They make orange jumpsuits for stuff like this …don’t they?

4LAKids: Sunday 26•June•2016 In This Issue:  •  EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS MERGE TO EXPAND PROGRAMS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY  •  FUND SET UP TO RAISE MONEY FOR L.A. UNIFIED MERGES WITH GROUP STARTING TWO CHARTER SCHOOLS  •  UNDER PRESSURE TO PRODUCE BETTER NUMBERS, SCHOOL OFFICIALS IN CALIFORNIA AND NATIONWIDE HAVE OFTEN DONE WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET TO THOSE NUMBERS  •  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:  •  ► Friends4smf :: The GoFundMe campaign  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!  •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc. Sometimes it isn’t about what went wrong at LAUSD last week. Sometimes [hopefully] it's about what went right/turned out well/shows promise. And sometimes it's about what’s been going on, institutionally …or just in the fringes – not below the radar -but certainly in the chaff. This week it’s a homework assignment+research project about two entities: THE L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION. [lafund.org] and LA’s PROMISE [laspromise.org] FIRST: Read that first two articles (following). Consider the sources. . Google the two funds. Wikipedia them. Look up their Form 990’s. Copy your work to Julian Assange & Edward Snowden …though they undoubtedly already know – a secrets go this one isn't very! Add 4LAKids to the search string (…I'm one of my favorite authors on the subject!) As you dig into the sordid tale you will discover this is part of the SONY Pictures e-mail hack by North Korean cyber hackers! LAUSD shenanigans; the international incident! Please do the research. Please do the homework. Please tell me if you don't conclude that: 1. THE L.A. FUND FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION and L.A.’s PROMISE are and always have been pretty much the same entity/cast o’ characters/unusual suspects up to their usual mischief with as little of their own money and as much as the public’s as possible. 2. and that this “merger” is: A. a not-clever-enough-by-half way to “repurpose” tax-exempt donated funds intended to assist LAUSD schools+students TO B. assist charter schools+students …and to perhaps enrich the principals and further their goals, programs and business enterprises. Just sayin’. ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS MERGE TO EXPAND PROGRAMS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY By Michael Janofsky | EdSource | http://bit.ly/28VnDnQ June 23, 2016 :: Two nonprofit educational organizations said Thursday they are merging, with plans to expand their programs that largely operate in the Los Angeles Unified school district to districts countywide. The two groups, LA’s Promise and the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, said the new organization, the LA Promise Fund for Public Schools, will offer their current programs to the 80 other school districts within Los Angeles County, the most populous in California. The aim is to enhance academic and career prospects through enrichment programs for a greater number of students. “Today is day one,” said Veronica Melvin, the CEO of LA’s Promise, who will lead the new organization. “Our approach will be to engage one-on-one with superintendents or board members across the county to let them know how we can help them grow.” Thursday’s announcement is the second in recent months by private organizations embarking on a fundraising drive to help students in and around Los Angeles. It follows the creation of Great Public Schools Now, whose goal is to identify successful programs within L.A. Unified, the second-largest school district in the country, and replicate them through financial grants in high-poverty neighborhoods within the district. The two efforts are unrelated, but taken together, they reflect a willingness of outside organizations to aid public school districts at a time when many of them are pressing to balance a high demand for quality education with budgetary constraints. The L.A. Unified board this week approved a $7.6 billion budget for the coming school year, but district officials have warned of a possible deficit by 2018-2019. The new entity will continue to run three schools in south Los Angeles that have been managed by LA’s Promise since 2006. Those schools are the result of a negotiated arrangement with the district that differentiates them from traditional L.A.Unified schools in how they’re run in an effort to improve academic performance. The schools – two large South L.A. high schools (Manual Arts and West Adams Prep) and one middle school (John Muir) – have greater autonomy over budget, curriculum, instruction, schedule and staffing, but all employees are members of unions. The L.A. Unified board recently denied the group’s application to open two charter schools, a middle school for the coming school year and a high school for the 2017-18 school year, but that decision was overturned on appeal by the Los Angeles County Board of Education. The LA Fund managed a range of in-school programs throughout Los Angeles County, including Girls Build LA, an empowerment program that has reached more than 7,000 girls; The Intern Project, a paid internship program for high school students at companies like SpaceX and Participant Media; #ArtsMatter, an advocacy program that integrates arts and creativity into core curriculum; andGrants HQ, which offers personalized training and support to thousands of educators seeking additional classroom resources. Melvin said the new LA Promise Fund intends to spend the next three months identifying specific goals, strategies for implementing them and fundraising. Each of the merging organizations has an annual budget of $3 million. “Over the past several years, LA’s Promise and the LA Fund have both compiled impressive track records with programs that empower students both inside and outside the classroom,” Megan Chernin, who serves on the boards of both merging organizations, said in a statement. “The new enterprise formed by the combination of these two extraordinary organizations will be in a unique position to seed great programs that can then be developed and rolled out across the county.” Without specifically citing the new organization, L.A. unified Superintendent Michelle King said in a statement, “The District is always open to new strategies for improving our schools, and we look forward to discussions that will help us better serve our students.” FUND SET UP TO RAISE MONEY FOR L.A. UNIFIED MERGES WITH GROUP STARTING TWO CHARTER SCHOOLS by Howard Blume and Zahira Torres | LA Times | http://lat.ms/28WNuLr June 23, 2016 :: Former L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy and Hollywood philanthropist Megan Chernin had ambitious goals in 2011 when they announced the creation of a nonprofit that in five years would raise $200 million for district students. see: EFFORT LAUNCHED TO RAISE $200 MILLION FOR L.A. PUBLIC SCHOOLS - latimes - http://lat.ms/28XEN8u They said the Los Angeles Fund for Education, with fundraising prowess and freedom from bureaucratic constraints, would help revolutionize a district that had long struggled to educate its children. The nonprofit fell far short of that fundraising goal, drawing about $7 million in donations from its inception to 2014, according to the most recent tax documents available. Now, the LA Fund has announced a merger that shifts its mission away from an exclusive focus on the district. The LA Fund has joined forces with LA’s Promise, a nonprofit that manages three district schools, to create LA Promise Fund, a new organization whose goals will include forming charter schools. “We were left no other option” but to open charter schools, said Chernin, who serves on the boards of both groups. “We just want to have a larger impact and we want to be more efficient about our impact.” Chernin said the merger is, in part, a reflection of the groups’ limited ability to work successfully with L.A. Unified, for which she faults the school district. The new nonprofit’s leaders say the decision also will reduce operating costs, allowing it to serve more students across the county who live in poverty. But the new direction offers another sign that philanthropists who were attempting to overhaul the nation’s second-largest school district from within now are looking for other avenues. “We want to create the maximum opportunities for the most disenfranchised youth of Los Angeles and we realized that together we could have a great impact,” said Veronica Melvin, the chief executive of LA’s Promise, who will head the new group. The decision comes as Los Angeles Unified contends with another reform effort, originally spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, that sought to more than double the number of charter schools in the city over eight years, a move that would slash the district’s enrollment and state funding. That proposal evolved into a plan put forward last week by the nonprofit Great Public Schools Now, which says it wants to hand out grant money to expand not just charters but any effective schools in L.A.’s low-income neighborhoods – even potentially expanding good traditional public schools. The LA Promise Fund could be among the organizations that benefit. L.A. Unified officials recently rejected a bid by LA’s Promise to start two charter schools, saying the organization needed to concentrate instead on improving achievement at the schools it already manages for the district. The charters later were approved by the county. “I hope this new effort is about collaboration and not competition,” Board President Steve Zimmer said about the merger. “My door, our door, is always open to collaboration. What we’ve learned is that conflict and competition does not help kids.” Deasy came up with the LA Fund and pursued donors interested in seeing a specific set of reforms at the district. But after he resigned under pressure in October 2014, a political shift in the school board left donors who supported his goals without a powerful ally to pursue their favored reforms, which included making test scores a key factor in teacher evaluations and opening more charter schools. Some blamed Deasy’s departure for the LA Fund’s anemic fundraising. But even while he was in office, the donations didn’t pour in. To raise an amount like $200 million, “you have to be responsive, you have to work very carefully with your donors, you have to listen to your donors,” said Antonia Hernandez, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, who said she applauds Chernin’s efforts and supports the merger. She added that previously “the conditions were not ideal for conveying a sense of confidence to the people giving money that it would be well spent.” The LA Fund helped launch Breakfast in the Classroom, a program to provide food to all students at the start of the school day, which brought in additional federal funding. Previously students had the option of arriving before school to receive a free breakfast. The fund also paid for an advertising campaign that stressed the importance of arts education and sponsored teams of girls at 44 schools that competed to develop solutions to community problems. Another of the nonprofit’s initiatives linked teachers to classroom grant opportunities and students to internships. Leaders of the newly merged organization say the projects will continue and will be open to schools throughout L.A. County. While L.A. Unified students are expected to derive some benefit, the mega-district now is left without an outside foundation devoted to supporting the 550,000 students in district-operated schools. By contrast, the target of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation is to raise an average of $1,000 per student, or about $4 million annually for its more than 4,000 students. The LA Promise Fund, which will have a budget of about $6 million, hopes to create a pipeline of schools, extending from kindergarten through 12th grade. “We wanted and would still love to do that with LAUSD, but it wasn’t on the table for us,” Chernin said. “So we figured we could create charters.” Times staff writer Joy Resmovits contributed to this report. ►LA TIMES EDITOR'S NOTE: The Times’ Education Matters initiative receives funding from a number of foundations, including one or more mentioned in this article. