In This Issue:
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TASK FORCE ON EDUCATOR EXCELLENCE: Report calls for more teacher training, limiting use of test scores |
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THE CRISIS THAT WE DON’T DISCUSS |
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'DREAMERS' PROGRAM PUTS STRAIN ON L.A. UNIFIED |
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TEACHER CONTRACTS: Stories of Discord and Respect |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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In a story from KNBC News:
“Union leaders and are among those who critize (sic) Deasy for his ‘my
way or no way’ approach to running the LAUSD. Still, he points to policy
changes that have improved the district's math and English scores in
the last year.
“The 51-year old says his only focus is progress by any means.
“’You can't have seven people running LAUSD, and you can't have seven people running different sections of LAUSD,’ Deasy said.
‘If you're not happy with the results, fire me’.” | http://bit.ly/PAj6sC
I wasn’t there when Superintendent Deasy spoke. But I have heard him
make similar statements – and I think I understand the context. I weigh
his words against what his predecessor told me – comparing
superintendents with baseball managers: “You know the day you’re hired
that the day will come when you’ll be fired. That’s how the game is
played.”
Deasy’s philosophy is positively Machiavellian. Or negatively
sociopathic. I aced a college Poli Sci thesis comparing and contrasting
sixteenth century Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli with twentieth
century Chairman Mao Zedong.
And tossed away in the “by any means” quote is the even more telling:
“You can't have seven people running LAUSD, and you can't have seven
people running different sections of LAUSD.”
Here the Political Science bubbles out of the test tube like a
background prop in a bad Sci Fi movie. Deasy describes his nightmare
and mine: The LAUSD Board of Education dividing, slicing+dicing the
District and the Budget and the bond money and the mission of educating
the children of Los Angeles by seven – creating bailiwicks and fiefdoms;
circles of influence. Niccolò and Mao both were about consolidating
power. The evidence is there if you listen for it: The possessive
personal pronoun – “In my District…”, “In my schools….”
It would be wrong to judge this or any supe by the decisions of the
school board he serves …they chose him – he didn’t choose them.
But sometimes a superintendent has to play the part of the adult in the
room and show some leadership, some classroom management..
He may have tried to do this with the so-called Strategic Plan – but
that is a document only he and Board President García (and their staffs,
report-tos and sycophants) have bought into.
Previous Strategic Plans for School Construction and Modernization were
debated, fine-tuned and sold by Superintendent Romer in votes by the
board and oversight committee and the powers-that-be…and ultimately by
the electorate in a series of bond measures.
The community was engaged.
The superintendent’s and board president’s Strategic Plan was posted on the internet.
My estranged wife has a wonderful expression for the sort of ‘so fire
me’ ultimatum Deasy has issued: He has “flaunted the gauntlet”.
THERE IS AN ELECTION COMING UP NEXT MARCH and the composition and
complexion of the board of Education will surely change as the even
numbered board districts come up for a vote.
History tells us school boards prefer to appoint their own superintendent when their membership changes.
• Mayor Tony, who formed and financed the bloc that brought
Superintendent Cortines and (when that didn’t work out) Deasy to power,
is termed out – and his coattails don’t seem to extend into the future.
• Nury Martinez in District 6, a reliable supporter of Deasy, apparently
will not run for re-election – opting to run for city council instead.
• Steve Zimmer in District 4– a public pragmatist who vigorously
disputes the superintendent (but usually votes with him) will surely be
challenged by teachers or ®eformers or Westsiders or Valley folk or
charter supporters …or all of the above.
• And Monica Garcia in District 2, the superintendent’s biggest and
loudest (sorry!) supporter already has four declared opponents.
You can add my name to that list. Last week I filed the paperwork
declaring my candidacy in Board District Two. And that is the least of
the news.
IN CHICAGO the debate between Teacher’s Unions and ®eform, Inc. came to a
head – and turned into a Big “D” Democratic Civil War. The good news is
that the strike has apparently been resolved.
IN WISCONSIN a judge tossed out Governor Walker’s anti-labor legislation – even if the electorate failed to toss out Walker.
ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE in the Middle East – apparently triggered by a
wanna-be low-budget Hollywood producer with a not very well hidden
agenda – the plot a cross between Wag the Dog, Get Shorty and Apocalypse
Now. (We filmmakers are a dangerous lot when we go political – Citizens
United isn’t a right wing PAC – it’s a film production company!)
