In This Issue:
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HAMILTON HIGH PROVIDES CLUES ON HOW LAUSD'S NEW SUPERINTENDENT WILL LEAD |
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LAUSD SUPERINTENDENTS: A little history |
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CHARTERS, BUT OTHERS TOO: A better charter-school initiative |
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Friedrichs v. CTA: SUPREME COURT SIGNALS IT'S READY TO HAND CTA, PUBLIC UNIONS BIG SETBACK |
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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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This is the 600th edition of the weekly 4LAKids
Newsletter; this is the 600th of these weekly essays and my vastly
inflated 2-cents-worth, exploring the Week That Was in LAUSD+Public
Education.
There was a looming $500 budget deficit in LAUSD in 2004; Roy Romer was
superintendent, Jose Huizar was board president, John Perez was UTLA
president, Michael O’Sullivan was AALA president, John Deasy was Santa
Monica-Malibu supe and Michelle King was principal at Hamilton High
School. Issue one was titled THE BUDGET, API SCORES & TESTING, MATH
AND SEX [http://bit.ly/1P59zKm] …and I was obviously+obliviously preoccupied, fixated+obsessed with those things and in that order.
●●smf v.2004: “It's interesting that the amount LAUSD needs to cut from
its budget exceeds the total the Bush administration proposes to add to
the national education budget.
“The tragedy is that the district is intending to eliminate student
psychological services and programs in a time when the county health
department and the state is doing the same. LAUSD nursing services are
already at one nurse-day-a-month at some schools! School nurses and
psychologists are often the only medical and mental health professionals
many LAUSD students ever see.”
Elsewhere in the same issue, under the lead: THE API SCORES ARE OUT!
●●smf v.2004: “What’s the fun of all this testing if we can't complain about the scores?
“I spent a couple of hours Thursday having the importance of all this
explained to me and I’m afraid I still don’t really care. The exciting
news, I’m told, is that test scores are going up and that low performing
schools are doing better! The bad news is that though many schools in
the lowest rank of API scoring have gone up – and some a lot – they are
still in the lowest rank!”
●●smf v.2015: “Incremental Urgency: The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
LAST WEEK THE UNENDING SECRET MEETINGS AND THE WATER-COOLER RUMORS AND
THE PRESS SPECULATION ENDED: Los Angeles has a new professional football
franchise and a new superintendent of schools. Both were announced
officially Tuesday. (LAUSD announced Monday, but the official stuff
happened Tuesday.)
OK, Not exactly a new football team …the once-and-future LOS ANGELES
RAMS. Of Inglewood; formerly of St. Louis. And Anaheim. And before that
L.A. And before that Cleveland.
And not exactly a new superintendent, the interim supe (and heir
apparent) got the job: SUPERINTENDENT MICHELLE KING. A natural born
insider.
“Sont des mots qui vont tres bien ensemble
Tres bien ensemble”
Welcome home. The executive search firm and board of Ed looked
far-and-wide and found one-of-our-own, one door to the left of the old
superintendent’s office. Ms. King isn’t even changing offices; just the
sign on the door.
Superintendent King is the third female superintendent in the history of
the L.A. City Schools, the first in eighty-six years. Susan Dorsey,
arguably the best superintendent in L.A. history was the second …and the
L.A. Times forgot about the first | http://lat.ms/2074Z00.
THE LA TIMES, displaying its editorial independence (or is it
ambivalence?) of the Eli Broad funded sponsorship of the Times’ own
education journalism came down irresolutely on all sides of the fence
on:
• King’s appointment: http://lat.ms/1OXu6yz, http://lat.ms/1Qfsn8J, http://lat.ms/1Q7sr8w
• The School Board’s resolution opposing the Broad Charter Takeover Plan
(without actually naming it!) School Board Gears For Battle On Charter
Plan: http://lat.ms/1PrDpmA
• The Charter School Association’s lawsuit against LAUSD: Charter School Group Sues LAUSD Over Construction Money - http://lat.ms/1lkTrGO
• The naming of an executive director of (Broad’s/Not Broad’s) Great
Schools Now nonprofit (formerly a lobbyist/strategist of The California
Charter Schools Association) and the Broad Initiative itself. http://lat.ms/1Q7sEbQ
Broad’s plan was to make half of LAUSD into charter schools; The Times’
editorial board’s ‘Let’s All Just Get Along’ compromise seems to support
making half of LAUSD’s schools NOT charter schools! (see Charters, But
Others Too, following)
Sure, Education Matters – but make no mistake: so does Eli’s money –
whether invested at The Times or leveraged at Great Schools Now! Does
anyone remember when journalistic independence was independent? When
journalistic ethics were ethical? When you didn’t have to read the fine
print about who is paying for what in your newspaper? When philanthropy
was altruistic? …and non-profit didn’t require a tax attorney to figure
it out?
