4LAKids: Sunday, June 13th, 2004

4LAKids: Sunday, June 13th, 2004 In This Issue: Two Maps • CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP — A BEST KEPT SECRET BEST NOT KEPT! • A MAP, A BUDGET AND THE MEETING THAT NEVER ENDS ...and then there were eight! • 4LAKids Book Club for June & July –CHOOSING EXCELLENCE: “Good Enough” Schools Are Not Good Enough • ANOTHER MAP • EVENTS: Coming up next week... I am trying something a little different as to format this week because 4LAKids' two lead stories – which are inextricably and hopefully not-inexplicably linked – deal with maps. I'm a 'word person' — but I know my limits! One of them is describing maps ...My wife would be delighted to fill you in on some of the rest! A picture's worth a thousand words and all that ...if you've ever had to deal with a legal document where the attorneys describe boundaries, borders and maps you understand the challenge! Next week 4LAKids should return to the usual excessive verbiage! - smf A MAP, A BUDGET AND THE MEETING THAT NEVER ENDS ...and then there were eight! The Board of Ed met ALL Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning: • They agreed on a budget, albeit $49 million short. • They agreed on a number of local districts; eight being the number. This was not a universally popular decision among the Board - there was teeth gnashing and insinuation of dirty dealing ...but it was agreed to! [Click on small map at right to view larger map] • The $500 per student budget cuts were restored. • The Psychiatric Social Workers, Nurses and Counselors previously cut were restored ... or at least almost all of them were. (Some counselors at non-Title I Schools - the programs with the lest discretionary funding - are apparently being laid off!) • Some positions continue to be victims of some “funny accounting”, a number of jobs at year-round schools continue to be paid as if the school was on a traditional calendar. So school librarians, coordinators, nurses, counselors, etc. – needed all the time – will be taking ‘enforced vacations’ — and “B” and “C” track programs will continue to be adversely impacted. • LA Times: SCHOOL BOARD VOTES TO PARE SUBDISTRICTS FROM 11 TO 8: Compromise keeps much of the current decentralized structure intact but allows for millions in savings. By Cara Mia DiMassa and Jean Merl - Times Staff Writers June 9, 2004 - In a compromise that allowed Supt. Roy Romer to keep much of a local administrative system intact while still instituting cost-cutting measures pushed by the teachers union, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday night to reduce the number of geographic subdistricts from 11 to eight. The board's 5-2 vote capped a day of protests outside the Los Angeles Unified School District's downtown headquarters and weeks of negotiations and lobbying behind the scenes. While United Teachers-Los Angeles did not get the local districts abolished as it originally sought, the union nonetheless got a partial symbolic victory that is expected to cut about 165 administrative jobs and save about $17 million. Romer earlier had sought to maintain all 11 subdistricts but said he came to the conclusion that a reduction to eight subdistricts would not harm the academic progress the school system has made in recent years. "I felt I had to come to the table and propose a solution that would … put us in a position to save some dollars and defend this district," Romer said before introducing his compromise solution. Voting for the measure were board members Jose Huizar, Marguerite Poindexter-La Motte, Jon Lauritzen, Julie Korenstein and David Tokofsky. Marlene Canter and Mike Lansing voted no. Lauritzen, who earlier had introduced a union-backed motion to replace the 11 districts with four, five or six subdistricts, told his fellow board members why he now supported Romer's plan for eight. "We've gone through the rhetoric time and time again," Lauritzen said. "The superintendent made a good case for eight districts. We have gained much from the discussion. The time is right to get on with the issue and go forward." However, Canter, who introduced a motion to keep all 11 subdistricts, chastised other members for placing what she called rhetoric and politics before the needs of children. "This is not a spectator sport," Canter said. "As seven board members, we are talking about dismantling a district that is not only succeeding but succeeding at rates people didn't even expect." Canter's motion failed by a vote of 3 to 4. Only Lansing and Tokofsky joined her in supporting it. But Tokofsky later voted with the majority to approve the plan for eight subdistricts. The debate had been underway for about two hours but stalled shortly after 9 p.m., when board member Lansing questioned whether some of the behind-the-scenes discussions had violated the state's open-meeting law. The board adjourned into closed session to hear from its lawyer whether it could legally proceed with a vote Tuesday night and emerged 20 minutes later with board President Huizar saying he was satisfied that no violation had occurred. The final vote came around 10 p.m. Under the plan, the eight local districts each would serve student populations of between 63,000 and 116,400. Each would have a local superintendent, three elementary directors, two middle-school directors and two senior high directors. The new configuration will retain some of the geographic characteristics of the 11, but each obviously will be larger. For example, instead of three local districts, the San Fernando Valley will now have two. Romer said district officials drew the map with an eye toward maintaining community identity and distributing as evenly as possible the low-performing schools. Romer said he would begin his work to restructure the district today when he meets with the 11 local superintendents. Before the month is out, he must decide who among them will keep their jobs and who will be bumped down a notch in the district hierarchy to a director position. That will set in motion a complicated procedure that might eventually see a school principal or two displaced and returned to teaching in the classroom. At UTLA's bidding, several hundred teachers, both retired and active, showed up to support the union in its fight to abolish the subdistricts. Dressed in the red shirts that designate them as UTLA members, they circled the district's headquarters, chanting, "Hey, hey, what do you say. Mini-districts go away" and "Hey, hey what do you say. UTLA is here to stay." The teachers union had sent postcards to its 45,000 