In This Issue:
 |
| • |
Ravitch + Zimmer: THE NEXT SUPERINTENDENT |
|
| • |
“You have nothing to worry about”: TEACHER JAIL + THE SSIT + smf’s 2¢(x2) |
|
| • |
STATE SUPERINTENDENT TO FORM TASK FORCE FOR NEW ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN |
|
| • |
Rhymes with Bingo, Gringo!: THE SHOES CONTINUE TO DROP IN THE ¡VOTERIA! STORY + 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:
|
|
|
|
Today marks the 25th anniversary of IDEA, the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act – the federally mandated
program that requires schools to serve the educational needs exceptional
students.
IDEA promises that the feds will finance 40% of the excess cost of
providing special education and related services for students with
disabilities and those with gifts and talents – and mandates that all
public schools educate all children.
The promise of funding has never been kept.
IDEA is currently funded at about 16% and the underfunded mandate is
questionably and unevenly followed; that requirement for eligibility
being a bureaucratic and administrival minefield.
IDEA ensures students with disabilities have access to a free and
appropriate public education (FAPE), just like all other children.
Schools are required to provide special education in the least
restrictive environment. Schools must teach students with disabilities
in general education classroom whenever possible.
Under IDEA, parents have a say in the educational decisions the school
makes about their child. At every point of the process, the law gives
parents specific rights and protections called procedural safeguards.
Every child is special. The Individual Education Plan and those Parent’s
Rights shouldn’t be a contested goal for special ed students; that plan
and those rights should be a right of every child and their parent.
But the plan isn’t funded and God bless the child who has his own.
::
ALL LIVES MATTER. Going to a movie or changing lanes without signaling
or being a military recruiter shouldn’t carry a death sentence.
::
IT SEEMS LIKE THE SEVEN MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION must’ve have
had something else better to do in the last month then begin the process
of hiring the next superintendent.
There were, we are told, scheduling conflicts that needed to be accommodated.
“Scheduling conflicts” got on the way of every Man-Jack/Woman-Jill of
them in addressing the one issue facing them for the month of July.
Superintendent Cortines said he would like to leave by December.
The Council of Great City Schools said the search+hiring process should take about eight months.
They had the opportunity to get started July 1. Did no one do the math?
Instead they took the month of July off and reluctantly agreed to start July 30.
“So you can get on with your search, baby,
and I can get on with mine.
And maybe someday we will find,
that it wasn't really wasted time.”
¡Onward/Adelante! – smf
Ravitch + Zimmer: THE NEXT SUPERINTENDENT
►Ravitch: THE SURVIVAL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IS AT RISK. HERE'S WHAT LAUSD NEEDS TO DO.
Op-Ed Commentary by Diane Ravitch | L.A. Times | http://lat.ms/1OFog2r
July 23, 2015, 4:23 AM :: The Los Angeles Unified School District has
at most a year to replace Ramon C. Cortines as superintendent. This is a
crucial time for the district, which has weathered many controversies
in the last decade. It is also a crucial time for American public
education, which has been under assault for 30 years.
What should the next superintendent bring to the job? Start with the
vision and skills to revive public confidence in Los Angeles' public
schools. The ideal superintendent would have the courage, and the
support of the board, to resist those who seek to undermine and
privatize public schools.
I write as a historian who has studied American education for almost 50
years. There has never before been a time such as now, when the very
survival of public education is at risk. A powerful coalition of
billionaires, libertarians and religious zealots has converged to
challenge the legitimacy of public education in Los Angeles and across
the nation.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger was California's governor, he appointed a
majority of charter school advocates to the state school board, even
though at the time only 5% of the state's children attended these
privately managed schools. The Legislature and the state board strongly
supported the creation of more charter schools, and the California
Charter Schools Assn. became a major player in Sacramento, pushing
pro-charter policies.
During the last school year, of LAUSD's nearly 644,000 students, 138,672
attended 264 charter schools, more than any other city in the nation.
Some charters are good schools, but what is the value of having two
publicly funded school systems? In general, charter schools operate with
minimal oversight, receiving public funds but not necessarily acting
like public schools.