THE SUPREME COURT HEARD THE FRIEDRICH v. CTA APPEAL on Monday; even the
L.A. Times editorial board urged they show restraint [Should Nonunion
Teachers Be Forced To Pay Dues? [http://lat.ms/1ndr4vJ]
– but I’m not at all sure Justice Scalia is a subscriber. And I’m
pretty sure the founding fathers and framers of the constitution didn’t
envision teachers unions. (We must remember that the constitution was
framed while Thomas Jefferson was out of town.)
MONDAY IS MLK DAY:
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to
think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true
education.”
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
―Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
HAMILTON HIGH PROVIDES CLUES ON HOW LAUSD'S NEW SUPERINTENDENT WILL LEAD
By Priska Neely | KPCC 89.3 |http://bit.ly/1P7bKx1
January 13 2016 :: When the Los Angeles Unified board named longtime
employee Michelle King the district’s newest superintendent Monday,
board members cited her three decades of service to the school system --
years in which she worked mostly out of the spotlight, but built strong
ties through her personal touch.
"She has an ability to build tremendous good will with the people she
works with," said teacher Robert Coad, who worked with King at Hamilton
High School on the Westside. She held leadership positions there for
eight years.
On Tuesday, the day after King's appointment as new superintendent, Hamilton High staff was elated.
"Everybody has this sense that she cares about them," said Fran Rose,
Hamilton's humanities magnet coordinator. He said King connected not
just with teachers and other staff, but with parents and other
stakeholders.
It's no small feat for a former principal to be so fondly remembered.
"It was always like no problem was too small," explained Marlene
Zuccaro, director of Hamilton's academy of music and performing arts.
Librarian Rosemarie Bernier remembers like it was yesterday the day in
1997 she got her national board certification. King was her supervisor.
"I went in to tell her and show her my certificate," Bernier said,
tearing up at the memory. "You know what she did? She grabbed my hands
and we jumped up and down together because she was thrilled for me and
she was thrilled for the kids."
During her acceptance speech Monday, King gave little policy detail, speaking mainly in generalities.
She said her goals are to increase parent engagement, improve access and
equity for all students to a quality education, and better prepare
students for college. She also pledged fiscal restraint, saying she will
devise a budget strategy to support her aims.
She did make it clear that she intends to retain her personal touch as she takes on the district's top job.
"It is only by working as a team and a family that we can help our students achieve and thrive," King said.
LAUSD board president Steve Zimmer said in her interviews, King
demonstrated a level of connection with the school district's work that
went above and beyond what she was normally able to show in her job as
an administrator.
Speaking on KPCC's Take Two on Tuesday morning, Zimmer said she had a
passion for two major initiatives that the district has already begun to
put in place: a major push to better prepare students for college and
career and a slate of reforms to make school discipline policies more
equitable and effective.
"What we had seen with Ms. King in the past is really the implementation
side and we had not really seen her passion for these initiatives in
the ways that she was able to talk about them through the interview
process and the selection process," Zimmer said.
Before her appointment to the top job, King was the chief deputy
superintendent of schools. She’s also held other senior administrative
jobs during a number of tumultuous years in the district. In these jobs
she focused on executing other people’s visions.
Now, the school board has tasked King to turning her passion into
tangible results that the district has long-struggled to achieve. They
include dramatically improving academic performance and convincing
parents to keep their kids enrolled in traditional public schools.
Given the huge fiscal deficit the district faces in the coming years,
King will be unable to please everyone. And a number of outside
observers had hoped the board would pick an outsider who could bring new
ideas to the struggling district.
But UCLA education professor Pedro Noguera said her insider knowledge could give her an advantage.
"It’s a big unwieldy system," he said, "so hopefully that means she
won’t take a long time to get up to speed like a newcomer would."
As she takes the reins of this behemoth school district, Coad, the
Hamilton High teacher, said King's move is not unlike when, in 2002, she
was named principal after having spent five years as assistant
principal.
"When she moved up to be principal, it was just a real relief," he said.
Before she took over, the school – not unlike the district now -- was
going through a volatile time. Lots of tension was brewing between the
three programs that share the campus, teachers said.
"There’s a reassurance when somebody really competent in-house is
promoted rather than somebody from outside who needs that time to
acclimate or understand the school," he said.
King’s task now is to multiply her legacy at Hamilton to the district’s 900 schools and more than 640,000 students.