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Baxter Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the California Endowment and the Wasserman Foundation. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content. UNDER PRESSURE TO PRODUCE BETTER NUMBERS, SCHOOL OFFICIALS IN CALIFORNIA AND NATIONWIDE HAVE OFTEN DONE WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET TO THOSE NUMBERS Editorial by The LA Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/28WRk7n 26 June 2016 :: In 2014, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced a spectacular improvement in its graduation rate: Fully 77% of students who had come in as 9th graders four years earlier were now going to graduate as seniors. But there was a bit of a trick behind the number: It included only students who attended what are called “comprehensive” high schools. Those who had been transferred to alternative programs — the students most at risk of dropping out — weren’t counted. If they had been factored in, the rate would have been 67% — still good, but not nearly as flashy a number. Here’s another example of a misleading number: In May of this year, the California Department of Education reported a rise in the statewide graduation rate, to 82%. But one reason for that was the cancellation of the high school exit exam, which used to be required for graduation and which students could pass only if they had attained a modicum of understanding of algebra and English skills. In a time when most middle-class jobs require at least some training beyond 12th grade, raising the number of high school graduates is considered essential. Dropouts are not only more likely to be unemployed, but more likely to be imprisoned. That’s why the newly passed federal education law, optimistically titled the Every Student Succeeds Act, requires states to hold high schools accountable for improving graduation rates. The question, though, is whether schools will bring those numbers up the hard way, by improving the quality of education – or by falling back on shortcuts and gimmicks. Early indications suggest that they’ll do a combination of both. States and school districts, not just locally but across the nation, have already come up with a wide array of ways to make graduation rates look good on paper: -- When large numbers of students across the country failed high school exit exams over the past decade, states made it easier for them to pass. California devised a simpler test; in New Jersey, students who failed were permitted to take a far easier exam that asked them only one question for each subject area. And if they still failed, they could appeal by doing an essay or another project. Last year in Camden, N.J., after nearly half the students flunked the initial exam, almost all of them were able to get their diplomas through one of the other routes. -- Several states, including California, have eliminated their high school exit exams altogether. And California was among at least six states — including Texas and Georgia — to award retroactive diplomas to students who had failed their exit exams in previous years. -- In Chicago, low-performing public school students were counseled to leave school for job-training or graduate-equivalency programs, and then counted as transfers rather than dropouts. When an outcry ensued, the school district lowered its previously inflated graduation rates in 2015. --Texas allows schools to count students as “leavers” rather than dropouts if they say they’re moving elsewhere or doing home-schooling, without checking into whether those assertions are true. -- Perhaps the newest and most widespread method that schools are using to boost graduation rates are online credit-recovery courses such as the ones that L.A. Unified offered this academic year when only about 54% of seniors were on track to graduate. After a hefty dose of online credit-recovery courses and other efforts, the latest but still preliminary figure is now reported to be 74%. These courses can be rigorous and valuable educational tools – but they also sometimes allow students to too quickly and too easily make up the courses they have failed. Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara, is not a fan of measuring a school’s success by its graduation rate for precisely that reason: Doing so encourages schools to lower their standards or to use misleading numbers or to find ways to get failing students out of their schools without having to count them as dropouts. In any case, he says, “a diploma is a blunt instrument” for measuring learning; one study found that low-income students need to show better mastery of the material than merely a pass in order to have a real shot at reaching the middle class. Under pressure to produce better numbers, school officials in California and nationwide have often done whatever it takes to get to those numbers. Like it or not, Rumberger says, higher standards — such as those in the Common Core curriculum standards recently adopted in California and most other states — tend to mean lower graduation rates, and it’s disingenuous for states to say they can raise both at once, and quickly. It’s not that schools, including those at L.A. Unified, haven’t made some authentic progress in graduating more students. The district deserves credit for taking steps to follow up on absent students before they become chronically truant. It has eliminated out-of-school suspensions for relatively minor misbehavior. (Rumberger was involved in a recent study showing that suspension increases a student’s risk of dropping out.) These days, high school staff at many schools seem to be more personally familiar with students than they used to be, and the students in turn seem more comfortable interacting with the adults. Counselors more often take the initiative, sitting students down to talk about how they will make up missing credits. And the district has been offering after-school and Saturday makeup classes as well as the online credit-recovery courses. But under pressure to produce better numbers, school officials in California and nationwide have often done whatever it takes to get to those numbers, including lowering standards while pretending to raise them, and reclassifying students instead of educating them. These students then go on to college or the workplace, mistakenly thinking they have the skills they’ll need. The irony is that the school-reform movement that has been leading the push for higher graduation rates got its start years ago in a struggle to raise academic standards. It arose in response to complaints from employers that a high school diploma hardly meant anything anymore. School reformers and Chamber of Commerce representatives complained that high school graduates couldn’t pass the written test to become delivery drivers or construction apprentices. Standardized tests, including high school exit exams, were supposed to ensure that students reached at least a minimal level of proficiency. But schools in some areas — Texas and New York City were infamous examples — started pushing out low-performing students. That led to greater recognition that schools nationwide were, if not going as far as Texas by actively discouraging the students who most needed their help, also not doing much to get them to stay and raise their academic ambitions. The federal No Child Left Behind Act, which never did much to encourage higher graduation rates, might be dead, but its successor will have little chance of succeeding if policymakers aren’t realistic about the work and patience required to raise standards, test scores and graduation rates. It’s slow, hard, incremental work without magic solutions, and improved numbers aren’t always evidence of better-educated students. This piece is the second in a two-part series. Read part one here. HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources NEW STATE AGENCY GETS INFUSION OF $24 MILLION TO PROMOTE SCHOOL SUCCESS + LCFF ACCOUNTABILITY | EdSource | https://t.co/PGjYqhI17f PARENTS+PRINCIPALS WILL WEIGH IN ON PROP 39 CHARTER CO-LOCATIONS AT L.A. SCHOOL CAMPUSES | LA Times | https://t.co/jfEsKCIOZx Were they ever really two groups?: FUND SET UP TO RAISE $200 MILLION FOR LAUSD MERGES WITH CHARTER GROUP | LA Times | https://t.co/RcLL7TR2wX JUST IN: Teacher jail numbers rise to 181, costing LA Unified $15 million - LA School Report | https://t.co/ewJzuliadE FIVE SIGNS OF A PRIVATIZED CHARTER SCHOOL | @TPM | http://talkingpointsmemo.com/fivepoints/five-signs-of-privatized-charter-school | https://t.co/jJCnTYWpgV… ROY COHN: WHAT DONALD TRUMP LEARNED FROM JOE McCARTHY'S RIGHT HAND MAN | NY Times | https://t.co/x6giA07F60 BILL GATES HINTS AT SUPPORT FOR CLINTON | https://t.co/LDV8DV1jMs EVENTS: Coming up next week... • Tues. June 28, 2016 - 11:00 a.m. SPECIAL BOARD MEETING - - Including Closed Session Items • Tues. June 28, 2016 - 1:00 P.M. - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - *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 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR What can YOU do? • E-mail, call or write your school board member: Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-8333 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 the Superintendent: superintendent@lausd.net • 213-241-7000 ...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. Volunteer in the classroom. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child - and ultimately: For all children. • 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! Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them? Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and was Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and has represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for over 13 years. He currently serves as Vice President for Health, is a Legislation Action Committee member and a member of the Board of Directors of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT "WHO" Gold Award and the ACSA Regional Ferd Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award - honors he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids. • FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-mail smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.

