In This Issue:
 |
| • |
ANTONIO
VILLARAIGOSA LEAVES HIS MARK ON L.A. SCHOOLS. Really…? The article,
the interview transcript & the unanswered questions. |
|
| • |
WHO IS CHARLOTTE DANIELSON AND WHY DOES SHE DECIDE HOW TEACHERS ARE EVALUATED? |
|
| • |
2 LAUSD OFFICIALS DEMOTED, PRINCIPAL LEAVES OVER HANDLING OF SEX ABUSE COMPLAINTS |
|
| • |
UTLA President’s perspective: NEW FUNDING BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES + smf’s 2¢ |
|
| • |
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
|
| • |
EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
|
| • |
What can YOU do? |
|
Featured Links:
|
|
|
|
Rachel Maddow, all eyebrows, bone structure and
attitude was beyond bemused on Thursday evening. (’Bemused’ is her
stock-in-trade) The CNBC anchor – who covers and uncovers hubris -
loved but was exhausted-by the previous 24 hours plus:
THE HOPELESSLY CONSERVATIVE SUPREME COURT MAJORITY had stuck down (and
struck out on) the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and found it
unconstitutional on the silliest and most gutless of technical
adminsitrivial premises (the formula is outdated) -- and by the
narrowest of margins: 5-4.
[Earlier in the week SCOTUS compromised with itself+justice on
affirmative action - UCLA IDEA: Justices Bury their Heads on Diversity |
http://bit.ly/9k0ADx]
One must remember: In a 5-4 ruling, every vote is a swing vote.
THEN THE TEXAS STATE LEGISLATURE (The late Molly Ivens benighted “Lege”)
– in which Gov. Rick Perry stands like an intellectual colossus –
got themselves outmaneuvered, outflanked and undone by a mere woman
senator who filibustered like Jimmy Stewart for eleven-plus hours
(keeping Rachael and the rest of us up past our bedtimes) …and then a
bunch of Lib-Dem /Baby Blue/Good-Ol’-Girls out good-ol’-boy-ed the Red
blooded/Red State/Real-Deal/Good Ol’ Boy Texas State Senate right there
on live TV. They were coverin’ these shenanigans on th’ BBC!
Boy Howdy …even cheatin’ didn’t work!
AND THEN - THE NEXT MORNING THE SAME SUPREMES who tossed out the Voting
Rights Act tossed out the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and
California’s Prop 8 ban on same sex marriage. On the Thursday before
LGBT Pride weekend.
Mr. Justice Scalia, predictably and quotably fumed about the
invalidation of DOMA: ““That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of
judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the
Executive,” he wrote, adding that the framers of the Constitution
created a judicial branch with limited power in order to “guard their
right to self-rule against the black-robed supremacy that today’s
majority finds so attractive.”
Yet Justice Scalia had not problem a day earlier in the “black-robed
supremacy” of that day’s majority – (with whom he concurred) in
“assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in
Congress and the Executive” in overturning the Voting Rights Act of
1965.
Double standard. Bipartisan. Bipolar. What’s the diff?
ALSO THURSDAY THE US SENATE PASSED THE IMMIGRATION BILL – and House
Speaker Boehner promptly announced the Senate Bill was dead in the
House. Some house member even questioned the lack of a border fence
between the US and Canada.
Rachael asked only that Friday not be so exciting and jam packed a news day. And for the most part she got her wish.
●OH SURE – ON THURSDAY EVENING SOME UNDISCLOSED SOURCE tossed Richard
Vladovic’s campaign for school board president under the bus by
disclosing that the District is secretly investigating allegations of
employee abase against him dating back as far as twelve years. One
wonders whether the leak came from the Bolivian embassy in London, the
Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow –or a corner of the 24th
floor at 333 S. Beaudry. My guess is the third floor at City Hall – but
it’s not a guess I’d back up with any betting money!
•If gambling/risk management is your forte it turns out that LAUSD can’t
get insurance against claims of child molestation by employees anymore
…and that the deductible on the insurance they can get is up at $10
million.
●And the 9th District Court of Appeals vacated their injunction against
same sex marriage in California 24 days earlier than expected. On the
eve of LGBT Pride Weekend.
I’m sure Mr. Justice Scalia is still fuming as the ride vehicle returns
to the station after our exciting adventure.“Welcome to Hades
International Airport, it is OK to use your cell phone – but please
leave your seatbelt fastened until the hand basket arrives at the gate.”
I think the Mayan calendar has finally ended. Time to get a new one at
Staples - show 'em your PTA card for a discount. Don't have a PTA card?
See me.