RE-OVERCROWDING BERENDO MIDDLE SCHOOL: Mónica Garcia is intent on giving
away land at the recently relieved (off Concept Six/longer
overcrowded/academically highly performing) Berendo MS -- throwing in
some dedicated charter school bond funds and a “greening grant” (“If
it’s Green it has to be good!”) to Oscar Romero Charter Middle School
(“If it’s a Charter School it has to be good!”). While Berendo excels,
Romero underperforms and is on an academic watch list. And there is
parent and community and teacher opposition from Berendo. But no good
deed goes unpunished.
Monica: “I met with the Berendo community. We disagreed. We agreed to
disagree. I know what’s best. I have the votes. Full speed ahead!” Or
words to that effect.
IN OTHER NEWS: Friday was Student Recovery Day. Until every day is Student Recovery Day the observation is just an observation.
Inglewood USD went into receivership.
AALA kinda/sorta came to tentative one year agreement on administrator evaluations.
School Discipline Policies were celebrated, criticized, discussed and debated.
National Arts Education Week went largely uncelebrated in LAUSD. How could it be?
And the State Task Force on Educator Excellence released its report
…pretty much disputing what has been previously sold as the conventional
wisdom.
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds…*
Listen. Because young people aren’t the future …they are the present.
¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron patria! • ¡L’Shana Tova 5773! • ¡Onward/Adelante! – smf
* - "For What It's Worth" - Buffalo Springfield, the world's most unsuccessful living legend.
TASK FORCE ON EDUCATOR EXCELLENCE: Report calls for
more teacher training, limiting use of test scores
by Howard Blume, LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/ROjCDI
September 10, 2012 | 10:00 am :: The state needs to focus on
recruiting, educating and retaining teachers if it wants to improve
student academic performance, a state task force has concluded. Recent
budget cuts, however, have pushed the state in the opposite direction,
according to the task force's report, which was released Monday.
The advisory task force, which was brought together by state Supt. of
Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and the state Commission on Teacher
Credentialing, also rejected making any link between students'
standardized test scores and teachers' performance evaluations.
The Task Force on Educator Excellence included researchers, academics,
elected officials, district officials, labor leaders, parents, teachers
and principals.
The 90-page report repeatedly returned to the theme that teachers need
better support and training from the beginning to the end of their
careers. Such a focus would make them more effective and more likely to
remain in a profession in which high turnover wastes money and hinders
student learning, participants concluded.
The report also noted inequalities among school districts:
“Low-salary districts serve disproportionately high numbers of minority
students and more than twice as many new English learners. These
districts also have class sizes that are, on average, about 20% larger
than those in high-salary districts, signaling that they also provide
poorer working conditions. Furthermore, in both high-minority and
high-poverty districts, there are much greater proportions of newly
hired, inexperienced and uncredentialed teachers."
The task force suggested that new laws ensure that schools have “expert
principals who provide support for instruction, time for collaboration
and planning, collaborative leadership, reasonable class sizes, a
trusting collegial environment and involvement in decision-making at the
school.”
In rejecting the use of test scores for teacher evaluations, which is
strongly opposed by many teachers unions, the report said studies show
that such efforts produce results that “are very unreliable and often
inaccurate at the individual teacher level.” But many districts,
including Los Angeles Unified, are pushing to use scores as one measure
to determine teacher effectiveness; the teachers union is challenging
that effort in court.
The task-force chairs were Christopher J. Steinhauser, superintendent of
the Long Beach Unified School District, and Linda Darling-Hammond, a
Stanford University education professor.
Steinhauser’s district has enjoyed relatively good relations with its
teachers union; he has made no effort to link student test scores to
teacher evaluations in Long Beach Unified.
Darling-Hammond is a longtime education researcher and was among the
leading candidates to become U.S. Secretary of Education at the start of
the Obama administration. (The job ultimately went to Arne Duncan.)