Grieve. Mourn. Repeat.

4LAKids: Sunday 19•June•2016 In This Issue:  •  WHAT PAMELA ANDERSON’S NIGHT VISIT TO THE LA UNIFIED SCHOOL BOARD WAS ALL ABOUT  •  Editorial: WHAT’S REALLY IN LAUSD’S ONLINE CREDIT RECOVERY COURSES?  •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...  •  What can YOU do? Featured Links:  •  ► Friends4smf :: The GoFundMe campaign  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!  •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc. Orlando. San Bernardino. Charlotte. Sandy Hook. REMARKS OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AS DELIVERED IN HIS WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS The White House | June 18, 2016 :: It’s been less than a week since the deadliest mass shooting in American history. And foremost in all of our minds has been the loss and the grief felt by the people of Orlando, especially our friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. I visited with the families of many of the victims on Thursday. And one thing I told them is that they’re not alone. The American people, and people all over the world, are standing with them – and we always will. The investigation is ongoing, but we know that the killer was an angry and disturbed individual who took in extremist information and propaganda over the internet, and became radicalized. During his killing spree, he pledged allegiance to ISIL, a group that’s called on people around the world to attack innocent civilians. We are and we will keep doing everything in our power to stop these kinds of attacks, and to ultimately destroy ISIL. The extraordinary people in our intelligence, military, homeland security, and law enforcement communities have already prevented many attacks, saved many lives, and we won’t let up. Alongside the stories of bravery and healing and coming together over the past week, we’ve also seen a renewed focus on reducing gun violence. As I said a few days ago, being tough on terrorism requires more than talk. Being tough on terrorism, particularly the sorts of homegrown terrorism that we’ve seen now in Orlando and San Bernardino, means making it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on assault weapons that are capable of killing dozens of innocents as quickly as possible. That’s something I’ll continue to talk about in the weeks ahead. It’s also part of something that I’ve been thinking a lot about this week – and that’s the responsibilities we have to each other. That’s certainly true with Father’s Day upon us. I grew up without my father around. While I wonder what my life would have been like if he had been a greater presence, I’ve also tried extra hard to be a good dad for my own daughters. Like all dads, I worry about my girls’ safety all the time. Especially when we see preventable violence in places our sons and daughters go every day – their schools and houses of worship, movie theaters, nightclubs, as they get older. It’s unconscionable that we allow easy access to weapons of war in these places – and then, even after we see parents grieve for their children, the fact that we as a country do nothing to prevent the next heartbreak makes no sense. So this past week, I’ve also thought a lot about dads and moms around the country who’ve had to explain to their children what happened in Orlando. Time and again, we’ve observed moments of silence for victims of terror and gun violence. Too often, those moments have been followed by months of silence. By inaction that is simply inexcusable. If we’re going to raise our kids in a safer, more loving world, we need to speak up for it. We need our kids to hear us speak up about the risks guns pose to our communities, and against a status quo that doesn’t make sense. They need to hear us say these things even when those who disagree are loud and are powerful. We need our kids to hear from us why tolerance and equality matter – about the times their absence has scarred our history and how greater understanding will better the future they will inherit. We need our kids to hear our words – and also see us live our own lives with love. And we can’t forget our responsibility to remind our kids of the role models whose light shines through in times of darkness. The police and first responders, the lifesaving bystanders and blood donors. Those who comfort mourners and visit the wounded. The victims whose last acts on this earth helped others to safety. They’re not just role models for our kids – their actions are examples for all of us. To be a parent is to come to realize not everything is in our control. But as parents, we should remember there’s one responsibility that’s always in our power to fulfill: our obligation to give our children unconditional love and support; to show them the difference between right and wrong; to teach them to love, not to hate; and to appreciate our differences not as something to fear, but as a great gift to cherish. To me, fatherhood means being there. So in the days ahead, let’s be there for each other. Let’s be there for our families, and for those that are hurting. Let’s come together in our communities and as a country. And let’s never forget how much good we can achieve simply by loving one another. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and have a great weekend. YOU MAY NOTE THAT THIS WEEK’S 4LAKIDS IS ABRIDGED. 1. I was writing of the pending District Budget/LCFF/LCAP – saved by a deus-ex-machina/last-minute-letter from the Superintendent of Public Instruction 2. …plus Eli Broad’s magical reanimation of his Great Schools Now Plan! 3. I had a well-researched-yet-dripping with-vitriol rant about how the Beaudry Building is the Most Visitor Unfriendly Building on the Planet! 4. But it is Sunday afternoon and I am feeling unwell …and nothing I write can compare to the tale of the wonderful+enchanted Tuesday night visit of Pamela Anderson to the LAUSD Board of Education! ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf WHAT PAMELA ANDERSON’S NIGHT VISIT TO THE LA UNIFIED SCHOOL BOARD WAS ALL ABOUT Posted on LA School Report Mike Szymanski | http://bit.ly/1UWgtBe June 17, 2016. 11:16 am. :: Sometimes staying late at the LA Unified school board meetings has its benefits. Particularly when quirky things happen in only-in-LA moments. About 8:45 p.m. Tuesday late into the meeting, most of the audience members had cleared out of the school board auditorium and the 200 or so protesters outside were gone. There were almost as many people up on the horseshoe dais as there were watching. Board President Steve Zimmer kidded about seeming a bit loopy because his cold medicine was kicking in. Then, the school police officers stirred, the board members stopped talking and a blur of diverse people marched down the aisle of the auditorium. Up front was blonde bombshell Pamela Anderson, looking as stunning as she did in her “Baywatch” days two decades ago. In a tight black top and flowered skirt, she brushed back her characteristic blonde locks and prepared herself to address the school board for the first time. In the pressroom watching on closed-circuit TV, reporters were surprised and snickering about why she was there. The LA Unified communications team didn’t have any idea. Along with the actress, there were TV journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell and 9-year-old actress Felix Hemstreet, as well as a triathlete, a cardiologist, a best-selling author, a dietician, a doctor of 40 years and Torre Washington, who bills himself as “a professional vegan bodybuilder.” The circus of presenters was inspired by 14-year-old Lila Copeland from Paul Revere Middle School who wants to have a regular vegan option on the menu in the nation’s second-largest school district. It appeared she had an impact on the board, and she had already met with Laura Benavidez, of the district’s Food Services division, who seemed open to the idea. “This school district is at the forefront of offering good nutritious food for the students, so we just want them to be aware of allowing vegan options for the students too and helping us have a healthy future for this planet,” Copeland said. “We want the district to provide a vegan option.” The experts spewed statistics and anecdotes. They brought up methane caused by cows, the drought, global warming, childhood obesity and ethical reasons for being vegan. They talked about how eating meat can cause heart disease and strokes, they detailed the outmoded federal nutritional standards and brought in packets of vegan meal samples for each of the seven school board members prepared by plant-based protein company Gardein’s chef Jason Stefanko. Anderson spoke for two minutes about milk and water and the United Nations. She said, “Kids today are appalled to learn that animals killed for cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets live in crowded dark filthy sheds by the thousands and are mutilated and slaughtered by having their throats slit while they’re still conscious.” Lila met this week with Zimmer and fellow school board member Ref Rodriguez as well as with the food services officials. The district already has a “Meatless Mondays” program and has taken the lead in requiring antibiotic and hormone-free chicken and turkey and is considering inexpensive low-fat options created by student chefs. On the other hand, the most animated part of a school board meeting two weeks ago centered on bringing back chocolate milk . “I’m impressed with what I’ve been told, but maybe I’m too old to change, maybe I’m not,” said 75-year-old board member George McKenna. “I’ve learned that everything I eat and love is not supposed to be healthy.” McKenna, who grew up in New Orleans, confessed his love for po’boys and beignets and said he just ate a ham