On Monday we will have a new mayor, city attorney and controller; and 5½
new city council people. On Tuesday the paradigm shifts in the LAUSD
boardroom .Hopefully that shifty pair of dimes is worth more than ten
times my two cents worth.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA LEAVES HIS MARK ON L.A. SCHOOLS.
Really…? The article, the interview transcript & the unanswered
questions.
THE MAYOR VOWED TO TURN THE DISTRICT INTO AN
INCUBATOR OF EDUCATION REFORM. IN HIS TWO TERMS, DURING WHICH HIS
NONPROFIT TOOK OVER MORE THAN A DOZEN CAMPUSES, HE'S HAD MIXED RESULTS.
BY TERESA WATANABE AND HOWARD BLUME, LA TIMES | HTTP://LAT.MS/12CPVTL
June 27, 2013, 7:40 p.m. :: In the middle of Watts, at one of the
worst-performing high schools in Los Angeles Unified, Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa was in his element.
As he sat with Jordan High students late last year, he shared snippets
of his life story, as he's done during scores of school visits during
his eight years as mayor. He was raised without a father, was kicked out
of one school and dropped out of another before graduating from
Roosevelt High with a 1.4 GPA — because his mother and a teacher
believed in him, he told students.
"Do you believe in you?" he asked them. "I believe in you. I believe you can reach for the stars."
No other issue has stoked the mayor's personal passion as much as public
education. Despite lacking any formal authority over the nation's
second-largest school system, Villaraigosa has left a major imprint.
Soon after taking office in 2005, he tried to take control of L.A.
Unified. When that ambitious effort failed, the school board allowed a
nonprofit foundation he created to manage more than a dozen
low-performing schools. He raised millions of dollars and vowed to turn
the schools into incubators of reform.
His nationwide fundraising also helped elect a loyal school board
majority that installed superintendents he favored. Through them, he has
pushed for a brand of reform that includes tying teacher evaluations to
test scores and providing more choices for parents, such as charter
schools.
Along the way, the onetime teachers union organizer has confronted his
former allies by challenging seniority-based layoffs and advocating a
higher bar for tenure. He blasted the United Teachers Los Angeles union
as "the one unwavering roadblock" to improving public education.
As he leaves office, Villaraigosa points to successes: an increase in
the graduation rate to 66%. A doubling in high-performing schools, as
measured by the state's Academic Performance Index, which is based on
standardized test scores. An explosion in publicly financed, independent
charter schools.
A Times analysis found a mixed record at the schools his nonprofit
controls. Overall, the mayor's schools have performed comparably to
district schools with similar demographics. Some of his schools, notably
99th Street Elementary, have seen significant improvements. But others,
such as Gompers Middle School and Roosevelt High, have seen
comparatively modest gains.
Villaraigosa sometimes exaggerates his effect: He has taken credit for
the district's massive school-construction program, although it was
firmly established by the time he took office. Overall, L.A. Unified has
improved slightly faster than the state, but test scores remain below
the state average. And the district's upward trend began before
Villaraigosa became mayor.
MIXED RECORD
L.A. Unified schools controlled by the mayor showed a range of results
in the percentage of students scoring proficient or above in English and
math in 2012.
"The biggest impact Villaraigosa has had is simply changing the
conversation," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute
of Politics at USC. "The fact that there is a debate in Los Angeles
about charters and choice, about teacher support and evaluation, is due
to the mayor's use of the bully pulpit."
Villaraigosa followed in the path of former Mayor Richard Riordan, who
helped elect a school board that replaced a superintendent, launched the
nation's largest school construction program and returned phonics to
classrooms.
Recent academic gains came despite a punishing economic recession.
School board President Monica Garcia, a close ally, praised the mayor
for "having the guts to do what's really hard … fighting for better in a
very difficult time."
The mayor's combative style, however, has alienated key players,
starting with teachers, said school board member Steve Zimmer, who beat
back a Villaraigosa attempt to unseat him.
"I don't think that he's wrong in insisting that every child has a right
to an excellent teacher every day," Zimmer said. "The difference is
really in the pathway. Not enough care was taken to make sure that
teachers felt supported."
Villaraigosa's odyssey into education began haltingly and only at the
instigation of others. His pledge to take over L.A. Unified in his
second bid for mayor was among a series of one-upmanship moves with
incumbent James Hahn over education.
The state takeover law was challenged by the school board and ruled
unconstitutional by an L.A. County Superior Court judge in 2006.
By that time, however, the mayor's Plan B was already in progress. He
set out to seize de facto authority by helping elect a school board
majority in 2007.