Even in California, where charters by law are supposed to accept all
comers, many find loopholes that allow them to shape their student
bodies in a way true public schools cannot. They boast about their good
test scores, but it is easier to get high scores when you're not
necessarily educating all comers.
Charter schools have plenty of influential cheerleaders, including U.S.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan and businessmen/philanthropists Eli
Broad and Bill Gates, and a host of high-profile conservative governors
(and presidential candidates) such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin, John
Kasich of Ohio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
There needs to be a countervailing force in Los Angeles that bolsters
the core American tradition of public education: schools that are
controlled not by private, unaccountable boards but by the public,
through elections. LAUSD needs a superintendent who will scrutinize
charter schools for their use of public funds and subject them to
regular public audits. It needs a superintendent willing to fight to
impose a moratorium on new charters to stop the flow of funds and
students from public schools.
The next superintendent must double down on LAUSD's classroom deficits.
First, he or she should go to the mat for the funding to reduce class
sizes, which is especially important for children who are struggling
with their studies. The next superintendent must ensure that every
school has a full and rich curriculum: history, geography, civics, the
arts, science, foreign languages and physical education, as well as
reading and math. Los Angeles has one of the most vibrant arts
communities in the world, yet many of its public schools have lost their
arts teachers. This is shameful.
The new superintendent must also work to reduce the importance of
federally driven standardized testing. California administers new Common
Core tests although it is not yet using the results to rate students
and teachers. Several other states have rejected the new exams because
they test students on material they were never taught and set the
passing standard at an unrealistic level, sometimes two grade levels
above where the children are.
But all children — especially poor children and English learners —
aren't going to reach a standard that is arbitrarily rigorous. Nor does
it encourage or motivate students to label them as failures beginning in
third grade. After 13 years of No Child Left Behind, we've learned that
more testing doesn't improve educational outcomes. The new LAUSD
superintendent should advocate for minimal state standardized testing,
for reasonable passing standards and for teacher-made tests instead.
Finally, the next LAUSD superintendent must create an atmosphere of
respect for the district's teachers, who all too often are expected to
work without adequate resources or support. Teachers should be treated
as professionals, not harassed, bullied or threatened. To be sure, bad
teachers should not be protected; they should be removed, with due
process.
Contrary to the popular myth that traditional public schools are
failing, students in affluent districts nationally do very well indeed.
What works is schools that are well resourced, have strong family
support and hold their teachers in high esteem. That is what Los Angeles
should be trying to replicate in all of its schools, making sure the
neediest students get the human and financial resources to succeed.
We cannot afford to write off the guarantee of a good public education
for all. Countries that do the best job at educating their citizens —
Finland, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Canada — do it with strong and
equitable public school systems, not charter schools or private school
vouchers. LAUSD needs a leader who believes in restoring and
strengthening public education, which society counts on to develop
citizens with the talent, skills and knowledge to sustain our democracy.
●Diane Ravitch is the author of, most recently, "Reign of Error: The
Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public
Schools."
▲ DIFFERENT VIEWS OF LAUSD NEEDS | letters to the Editor 7/25
Re “To lead LAUSD,” Opinion, July 23
Thanks to Stanford education historian Diane Ravitch for the
unobstructed view of what Los Angeles Unified School District should be
looking for in its next superintendent.
Ravitch believes the new superintendent should place a greater emphasis
on public schools and should be suspicious of the claims for charter
schools, which, according to her, “operate with minimal oversight,
receiving public funds but not necessarily acting like public schools.”
Ravitch maintains that countries who do the best job of educating its
citizens — she names several — do it with strong and effective public
schools, “not charter schools or private school vouchers.”
When we the citizens hear the claims and counter-claims of those
supporting alternate school systems like charter schools, we should at
least be aware of the possibilities that in some cases we are sadly
watching resegregation at work, and charter schools are not always as
inclusive as they might seem.
RALPH MITCHELL
Monterey Park
::
Ravitch’s view on what the next superintendent should bring to L.A.
Unified is too rooted in the past to be meaningful. The standardized
testing to which she objects was designed to determine whether students
were acquiring the basic skills for even modest jobs. The tests have
demonstrated that the type of leadership for which she yearns have
failed to deliver at this most basic level.