sandwich. “I’m hooked on meat and ice cream.” But, he added, “I’m enlightened, and you make the case for healthy children. At least I’ll think about what I eat. Maybe you’ll change our behaviors, and maybe mine.” Zimmer quipped to his fellow board member, “We’ll go out for a veggie burger soon.” It didn’t go unnoticed to the school board that young Lila brought together a virtual Who’s Who of vegan experts, including vegan cardiologist Dr. Kim Williams, Dr. Michael Klaper, Kawani Brown, Dr. Heather Shenkman, Sharon Palmer and others. Of course, Anderson was a highlight, and although there wasn’t much of an audience, the school board meeting will be rebroadcast on Sunday morning at KLCS Television Channel 58 in between children’s shows such as “Dora the Explorer.” This time around, the show will feature an appearance by Pamela Anderson, and also a rant of a student earlier during Tuesday’s public comments that had a great deal of four-letter words while he described creating his own barber shop. Anderson’s talk is toward the end of the broadcast (at the 5:08:48 mark), which is now available on the LA Unified website. “I’ve learned so much from these people,” Anderson told LA School Report. “These are the experts. This is my first time to speak to the LA school board, and I think it’s so important to teach children to be vegan.” Anderson’s children went to schools in the Malibu school district, and she said she allowed her children to make their own choices. “As a mother, we are always trying to raise healthy kids, and this is one of the serious environmental problems. I’m here as a mom.” Velez-Mitchell said she came as a journalist but felt she had to speak out about some of the food served at the district. “The food that is served in this school district causes cancer. Give them an option to choose foods that will not cause them cancer.” Ultimately, the team offered to talk to any of the school board members. Zimmer quickly said, “I’m always happy to talk. And thank you for the samples, they were really good.” The next step is to get a resolution from the school board, and Lila thinks that will happen. Lila concluded: “No animal wants to die to become our food.” ●●smf: Not to argue Lila Copeland's point, but I refer us all to: Children's Book Review: ARLENE SARDINE Author+Illustrator Chris Raschka, Scholastic $15.95 (40p) ISBN 978-0-531-30111-1 http://bit.ly/1PBaFc2 Editorial: WHAT’S REALLY IN LAUSD’S ONLINE CREDIT RECOVERY COURSES? By The LA Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/1PBaflZ 19 June 2016 :: Because of new rules designed to raise graduation standards, officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District woke up in December to the grim news that only half of its students were on track to graduate, down from 74% the year before. The problem was that this was the first year all students had to pass the full range of college-prep courses — known as the A through G sequence – required by the University of California and California State University for admission. But just a couple of months later, the situation suddenly, startlingly improved, with 63% on track to graduate. By the end of March, 68% had completed their A-G courses, and an additional 15% were close enough that they might be able to make it. The actual graduation rate will not be known for several months. How did this remarkable turnaround happen, and what does it mean? Partly, it was that Michelle King, LA Unified’s new superintendent, moved swiftly and decisively, plunging the district’s high schools into a full-bore effort to bring students up to snuff, with extra counseling, Saturday classes and after-school classes. But also, the district relied heavily on what are known as online credit-recovery classes. These courses, which have helped boost graduation rates locally and across the country, have grown quickly from a barely known concept a decade ago to one of the biggest and most controversial new trends in education. This is how they work: Students who flunk a course can make up the credit by taking classes either in computer-equipped rooms at school, or at home if they have the equipment and Internet access. Teachers lecture on videos, the computer displays the readings or practice problems, and students take tests that are automatically graded. Written work is supposed to be reviewed by a district teacher. The courses have certain benefits: Students can replay a lecture for missed material, something that can’t happen in a regular classroom. When they can’t concentrate any longer, they can put the course on hold and take a break. But professors and other education experts are concerned that there is too little quality control to ensure that students have completed the equivalent of a regular classroom experience. Considering all the credit-recovery courses provided by educational publishers, it’s impossible to say as a rule whether these courses are sufficiently rigorous. Only one large-scale study has been published: Researchers reported in April that Chicago students who were randomly assigned to take an online Algebra I makeup course fared somewhat worse than those who were assigned to classroom makeup courses, with lower pass rates and lower scores on an end-of-course assessment. And an online credit-recovery course observed by Russell Rumberger, director of the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara, required only 12 hours of computer time and the reading of one book. LAUSD maintains that’s not the case with its programs, which it says are rigorous and effective and take about 60 hours of work. A Los Angeles Times editorial writer arranged to take one of the courses... The results were at the same time reassuring and potentially disturbing. In order to get a closer look, a Los Angeles Times editorial writer arranged to take one of the courses offered to students at LAUSD: English Language Arts 11A, commonly known as the first semester of junior-year English. The results were at the same time reassuring and potentially disturbing. Any student who actually takes the full course — sits through each lesson, answers the questions and completes the assignments — gets a meaningful education. That’s why UC accepts the course, produced by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Edgenuity, as a college-prep class. The reading excerpts come from fine and often challenging literature — “Moby-Dick,” “The Scarlet Letter,” great poetry and the like. Video lectures give the background of the works and teach lessons about tone, setting, vocabulary choice and so forth. There are four writing assignments during each semester. All in all, it would easily take 50 or 60 hours or more. The catch is that taking the full course isn’t always necessary. Some students are able to pre-test out of much of the course, including the writing. A 10-question multiple-choice quiz is given at the beginning of each of the three-dozen units. With a score of 60% or better — six of the questions — a student passes the unit, without having to go through the lectures, read the full materials or write the essays. Opening up other tabs on the computer to search for answers on the Internet is allowed. That’s not really cheating: The questions aren’t about straightforward facts. Students must interpret passages, for instance. But there’s plenty of help online via Sparks notes and other resources, and a full hour is given to answer the 10 questions. A second problem with the course is that no full books are assigned in the first semester; the second semester requires just one book. That’s the minimum required by UC, but significantly fewer than most junior-year classroom-based courses. Carol Alexander, director of college-prep requirements at LAUSD, said there’s only one book required because the students have already taken the course in class and read books there. But if they flunked the course in class, what reason is there to believe that they did the reading or understood it? Frances Gipson, the district’s chief academic officer, said that not all students get the opportunity to pre-test out of all the units in the course. Students are not supposed to be allowed to skip sections that they did poorly on the first time, she said. That might be true. But two students at Fremont High School who took the same junior English course described nearly identical experiences. Both said they had pre-tested out of most of the units. One said he had been given only one writing assignment, and the other said he had been given one or two over both semesters — only a fraction of those the course supposedly requires. L.A. Unified appears to be setting the bar lower than most districts across the nation. Edgenuity says that of the 1,900 districts using the company’s credit-recovery courses, most will not allow students in English classes to pre-test out of units. Districts that do allow skipping of units through pre-testing often require the students at least to do the writing assignments, and they monitor the tests so students can’t search the Internet for clues. And most districts set the passing grade for the pre-test at 70% or higher in contrast to L.A. Unified’s 60%. The big issue is the lack of accountability... Who checks that students are getting enough online coursework to receive a meaningful education? The big issue is the lack of accountability. The district has a vested interest in raising graduation rates and making the A-G policy look good. But who checks that students are getting enough online coursework to receive a meaningful education? Who sets the standard, if there is any standard, for the minimum amount of work that must be put into an online course to receive credit? A UC official also was surprised to learn that students might be pre-testing