In This Issue:  | | • | MAGNET SCHOOLS ARE AN IMPORTANT OPTION FOR LAUSD | | | • | EDUCATION REFORM PARALYSIS — AND HOW TO FIX IT | | | • | THE VALUE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD + ADULT EDUCATION: WHAT CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD? | | | • | Losing it: TEXAS SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH BUDGET CUTS + HAWAII LOSES RACE2TOP DOLLARS + SUBURBS BRACE FOR K.C. STUDENTS AS DISTRICT LOSES ACCREDITATION | | | • | HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | ONE OF THE FEATURES of the Red Ryder Air Rifle – the all-I-want-for-Christmas gift prominently featured in the 1983 film A CHRISTMAS STORY ("You'll shoot your eye out") was its 'smoking action': "Smoke comes out like a real gun!"
GARY ORFIELD, Co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA writes in the Huffington Post | http://huff.to/rqEvLc:
"Magnet schools have received far too little attention as the attention is turned to charter schools, whose performance has been disappointing in Los Angeles, the state of California and across the country, and which tend to be very intensely segregated on average.
"Now we learn that the Los Angeles school district, quietly and with almost no public discussion, has been radically reducing its investment in magnet schools.
● For the 2008-09 school year, LAUSD allocated $84,691,974 in desegregation monies to magnet schools.
● In 2010-11, this allocation was down 80% to a devastating $17,104,962
● and the state now threatens the coup de grace, which is to eliminate entirely magnet bus transportation, and with it the possibility for students who can't provide their own transportation to attend these schools at all.
"Cutting bus transportation will substantially eliminate the diversity in the magnet schools and the magnets will become more segregated over time."
[FULL DISCLOSURE: In the education of our daughter our family participated in the Magnet Program - playing the 'Magnet Game' (aka 'Gaming the Options Program') and accumulated-and-used magnet points – and were accepted into a magnet middle school and magnet high school – opting instead (it is an "options program") to attend schools in the LAUSD Schools for Advanced Study (SAS) program. In that time I became an authority and frequent writer and public speaker on the Magnet/Options program. I once helped edit the Options Brochure.]
THE LAUSD MAGNET PROGRAM is one of the great successes of the District – perhaps the greatest - benefiting the most kids across the greatest socioeconomic range and serving up hefty heaping servings of success. It should be replicated – and instead it is being dismantled.
There are other established pathways to educational success for LAUSD students; other mechanisms of Choice: SAS, The Individualized Honors Program, GATE, Permits with Transportation and open enrollment. All predate NCLB and Charter Schools – all have proven success over time.
The current District Leadership is packing it up and returning the Magnet Program to the store to exchange it for This-Week's-Flavor-O'-®eform: Charter Schools, Public School Choice, Pilot, Partnership Schools and I-Design schools – programs that have a lot of political clout and – to quote Dr. Oldfield: " whose performance has been disappointing in Los Angeles, the state of California and across the country."
The professor is not some whacky parent-blogger with a wild hair up his wazoo – he's a real Ph.D. who writes learned theses and relies on evidence-based-results, measurable outcomes and scalable programs …and buries the lead in his articles. His conclusion isn't hypothetical or anecdotal: it's data-driven – it's the scientifically arrived-at truth.
Superintendent Deasy's discussion on the future of magnet schools [http://on.fb.me/so571Y ] is frightening – complementary of a program that he says the District can't afford absent a parcel tax – a proposal he hasn't brought forward.
(If the district needs $600 million and there are a million parcels in LAUSD the voters would need to vote a $600 per parcel tax. The last parcel tax the voters didn't approve [and LAUSD didn't campaign for] in June 2010 was for $100. per parcel. You figure.)
Maybe the District can't afford that kind of thinking.
The mantra from the education community and the spin doctors and the unions and the frustrated folk with something/anything/nothing-more to say is "Enough is enough."
(Googling "Enough is Enough"+California+Education produces 4,700.000 hits!)
Enough already …we have come Far-Too-Far.
It's the holiday season – it's actually Christmas …so I should be kind, right?