THE CRISIS THAT WE DON’T DISCUSS
By Merrill Vargo. Op-Ed in EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/PdPYW8
September 12th, 2012 | The unacknowledged crisis in public education is
not teacher quality but teacher motivation. The engine of any major
change process in any human system is people. We cannot change education
without the enthusiastic and heartfelt participation of teachers,
administrators, and, ultimately, students. As longtime reformer Michael
Fullan puts it in a recent paper, “The key to system-wide success is to
situate the energy of educators and students as the central driving
force. This means aligning the goals of reform and the central
motivation of participants.”
This should be obvious. But one result of the last decade of “education
reform” has been to discourage, demoralize, and disempower teachers. Any
review of any of the various surveys of teachers confirms this. If
still in doubt, do your own data collection: Find a teacher and ask.
Then put yourself in their place. Outsiders to education may think that
including test score data as part of teacher evaluation makes obvious
sense – but coming on top of a decade of focus on scripted curriculum,
high-fidelity implementation of adopted textbooks, high-stakes
accountability, teaching to the test, and massive layoffs, it feels to
teachers like one more blow. It is lucky for us – and for kids – that
teachers are a tough and committed bunch of people. But we need to stop
taking them for granted.
All this means that, as California gets more serious about
implementation of the Common Core, we need to think clearly about a
couple of things. First, Common Core has huge potential to reenergize
teachers and revitalize public education. It is good stuff, because it
is about teaching and learning, and teachers who are exposed to the
Common Core by and large are responding with enthusiasm. But let’s face
it, if we implement the Common Core as No Child Left Behindwith a more
challenging test and fewer resources, teachers will not find this
approach to be motivating.
So, what’s the alternative? If we took on Common Core from the
perspective that this is our chance to reinspire a generation of
teachers, what would we do? First and foremost, we would keep this goal
front and center. Second, we would do a lot of talking with teachers.
Third, we would keep in mind what we know about change management: In
brief, effective change processes engage both hearts and minds and they
also are connected to a concrete plan that does not require people to
try to change everything at once.
This is the challenge: No one, whether kindergarten teacher or corporate
CEO, can manage complexity in multiple dimensions. We need to do what
Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch call “shrinking the change.” But
we need to shrink it to the right thing, which is not testing or
accountability or buying a textbook and teaching it or teacher
evaluation or data. All these are things we need to think about later.
What we need to lead with is a focus on a collective effort – teams of
teachers and administrators working together to explore these new
standards, understand what teachers across the nation are doing and
learning about them, and build new systems whose goal is the continuous
improvement of teaching and learning.
There is no simple sound bite in this approach. But it is the only approach that can work.
•Merrill Vargo is both an experienced academic and a practical expert in
the field of school reform. Before founding Pivot Learning Partners
(then known as the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, or BASRC) in
1995, Dr. Vargo spent nine years teaching English in a variety of
settings, managed her own consulting firm, and served as executive
director of the California Institute for School Improvement, a
Sacramento-based nonprofit that provides staff development and policy
analysis for educators. She served as Director of Regional Programs and
Special Projects for the California Department of Education. She is also
a member of Full Circle Fund.
'DREAMERS' PROGRAM PUTS STRAIN ON L.A. UNIFIED
SCHOOL DISTRICT IS BEING INUNDATED WITH REQUESTS FOR
DOCUMENTS BY THOUSANDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS SEEKING TO APPLY FOR
OBAMA'S 'DEFERRED ACTION' PROGRAM.
by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/UZWF0p
September 16, 2012 :: Myriam Ortiz, who entered the country illegally
with her parents 19 years ago, finally has a chance to get a job, thanks
to recent changes in federal policy.
That prospect sent her to the Los Angeles Unified School District for
the necessary documents — along with thousands of others, creating a
backlog and new challenges for the nation's second-largest school
system.
Ortiz is among an estimated 200,000 current and former students who are
potentially eligible for the "deferred action" program of the Obama
administration. Under it, immigrants 30 and younger can remain in the
country and work legally for a two-year period, with the possibility of
extensions.
"It was like a dream," Ortiz, 29, said, "the greatest news I'd heard in years."
But a bureaucratic nightmare loomed for L.A. Unified, which has endured
deep budget cuts in virtually every department. Even before the first
day that applicants could submit forms to the federal government — Aug.
15 — L.A. Unified officials had accumulated a backlog of at least 2,300
requests for records.