The new board quickly agreed to hand over Locke High to a charter school
operator, Green Dot Public Schools — the first time L.A. Unified had
made such a move. The board also approved scores of start-up petitions
and renewed nearly all charters that came before it, giving the district
201 independently operated charters, the most of any school system.
The mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools took control of 15 of
the district's lowest-performing campuses. Villaraigosa helped raise $72
million for the effort.
Without his commitment, philanthropist Melanie Lundquist said, her
family would not have pledged $50 million over 10 years, resources that
benefit some of the city's neediest students through teacher training,
computers and more.
As part of the effort to recruit strong leaders, for example,
Villaraigosa personally called then-Monrovia principal Traci Gholar, an
administrator his team wanted on board. Gholar said Villaraigosa's
support for schools was "pretty significant" in her decision to take a
job at one of his schools.
But some critics, including former state Sen. Gloria Romero, said
Villaraigosa should have focused more attention on helping all district
schools.
"It became a conversation about his schools versus the rest," she said.
Some partnership initiatives have spread to the district at large, such
as a new school report card, wider testing to identify more minority
students as academically gifted and a parent training program.
Elise Buik, president of United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said the
mayor's leadership deepened the nonprofit's own education involvement.
In the last five years, United Way has donated about
$8 million for after-school programs and training for parents and middle
school principals — one of many community organizations now allied with
the mayor.
They applauded a landmark lawsuit, supported by Villaraigosa, that
allowed district officials to prevent seniority-based layoffs from
disproportionately harming campuses.
Many teachers opposed this attack on their job protections and believe
Villaraigosa also reneged on promises to give them substantial control
at partnership schools. And a "top down" approach districtwide left
parents feeling cut out of major decisions, said Ingrid Villeda, an
elementary teacher and union activist.
Santee teacher Jose Lara said the partnership has supplied teachers at
his high school with laptops and protected them from a charter-school
takeover. But otherwise, he said, the experience has been one of "broken
promises" and "photo ops."
In an interview, the mayor extolled teachers but offered no apologies
for actions that angered many of them. "Change comes when you're willing
to mix it up and push hard," he said. "I don't ask for forgiveness in
standing up for these kids."
By most indications, incoming Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to tread an
involved but less confrontational path, which worries Villaraigosa
allies. They view the local reform mission as a battle against opposing
interests that needs to be won.
Villaraigosa said he intends to remain involved in influencing school
board elections. That effort stumbled this year when a backlash against
donations by wealthy out-of-towners, including New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, contributed to the defeat of two of the three candidates
Villaraigosa endorsed.
The mayor also said he will continue to raise money for the partnership
and push for policies that could transform student lives.
"Every time I go to these schools," he said, "I look in their eyes and I see me."
Alejandra Suarez, 17, has met the mayor a few times at Jordan High.
Before key exams, she followed his advice — she looked in the mirror and
said: "OK, I believe in myself. I can do it."
And she did. This fall, the daughter of Mexican immigrants will be the first in her family to attend college: UC Berkeley.
●●SEE: MAYOR TONY LEAVES HIS MARK ON L.A. SCHOOLS II*: The exit
interview with notes, fact checking and background …and many more
questions left unanswered than answered. Sometimes an interview
contains a smoking gun. Sometimes enough rope to hang someone.
.Sometimes the gunman with the rope spins a tale so tall we all get
dizzy!
●INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT WITH NOTES: http://ow.ly/muCqI
●INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT ONLY: http://bit.ly/12uSC1A
●NOTES ONLY: http://bit.ly/156LWrr
Also see:
● POLL SHOWS SPLIT IN APPROVAL FOR OUTGOING MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA: Voters
give Villaraigosa a 47% favorable rating, 40% unfavorable. He gets high
marks for public transit and safety and low ones for education and
economic issues. http://lat.ms/12egWS3
● L.A. VOTERS ARE WILLING TO GIVE GARCETTI A CHANCE, POLL FINDS | http://lat.ms/11WrGol
“The poll also showed that despite long standing gripes about traffic,
schools, housing, and unrepaired streets, Los Angeles voters upbeat
about the city's quality of life and optimistic that after four years
with Garcetti as mayor, Los Angeles will be better off than it is
today.”
WHO IS CHARLOTTE DANIELSON AND WHY DOES SHE DECIDE HOW TEACHERS ARE EVALUATED?
By Alan Singer, Social studies educator, Hofstra University in The Huffington Post | http://huff.to/13ghnAk
● Imagine an experienced surgeon in the middle of a delicate six-hour
procedure where the surgeon responds to a series of unexpected
emergencies being evaluated by a computer based on data gathered from a
fifteen-minute snapshot visit by a general practitioner who has never
performed an operation.