The leadership we need will not come from looking at the last 50 years,
as Ravitch has done, but by trying to look forward 50 years. If that
vision leads us to charter schools and higher standards, then we need to
accept that and stop trying to live in the past.
In L.A. Unified, about 20% of the students are attending charters, and
most operate on a lottery system because there are so many parents
opting out of the traditional and into charters. Our leaders on the
district’s Board of Education and in administration need to be open to
these changes and embrace them.
KEVIN MINIHAN
Los Angeles
::
DON’T PUT FREEZE ON CHARTERS
Re “To lead LAUSD,” Opinion, July 23 [Letter from 7/26 LA Times]
As the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education takes on
the challenge of finding a new superintendent, I hope it solicits input
from the wide spectrum of students and families it serves. While I agree
with Stanford education historian Diane Ravitch that our next schools’
chief should go to the mat for small class sizes and arts education, a
moratorium on new charter schools would be detrimental to learning.
The next LAUSD superintendent should embrace multiple learning
environments — from charters to magnets to co-located schools — and hold
all schools accountable for learning and spending outcomes. No matter
where we find innovations that help our neediest students make gains,
the new superintendent should focus on scaling those solutions across
the system.
More than anything, the next superintendent should view students in all schools authorized by LAUSD as his or her students.
LIDA JENNINGS
Los AngelesThe writer is executive director of Teach for America in Los Angeles
▲ZIMMER SETS LAUSD BOARD MEETING TO BEGIN SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH
by Mike Szymanski | LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1MP1CDw
July 22, 2015 1:23 pm :: “The board will meet on July 30 to start just
the technical part of the [search] process,” board president Steve
Zimmer said in an interview with KPCC. (follows)
“I can’t say for sure what the calendar will be until the board meets
and is able to discuss it together,” he said. “But I can, in broad
strokes, outline that there will be a period of listening, there will be
a period of search, there will be a period of winnowing down from that
search.”
Just after Zimmer was elected board president last month, he tried to
schedule a meeting with all the members for some time in August, well
before the first regular meeting of the new school year, on Sept. 1, but
there were scheduling conflicts that needed to be accommodated.
Zimmer has stressed that finding a new superintendent is the most
important task facing the board for the upcoming school year. He
insisted that there was no “shortlist” of candidates for the position.
“There will be the deliberation over the group of finalists, all of whom
I hope will be consensus builders, collaborators, and will have the
proper balance of urgency and periphery to understand that to move
forward it has to be all of us together,” Zimmer said in the radio
interview. “There’s no shortlist.”
He also said that he has not yet set a schedule for when the new superintendent will get chosen.
“I don’t have hard and fast deadlines,” he said. “What’s really
important to me is that we kind of listen to the soul of the process,
that we’re not thrust forward artificially but that we are exacting in
our work, that we are professional and that we understand the urgency at
hand.”
The district has no real blueprint for how to select a new
superintendent. Since 1937, 15 men — and all have been men, by the way —
have served in the position, including three separate terms for
Cortines.
The replacement process has been done with large-scale community input,
as the case with David Brewer, who was hired in 2006. His hiring
culminated an eight-month process that the district said included
“extensive outreach to thousands of parents, staff, and community
leaders to identify the qualities they wanted to see in the next
superintendent.”
A search committee of community and business leaders, elected officials
and faith-based representatives interviewed candidates and winnowed the
list to a group of five candidates that were presented to the Board of
Education, from which Brewer was selected.
On the other hand, as Cortines was stepping down after his second period
as superintendent in 2011, the board eschewed a national search in
favor of elevating a Cortines lieutenant, John Deasy. It was a decision
not universally appreciated.
“Our concern is that the school board did not go through a transparent
process of doing a national search,” Judy Perez, then the president of
Associated Administrators Los Angeles, told the LA Daily News at the
time. “This was done behind closed doors.”
He said he would like to be at “a final stage” by early 2016, adding,
“If we’re able to arrive there sooner, we’ll know it. If it feels that
we need more time and we’re truly listening while moving, we’ll know
it.”
Zimmer has not made public his preference for how the search should be
conducted. But he told KPCC he favors transparency in the process.
“I expect that the type of transparency we’re hoping to have will lend a
certain confidence to finding the right mix of velocity and care,” he
said.