Rose, the humanities coordinator at Hamilton, said he thinks King is up for the job.
"After the upheaval, she was the calming influence and I think really
turned things round at this school," Rose said. "And I’m hoping she does
the same thing with the district."
LAUSD SUPERINTENDENTS: A little history
►THE LEGACY OF SUSAN DORSEY: The last time L.A. schools had a female superintendent was 1929
by Sonali Kohli, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1P122w7
Jan 13, 2016 :: To find the last woman who ran Los Angeles schools
before newly appointed Supt. Michelle King takes over, you would need to
dig far back into the 20th century. The last female superintendent was
Susan M. Dorsey, and she held the post from 1920 until the beginning of
1929.
Dorsey worked in the district for more than 30 years — so, like King, Dorsey was an insider.
Born in New York, Dorsey grew up on the East Coast and attended Vassar
College before becoming a classics instructor, according to archived
L.A. Times stories. Marriage brought her to Los Angeles. She taught
Latin at Los Angeles High School beginning in 1896, became a vice
principal and principal, rose to assistant superintendent and ultimately
superintendent.
When she was appointed to the superintendent's job in 1920, she was the
only woman to be superintendent in a U.S. metropolitan school district,
according to The Times.
Unlike King, Dorsey’s appointment wasn’t unanimous — the board approved
her hiring by a 5-2 vote, and chose her in part for her local ties,
according to Times coverage of the decision. Her appointment “came as a
complete surprise to everyone, including Mrs. Dorsey,” according to The
Times, because “it was generally reported that she had declined the
position.” A story about her appointment reported:
“She has been instrumental in instituting a number of reforms in the
school system. She is regarded as progressive and is well acquainted
with the local school needs.”
She earned $8,000 a year at first, the equivalent of $94,934.40 in 2015
dollars, and by the end of her tenure the salary had increased to
$12,000. King’s superintendent salary hasn’t been finalized yet, but her
current district salary is $303,505.
Dorsey’s district was very different from the one over which King will
preside. At that time, Los Angeles had two districts: Dorsey’s was for
elementary and junior high school students, and there was another for
high schools.
Here’s a description from an L.A. Times story from December 1928 about her resignation:
“When Mrs. Dorsey assumed the duties of superintendent of the Los
Angeles City School District in 1920 there were 141,744 students
enrolled in 233 schools, to which 3,537 teachers were assigned, as
against the seventy-five teachers employed when she began her teaching
career in 1896.”
Now, all of the Los Angeles Unified School District has just under 650,000 K-12 students and about 26,000 teachers.
Dorsey oversaw much of the district’s physical growth at the time,
implementing a building program that cost upwards of $700,000.
The Times story on her retirement notes: “The startling growth of the
city and the amazingly rapid development of easy communication and quick
transportation greatly complicated the duty of educators.”
One of the greatest challenges Dorsey faced was the city’s expansion.
(King, by contrast, is facing a declining student population.) It is in
part thanks to Dorsey that L.A. schools are as big as they are, as a
Times story from November 1927, discussing her reappointment, read:
“Throughout the tremendous building program of the past seven years Mrs.
Dorsey has always urged upon the Board of Education the importance of
spacious grounds. It is through her foresight and vision that school
sites range from five to thirty acres, as she always has insisted that
Los Angeles must look to future expansion and that the children of its
citizens must build strong bodies on its school playgrounds."
She also expanded adult education, and was at the forefront of bringing
vocational education and technology into schools. Instead of iPads,
though, her tech advancement was to introduce “radio instruction and
construction” and “automobile mechanics and shopwork.” She even
implemented some aviation classes.
She retired the day before her 72nd birthday, and this is how The Times,
in a front page story on Dec. 7, 1928, described the board meeting at
which her resignation letter was read:
“The white hands of the superintendent moved nervously and a deep flush
overspread her face. Then the tears came and the head with its crown of
snowy hair dropped. Mrs. Dorsey was witnessing the passing from her
hands of a work to which she had given her best efforts, for thirty-two
years.”
______________
▲CORRECTION: For the record | http://lat.ms/2074Z00
FEMALE SUPERINTENDENTS: An article about women who have led Los Angeles'
public school system said that Michelle King became the second female
superintendent and that Susan M. Dorsey was first. In fact, Dorsey was
the second and King is the third. The first was C.B. Jones in 1880.