● Imagine evaluating a baseball player who goes three for four with a
couple of home runs and five or six runs batted in based on the one time
during the game when he struck out badly.
● Imagine a driver with a clean record for thirty years who has his or
her license suspended because a car they owned was photographed going
through a red light, when perhaps there was an emergency, perhaps he or
she was not even driving the car, or perhaps there was a mechanical
glitch with the light, camera, or computer.
● Now imagine a teacher who adjusts instruction because of important
questions introduced by students who is told the lesson is
unsatisfactory because it did not follow the prescribed scripted lesson
plan and because during the fifteen minutes the observer was in the room
they failed to see what they were looking for but what might have
actually happened before they arrived or after they left.
Posted: 6/10/2013 3:03 pm :: A New York Times editorial [Better Teachers for New York City | http://nyti.ms/1aWSyLA]
endorsed the state imposed teacher evaluation system for New York City
as "an important and necessary step toward carrying out the rigorous new
Common Core education reforms." The system is based on the Danielson
Framework for Teaching developed by Charlotte Danielson and marketed by
the Danielson Group of Princeton, New Jersey.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city's teachers union, and Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, also announced that they are generally pleased with
the plan. According to the Mayor, "Good teachers will become better ones
and ineffective teachers can be removed from the classroom." He
applauded State Commissioner John King for "putting our students first
and creating a system that will allow our schools to continue
improving."
Unfortunately, nobody, not the Times, the New York State Education
Department, the New York City Department of Education, nor the teachers'
union have demonstrated any positive correlation between teacher
assessments based on the Danielson rubrics, good teaching, and the
implementation of new higher academic standards for students under
Common Core.
A case demonstrating the relationship could have been made, if it
actually exists. A format based on the Danielson rubrics is already
being used to evaluate teachers in at least thirty-three struggling
schools in New York City and by one of the supervising networks.
Kentucky has been using an adapted version of Danielson's Framework for
Teaching to evaluate teachers since 2011 and according to the New Jersey
Department of Education, sixty percent of nearly 500 school districts
in the state are using teacher evaluation models developed by the
Danielson Group. The South Orange/Maplewood and Cherry Hill, New Jersey
schools have used the Danielson model for several years.
According to the Times editorial, the "new evaluation system could make
it easier to fire markedly poor performers" and help "the great majority
of teachers become better at their jobs." But as far as I can tell, the
new evaluation system is mostly a weapon to harass teachers and force
them to follow dubious scripted lessons.
Ironically, in a pretty comprehensive search on the Internet, I have had
difficulty discovering who Charlotte Danielson really is and what her
qualifications are for developing a teacher evaluation system. According
to the website of the Danielson Group, "the Group consists of
consultants of the highest caliber, talent, and experience in
educational practice, leadership, and research." It provides "a wide
array of professional development and consulting services to clients
across the United States and abroad" and is "the only organization
approved by Charlotte Danielson to provide training and consultation
around the Framework for Teaching."
The group's services come at a cost, which is not a surprise, although
you have to apply for their services to get an actual price quote.
Individuals who participated in a three-day workshop at the King of
Prussia campus of Arcadia University in Pennsylvania paid $599 each. A
companion four-week online class cost $1,809 per person. According to a
comparison chart prepared by the Alaska Department of Education, the
"Danielson Group uses 'bundled' pricing that is inclusive of the
consultant's daily rate, hotel and airfare. The current fee structure is
$4,000 per consultant/per day when three or more consecutive days of
training are scheduled. One and two-day rates are $4,500/per
consultant/per day. We will also schedule keynote presentations for
large groups when feasible. A keynote presentations is for
informational/overview purposes and does not constitute training in the
Framework for Teaching."
Charlotte Danielson is supposed to be "an internationally-recognized
expert in the area of teacher effectiveness, specializing in the design
of teacher evaluation systems that, while ensuring teacher quality, also
promote professional learning" who "advises State Education Departments
and National Ministries and Departments of Education, both in the
United States and overseas." Her online biography claims that she has
"taught at all levels, from kindergarten through college, and has worked
as an administrator, a curriculum director, and a staff developer" and
to have degrees from Cornell, Oxford and Rutgers, but I can find no
formal academic resume online. Her undergraduate degree seems to have
been in history with a specialization in Chinese history and she studied
philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and educational
administration and supervision at Rutgers. While working as an economist
in Washington, D.C., Danielson obtained her teaching credentials and
began work
in her neighborhood elementary school, but it is not clear in what
capacity or for how long. She developed her ideas for teacher evaluation
while working at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and since 1996
has published a series of books and articles with ASCD (the Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development). I have seen photographs and
video broadcasts online, but I am still not convinced she really exists
as more than a front for the Danielson Group that is selling its
teacher evaluation product.
