In This Issue:
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FACTS, NOT HYPERBOLE: Regarding Deasy’s Termination/Resignation… |
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THE SHORT SHELF LIFE OF URBAN SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS |
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RETHINKING VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL AS A PATH TO COLLEGE |
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THE LAUSD’s POSSIBLE CLASSROOM MORALE PROBLEM + smf’s 2¢ |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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Dashiell Hammett’s Thin Man had all the answers, the
witty wife, the wire-haired fox terrier and the martinis.
We are not so lucky; life’s easier when you don’t have kids.
You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, "Who is that man?"
You try so hard
But you don't understand
Just what you'll say
When you get home.
Novelists invent worlds and populate them with themselves and people
they imagine. The real Dashiell Hammett was thin and liked his martinis,
the woman we and he imagine to be wife said "Jail had made a thin man
thinner and a sick man sicker…”. She wrote “The Children’s Hour”, a book
not for kids. It’s all very complicated and we don’t have time for it
now if we ever did.
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
I had a conversation in the parking garage with an undisclosed source
one day last week and we agreed that the feeling throughout the District
is so much improved. He has contact with many principals; he visits
many schools every day. He senses the universal relief. One only needs
to look at him to sense his relief.
It’s a contagion and it spreads easily. No protective gear required.
I have met with a couple of principals myself recently. They and their
school sites are relieved – but the questions of “What’s next…?” and the
rumors abound. The truth is that Deasy’s superintendency was
punitive+disruptive and Cortines prior superintendencies were marked
with budget cuts and program reductions – driven by efficiency and
economic necessity. What will Cortines v. 3.0 do with an increasing
budget – even if it’s Deasy’s? Will there be more local districts? …or
less? Will ISIC endure? What will happen to Deasy’s initiatives? The
Common Core Technology Project? Breakfast in the Classroom? MiSiS?.
The alphabet soup of teacher accountability programs? The CORE Waiver?
What will the board do? Do we have to use the MiSiS grade book?
Rumors abound. So-and-so is toast. My favorite is that Cortines is only
an interim placeholder; Mayor Tony will soon be superintendent. (Ray
Cortines made it clear that he is interim nothing, he is The
Superintendent.
Tuesday’s board meeting was a paradigm shift. It started when it was
supposed to, superintendent and six board members in their seats at the
appointed hour. The latecomer was only slightly late and was probably
surprised that the proceedings began on-time without her!
Dylan again: Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled.
Urgency is neither an excuse nor a urinary complaint
It is the Order of the Day.
The closed session ended on time too, at 1:30 when the superintendent
said it would. At one thirty Cortines was at his lectern and the board
was in their seats as the audience filed in.
Cortines’ brief to the Board on MiSiS was short and to the point – exactly like the man himself:
“I have begun to dig into the issues of our student information system.
I have learned a great deal about the situation, but still have much
more to learn.
“I want to make sure the Board and public are frequently updated on our
progress with MiSiS. We will be transparent about what is working and
what is not working.
“We need to have a stronger relationship with all of our collective
bargaining partners, especially for MiSiS with UTLA, AALA, and CSEA, so
that we can inform our work based on the needs of our employees.
“We need to be more direct and forthright about the issues our schools
are facing. I see that the system is improving, but there are going to
be issues for the rest of this year.
“We need to have a greater sense of urgency in resolving these issues.
It is clear that we are going to need to invest more resources in
development, training and support to make this work for our schools.
He will report to the board weekly on MiSiS developments, and when a
public comment parent spoke about a student who didn’t have the right
classes there was no brush off – there was an immediate response.
As the superintendent wrote in his message to principals Thursday: “I
want you to know that if there is something I should know or an
emergency at your school, do not hesitate to contact me. We are here for
each other and we will move forward together.”
That’s as good a place to end as any – but I want you to think about the
sixteen year old in Houston who was denied getting to take her driver’s
test at the Department of Public Safety last week because her birth
certificate listed two mothers instead of a mom and a dad as the Good
Lord and the vehicle code intended. Yes, I know it’s Texas and the
public safety is compromised by the daughter of lesbians behind the
wheel. But one of her mothers is the Mayor of Houston.