out of most of the units in any course. Monica Lin, associate director for undergraduate admissions, said UC doesn’t supervise how local school districts use their courses and doesn’t have the time and resources to conduct regular audits even if it wanted to. She added that the university would reconsider approval if it knew that large numbers of students were pre-testing their way through most of the course. Her instincts are right. If large numbers of students are indeed testing out of significant portions of these courses — which is difficult to ascertain — and if they’re skipping writing assignments on a regular basis, then those students are being done a serious disservice. If they’re just reading one book in a year in what’s supposed to be the equivalent of a junior-year English course, that’s unacceptable too — and raises worrisome questions about the rest of the credit-recovery courses being offered as well. L.A. Unified deserves credit for its intensive attempt to raise its graduation rates. Online credit recovery can and should be a helpful tool, giving students independence, flexibility and a chance to make up for past mistakes. But the district needs to get a handle on these courses. It — along with UC and the State Board of Education — needs to set minimum standards, including how much of a course must be completed without pre-testing in order to earn credit. The new federal school-accountability law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act places considerable pressure on low-performing high schools and their districts to raise graduation rates. But that’s a worthy goal only if students are better educated than they were as dropouts. No one is doing teenagers a favor by sending them to college or into the work world thinking they have skills that are still lacking. COST OF SUSPENSIONS IS HIGH FOR STUDENTS WHO DROP OUT AFTER DISCIPLINE, REPORT FINDS | EdSource http://bit.ly/200VtLf STATE GIVES LA UNIFIED AN EXTRA YEAR TO ACCOUNT FOR SPENDING ON NEEDY KIDS | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1UIOHFG JUST IN: GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS NOW UNVEILS PLAN TO FUND EXPANSION OF SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS TO SERVE 160,000 LOW-INCOME LA STUDENTS - LA School Report http://bit.ly/24ZBrll PHILLY’S SODA TAX MAY BE TURNING POINT http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/soda-tax-philadelphia-224442 EVENTS: Coming up next week... *Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________ • SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: http://www.laschools.org/bond/ Phone: 213-241-5183 ____________________________________________________ • LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR: http://www.laschools.org/happenings/ Phone: 213-241.8700 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR What can YOU do? • E-mail, call or write your school board member: Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-8333 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 the Superintendent: superintendent@lausd.net • 213-241-7000 ...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. Volunteer in the classroom. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child - and ultimately: For all children. • 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! Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them? Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and was Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and has represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for over 13 years. He currently serves as Vice President for Health, is a Legislation Action Committee member and a member of the Board of Directors of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT "WHO" Gold Award and the ACSA Regional Ferd Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award - honors he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids. • FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-mail smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.

Auditing foregone conclusions

4LAKids: Sunday 29•May•2016 Memorial Day W/E In This Issue:  •  AS LAUSD BATTLES INSURERS, TAXPAYERS LEFT WITH BILL FOR TEACHER SEX ABUSE SETTLEMENTS  •  PLAS v. P-Rev v. LAUSD @ 20th St. Elementary: PARENTS PROTEST POTENTIAL CHANGE IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT  •  FACING POTENTIAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, LA UNIFIED CONSIDERS FINANCIAL FUTURE + STILL LISTENING, NO BIG PLAN YET: SUPERINTENDENT KING WRAPS COMMUNITY TOUR  •  HOUSE AND SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN: ESSA ACCOUNTABILITY REGULATIONS NEED CLOSE REVIEW  •  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:  •  ► Friends4smf :: The GoFundMe campaign  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!  •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc. At last Tuesday’s meeting of the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, a minor kerfuffle broke out – maybe it was even a brouhaha: http://bit.ly/1TGC4Lh [from appx 1:48 > 2:04] This is the season of budgeting+audits. A time of penny-wisdom and pound-foolishness. And this issue-of-the-moment is whether LAUSD should undertake an audit of the District’s fledgling Restorative Justice Initiative. Not a ‘gotcha’ backwards-looking audit, like the State Dept. Inspector General vs. Hillary Clinton seeking Wrongdoing,Waste,Fraud+Abuse …but a Prospective forwards-looking Analysis: • What are the goals? • What are the expectations? • What are the likelihoods? RESTORATIVE JUSTICE has become the great big fuzzy Golden Retriever puppy of School District Discipline Policy+Programs nationwide; LAUSD has become the poster child for RJ. The nation turns its lonely eyes to us. The question is not whether RJ is a good program; but whether it is being effectively implemented and whether there is room for further/continuous improvement. No less an authority than Superintendent Cortines said the LAUSD RJ policies, which were pushed through by the Board of Education and former Supt. John Deasy and which he supports, were poorly executed. He compared the implementation to the flawed effort to equip students and teachers with Apple tablets. "I will compare it to the iPad," Cortines said. "You cannot piecemeal this kind of thing and think it is going to have the impact that it should have. Don't make a political statement and then don't have the wherewithal to back it up." | http://lat.ms/1ldDSkH (It is ironic that Boardmember Ratliff – who probably was the most instrumental person in the building in drilling down into the iPad Fiasco – seems intent on ‘not going there’ on RJ.) smf: Don’t get me wrong - I am a true believer in Restorative Justice – not in the Harry Potter “Lumos Maxima” magic of the promise – but in the good hard work that can be accomplished by doing the good hard work. I helped implement RJ (back when it was called ‘Council’ or ‘Talking Circles’) a decade ago at Reed Middle School. It is a great program and well-done could be the greatest thing since sliced bread. (…and I’m not a big fan of sliced bread!) In the interim RJ has become a poster-program for off-the-shelf/brand-name School Discipline Policy ®eform. 1. Forbid suspensions by executive fiat. 2. Implement RJ as identified in the C.O.R.E. CA literature. 3. Check the boxes on the Rubric of Implementation. ¡Mission accomplished! Dr. Deasy’s pretend-governmental California Office to Reform Education (C.O.R.E. CA) built+sold RJ to Arne Duncan and the U.S. Dept. of Ed. as the key to the CORE CA Waiver to No Child Left Behind …with lots a of promises of unaccountable unaccountabilities + murky transparency (No testing = No data. Oh dear!) Dr. Deasy is gone. NCLB is gone. RJ had lots o’ one-time federal dollars that are soon to go away. Whatever data that exists supporting RJ comes from two plus years of CORE CA’s work since 2013 – hardly an impartial observer. Restorative Justice in LAUSD moving forward is going to have to be funded by someone …and that’s the General Fund. Restorative Justice focuses on the needs of the Victims and Offenders, as well as the impacted community; it doesn’t address Prevention+Pre-identification of Potential Discipline Issues: RJ is reactive, not proactive. What RJ isn’t is a magic bullet that solves all the ills of public education – or Public Education Districtwide/School-based/or even Classroom Discipline+Management. Restorative Justice (which is an outgrowth of criminology) is NOT Restorative Practices (an outgrowth of Education) – which addresses Prevention+Proactivity …as well Victims/Offenders/The Community’s rights+responsibilities.. The conversation around the LAUSD Board of Ed. horseshoe on Tuesday was about: 1. RJ is so new, it’s too early to audit it. 2. RJ is so wonderful. It’s too wonderful to audit. 