The question becomes: How much more kindness can the children of Los Angeles take?
Thank You for everything you do for kids, every day. And God bless us, every one.
¡EverOnward/SiempreAdelante! - smf
MAGNET SCHOOLS ARE AN IMPORTANT OPTION FOR LAUSD
BY Gary Orfield | Co-Director, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA in the Huffington Post | http://huff.to/rqEvLc
12/20/11 02:29 PM ET :: The Los Angeles Unified School District, second biggest in the United States with some 700,000 students, located in the center of the most segregated area in the country for Latino students, is a place where students of color are very often denied any opportunity to do any meaningful preparation for college and are often attending dropout factory high schools. In this system, where mandatory desegregation was abandoned in 1981, there's one small place where's there some racial and economic diversity and special programs offered for students who choose to participate in them.
More than 170 magnet school programs exist in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They have been funded with billions of dollars of state money for desegregation assistance. The strong magnets are one of the last vestiges of middle class education that exist in the City of Los Angeles and one of the few places where students from really disadvantaged backgrounds can come to classes with students from more advantaged backgrounds, in schools where the teachers want to participate in those schools and where there's a special curriculum offered to draw them there. Not all of these schools are great schools. Some of them are phony magnets, and some of them are wonderful schools. But they are a really important option for the City of Los Angeles. When a student can transfer from a dropout factory school to one where many students go to college, a bus is a great educational investment.
Magnet schools have received far too little attention as the attention is turned to charter schools, whose performance has been disappointing in Los Angeles, the state of California and across the country, and which tend to be very intensely segregated on average. Now we learn that the Los Angeles school district, quietly and with almost no public discussion, has been radically reducing its investment in magnet schools. For the 2008-09 school year, LAUSD allocated $84,691,974 in desegregation monies to magnet schools. In 2010-11, this allocation was down 80% to a devastating $17,104,962 and the state now threatens the coup de grace, which is to eliminate entirely magnet bus transportation, and with it the possibility for students who can't provide their own transportation to attend these schools at all. Cutting bus transportation will substantially eliminate the diversity in the magnet schools and the magnets will become more segregated over time.
This is really the last straw in terms of consolidating inequality in Los Angeles and directly undermines the whole premise of having a desegregation assistance fund. What we need to do now is to block this change, make sure that magnet schools continue, and that they are reviewed, so that the ones that are failures are eliminated, and ones that are good are supported and expanded. We need to make sure that students from all parts of the city have the right to participate in this important alternative, which is one of the only real paths to college, particularly for disadvantaged students, that's left in the City of Los Angeles. This is a very important civil rights issue and Superintendent Deasy is correct in suing the state government over this issue.
For more information, please see: www.civilrightsproject.com
• Gary Orfield is a Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at UCLA, where he joined the faculty in 2003. Professor Orfield’s scholarship focuses on the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. As a former Harvard University scholar, Orfield was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project and is now co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.
• Orfield's central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, with a focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. His works includes six co-edited books since 2004 and numerous articles and reports.
EDUCATION REFORM PARALYSIS — AND HOW TO FIX IT
By Mark Phillips | Op-Ed in the Washington Post/Answer Sheet | http://wapo.st/w57Il2
12/21/2011 - 5:00 AM ET :: The world of educational reform is stuck.
Don’t you get bored repeatedly reading about variations on the same topics? Standardized testing, useful or harmful? Charter schools, the answer or the new problem? Teachers maligned, teachers defended, teachers resistant to change. No Child Left Behind, revise or eliminate?
How many ways can we turn these topics?
I recently revisited the classic book Crisis in the Classroom , by Charles Silberman, circa 1970, and thought: “That could have been written this year!” There’s little he reports or advocates that isn’t relevant today. And the classic by Willard Waller, The Sociology of Teaching , written in 1932, describes classrooms that are much the same as most of ours.
Fritz Perls, the psychiatrist who developed Gestalt therapy, once wrote that boredom is blocked action. Maybe that’s part of it. Is it my own feeling of collective impotence in producing real change that has me finding all of this boring?