____________
▲5 QUESTIONS WITH LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT STEVE ZIMMER
By Mary Plummer | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1KiB8wL
July 21 2015 :: Steve Zimmer won the backing of his colleagues on July
1 to step in as Los Angeles Unified's new school board president and
his plate is already piled high.
Zimmer, who has held a seat on the school board since 2009 and served as
a teacher and counselor at Marshall High School for 17 years, takes the
helm of the seven-person board in the midst of ongoing troubles with
the district's student data system, a burst of new state education
funding, and questions about expansive, wasteful spending in the
district's food services division.
Those are just a few of the items on a long to-do list for the school
district, which is charged with educating over 540,00 students and is
the country's second largest.
Education reporter Mary Plummer sat down to speak with Zimmer on Friday
at KPCC's studios. The Q&A below has been edited for length and
clarity.
1. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR AHEAD? WHAT DO YOU WANT THE SCHOOL BOARD TO TACKLE?
The most important task that the school board has in the coming school
year is the search for the next superintendent of LAUSD. This search,
both in process and outcome, is in many ways an assessment of the board
and our ability to work together collaboratively, our ability to ensure
that we have genuine public input into the process.
We are at a defining moment in public education. The definitional
battles of the last five or six years about the role of public
education, the role of democratically elected school boards, I think
have largely been played out. I think that there is a collaborative
sense of mission around public schools and particularly around our
school district. We need to capture this moment. We can't transform
outcomes fighting over different agendas. We can only transform outcomes
by coming together and working collectively on behalf of kids. Our
process has to really capture that.
The board will meet on July 30 to start just the technical part of the
[search] process. I can't say for sure what the calendar will be until
the board meets and is able to discuss it together. But I can, in broad
strokes, outline that there will be a period of listening, there will be
a period of search, there will be a period of winnowing down from that
search.
And then there will be the deliberation over the group of finalists. All
of whom I hope will be consensus builders, collaborators, and will have
the proper balance of urgency and periphery to understand that to move
forward it has to be all of us together. There's no shortlist.
I don't have hard and fast deadlines. What's really important to me is
that we kind of listen to the soul of the process, that we're not thrust
forward artificially but that we are exacting in our work, that we are
professional and that we understand the urgency at hand.
We know roughly the first part of 2016 is when we need to be at a final
stage. If we're able to arrive there sooner, we'll know it. If it feels
that we need more time and we're truly listening while moving, we'll
know it. I expect that the type of transparency we're hoping to have
will lend a certain confidence to finding the right mix of velocity and
care.
2. KPCC RECENTLY REPORTED A TEACHER UNION EXECUTIVE'S ESTIMATE THAT
THERE COULD BE UP TO 7,500 STUDENTS WHO RECEIVED INCORRECT TRANSCRIPTS
RECENTLY.
That number has gone way down, I don't have a precise number. There were
problems. There has been some trouble producing transcripts where
students took courses at institutions other than LAUSD institutions.
There have been some cases where certain tabulations were off. We're
trying to understand how that happened and rectify that.
The problems weren't only due to MiSiS [the district's student data
system]. In this instance, it really allowed us to do a deeper dive into
oversight around transcripts and diplomas and critical
end-of-school-career documents that I think is going to help us a lot
moving forward.
That's not to say that any mistake is forgivable. These are kids' lives,
and we're doing everything we can. We really put a team in place this
summer to rectify the situation. I'm confident that by the time school
starts this part of the situation will be resolved to the point that we
will be sure it won't happen again next year.
This is not a full blown catastrophe or crisis. This is a fixable
situation and I'm confident that we've got a team in place and that team
together, I think, has really done some great work to resolve this over
the summer.
Do I wish this never happened? Of course. We're trying to understand
exactly what happened, how much of this was purely system error, how
much might have been for whatever reason human error, and how much of it
is kind of a hybrid of the two.
Superintendent [Ramon] Cortines has assembled the right team to
understand what we need to learn to move forward and make sure this
doesn't happen again.
3. HOW CONFIDENT ARE YOU IN MISIS'S ABILITY TO NAVIGATE THE NEW SCHOOL
YEAR. DO YOU THINK THE ISSUES WE SAW LAST YEAR ARE RESOLVED?