►INSIDER/OUTSIDER: SEE HOW LAUSD HAS WAVERED BETWEEN PICKING LEADERS FROM THE OUTSIDE AND WITHIN
By Michelle Maltais and Sonali Kohli | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1n3vtRj
One of the most salient headlines about the hiring of Michelle King as
the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District is that
she’s an insider -- a district stalwart who worked her way up the LAUSD
ladder over a span of 30 years -- and not someone with a glitzy national
name, such as a vice admiral in the Navy or a former governor.
The history of L.A. Unified’s leadership provides context to King’s
appointment: The district is constantly revising its view on whether it
needs an insider to stabilize the schools, or an outsider to shake them
up. And history hasn’t settled the question of whether being an insider
is a help, or a hindrance.
Over 45 years, the margin of insiders to outsiders leading the district
was eight to five. Here is a timeline of the superintendents in recent
history, how the board chose them, and how they fared:
● 1971-1981: WILLIAM J. JOHNSTON - INSIDER
Johnston was promoted from within the ranks of L.A. Unified. Before his
appointment, he served as assistant superintendent for adult education,
the focus of his graduate education. Observers saw his “young,
energetic” personality as an asset to promoting renewal within the
schools. He started in L.A. Unified as a math teacher and junior varsity
baseball coach at Gardena High School.
His insider ties extended beyond his own LAUSD career. His dad, Ogden
“Johnny” Johnston, had been warmly remembered as a wood shop teacher for
nearly 40 years at Roosevelt High in East Los Angeles.
During his tenure as superintendent, he established the All-District
Honors Band. As superintendent, Johnston also encouraged LAUSD schools
to participate in what was then the new state academic decathlon
competition.
Johnston still corresponds, by formal letter, with district leaders, offering his opinions and guidance.
● 1981-1987: Harry Handler - INSIDER
Handler had been serving as Johnston’s chief deputy when he was
appointed superintendent. He joined LAUSD in 1952 as a substitute junior
high math teacher, and later served as supervisor of guidance and
counseling for junior and senior high schools. In 1968, Handler was
named to the district's newly created post of director of research and
development. He later became associate superintendent for instruction.
As The Times reported upon his appointment, “His selection is expected
to please top district officials, who wanted to see the practice of
promoting from within the ranks continued.”
Discord over desegregation was still brewing when he took office. The
board Handler inherited was polarized, consumed with bitter busing
fights and the aftermath of white flight by students and teachers.
However, “Handler's most enduring legacy,” The Times wrote in an
editorial the day he left office, “may be a school board that works in
harmony.”
● 1987-1990: LEONARD M. BRITTON - OUTSIDER
Britton had the distinction of being the first outsider appointed as
LAUSD superintendent in nearly 40 years. He uprooted himself from a
successful legacy as head of the Miami-Dade County public schools. In
his seven years in Miami, Britton developed well-regarded specialty
schools, including one for pregnant teens. He strengthened relations
with the teachers union, developed a group of effective administrators
and experimented with school-based management. It was that reputation
and record that prompted his appointment in Los Angeles.
However, the complex political landscape of LAUSD was riddled with tough
issues, making for a steep learning curve. He faced a combative
teachers union and a fragmented board against the backdrop of an
economic downturn. He was unable to translate his success in Miami to
Los Angeles before he resigned in 1990. "We never found out what Leonard
Britton could do for L.A. Unified because he never got a chance,"
former school board member Jackie Goldberg said. "He had a lot to
offer."
Eventually, the board voted to buy out Britton's contract.
● 1990-1992: WILLIAM R. ANTÓN - INSIDER
As a result of Britton’s perceived failure, the board abruptly ditched
its ideas for bringing in a “fresh perspective.” Instead, they wanted,
yet again, a leader more familiar with the district’s inner workings --
and functional turmoil. Described as “an LAUSD man through and through,”
38-year LAUSD veteran Antón succeeded the guy who beat him to the top
job just three years earlier. He began his career as a teacher at Rowan
Avenue Elementary School. Antón was the first Latino to head the Los
Angeles school district, in which more than 60% of the 640,000 students
were Latino.
Antón was admired for his fair, straightforward though demanding
approach. Among his priorities were relations with parents and looking
out especially for minority students in a system that did not always
have high expectations of them.
Alas, his inside experience proved insufficient. In the middle of
struggling to keep the district solvent despite multibillion-dollar
budget deficits, Anton abruptly resigned after only 26 months on the
job. On his way out the door, he cited a politically charged atmosphere
that included a micromanaging school board and an activist teachers
union.
● 1992-1997: SIDNEY A. THOMPSON - INSIDER
Thompson was also an LAUSD veteran. He started as a math teacher in
Pacoima nearly 40 years before becoming superintendent. He was the first
African American superintendent to lead the nation’s second-largest
school district.
