In This Issue:
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LACK OF TRANSPARENCY …is there an app for that? |
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Deasy: $1 BILLION PRICE TAG TO RESTORE STAFF, PROGRAMS TO PRE-RECESSION LEVELS |
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JAIME AQUINO SEES DEEPER THINKING BUT FALLING TEST SCORES …AND LEO TOLSTOY FAILS TO FIND SALVATION |
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S CULTURAL INSTITUTES PITCH IN ON ARTS EDUCATION + smf’s 2¢ |
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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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There is a tendency to say too much in times of
tension, change or crisis. An urge to speak out when listening-to the
engine noise or quietly reviewing the emergency instructions in the
seat-back pocket might be the better thing to do. I speak from
experience here. And experience, Vin Scully has said, is the art of
recognizing one’s mistakes when one makes them again.
So it is in LAUSD. There are eight seats on the horseshoe in the board
room, but only seven votes. One guy gets the big bucks for doing the
thinking …and seven make the small bucks and are accountable for voting
whether the thinker’s thinking is any good and/or in alignment with the
will of We the People. It’s terribly unfair and cumbersome and
counterintuitive. It’s big “D” Democracy and Churchill tells us that’s
the worst form of government ever invented except for … (take a beat to
perfect the timing): all the others.
(Churchill also said “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”)
ON JULY SECOND A NEW BOARD OF ED TOOK OFFICE – changing the alignment.
Not in the quantum mechanics of the universe – but certainly at 333
South Beaudry. On July 2 the board couldn’t even agree on a meeting
schedule – they could only agree on a new board president & vice
president and in taking seven weeks off.
On next Tuesday afternoon August 21th at 1PM the seven weeks end and the
not-quite-so-new/tanned-and-rested Board of Ed comes back together
…..and something in between “Kumbaya” being sung in seven-part-harmony
and All Hell Breaking Loose will occur.
Apparently the superintendent will present some sort of a budget proposal and future planning based on his good thinking
• He will explain why thinking other than his is incorrect.
• And he will describe how the bad thinking will lead to directly to Hades via a hand basket of the board’s own weaving.
• Folks in the audience will argue that the superintendent is wrong …and others will proclaim him a visionary.
Both groups are sycophants of course, lickspittle toadies of one lost
cause or another. Either tilters at windmills imagined to be giants …or
windmills amok.
So we can take sides.
…or we can speak out or gather cobblestones for barricades …or for missiles.
We can pour a cerveza and watch …or we can dream a better future for our children at our keyboards in the night.
History will judge; not by test scores or by headlines or vote
counts…but how by well these six-hundred-thousand young people we are
teaching turn out.
Those six hundred thousand and that future are the only reason why any of this matters.
BEFORE HE BECAME A SPOKESPERSON FOR LAUSD Tom Waldman wrote a book, NOT
MUCH LEFT, arguing that liberals have a tendency to eat their young. (We
also have a tendency to deny/qualify our liberalness – claiming to be
“progressives”) There is nothing wrong with being liberal, or
progressive or a reformer – or conservatism or moderation or the odd
libertarian infatuation. But beware of Titles-as-Brands: the Nazis
claimed to be socialists.
The ®eformers are quite in love with the test-till-they-fail status-quo
they have created over the past decade. They have leveraged No Child
Left Behind and the Great Recession to their advantage and balk as
disinvestment in public education – which furthered their cause –
becomes reinvestment-- which cannot.
“Starve the Beast” cannot succeed in theory, philosophy or rhetoric in
times of adequacy. “The floggings must continue”, Captain Bligh said,
“until the morale improves.”
Others say the pendulum is swinging back and the social justice
previously compromised must be redeemed before any rewards can be
claimed. Staying calm and carrying on is not an option. Not in 1939 and
not now.
Superintendent Deasy as ®eformer-in Chief proposes to increase teacher
pay rather than reduce class size –the educators’ unions oppose this.
And the rank and file teachers + administrators. And parents. And the
greater community. Deasy and friends argue that the data do not prove
Class Size Reduction works (Ignoring the experience of the 488 QEIA
schools, which prove CSR does work!|http://www.qeia.org/)
Ultimately educators and parents, no matter how indoctrinated,
disbelieve that data = truth. They believe the anecdote – because the
education of our children is a fundamentally human enterprise, not a
statistical exercise.