3. “We already know…” that any audit will show LAUSD has not invested enough training+professional development in RJ. Really? A. RJ is a number of years into its implementation. There is a long history - when exactly do we start evaluating programs? B. RJ IS that wonderful …but LAUSD has the capability of homogenizing wonderfulness until it is a binder-on-a-shelf or a vague memory of what could’ve been; if only…. C. If we “already know” we have not committed sufficient training+resources now when-there-is money maybe this is the moment to say so – not 2 or 4 or 6 years down the line when the money is gone. Questions also arose as to whether the Office of Inspector General is the right place to look into RJ from? Dr. Vladovic returned to days-of-yesteryear when the Board of Ed had its own Independent Audit Unit (IAU). The Board had their own Counsel too – but those days are gone and the OIG is the entity in LAUSD that undertakes+oversees audits+investigations. Underlying this is the faint whiff of micromanaging the independence of the OIG by the Board of Ed. by tightening the purse strings. THE OIG VISION: To be a proactive agency striving for excellence and continuous positive change in the management and programs of the Los Angeles Unified School District. THE OIG MISSION: To promote a culture of accountability, transparency, collaboration and integrity through the performance of audit and investigative services designed to drive continuous improvement, support effective decision making and detect and deter waste, fraud and abuse. If not them, whom? And, [see: AS LAUSD BATTLES INSURERS, TAXPAYERS LEFT WITH BILL FOR TEACHER SEX ABUSE SETTLEMENTS] in light of the pending LAUSD budget and “who’s-going-to-pay-for-it now” element above: Who’s going to pay for all the sex abuse settlements being made if the District’s insurance carriers don’t? From the AALA Update: MARSHALL HIGH SCHOOL’S ACADEMIC DECATHLON TEAM placed first in the U. S. Academic Decathlon’s National Online Competition (eight events) that occurred simultaneously with the National Competition. Individually, the team members won 68 medals and claimed eight of the nine top- scoring positions for the Large School Division. Martin Gonzalez emerged as the top-scoring student in the competition. The team members are Martin Gonzalez, Manuel Griffin-Espinoza, Robina Hensen, Abeer Hossain, Tahmin Khan, Giovani Martinez, Arbyn Olarte, Tina Tan, and Gun- Min Youn. Kudos to the team, their coach, Larry Welch, and principal, Patricia Heideman. “This, said Cliff Ker, Coordinator for Academic Events, is the fourth time since 2010 that Marshall has won the Online Competition,” “They worked very hard to earn this honor.” Marshall High School won the National Academic Decathlon championship in 1986-87 and 1994-95, and in 2010-11 and 2014-15, the school had repeat victories as LAUSD Academic Decathlon champs. Additionally the Marshall High School iconic tower and main administration building’s (on the National Registry of Historic Places) structural+historic preservation was approved by the Bond Oversight Committee on Thursday – as well as the restoration of the Marshall High School Auditorium – where smf’s mother once trod the boards as a student thespian. Thought for the day: I really don’t care which restroom you use. Just please: Wash your hands. ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf AS LAUSD BATTLES INSURERS, TAXPAYERS LEFT WITH BILL FOR TEACHER SEX ABUSE SETTLEMENTS Kyle Stokes | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1Wt7ESE May 26 2016 :: When the Los Angeles Unified School District reaches a settlement with victims who experienced sexual abuse in its schools, who pays? Or, more to the point: who should pay? L.A. Unified officials contended their insurance policies should've covered the $200 million it cost to settle abuse cases from Miramonte Elementary School in 2014. Last year, the district sued 27 insurance companies that L.A. Unified believes "abandoned the school district, forcing it to defend itself and utilize its own much needed resources" to mount a defense and settle the cases. Now, on the heels of another $88 million settlement with victims from De La Torre and Telfair elementary schools, district officials said they have gotten no indication that their insurers intend to participate in those settlements either — meaning, once again, taxpayers could end up on the hook. "We’re asking [LAUSD's insurers] to participate in the eventual payout for those settlements," said Greg McNair, chief business and compliance counsel for L.A. Unified. "They have not agreed to do so as of yet. If they don’t soon agree to do so, we will file lawsuits against those insurers, just like we filed lawsuits against the insurers for the Miramonte lawsuit." But in their own court filings related to the Miramonte case, one of the district's insurers argued it's not clear the policies they sold to L.A. Unified cover the district's settlement costs. In their own 2013 lawsuit, Everest National Insurance Company questioned whether the costs L.A. Unified incurred in settling the Miramonte cases exceeded their "self insured retention" — roughly analogous to the deductible on an auto or homeowner's policy — of $5 million. (Exceeding that "deductible" through either defending or settling the case, McNair said, triggers the insurance coverage.) L.A. Unified asserted that it exceeded that amount in 2012 by replacing all faculty and staff at Miramonte following the two suspected abusers' arrests. But Everest attorneys dispute this, writing in their court filing that L.A. Unified never provided sufficient clarification to make it clear they had exceeded the self insured retention amount. As the insurance company's attorneys wrote, Everest "disputes that there is any coverage under the Everest policies for the underlying claims" in the Miramonte case. With the legal dispute dragging on — the next court date isn't until August — the district has had to pay Miramonte settlements out of its general fund. "The insurance companies have deprived the district of its ability to use this money in the classroom by their failure to live up to their obligation to provide insurance for these incidences," McNair said. Settlements in abuse cases are generally paid out in a lump sum, McNair said; if the victim is young, the settlement typically covers the cost of an annuity. In the most recent high-profile cases, the district has paid out into a qualified settlement fund for victims, he said. A retired judge then oversees the disbursement of money from that fund. For decades, the district has had several layers of insurance coverage that would handle liability claims, with each policy generally covering a one-year timespan. In a sexual abuse case, the year in which the abuse occurred determines which policy would, in theory, cover the claim. L.A. Unified paid roughly $5.4 million in premiums on insurance that would cover abuse cases during the 2015-16 school year. PLAS v. P-Rev v. LAUSD @ 20th St. Elementary: PARENTS PROTEST POTENTIAL CHANGE IN SCHOOL MANAGEMENT WHILE SOME PARENTS ARGUE THAT LOS ANGELES' 20TH STREET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SHOULD BE PUT UNDER NEW LEADERSHIP, OTHERS CONTEND THEY LIKE THE SCHOOL JUST THE WAY IT IS. By Sonali Kohli | LA Times | http://lat.ms/20Q76ER May 27, 2016 :: 2:05 PM :: Not every parent at 20th Street Elementary School wants new leadership for their kids’ school. About 30 mothers gathered in front of the Los Angeles campus Friday morning with signs in English and Spanish, protesting a potential agreement that would give some control of school operations to the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a nonprofit that specializes in improving low-performing schools, often in under-resourced neighborhoods. A different group of parents threatened to sue the Los Angeles Unified School District in March, after the district rejected a petition that 58% of parents at the school signed to invoke the state's “parent trigger law,” which allows parents to take control of low-performing schools. To avoid a lawsuit, the district may agree to allow the partnership to take over school operations, which L.A. School Report first reported on Wednesday. The partnership runs 17 schools in L.A. Unified, including Roosevelt High School and Dolores Huerta Elementary. Unlike an independent charter school, though, partnership schools are still Los Angeles Unified district schools, meaning the teachers are unionized and the district receives state money allocated for each student. Beyond the district resources, the partnership says it can fundraise for programs, enhancements and technology. “We are not as bad as other schools that have gotten this partnership,”said Karla Vilchis, a 20th Street parent with one daughter in transitional kindergarten and another who finished fifth grade at the school in 2013. Changes, she said, should come from “working together instead of attacking each other." She and other parents at the protest Friday morning were mostly silent. They didn’t want to disrupt classes or fight, but they did want to show other parents that not everyone wants the school to change hands, Vilchis said. They held signs with phrases like “No to PLAS” (an acronym for the partnership), “We are improving” and “Padres que apoyan Calle 20.” The parents pushing for a change in leadership complain about low academic scores and a lack of resources at their school. Last year, they launched the first petition to transform 20th Street into a pilot school, a district-run school with more freedom than a traditional school. At the end of the 2014-15 school year, the district agreed to make improvements. But the district didn’t follow through on those promises, like having more coordinators to help students prepare for junior high school and teaching more rigorous classes, said Omar Calvillo, one of the parents leading the trigger actions. So the group launched another petition, this time to take full control of the school. Some teachers and parents at 20th Street argue that the school has improved. The playground is open on Saturdays, there are more opportunities for parents to be involved and a program focused on reclassifying English-learner students began this year, said Javier Cruz, a third-grade teacher and the school’s United Teachers Los Angeles chapter chairman. A district spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday on the status of 20th Street. “We are still in negotiations regarding this issue and have no further comment,” Shannon Haber said in an email. When the 20th Street parents union submitted its petition in February, it also put out