regarding the selection of the watchdog.

Community college officials' past defensiveness about the construction mistakes served no one well.A forceful move to terminate the contracts of the two firms and a commitment to investigate the college system's missteps may be overdue measures, but they are nonetheless welcome

October 19, 2011
L.A. Community College District cutting ties to builder, management firm
The Los Angeles Community College District is moving to fire an Irvine contractor accused of shoddy workmanship and fraud as well as a Pasadena construction management company accused of poor judgment.
By Michael Finnegan and Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Community College District is moving to fire an Irvine contractor accused of shoddy workmanship and fraud in the construction of a Valley College classroom complex that became a symbol of problems with the district's $5.7-billion campus rebuilding program.

In a letter released Tuesday, the district launched proceedings to bar the contractor, FTR International, from campus work for up to five years. The district cited "substandard work" by FTR on its $48-million contract to build the Allied Health and Science complex at Valley College. The district also said FTR filed a "false and fraudulent" report on the project with the state architect, which oversees school safety.

The troubled history of the Allied Health project was detailed as part of a Los Angeles Times seriesearly this year. When the complex opened in August 2008, students and faculty found numerous construction problems, including missing exit signs and fire extinguishers and hanging light fixtures that were not securely attached to ceilings.

More than three years later, the district is preparing to make extensive repairs.

In another letter released Tuesday, the district also took action to fire a construction management company owned by Art Gastelum, a politically influential contractor.

The district accused Gastelum's company, Pasadena-based Gateway Science and Engineering, of mismanagement, poor judgment and falsifications in its dealings with FTR at Mission College. Gateway supervises $450 million in construction projects at the Sylmar campus.

The district's actions against the two companies mark a dramatic break from the approach that its elected Board of Trustees took for years as delays and cost overruns plagued the massive rebuilding program. The trustees rarely intervened as problems accumulated.

"The actions we are announcing today are the latest and most significant we have taken yet in our drive to reform our building program, root out mismanagement and waste, and ensure that taxpayers are getting full value for the dollars they are investing in our nine newly modernized and improved college campuses," Chancellor Daniel LaVista said in a written statement.

LaVista said the decision to move to terminate the contracts also was substantiated by an investigation by the district's inspector general, Christine Marez.

FTR and Gateway will have a chance to respond officially to the district's findings at hearings in December.

A spokesman for Nizar Katbi, FTR's owner and chief executive, had no immediate comment. The college district has awarded FTR $232 million in construction contracts.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Gastelum said Gateway would dispute every finding. He accused the district of violating its own procedures in seeking to terminate the contract. "I don't know what kind of kangaroo court the district is trying to put on me, but I'm not going to stand for it," he said Tuesday.

Both companies' owners have been major campaign donors to the district's elected trustees and its construction bond measures.

In its letter, the district alleged that FTR had claimed in June 2009 that the Allied building was finished, even though hundreds of construction items had yet to be corrected and completed. FTR had also installed a defective skin on the structure that allowed water to seep into the interior, damaging facilities and displacing staff, the letter said.

The district also alleged that FTR submitted a "false and fraudulent" payment application in connection with a 90,000-square-foot fitness center it built at Mission College.

The company, in its August 2008 application for $960,000, claimed that it had moved a water pipeline crossing the Sylmar campus, but the work had not even begun, the district contended. The job was not completed until early 2011, at a cost of $1.4 million.

Gateway oversaw FTR's work at Mission College as part of its construction management contract. The district said Gateway falsely certified FTR's claim on the waterline relocation.

The district also cited "poor judgment" by Gateway in awarding the no-bid relocation contract to FTR, which was not qualified to do the job.

Gastelum, Gateway's owner, said the payment application had been mislabeled.

The district's building program began in 2001 when voters approved a bond measure to modernize its nine aging campuses after years of neglect. Voters expanded the program with more bond measures in 2003 and 2008.

One of the first major projects to open was the health and science center at Valley College. Professors at the college were appalled; ceiling panels and floor tiles were askew, spigots were misaligned with sinks, cabinet doors would not close and there were hundreds of other construction defects. Wild temperature swings left students roasting or shivering.