Edwin Abbott’s classic book Flatland tells the story of a square that falls into a world of three dimensions. Returning to his two-dimensional world, he tries to explain his incredible experience. But how do you explain a cube to someone who can only conceptualize two dimensions? Ultimately he’s branded a heretic and jailed.
I think we are in many ways like the square. There’s certainly nothing wrong with creating new and improved squares, triangles, and octagons. Project based learning, for example, is certainly a better one. But for the most part we’re having difficulty conceptualizing anything beyond that.
Most teachers and administrators, dealing with the daily challenges of teaching, don’t have the luxury of thinking beyond the present paradigm. They’re too busy dealing with meeting student needs, designing engaging lessons, and responding to external pressures, from assessment to the latest mandated “innovation.”
But for those of us who have the luxury of time to think and lead, reformers and policy makers alike, I think the relative paralysis should be a matter of concern.
Perhaps we need a trickster to wake us up and boot us into another dimension. To many Native American peoples the trickster is the raven, the rabbit, the coyote. The trickster is the teacher who surprises people and wakes them out of their routines. It is also the trickster who sometimes provokes us into leaving the safety of our present worldview.
I have neither the vision nor the arrogance to presume to know what that third dimension of educational reform is. But we’ve had ideas from educators with some vision that extends beyond our same old room, ideas that for the most part, like those of the square in Flatland, have been ignored or rejected. And there are teachers who could help take us there, if we would provide them with the luxury of time to develop their ideas.
As one example, years ago Louise Berman, in New Priorities in the Curriculum , challenged the idea that we must organize our curriculum in the present way. She focused on processes rather than our traditional way of organizing subjects. Her organizers (perceiving, communicating, loving, knowing, decision making, patterning, creating, and valuing) are debatable, but at least she stepped out of our present dimension and challenged our preconception of subject organizers.
Take this a step further. Why should there still be an English department? The constellation of processes and skills includes reading, writing, the art of presentation, communicating through the computer, expressing oneself through varied media, and visual literacy. English itself is just a small part of this. And what if a new Department of Communication used the classroom only as a command center for a learning process that involved local media, worldwide web communication, and the creation of integrated imagery and words shared with the community?
The concept of schools without walls is not a new one, and yet in this age of instantaneous electronic communication, as we freely Skype and network in multiple ways with people all over the world, how can we possibly think of education as taking place in a building in blocks of 49 or 53 minutes?
Why is outdoor/wilderness education reserved for a few schools, most often those with so-called at-risk kids? If we look closely enough we can see that most of our adolescents are at risk in various ways and a deeper connection for them to our natural world is probably there in that third dimension of education.
While I don’t know exactly what a new paradigm should look like, the little I see suggests that it might include classrooms as command centers to coordinate schooling without walls, with present subject organizers vastly changed, the line between teaching, facilitating, and counseling blurred, the functions integrated, and a seamless connection between the school, the community and the land itself. This is not boring!
And there would be a teaching consultant in every school, a seasoned tribal elder, to continually guide younger teachers. Certainly too, each school would have a full-time psychologist/counselor, not just a part-time person or one who focused almost exclusively on college admissions.
But of course, even these ideas of mine are no more than those of a curious square occasionally peeking into another dimension of educational reform.
I also think it would be refreshing if educational reform wasn’t such a ponderously serious business. Maybe we need a Brigade of Educational Tricksters, to keep waking us up, making sure we aren’t taking ourselves and our varied positions too seriously, helping us to see beyond our present paradigm, and making sure we are able to laugh at the absurdity in the educational world we inhabit.
● Mark Phillips is professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University and author of a monthly column on education for the Marin Independent Journal.
THE VALUE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD + ADULT EDUCATION: WHAT CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD?
…or 4LAKids asks: : CAN THE PEOPLE+VOTERS+TAXPAYERS+STUDENTS OF L.A. AFFORD LAUSD'S CURRENT LEADERSHIP AND DIRECTION?