BOTH SIDES ARE EQUALLY GUILTY OF SELF-SERVING SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS.
In the warm and fuzzy part of our hearts we embrace Adult Education.
• Many Adult Ed students are General Ed students taking or making-up a class or two at night.
• And how better to improve the future of the children of poverty than
to teach their parents job skills and parenting and communication
skills and language and citizenship?
• Sooner or later Congress will lay out the roadmap to legitimacy for
eleven million undocumented immigrants. They will need English classes
and Citizenship classes – and where better than in our neighborhood
schools in what was formerly called “night school’?
Dr. Deasy doesn’t believe Adult Ed is the core work of the school
district any more than he believes in Early Childhood Ed is or After
School Programs. Governor Brown agrees – and would turn Adult Ed over to
the community colleges – which are themselves teetering on the abyss
separating dysfunction from chaos from insolvency.
Last week the leadership of the UTLA Adult Ed Committee lashed out in a
widely circulated e-mail (I got a copy!) at what appears to be
directions of progress in shoring-up Adult Ed for the 21st century
rather than the dead and buried “good-old-days” as they mistakenly
remember them. [I am not going to distribute that email further –
suffice it to say that it treads the path between slander and libel.)
The UTLA Adult Ed Committee leadership position is tinged with personal
attack, vindictive vitriol and a desire to get even for imagined insults
from the past. It is possible, I believe, for most of us to disagree
without being disagreeable.
Yesterday, the song says, is dead and gone. And tomorrow’s out of sight.
The fraud+abuse dredged+alleged in the e-mail was adjudged otherwise
years ago. We either let it go or we fight the battles of the past in
the future. We either move forward or we reenact the schoolyard scrap ad
infinitum. We either educate today’s children and adults …or we rehash
past labor-management disputes.
There is injustice enough to go around at present; we don’t need to re-animate the asked+answered issues of the 1990’s.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY …is there an app for that?
By smf for 4LAKidsNews
August 15, 2013 :: On Wednesday morning the LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee met.
Part of the discussion was about the committee’s very-real concerns
about the LAUSD Common Core Technology Project – the District’s iPads
for Everyone initiative - and the speed, communication and cooperation
between the BOC and LAUSD in the process. The program is 100% bond
funded.
The BOC Chair, who has been supportive of the initiative, was critical
of the lack of transparency and the District’s failure to keep promises
to the bond committee. Although the program is spearheaded by the
superintendent, the Office of Instruction and the LAUSD Information
Technology folks - the monthly progress update was delivered by the
Chief Facilities Executive – who was unable to address some of the
committee’s concerns.
That same morning:
● DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT AQUINO was the subject of a puff-piece
interview on the CCTP initiative (…but don’t get your expectations too
high!) in LA School Report – an unabashed cheerleader for the ®eform
agenda. | http://bit.ly/1a6RaHw
● GOVERNOR BROWN signed SB 581, toothless legislation requiring
school districts be more forthcoming and accountable to Bond Oversight
Committees | http://bit.ly/1d9buaQ
● SUPERINTENDENT DEASY participated a photo-op with SEIU about
Breakfast in the Classroom: LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT LENDS ‘LUNCHROOM
LADIES’ A HELPING HAND (Photo courtesy SEIU 99) | http://bit.ly/127xJtj
Deasy: $1 BILLION PRICE TAG TO RESTORE STAFF, PROGRAMS TO PRE-RECESSION LEVELS
By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1bGNFpl
8/16/13, 7:59 PM PDT :: The battle is expected to begin in earnest
Tuesday over how Los Angeles Unified should spend hundreds of millions
of dollars in revenue generated by a voter-approved sales-tax hike that
will bring a windfall to the district under the state’s new
education-funding formula.
A trio of school board members led by President Richard Vladovic has
called for hiring more teachers, counselors, librarians and support
workers next year in an effort to shrink class size and restore
staff-to-student ratios to levels last seen before the recession hit in
2007-08.
They asked Superintendent John Deasy to devise a plan on how those jobs
could be restored, as well as strategies for increasing enrollment in
preschool and adult education programs and boosting arts funding.
Deasy, meanwhile, wants to use revenue from Proposition 30 to give
raises to all 60,000 district employees, who haven’t had a pay hike in
five years.