a request for proposals for charter school operators who would be able to run the school, said Gabe Rose, chief strategy officer for Parent Revolution, the group helping 20th Street parents invoke the trigger law. The partnership, though not a charter, submitted a proposal. The parents’ group will accept only an agreement that allows the partnership full autonomy over the school, Calvillo said. Otherwise, it is prepared to sue the district for full control. FACING POTENTIAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, LA UNIFIED CONSIDERS FINANCIAL FUTURE + STILL LISTENING, NO BIG PLAN YET: SUPERINTENDENT KING WRAPS COMMUNITY TOUR ► FACING POTENTIAL ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, LA UNIFIED CONSIDERS FINANCIAL FUTURE By Michael Janofsky | EdSource | http://bit.ly/1sW33w9 May 26, 2016 :: Members of the Los Angeles Unified school board got a sobering economic report this week as finance experts warned that a slowing state economy and failure of a November ballot measure to extend an increase in personal income taxes could cost the district hundreds of millions of dollars. It was neither a message they didn’t know nor one aimed solely at L.A. Unified, the largest school district in the state – all of California’s 1,200 school districts would be affected by economic developments beyond their control. But with more than 1,200 schools and 550,000 students, L.A. Unified would face the most drastic change in operations, leading to probable cutbacks in personnel, programs and school improvements. Listening to the possibilities, board President Steve Zimmer suggested the district’s future could be “fairly apocalyptic.” The cause for alarm involves two factors beyond the control of policymakers, in Los Angeles, Sacramento or anywhere else in the state. One is the ballot measure, which would continue a tax on high-income earners created by Proposition 30, which was approved by voters in 2012 and scheduled to end in 2018. No effort is underway to extend the sales tax increase that is part of the proposition, which ends this year. The new ballot initiative – the Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act of 2016 – remains in the signature-gathering phase to get it on the November ballot. It would extend by 12 years personal income tax increases on earnings over $250,000, generating a projected $5 billion or more annually, with $2 billion a year earmarked for children’s health programs. Of the rest, 89 percent would go to K-12 schools and 11 percent to California Community Colleges. Over the last four years, Prop. 30 income tax revenue has accounted for about 13 percent of the district’s Local Control Funding Formula revenue, and the loss of the income tax extension would cost about $600 million in future revenue, according to a report presented to board members by district finance experts. The other factor prompting concern is the uncertainty of California’s economic growth. According to the May revision of Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget for the next fiscal year, the state budget for the next two years will remain balanced. But state financial experts are predicting a $4 billion deficit by 2019-20, an amount that could only be offset by an improving economy, which is uncertain, or passage of the Prop. 30 extension. An economic slowdown, combined with the failure of the tax extension, would hit every school district in the state. In a colloquy at the board meeting with Dale Shimasaki, CEO of Strategic Education Services, a Sacramento-based education consulting and lobbying firm that works with school districts, Zimmer asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put, with 1 being the least and 10 the most, how important is (extending) Prop. 30?” “Oh, 10. It’s the most important,” Shimasaki responded. Zimmer went on, explaining the district’s mission to maintain an “equity agenda” for all the children in the district in the face of potential economic distress and a need to develop a strategy to stem an enrollment decline of 3 percent annually that has been underway for more than a decade and has cost L.A. Unified nearly a billion dollars in lost state revenue. He asked Shimasaki where the balance is between policy decisions based on further investment or program cutbacks. “You’re not the only (district) now going through that,” Shimasaki said. “But I’m not sure where you go between those two things.” But he then agreed with Zimmer, who said, “So investing, for example, in growing enrollment is something you would strategically recommend, whatever that pathway might be that we determine.” “Right,” Shimasaki said, agreeing again with Zimmer’s assertion: “Even though the (economic) picture is bleaker in the future, not investing could be even more dangerous.” ______________ ►STILL LISTENING, NO BIG PLAN YET: LAUSD CHIEF MICHELLE KING WRAPS UP COMMUNITY TOUR FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR Posted on LA School Report by Sarah Favot | http://bit.ly/1sFXWzt Posted on May 26, 2016 4:29 pm :: As Michelle King wrapped up her “listen and learn” tour in her first semester as LA Unified superintendent, she said she still has more listening to do before announcing her priorities, a strategy that some experts said could make her more successful than her predecessors. Many people have been asking her about her plans, but “It’s not going to be a Michelle plan,” she said. “The Board of Education and I, we have said, it’s going to be an LAUSD plan. It’s going to be built from the ground up.” Tuesday’s 8 a.m. town hall at Nightingale Middle School in Cypress Park was the last of three large forums on her tour before the end of the school year and attracted a little more than 100 people. The first, in March at Pacoima Middle School, drew about 700 people, while about 500 attended one earlier this month at Gage Middle School in Huntington Park. Antonio Plascencia Jr., who leads King’s transition team, said that the superintendent has held about 20 other meetings of various sizes with audiences from high school students to school facilities managers and members of community groups. Plascencia said the qualitative data collected at the meetings will be used to develop King’s strategic plan. Some parents said Tuesday it was the first time they had ever seen an LA Unified superintendent at their neighborhood school. District officials said they believe King is the first superintendent to have an organized series of forums to meet with parents and the community. “No previous superintendent has ever done that. I think that’s a good start,” said parent Courtney Everts Mykytyn. ASSESSING THE STRATEGY Experts said that King’s approach of meeting with parents and community members before revealing her priorities is wise. Pedro Garcia, a professor of clinical education at USC’s Rossier School of Education, said King’s leadership style is to build relationships and a support team that will help to carry out the vision. “She knows the system. She has a much better perspective than the previous superintendent,” said Garcia, a former schools superintendent in Nashville, Tenn., and in districts in California. “When she comes up with a vision, I think it will be very clear, very direct and accurate, instead of pie in the sky. I wouldn’t worry about the fact that she hasn’t verbalized a vision yet.” Pedro Noguera, distinguished professor of education at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, agreed. He said around the country he’s seen some new superintendents immediately take charge with big ideas, while others take a long time to come up with a strategic plan. He said he’s rarely seen superintendents with the former approach become successful. He said King’s strategy is somewhere in the middle. “I think it’s a smart approach, and the reason why is I think that is part of what she’s got to do is demonstrate that the district is going to be responsive to the concerns and the aspirations of the community and take that into consideration,” Noguera said. “She’s got to start to rebuild a sense of confidence in the school system, and you can’t do that by just putting out your own ideas, you have to engage in a dialogue,” he added. Noguera also said that King has to make sure the school board is informed about the challenges — particularly financial ones — facing the district before she announces her priorities because her plans must address those issues. “If they don’t fully understand what the challenge is then how are they going to agree to any plan to address them,” said Noguera, who has been hired by the district to facilitate board retreats. The plan that King comes up with must also address the issues that have been raised in these community town halls, Noguera said. Both Garcia and Noguera expect that King will announce her plans by the beginning of the fall. Calling herself an LAUSD “lifer,” King told the audience Tuesday about herself from her experience in the district as a student to a teacher to an administrator. She said she still considers herself a teacher. WHAT STUDENTS, PARENTS WANT King gave an overview of the feedback that she’s heard so far from parents and students on her listening tours throughout the district. She said she’s “still on the road.” She said students of all ages in the district told her in various ways they want their teachers to have high expectations of them. She said students also want to have electives at their schools, so they can choose classes like music or art in addition to required courses. Students also want to have a safe environment at their schools. Older students spoke about wanting their schools to implement restorative justice practices. She said she’s heard from parents that they want teachers to teach rigorous curriculum, so