In This Issue:
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John Thompson: DARE ANYONE SAY NO TO ELI BROAD? |
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ELI BROAD AND THE END OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AS WE KNOW IT |
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HOW A BILLIONAIRE IS TRYING TO CONTROL LOS ANGELES PUBLIC SCHOOLS |
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LAUSD MAGNET SCHOOLS/TIPS FOR PARENTS: HOW TO NAVIGATE ONE OF L.A.’s MOST COMPLEX MAZES |
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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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A question is asked following: “Dare anyone say ‘No!’ to Eli Broad?”
The answer is simple: We must all say “NO!!”
● Teachers and Administrators and Parents and Students - and school
staffs from yard aides to librarians to office techs and school police
and lunch ladies - must say “NO!”
● The LAUSD Board of Ed and the current+future superintendents must say “NO!”
Faceless Beaudry Bureaucrats must say “NO!”
● The city councils and the mayors of the twenty-six jurisdictions that make up LAUSD must say “NO!”
● The LA County Board of Ed and the county supervisors must say “NO!”
● Ultimately Eli's 1%er billionaire friends – upon whose $500 million he is relying upon – must say “NO!”
We need to say “Thanks but No Thanks Eli!” to Broad and his plan to take
over half of LAUSD and turn it into charter schools while tossing the
other half of Los Angeles’ kids under the bus …if for no other reasons
than the three-hundred-thousand-plus-LAUSD-students left-behind that Eli
doesn’t propose to save!
We need to “connect enthusiastically and lead bravely”.
The Broad Plan: “GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS NOW” was surreptitiously issued in
June 2015 – and has been conveniently credited elsewhere to John Deasy.
While “Dr.” D’s fingerprints are all over GPSN, his authorship is
subject to dispute and plausible deniability. The work – a
half-baked-draft-in-progress – was certainly a group effort…with plenty
of likely suspects to go around. Deasy, a Broad consultant and
‘Superintendent-in-Residence’ is not a noted writer and The Broad
Foundation has no shortage of writers (see http://bit.ly/1OqRBAC + http://bit.ly/1OqRAwE ) – the most obvious one being Bruce Reed, who was president of the Broad Foundation in June.
Since the plan was written (but before it became public) there has been a
leadership change at The Broad Foundation. It was announced in July
that Reed was leaving to spend “more time on a variety of domestic
issues" and his "lifelong interests in writing and politics."
Reed remained as a consultant and senior adviser to the foundation until
Aug. 31 and continues as a member of the board of directors of the
Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. Reed, a former
assistant to President Obama and chief of staff to Vice President Joe
Biden, was the Broad Foundation's first president, named to the position
in November 2013. An accomplished writer, Bruce co-authored with
then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel "The Plan: Big Ideas for Change in America."
Speculation is that Reed – who is categorized as a ‘political operative’
on Wikipedia – has returned to DC to work on Joe Biden’s possible
presidential campaign.
With Reed’s exit, Paul Pastorek, the former Louisiana schools chief who
raised and oversaw the rebuilding/charterization of the New Orleans
school system after Hurricane Katrina, was named as one of two
co-executive directors of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation's
education work.
Pastorek, who was already affiliated with the Broads as the chairman of
the board of directors of the Broad Center, will serve as co-executive
director with Gregory McGinity, managing director of policy for The Eli
and Edythe Broad Foundation. “With extensive education policy experience
at the federal, state and local levels, McGinity leads the foundation’s
investments in cutting-edge education policy research, development and
implementation aimed at removing policy impediments that hinder student
achievement.”
Read on.
TUESDAY MORNING THE BOARD OF ED CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION &
EDUCATIONAL EQUITY COMMITTEE held our first meeting of the year.
[Streaming video: http://bit.ly/1VLkiwv]
(On Tuesday afternoon the Board of Ed also had a meeting …but it lasted
about 15 minutes.) The CIEQ meeting was informative; laying out how
well the Common Core Standards and new Smarter Balanced assessments are
working in LAUSD – at the school, in the local districts and at the
central level – and at traditional schools, charter schools and magnet
programs.
The data shows that LAUSD’s Magnet Program outperforms charter schools, wall-to-wall/across the board.
Read on about applying for the magnet program. Lead on about growing, un-complicating and demystifying the LAUSD magnet program.