During Tuesday’s board meeting, Deasy will present a breakdown of the
estimated costs of the budget options, which together total more than $1
billion. He also included $350 million needed to close an expected
structural deficit in 2014-15.
According to his projections, it would cost roughly $400 million
annually to reach the board’s staffing goals for administrators,
teachers, librarians, janitors, clerical and classified staff, and to
hire a psychiatric social worker for every campus. Board members have
said that classes now average 30 students or more, compared with 19
before the recession.
Boosting enrollment at adult schools would cost $63 million, with $20
million needed to expand preschool programs. The report also estimates
$15 million for arts education.
Summer school programs would get more than $54 million, allowing the
district to offer credit-recovery classes as well as enrichment courses
for students who want to get ahead or expand their learning. This year,
the district allocated just $1 million for summer school and limited
enrollment to students who needed to make up a failed class.
Responding to a separate proposal to extend the school year by three to
four weeks, Deasy budgeted $15 million per day, for a total of $225
million to $300 million.
Finally, Deasy’s goal of giving across-the-board raises of 1 to 6
percent would cost $40 million to $240 million, according to the plan.
The revenue will be coming to the district under the so-called Local
Control Funding Formula, which gives districts more money to educate
poor students, English-learners and foster youth.
Tuesday’s meeting also includes a proposal for allocating $113 million
over the next two years to implement the Common Core standards, the new
curriculum taking effect in 2014. The state is allocating about $200 per
student, which districts can spend on staffing, equipment or training
materials.
United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 32,000 LAUSD
teachers, posted an online survey on its website late last week, asking
members to weigh in on the district’s progress in preparing them for the
Common Core. It plans to present the results of the poll during
Tuesday’s meeting, which starts at 1 p.m.
JAIME AQUINO SEES DEEPER THINKING BUT FALLING TEST
SCORES …AND LEO TOLSTOY FAILS TO FIND SALVATION
►AQUINO SEES DEEPER THINKING BUT FALLING SCORES WITH COMMON CORE
LA School Report Brenda Iasevoli – LA School ®eport | http://bit.ly/126sQRo
Aug 14th, 2013 @ 08:14 am › :: Five years ago, as Jaime Aquino was
leaving his post as chief academic officer of Denver public schools, a
reporter asked him his thoughts on how to improve public education. His
response: national standards, coupled with national assessments.
But Aquino told the reporter, “I will never see this in my lifetime.’”
Fast forward to 2013. Aquino is now the deputy superintendent of
instruction for Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district
in the country. Another school has started this week, and it’s
shattering his prediction of years ago.
In LA Unified’s administrative hierarchy, Aquino is responsible for
training 28,000 teachers on how to implement the Common Core Standards,
the new teaching regimen that 45 states and the District of Columbia are
adopting – in LA Unified’s case, with iPads. The standards prescribe
what students in kindergarten through 12th grade are expected to learn
and how they’re going to learn it.
And all across the country, educators and politicians have sounded the
alarm: the new standards are tough, and test scores — previously based
on each state’s individual testing protocols — are sure to plummet.
“I’m not a gambler, “ Aquino says now, “but I am willing to gamble my entire pension that come 2015 our scores will go down.”
Yet Aquino is undaunted. “Test scores will decrease, not because the
students are learning less,” he says, “but because the definition of
proficiency has changed.”
Aquino cites a disparity among state standards that he noticed when
serving as deputy superintendent in Hartford, Connecticut from 1999 to
2001. Students who passed the Connecticut Mastery test were deemed
proficient as a matter of course. Yet had they moved to Springfield,
Massachusetts, a 30-minute drive from Hartford, they would have fallen
behind when tested against Massachusetts’ more rigorous standards. The
expectations were lower, Aquino noted, depending on where students
lived.
“I kept saying that in Hartford, we were lying,” Aquino said. “We were
saying, ‘Yes, you’re proficient, but God forbid you should ever move to
Massachusetts.’”
Now, nearly all U.S. students will be held to the same standards as the
United States begins facing down the persistent poor showings of
American students in international assessments. In language arts, the
Common Core standards emphasize reading informational texts as opposed
to literature. These kinds of readings, the thinking goes, will better
prepare students for college and the workforce, where they are more
likely to encounter texts that dispense information, whether scientific,
historical or technical.