I don't use words like resolved. I use words like progress. I use
phrases like we are really working on this and are attentive to it. I
don't think it's going to perfect. I still think there are going to be
struggles. There is no way we will see what happened last year.
4. WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSE TO THE FOOD SERVICES DIVISION AUDIT RECENTLY
RELEASED BY THE DISTRICT'S INSPECTOR GENERAL THAT CITED MISMANAGEMENT,
ETHICAL VIOLATIONS AND WASTE?
I'm not going to comment publicly on the food audit until I have the
chance to meet with the entire board, other than to say it is something
that is very serious and we're taking [it] very seriously.
What I will say in general is that our oversight and accountability
actually affects the credibility of this district. Whether it is food
services, construction management, instructional technology, our
processes for procurement and our outcomes under that procurement are
not at all separated from instructional outcomes.
It's an important thing to clear the fog around procurement processes
and raise the level of stakeholder understanding of what these processes
are. Only positive things will happen for kids when we do that.
5. WHAT WILL YOUR APPROACH BE AS SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT? DO YOU HAVE PLANS TO RUN THINGS DIFFERENTLY?
I want to make sure that I continue [former school board president
Richard] Vladovic's style of making sure that all voices are heard.
In terms of running things differently, I think that there's always a
desire for kind of the nexus of greater efficiency, but also for the
board to really perform the collaborative oversight role that we're
charged with.
We are going to try and make committee work and the board meetings
focused but also effective in terms of making sure that every minute
that we spend is about children, about our schools and about the
necessary roles that the board has to play to make sure that LAUSD is
able to function.
That is a responsibility that's both awe-inspiring and awesome. I think
each of us really has a sense of the weight of that and every indication
that I've had so far is that there is a definitive collaborative spirit
on this board and we understand that our work on the tasks at hand has
to match the power of the dreams that every family in our school
district has for their children.
“You have nothing to worry about”: TEACHER JAIL + THE SSIT + smf’s 2¢(x2)
▲L.A. DISTRICT CONTINUES TO PERSECUTE ONE OF THE NATION’S BEST TEACHERS + smf’s 2¢
By Jay Mathews | The Washington Post | http://wapo.st/1TOCL75
July 19, 2015 :: Fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith’s worst nightmare
began March 19, during a puzzling meeting in his principal’s office.
Hobart Boulevard Elementary School’s principal indicated something had
happened, but Esquith says that he was told he had nothing to worry
about.
That was wrong. I consider Esquith to be America’s best classroom
teacher. The Los Angeles educator’s annual Shakespeare productions,
real-life economics lessons, advanced readings and imaginative field
trips are phenomenal. Yet he has been removed from his classroom since
April and told by his school district to say nothing about what is going
on.
Fortunately, his attorneys have prepared a detailed account of the
administrative incompetence and wrong-headedness that created this
situation as Los Angeles Unified School District investigators continue
to search for anything they can use against their most-celebrated
teacher.
At that March meeting, according to their account, the principal told
Esquith: “You have nothing to worry about. This is a bump in the road. I
need to counsel you that you need to be careful what you say in front
of students.” Esquith said fine, still not knowing was they were talking
about. He went back to teaching and preparing for “The Winter’s Tale,”
as acted, danced and musically accompanied by his students, mostly from
low-income Hispanic and Korean families.
Three weeks later, Esquith learned that the district had forwarded a
complaint to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, but the
teacher still didn’t have details. Esquith said the principal told him
he had nothing to worry about and that “this is about nothing.”
The next day, Esquith learned the truth: A school staffer had reported
to administrators that Esquith made a joke about nudity that she thought
might offend students and their parents. Esquith had read to his
students a passage from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in which a
character called the king comes “prancing out on all fours, naked.”
Esquith reminded the students that the district did not fund the annual
Shakespeare play, and if he could not raise enough money “we will all
have to play the role of the king in Huckleberry Finn.”
Esquith was told that the district was pressuring him for an apology.
Esquith wrote and signed one: “I am deeply and sincerely sorry that any
comment someone heard, or thought they heard, has anyone uncomfortable.”
Nonetheless, two days later, April 10, the district removed him from
his classroom — giving no reason — and sent him to an office for
disciplinary cases commonly known as the teacher jail. (He was later
allowed to stay home, with pay.)