There is Hope and Hopelessness enough to go around.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
FACTS, NOT HYPERBOLE: Regarding Deasy’s Termination/Resignation…
From the AALA Weekly Update for the week of Oct 27 | http://bit.ly/1rFNalV
AALA thanks Alan Warhaftig, a member of AALA’s MiSiS Committee who shared these comments.
Oct 23, 2014 :: The MiSiS debacle was more of a factor than the iPads.
The decision to implement MiSiS this year was irresponsible and schools
are in shambles due to MiSiS. Unfortunately, there's no obvious way to
extricate ourselves from this mess that affects, to varying degrees,
every school in LAUSD. Students will be hurt, and after multiple system
failures, employees have lost faith in LAUSD's Information Technology
Division.
At a series of eight meetings (22 hours total) hosted by Associated
Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) between November 2012 and May 2014,
school-site administrators and coordinators warned Chief Information
Officer Ron Chandler, Chief Strategy Officer Matt Hill and other high
District and ITD officials repeatedly, and in compelling detail, about
the consequences of potential problems. These District officials chose
to ignore the school-based experts who would have to use the system.
Most stories state that Superintendent Deasy raised test scores, so I
reviewed the data... The Deasy superintendency began in April 2011,
shortly before the CST exams were given, so 2011 seems a sensible
baseline. Since the CST was not given in 2014, claims about
Superintendent. Deasy raising test scores rest on the 2012 and 2013
CSTs. Click HERE [http://bit.ly/1w7bAdf
] for a spreadsheet that includes the 2011-2013 LAUSD and (for
comparison) statewide CST ELA scores for grades 3-11, the CST math
scores for grades 3-6, and the CST Algebra 1 scores for grades 7-11.
Cohort views of the ELA and Math are included so that one can see how
the same (or substantially the same) group did through three years of
testing.
There are a few bright spots (6th grade and 10th grade English; 4th and
6th grade Math; 8th grade Algebra 1), but there are no huge,
across-the-board improvements. Besides, the achievement of an 8th grader
on the 2013 CST is the consequence of at least nine years of schooling,
only two of which were during Dr. Deasy's superintendency.
●●4LAKids published these comments earlier anonymously; another anonymous responder responded with data and graphs here [http://bit.ly/1081pcs]. So much Excel spreadsheet anonymity, so few names.
THE SHORT SHELF LIFE OF URBAN SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS
by Steve Drummond | NPR Morning Edition | http://n.pr/1oFDfRE
Listen to the Story | 4 min 40 sec | http://n.pr/1tT0NVe
October 21, 2014 4:35 AM ET :: If you're a 12th-grader right now in the
Los Angeles schools, that means you probably started kindergarten back
in 2001. It also means that, as of this week, you've seen four
superintendents come and go.
As we discussed today on Morning Edition, the ouster of John Deasy last
week as the head of the nation's second-largest district has renewed a
long-running debate about leadership of big-city schools, and
particularly the challenges of raising achievement in such a politically
charged environment.
Deasy told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep last week that there's a
clock ticking on "reform"-minded superintendents, such as himself, who
want to shake things up quickly. "I think there is," he said, calling it
a "worrisome trend in America."
But he said that, regardless of that external pressure, he felt
personally that there was no time to waste in his efforts to make a
difference for students.
"I think there's always the delicate balance of how slow you're willing
to go," Deasy told Morning Edition. "And then you have to square that
with looking youth in the eye and say, 'Well, it's not your turn this
year,' and that's difficult to do."
So, is there a time limit?
Actually, superintendents tend to get hired, and fired, pretty quickly regardless of whether they consider themselves reformers.
Deasy's tenure, at 3 1/2 years, is about average for an urban
superintendent. That's a bit longer than it used to be, but still means
that superintendents of any stripe struggle to stick around long enough
to make a difference.
What's been called the "revolving door" of urban superintendents has
created a lot of policy angst over whether they can be effective in that
short a time period.
And it raises this question: How much time would it take to turn around a struggling urban district?
I've often thought of a comparison from the world of baseball: In 1979,
when Sparky Anderson took over as manager of the Detroit Tigers, he
famously said he needed five years to rebuild the team and win a
pennant. And in 1984, right on schedule, Anderson delivered.