From the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Weekly Update | Week of December 19, 2011 | http://bit.ly/u3XRFf
THE DISTRICT’S 2012-2013 FISCAL STABILIZATION PLAN INCLUDES THE POSSIBLE ELIMINATION OF GENERAL FUND SUPPORT FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION NEXT YEAR. Considering the longitudinal research on the value of early education programs and their economic benefits, AALA believes that the District cannot afford to do this. We are planning to publish a series of articles in Update on the value of early childhood education, both educationally and economically, to children, their families and the entire community. We invite AALA members, active and alumni, to share your knowledge and views on this topic. E-mail your thinking to the AALA office at aalaoffice@aala.us.
AALA has been informed that LAUSD LEADERSHIP IS SEEKING BOARD APPROVAL TO CLOSE THE DISTRICT’S DIVISION OF ADULT AND CAREER EDUCATION (DACE) PROGRAMS NEXT YEAR and redirect tens of millions of dollars in funding to offset General Fund shortfalls.
• CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD to prevent high school students from participating in adult education classes to earn credit for graduation?
• CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD to eliminate educational opportunities for thousands of parents and community members who depend upon adult education to learn English and earn American citizenship?
• CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD to cut high-quality apprenticeship programs that lead to decent jobs?
We believe that such an ill-conceived plan should be scrapped to avert a political and educational debacle. The District needs to recognize that DACE programs, in fact, do not encroach on the General Fund. While providing critically needed basic education and career training for the community at large, Adult and Career Education pays its own way through both direct and indirect assessments levied by the District against their severely limited resources. Additionally, the District sweeps every dollar left in Adult and Career Education accounts at the end of each year.
DACE administrators carefully manage their programs including the successful AEWC dropout recovery program and labor union-supported apprenticeship programs and have a long history of successes on a shoestring, including:
• More than 10% of last year’s high school dropouts were enrolled in Adult and Career Education courses on norm day 2011, thus reducing the District’s 2010-2011 dropout rate by 10%. The previous year’s reduction was also 10%, and nearly 9% the year before that. Clearly, LAUSD’s dropout rate would increase dramatically if DACE programs were not available to these students.
• Approximately 1,500 former dropouts were graduated from DACE programs in 2010-2011. These graduates were reported in ISIS, further reducing the District’s dropout rate.
• In 2010-2011, 88,200 high school students took Adult and Career Education courses to make up credits and keep up with their cohorts. Reducing accessibility for these students would simply transfer educational costs to the General Fund at a higher per-capita cost.
• In 2010-2011, 51,844 high school students took courses at occupational centers and in ROP. Reducing accessibility to these programs would cause students to be transferred back to their home schools and would increase costs to the General Fund, again at a higher per-capita cost.
• In 2010-2011, 58,147 parents took DACE courses. AALA fully understands LAUSD’s budget problems. We strongly believe, however, that the District cannot afford to shut down the District’s Adult and Career Education programs. Doing so would have the unintended consequence of increasing General Fund costs, increasing dropout rates and eliminating valuable educational services to tens of thousands of needy parents and community members District-wide.
●● smf''s 2¢: I need to make it clear that "LAUSD LEADERSHIP IS SEEKING BOARD APPROVAL" means :"THE SUPERINTENDENT IS RECOMMENDING." There is no other "District Leadership" in this instance, no "spokesmen" or "district officials" so oft quoted in the media.
Losing it: TEXAS SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH BUDGET CUTS + HAWAII LOSES RACE2TOP DOLLARS + SUBURBS BRACE FOR K.C. STUDENTS AS DISTRICT LOSES ACCREDITATION
► Heard on NPR: TEXAS SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH BIG BUDGET CUTS
by Claudio Sanchez NPR Morning Edition | This story was produced for broadcast by Marisa Penaloza. | http://n.pr/s4NP2F
December 22, 2011 :: School funding in Texas is in turmoil. State lawmakers slashed more than $4 billion from education this school year — one of the largest cuts in state history — and more than 12,000 teachers and support staff have been laid off.
Academic programs and transportation have been cut to the bone. Promising reforms are on hold or on the chopping block. Next year, the cuts could go even deeper.