members urging them to "heat up the board" by demonstrating in front of school district headquarters. Some teachers hoisted a giant red and black sign at the corner of 3rd Street and Beaudry Avenue that read "LAUSD Hands Off Kids' Funds." The 126-seat board room was filled to capacity, and about 100 people watched the proceedings on a television monitor in a room nearby. Phyllis Hart of the Achievement Council California, a nonprofit education organization based in Los Angeles, told the board that in her 30 years in public education, the district structure has been reorganized 10 times. But none, she said, had made a difference before the subdistrict system, which she credited with helping narrow the achievement gap between black and Latino students and their white and Asian peers. The local subdistricts, each of which currently oversees between 59,000 and 80,000 students, were introduced to L.A. Unified in 2000 by then-Interim Supt. Ramon Cortines. Cortines pushed for the subdistricts as a way to reduce central district bureaucracy. But many saw a political motivation as well: The nation's second-largest school district was under pressure from various groups working for its breakup and the subdistricts were seen as a way to help quiet those voices by putting administration closer to parents and schools. Cortines spent six months drawing the boundaries of the 11 subdistricts to reflect community identity and even gang affiliations. UTLA had pushed hard in recent months for eliminating the subdistricts, alleging that they represented L.A. Unified's misplaced priority on administration instead of teaching. UTLA President John Perez had repeatedly assailed the subdistricts in public meetings as symbols of a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. With lobbying and rallies, the union had increased its pressure on Romer and the seven-member board, five of whom were elected with at least some financial support from UTLA. However, on Tuesday night, Perez said his union would accept the plan for eight subdistricts as long as the savings were passed on to schools and parent ombudsmen were appointed for each subdistrict. "I think eight is acceptable to our members," Perez said. The school board has struggled in the last few months to bridge a roughly $500-million gap in its $5.7-billion operating budget. It made cuts in central and local district administration and in clerical and support staff. But about $49 million more in cuts must be made to balance the budget by June 30. Last week, the district offered the teachers union a proposal that seemed to back away from a potential confrontation over healthcare benefits and some other issues. In a letter to Perez, Richard Fisher, the district's representative in the contract negotiations, wrote that healthcare benefits would remain unchanged and that some funds for classrooms and counseling programs that UTLA wanted would be restored. The district previously had sought to force teachers to pay for more of their healthcare costs with higher deductibles and other measures. • LA Times: LA SCHOOLS SHUFFLE STAFF AROUND SUBDISTRICTS: In new structure, with three fewer districts, some superintendents will get extra territory while others will leave. By Cara Mia DiMassa - Times Staff Writer June 12, 2004 - Los Angeles Unified School District's game of musical chairs began Friday as Supt. Roy Romer announced which of the current 11 subdistrict chiefs would remain as their numbers shrink. Earlier in the week, the Los Angeles school board voted to reduce the number of administrative subdistricts from 11 to eight as a cost-saving measure. The new configuration was suggested by Romer as a compromise with the teachers union, which originally sought to abolish the subdistrict system altogether. The latest map was drawn with an eye toward maintaining community identity and distributing as evenly as possible the district's low-performing schools, officials said. Romer said he was heartened that the school board had given him latitude in carrying out details of the reorganization. "That's the way they should treat a superintendent, and I will deliver a product that will be fully as efficient as the 11 we had — and, I hope, even better," he said. In the new eight-district structure, seven of the current subdistrict superintendents will remain and get extra territory: Robert Collins (District 1, west San Fernando Valley); Sue Shannon (District 2, east San Fernando Valley); Richard Alonzo (District 4, central and northeast Los Angeles); Rowena Lagrosa (District 5, East Los Angeles); Dale Vigil (District 6, southeast cities); Sylvia Rousseau (District 7, South Los Angeles); and Myrna Rivera (District 8, Harbor area). Sharon Curry is being promoted from director of elementary school services for a subdistrict to become head of District 3 in west and central Los Angeles. Ronni Ephraim, who had been the local superintendent in the former District D, in West Los Angeles, will become the district's chief instructional officer, in part to replace Merle Price, the current deputy superintendent of instructional services, who is about to retire. Deborah L. Leidner, who had been local superintendent of District A, in the northwest San Fernando Valley, and Sharon V. Robinson, local superintendent of District G, in South Los Angeles, will be reassigned. Edgar Seal, who had come out of retirement to run District E, in the Hollywood area, will not stay on past the transition. A lot more shifting is ahead. Over the next few weeks, before the new fiscal year begins July 1, district administrators must decide which three offices will be closed and who will staff the remaining ones. They have said that 165 positions will be eliminated and that, with bumping rights, some administrators may return to the classroom as teachers. "We said we were going to do this quick, and we are going to do this quick," said Glenn Gritzner, special assistant to Romer. "The superintendent is working feverishly with local superintendents to decide on the next round of staffing." ANOTHER MAP • The July-August issue of The Atlantic Monthly carries an article “Resegregation’s Aftermath” that discusses the issue of race and educational opportunity. Based on a study by Dr. Jeannie Oakes at UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (UCLA IDEA - cited below) it uses a map of LA County to develop Oakes hypothesis of “opportunity to learn” indicators. Oakes contends that there is a trend towards resegregation that has been going on for more than a decade and that educational opportunities