The United Federation of Teachers and the online news journal Gotham
Schools both asked a person purporting to be Charlotte Danielson to
evaluate the initial Danielson rubrics being used in New York City
schools. In a phone interview reported on in Gotham Schools, Danielson
was supposedly in Chile selling her frameworks to the Chilean
government, "Danielson was hesitant to insert herself into an
union-district battle, but did confirm that she disapproved of the
checklist shown to her." The checklist "was inappropriate because of the
way it was filled out. It indicated that the observer had already begun
evaluating a teacher while in the classroom observation. She said
that's a fundamental no-no."
Bottom line is that 40% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on
student test scores on standardized and local exams and 60% on in-class
observations. In this post I am most concerned with the legitimacy of
the proposed system of observations that are based on snap-shots,
fifteen minute visits to partial lessons, conducted by supervisors
potentially with limited or no classroom experience in the subject being
observed, followed by submission of a multiple-choice rubric that will
be evaluated online by an algorithm that decides whether the lesson was
satisfactory or not.
When I was a new high school teacher in the 1970s, I was observed six
times a year by my department chair, an experienced teacher and
supervisor with expertise in my content area. We met before each lesson
to strengthen the lesson plan and in a post-observation conference to
analyze what had happened and what could have been done better. Based on
the conferences and observations we put together a plan to strengthen
my teaching, changes the supervisor expected to see implemented in
future lessons. The conferences, the lesson, and the plan were then
written into a multi-page observation report that we both signed. These
meetings and observations were especially important in my development as
a teacher and I follow the same format when I observe student teachers
today.
As I became more experienced the number of formal observations
decreased. I still remember a post-observation conference at a different
school and with a different supervisor who had become both a mentor and
a friend. After one lesson he virtually waxed poetic at what he had
seen, but then suggested three alternative scenarios I could have
pursed. Finally I said I appreciated his support and insight, but if I
had done these other things, I would not have been able to do the things
he really liked. He paused, said I was right, and said to just forget
his suggestions.
But under the new system, principals will drop in for a few minutes and
punch in some numbers. Teachers then will be rated, mysteriously or
miraculously, based upon a computer algorithm using twenty-two different
dimensions of teaching. Astounding!
And this assumes principals know what they are doing, have the
independence to actually give teachers a strong rating, and are not out
to get the good teacher who is also a union representative or just a
general pain in the ass like I was.
But that is a big assumption. Teachers in the field report to me that
the New York City Department of Education is already trying to undermine
the possibility of a fair and effective teacher evaluation system. I
cannot use their names or mention their schools because they fear
retaliation. I urge teachers to use Huffington Post to document what is
going on with teacher evaluations in their schools.
Within hours after an arbitrator mandated use of the Danielson teacher
evaluation system, New York City school administrators received a
240-page booklet explaining how to implement the rubrics next fall.
Teachers will receive six hours of professional development so they know
what to expect, not so they know how to be successful. Teachers are
being told that while there is no official lesson plan design, they
better follow the recommended one if they expect to pass the
evaluations.
Administrators are instructed how to race in and out of rooms and punch
codes into an IPad with evaluations actually completed in cyberspace by
an algorithm. Teachers will fail when supervisors do not see things that
took place before or after they entered the room, if lesson plans do
not touch on all twenty-two dimensions, or when teachers adjust their
lessons to take into account student responses.
Teachers expect to be evaluated harshly. In December, 2012 the New York
Daily News reported that the Danielson rubric, while still unofficial,
was being used to rate teachers unsatisfactory.
This year there also appears to be an informal quota system for the
granting of tenure. Teachers recommended for tenure by building
administrators are being denied by central administration, which
suggests how low the opinions of building based administrators are
valued.
As I have written repeatedly in other posts, there are useful
educational goals established by the Common Core standards. But unless
the standards are separated from the high-stakes testing of students and
the evaluation of teachers and schools they will become an albatross
around the neck of education and a legitimate target for outrage from
rightwing state governments, frustrated parents, and furious teachers,
and they will never be achieved.