Writing about this issue some years ago, I related that story to David
Hornbeck, who lasted six years as the superintendent of the Philadelphia
schools in the 1990s. And I asked him the question: How long does an
urban superintendent need?
He told me the minimum length of time to reasonably gauge a superintendent's tenure was four years.
The first year, Hornbeck said, is hiring and getting a team in place.
The second year provides baseline test scores and time spent developing a
plan. The third year is for putting that plan in place, and the fourth
year provides scores that should be expected to show improvement.
The problem with all this, of course, is that the superintendent by that
time has often moved on to his or her next job, or the one after that.
And so while some people see, in highly publicized departures like
Deasy's, or that of Michelle Rhee from the Washington, D.C., schools in
2010, a sign of a backlash against "reform," the bigger picture is much
more complicated.
Whatever the superintendent's agenda, there are powerful political
forces at work in an urban system: mayors, school boards, and teachers
and their unions, to name a few. And it's often the case that pleasing
one of those factions can alienate or anger the others.
As Michael Casserly, head of the Council of the Great City Schools, told
the Huffington Post, "The demands of the job are among the toughest in
the nation, with cultural, racial and language challenges; increasingly
high academic standards and scarcer resources; demanding unions and
communities; and brutal local politics."
Which may be partly why a recent study showed that when it comes to the
real test of a school district's performance — student achievement — the
person sitting in the superintendent's office doesn't make that much of
a difference.
Perhaps what a superintendent can do is create an environment (stable
leadership, adequate resources, freedom from labor strife) that will
allow the people who actually make a difference — teachers and
principals — to do their jobs. That is, if they're given enough time.
►TRANSCRIPT : STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now let's ask if school reform is being stalled in the United States.
John Deasy suggests that reformist leaders are being steadily replaced.
To hear him tell it, Deasy is one of them. He was superintendent of the
Los Angeles Unified School District until last week, when he had to
resign under pressure after three and a half years. Afterward, at an NPR
interview, Deasy told us there is a time limit for school reformers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHN DEASY: I think there is. I think there's always the delicate
balance of how slow you're willing to go, and then you have to square
that with looking youth in the eye and say, well, it's not your turn
this year.
INSKEEP: So what's really happening in Los Angeles and across the
country? We're putting that question to Steve Drummond. He leads NPR's
Ed team, and he's in our studios. Welcome back, Mr. Drummond.
STEVE DRUMMOND, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: So first, when we talk about school reformers, who exactly are we talking about here?
DRUMMOND: Well, I think Deasy defines it as a group of leaders who've
come in promoting some common ideas in education, technology, how to
evaluate teachers. They use greater parental control in terms of choice
like charter schools, but I think it's not quite that simple.
INSKEEP: OK, so there's a complexity to reform. But there is a group of
people across the country, and we'll be talking about that. Are they
facing a time limit? When a reformer comes in at a big city like
Washington or Chicago or New York, is there a limit to how far they can
go?
DRUMMOND: Well, you've mentioned that John Deasy lasted three and a half
years; frankly, that's about average. Reform superintendent or not, the
average tenure of an urban school superintendent is about three and
half years, so he was kind of in the middle.
INSKEEP: Is that a good length of time?
DRUMMOND: There's a lot of discussion in education about the revolving
door of urban superintendents. I once spoke with the head of the
Philadelphia schools, a man named David Hornbeck, and I asked him this
question - how long do you need? How long does an urban superintendent
need? He said four years.
INSKEEP: To turn around a troubled school district.
DRUMMOND: Right. The first year, you're putting your team in place. He
said the second year, you get baseline test scores that tell you how
you're doing. The third year you're putting your curriculum and your
reforms in place, and the fourth year, you would get second-year data to
give you even an indication of how you're doing. But as we were just
discussing, by that time the superintendent is usually off into his next
job. There's a new person in charge, bringing in their reforms by that
time.
INSKEEP: So there's a revolving door problem whether your superintendent describes himself or herself as a reformer or not.
DRUMMOND: Sure. Let's take Los Angeles - if you're a senior in the LA
Unified District this year, you are on your fifth superintendent since
you started kindergarten in 2001.