for Black and Hispanic children are decreasing while those for White and Asian children remain superior. Oakes tracks three negative indicators: • TEACHER QUALIFICATION: A school scores poorly if fewer than 80% of teachers are certified by the state. • CURRICULUM: a school scores poorly if less than 2/3 of available courses prepare students for a four-year college. • FACILITIES: a school scores poorly if it is so overcrowded that it shortens the school year to accommodate overcrowding (The Concept 6 Calendar) I have no serious arguments with any of these - though I must qualify that I believe we are overconcentrated on the four-year college goal . There simply isn’t capacity in the nation’s colleges for all high school graduates and four year college or university for every student is an unrealistic goal! I suggest that this goal should be more realistically addressed that students need to be prepared for quality post-secondary education including community college and trade school, etc. (And, short term, with 50% of LAUSD students not even making it through high school, an 100% high school graduation rate is a far better goal!) And going after Concept Six in itself is shortsighted also. Concept Six is a Band-Aid solution to overcrowding; the so-called “180 Day Calendar” - which institutionalizes overcrowding - is just as egregious. Overcrowding is solved by building schools! Oakes study applies her three indicators to a map of LA County. [Click on small map at right to view larger map] High schools with no indicators are white dots, those with one or two are varying shades of gray, all three are black. When this map is overlaid on a demographic map that shows concentration of Hispanic and Black Students in varying shades of brown the concentration of dark gray and black dots on a brown background is obvious - as are the white dots on a field of green. If one were to take the next step and overlay the new LAUSD Local District maps over the above we see this: The new Local Districts 6 & 7 (Central Los Angeles and the Southeast) have the greatest concentration of Dr. Oakes ‘problem indicators. This situation is partially addressed in the new local district alignment, Districts 6 and 7 have the fewest number of students — to better to concentrate resources upon the problem. And those areas also have the greatest concentration of new schools being built. That addresses the Facilities indicator, but the challenge remains on how to address Teacher Qualification and Curriculum. That is going to require real leadership. Leadership from downtown, in the local districts, from the community and untimately and most importantly: In the school and in the classroom. • THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY/July-August 2004 The Nation in Numbers: RESEGREGATION'S AFTERMATH Mapping the stark difference in the quality of education between predominantly white and predominantly minority schools by BRAD HOLST Fifty years ago in May, Brown v. Board of Education made segregated public education illegal. By 1990 the complexion of the nation's public schools had changed dramatically: individual schools more closely reflected the racial balance of the district in which they were located, and black students attended class with nearly twice as many white children, on average, as they had two decades previously. But integration had already begun to lose momentum in the early 1970s. ill fact, by some measures public schools have now been resegregating for more than a decade. Partly as a consequence, white children today have access to much better educational opportunities, on average, than do their minority counterparts. Consider Los Angeles County. The accompanying map was generated by Jeannie Oakes, the director of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA., using data she has collected on a range of "opportunity to learn" indicators. A white dot represents a high school with no significant problems. A gray dot identifies a school that has a serious problem with its teachers (fewer than 80 percent are certified by the state), its curriculum (fewer than two thirds of the available courses prepare students for a four-year college), or its facilities (buildings are so crowded that students must attend school in shifts, effectively shortening the academic year by seventeen days or more). The more areas in which a school has problems, the darker the dot. A quick glance at the map reveals that problems are more common in schools located in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The worst schools-the seven exhibiting serious problems with teachers, curricula, and facilities-collectively educate a population that is 94 percent black and Hispanic. Meanwhile, not a single LA County school that is more than 90 percent white and Asian exhibits any serious problems with teachers, curricula, or facilities. Only 16 percent of the region's black and Hispanic students attend a school with none of the serious problems Oakes tracks; more than half (58 percent) of the region's white and Asian students do. Numerous studies show that the caliber of teachers, the rigor of curricula, and the quality of facilities vary according to the race of the student body in public schools throughout the country. Teachers in predominantly black schools, for example, are less likely than teachers in predominantly white schools to have proper credentials or extensive teaching experience, to hold even a minor in the relevant subject, or to have attended a competitive college. Not surprisingly, these differences matter. In L.A. County, graduation rates and college-preparedness rates for all races rise steadily with school quality. Indeed, both graduation rates and college-preparedness rates are twice as high in the best schools (those with no problems on Oakes's scales) as in the worst (those with problems in all three areas). Nationwide, 75 percent of white ninth-graders will graduate from high school in four years; barely half of black and Hispanic ninth-graders will. And even among those twelfth-grade black students who do graduate from high school the average score on the standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress test is lower than the average score of white eighth graders. This puts minority children on an unequal footing not only while they're in school but later in life as well . DOWNLOAD Louis Harris/UCLA IDEA Study: Separate and Unequal 50 Years after Brown—California's Racial CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP — A BEST KEPT SECRET BEST NOT KEPT! • By