●●smf: The 2013 edition of The Danielson Rubric [link follows] is 113
terse, verbose jargon –laden/student, teacher-and-parent unfriendly
pages long. SEE CARTOON: http://nyr.kr/13h3Qsi
2 LAUSD OFFICIALS DEMOTED, PRINCIPAL LEAVES OVER HANDLING OF SEX ABUSE COMPLAINTS
By Barbara Jones, LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/1cCeolo
6/29/2013 4:12:49 PM PDT :: Two senior Los Angeles Unified
administrators have been demoted and a principal has left the district
following a two-month investigation into the handling of sex-abuse
allegations against an elementary school teacher in Wilmington,
Superintendent John Deasy said Saturday.
The inquiry focused on claims that parents had told district officials
in 2009 that teacher Robert Pimentel was molesting their daughters at
George De La Torre Elementary School, but that nothing was done. Deasy
said he could not comment on what investigators had learned, but he did
say that personnel changes had been made.
Linda Del Cueto, 53, the local superintendent and highest-ranking
official in the San Fernando Valley, has been reassigned to an
administrative post in the Office of Curriculum and Instruction, Deasy
said. Del Cueto has worked for the district since 1982, and was honored
in 2008 as an Outstanding Superintendent by the Association of
California School Administrators.
Michael Romero, 50, a 25-year employee who was named last July to head
the Adult Education Division, will be assigned to a yet-to-be-determined
position at LAUSD's downtown headquarters, Deasy said.
Del Cueto and Romero, who each earned $171,239 annually under the
previous jobs, will now "be eligible for a principal's salary," Deasy
said.
According to the LAUSD salary table, the top yearly pay for a veteran principal is $134,290.
In addition, Valerie Moses, who had worked the last two years as
principal of Los Angeles Elementary, has "separated from the district,"
said Deasy. He refused to say whether Moses had resigned, retired or
been terminated. Moses, 57, had started her LAUSD in 1980 as a teacher's
aide.
In 2009, Del Cueto was the local district superintendent overseeing De
La Torre. Romero and Moses worked in her office, according to district
records.
Deasy also said that David Kooper, another subject of the inquiry, has
been reinstated as principal of Gulf Avenue Elementary. In 2009, Kooper
was chief of staff to South Bay school board member Richard Vladovic.
Deasy put the four administrators on paid leave and opened the
investigation in April, shortly after a lawsuit was filed by three
alleged victims of Pimentel.
The suit claims parents had complained about the fourth-grade teacher as
far back as 2002, but that district officials had failed to discipline
him or notify authorities. It also alleges a district "cover-up" in the
handling of the Pimentel case.
That claim is based on a confidential memo written by district social
worker Holly Priebe-Diaz, recapping a meeting she had with De La Torre
parents on Oct. 12, 2009. The parents told Priebe-Diaz they'd complained
to Principal Irene Hinojosa that Pimentel had molested their daughters,
but that she'd been "protecting" the teacher, according to the memo.
District officials have said that Priebe-Diaz reported parents'
suspicions to police and county welfare workers. It's unclear what those
agencies did with the information.
According to the suit, Del Cueto, Hinojosa and other administrators
attended a meeting in October 2009, when parents repeated their
complaints against Pimentel. The lawsuit claims district officials
failed to notify authorities or take action against Pimentel, which
allowed him to continue abusing young girls.
In March 2012, parents took their complaints against Pimentel to police,
and he was removed from the classroom. Deasy has said he removed
Hinojosa from her job after reviewing personnel files and determining
that she'd failed to act on complaints against Pimentel in 2002 and
2008.
Pimentel and Hinojosa retired in April 2012, as Deasy was taking steps to fire them.
Pimentel, 57, was arrested in January and has pleaded not guilty to
charges of molesting nine girls in 2011-12 and a female relative from
2002-04. He remains jailed on $14 million bail.
●●smf: The timing of all of this remains suspicious …or perhaps
curiouser and curiouser. Every person named n this story at one time or
another reported to Dr. Vladovic - who is a candidate for President of
the Board of Education. Dr Deasy, as superintendent, reports to the
Board of Education. Admittedly, there is no “good time” for this story –
but why was this story released on a Saturday? Why this Saturday of all
Saturdays?
UTLA President’s perspective: NEW FUNDING BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES + smf’s 2¢
By Warren Fletcher - UTLA President | United Teacher Newspaper | http://bit.ly/15HTDRH
●"The Los Angeles Unified School District needs better schools and more
resources to help all of our students meet or exceed their potential.
That is why I became a teacher so many years ago. That is also why I ran
for the Los Angeles School Board".
—Bennett Kayser
LAUSD School Board Member
●"We should seize the moment—when the money, the will, and the desire come together— to start rebuilding".
—Monica Ratliff
School Board Member-elect
June 21, 2013 :: This month, the California State legislature adopted
the state budget for 2013-14. It is a budget that looks very different
from the budgets we have seen over the past six years.