One of the statistical surprises is the interestingly-yet-unexpected
result that in both the state and local tests girls outperform boys. (I
know, we already knew that …but in the old bubble-in/multiple-choice
STAR tests boys+girls performed equally!)
This is a benchmark year; the scores don’t compare to previous results.
Student outcomes are neither about the measurement nor the
act-of-measuring. One’s eyes glaze over as the statisticians,
geometricians, bean-counters and data driven hold forth – because we all
know in our inner being that true outcomes can only be measured by
post-graduate student success over time. But hats-off to teachers,
administrators, District staff and most of all: Students (and parents)
for progress made.
IN+OUT OF CONTEXT: “We are confronted by mounting piles of studies about
standardized testing, green coffee-bean extract, paleo diets, vitamin
use by older men and sexual assault on campus. And in too many cases,
before the findings have been confirmed by other studies, they become
the basis for approving new drugs, or they set off new diet fads or lead
to new policies.” http://lat.ms/1hyaXFB
SOME NEW LAWS KICK IN. Sex Ed + Health Ed has been strengthened. The
Anti-Vaxer ballot initiative failed to make the petition count.
Counselors are empowered …if not funded! Bain v. CTA got tossed out of
court. Not only did the California High School Exit Exam get tossed …but
all past CAHSEE results got retroactively erased, disinfected with the
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
There is a new name for all the students who met all the graduation
requirements except passing the CAHSEE. It is High School Graduate.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
John Thompson: DARE ANYONE SAY NO TO ELI BROAD?
from Diane Ravitch’s Blog | http://bit.ly/1WTniUM
October 9, 2015 // John Thompson, historian and teacher, here analyzes
Eli Broad’s plan to add 260 charters for Los Angeles, so that charters
enroll half the students in the LAUSD. One of our regular readers, Jack
Covey, commented on the blog that the “anonymous” plan was actually
authored by former LAUSD superintendent John Deasy, but I can’t confirm
that.
• John Thompson was an award-winning historian, lobbyist, and
guerrilla-gardener who became an award-winning inner city teacher after
crack and gangs hit his neighborhood. He blogs at
thisweekineducation.com and is writing a book on 18 years of idealistic
politics in the classroom and realistic politics outside. A former
oilfield roughneck and hitch-hiker, a current backpacker and
Obamamaniac, he is a "people person" who seeks compromises, while
defending the principles of the liberal arts and constitutional
democracy. He is a nonstop memo writer and enthusiastic basketball
player, believing that education is an affair of the heart not a narrow
part of the intellect.
The largely pro-reform LA School Report and the Los Angeles Times have
already published powerful analyses of the Broad Foundation’s
once-secret plan to turn half of the Los Angeles Public School System
into charters. But the 44-page anonymously authored proposal is
jammed-packed with even more dubious claims. And, it provides more
insight into the corporate reformers’ mindset.
The Broad Foundation did not respond to the LA School Report’s
critique of its methodology and its exaggerated claims of success. The
School Report’s Craig Clough parsed the actual data and concluded:
But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive
evidence in the report outlining the expansion plans that shows big
investments in charters always — or evenly routinely — achieve
consistent academic improvements, raising an important question: Just
what can Broad and other foundations promise for an investment of nearly
half a billion dollars in an expansion effort that would dramatically
change the nation’s second-largest school district?
The reporting by the LA Times Howard Blume also provides a solid
overview. LA charters serve student populations that are somewhere in
between the ones served by LA magnet schools and traditional public
schools. And, their outcomes are somewhere in between those posted by
the city’s magnets and neighborhood schools. The Broad paper gives no
reason to believe that LA charters could be scaled up and still perform
better than the city’s high-poverty traditional public schools.
Turning to the actual Broad proposal, which it now calls a
“preliminary discussion draft,” it cites the data (contradictory as it
is) from three high-performing charter school chains as evidence that
260 new charters could be established by 2023, and that they would
greatly increase student performance. It makes a big deal out of the 52%
of charters receiving an API score of 800 and greater, but it doesn’t
attempt to identify how many of them are high-poverty.