In a farewell editorial about his tenure, The Times’ editorial board
wrote that Thompson “deserves credit for his fiscal management,
supporting the LEARN [Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring
Now] reforms, getting the teachers to agree to a 3-year contract and
stiffening high school courses.”
Thompson initiated a plan that aimed to boost academic performance by
the year 2000, including measures such as ensuring all students can read
by the end of third grade, enrolling most students in middle-school
algebra classes and moving bilingual education students into mainstream
English courses after five years. In addition to the ongoing budget and
union battles, groups in different parts of the school system were
trying to break away and form their own districts. After his nearly
four-year tenure as superintendent, he said he learned that reforming a
large school system is a job with no natural conclusion.
● 1997-2000: RUBEN ZACARIAS - INSIDER
Zacarias was the fourth superintendent over the course of a decade, the
first fluent Spanish speaker and the second Latino to run LAUSD. He had
worked at every level in the system, including temporary preschool
teacher, principal, regional administrator and on up. He started his
LAUSD career in 1966 as a teacher at his alma mater, Breed Street
School, later becoming principal there in 1975.
When he was appointed, Zacarias vowed he would improve student
performance by making teachers and principals personally responsible for
school achievement. On his way out, critics called his accomplishments
incremental.
Ultimately, Zacarias was pressured into taking a buyout when a newly
elected board decided to hire its own choice for district leader. Until
Zacarias agreed to leave, however, loyal Eastside supporters staged
protests on his behalf.
He was “widely regarded as an insider who was unwilling or unable to
challenge colleagues with whom he spent his entire career,” according to
a 2015 Times story.
● 2000: RAMON CORTINES - OUTSIDER
The first time LAUSD brought in Cortines, he was hired on an interim
basis. He arrived as a 67-year-old outsider who had led districts around
the country, including Pasadena, San Francisco (his hometown) and New
York. He had a reputation for standing up to board members and
bulldozing through bureaucracy, in the name of what he deemed best for
students. He was a nationally known educator, and a familiar figure in
Pasadena -- where he twice headed the schools -- but new to Los Angeles
Unified.
It seems that he was chosen for his ability to get the district running
smoothly after Zacarias was pushed out. “If it's truly a cleanup
operation to get the district ready for a long-term strategy, then I
think he's excellent for this," a UC Berkeley education professor said
when Cortines was hired.
He introduced a plan to cut central staff and reorganize, but wasn’t
able to see it through in his six-month stint. Cortines also oversaw a
back-to-basics agenda that focused on cleaning bathrooms and providing
all students with textbooks. And he made all elementary schools adopt a
phonics-based reading program. The board urged Cortines to stay, but he
left “to avoid any impression that he'd been angling for the job,”
according to a 2008 Times story.
● 2000-2006 : ROY ROMER - OUTSIDER
Romer was hired in part because he was the only one of five favored
candidates who wanted the job,” reads a 2006 Times story published after
the former Colorado governor left the job. He came in with the goal of
implementing Cortines’ plan to decentralize the district, and to build
new schools and facilities for the growing number of students.
Romer sometimes clashed with the board over union relations and over his
otherwise-popular $19-billion school repair and construction project.
He also had an antagonistic relationship with then-mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa, who frequently attacked the district.
Romer has had the longest tenure in the 21st century, and left of his
own accord. "You have a whole lot of social and economic pressures,” he
said in 2015. “Los Angeles is especially tough because it's so large, so
diverse.”
● 2006-2008: DAVID L. BREWER III - OUTSIDER
The school board hired Brewer, a retired Navy admiral, during a
leadership struggle over control of the school system with then-Mayor
Villaraigosa. Brewer had no experience managing school districts and
little preparation for the turmoil of L.A. politics or district
infighting.
“In hiring Brewer, board members had opted for a non-educator -- largely
because they sought a fresh thinker, unwedded to the bureaucracy,
unafraid to make bold, even unorthodox moves,” reads a 2008 Times story.
One of his first moves was to commission a report detailing everything wrong with the district.
Brewer launched an innovation division and test scores continued their
gradual rise during his term. Voters also passed a $7-billion school
construction bond on his watch. But critics said he moved slowly and
never mastered either L.A. politics or district bureaucracy. He was
bought out for $517,500.
● 2009-2011: RAMON CORTINES - INSIDER (BY NOW)
The second time the school board chose Cortines, they wanted the same
bold moves they sought from Brewer, but from an educator who had become
familiar with the district and who worked quickly and relentlessly.