Dan Basalone Historically, one of the best ways to close the "Achievement Gap" among all students has been to provide preschool age children with a quality learning experience prior to entering kindergarten. For many students preschool education is provided by their family by means of private preschool experiences. However, one of the best kept secrets in the Los Angeles Unified School District is the early education program at centers throughout Los Angeles and in the School Readiness Language Development Program (SRLDP) classes. As a former elementary school principal who can attest to the readiness of students in these programs to be successful kindergarten students, I firmly believe that the work being done by preschool educators is most instrumental in student success. In my experience it was the children who had preschool experiences who set the learning tone for kindergarten classes. Our Early Education Centers are staffed by some of the most dedicated teachers and aides, and they are led by highly competent site principals. Most early education principals supervise two or more sites that can be miles apart; yet, they maintain outstanding programs at all sites regardless of the time needed to accomplish their tasks. Our goals as a District should be to enhance the early education program for as many students as possible and to assign one site per principal in order to maximize their success. Thanks to all Early Education staff for the tremendous work that they do to close the achievement gap. • Dan Basalone is a former elementary school principal, retired from LAUSD. This article is from the from the May 31st AALA Update Newsletter. AALA, The Associated Administrators Los Angeles, is the "Principal's Union". 4LAKids Book Club for June & July –CHOOSING EXCELLENCE: “Good Enough” Schools Are Not Good Enough John Merrow - the documentary filmmaker and corespondent behind the Merrow Report series of education broadcasts on NPR and PBS - spoke to the California State PTA convention last month about his take on public education issues. Much of what he said was reported a month ago in 4LAKids (see: May 9th: “NOTES FROM THE CALIFORNIA STATE PTA CONVENTION & PARENT SYMPOSIUM IN LONG BEACH”) Merrow’s thinking is further developed in CHOOSING EXCELLENCE (Scarecrow Press, 207pp) — first published in 2001 but is still very applicable today. Some of his thoughts re: charter schools (which at the time were totally unproved) probably need reworking as the data becomes clearer – but his take is 98% on! (‘Choice’ in LAUSD means particpation in the magnet school program - the ultimate choice is often made by a lottery – ‘choice’ becomes a matter of chance!) “Choice” has become a political buzzword in education, often it really means school vouchers and the privatization of public education. Not here. Merrow’s call is for nothing-less-than excellence in education, and his mantra that “‘Good Enough’ Schools Are Never Good Enough” resonates. His critique of multiple choice standardized tests, his description of the roles of parents, students and educators, and his premise that excellence is a choice parents must make – and his step-by-step guide on how to make the choices – are well worth the read. This is good stuff! —smf Pick up CHOOSING EXCELLENCE from your public library or bookstore - or click here to order it online EVENTS: Coming up next week... • Monday Jun 14, 2004 Central Los Angeles Area New High School #9 (450 N. Grand) Design Update Meeting 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Esperanza Elementary School 680 Little Street Los Angeles, CA 90017 Community Organizer: Wanda Flagg • Tuesday Jun 15, 2004 South Region Elementary School #1 Phase II Presentation of Recommended Preferred Site Local District I At this meeting we will present and discuss the site that will be recommended to the LAUSD Board of education for this new school project. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. 75th Elementary School 142 W. 75th Street Los Angeles, CA 90003 Community Organizer: Carlas McCauley • Wednesday June 16, 2004 MEETING OF THE BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE 9:30 AM New Bell Middle School Library N/E corner Florence & Grafton Avenues Cudahy, CA more info: http://www.laschools.org/bond/ Phone: 212.241.4700 • Thursday Jun 17, 2004 South Region High School #2 Phase II Presentation of Recommended Preferred Site Local District I At this meeting we will present and discuss the site that will be recommended to the LAUSD Board of education for this new school project. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Miramonte Elementary School 1400 E. 68th Street Los Angeles, CA 90001 Community Organizer: Carlas McCauley *Dates and times subject to change. ____________________________________________________ • SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: http://www.laschools.org/bond/ Phone: 212.241.4700 ____________________________________________________ • LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR: http://www.laschools.org/happenings/ Phone: 213.633.7616 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD. He is Vice President for Education in Los Angeles 10th District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He serves on various school district advisory and policy committees and is a PTA officer and governance council member at two LAUSD schools. He is also the elected Youth & Education boardmember on the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. • This and past Issues are available – with interactive feedback — at http://4lakids.blogspot.com/ • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.

4LAKids: Sunday, June 6th, 2004