In fact, according to Common Core standards, by the time they reach high
school, students should be reading 70 percent informational texts and
only 30 percent literature. The emphasis is more on supporting answers
by providing evidence from the text, and less on sharing opinions.
As for the math standards, parents may be surprised that their kids have
one or two problems to solve for homework, instead of 30. The
difference, Aquino explains, is that students will have to write an
explanation of how they solved the problems. This way, they demonstrate
understanding of the concepts, instead of going through the motions of
solving a bunch of problems.
Aquino calls the U.S. an “answer-getting culture.” We provide students
with “quick tricks” for finding correct answers, rather than tools for
critical thinking to help them understand the concepts. Aquino points
to an example of how multiple-choice tests force teachers into providing
these quick tricks, simply to increase students’ odds of choosing the
correct answer.
“We say to students, ‘If you’re multiplying two numbers, the product is
always going to be greater than both numbers,’ ” he explains. “That is
always true, except if you’re multiplying a number times a decimal.
Students rely on this trick so much that they don’t even multiply. They
just look for the answers that are greater.”
Aquino thinks we need to teach math as they do in places like Japan and
Hong Kong. He says Hong Kong covers only 40 percent of the topics in the
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an
assessment given to fourth and eighth-grade students in more than 60
countries, including the U.S.
Students in Hong Kong, according to Aquino, perform much better than
their American counterparts, who cover 80 percent of the topics. The
difference is that, in Hong Kong, teachers stress mathematical knowledge
over answers.
“We need to change the way we train teachers in this country,” Aquino
says, and for now, he is attempting to do just that in Los Angeles: He’s
changing the way teachers teach to change the way students learn. In
time, he says, the efforts will boost test scores, too.
____________________________________
►LEO TOLSTOY WRITES AN OPEN LETTER TO JAIME AQUINO (BROAD ACADEMY CLASS OF ‘08)
LA School Report | http://bit.ly/17UQLBW
●●smf: LA Schools ®eport has been going through some changes of late,
tossing their founding editor under the bus and changing their layout.
Now their comments section is channeling the nineteenth century Russian
novelist replying to a puff-piece profile of the visionary and
future-predicting Deputy Superintendent of Instruction for LAUSD
4LAKids doesn’t usually republish comments on online articles
(preferring to occupy the peanut gallery all by myself) …but for the
author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina we a make exception.
Leo Tolstoy on August 14, 2013 at 11:40 am said:
Dear Jaime Aquino—
Relax. You are definitely not a gambler. Your pension is quite safe.
A gambler “takes a chance” when they bet.
There is no chance taking when it is a sure thing. Yes, the Common Core
scores will go down. The game is rigged and you know it. There are no
“what if’s?” because YOU set the bar. Since the outcome is predetermined
just like it was in New York, I want in on that bet too.
I’ll wager the last time you bet was the 1919 World Series.
You said you were lying in Hartford. But not now?
Why is it that EVERY SINGLE ONE of you Broad people (Class of 2008
right?) are on the exact same page with the same unoriginal talking
points. The speaker may be different but what is between the quotation
marks is identical. Is this the sort of “critical thinking” you expect
of our students? How is it possible that Broad Academy produces such
GROUP THINK SOLDIERS in the war on public education?
You say these things as if they were facts based on sound educational research…show it to us.
My favorite passage from this completely uncritical analysis of your
prepared text: “In fact, according to Common Core standards, by the time
they reach high school, students should be reading 70 percent
informational texts and only 30 percent literature. The emphasis is more
on supporting answers by providing evidence from the text, and less on
sharing opinions.”
You can imagine the euphoria that is gonna spread like wildfire in the
classrooms of the country when this edict comes to pass. Students
finally get to SHARE LESS! “Critical thinking” in your mind is searching
a text to get “the answer” that is out there if only the kids would
stop guessing. The utter degradation of literature as such a trivial
component of Common Core speaks volumes to the intellectual heft of
those pushing this reform. The contempt for students “sharing opinions”
is an educational war crime.
I am constantly blown away by the lack of depth and insight by people
who have control of education and always so pleasantly surprised and
grateful when I find administrators and people in power who have true
vision and creative (and yes, true critical) thinking. Reading your list
of platitudes is a depressing experience to see how far Broad trained
deputies have risen with this sort of dull mind.