Over 2½ years, Cortines trimmed the central office through layoffs and
reorganization, managed budget cuts prompted by a statewide economic
recession and oversaw a program through which groups from inside and
outside the school system could bid for control of low-performing
campuses. As a result, more independently run charter schools began to
operate on district properties, sometimes sharing sites with traditional
public schools. Cortines re-staffed some low-performing schools,
requiring teachers there to re-apply for their jobs.
But for Villaraigosa and his allies, Cortines was not moving quickly enough. And in April 2011, Cortines agreed to step aside.
● 2011-2014: JOHN D. DEASY - OUTSIDER
Deasy came in with ties to local power players like billionaire
philanthropist Eli Broad and Villaraigosa. He was familiar with Los
Angeles as he had headed the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
from 2001-2006, though he hadn’t worked in LAUSD before Cortines hired
him.
He was technically promoted from within, since he was Cortines’ top
deputy for five months, but was hired with the understanding that he
would soon take the top job. The board selected him with little to no
outside input, and didn’t have a public search or application process.
Deasy pursued an aggressive agenda that included revamping teacher
evaluations and ending the near-automatic granting of tenure to teachers
near the end of their second year of work. He also took part in ongoing
litigation to limit teacher job protections and to end the use of
seniority as a basis for laying off teachers. In addition, he ordered
administrators to sharply reduce the number of student suspensions.
His efforts were hindered by a persistent economic recession and
deteriorating relations with a majority of board members and the
teachers union. Critics blamed him for two technology debacles: a
malfunctioning student records system and an aborted $1.3-billion effort
to provide every student with an iPad. As with other recent
superintendents, test scores rose incrementally.
● 2014-2015: RAMON CORTINES - INSIDER
By this point, Cortines had become the district’s go-to cleanup guy. The
board brought him back even though his reputation had been tarnished by
a sexual-harassment allegation dating from 2010. Cortines denied
wrongdoing. After Deasy’s disastrous departure from the district, the
school board wanted an experienced leader they trusted.
Cortines, by then 82, soon told the board he would stay only through
2015. In that year, he smoothed union relations, ended efforts to
provide every student with a computer—calling it unaffordable--and
oversaw the repair of the student records system.
● 2016- : MICHELLE KING - INSIDER
Following a nationwide search, this week, the school board promoted the
consummate insider. Board president Steve Zimmer presented her to
Angelenos at a meeting on Monday, calling her a “daughter of our city,”
in both Spanish and English. She is the first African American woman to
lead L.A. Unified.
King started her career as a secondary life science teacher at Porter
Junior High School in 1984. After serving as a principal, she served in a
succession of district roles before winding up as chief deputy
superintendent. She served as the No. 2 administrator for both Deasy and
then Cortines in his latest stint.
She will inherit the problems that have plagued superintendents before
her, and a few new ones. Enrollment is declining, the district faces a
deficit, and there’s an effort to dramatically increase the number of
charter schools in the city. Only time will tell whether her intimate
familiarity with the district will help her succeed where others before
her have failed.
Times Reporter Howard Blume contributed to this report.
CAVEAT: The Times receives funding for its digital initiative, Education
Matters, from one or more of the groups quoted 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 to
support this effort. Under terms of the grants, the Times retains
complete control over editorial content.
●●smf’s 2¢: The Times fails to mention its not insignificant role in the rise+fall of these LAUSD superintendents.
CHARTERS, BUT OTHERS TOO: A better charter-school initiative
By The Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/1lkV33b
Jan 17, 2016 :: The controversial Eli Broad-backed initiative that was
designed to double charter-school attendance in the Los Angeles Unified
School District has been shape-shifting ever since an early draft was
leaked months ago. The goal of enrolling half of the district’s students
in charter schools within eight years has been dropped. Now, those
involved in the planning say, no specific enrollment goal will be
included in the eventual plan. Seed money would be disbursed not just to
open more charter schools, as originally intended, but to help fund new
high-performing district schools of all types — including magnets,
pilot schools and neighborhood schools — using successful existing
schools as models.
“There are all kinds of excellent schools in L.A. Unified -- just not
enough of them, especially in neighborhoods where low-income students
live.”
If that’s how things actually work out, it would be a real improvement
on the original concept. There are all kinds of excellent schools in
L.A. Unified — just not enough of them, especially in neighborhoods
where low-income students live. Instead of perpetuating the war between
charters and “traditional” district public schools, and creating sharp
division and bad feeling throughout the district, a more encompassing
effort to open and support good schools of all sorts would offer parents
a true choice.