Broad brags about the average charter API of 811 and contrasts it
with the 80% low-income LAUSD’s average API of 745. But, two of the
featured charter chains have an average APIs of 762 and 714,
respectively. And, they run 34 of the 43 charter schools that supposedly
are the model that will save Los Angeles. In other words, even with the
charters in the chains showcased by Broad, only about 1/5th of them
produce above-average scores. (Moreover, those schools are run by KIPP,
and they don’t come close to serving the “same” students as high-poverty
neighborhood schools.)
The bottom line is that the Broad claim that 260 high-quality
charter schools can be created in eight years is basically based on the
results from nine schools in a chain known for its high attrition rate.
Broad also ignores Blume on how “many parents apply to both magnets
and charters before making a choice,” and pretends that the numbers on
those lists are not inflated by those multiple applications. It then
assumes that waiting lists will grow by 10,000 students a year.
Using equally flimsy logic and evidence, Broad projects that
charters will have 130,000 students by 2023. This claim assumes that
“Great Public Schools Now” schools will grow their student population by
7% per year even though they don’t yet exist, have no students, and are
merely a “preliminary discussion draft.” The report admits that it the
charter teachers will be paid less, making teacher recruitment more
difficult. It acknowledges that solving the problem of recruiting
principals is nonnegotiable, so it warns that that issue must be
addressed immediately. In other words, it seems unlikely that Broad
bothered to ask whether it was physically possible to even slap that
many schools together in such a time frame.
Of course, the key issue is whether charters are capable of learning
how to serve their share of students with special education
disabilities and English Language Learners, as well as children who have
endured extreme trauma. The Broad paper is silent on that crucial
question, as it changes the subject to marketing. It produces a
multicolored map of clusters of low-performing schools, while pretending
that it doesn’t undermine their case. The graphic supposedly shows,
“These areas are especially ripe for charter expansion.” But, it doesn’t
explain why today’s charters haven’t already tried to tackle those
challenges, or why they would be successful if they tried. In other
words, Broad doesn’t see complicated real world problems to be solved;
it sees market opportunities.
Even when it gets to the political marketing at which it excels, the
Broad logic falls short. Corporate reformers forget the repudiation of
their client, former LA Superintendent John Deasy. Their paper asserts,
“The recent Board elections also moved in a positive direction, although
there is still not a pro-charter majority.” It counts one of the races
as a victory, admitting that one was a defeat, but claiming that “many
are hopeful that the victor in that race, Scott Schmerelson, will take a
reasonable position toward charter expansion.
Or should I say the reformers pretend to forget their educational
and political defeats? Perhaps they can blow off the failure of their
expensive and risky school improvement experiments, but it doesn’t seem
like they can shake off rejection at the polls. Why else would Broad
draft a school reform plan that ignores education evidence while
focusing on conquering education markets and defeating opponents?
Concluding a proposal that ignores social science research and fails
to articulate a scenario where students would benefit from mass
charterization, Broad instead tallies the troops on both sides of the
battle it is about to launch. It argues “the number of parents with
children on charter waitlists now exceeds the number of UTLA members.”
Broad thus forgets that parents who sign up for multiple waitlists can’t vote multiple times in the same election.
But, that is not the key point. It should now be clear that
successful efforts to improve schools must be done with educators, not
to them. Broad’s
inclusion of that insulting graphic makes it clear that it sees
teachers as the enemy. The corporate reforms are obviously focused on
Broad’s personal enemies – educators, unions, and public schools
controlled by the patrons, and not his minions. They continue to ignore
the real enemy – the poverty that undermines learning.
And that bring us back to the LA School Report’s Clough and his
question of what does Broad actually promise. It promises more assaults
on teachers, unions, and patrons who disagree with them. The Broad plan
promises more reward and punish, but not a policy that is likely to do
more good than harm to children. It certainly does not promise improved
schools for entire neighborhoods with intense concentrations of
generational poverty and children who have survived extreme trauma.
Instead, Broad promises a fight to the finish between the two halves
of the city’s schools. It thus promises more test, sort, winners and
losers, and the pushing out of children whose test scores make it more
difficult for adults to defeat their opponents. It promises an ultimate
battle over who controls public education.
Perhaps most importantly, it promises retribution to educators
across the nation if they try to resist Eli Broad and the Billionaires
Boys’ Club.