Oh yes…I really loved the irony of this passage too: “Aquino calls the
U.S. an ‘answer-getting culture.’ We provide students with ‘quick
tricks’ for finding correct answers, rather than tools for critical
thinking to help them understand the concepts.” EGAD! The corporate push
for Common Core is exactly that. The bulldozing of teacher opinion,
strategy and creative pedagogy to plow into this completely UNTESTED and
UNPROVEN money making scheme for the test makers and lesson planners is
the “answer getting culture” pushed to galling heights.
Lastly, as to your championing the standards of Massachusetts—FYI, they
are a state that actually spends money and resources on public
education. They back it up with bucks to provide quality, meaningful
education to their kids instead of packing fifty kids into a class,
cutting the interesting electives and arts programs that spark students’
interests and telling teachers how (and what) they are to now teach.
Although you would never admit it, you really want top-down factories.
Your prescription is so lopsided it reflects a business rather than a
school; you have had to change the definition of what a school (and
education for that matter) is to make your vision (I mean Eli Broad’s
vision) THE vision.
The scariest line of the entire piece is: “’We need to change the way we
train teachers in this country,’ Aquino says, and for now, he is
attempting to do just that in Los Angeles: He’s changing the way
teachers teach to change the way students learn. In time, he says, the
efforts will boost test scores, too.”
Creative, original, thoughtful, dynamic, exciting teaching is meaningful
is the church I attend, and the type of citizen and individual the
student becomes after being in a class—his or her change of thinking,
creativity and ability.
Jaime Aquino, you look at test scores to prove salvation.
Amen, brother.
Amen, Broad.
Yours,
–L.T.
.
P.S. Have fun at your exclusive, invitation-only Orlando holiday with an
All-Star list of Public Education Destroyers in November: http://www.k12academicssummit.com Don’t know if LA taxpayers are picking up this tab or Eli.
In the end, as demonstrated by this LA SCHOOL REPORT puff piece, we all will end up picking up Eli Broad’s tab.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S CULTURAL INSTITUTES PITCH IN ON ARTS EDUCATION + smf’s 2¢
THE L.A. PHIL AND PACIFIC SYMPHONY ARE AMONG THE
CULTURAL GROUPS HELPING SUPPLEMENT BELEAGUERED SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
By Marcia Adair ,L.A. Times | http://lat.ms/19se7lT
PHOTO: Music Education - Fourth- and fifth-grade students from Mt.
Washington Elementary School participate in one of the sessions during
the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 10-week Voices Within in-school
residency program during which students learn to write the music and
lyrics to create original songs, which they premiere in a free
performance at the school. (LA Master Chorale / August 18, 2013)
August 18, 2013 :: The first day of school, one of America's great
communal experiences. Pencils are sharpened, backpacks bought and
outfits laid out, found to be totally lame, OMG, and laid out again. But
what today's kids in Los Angeles public schools will experience on Days
2 through 180 is significantly different from what their parents
enjoyed when it comes to music, art, drama and field trips.
For a variety of reasons, funds available to school boards for education
in California have been devastated over the last 20 years, to levels
some in the industry call the worst in U.S. history. Los Angeles Unified
School District alone has reported a decrease of 50% for its arts
program since 2007-08. To give kids as broad an education as possible
under the circumstances, schools have reached out to area cultural
institutions to help bridge the gap.
Southern California is home to more than 11,000 arts venues, including
many well-respected museums, theaters, orchestras, dance and opera
companies happy to be involved in education projects. The industry
standard for arts organizations is to earmark between 3% and 10% of an
annual budget for programs both on-site and in schools.
PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times
Because of the sheer number of participating organizations and the
complexity with which these activities are administered, it's difficult
to come up with the total spent across all disciplines. But consider
music programs for elementary schoolchildren: Some of Southern
California's big players (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera,
Pacific Symphony, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Music Center) together
account for an investment of more than $13 million each year for
programs that send teaching artists to schools, arrange for kids to hear
the pros in their home venues and work with teachers to develop
cross-curriculum music learning.
"In years past we could supplement [school programs] with inspiration
and be the icing on the cake," said Pamela Blaine, the vice president of
education and community engagement with the Pacific Symphony, who has
been involved with education programs for 25 years.