Here’s another change in the plan: Although it is still well-funded, it
apparently won’t be quite the half-a-billion-dollar effort originally
envisioned. Donations haven’t been coming in at that level. Though
fundraising will continue, the numbers being talked about now are more
like two-thirds that amount.
That could be part of the reason for the avowed change of mission. The
original draft was widely criticized after The Times reported on it, and
the backlash didn’t come solely from the teachers unions and other
typical charter-school opponents. Community leaders also were unhappy
about deal developed in private that could potentially harm traditional
district schools. They worried that the district would be unable to
absorb the financial losses from the creation of that many charter
schools, as state education funding followed students to their new
schools. The new, softer approach came partly in response to the
widespread criticism — but it also might make fundraising easier by
creating a more politically palatable school-improvement plan.
The realities involved in staffing so many charter schools also played a
part. The state is already struggling with shortages of teachers and
principals; even charter-school supporters fretted that the initiative
might collapse under its own weight in the rush to find enough educators
to staff 260 new schools. That’s especially true given that teacher
turnover tends to be high at charter schools.
The original critics of the plan — the teachers union and its supporters
— remain suspicious. They worry that the nonprofit Great Public Schools
Now, created to carry out the initiative, will still attempt to flood
the district with new charter schools. The non-profit’s own leaders say
that most of the money raised would still go still into creating
charters — which are more expensive to create because they often need to
pay for their own campuses — but that they are sincere about providing
seed money for large numbers of traditional district schools as well.
The L.A. Unified school board voted Tuesday on a resolution opposing the
Broad plan, though it’s language was vague and the initiative itself
was not specifically mentioned. But that won’t help the situation, and
besides, there’s little the board can do, under current state law, to
prevent a barrage of new charter schools. State law governs
charter-school approval; the board can reject charter applications only
on certain, narrow grounds, and their effect on public-school financing
isn’t among those reasons. What the resolution might accomplish is to
continue making this a politically divisive issue. Potential donors
might then decline to join the effort, but would that really be helpful
to students?
A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now to provide a
place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King,
to participate in the planning process. If the new nonprofit
organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to
be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to
public discussion — after all, whether charter schools or not, these are
all public schools.
The new plan, if it moves forward, should include funding for for
outside auditors to measure its progress and to make sure it is
succeeding. The plan should also be dedicated to leveling the playing
field by ensuring that new charter schools encourage enrollment of
special-education students and foster children and students who might
not otherwise know about or apply to charters. And it should focus on
finding ways to prevent rapid teacher turnover. At its best, the
initiative would not be about pitting charters against district schools,
but rather about expanding the number of first-rate schools for the
district’s most disadvantaged students.
▲DISCLOSURE: See CAVEAT in story above.
Friedrichs v. CTA: SUPREME COURT SIGNALS IT'S READY TO HAND CTA, PUBLIC UNIONS BIG SETBACK
By John Fensterwald | EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/22YDhET
January 11, 2016 | Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices were what
news reports called hostile in their questioning of union lawyers Monday
during arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a
case that could undercut the financial stability and the political clout
of public employee unions in California and nearly two dozen states
(see news stories here, here, and here).
Ten teachers in California who declined to join their local unions filed
the lawsuit against the state and the 300,000-member CTA, charging that
a state law requiring them to pay fees to cover bargaining costs
coerces them to support a union whose positions they disagree with,
violating their First Amendment speech rights.
The plaintiffs want the court to overturn a four-decades-old court
decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. That ruling said
non-union employees don’t have to pay that portion of union dues that
underwrites the union’s political activities, including the costs of
backing candidates and lobbying governments on issues not related to
working conditions and pay. But the court said that states could require
all employees to pay “fair-share” or “agency” fees to cover costs
related to negotiating working conditions and bread-and-butter pay
matters, since the union represents members and non-members alike. In
California, fair-share dues make up about 40 percent of a union member’s
dues.
In their lawsuit, attorneys for the Friedrichs teachers argue there is
no distinction between politicking and bargaining, because negotiating
constitutes “political speech designed to influence governmental
decision-making.” Rebecca Friedrichs, a veteran teacher in the Savanna
School District in Anaheim, said she is forced to underwrite the union’s
positions on tenure, layoffs and pensions with which she disagrees.
Many fees-paying teachers “have moral beliefs and fiscal standards that
place them on the exact opposite side of union politics,” she wrote in
the Orange County Register.
Four of the court’s conservative justices had expressly invited a
challenge to Abood in a related decision in 2014. In an ominous sign for
unions, a fifth justice, Antonin Scalia, who had supported fair-share
fees in an earlier decision, indicated Monday that he had changed his
position.