On May 27, the state credentialing commission rejected the district’s
complaint. That same day, investigators met with Esquith and asked him
bizarre questions, such as did he know any teachers who didn’t like him
and which women he dated in college.
Investigators eventually said they found a man who said Esquith had
abused him when he was 8 or 9, during a time when Esquith was a teenage
counselor at a Jewish summer day camp. The alleged incidents happened 40
years ago. The man told the Los Angeles Times that he reported this to a
Los Angeles school board member and the police in 2006, but nothing
came of it. Esquith has denied wrongdoing.
Los Angeles Times reporter Howard Blume revealed recently that cases
like Esquith’s had previously been left up to principals, but after a
2012 molestation scandal, the district began to suspend and investigate
hundreds of teachers for even small alleged infractions.
Esquith is being treated like a Wall Street cheat. On July 8, the
district’s investigators asked him for all of his tax returns, loan and
bank records since 2000, giving no reason. Many other teachers being
similarly targeted are asking Esquith’s lawyers for help.
This is an investigation gone rogue. If it continues, the Los Angeles
school district — previously devoted to helping its students — is at
risk of not only losing an exceptional teacher, but also its very soul.
●Jay Mathews is an education columnist and blogger for the Washington Post, his employer for 40 years.
_________
●●smf’s 2¢: WaPo columnist Mathews is not some Washington Beltway pundit
opining on LAUSD from three thousand miles away. He knows of
who+what+where+when+why he speaks. Mathews is the journalist who
‘discovered’ Jaime Escalante: JAIME ESCALANTE TURNS STUDENTS INTO
CALCULUS WHIZZES (Dec. 12, 1982) http://wapo.st/1JeGmYX
From Mathews 2010 obit for Escalante: “From 1982 to 1987 I stalked Jaime
Escalante, his students and his colleagues at Garfield High School, a
block from the hamburger-burrito stands, body shops and bars of Atlantic
Boulevard in East Los Angeles. I was the Los Angeles bureau chief for
The Washington Post, allegedly covering the big political, social and
business stories of the Western states, but I found it hard to stay away
from that troubled high school.
“I would show up unannounced, watch Jaime teach calculus, chat with
Principal Henry Gradillas, check in with other Advanced Placement
classes and in the early afternoon call my editor in Washington to say I
was chasing down the latest medfly outbreak story, or whatever seemed
believable at the time.” | http://wapo.st/1DsWS13
Mathews’ 1988 book ESCALANTE: THE BEST TEACHER IN AMERICA traced Jaime
Escalante’s career from his native Bolivia to Garfield High School in
East Lost Angeles, where he taught advanced mathematics courses to
disadvantaged high school students, mostly Latino. Escalante’s story was
the subject of the film STAND AND DELIVER (1988), which starred Edward
James Olmos.
__________
▲TO SPEED UP PROBES, LAUSD HAS DOUBLED INVESTIGATION TEAM: The staff
that investigates allegations against inmates of LA Unified’s “teacher
jail” has doubled since the team started last year, with the aim of
clearing cases faster.
by Mike Szymanski | L.A. School Report | http://bit.ly/1MtYaBe
July 20, 2015 9:28 am :: The Student Safety Investigation Team (SSIT)
now has 15 members, including six full-time investigators, four LA
school police, two forensic specialists and one supervising
investigator. The team is directed by Jose Cantu, who has worked at
LAUSD for more than 30 years, including 14 years as a principal at
Eastman Avenue Elementary School.
“This is unique for a team like this in any school district in the United States,” said district spokeswoman Shannon Haber.
The backgrounds of the staff working on the SSIT reflect expertise in police policies and investigative education.
One of the investigators is formerly from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s
department. Three investigators once worked for the Los Angeles Police
Department.
One of the investigators has had FBI experience and one is from the Department of Social Services.
The SSIT investigates employee misconduct against students while the
subject of the investigation, a teacher or staff member, is moved from
the classroom to “jail.” The team responds to complaints from a variety
of sources, such as students, a fellow teacher or a parent. If an
investigation produces evidence of criminal misconduct, the SSIT will
take it to the proper authorities.