Applicants for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals need to prove
they've lived in this country continuously since June 15, 2007. If they
attended district schools, L.A. Unified will provide a record of
enrollment, along with listed addresses.
High school transcripts are available, too; applicants need to show they
are attending school, received a diploma or obtained a general
education development certificate, or GED.
The Board of Education took action last week to help expedite the
process. The board directed that all current requests be handled within
35 days and future ones within seven days, among other measures.
District officials said the school system has been working through such issues for several months.
The district hopes to provide records for free or at nominal cost. The
federal government charges $465 per application, a sizable fee for many
applicants.
The district expects to spend at least $200,000 in staff costs; in
addition, employees have worked overtime to improve the system for
records requests.
On Friday, officials alerted schools that applicants could seek
documents online or fill out a form at schools that would be processed
expeditiously at the central office.
"We're doing this to relieve individual school sites from having to
complete these when they already have reduced resources," said Lydia
Ramos, a special assistant to L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy. Officials
also understand the sense of urgency amongapplicants, who worry about
their window closing should Obama fail to win reelection in November.
Last year, Bell High School received about 200 requests for transcripts.
This year, it has surpassed that total just since July 1, Principal
Rafael Balderas said.
Balderas asked his clerical staff to provide documents within 72 hours
of a request, but he said the school is two weeks behind because "we are
being inundated."
The estimate of 200,000 possible applicants is based on the number of
students whose parents listed a country other than the United States as
their child's place of birth. Some in that category are here legally,
but it's also possible that some parents falsely claimed U.S.
citizenship to avoid admitting they'd entered the country without
papers.
Dropouts in this group now have an incentive to return to school or pass the GED, officials said.
L.A. Unified's adult education division is getting calls from about a
dozen former students every day seeking information about the GED
program, Executive Director Mike Romero said. Last year, before the
federal policy change, 3,600 students obtained a GED through the adult
division.
For this year, L.A. Unified slashed its adult school offerings by about
half, on top of earlier cuts from past years. About 1,000 slots for GED
preparation classes are being funded.
"We're pretty much filled up" for the current semester, Romero said.
Because of widespread budget cuts, "quite a few school districts have
closed the GED testing centers they offered through adult education.
There are fewer and fewer opportunities."
Students can still take the GED through L.A. Unified without the preparation course.
Bell High senior Saul Barrera, 17, entered the country at age 10 after a
22-day ordeal traveling with his mother from El Salvador.
He remembers his birthplace distantly, as a place with family members
and where he became fascinated watching airplanes. At Bell, he's a
varsity athlete in soccer, track and field, cross country and
volleyball. He's a peer counselor and takes a small business class,
Advanced Placement English and honors government.
He's also mastered the electric guitar licks of Slash from Guns N' Roses.
Bilingual coordinator Luis Tejada said Saul reminds him of another
student, a talented writer who learned to play classical piano by ear.
Unable to work or pay for college, that student returned to Mexico,
Tejada said.
Critics of the deferred action program have said it undermines U.S.
immigration law and that people who enter the country illegally
shouldn't be eligible for jobs that could otherwise go to legal
residents.
Tejada sees it differently.
"So many of these are talented kids who go through our school system and
have the potential to give so much," Tejada said. "They are so
American."
Saul intends to major in science in college and to join the U.S. Air Force.
"I feel like doors are opening up for me," he said, "that I'm getting
the opportunity I deserve, and I'll do something to show I want to
become something in life."
Ortiz, meanwhile, earned a degree in child development from community
college and got married. She's raising her 4-year-old and has
volunteered in schools where she would have liked to work. Now, she
said, she hopes to become a teacher or open a day-care center.
Request forms can be printed or completed online starting Monday at http://transcripts.lausd.net/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals
TEACHER CONTRACTS: Stories of Discord and Respect
Themes in the News by UCLA IDEA/Week of Sept. 10-14, 2012 | http://bit.ly/Q9XBMd
9-14-2012 :: Since Monday, teachers in the nation's third-largest
school district, Chicago Public Schools, have been on strike. More than
26,000 teachers and other school personnel have been out of the
classrooms since contract negotiations broke down over issues that are
familiar to schools across the country (Washington Post, Los Angeles
Times, NPR). The strike takes place in a climate of disputes over the
use of standardized test scores in teacher evaluations, in teacher
hiring and firing policies, in the expansion of charter schools, in
merit pay and more. Although Chicago teachers remain out on Friday,
there are optimistic reports that a settlement is close and hopes that
teachers will be in their classrooms soon.