"These days education programs ... are also critical to our own
survival. We used to choose the content and say this is what's good for
you and do you want to come and hear the concerts. Now it's a two-way
street. We adjusted everything to make sure we support the curriculum
teachers are delivering."
The L.A. Phil is making inroads with its 6-year-old Youth Orchestra
L.A., modeled on Venezuela's musical program El Sistema, which produced
conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
The orchestra's stated mission is that it views education programs as
part of its obligation as a community member. The L.A. Phil has been
doing residencies at schools since 2000. Now 16 schools are involved in
YOLA neighborhood projects and the YOLA orchestra draws from 200 schools
in East Rampart, South L.A. and, soon, East L.A.
CHEAT SHEET: Spring Arts Preview
The Los Angeles Master Chorale has a program that sends teaching artists
all over L.A. County each year to teach 30,000 fifth-graders how to
write and perform songs. In Orange County, the Pacific Symphony works
with 16,000 schoolchildren annually in a program that has an orchestra
member visit a school five times over the year as preparation for a trip
to the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall to hear the whole
orchestra.
At L.A. Opera Stacy Brightman oversees 25 education programs and works
with "literally a couple hundred community partners" in her capacity as
director of community and education programs.
"We want kids to know that it's their opera house," she said. "They make
the best audiences. The story, the songs, the magic and all the crazy
things that happen. Kids laugh louder, they gasp louder. Opera makes
total sense to them."
It is this kind of engagement that music educators hope will help
teachers and school boards see the value in building up their music
programs.
Mark Slavkin is vice president of education at the Music Center, one of
the largest providers of music education in the L.A. area. A good part
of his workday is spent talking to school board trustees, teachers and
other people in charge of making budget decisions for schools.
TIMELINE: Summer's must see concerts
"Ultimately they get it," he said. "They want the kids to be well
rounded. They know the benefits of the arts, so we don't have a lot of
time having that argument with people. It's just been about the nuts and
bolts of finding funding."
Unlike most performance organizations, the Music Center is contracted by
school boards to provide services. Because it is owned and funded by
Los Angeles County, the Music Center works outside the traditional
philanthropic model and takes a long-term approach.
Instead of relying heavily on outside sources, such as individuals or
foundations, to provide the funding and then offering the programs to
schools either free or nearly so, the Music Center prefers to have
school boards invest in their programs to encourage ownership.
Paramount School District in L.A. County, for example, pays $70,000 a
year for a program that uses theater to strengthen reading and literacy
skills.
"That's not the full cost of the program," said Slavkin, "but it's a
significant investment. They take it a lot more seriously than if it
were coming to them for free. Ideally we want school districts to invest
in music teachers. We're not arguing that what we do is better, we're
arguing that it's a start until such time as they can invest more
money."
Charging a fee can put poorer school districts at a disadvantage, but
offering everything for little to no cost can create an inward-looking
circle of co-dependence. As Slavkin described it, "Schools cry poverty
and performing arts organizations take that message to their donors and
say we all know that arts are being cut in schools but your donation
will help 100 kids or 1,000 kids. Our job is to augment, not replace."
The Pacific Symphony's Blaine has a similar outlook, "Arts organizations
have some stature in the community where we should be having
conversations with school boards about how they allocate their money.
It's a very small pie, but it feels like we're moving in the right
direction.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the
country, it seems the pie might be getting a little bigger. The district
announced in mid-July that it is ready to implement a new five-year
Arts Education and Creative Cultural Network Plan, which will increase
community partnerships and aim to provide arts education to every
student.
In a statement to ArtsforLA.org, LAUSD Supt. John Deasy said, "This
innovative arts plan ... does not restrict learning in the arts to only
one carved out block of time every day or every week.
"Students will have the opportunity to express themselves creatively
during their studies of mathematics, the sciences, history & the
social sciences, and language arts — both English & world languages.
The arts plan is an integral part of a carefully crafted District plan
to provide the very best possible education to all of our students in
LAUSD. I see it as their right."
●●smf: Dr. Deasy is never short on saying or believing the right thing.
The question is doing, implementing and funding the right thing. Staffing the right thing the right way.
The article above makes no reference Dr. Deasy’s efforts to fund
arts Ed through the LA Fund – his private non-profit fundraising
foundation. The LA Fund has done a lot of advertising – billboards and
buses - but where is the Fund-ing?