Schools in Pasadena, just outside Houston, have seen tight budgets before, but never like this. There was $21 million in cuts this fall alone and 340 positions eliminated, Candace Ahlfinger, an associate superintendent of schools in Pasadena, says. Of those cuts, about 180 were teaching positions and 160 were support staff, she says.
Special education teachers who worked with dyslexic kids: gone. Teachers' aides: gone. Dozens of bus drivers, crossing guards and security personnel: gone.
With the district's $350 million budget shrinking and more cuts on the horizon, Ahlfinger says: "Everything has been on the chopping block. There's not been a sacred cow. There's nothing that we have said 'No, we cannot touch that.'"
The state granted Pasadena schools a waiver so that the district could legally raise class size above the maximum 22 mandated in grades K-4. About 7,000 schools have been granted such waivers statewide, a three-fold increase from last year.
A CHARGE FOR THE EXTRAS
Still, every morning teachers in Pasadena grit their teeth and pretend everything is fine. School officials here considered asking parents to pay for some services, but 80 percent of families in the district live at or below the federal poverty level.
For the first time since World War II, the state hasn't funded what it promised to fund.
- Bret Champion, superintendent of Leander Independent School District
In many school districts across Texas, though, parents are footing the bill for things like bus transportation, field trips, athletics and uniforms.
"Something's got to give, right?" says Jackie Lain with the Texas Association of School Boards. "They're charging for any of the extras that they don't absolutely have to provide, so that they can keep teachers employed in the classrooms."
Lain says the 6 percent cut in school funding this year was bad enough. Next year, it will be 8 to 9 percent.
Even wealthy school districts are feeling the pinch. Leander is a bedroom community just outside Austin that's growing like crazy, but it doesn't have enough money to open two brand new schools that it built to relieve overcrowding.
With less money from the state, Leander had to cut $20 million from its budget and lay off 213 employees, 50 of them classroom teachers.
Leander was supposed to open what's known as Middle School No. 8 this year. It's an enormous building and there's a lot of construction going on at the site, but that was slowed this summer because the district cannot afford to open it.
Leander schools Superintendent Bret Champion says Texas raised school funding consistently every year for the past half century, until now. "For the first time since World War II, the state hasn't funded what it had promised to fund," he says.
WHAT CAN BE CUT?
At a football game between Leander High and Vista Ridge High School, the funding crisis is the last thing on parents' minds. The stadium fills quickly; it's supposed to be a good game.
Leander has already eliminated golf and tennis. What if football is next?
"I'd spend a thousand bucks out of pocket myself to make sure it'd stay," says Ross Briton, whose son plays football. "I'd work two jobs if it took that to do it. End of story."
Briton says it's not just a sport here: It's part of the culture and a big part of the community's identity. The district should pare down the curriculum before it cuts football, he says.
"I would cut most liberal arts out of the high school. I'd keep math, science, reading. I'd add the vocational education back, because I think there's too much fluff," Briton says.
Several parents in the parking lot nod in agreement as they walk away; others stay behind to say they disagree. Cutting instructional programs, they say, is more damaging than cutting sports.
Kate Patterson works for a local nonprofit that ran a program for struggling readers in the Austin area, including Leander. Sadly, it's been cut, she says, and lawmakers don't seem to care.
"Honestly, I'm not looking to the government anymore," Patterson says. It's as if Texas has thrown in the towel when it comes to education, she says, but some lawmakers blame voters.
"Legislators respond to what they hear," says Scott Hochberg, a Democrat and state representative from Houston.
Hochberg says parents and community organizations that are aghast at the cuts' impact haven't put nearly enough pressure on legislators
"I think they need to put their votes where their mouths are," he says.
A HOLD ON THE RAINY DAY FUND
Texas, meanwhile, is sitting on at least $5 billion in its rainy day fund. It's mostly gas and oil revenues. Hochberg says lawmakers refuse to draw from the fund to blunt the education cuts because the governor told them not to.
"The governor drew a very, very sharp line in the sand [saying] that the rainy day fund, which was specifically designed for periods of economic slowdown, would not be touched," he says.
NPR repeatedly called Gov. Rick Perry and numerous Republican legislators asking them to comment for this story; they refused.