Since 2008, the annual debates in Sacramento have not been about how to
help children and schools. Since 2008, the political wrangling has been
over how deeply education funding would be cut, and over which
irreplaceable functions and services (such as primary grade instruction,
libraries, academic counseling, middle and high school class sizes,
student mental health, adult and early ed programs, and essentially
everything else) would be “thrown over the side of the boat” in the
interest of balancing the books. They have been dark and painful times.
We’ve seen our colleagues’ careers derailed by RIFs, and we’ve seen
countless children’s educational experiences harmed.
This year, the debate in Sacramento was over how to pump funds into the
schools. With Proposition 30 funds beginning to come in (thanks in no
small part to our hard work last November), the governor, the Assembly,
and the State Senate each came up with a different plan for how to get
those new dollars into California’s classrooms. In the end, the final
budget compromise favored the approach advocated by Governor Brown. His
plan (called the Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF), has two goals.
The first is to apply the new tax dollars quickly, so that all school
districts in the state can get back to their 2007-08 (pre-recession)
funding levels as soon as possible. His second goal is to overhaul how
state funds are distributed among the different school districts across
the state, with the objective of sending more funds to districts that
have large populations of students who live in poverty, who are English
learners, or who are in foster care.
In other words, to districts like LAUSD.
The LCFF acknowledges what all of us already know: Inner-city districts
face challenges that most suburban districts don’t, and schools and
districts with high concentrations of higher needs students need more
resources, not fewer.
Over the next several years, the LCFF will allocate significant extra
dollars to districts where low-income and English learner students make
up more than 55 percent of the population. In LAUSD, those students make
up 86 percent of the current enrollment. The first allocation of those
new dollars arrives this July 1. The people who voted for Prop. 30
naturally expect that the new dollars will go to the classroom. There
are two simple ways to accomplish that.
A first priority for those dollars must be to reduce class size and
restore full staffing to L.A. schools by bringing back the educators who
remain on the RIF rehire list. I’m proud to say that, because of
constant pressure from UTLA, the majority of educators who were RIF’d
between 2010 and 2012 have already been returned to contract status.
But, as of this writing, 549 teachers and health and human services
professionals remain laid off. It would be unconscionable for the
District (or for us) to walk away from those colleagues when new state
monies are arriving in time to save them and their careers. (The
approximate cost to bring back all 549 people would be about $47
million, easily within the range of the new LCFF monies arriving in
LAUSD this coming year.)
A co-equal priority is to put the new dollars into the classroom the
old-fashioned way: by across-the-board salary increases. Since 2008,
teachers and health and human services professionals have made deep
financial sacrifices to keep the District financially afloat.
We have every reason to expect, with the District now moving slowly into
the black, that the financial hits we have taken these last five years
will be acknowledged and that the District leadership will take
affirmative steps to essentially “pay us back” for the pain we have
endured. Even the current superintendent, John Deasy, acknowledged as
much in his recent policy report titled “Next Three Years: Policy and
Investment.” In that report, he offers a “two-pronged proposal for
compensation,” stating: “The first [prong] being across the board
raises. Cost of living adjustments and salary enhancements have not been
offered to our employees since the 2007/08 school year. Our employees
have done so much more work for so much less compensation that it is
paramount that we honor this hard work first and foremost.” Before you
get your hopes up about a “kinder, gentler” John Deasy, we should note
that the second “prong” of his planned salary proposal is (predictably) a
merit pay
scheme. Nonetheless, when Sacramento and Beaudry are both talking about
how to better fund schools and the classroom, and when even
administration is openly talking about pay raises, it clearly is a
moment of
opportunity.
End to the School Board “Reign of Error”?
The next key piece of the puzzle is the School Board. During the Reign
of Error that has characterized Monica Garcia’s tenure as Board
president, talking to the Board of Education about fiscal priorities and
educator pay has been like talking to a wall. But that is clearly
changing.
On June 18, the School Board adopted a resolution co-authored by Board
members Kayser, Vladovic, and Zimmer, titled “Creating Equitable and
Enriching Learning Environments for All LAUSD Students.” That resolution
committed the District to: • A multi-year plan for class-size reduction
and full health and human services staffing.
• A multi-year plan for restoration of the Adult Education and Early Education programs.
• A multi-year plan “to implement competitive wages for District
employees whose pay rates have been cut repeatedly over the past several
years.” The resolution passed on a 5-2 vote.
Two years ago, during the darkest days of RIFs and Public School Choice
giveaways, it would have been difficult to imagine that the L.A. School
Board would have ever passed a motion in which they would take the lead
(much less be on the right side) on issues like class size, sufficient
staffing, and competitive salaries.
