Change The LAUSD

“LA Kids Deserve Summertime - Start School After Labor Day and Fix LAUSD Calendar Now"

-Change.org petition

Last week, students were stuck in classrooms as county health officials declared a heat alert in parts of the district, including the San Fernando Valley. The District used to be on what one teacher called the “Oh my God, it’s hot in L.A. in August” calendar and started school after Labor Day, but not anymore. In an effort led by failed Board Member Tamar Galatzan, the calender was changed several years ago “as a way for high school students to complete the first semester before winter break.” Board President Steve Zimmer agreed saying that “instruction is best aligned when [students] do not have...that extended gap during the first semester.” What the District never answered is why the students even have that extended gap.

Recently, more than ever, the media is filled with headlines and stories about investigations into LAUSD food services and the F.B.I. investigating the iPad mess, and much, much more.

Don’t forget the tens of millions wasted on MiSIS; starting the school year during the intense heat of August without all classrooms having functioning air conditioning; and the secrecy behind the search for a new superintendent.

LAUSD just added $4.5 million to the previous settlement of $30 million for Miramonte, a situation the district could have prevented.

"School board President Steve Zimmer said the board needed to pick a search firm no later than Sept. 15 and preferably sooner. The board has set aside as much as $250,000 plus expenses for the contract."

Why? 

I can suggest a few people who are civic minded, knowledgeable, have no affiliation with the the district, and most importantly their sole concern is for the education of the students of LAUSD!

Why spend another quarter of a million dollars when the district has so many other needs?

“Staff proposes that the Board of Education authorize staff to negotiate and enter into a professional service agreement or agreements to provide executive search services...for a maximum amount of $250,000."

-LAUSD

When I ran for the LAUSD District 3 seat in this year’s elections, one of the planks in my platform was to make Board meetings more accessible to the stakeholders. Since holding some of them on weekends was one suggestion that I put forward, it was very exciting when the District announced early this month its plans to hold a rare weekend meeting. However, any thought that this was done for the convenience of the parents was soon put to rest as the location of the meeting was not even announced until just a couple of days ago. To alleviate any doubt, the agenda released by the district indicated that the Board would adjourn into a closed session right after hearing public comments.

“...investigations should be completed in a timely matter, nothing and I mean nothing, will stand in the way of making sure our students and school communities are safe."

-Ramon Cortines, LAUSD Superintendent

The fifth grade students of Hobart Elementary School have started the school year without award winning teacher Rafe Esquith in the classroom. They are also deprived of access to his nonprofit, the Hobart Shakespeareans, and its proven record of allowing students to “move on to attend outstanding colleges.” Instead, Esquith continues to be confined to teacher jail as the five month investigation against him drags on. What started with a complaint about a joke told in the classroom has somehow expanded into “a complex investigation that requires painstaking, time-consuming work.”

A once a year test which takes no more than 2 hours on one day.

One hour to measure each students’ Language Art progress and one hour to measure each students’ Math progress.

That’s it—no quarterly tests, no fluency tests, no teaching to the test, no following the test calendar, and no evaluating teachers using test scores. 

Any professional educator, after a just a few weeks with his or her students can tell each students' strengths and weaknesses, needs and areas for growth. No paperwork--no testing.

“We have to give strength and power back to the police. And you're always going to have mistakes made. And you're always going to have bad apples. But you can't let that stop the fact that police have to regain some control of this tremendous crime wave and killing wave that's happening in this country.”

-Donald Trump

When I was born in 1967, there were 2,989.7 crimes committed, including 6.2 murders, for every 100,000 people in the United States. By time I graduated high school in 1985, in the middle of Reagan’s presidency, the crime rate had increased to 5,207.1, including 8.0 murders. As Obama took his second oath of office in 2013, the crime rate stood at 3,098.6 and the murder rate had fallen to 4.5. Nowhere has these crime reductions been more apparent than in New York City where the murder rate fell from 14.5 in 1990 to 3.3 in 2013. On a national scale, improvements in the violent crime rate continued into 2014.

Veteran teachers are leaving the profession!

Veteran teachers like senior citizens should be revered for the knowledge, wisdom, and experience.

Each of us had an unofficial mentor when we first started teaching and again when we moved to a new school. 

Pretty soon there will be no teacher over 30 at any schools:

No one to ask advice about situations, students, parents, and administrators;

No one who remembers how it was before--when the teachers were loved and respected by everyone, and they were the ultimate authority on anything for their students; 

No one who remember the proper way to teach instead of solely teaching to the test;

Except for schools in selective parts of the district, LAUSD is a failure:

• A failure to graduate students from high school.
• A failure to prepare students for anything but testing--not for the next grade and not for life.
• A failure to allow the students time to master skills, review skills, and remediate skills, before they go on to the next skill.
• A failure to teach any subject that is not tested.
• A failure not to have shops and practical arts based on the theory that everyone must take college preparatory programs.

Why are kids in school? 

They are taught to the tests following the testing calendar. They are taught in a one size fits all program where every class on the same grade and every class on the same subject is covering the same skill at the same time.

They are taught not to mastery, but to pass the tests. That’s all! They are taught quickly covering a skill in two to three days with an insufficient amount of practice on the skill in class and at home. There is no time for review or remediation of the skill. There is no time to bring children up to grade level on the skills that they did not master in previous grades.