ELI BROAD AND THE END OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AS WE KNOW IT
By Marc Haefele | Capital & Main | http://bit.ly/1VJNqnU
October 7, 2015 :: If there were still any doubt about Eli Broad’s
desire to gut traditional public education, it has been erased by his
much-discussed “Great Public Schools Now” initiative, a draft of which
LA Times reporter Howard Blume obtained last month.
Broad’s 44-page proposal outlines plans to replace half of LAUSD’s
existing public schools with charter schools. “Such an effort will
gather resources, help high-quality charters access facilities, develop a
reliable pipeline of leadership and teaching talent, and replicate
their success,” states the document. “If executed with fidelity, this
plan will ensure that no Los Angeles student remains trapped in a
low-performing school.”
According to the proposal, Broad wants to create 260 new “high-quality
charter schools, generate 130,000 high-quality charter seats and reach
50 percent charter market share.”
(Actually, LAUSD has 151,000 kids in charters now: 281,000 out of
633,000 LAUSD students is 43 percent. This isn’t the only imprecision in
the proposal.)
The estimated cost of this LAUSD transformation would be nearly half-a-billion dollars.
By his own account, Broad is the fourth-richest resident of Los Angeles,
with $7 billion in wealth. So he could easily finance this proposal out
of pocket and still pay his property taxes in Brentwood.
But that’s not the plan.
Instead, Broad is shaking the can to his fellow foundationeers and
squillionaires. The Gates Foundation of Seattle has already given $29
million for charter schools, while the Walmart-backed Walton Foundation
of Bentonville, Ark. has invested over $65 million.
Broad says he’s “creating a more supportive policy environment for
charters.” He hopes that virtually overturning the LAUSD in Los Angeles
will set a revolutionary example that will enable charter schools to
sweep the nation. The private sector would partially regain the control
of public education that it lost in the 19th century, whose
market-driven schools were excoriated by Charles Dickens.
But modern charter schools are a lot better, right? Some studies show a
marked improvement in charters’ performance compared to traditional
public schools in areas like reading and math. Others, however, suggest
that the average results are about the same.
LAUSD already has more charters than any other U.S. school district. But
supply-side institutions are risky. According to a new report by the
Center for Media and Democracy, 2,500 have failed between 2001 and 2013 —
43 in Los Angeles alone — stranding their students and teachers and
sinking many millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Charter teachers,
lacking union support, appear to burn out faster.
According to his autobiography, “The Art of Being Unreasonable,” Broad
blames school problems on administration (his signature educational
achievement is the Broad Superintendent Academy, whose graduates include
recently ousted LAUSD super John Deasy), with little attention to the
actual rubber-meets-the road matter of better teaching. Like most
charterites, Broad seems to feel that working under a tough
superintendent without a union or tenure brings out the best in young
teachers.
According to the bio, Broad resented attending Detroit’s Central High.
“My high school teachers made it very clear that they found my constant
questions annoying,” he recalls. It’s interesting that he doesn’t credit
Central for any of his ample college success, not to mention his
unparalleled business career.
He hasn’t always felt this hostility, though. In 2000, he persuaded
former Colorado Governor Roy Romer to apply for LAUSD superintendent,
the initial step in the steady if slow revival of the agency derided as
“LA Mummified.” Romer and his board championed a $3.3 billion bond
measure that studded the landscape with over 20 new LAUSD schools; Broad
gave $200,000 toward its passage.
In 2007, he cofounded Strong American Schools, a lobby for better
schooling that reportedly eschewed “controversial’’ topics like vouchers
and charter schools. But soon his Strong American Schools partner Bill
Gates was rooting for charters and Broad followed. Yet, as recently as
his 2012 autobiography, he didn’t find conventional public education
hopeless.
Now, at 82, Broad’s ambition apparently is to do away with public education as we know it.
“Part of it is ideological commitment to the deregulation notion, and
part of it is practical – teacher unions are the last, biggest unions,
and taking them down will create much more room for a broader
deregulation of the economy and public sector,” said United Teachers Los
Angeles chief Alex Caputo Pearl.
Ultimately, it should be about the students. My late friend, LAUSD
teacher Alan Kaplan, struggled for over 30 years to teach “left behind”
children to think and aspire, rather than just pass standardized tests. I
wonder how long Al and others like him would last under a tenure-free,
test-focused, supply-side charter school system.