INSKEEP: And every single one of those people maybe came in saying, I
need to change some things, maybe go in a new direction, try to get
reforms in place. And, of course, there's some political turmoil each
time there is a change. In fact, John Deasy in our interview pointed
toward what he saw as a kind of reaction by teachers unions and others
opposed to the changes he wanted to make, kind of turning back the
clock. Let's listen to a little bit of what he had to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
DEASY: We now have the three largest school systems, all of which now
are being - have been exited by a, quote, "reformer" and being led by
either former employees, but certainly people who left their jobs, went
into retirement and came back at a significant age.
INSKEEP: A significant age, he says, maybe a reference to the fact that
Deasy has been replaced by a former superintendent who's now in his 80s.
DRUMMOND: I don't think age has anything to do with it. There are
superintendents who've succeeded at all different ages or failed. There
are, however, powerful political forces at work, including teachers.
There are 31,000 teachers in the Los Angeles school district. They're
the people charged with carrying out whatever reforms are going to be in
place. And their unions and the teachers themselves have a big voice,
so, too, does the school boards, so, too, do mayors in urban districts.
And those are often key factors in whether a superintendent thrives or
gets shoved out.
INSKEEP: Maybe we're hearing the real answer why so many superintendents don't last very long.
DRUMMOND: Yeah. And another interesting point, Steve, is that research
out this year raises really good questions whether superintendents
really have all that much effect when it comes right down to the
classroom.
INSKEEP: What do you mean?
DRUMMOND: Well, a study out from the Brookings Institution looked at
superintendents and their effect on the actual student achievement, and
it found a very minimal effect as to whether who's in the
superintendent's chair really has an effect on what happens in the
classroom.
INSKEEP: You know, we begin with that word, reformer. Is there any
consensus about what really does work, what really can improve the
performance of American schools?
DRUMMOND: Well, from the superintendent's point of view, I think the key
thing is what these leaders can do is create the conditions for reform.
They can create a stable environment with the teachers unions so there
isn't a teacher's strike all the time. They can get the budget under
control. In Los Angeles, it's $6.78 billion. There are things that can
be done that create the conditions for the real important people, the
teachers and the principals, to do their jobs.
INSKEEP: If the superintendent has time.
DRUMMOND: Exactly.
INSKEEP: Steven, thanks very much.
DRUMMOND: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's Steve Drummond of the Ed team. It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RETHINKING VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL AS A PATH TO COLLEGE
by Emily Hanford, NPR Marketplace | http://bitly.com/1wxJckz
Thursday, October 23, 2014 - 14:04 :: For years, vocational high
schools have been seen as a lesser form of schooling – tracking some
kids off to work while others were encouraged to go on to college and
pursue higher income professions. But things are changing. Vocational
high schools are focusing much more on preparing students for higher
education.
At one of those schools - Minuteman Regional High School in Lexington,
Massachusetts - students can learn traditional trades like carpentry,
plumbing and welding. They can also learn high tech fields such as video
game design, engineering, and biotechnology.
Minuteman students spend half their time in vocational classes – often
referred to as “career and technical classes - and half their time in
academic courses. About 60 percent of the school’s graduates go on to
college. That’s not the way things were when principal Ernest Houle
learned welding at a vocational high school back in the 1980s.
“The highest-level math I ever had in high school was an Algebra 1,”
says Houle. “And that only happened my sophomore year because it fit in
the schedule.”
Houle went to Leominster Trade School, in Massachusetts. The school was
located in a wing off the regular high school; Houle says he and his
classmates were referred to as “trade rats” and no one expected them to
go to college. After high school graduation, Houle worked as a welder.
“It wasn’t until I went to become a teacher and I realized that not
being offered the classes during high school made it more difficult for
me when I got into the college arena,” he says.
THE ORIGINS OF VOCATIONAL ED
Vocational education wasn’t designed to prepare students for college.
The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, the law that first authorized federal
funding for vocational education in American schools, explicitly
described vocational ed as preparation for careers not requiring a
bachelor’s degree.
“The early vocational education was driven by a philosophy of fitting
people to their probable destinies,” says Jim Stone, director of the
National Research Center for Career and Technical Education. “Kids from
poor families were tracked off into becoming the worker bees. Others
were tracked off to go to universities and be the intelligentsia.”