4LAKids: Sunday, June 6th, 2004 In This Issue: • THE CRISIS IS OVER! ...Everyone May Return to Their Homes? • TEACHERS UNION PREVAILS IN L.A. DISTRICT PLAN • THE BATTLE OF THE OP-EDS: The Budget + The Minidistricts • TRUANCY RAMPANT, GRAND JURY FINDS • THE STATE: HIGH SCHOOLS GET LOW MARKS IN READYING STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE • EVENTS: Coming up next week... • 4LAKids Book Club for June & July –CHOOSING EXCELLENCE: “Good Enough” Schools Are Not Good Enough • What can YOU do? Featured Links: • THE 4LAKids ARCHIVE - Past Issues and added features • MAKING SCHOOLS WORK: Get the Book @ Amazon.com • THE BEST RESOURCE ON CALIFORNIA SCHOOL FUNDING ON THE WEB: The Sacramento Bee’s “Paying for Schools” • FIVE CENTS MAKES SENSE FOR EDUCATION- Target 5¢ from every federal tax dollar for Education THE CRISIS IS OVER! ...Everyone May Return to Their Homes? To read Saturday’s LA Times article (see: “TEACHERS UNION PREVAILS IN L.A. DISTRICT PLAN”, following) it’s all over but the rubber-stamping! The budget impasse, the contract negotiations, the local districts — all behind us — a done deal! To quote the unquotable source: “We just can’t talk about it right now!” A certain number of local districts have been saved. Place you bets on the number 8. It’s business as unusual at the ol’ LAUSD. • The good news is that the $50 per student “tax” has been restored to the schools. • Counselors, psychiatric social workers and nurses’ positions have been preserved. • The egregious “Learning Walks” (which were promising initially) and “Red Team Visits” are gone. • Best of all: We no longer calling each other names! The war of words carried out in the media (see: “BATTLE OF THE OP-EDS”, following) has been thankfully adjourned. Make no mistake about it, progress has been made. Nobody expects union contract negotiations in a fishbowl, but where was the give-and-take with parents, taxpayers and the community — the community that our schools are supposed to be centers of? Where exactly is all the transparency and accountability? Students are mentioned twice in the article; once as a adjective modifying ‘achievement’ and once as part of an adjective modifying ‘payment’. Just when exactly do we become concerned about students as nouns? — smf TEACHERS UNION PREVAILS IN L.A. DISTRICT PLAN By Cara Mia DiMassa - Times Staff Writer June 5, 2004 - Even though it could cost millions, the Los Angeles Unified School District has decided to back off from a confrontation with its powerful teachers union and is offering a contract proposal that would leave health benefits unchanged and restore some funds for classrooms and counseling programs. According to a letter obtained by The Times, the package would resolve some of the stickiest contractual issues for the 2004-05 school year by dropping previous demands that teachers pay higher deductibles and other health costs. If accepted, it also would eliminate two controversial teacher evaluation programs that United Teachers-Los Angeles wants killed. Some familiar with the negotiations said the district's decision to acquiesce on those issues was driven in part by rosier-than-expected budget numbers from the state. Recent figures from Sacramento suggested that the district is $25 million to $30 million better off than it thought in January, when it projected a budget gap of about $500 million in its operating budget of $5.7 billion. In previous rounds of negotiations, the district had asked UTLA and its 45,000 members to shoulder between $25 million and $35 million of those costs by, among other things, increasing co-payments for doctor's office and emergency room visits, doubling some healthcare deductibles and changing benefit packages for new teachers. UTLA officials confirmed that they had received the offer but said they had not yet decided whether to accept it. Teachers did not get a pay increase this year, and the district was not offering one for next year. However, the union was awaiting final state budget figures to see how hard it could push for pay hikes, according to several people familiar with the negotiations. In a June 1 letter to the union, Richard Fisher, the district's representative in the contract negotiations, said the new offer would "respond to the most critical issues facing the parties … at this time when the board must effectively resolve the budget crisis, and in the spirit of bringing the negotiations to a speedy resolution." But Fisher also noted that the plan could cause an unspecified temporary deficit. The offer includes restoring $12 million in funds for counselors and $4 million for nurses and psychiatric social workers, positions that had been eliminated or reduced in earlier budget negotiations; putting back a $50-per-student payment to schools for classroom supplies; and closing two evaluation efforts that the union has said are universally disliked by teachers. In recent speeches to the board, UTLA President John Perez has said that the Red Teams — an audit program for schools that do not meet certain annual progress goals — demoralize schools and that Learning Walks — a district program of classroom evaluations — do nothing to improve instruction. Fisher wrote that the district would close both programs, but would not abolish teacher and campus evaluations altogether. In an interview Friday, Supt. Roy Romer confirmed that he had recommended to the board last week that the district make the union a comprehensive settlement. He said that the board had approved it, but that he could not comment on the specifics. "I want to honor the fact that everybody in negotiations needs to be free to move with the issue," Romer said. "I can't comment on that letter," he said. "I am sorry; it's the only way." Five members of the seven-member Board of Education have received at least some financial support for election from the teachers union. Granting the items detailed in his letter, Fisher wrote, would financially "leave the district in a projected interim negative position." According to a district spokeswoman, Fisher would not comment on the letter Friday or on whether the higher state revenues would cover the offer's costs. Others said the full financial picture would not be clear until next week, when the district releases an interim budget report. Perez said that he too was not at liberty to discuss the proposal. "We do not negotiate in the press, and we don't negotiate in a fishbowl," he said. "The district asked us to keep it confidential, and I have kept it confidential." The package made no mention of another union issue: the district's system of 11 administrative subdistricts, which Perez has said he wanted to see eliminated. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles school board will consider whether to reduce the number of subdistricts, and it was unclear Friday whether the contract settlement offer would help to preserve them. Romer has said the geographic subdistricts have helped boost student achievement and are aiding the district's massive construction program. But Perez has said the local districts represent a waste of money that could be better spent in the classroom. THE BATTLE OF THE OP-EDS: The Budget + The Minidistricts • LA Times: COMMENTARY - June 5, 2004 LAUSD Is in Serious Need of Counseling By Sue Pascoe Los Angeles Unified School District officials have axed counselors for middle grade and high schools next year, or, as they put it, they "approved a $12-million cut in counselor allocation." This information was contained in a May 5 district memo to principals that found its way to me. When I've read in the past that counselors were being cut, I was upset but knew that budgets had to be met. Outrage set in this time, though, when I found out what "counselor allocation" means. The Board of Education is proposing one counselor for up to 1,999 middle school students. If a school has between 2,000 and 3,299 students, it qualifies for two counselors. Currently, the districtwide ratio is one to 700, and that is already too high. Unbelievable. One counselor for 1,999 students. Even if a counselor spent eight hours a day for a week on students' files, she'd have less than a minute per student — without breaks for phone calls, going to classrooms or actually talking to kids. The futility of what these counselors are being asked to do is beyond absurd. It's criminal. A friend transferred her children from the Manhattan Beach Unified School District to the LAUSD. Her daughter was put in a set of classes where the work was far too easy and the math almost remedial for the girl. After many calls and much coordination with an overworked and understaffed counseling department, my friend was able to meet with teachers and a counselor to see whether her child shouldn't be in different classes. They eventually agreed the daughter should be in advanced classes, but by then it was May. That meant a whole school year had gone by and the girl would be playing catch-up this summer. If the mother hadn't taken an active role, there's a chance this girl would have been put in the wrong classes again next year. What about the other students who need help, who may be in the wrong classes and whose parents aren't as persistent? How can guidance counselors with a ratio of 1 to 1,999 even hope to catch an error? Balancing the budget by cutting counselors is not the place to go. Rather, greater accountability in the LAUSD is the first place to start. ExED, a nonprofit organization that supplies business services, technical and consulting advice for charter schools, has estimated that the LAUSD receives from local, state and federal governments an estimated $9,000 per pupil each year. That is a conservative estimate; some sources think it may be as high as $11,000 a year. A year ago, our local high school received roughly $3,900 per pupil per year, leaving $5,100 for the board. Some of the money that the district keeps is for legitimate budget items like administration and transportation services. Even if the district spends $2,000 per pupil for those services, that leaves roughly $3,000 per pupil that is unaccounted for. ExED tried to trace where that money went but couldn't find out. More amazing, a district representative told ExED the district didn't know either. A certain portion of the funds targeted for students appears to have disappeared, as in a magic act. A good magician, though, knows where things are going; the LAUSD doesn't. A magician isn't accountable to the people of the city; the LAUSD is. The pity is, when the LAUSD isn't accountable, it's the students who suffer. One counselor for 1,999 students is a tragedy that shouldn't be allowed. • LA Times: LETTER TO THE EDITOR - June 5, 2004 Teachers Union Pushes Hard to Cut Subdistricts "L.A. Teachers Union Chief Pressures Supt. Romer to Dissolve Subdistricts" (May 30) portrayed the current debate over the L.A. Unified School District mini-districts as a battle of wills between Supt. Roy Romer and me. It is not about us. The issue is where to find the money to restore badly needed student services that have been cut from the budget. The school board faces a clear choice: cutting an administration that consumes more than 10% of the district's $12.3-billion budget or restoring $50 per student per classroom, retaining nurses and counselors and not increasing class sizes in grades nine through 12. Some of the same critics had no problem when United Teachers Los Angeles threw its full political weight behind the last three school bond measures. UTLA opposed the previous board because it increased class sizes instead of reducing the mini-districts. Voters agreed. The public understands that smaller classes, not more bureaucrats, are the main reason test scores have improved. John Perez President, United Teachers Los Angeles • Los Angeles Daily News Editorial: UNION MADE: School Board Puts Special Interests Above Needs of Students, Parents and Teachers Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - For all the hype about minidistricts, the war between United Teachers Los Angeles and LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer isn't about bureaucracy. It's about power. For 25 years, the UTLA ran the Los Angeles Unified School District -- straight into the ground. Despite a swelling student population, the union-controlled board built no schools. It fought accountability, and watched as the academic reputation of a once-proud school district crumbled. Eventually, public disgust (aided by piles of former Mayor Richard Riordan's campaign cash) caught up with the school board. Reformers took over, and named Romer as superintendent. And though Romer has made some mistakes, there can be no quibbling about his overall achievements. He's won over public support for $10 billion worth of bond measures, launching a massive school-construction program that is actually delivering on its promises. He's extended teacher training and oversight, and presided over a steady improvement in test scores. But now the UTLA is back in power, and the union wants to show Romer who's boss -- or more likely chase him out of town. The situation now is looking worse than ever. UTLA-backed school board members are taking orders from their union overlords -- sometimes in the form of hand signals at board meetings -- working to make their special-interest agenda the law of the land. So teacher accountability is under assault. So is Romer's minidistrict system, and -- as usual -- the UTLA is looking to siphon yet more public money away for its members. The union makes a fair point when criticizing Romer for his failure to aggressively scale back the LAUSD bureaucracy, of which minidistricts have regrettably become one more useless layer. Yet there's a certain irony to this complaint -- the district's bureaucracy never grew faster, bigger or more onerous than the previous time the UTLA was in control. Moreover, the union's real motivations become all too clear in how it proposes to spend the money it seeks to