HOW A BILLIONAIRE IS TRYING TO CONTROL LOS ANGELES PUBLIC SCHOOLS
By Valerie Strauss | The Answer Sheet/Washington Post | http://wapo.st/1GyzlNO
October 8, 2015 :: Eli Broad is a housing and insurance tycoon whose
California-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has poured hundreds of
millions into “transforming” K-12 urban education by training
administrators and supporting charter schools, merit pay and other
market-based reforms. And now, Broad wants to do even more, trying to
lead a campaign to raise nearly half a billion dollars to open enough
charter schools to enroll nearly half of the students in the country’s
second-largest school district.
Broad, according to various reports, wants to open 260 new charter
schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District over the next eight
years — effectively doubling today’s number.
Whether the plan will ultimately be approved by the city’s officials is
unclear, but the idea is clearly spelled out in a 44-page memo obtained
by the Los Angeles Times. It names other foundations and wealthy
philanthropists who could be involved, including the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation as well as the Hewlett and Annenberg foundations.
Individuals include Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk and entertainment magnate
David Geffen. (Note: The Broad Foundation has partly funded the Los
Angeles Times’ new digital initiative to expand education coverage.)
Broad was one of the early members of what education historian and
activist Diane Ravitch dubbed “The Billionaire Boys Club,” whose
members, including Gates, have spent so much money on corporate school
reform that private philanthropy has had a major effect on public
policy. Broad has repeatedly championed charter schools — which are
publicly funded schools that are privately run. Earlier this year his
foundation suspended a program in which it gave annual $1 million awards
to high-achieving traditional public urban school districts, but Broad
is carrying on with a $250,000 Broad Prize for charter schools, which he
says do a better job than traditional public schools in educating
high-needs students who live in urban areas.
His memo cites three major charter operators — Green Dot Public
Schools, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and KIPP Public Charter
Schools — as having seen “significant” gains by students. But it turns
out that those results have actually been mixed. According to the LA
School Report, a pro-reform publication:
In building a case for creating 260 charter schools within in LA Unified
eight years at a cost of $490 million, the Eli and Edythe Broad
Foundation has cited “significant” gains by three charter organizations
that have received $75 million from the foundation.
But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive evidence
in the report outlining the expansion plans that shows big investments
in charters always — or evenly routinely — achieve consistent academic
improvements, raising an important question: Just what can Broad and
other foundations promise for an investment of nearly half a billion
dollars in an expansion effort that would dramatically change the
nation’s second-largest school district?
The LA School Report story details where test scores went up — and down —
at the three cited charter school networks in Los Angeles, pointing to
what is generally known about charter performance around the country: On
the whole they don’t perform better than traditional public schools,
but it is hard to compare because the populations of students are often
not the same.
The Los Angeles Times notes in this story that “charter forces point to
test scores showing that their students, on average, do better than
those in L.A. Unified” but that district officials “argue that it’s more
accurate to compare charter schools not with the district as a whole
but with magnet schools. In that match, magnets generally do better.” Of
course, that isn’t a fair comparison, either, given that the
populations of charters and magnets are also different.
The proposal, called Great Public Schools Now, would require some 5,000
teachers, according to this story in the Times, which also says:
The Broad proposal, which would set aside $43.1 million for a “teacher
pipeline,” refers to Teach For America as the “strongest human capital
partner” for charters in Los Angeles. That group recruits recent college
graduates and provides training that consists of six weeks before they
start teaching — more in some cases — combined with ongoing support and
course work.
The plan also looks to other fast-track programs, the New Teacher
Project and the Relay Graduate School of Education, as avenues for
hires. The New Teacher Project recruits those who want to change careers
as well as recent grads; Relay is an emerging program developed in
conjunction with charter leaders. It’s based in New York City, with
regional campuses in five states, not yet including California.
Younger teachers offer a workforce that charters consider more flexible
and one that is willing to work at a pace that may be unsustainable over
the long term, some experts said.
Teach For America is the nonprofit famous for recruiting new college
graduates, giving them five weeks of training in a summer institute and
placing them in schools that are among America’s neediest. It has been a
prime mover in the “no excuses” movement, which promotes the notion
that the conditions in which children live can’t be blamed for poor
academic performance. In other words, teachers should be able to
overcome a child’s hunger, sickness or trauma.