But on June 18, they did exactly that.
Our role to play The final piece of the puzzle is, of course, us. I
began this piece with two quotes, one from Bennett Kayser and one from
Monica Ratliff. Ratliff perfectly summarizes the situation in which we
find ourselves. Opportunities are presenting themselves, but
opportunities are, by definition, limited time offers. We owe it to our
schools and our students to capitalize on these opportunities.
Sacramento can’t do it, and the School Board can’t do it. We, the united
teachers and health and human services professionals, through the
united voice of UTLA, are the only people who can—through focus,
discipline, and unity—convert these opportunities to realities.
As always, it’s up to us.
●●smf: Warren Fletcher is right …but the “us”can’t just be UTLA – it
needs to be all of-us: teachers and administrators and other school
staff - and parents and voters and taxpayers and students and hopefully
(though not necessarily) weird Uncle Harvey. “We the People” is the
expression from another time and for this time and for all time.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
POLL SHOWS SPLIT IN APPROVAL FOR MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA:
High marks for public transit+safety/ low on education & economy http://lat.ms/12egWS3
Chicago, NYC + DC: THE REAL IMPACT OF EDUCATION ®EFORM ON THREE URBAN DISTRICTS: from the AALA update of July ... http://bit.ly/19KtFV9
BROWN’S LINE-ITEM-VETOES ELIMINATE EQUALIZATION MONEY FOR SPECIAL ED, ONLINE LEARNING IN HIGHER ED: By Tom Cho... http://bit.ly/19Kk3tL
MORE CHARTERS, INCLUDING THOSE IN CA, OUTPERFORM DISTRICT SCHOOLS IN READING, STUDY SAYS, (NOTE: "More" = 25%) |http://bit.ly/14GiztN
UCLA IDEA: Justices Bury their Heads on Diversity | http://bit.ly/9k0ADx
2 LAUSD OFFICIALS DEMOTED, PRINCIPAL LEAVES OVER HANDLING OF SEX ABUSE COMPLAINTS: By Barbara Jones, LA Daily ... http://bit.ly/19IAI0M
MAYOR TONY LEAVES HIS MARK ON L.A. SCHOOLS II*: The exit interview with notes, fact checking and background …a... http://bit.ly/19HWXnx
ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA LEAVES HIS MARK ON L.A. SCHOOLS: The mayor vowed to turn the district into an incubator o... http://bit.ly/19HWLok
Dr.V disclosure comes 5 days before LAUSD Board President vote: "This is a political hit & run if I ever saw one.” | http://bit.ly/UXHVhZ
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA DONATES $25,000 TO LAUSD AVIATION SCHOOL: By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer, LA Dai... http://bit.ly/15R2O28
LAUSD UNABLE TO GET MOLESTATION COVERAGE IN NEW INSURANCE POLICIES: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily N... http://bit.ly/14CqVCp
The New Yorker/Bert&Ernie/End of DOMA Cover | http://bit.ly/10qHFgJ
On the eve of the board president election, ‘The Daily News has learned…’: LAUSD BOARD MEMBER RICHARD VLADOVIC... http://bit.ly/13aUhv0
LAUSD WEBSITE – AND TICKING CLOCK – ADDRESSES MIRAMONTE VICTIM’S PARENTS: The LAUSD has created a website to d... http://bit.ly/19wgDus
UTLA President’s perspective: NEW FUNDING BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES: By Warren Fletcher - UTLA President | Unit... http://bit.ly/138PhqI
#SCOTUS: PROP 8 APPEAL REJECTED. Lower court ruling of unconstitutionality of CA gay marriage ban upheld.
#SCOTUS: #DOMA Unconstitutional!
OCR Schools: NEXT MASSIVE FEDERAL DATA DRIVE COULD DIG FURTHER INTO DISCIPLINE: The U.S. Department's office f... http://bit.ly/19tkQz7
U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION DUNCAN VEHEMENTLY CHALLENGES CRITICS OF COMMON CORE: Secretary Arne Duncan’s prepa... http://bit.ly/15DAvUQ
DUNCAN INDICATES SUPPORT FOR DISTRICT WAIVER, PRAISES BROWN’S FUNDING REFORM + Video & smf’s 2¢: By Kathryn Ba... http://bit.ly/1abww8S
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
10am Tuesday July 2, 2013 :: THE 2013-14 ANNUAL
MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES
• Administration of the oath of office to Boardmembers Mónica Garcia, Mónica Ratliff and Steve Zimmer
• Election of the Board President
*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!.
|