There is no dispute the arts ed is a student right; it is embedded
in the California State Standards in every grade from Pre-K through High
School. Yet graduating seniors sometimes have difficulty getting arts
classes to meet grad requirements.
Dr. Deasy has presided over the evisceration of the LAUSD’s previous
arts education plan – and it was nationally recognized for its
excellence.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
►@DianeRavitch tweets “This article summarizes case
against Common Core” ►COMMON CORE STANDARDS ARE 'CURRICULUM... http://bit.ly/14ZKxTM
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S CULTURAL INSTITUTES PITCH IN ON ARTS EDUCATION + smf’s 2¢: The L.A. Phil and Pacific Sym... http://bit.ly/1aiKfLy
Special Education: CA PRODUCES ONLY HALF THE SPECIAL ED TEACHERS NEEDED + BROWN LINE-ITEM VETOES EQUALIZATION ... http://bit.ly/16wTVR0
HIGH ACHIEVING SCHOOLS STILL ENSNARED BY OPEN ENROLLMENT ACT: By Tom Chorneau, SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Re... http://bit.ly/16wRpdE
Leo Tolstoy writes to LA School ®eport: AN OPEN LETTER TO JAIME AQUINO (Broad Academy Class of ‘08): LA School... http://bit.ly/14oX8wg
KEEP CALM, BE COURAGEOUS AND CARRY ON!: “Dr. Deasy, we would like to advise you that administrators can only r... http://bit.ly/14VrWrW
AB 1266: BE ADVISED - Re: Transgender students’ rights: from the AALA Weekly Update Week of August 19, 2013 |... http://bit.ly/15SQ0YA
Deasy: $1 BILLION PRICE TAG TO RESTORE STAFF, PROGRAMS TO PRE-RECESSION LEVELS: By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles ... http://bit.ly/15SLk52
CHILDREN’S ORAL HEALTH CARE: Not this year. Maybe next year? …but on the cheap!: Dental disease is the leading... http://bit.ly/1cKeuNg
AB 420: GOV. BROWN URGED TO RESTRICT SUSPENSIONS FOR ‘WILLFUL DEFIANCE’: By Stephen Ceasar, LA Times | http://... http://bit.ly/1bDmbRw
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY …is there an app for that?: By smf for 4LAKidsNews August 15, 2013 :: On Wednesday mor... http://bit.ly/1a8u4Al
The Spin/The Spin: SUPERINTENDENT DEASY LENDS ‘LUNCHROOM LADIES’ A HELPING HAND (Photo courtesy SEIU 99) http://bit.ly/127xJtj
BROWN ADMINISTRATION, SCHOOL LEADERS LAUNCH SPECIAL ED OVERHAUL: By Tom ChorneauSI&A Cabinet Report – News & R... http://bit.ly/1bxSXDq
HEAD START LIMITING ENROLLMENT, CUTTING PROGRAMS AS SEQUESTER KICKS IN: By Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today | ... http://bit.ly/15Hdxvl
AQUINO SEES DEEPER THINKING BUT FALLING SCORES WITH COMMON CORE: Brenda Iasevoli – LA School ®eport | http://b... http://bit.ly/1a6RaHw
Save the Date - Sept 5: MICHELLE RHEE INVITES TEACHERS UNION REPS TO NEW TOWN HALLS - http://politi.co/16d8pTn
MATT DAMON: “I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job
security was based on how I performed on some standardized test. I sure
as hell wouldn’t be here. I do know that.” http://bit.ly/15GTFbP
STATE HIGH COURT RULES SCHOOLS MUST PROVIDE INSULIN SHOTS FOR DIABETIC STUDENTS: By Jane Meredith Adams | EdSo... http://bit.ly/16gr0AD
CDE-SBE try to calm anxieties with guidelines on LCFF spending via @CabinetReport http://www.siacabinetreport.com/articles/viewarticle.aspx?article=4903 …
MAINE GETS NCLB WAIVER: Now it's 40 States, D.C. & 8 California
districts saved by the waiver...with the children in 9.8 states left
behind!
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
LAUSD BOARD OF ED MEETING: Tuesday Aug 20 at 1PM
Beeaudry Boardroom Agenda: http://bit.ly/17X6OPN
*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
Monica.Ratliff@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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