Most charter schools have teachers who are not unionized, and so it is
no surprise that unionized teachers in the traditional Los Angeles
public schools oppose Broad’s proposal. Several hundred last month
protested the Broad charter plan at the opening of a new Broad museum in
Los Angeles, the Times reported:
“You want art for the masses?” one person shouted into a bullhorn.
“Then fund more classes!” others shouted in reply as they paraded
back and forth under the museum’s much-discussed honeycomb facade.
Charter schools have not proven to be the magic bullet that their
supporters had hoped a few decades ago when they began to open as a way
to push improvements in traditional urban public education. Still, the
Times’ editorial board likes Broad’s idea, endorsing it in an editorial
titled, “A charter school expansion could be great for LA.” The
editorial notes that all charter schools are not high quality and that
it will be important to make sure that bad charters are monitored and
closed. It actually says:
The only serious official scrutiny that charter operators typically
get is when they are issued the right to operate, and five years later
when they apply for renewal. It would seem a more thoughtful approach
could be developed.
It would seem so, don’t you think?
Here’s what Ravitch wrote in 2011 about the growing influence of the
wealthy on education reform policy. It still has resonance today:
“What does all this outpouring of interest by the wealthiest people in
the United States mean? Some no doubt are motivated by idealism. Some
think they are leading a new civil rights movement, though I doubt that
Dr. King would recognize these financial titans as his colleagues as
they impose their will on one of our crucial public institutions. Some
hate government. Some love the free market. Some think that the profit
motive is more efficient and effective than any public-sector
enterprise. All of them share a surprising certainty that they know how
to “fix” the public schools and that the people who work in those
schools are lazy, unmotivated, incompetent, and not to be trusted.
“For me, as a historian, the scary part is that our public schools have
never before been subject to such a sustained assault on their very
foundations. Never before were there so many people, with such vast
resources, intent on dismantling public education. What does this mean
for the future of public education? What does it mean for our democracy?
__________________
LAUSD MAGNET SCHOOLS/TIPS FOR PARENTS: HOW TO NAVIGATE ONE OF L.A.’s MOST COMPLEX MAZES
By Sonali Kohli | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1G5IvGK
Oct 10, 2015 :: The stakes are high for families across Los Angeles
later this fall. Applications are being accepted for a spot in one of
210 magnet programs in L.A. public schools; the deadline is Nov. 13.
For some parents, getting in is the difference between staying in public schools and choosing a private or charter option.
“I just really want to know ... the whole process, step by step,” said
mother Latisha Lewis. She attended a recent magnet school fair at
Baldwin Hills Elementary School with her 10-year-old daughter, Kyera
Parker, who currently attends a charter.
Choosing and applying to magnet schools can be confusing. We spoke to
experts and parents to find out about L.A. Unified’s magnet schools.
They are listed at the bottom of this post.
WHAT IS A MAGNET SCHOOL?
A magnet school is a themed school within LAUSD that is open to all
students, regardless of neighborhood. Some are located within a larger
campus, and some are free-standing campuses. Schools have different
themes, including performing arts, science and math, and those aimed at
gifted students.
L.A.’s magnet program was created in the 1970s as part of a
court-ordered desegregation plan intended to increase racial equality in
schools.
HOW DO I APPLY?
Fill out the magnet schools application by Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. The
application brochure is available online at the district’s website, as
well as in schools and public libraries. That link also includes
descriptions of the magnet schools and their themes. Parents can select
up to three schools.
Some magnet coordinators will offer parents help at the schools,
providing access to computers, the Internet and volunteers to help with
the process.
SHOULD I FILL OUT A SECOND AND THIRD CHOICE?
It depends. If you really want one program, it might be best to leave
the other two blank. You’ll first be entered into the lottery for your
top choice. If you’re not picked, you’ll be entered for your second, and
then third, choice. If you are accepted into any of them, you will not
be on the wait list for your first choice.
IS THE LOTTERY RANDOM?
No. Students are chosen through a lottery system, but the students with the most points get picked first.
HOW DO I GET POINTS?
If your child is not in a magnet school already, students can earn four
points for every year that they apply to a magnet school and remain on
the wait list, up to three years. That equals 12 matriculation points.