As of July 1, SSIT members were investigating 174 district employees,
most of them teachers. The total includes 65 accused of questionable
sexual abuse or harassment while the rest face accusations on a variety
of other issues, including 55, who have been cited for acts of violence.
The total reflects 151 certificated employees and 23 classified, such as
teacher assistants, library aides, janitors and other support staff.
●●smf’s 2¢: It’s a cheap shot too easy and politically incorrect to pass
up: The acronym starts with SS and the German translation is Schüler
Sicherheitsuntersuchungsteam. If the irony of ‘Schüler’ is lost on you I
apologize …the story is so last year.
I remain unclear as to what exactly the role of the SSIT is.
Are they law enforcement?
Are they private detectives, LAUSD’s own Pinkertons?
Do they report to the district attorney?
The LAUSD general counsel?
The superintendent?
The board of education?
The citizens+taxpayers?
Do they have the power of arrest? Subpoena?
Are they like the LAPD Internal Affairs Group, hidden away in plain sight the Bradbury Building? (Was that a secret?)
Or are they like the TV NCIS, off the base with quirky characters and trendy haircuts?
What does the word “extrajudicial” mean to you?
STATE SUPERINTENDENT TO FORM TASK FORCE FOR NEW ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN
By Sarah Tully | EdSource | http://bit.ly/1JmyWmB
Jul 24, 2015 :: The state’s superintendent announced today the
formation of a new task force to help overhaul California’s
accountability system, along with a new plan to guide public schools.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson unveiled the
Blueprint for Great Schools 2.0, a 20-page document that outlines plans
for everything from early education and English learners to funding and
teacher preparation.
This is the second blueprint for second-term Torlakson, who released his original plan in 2011 shortly after his first election.
The task force comes at a time when the state’s accountability system is changing.
At the time of the last blueprint, students were still taking the
paper-and-pencil California Standards Tests, the basis for the
three-digit Academic Performance Index, or API, assigned to every school
that is now suspended. This past spring, students took for the first
time the Smarter Balanced Assessments, which measures their learning
based on Common Core standards. The results are expected next month.
The task force is expected to come up with a recommendation for a new
accountability system based on multiple measures, including the new
assessments.
Torlakson said he expects to present a plan to the State Board of
Education within the next 12 to 14 months. The new plan will be more
like a dashboard with measures, such as dropout, graduation and absence
rates.
“We’re going away from the era where two test scores were like the
obsession of school districts and principals and teachers, just to
concentrate on their math and language arts test scores,” Torlakson
said. “We want a broader definition of success.”
The blueprint has five focus areas for the next four years: California
standards; teaching and leading excellence; student success; continuous
improvement and accountability systems; and “systems change and supports
for strategic priorities.”
It addresses some of the major changes in education since 2011. At the
time, schools were reeling from the budget cuts tied to the recession,
when about 30,000 teachers were laid off.
This year’s budget, however, contains record money for education, yet
schools are facing an emerging teacher shortage. The blueprint calls for
addressing the impending teacher and principal shortage by figuring out
the causes and building up the “pipeline” into the profession.
The first blueprint alluded to an idea of a funding system to address
students’ needs, which now has turned into the Local Control Funding
Formula. Schools now must develop Local Control and Accountability Plans
to show how they are using money to improve achievement for students.
The blueprint calls for more support and parent involvement as schools
develop their plans.
Torlakson said he also wants to emphasize future standards in science and social studies, as well as career preparation.
The co-chairs of the task force are Eric Heins, president of the
California Teachers Association, and Wes Smith, executive director of
the Association of County School Administrators. The other members have
yet to be named.
• Sarah Tully covers Common Core and early education in the Los Angeles area
Rhymes with Bingo, Gringo!: THE SHOES CONTINUE TO DROP IN THE ¡VOTERIA! STORY + smf’s 2¢
●●smf’s 2¢: Call me old fashioned, but I like to read my news on the
news pages and get other peoples’ opinions on the Op-Ed pages. But the
Times Editorial Board got the outcome they advocated-for (the election
of ‘upstart Ref Rodriguez’) …even if they didn’t like the process. And
there was a lot more process than the ‘gimmicky lottery of sorts’ not to
like!
Here we find – for the first time – that Mr. Rojas was the first runner-up in the ¡Lotteria!