Stone says vocational education was designed to teach kids the specific
skills for one job. To be a welder or a cosmetologist, for example,
“with the idea that, once you become a welder, you’ll always be a
welder. Or once you become a cosmetologist, you’ll always be a
cosmetologist,” says Stone. The goal was, get kids really skilled at one
thing, “and life will be good,” he says.
The idea that people could be trained in one area and rely on an
industry to employ them for life was a reasonable one for much of the
20th century. There were lots of jobs – good union jobs – for people
with just a high school education. But by the 1970s, the good jobs that
required just a high school education were beginning to disappear.
Technology and globalization were increasing the skill levels required
for most occupations, and making the labor market more volatile. Entire
sectors of the economy were being wiped out, and new kinds of jobs were
being created.
To be successful in this kind of economy, experts say workers have to be
multi-skilled and able to retrain for new jobs throughout their
careers. Everyone needs a good academic foundation in order to do that,
experts say, and most kids in vocational programs were not getting that
foundation.
IMPROVING VOCATIONAL ED
By the late 1990s, vocational education had a major image problem.
Vocational programs had become a kind of dumping ground for kids who
weren’t succeeding in the traditional academic environment. That
included a lot of students with behavior problems, and a lot of students
with learning disabilities. In many school districts, vocational
education wasn’t much more than a “second-tier special ed program,” says
Jim Stone.
At the same time, the standards and accountability movement was taking
hold in public education. States had begun to write academic standards,
or goals, for what students should learn. In 2001, Congress passed the
No Child Left Behind Act. That law required states, in exchange for
federal education funding, to test their students every year and to
insure that all students would eventually be proficient in math and
reading.
All students meant the kids in vocational programs too. And once states
starting testing their students, it became clear that many students in
vocational programs were at the bottom in terms of math and reading
skills. Under No Child Left Behind, those programs could eventually be
shut down for poor performance. If they were going to survive,
vocational schools had to up their game in terms of academics.
“The early 2000s was a time of significant change in voc ed,” says Dave
Ferreira, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of
Vocational Administrators.
“What we wanted to do was create a student who was able to go out” and
get a job, he says, but also able to “get accepted into a four-year
college or university.” The idea was to make sure all students were both
“career and college ready.”
Massachusetts stands out as a state that devoted significant time and
resources to overhauling its vocational education programs, according to
experts.
The key was to convince vocational teachers to put aside “the old
philosophy of saying, ‘It’s all about the trades. I don’t teach
academics,’” says Ferreira, and to help them learn how they could
integrate academic instruction into career training. For example, show
teachers how to teach writing skills when students were writing up
materials lists and job estimates.
And it wasn’t all about integrating academics into career classes, says
Ferreira. It was also about adding academic classes to the vocational
curriculum.
Massachusetts has largely succeeded in bringing the academic quality at
its vocational high schools up to par with its traditional high schools.
In 2013, students at regional vocational high schools in Massachusetts
did as well on the state English tests (92 percent proficient) as
students at traditional high schools (93 percent proficient). On the
math tests, they did nearly as well: 78 percent of students at regional
vocational high schools were proficient in math compared to 82 percent
at traditional high schools.
CAREER AND COLLEGE READINESS
Ernest Houle, the former welder who is now principal of Minuteman High
School, started working at the school as a teacher’s aide in 1996. He
says things were already different from when he was a student at
Leominster Trade School a decade earlier.
“The students [at Minuteman] had advanced math classes, they had the
opportunity to enroll in foreign language classes,” he says.
Houle worked his way up at the school, earning a Bachelor of Science in
occupational and vocational education and a Master of Science in
educational leadership along the way. To get his Bachelor’s degree,
Houle had to take a calculus class, a tall order having had only Algebra
1 in high school.
“It was a lot of hard work and staying after class, working with the professor,” says Houle. But he did it.
“I am probably the poster child for the importance of career and college
readiness,” he says with a chuckle. He says his goal is to make sure
every student who graduates from Minuteman is prepared for higher
education.
“Students get the same kind of college prep here that they’d get at any
high school,” he says. “And they get career skills too.” That’s a bonus
students don’t get at most traditional high schools, and it’s one of the
reasons many students and parents choose Minuteman.
A BETTER PATH TO COLLEGE
Sean and Brandon Datar went to private school until 8th grade. Their dad
is an electrical engineer and their mom teaches at a Montessori school.