There are parents who have made a game of this, applying every year to
the most popular magnets to reduce their chances of being picked, so
that they can collect a high number of points in time for middle school
or high school. This is a dicey game to play—if you get into a magnet
and decline to attend, all those points disappear.
Whether you apply to the same school repeatedly or try for different
ones does not affect your points or odds, because lotteries happen at
the district level.
Students also receive four points for living in the neighborhood
boundaries of an overcrowded school, and another four points for living
in the neighborhood boundaries of a "predominantly Hispanic, black,
Asian and other non-Anglo" (PHBAO) school. The latter designation
applies to most schools in the district.
Tack on another three points if a sibling already attends the magnet school to which the student is applying.
Students already in a magnet school receive an automatic 12 points when
they matriculate to the next campus. Students who complete 5th grade,
for example, in a magnet elementary school have an automatic 12 points
for their middle school magnet application.
HOW DO I CHOOSE A MAGNET TO APPLY TO?
Parents can apply to any magnet in the district. The best way to choose a
magnet is to see if the school’s theme aligns with the student's
interests and to visit the campus. Know that themed magnets can also be
strong in other areas — for example, a student interested in STEM could
attend a humanities magnet that also offers high-level math and science
courses.
There are magnet fairs [http://bit.ly/1Pn6WRX] throughout the district, and parents can call magnet schools to set up tours.
WHAT ARE GIFTED AND TALENTED PROGRAMS?
Gifted and talented programs are intended for students who excel or show
promise academically or in the arts. Close to 50 of the district’s
magnets are gifted and highly gifted programs. Admission to these
programs requires further tests or auditions.
Students can be classified as academically gifted or high ability
through a confirmation from the principal, an LAUSD psychologist, or a
score in the 85th percentile or higher on standardized tests that the
district approves. Students can be classified as highly gifted if they
score 99.5% to 99.9% on the district’s intellectual assessment. Students
who score 99.9% are given priority.
WHY IS RACE REQUIRED ON THE APPLICATION?
A primary goal of magnet schools is to achieve balance between white
students and students of color. About a fourth of the schools are
required to give either 30% or 40% of spots to white students, and 70%
or 60% to students of all other races. This system is a remnant of the
program’s founding, during which the goal was to draw white students
into minority schools, and vice versa. Multiracial students must choose
only one race for the purposes of magnets.
White students have always been overrepresented in Los Angeles magnets, though to a lesser degree than they are now.
WHAT IF I MISS THE DEADLINE?
Parents can submit a Space Available application from Dec. 1 onward.
Parents can list only one school on those, and these students will be
placed behind everyone else on the wait list.
DO MAGNETS HELP KIDS GET INTO COLLEGE?
It depends on the school. Some are known for their rigor, for their AP
class offerings or for focusing on college-level coursework. All of
these will help students enter college. Similarly, a school focused on
performing arts could help students hone their abilities before college.
But a school is not automatically better than other schools because it
is a magnet. There are magnets that are under-enrolled and those that
don’t have the level of rigor as their local neighborhood or charter
schools.
IS THERE TRANSPORTATION TO MAGNET SCHOOLS?
Yes. If a student lives outside a two-mile radius for elementary school
and outside a five-mile radius for secondary school, the district
provides busing to those schools.
IF MY CHILD DOESN'T GET IN, WILL HE/SHE GET IN NEXT YEAR?
There’s no guarantee, but the points from the previous year will help.
SHOULD I APPLY EVEN IF IT APPEARS THERE AREN'T THAT MANY SPACES?
Yes, always apply if you want to go to the school. In at least one of
the most in-demand schools, students come in with an average of 16
points. But many schools dip deep into their waiting lists, as there are
many reasons that parents would drop off the list. Some schools get to
the end of their waiting lists.
WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT A MAGNET VERSUS A CHARTER OR REGULAR LAUSD SCHOOL?
The main differences are the racial quotas, the themes and the
enrollment process. Neighborhood schools fill up by first offering
priority to residents, and then opening the waiting list to other
students on a first come, first served basis.
Charter schools also use lotteries for admissions, but each charter
school has its own application process and waiting list. Lotteries for
magnet schools, meanwhile, are conducted centrally through the district.
The differences in quality vary from school to school. Parents can
compare test scores on the L.A. Times website. The best way to know
which is a good fit for your child is to visit the schools and talk to
parents and students about their experiences.