The president of the anti-tax lobbying group Empower Texans, however, did not. For too long, Michael Sullivan says, the state has thrown tons of money at education.
"We've assumed that, well, more money equals better education. Let's just spend more money," he says. "How much more money do we need to spend? ... More, more, more, more. We have doubled real per pupil spending in the past 10 years."
And yet, Sullivan says, Texas has nothing to show for it. Schools are still graduating students unprepared for college or work; that's why school districts have no credibility when they complain about funding, he says.
THE IMPACT ON LOW-INCOME STUDENTS
Sandy Kress, an attorney in Austin with close ties to both political parties, doesn't go that far, but he too faults school districts for looking at this as a crisis rather than an opportunity to show they can be more efficient with the money they get.
The result is that children will be left behind, gaps will grow again and we may be in a place where we are retreating instead of advancing for the first time in 50 years.
"The system is getting defensive about having to make the changes it has to make," Kress says. "It's resisting change and accountability just as people who are paying the taxes are getting tired of paying the taxes. I am definitely worried."
Kress says efficiency and accountability are crucial, but he worries even more that Texas will revert to the bad old days when school districts used tight budgets as an excuse for neglecting low-income and minority students.
"The result is that children will be left behind, gaps will grow again and we may be in a place where we are retreating instead of advancing for the first time in 50 years," Kress says. "And this is disastrous."
Already, the $4.3 billion in school funding cuts seems to have made the disparity between poor and wealthy school districts worse. A poor district now gets $800 less per student from the state than a wealthy district.
More than 300 school districts are now suing. They're hoping the courts will declare the cuts and the school funding formula in Texas unconstitutional.
►Heard on NPR: HAWAII COULD LOSE FEDERAL EDUCATION DOLLARS: THE STATE OF HAWAII IS IN DANGER OF LOSING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN RACE TO THE TOP FUNDS DUE TO ITS "UNSATISFACTORY" PERFORMANCE.
NPR Morning Edition | http://n.pr/rxYEGQ
Broadcast December 22, 2011 [Transcript 1 min 0 sec]
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
Hawaii's public schools received a windfall last year when the state won a $75 million federal grant. The state was one of 12 winners in a high-profile competition called Race to the Top, the signature education initiative of the Obama administration.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Now, Hawaii could lose that money. The Department of Education is calling Hawaii's performance under the grant unsatisfactory. In a letter to Hawaii's governor, it said the state is now on high-risk status.
WERTHEIMER: This is a first for a winner of the Race to the Top program. In its proposal, Hawaii submitted a detailed plan to improve low-performing schools.
MONTAGNE: It also promised to launch a new teacher evaluation system tied to performance. Feds say the state is behind in implementing many aspects of the plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION, from NPR News.
► Heard on NPR: SUBURBS BRACE FOR KANSAS CITY STUDENTS AS SCHOOL DISTRICT LOSES ACCREDITATION JAN 1
by Sylvia Maria Gross from KCUR | NPR All Things Considered | http://n.pr/rpzcI8
Broadcast December 22, 2011 :: Kansas City, Mo., schools are losing their accreditation on Jan. 1. Missouri law allows students from unaccredited districts to enroll for free in nearby school systems, so the suburban districts outside Kansas City are bracing for an influx of students.