save from slashing the bureaucracy. The wish list notably includes increased benefits for its members, when the district has far greater needs, including further teacher training. The UTLA also seeks to scale back programs used to create some semblance of teacher accountability -- putting the interests of the hacks within its ranks over those of the professionals, to say nothing of parents and students. Through it all, union-backed board members stand to drive Romer, who has one year left on his contract, out of town. If that happens, they will be free to replace him with one of their own. And we all know how that turned out last time. TRUANCY RAMPANT, GRAND JURY FINDS • smf notes: LAUSD’s newly announced efforts to improve attendance while cutting funding for attendance counselors (see 4LAKids, last week) may spark interest in goings-on in Orange County — where the grand jury is investigating school districts for violating the law in attendance policy. LA TIMES: Three districts violate state education code by not tracking chronic truants, report says. Use of attendance review boards is urged. By Jennifer Mena - Times Staff Writer June 4, 2004 - The Orange County Grand Jury accused three school districts Thursday of violating state education code by failing to identify habitual truants and concluded that truancy was a rampant, countywide problem. One of the report's investigators, Alan Friedman, said some children missed 30 school days each year. The report quotes Huntington Beach Union High School District officials as viewing its truancies as "out of control." Despite Santa Ana Unified School District officials' insistence to the grand jury that truancy is controlled, the report says the district had more chronic truants in the 2002-03 school year — 1,284 among about 61,000 students — than any other district. District officials did not return repeated calls for comment. The problem is exacerbated, Friedman said, because some districts neither identify nor track habitual truants — a necessary strategy, he said, in addressing the problem. The county's 27 school districts also record and handle their truancy problems differently, making it difficult to assess the gravity of the problem. The grand jury specifically criticized the Cypress, Fullerton Joint Union High School and Saddleback Valley Unified districts for not identifying and tracking their chronic truants. But the districts' superintendents said they are addressing the problem. Education code requires that after a fourth unexplained absence by students a district label them habitual truants, Friedman said. "By not designating them habitual truants, you do not invoke the additional interventions that can take place," he said. In the worst cases, the county Probation Department can place a truant on a school-attendance contract and the district attorney can file charges against a parent. The report recommended the use of school attendance review boards, which deal with truants and their parents. Several districts without such boards were cited for not reporting truancy properly, an allegation that district officials deny. George Giokaris, superintendent of the 16,400-student Fullerton Joint Union district, said: "We are not violating the education code. We may not use the term 'habitual truants,' but in all cases where students have had the requisite number of absences, we are doing our job and following through with parents and students." Daily attendance is 97.2%, up 1.2% since the 1999-2000 school year, he said. The report recommended that county schools Supt. William M. Habermehl urge districts to participate in the county's Student Attendance Board system even if they did not have their own boards. The report also suggested that districts help fund anti-truancy programs run by the Probation Department and the district attorney's office. THE STATE: HIGH SCHOOLS GET LOW MARKS IN READYING STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE • smf notes: Education policy – national, state and district – is focused on preparing students for university. Yet only 25% of high school graduates go on to graduate from a four year college. And that doesn’t take into account the students who don’t graduate high school! Lofty goals, well meant — but many question whether this universal focus on a college prep curriculum setting the bar too high? Are we forcing students to drop out? And — as the following article points out, we seem to be doing a poor job of preparing many students for college to boot! • LA Times – June 3, 2004: Only 23% of youths in a study completed the necessary courses required for admission to the state universities. By Duke Helfand — Times Staff Writer California's high schools are doing a poor job of graduating their students and preparing them for the demands of college, an education policy organization asserts in a report being released today. The Education Trust-West found that only 23% of students who were ninth-graders in 1999 completed all of the necessary college prep classes by graduation last year to gain admission to the University of California and California State University systems. Many schools didn't offer enough of those classes, and some students were denied the opportunity to take them, the report said. The Oakland-based group also estimated that 70% of ninth-graders in 1999 finished high school four years later, a figure confirmed by state education officials. The Education Trust-West did not delve into dropout rates, which are nearly impossible to pin down because the state does not keep track of individual students who come and go from campuses. Many students take more than four years to finish or gain alternative degrees. "We've got to jump start our focus on high schools," said Russlynn Ali, executive director of the Education Trust-West. "We are still by and large giving out 20th century diplomas for a 21st century economy." Educators widely acknowledged the shortcomings of the state's high schools, particularly among overcrowded campuses in poor communities that serve mostly minority students and have disproportionate numbers of inexperienced teachers. But some school district administrators took issue with the report, saying that college prep classes such as algebra are in fact offered throughout their school systems. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, Deputy Supt. Merle Price called the report "a snapshot that doesn't account for the gaps that kids have coming into high school." He pointed out that nearly one-third of the system's 180,000 high school students are still learning English. Some of these students need extra time to finish high school and are unable to keep up with the challenging college prep curriculum, he said. Still, Price said, the district had redoubled efforts to address flagging high school academic performance by expanding English instruction for those still learning the language. Educators and lawmakers in Sacramento also have tried to craft solutions for improving high school achievement but with mixed results. An initiative by state schools chief Jack O'Connell and state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) to require the college prep curriculum for all California high school students fizzled in the Legislature this year amid concerns about allowing the UC and Cal State systems to effectively define the high school curriculum. The so-called A-G curriculum would have required 15 courses distributed among such areas as English, math, science, history and foreign languages. "We know this is a long haul," O'Connell said. "But I am absolutely convinced that this is the right direction for our students — to be prepared for careers and college." The Education Trust-West also renewed its call for all students to take the college prep curriculum, saying students rise to the occasion and improve when schools maintain high expectations. The group pointed to school districts such as San Jose Unified, where it said a relatively high percentage — 47% — of last year's graduates who were ninth-graders in 1999 completed the advanced curriculum. "High school is not too late to provide students with the skills they need to pass this curriculum," Ali said. View the Ed Trust-West Report: "Are California's High Schools Ready for the 21st Century?" EVENTS: Coming up next week... • TUESDAY, JUNE 8th @ 1PM – THE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETS AND DECIDES (Please!) ON THE BUDGET AND THE MINIDISTRICT ISSUES - Live on KLCS/Channel 58 and @ the Boardroom at 333 S. Beaudry. @ THAT SAME MEETING: Program Environmental Impact Report for New School Construction Program The LAUSD has prepared a Program Environmental Impact Report (Program EIR) that provides a general analysis of the environmental aspects of Phase II and future phases of the New School Construction Program. The Program EIR was prepared in compliance with the California Environmental Equality Act (CEQA). Please join us at this public meeting where the LAUSD Board of Education will consider the certification of the Program EIR. 1:00 p.m. LAUSD Board of Education 333 S. Beaudry Avenue Board Room Los Angeles, CA 90017 Contact: Bill Piazza (213-241-3199) • ALSO TUESDAY JUNE 8, 6:30 PM Central Region High School #13 (Glassell Park/Taylor Yards) Phase II Presentation of Preferred Site Local District E At this meeting we will present and discuss the site that will be recommended to the LAUSD Board of Education for this new school project. 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Irving Middle School Auditorium 3010 Estara Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90065 Community Organizer: Fernando Chavarria • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9th, 2004 South Region High School #4 Phase II Site Selection Update Local District K Your participation is important! Please join at this meeting where we will review: * Criteria used to select potential sites * Sites suggested by community and by LAUSD, and * We will present and discuss the most suitable site(s) for this new school project 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Del Amo Elementary School 21228 Water Street Carson, CA 90745 Community Organizer: Tony Arias *Dates and times subject to change. ____________________________________________________ • SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: http://www.laschools.org/bond/ Phone: 212.241.4700 ____________________________________________________ • LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR: http://www.laschools.org/happenings/ Phone: 213.633.7616 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR 4LAKids Book Club for June & July –CHOOSING EXCELLENCE: “Good Enough” Schools Are Not Good Enough John Merrow - the documentary filmmaker and corespondent behind the Merrow Report series of education broadcasts on NPR and PBS - spoke to the California State PTA convention last month about his take on public education issues. Much of what he said was reported a month ago in 4LAKids (see: May 9th: “NOTES FROM THE CALIFORNIA STATE PTA CONVENTION & PARENT SYMPOSIUM IN LONG BEACH”) Merrow’s thinking is further developed in CHOOSING EXCELLENCE (Scarecrow Press, 207pp) — first published in 2001 but is still very applicable today. Some of his thoughts re: charter schools (which at the time were totally unproved) probably need reworking as the data becomes clearer – but his take is 98% on! (‘Choice’ in LAUSD means particpation in the magnet school program - the ultimate choice is often made by a lottery – ‘choice’ becomes a matter of chance!) “Choice” has become a political buzzword in education, often it really means school vouchers and the privatization of public education. Not here. Merrow’s call is for nothing-less-than excellence in education, and his mantra that “‘Good Enough’ Schools Are Never Good Enough” resonates. His critique of multiple choice standardized tests, his description of the roles of parents, students and educators, and his premise that excellence is a choice parents must make – and his step-by-step guide on how to make the choices – are well worth the read. This is good stuff! —smf Get CHOOSING EXCELLENCE from your local library, bookstore - or order it by clicking here. What can YOU do? • E-mail, call or write your school board member. Or your city councilperson, mayor, assemblyperson, state senator, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think. • 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. • Vote. Contact your school board member Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD. He is Vice President for Education in Los Angeles 10th District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He serves on various school district advisory and policy committees and is a PTA officer and governance council member at two LAUSD schools. He is also the elected Youth & Education boardmember on the Arroyo Seco Neighborhood Council. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. • This and past Issues are available – with interactive feedback — at http://4lakids.blogspot.com/ • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.