They’re probably not the kinds of kids you’d imagine at a vocational
high school.
But when Brandon was looking at options for high school, Minuteman stood out, says his dad, Nijan Datar.
“Being an engineer myself, I like the fact that schools like this cater to making an actual living,” he says.
The family had been touring public and private high schools in the
Boston suburbs, many of them considered among the best high schools in
the country. But Datar wasn’t impressed. He says the main goal seemed to
be getting students into the best, and most expensive, colleges. But no
one seemed to be talking about what kids were going to do with their
college degrees once they got them.
His wife, Teresa Datar, says high school students need more direction.
“My feeling is that in many high schools, students don’t know why
they’re in the classes that they’re in. They’re just kind of biding
time,” she says. “And then they go off to college and they flounder.”
Her son Sean did not want that to happen to him. He says what he liked
best when he toured Minuteman is that the students he met seemed to have
a plan for their lives.
“When you think about it, you want to know what you want to do, and you
want to be sure of it, by the time you go to college,” says Sean. “You
don’t want to pick a major, get like $50,000 in debt,” and then realize
you want to do something else.
Ed Bouquillon, the superintendent of the school district where Minuteman
is located, says one goal of vocational education is to help kids
figure out what they don’t want to do.
“Sometimes I’ll have kids who, at the end of their four years, they’ll
say, ‘Dr. B, you know, I came here in nursing and I really don’t like
it.’ And that’s a valuable thing to know,” says Bouquillon. Better to
figure it out in a public high school, where you’re not paying tuition,
than at a college that’s charging you thousands of dollars, he says.
But students and families who choose vocational education face
stereotypes. Nijan Datar says friends and neighbors in their affluent
Boston suburb were kind of startled when they heard his son Brandon was
going to Minuteman.
“What we did was definitely not the norm here,” says Datar. “I have had
raised-eyebrow looks. It’s almost like you can read that other person’s
mind thinking, OK, the reason I did this is because my son is not very
smart.”
But Datar says his family chose Minuteman because it seemed like a
better path to college than a traditional high school. His sons are
“going to a regular high school but also dipping [their] feet into the
real world and starting to get an understanding of what it takes to get a
job,” he says.
His son Brandon is now a freshman at the Colorado School of Mines,
working on a bachelor’s degree in geological engineering. His son Sean
is a sophomore at Minuteman, majoring in robotics.
AFTER MINUTEMAN
Alice Ofria graduated from Minuteman in 2009. She majored in
environmental science. Now she works as a lab technician for the
drinking water department in Billerica, Massachusetts.
It started as an internship, the summer after she graduated from
Minuteman. But she was so good at the job, the town hired her on as a
permanent employee, says John Sullivan, her boss.
“She’s an expert in computers and a whiz in chemistry,” says Sullivan.
Sullivan says it’s hard for the town to find people with Ofria’s skills.
There’s a “chasm” between what people learn in school and what’s needed
in the “real world,” says Sullivan. Even college graduates don’t tend
to have the needed mix of skills and knowledge.
But Ofria was ready to go from day one, he says.
“The program at Minuteman prepared her to actually learn” what she
needed to on the job, and fast. “She’s done outstanding work here,” he
says.
As a lab technician for the town, Ofria stated off making more than $26
an hour. She gets regular raises, and health and retirement benefits
too. Her friends are amazed.
“Most of my friends are waitresses or work as a secretary somewhere, or
at a tanning salon,” she says. Some of them are college graduates,
struggling to get by. But Ofria recently bought a new truck and went on a
vacation to Puerto Rico.
And having a good job – she now makes more than $30 an hour – was a huge
help when it came to paying college tuition. In May, Ofria graduated
from the University of Massachusetts, Boston with a bachelor’s degree in
environmental science. And just last month, she picked up a second job –
as a teacher’s aide in the Environmental Technology program at
Minuteman. She’s thinking about pursuing a teaching career, and if she
does, she says she wants to teach at a vocational high school.
“Vocational school is where it’s at, to put it bluntly,” she says.
“Because no one experienced a field, a trade and also got the same
[academic] education. None of my friends experienced that, except for
the friends I went to Minuteman with.”