●● 4LAKids followers will remember that KC Superintendent John Covington (Broad Superintendents Academy Class of ’08) skipped town in August to run the Michigan Reform School District http://bit.ly/tkkjQo / http://bit.ly/t0PLPL
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
CALIFORNIA EDUCATORS LOOK TO BETTER ENGLISH LEARNING: By Christina Hoag. Associated Press/Boston Globe | http:/...http://bit.ly/sVgCua
The view from Somewhere Else: L.A. SCHOOLS PLAN A WORRISOME APPROACH + URBAN SCHOOLS, BIG HURDLES: “The Los Ange...http://bit.ly/sKCjvE
CHARTER SCHOOLS GROUP URGES CLOSURE OF TEN CALIFORNIA CAMPUSES: Four in Sacramento area + CCSA Press Release: By...http://bit.ly/tiKgXK
2011 in Review: THE BEST AND WORST IN EDUCATION 2011: by Richard Kahlenberg/The Centuray Foundataion Blo...http://bit.ly/vTLS6T
2011 in Review: KEY OBAMA K-12 PROGRAMS WON OUT IN BUDGET DEAL: By Alyson Klein | EdWeek |http://bit.ly/vx5luo ...http://bit.ly/uy6hqZ
The view from the Chamber of Commerce: GOOD NEWS FOR LA STUDENTS: Gary Toebben President & CEO | Los Angeles Are...http://bit.ly/toFOTf
JUDGE DENIES LA UNIFIED REQUEST TO BLOCK STATE FUNDING CUTS: By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | KPCC |http://bit.ly/s5e...http://bit.ly/rUQVfN
Heard on NPR: SUBURBS BRACE FOR KANSAS CITY STUDENTS AS SCHOOL DISTRICT LOSES ACCREDITATION JAN 1: by Sylvia Mar...http://bit.ly/tJvTLz
Heard on NPR: TEXAS SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH BIG BUDGET CUTS: by Claudio Sanchez, NPR Morning Edition | | This story...http://bit.ly/sJ3Z02
MAGNET SCHOOLS ARE AN IMPORTANT OPTION FOR LAUSD: BY Gary Orfield | Co-Director, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto D...http://bit.ly/tIERyR
OFFICIALS IGNORED WARNINGS OF SHODDY CONSTRUCTION AT HELEN BERNSTEIN HIGH: An investigation by California Watch ...http://bit.ly/uHG8ZB
40th Year May be the Last: FAIRFAX HIGH JOINS LAUSD ALL-DISTRICT MARCHING BAND AT 2012 TOURNAMENT OF ROSES: This...http://bit.ly/sPyNmQ
A FIRST FOR LINKING FOSTER YOUTH + ACADEMICS: New study offers most detailed insights to date: By Kathryn Baron ...http://bit.ly/vOfsyL
AS CLASS SIZE GROWS, MORE CHATIC CLASSROOMS: Richard Lee - News Report | New America Media/World Journal | http...http://bit.ly/tOD3Xg
PLACENTIA SCHOOL DISTRICT ALLOWS NON-CITIZENS TO ADDRESS BOARD + smf’s 2¢: LA Times/LA Now | lat.ms/t8OR2...http://bit.ly/utAcnP
Rush Limbaugh: “MICHELLE OBAMA'S SCHOOL LUNCH MENU FORCES KIDS TO FIND BACK-ALLEY MEALS”: “Would you like some v...http://bit.ly/uKbuMN
ARE BAD SCHOOLS IMMORTAL?: Fordham study shows the scarcity of turnarounds and shutdowns in both charter and dis...http://bit.ly/uj4KBD
ACTIVISTS CELEBRATE CLOSING OF POLLUTING PLANT NEAR LA SCHOOL: 8yr lawsuit demonstrates disconnect between schools+city lat.ms/sgwwz9
L.A. UNIFIED’S FOOD FOR NAUGHT: The school district's recent rollout of healthier meals brought both distaste an...http://bit.ly/tpWt0q
THE VALUE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD + ADULT EDUCATION: WHAT CAN THE DISTRICT AFFORD?: …or perhaps (4LAKids re-poses the...http://bit.ly/vUx2Sh
LAUSD BOARD OKS AGREEMENT GIVING ALL SCHOOLS FREEDOM OF CHARTERS – BUT WITH ACCOUNTABILITY: L.A. Daily News | h...http://bit.ly/vIqmYI
The Billiona®e Boys Club: NY REGENTS AGREE TO GIVE STUDENT DATA TO LIMITED CORPORATION RUN BY GATES AND OPERATED...http://bit.ly/st1R0V
L.A. SCHOOLS FIGHT $117 MILLION SPENDING CUT IN COURT ACTION: By MATT REYNOLDS | Courthouse News Service | http:...http://bit.ly/rxT0cm
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:
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!.
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