“The problem is that everything that is collectively bargained with the
government is within the political sphere, almost by definition,”
including the decision by the government about whether to give pay
increases, Scalia said.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said that mandatory dues “require that employees
and teachers who disagree with those positions must nevertheless
subsidize the union on those very points.”
In its brief, the State of California, which was named in the lawsuit,
argued that it’s in the state’s interest as an employer to negotiate
with one financially stable union representing workers’ interests.
The CTA and other public employee unions that filed briefs reiterated
the court’s reasoning in Abood that mandatory fees prevent “free-riders”
– workers who may be satisfied with the union but decide to save money
by not contributing to it. Non-member teachers’ views are not suppressed
by fair-share fees, they said.
“If we are going to have collective bargaining in the public sector,
mandatory agency fees can serve important state interests without unduly
burdening citizens’ speech,” California Solicitor General Edward C.
DuMont told the justices Monday.
About 10 percent of the state’s teachers pay fair-share dues. But in
Wisconsin, which eliminated the fair-share fees requirement in 2011,
teachers union membership subsequently dropped 50 percent, the National
Education Association reported last year.
The state argued that Friedrichs and the other plaintiffs never
presented evidence that bargaining violated their political beliefs.
Because the Friedrichs attorneys argued that Abood needed to be
overturned for them to prevail, lower courts agreed to expedite their
lawsuit without a trial.
The four liberal Supreme Court justices said there was no basis for
overturning a four-decades-old decision that had been working well.
Justice Stephen Breyer disagreed that mandatory contributions for
representation in collective bargaining was not a core speech issue.
Negotiating for wages, hours and working conditons is “pretty far
removed from the heart of the First Amendment,” he said.
Unions have said that the teachers’ First Amendment argument is a ruse
that’s part of conservative groups’ steady attack to weaken public
employee unions’ influence and drain their treasuries.
CTA President Eric Heins, who attended today’s oral arguments, said that
conservative justices’ antagonistic questions were expected but he
didn’t conclude that the case was lost. Oral arguments are not a
reliable prediction of a decision, he said.
The CTA has helped defeat three initiatives in the past 20 years that
would have prevented unions from automatically collecting dues for
political purposes. One of those initiatives, on the ballot in 2012,
would have also banned contributions to political candidates.
“The Friedrichs lawsuit is an end-run around to the courts to try to win
what opponents of unions have been unable to do at the ballot box,”
Heins said.
• EdSource asked law professors and attorneys who have followed and
written about Friedrichs v. California to share their perspectives on
today’s oral arguments and how they may affect the outcome of the case.
They are Deborah La Fetra, Principal Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation;
Charlotte Garden, Associate Professor, Seattle University School of
Law; and William Gould IV, Emeritus Professor, Stanford Law School.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
COURT OF APPEAL TO HEAR ARGUMENTS IN VERGARA LAWSUIT NEXT MONTH
http://bit.ly/1ZEROq7
WITH NEW SUPERINTENDENT IN PLACE, L.A. SCHOOL BOARD GEARS FOR BATTLE ON CHARTER PLAN
http://bit.ly/200vhB1
LAUSD's New Supe: LOOKING FAR+WIDE, FINDING KING RIGHT AT HOME & WAS THE SAFE CHOICE THE RIGHT CHOICE?
http://bit.ly/200v8gZ
MEDIA COVERAGE OF SELECTION OF MICHELLE KING AS NEW LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT (15 items)
http://bit.ly/1Zjpswn
@howardblume Jan 12: New L.A. schools Supt. Michelle King will earn
$350,000/yr in contract thru June 2018, a $46,500 raise from her salary
as No. 2.
NEW YORK STUMBLES, CALIFORNIA ADVANCES ON COMMON CORE IMPLEMENTATION
http://bit.ly/1N3dBvh
Friedrichs v. CTA: 3 ARTICLES ABOUT TODAY'S SUPREME COURT HEARING FROM THE L.A. TIMES
http://bit.ly/1l0wBUs
Friedrichs v. CTA: 3 ARTICLES ABOUT TODAY'S SUPREME COURT HEARING FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://bit.ly/1OdZwiu
SCHOOLS AREN'T STARTUPS AND KIDS AREN'T CONSUMERS
http://bit.ly/1RxlIIu
L.A. SCHOOLS INSIDER AND AN OUTSIDER EMERGE AS FAVORITES TO LEAD THE DISTRICT
http://bit.ly/1mQLY3J
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
TUES. JAN 19:
Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee – 10 AM
Early Childhood Education Meeting –2 PM
Successful School Climate Committee – 4 PM
*Dates and times subject to change.
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!
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