SOURCES FOR THIS STORY:
• -Keith Abrahams, LAUSD executive director of Student Integration Services
• -Tanya Anton, founder/creator of Go Mama Guide
• -Ellana Selig, magnet coordinator at Los Angeles Center For Enriched Studies
• -Susan Yoon, Cleveland Humanities Magnet Parents Association president
• -http://echoices.lausd.net/
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
In wake of school shootings, Gov. Jerry Brown bans concealed guns on California campuses - LA Times
BILL JOHNSTON ON THE SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH PROCESS
http://bit.ly/1K0LDyH
ANTI-VAXXER’ BALLOT MEASURE FAILS/SEX ED LAW IS CALIFORNIA’S LATEST HEALTH TRIUMPH http://bit.ly/1NvXCMf
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS EDUCATION INEQUITIES IN NINE CALIFORNIA, FIFTY U.S. CITIES
http://bit.ly/1JXWDgc
OHIO CHARTER CONTROVERSY CONTINUES http://bit.ly/1VK1Zrv
SB 451: NEW LAW CALLS FOR MODERNIZED ROLE FOR SCHOOL COUNSELORS …even if there’s only 1 for every 847 students!
http://bit.ly/1LE7Dqy
A dazzling array of choices…”: LAUSD MAGNET PROGRAMS ATTRACTING STUDENTS DURING MONTH OF OCTOBER
http://bit.ly/1RywH0T
CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY PUBLISHES FULL LIST OF 2,500 CLOSED CHARTER SCHOOLS (with Interactive Map)
http://bit.ly/1GAHXDA
GOV BROWN SIGNS BILL SUSPENDING HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM + ERASING PAST RESULTS ...it's like the CAHSEE was never there!
http://lat.ms/1hsPGwO
THOUSANDS OF LAUSD TEACHERS’ JOBS WOULD BE A RISK WITH CHARTER EXPANSION PLAN
http://bit.ly/1L20Of2
“CONNECT ENTHUSIASTICALLY + LEAD BRAVELY.” How To Change the Story About Community-Based Public Education
http://bit.ly/1NoqZ31
BACKERS OF NEW CALIFORNIA SEX-ED LAW SEE STEP FORWARD IN SAFETY, TOLERANCE
http://bit.ly/1FTR4Vd
LAUSD ASKING PUBLIC TO RATE QUALITIES NECESSARY IN NEXT SUPERINTENDENT
http://bit.ly/1JTC5FH
“THE ASTROTURF IS RESTLESS”: ‘CLASS’ (formed to Save John Deasy) demands its say in LAUSD superintendent search
http://bit.ly/1Rur2ZM
BAIN v. CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION: Judge Rejects Suit to Let Teachers' Union Members Avoid Political Spending
http://bit.ly/1L39FLd
CHARTERS WITH BROAD SUPPORT SHOW ONLY A MIXED RETURN ON INVESTMENT - LA School Report
http://bit.ly/1WPKByJ
1st Monday in Oct: U.S. SUPREME COURT REJECTS CHALLENGE TO MANDATORY SCHOOL VACCINATION LAW, Refuses other Ed appeals
http://bit.ly/1MbM0rN
AB 329: SEX ED TO BECOME MANDATORY IN GRADES 7-12 IN CALIFORNIA
http://bit.ly/1LuciLJ
NOW THAT ARNE DUNCAN IS OUT, IS 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND' TO STAY? The Atlantic
http://theatln.tc/1FTf4r8
TODAY OCT 5th IS WORLD TEACHER'S DAY - AN UNESCO INITIATIVE. This year's spotlight is on Early Childhood Ed
http://ti.me/1NhqzeK
LATE PARENT NOTIFICATION OF TEST RESULTS FRUSTRATES SOME EDUCATORS + smf’s 2¢
bit.ly/1Q1F5ow
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
TUESDAY: Regular Board Meeting - October 13, 2015 - 10:00 a.m. - Including Closed Session Items
Regular Board Meeting - October 13, 2015 - 1:00 p.m.
*Dates and times subject to change.
________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-8333
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 your city councilperson, mayor, county supervisor, state
legislator, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the
president. Tell them what you really think! • Find your state
legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE at http://registertovote.ca.gov/
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!
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