THE LAUSD’s POSSIBLE CLASSROOM MORALE PROBLEM + smf’s 2¢
Readers React: By LA Times Letters to the Editor Editor Paul Thornton | http://lat.ms/ZRHzkY
25 Oct 2014 :: The teachers in Los Angeles who write to The Times —
and I may be understating the intensity of their views here — are no
fans of John Deasy. So when the embattled former superintendent resigned
from the Los Angeles Unified School District last week, one might have
expected a collective sigh of relief from our educator letter writers.
Hardly. Though a handful of teachers celebrated Deasy's departure, the
vast majority who wrote us expressed continued anxiety and frustration
over their jobs. If letters are any indication of broader opinion, it's
safe to say there may be a morale problem in L.A. Unified classrooms.
●MELANIE PANUSH LINDERT OF LOS ANGELES takes the pulse of teachers: at several campuses:
I thought it couldn't get worse, but indeed it has: LAUSD teachers are even more stressed than last school year.
As an itinerant dance teacher, I work with several dozen teachers a
year. I trudge to a different school every day. The teacher inferno has
reached epic proportions this year, with no relief in sight. We must
remember that what befalls our teachers trickles down to our children.
We have the endless flow of testing. One fourth-grade teacher
explained how frustrated she was because there was no opportunity to
prepare her children for a math test. Teachers must know the new Common
Core curriculum, terminology, objectives and how to record data on
computers.
Parents and principals are demanding more. There is a new, complex
system for evaluating teachers, and teachers are required to take
workshops to comply with this new system.
I thought it couldn't get worse, but indeed it has: LAUSD teachers
are even more stressed than last school year. - Melanie Panush Lindert,
Los Angeles
Teachers are serious, responsible, caring, creative, resourceful and
patient. Why haven't these professionals been part of the team to
create the very best system for our kids?
●RANCHO PALOS VERDES RESIDENT MICHAEL WHITTEMORE gives credit to his fellow teachers for gains in achievement:
I am a retired teacher (30 years of experience), and I am amazed by
the arrogance of education "talking heads" claiming credit for student
achievement.
They don't teach; teachers do. It is the joy of that nexus that brings progress. Teachers love teaching.
Giving us decent class sizes, materials (most teachers spend their
own money on classroom materials) and administrative support will result
in even greater achievement.
●JIM WAKEMAN OF LONG BEACH says education reforms are driving away teachers:
Deasy's sympathizers give him credit for reducing the number of student suspensions and raising students' test scores.
Well, when teachers are required to keep students in class in spite
of their behavior, yes, there will be fewer suspensions. And when
teachers' jobs may be threatened by low student test scores, some
teachers, understandably, will "teach to the test." Then, yes, test
scores will improve.
Neither of these predictable results will improve student learning,
but they will drive more teachers away from the profession.
___________
●● smf’s 2¢: The L.A. Times is obviously getting farther out on a limb
than they feel comfortable. I guess if your window on the world is
through The Times mailbag yours is a rather limited perspective – as
evidenced by the editor/headline writer’s use of the qualifier
‘possible’. The world is possibly round and chocolate is possibly
tasty. The newspaper industry is in a possible downturn.
District morale is abysmal, all the way to eleven on the knob. And,
like Captain Bligh in the old joke, apparently the flogging won’t stop
until the morale improves.
All surviving LAUSD staff, whether in the classroom, the school, the
local district, or the central office - have been through six years of
RIFs, class size+workload increases and program cuts. They haven’t got a
raise in slightly less than forever. They have worked hard, they have
raised test scores, they campaigned for Prop 30 which brought in more
money to schools – and are rewarded by the superintendent taking a 17%
pay raise and offering them 2%. There is money for iPads and failed
technology but none for the District’s most valuable asset: Its human
resources. The powerless-that-be have turned back the billionaires who
would break their unions and take away their jobs and outsource public
education to charter schools at the ballot box…and are rewarded with a
Time Magazine cover that hammers Bad Teachers with a Judge’s Gavel.
Never mind that the cover story doesn’t even agree with the cover
picture and headline – “Bad Teachers” sells magazines!
“Bad Teachers” allegedly don’t teach to the test with enough urgency.