It's not just noteworthy, it’s newsworthy that the first winner
threatened to call the FBI because she didn't believe the contest was
legitimate. Eventually, she turned down the money when told that her
name would be made public.
The questions of the contest’s legitimacy persist.
▲WHATEVER YOU CALL IT, BRIBING VOTERS IS A BAD IDEA
By The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board |http://lat.ms/1OkQFdn
21July2015 :: Perhaps the leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles will
learn a lesson from the May election defeat of school board incumbent
Bennett Kayser, whom they backed, by upstart Ref Rodriguez.
Unfortunately, that lesson may well be that they must back up their next
candidate for office by offering voters a cash prize to entice them to
come to the polls.
That's the problem with the Voteria, a gimmicky lottery of sorts run by
the Southwest Voter Registration Project. The organization, which works
to boost voter turnout, especially among Latino voters, dangled a
$25,000 prize to anyone who voted in the Kayser-Rodriguez election. Late
last week it was announced that the prize went to Ivan Rojas, a
35-year-old security guard.
Rojas was the second person selected for the prize. It's noteworthy that
the first threatened to call the FBI because she didn't believe the
contest was legitimate. Eventually, she turned down the money when told
that her name would be made public.
That's an understandable reaction. The civic act of voting for elected
representatives doesn't readily mix with cash prizes and lotteries. It's
true that too few people vote, especially in local elections, and more
should be done to help potential voters understand what they stand to
win or lose at election time. But bribing them is a bad idea; and as
pure as the contest organizers' motives may have been, there is too much
about the Voteria that is redolent of bribery.
After all, when every voter is automatically entered, every voter has a
shot at winning, and a monetary value can be assigned to that chance.
The Voteria organizers weren't promoting any particular candidate, but
the Southwest Voters Registration Education Project does have a
constituency — Latino voters. The organization is adept at communicating
with those voters, some of whom, presumably, were on the fence about
bothering to cast their ballots but did so after they heard of the
contest. In this election, the Latino candidate defeated his non-Latino
opponent. Voters who were aware of the prize were more likely to vote
for Rodriguez by 2 to 1, according to the Center for the Study of Los
Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
Suppose that next time the organization offering cash payments to lucky
voters is indeed pushing a particular candidate and does its outreach
among voters likely to back that particular candidate. Suppose it's
UTLA, for example. Or the police union, a real estate developer, a
political party or anyone else. Or all of them at the same time.
Cash contests like the Voteria leave too much space for mischief and
require careful examination and perhaps rule-making. That's something
the Legislature should consider during the remainder of its term.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
CHARTER SCHOOLS TAP THE MUNI BOND MARKET: With enrollments rising, they find it easier to borrow to expand
http://bit.ly/1OtgAzx
MAN ON A MISSION: Carl Schafer works to get California to enforce its own arts education law
http://bit.ly/1gW2qMX
LAUSD FOOD SERVICE AUDIT ALLEGATIONS STILL UNDER INTERNAL REVIEW
http://bit.ly/1U0grHz
NCLB/ESEA REWRITE INCLUDES DEBATE OVER SEX ED, FUNDING
http://bit.ly/1gW248U
CA LOTTERY SALES TO HIT $6 BILLION: record contribution set for schools
http://bit.ly/1IvJssB
LA Times OpEd by Diane Ravitch: WHAT LAUSD NEEDS IN ITS NEXT SUPERINTENDENT :: http://fw.to/woCMwBQ
L.A. DISTRICT CONTINUES TO PERSECUTE ONE OF THE NATION’S BEST TEACHERS + smf’s 2¢
http://bit.ly/1ef9h28
5 QUESTIONS WITH LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT STEVE ZIMMER
http://bit.ly/1HHeCd0
THE SHOES CONTINUE TO DROP IN THE ¡VOTERIA! STORY –or– Whatever you call it, bribing voters is a bad idea + smf’s 2¢
http://bit.ly/1CTRBVk
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Thursday July 30, 2015 - 6:00 p.m. :: SPECIAL
MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION - - Including Closed Session Items
*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:
Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Ref.Rodriguez@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@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, county supervisor, state
legislator, 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 at http://registertovote.ca.gov/
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!
|