This strife, affecting schools nationally has been exacerbated by a wave
of reformers who see teachers (through their unions) as responsible for
the slowness of reform and school improvement. Teachers, on the other
hand, see the reformers as supporting schemes that are neither supported
by their own experience nor by research. Further, they believe that the
current reform agenda ignores key deficits found in large urban
districts with high concentrations of low-income students: large class
sizes, too few social workers, inadequate wraparound services for
students in poverty, diminished opportunities to learn music, arts and
foreign languages, and more (The Nation, New York Review of Books). In
Chicago, for example, some schools have more than 40 students in
classrooms as early as kindergarten. Thousands of students are without
libraries, counseling or arts education.
Chicago’s tensions also are found in many California school districts,
but not always to the same degree. In places like Los Angeles Unified,
district officials and union leaders are talking about developing new
systems to evaluate and support teachers. There is not much agreement to
date, but at least they are still talking.
As talks continue, it will be essential for all parties to recognize the
importance of maintaining civil relationships and, from the teachers’
perspectives, resolving longstanding structural problems without
jeopardizing teachers’ working conditions or professional autonomy. When
the California Department of Education released this week a 90-page
report charting a path toward better education and quality teaching,
they included the key recommendation that collaborative relationships
between labor and management are necessary to retain and recruit good
teachers (SI&A Cabinet Report).
GREATNESS BY DESIGN: SUPPORTING OUTSTANDING TEACHING TO SUSTAIN A GOLDEN STATE [http://scr.bi/TUEAD1]
is noteworthy not just for its rhetoric but also for its practice of
more collegial interactions between teachers and management. The report
is the product of a task force on teacher excellence that included both
classroom teachers and district officials and was co-chaired by Stanford
professor Linda Darling-Hammond and Long Beach Unified Superintendent
Chris Steinhauser. A central theme of the report is the importance of
focusing attention on conditions that enable educators to reach their
full potential. "The most successful evaluation systems are those that
rely upon research-based best practices to help teachers and
administrators improve their craft. Collaboration is key to developing
these systems, with all parties focused on the ultimate goal of
improving student achievement," Steinhauser said (CDE).
Research shows trust and respect between teachers, administrators,
parents and students, along with the tools to teach and learn, are
essential for meaningful school improvement.
In New Haven, Conn., education officials and the teacher’s union there
have just agreed on a three-year landmark contract that addresses issues
similar to those that thousands of Chicago teachers are striking
over—including health benefits, use of standardized test scores, and
longer school days. “I think fundamentally what we managed to do here in
New Haven is step back from the politics and focus on our shared
objectives and goals... We agreed that we needed to work hard together
to figure out solutions, and it wasn’t one side imposing on the other,”
said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries (New Haven
Register).
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
BROWN SIGNS BAILOUT FOR INGLEWOOD SCHOOLS, 21 other
bills: California will take over the Inglewood Unified Schoo... http://bit.ly/RdMW2A
MORE THAN YOU WANT TO KNOW @140 CHARACTERS OR LESS: snarky commentary by smf for 4LAKidsNews 15 Sept 2012 :: ... http://bit.ly/OrbRih