that their kids are prepared to go to college or into a career. King also said parents want the district to offer continuous pathways so that if a child is enrolled in a dual language immersion program in elementary school, there is an option to continue that program in middle school and high school. She said the district will expand its offering of dual language programs to include Arabic and French next year. The audience applauded when King mentioned her plans to expand popular magnet school programs. King said she also wanted to expand the district’s teaching of computer science and coding skills. King said her biggest goal is to raise graduation rates and ensure that students are prepared to go to college. She stressed her belief in school choice and that not “one size fits all,” pointing to the experience she had with her three daughters. “All three of them were different and really had different interests and different needs and so that really became a part of me and my philosophy about making sure that we design, cultivate based on the school’s needs, on a community’s needs,” King said. For Lisette Duarte, who was sitting in the front row of the auditorium, that message hit home. Duarte has a son in the 10th grade who is attending a Partnerships to Uplift Communities charter school on the Sotomayor Learning Academies campus. Her daughter is in 5th grade at Monte Vista Elementary School, a traditional school. “It’s not a one size fits all, she really gets that,” Duarte said afterward. “I love that she was kind of bridging that divide. We need to lift those failing or struggling schools and we need to share best practices.” Duarte said she appreciated that King came to the community to hear from parents, rather than the superintendent saying this is what the community needs. “The community came because they have questions, concerns or comments,” she said. “This is a great first step. I want to see more of it.” LOOKING FOR ANSWERS Tuesday’s event was described as a “conversation.” During the hour-long town hall, King spoke and then was interviewed by school board member Ref Rodriguez, who represents District 5 in east and northeast Los Angeles. Rodriguez asked some of his own questions and then asked about six or seven questions submitted from the audience. Some parents said they wished they could have asked their own questions. Rodriguez said he decided to have audience members submit their questions in writing, so that all of the questions could be addressed even if they ran out of time during the forum. Rodriguez said at another event, parents came up to microphones to ask their questions, and some stood in line at the microphone for 40 minutes and weren’t able to ask their questions. About 45 people submitted questions. Plascencia said the district plans to follow up with people who submitted questions. If the question deals with a school-specific issue, he said, the question will be forwarded to local administrators, and the superintendent’s office would ensure there is follow-up. King said she believed local superintendents and school administrators should be able to address school-specific concerns. Some parents came to the town hall looking for answers about problems at their child’s school. Zaira Cervantes brought her 2-year-old son to the town hall. She said she wanted to tell the superintendent about an issue she has at the Olympic Primary Center, where one of her daughters attends. “I think it’s good to have this meeting, She’s the only one that can help us,” Cervantes said. “She seems that she cares about our kids.” Cervantes didn’t get the answers she was looking for Tuesday but hoped the superintendent would respond. Another parent, Rosaura Roa, came with a group of parents from Arroyo Seco Museum Science Magnet School. She said she was hoping to speak with the superintendent herself. She spoke with Plascencia after the forum. “I hope she will have answers,” Roa said. Everts Mykytyn said she thought the town hall forum wasn’t the place to talk about an individual issue with her child. She said she submitted a question about how the superintendent would ensure that the push for school choice doesn’t segregate schools. “I’ll be interested to see who and if anyone gets back to me on that question,” she said. Plascencia said the “listen and learn” tour won’t end with the wrap-up of the school year. He said the superintendent plans to have a “back-to-school” series in the new school year. HOUSE AND SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN: ESSA ACCOUNTABILITY REGULATIONS NEED CLOSE REVIEW CHAIRMEN SAY IF REGULATION DOESN'T FOLLOW LAW, THEY WILL SEEK TO OVERTURN IT THROUGH CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW ACT From FitzWire :: By email May 27, 2016 :: House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) released the following statements after the Department of Education released its proposed regulation implementing "accountability" provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act. This proposed regulation is the first step of the regulatory process. The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposal. CONGRESSMAN KLINE SAID: "Congress worked on a bipartisan basis to move the country away from the prescriptive federal mandates and requirements of No Child Left Behind. We replaced that failed law with a fundamentally different approach that empowers state and local leaders to determine what's best for their schools and students. I am deeply concerned the department is trying to take us back to the days when Washington dictated national education policy. I will fully review this proposed rule and intend to hold a hearing on it in the coming weeks. If this proposal results in a rule that does not reflect the letter and intent of the law, then we will use every available tool to ensure this bipartisan law is implemented as Congress intended." SENATOR ALEXANDER SAID: "I will review this proposed regulation to make sure that it reflects the decision of Congress last year to reverse the trend toward a national school board and restore responsibility to states, school districts, and teachers to design their own accountability systems. The law fixing No Child Left Behind was passed with large bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate. I am disappointed that the draft regulation seems to include provisions that the Congress considered-and expressly rejected. If the final regulation does not implement the law the way Congress wrote it, I will introduce a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn it." HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources AB 934: A LEGISLATIVE FIX FOR VERGARA? http://bit.ly/1U87r0P ¿HOW MUCH DO CHARTER SCHOOLS COST LA UNIFIED? :: Fact-checking the teachers union's estimate | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1XSRZeP Putting Parents First: POLICYMAKERS MUST DO MORE TO ENSURE EDUCATION LAWS DON'T OVERLOOK PARENTS. | US News Opinion http://bit.ly/1s8hz3e LEAKED QUESTIONS REKINDLE DEBATE OVER COMMON CORE TESTS - The New York Times https://t.co/2VHIGPKk3q PROPOSED TEXAS TEXTBOOK SAYS SOME MEXICAN AMERICANS ‘WANTED TO DESTROY’ U.S. SOCIETY - The Washington Post https://t.co/9t1l5xefvK Gun Violence Brought Home: A DRUMBEAT OF MULTIPLE SHOOTINGS ...BUT AMERICA ISN’T LISTENING http://bit.ly/1s5R8uY Special Report: LA CHARTER SCHOOL UNDER REVIEW AFTER HIGHLY-PAID PRINCIPAL CHARGES $100K ON CREDIT CARD http://bit.ly/1TsxXYt EVENTS: Coming up next week... MONDAY MAY 30 MEMORIAL DAY HOLIDAY NO SCHOOL TUESDAY MAY 31: SPECIAL BOARD MEETING - May 31, 2016 - 9:00 a.m. - Including Closed Session Items Start: 05/31/2016 9:00 am CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY COMMITTEE MEETING - May 31, 2016 - 10:00 a.m. POSTPONED TO THURSDAY, JUNE 2 AT 10:00 A.M. SPECIAL BOARD MEETING - May 31, 2016 - Time Change to 10:00 a.m. Start: 05/31/2016 10:00 am EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND PARENT ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE - May 31, 2016 - 2:00 p.m. POSTPONED TO THURSDAY, JUNE 2 AT 1:00 P.M. THURSDAY JUNE 2: CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY COMMITTEE MEETING - THURSDAY, JUNE 2 - 10:00 A.M. Postponed from May 31, 2016 Start: 06/02/2016 10:00 am EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND PARENT ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE -Thursday, June 2, 2016 - 1:00 p.m. - Rescheduled from May 31, 2016 Start: 06/02/2016 1:00 pm *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 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR What can YOU do? • E-mail, call or write your school board member: Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-8333 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 the Superintendent: superintendent@lausd.net • 213-241-7000 ...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. Volunteer in the classroom. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child - and ultimately: For all children. • 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! Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them? Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and was Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and has represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for over 13 years. He currently serves as Vice President for Health, is a Legislation Action Committee member and a member of the Board of Directors of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT "WHO" Gold Award and the ACSA Regional Ferd Kiesel Memorial Distinguished Service Award - honors he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids. • FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-mail smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.