The “Embattled+Beleaguered Superintendent” may have fixed a contract
according to The Times own reporting. And the Publisher/CEO of the LA
Times goes on the radio and bemoans his downfall.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
"CRENSHAW" UC Santa Cruz graduate student's thesis
film examines bitterness of Crenshaw High reconstitution | http://bit.ly/1wzZFmp
ACLU: Jefferson High class scheduling improvement plan may be flawed http://bit.ly/1sqqLbs
9 LAUSD schools each get $50,000 because they’re near a huge garbage dump | http://bit.ly/1pNZRui
ANOTHER CALIFORNIA EXPORT INDUSTRY: CA Charters plan for future growth ....outside state | http://bit.ly/1zwiVGS
LAUSD STUDENTS COULD TAKE iPADS HOME SOON | http://bit.ly/1sqoz3H
THE LAUSD’s POSSIBLE CLASSROOM MORALE PROBLEM + smf’s 2¢ | http://bit.ly/1uWFg8z
iPAD + MiSiS CRISES: LAUSD Parents Seek L.A.Superior Court Civil Grand Jury Investigation + smf’s 2¢ | http://bitly.com/1DccbdT
THE TROUBLED HISTORY + PROMISING FUTURE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION Read: http://tl.gd/n_1sdfn42
BAD APPLES / BAD TEACHERS / BAD TIME MAGAZINE :: #TIMEfail | http://bit.ly/1sZDYM5
DUNCAN SOFTENS STAND ON K-12 TESTING ....looks for the 'Goldilocks' balance Read: http://tl.gd/n_1sdcs1k
TIME: "......some tech millionaires may have found a way to change that" | http://ti.me/1oxiDeq
View summary
TIME MAGAZINE: "It's nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher...." | http://ti.me/1oxiDeq
1st Look: TIME MAGAZINE COVER STORY ON TEACHER TENURE, VERGARA, DAVID WELCH Read: http://tl.gd/n_1sdcqh5
Politico AM Ed: NEW FEDERAL REGS LOOSEN CREDIT REQUIREMENTS FOR STUDENT LOANS Read: http://tl.gd/n_1sdcqaq
GUNS IN SENIOR PORTRAITS OK IF DONE TASTEFULLY, NEBRASKA SCHOOL BOARD SAYS, Omaha World-Herald: http://bit.ly/ZEQvdd
Bonds should not pay for iPad curriculum, new L.A. Unified head says http://fw.to/CDXfLNj /s/IWi9
UPDATED AGAIN: TWO THOUGHTS (and some statistical analysis) WORTH FAR MORE THAN 2¢ RE: THURSDAY’S TRANSITION | http://bit.ly/1081pcs
Politico shout out to Carson High farm program! GOOD MORNING! It's Tuesday, Oct. 21 and I can't stop thinking ab… http://twishort.com/54Ggc
Uh-oh, that word again: CORTINES FEELS ‘URGENCY’, THE FORCES OF ®EFORM FEEL PRESSURE | http://bit.ly/1w2DVmc
"......and I need to find out the extent of the problem so we can deal with the issues." | http://bit.ly/1whPzrb
"I’m very concerned that it’s not just one or two, three schools, it’s all across the district.... http://bit.ly/1whPzrb
"I don’t think anybody knows the magnitude, neither do I, of the (MiSiS) meltdown," Cortines said. | http://bit.ly/1whPzrb
Who knew there was a spin cycle on the Polar Express?: EX-LAUSD CHIEF SAYS RESIGNATION CAME IN POLARIZED ATMOSPHPERE http://bit.ly/1nxR8AB
Cortines doesn't want/won't seek Deasy's advice.| http://bit.ly/1nxPHC0 | Cortines Interview: 9AM @KPCC 89.3
Cortines contract runs through June 2015, but can be ended by either party with 30 days notice.
0 replies 6 retweets 0 favorites
Scott Folsom @4LAKids • Oct 20
POLITICO MORNING ED: T vs. T - California superintendent battle escalate$ | http://bit.ly/1ySwwHo
30 year LAUSD teacher's CALSTRS pension = $36,009 annually / 4 yr Deasy superintendent's CALSTRS pension = $39,995 | http://bit.ly/1t2uNfl
Tea-baggers lament: LA SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT GETS PENSION SPIKE, THEN RESIGNS | http://bit.ly/1t2uNfl
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
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