HUNDREDS OF LAUSD COUNSELORS MAKE HOME VISITS IN ATTEMPT TO GET TRUANT STUDENTS BACK IN SCHOOL: By Barbara Jones... http://bit.ly/R9eqpQ
WISCONSIN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING LAW STRUCK DOWN BT COUNTY JUDGE: By SCOTT BAUER , Associated Press – from Huffin... http://bit.ly/U4u1vz
ENDGAME IS EYED IN CHICAGO STRIKE + A Timeline: By Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week | http://bit.ly/SMCDch Publi... http://bit.ly/OpAD2q
LOAN FROM CALIFORNIA AVERTS BANKRUPTCY FOR INGLEWOOD UNIFIED: Actually, bankruptcy was never an option. ... http://bit.ly/PjPg9Q
CHICAGO MAYOR, TEACHERS REACH TENTATIVE DEAL: By Mary Wisniewski and Greg McCune, Reuters | http://reut.rs/PrwZp ... http://bit.ly/TUyS45
ADMINISTRATORS’ BARGAINING BULLETIN: Tentative agreement with LAUSD on a one-year MOU on administrator evaluatio... http://bit.ly/TSFXSs
LAUSD Superintendent: "IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE RESULTS, FIRE ME": By Lolita Lopez and John Simerson, NBC Los Angel... http://bit.ly/OnUtuS
OUTSIDERS' PROTEST LACKS HEALTH KNOWLEDGE OF LAUSD SCHOOLS: OpEd in Los Angeles Newspaper Group by Tamar Galatza... http://bit.ly/OnS5nT
Issues @ ♥: ARE TEACHER EVALUATIONS AT HEART OF CHICAGO STRIKE …OR IS IT CHARTER SCHOOLS? …OR IS IT POLITICS?: ... http://bit.ly/QY0uEN
COMMON CORE THRUSTS LIBRARIANS INTO LEADERSHIP ROLE: Educators help teachers acquire inquiry-based skills integr... http://bit.ly/QY0uEK
DUNCAN TIGHT-LIPPED ON CALIFORNIA NCLB WAIVER: By Kathryn Baron, EdSource Today| http://bit.ly/QIbOCy September... http://bit.ly/UStQ61
SBA ISSUES POLICY CAUTION OVER MANDATE BLOCK GRANTS: By Tom Chorneau, SI&A Cabinet Report | http://bit.ly/TX4 ... http://bit.ly/QWTt1t
SB 1540 - BROWN SIGNING OF HANCOCK BILL WILL LEAD TO NEW HISTORY, SOCIAL SCIENCE LESSONS: By Kimberly Beltran | ... http://bit.ly/QQ8CqT
Expand
PARKING PROBLEMS A HAZARD AT NEW PORTER RANCH COMMUNITY SCHOOL: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News | ... http://bit.ly/UNYFsB
Law enforcement: “Classmates not Cellmates”- SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICIES MAKING US LESS SAFE, NOT MORE + Report &... http://bit.ly/TUa7TS
THIS IS NATIONAL ARTS IN EDUCATION WEEK: from California State PTA | http://bit.ly/OGy4ub Join PTA in celebr... http://bit.ly/OgmQLn
3 stories: LAUSD REACHES INTERIM DEAL WITH AALA ON ADMINISTRATOR EVALUATION: LAUSD Strikes a Deal with Administr... http://bit.ly/OgmT9X
nine eleven – eleven years on: THE NAMES by BILLY COLLINS: Billy Collins was P... http://bit.ly/Pabv1Q
Free Webinar: LOCAL SCHOOL WELLNESS POLICIES: announcement from California Action for Healthy Kids http://bit.ly/QMGy26
L.A. CITY OFFICIALS, LAUSD LAUNCH PROGRAM TO KEEP STUDENTS OUT OF COURT: CBS Los Angeles http://cbsloc.al/ObMMYD ... http://bit.ly/QCXKww
TASK FORCE ON EDUCATOR EXCELLENCE: Report calls for more teacher training, limiting use of test scores: - Howard... http://bit.ly/QyMSzN
SB 1016 - THE MANDATE BLOCK GRANT: An invention by the legislature to save the general fund millions presented a... http://bit.ly/QyE3ps
STUBBORN FACTS ABOUT OBAMA EDUCATION POLICIES THAT NO AMOUNT OF CONVENTION SUGARCOATING CAN COVER UP: By Mark Na... http://bit.ly/Ry9oZn
STUDY FINDS LITTLE UNIFORMITY IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: By Kathryn Baron, EdSource Today | http://bi... http://bit.ly/PbaOna
Winners and Losers: Corrections and Higher Education in California - CALIFORNIA SPENDING MORE ON PRISONS THAN CO... http://bit.ly/Rxh51R
CHARTER SCHOOLS CALL PROPOSED L.A. MORATORIUM ILLEGAL: - Howard Blume – LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/RNGR0Q ... http://bit.ly/RDkIh2
ROMNEY’S RADICAL VISION FOR EDUCATION: His voucher plan could transform the way we organize and fund public scho... http://bit.ly/P4BEyV
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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