On Tuesday, a Valley College faculty leader who teaches in the complex said instructors felt vindicated by the district's action. "We tried really hard for a long time to get the district to listen, and we were constantly rebuffed," said Don Gauthier, an associate geography professor. "It's been a real hard lesson."

In its six-part series,The Times reported that tens of millions of construction dollars had been squandered because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship and frivolous spending.

Largely in response to the articles, the district has established its office of inspector general, launched a whistle-blower program, created an independent review panel and tried to strengthen a citizens oversight committee.

With the recent election of two new trustees, the board is pushing to improve management of the program.

"Nothing is more important to our building program than its integrity," said Miguel Santiago, president of the district's Board of Trustees.

Last month, the trustees asked City Controller Wendy Greuel to review the district's hiring of Marez, the inspector general, and her company, Policy Masters Inc. The request followed an audit by the state controller that found irregularities in her hiring. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is also conducting an inquiry into Marez's selection and an investigation into an alleged conflict of interest at Mission College.

Marez worked for Gateway from 1998 to 2003.

On Tuesday, six people from Marez's office and the district's construction headquarters arrived unannounced at the Gateway trailers at Mission College to seize documents related to its projects.

Gastelum strongly criticized Marez's role in the recommendation to terminate his contract, saying she was "running around wild trying to protect her job."

Marez defended her work, saying she was following proper procedures.

# # # #


THE CLIMATE OF FEAR AT BEAUDRY
Editorial in Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Update - Week of October 17, 2011 | http://bit.ly/pcoQu8

14 October 2011 - Earlier this week an AALA member, a supervisory administrator, sent a particularly cogent and poignant e-mail message to the AALA office describing the climate of fear that seems to be pervasive in some District offices.

When asked if we could publish the e-mail in Update with or without attribution, the member declined, explaining he was fearful of retaliation for expressing his views.

Something is seriously wrong in LAUSD when AALA members are so afraid.

The District’s financial crisis over the past three years has caused AALA members a great deal of stress because the resulting reductions-in-force, Basis changes and furlough days have dramatically increased their workload and reduced their pay. At the same time, administrators have experienced heightened pressure to improve student performance with greatly diminished resources to do the work. Understandably, all employees are anxious to hold onto their jobs. They worry that formerly plentiful advancement opportunities are currently scarce. It is precisely in these difficult circumstances that District leaders must increase their sensitivity to the needs of those they supervise and provide a higher level of support at all levels.

We all learned in Educational Administration 101 that building trust is essential to getting the best work from those we supervise. Leaders of successful organizations focus on goal achievement, promote teamwork, foster consensus, establish clear and timely communication, encourage problem solving and respect individual contributions to the work. They listen to the concerns of individual employees and are attuned to the tone of the culture.

When secrecy, isolation, cronyism, self-protection and a “gotcha” attitude prevail, teamwork is impossible. If people feel continually threatened, fear begins to fester and grow. Fearful employees focus on survival and stop contributing their best work to the organization. They do the minimum necessary to get along and oftentimes turn on their colleagues. Cynicism increases. Allowed to go unchecked, fear can be insidious, damaging the health of individuals involved and, ultimately, the organization itself.

In the spirit of supporting both our members and LAUSD, AALA urges District leaders to reflect on their own treatment of hardworking administrators. Address directly the climate of fear that has permeated too many LAUSD offices and departments. Do everything possible to restore to the workplace a sense of trust and efficacy.

Promote transparency. Be equitable and fair by promoting personnel based on merit, not friendship or politics.

Ensure department heads manage their staff members by engaging their talent and energy as opposed to demanding sheeplike compliance.

To avoid dealing with the issue of fear will put every significant District initiative at risk and may indicate that the climate of fear is but a symptom of an underlying institutional illness. Plagues are contagious. Fear breeds fear.

We are hopeful that District leaders will recognize the infection and treat it before it continues to spread.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Save the Date/Make your Reservation Aug 31/7-8:30 pm: KPCC EDUCATION SUMMIT - THE WAY FORWARD FOR YOUR CHILD'S EDUCATION & LAUSD: Patt Morrison hosts Supt Deasy, Board of Ed Pres. Garcia and UTLA Pres. Fletcher | http://bit.ly/pkKMcT

*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


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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!.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
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