Change The LAUSD

“Exploiting justified anger...to pursue a war on teachers”

-Diane Ravitch

Too often, a teacher in the LAUSD’s Teacher Jail system is doomed to a career ending sentence if they cannot generate the publicity that will force the district’s hand. When district bullies removed Greg Schiller from the classroom because of a science project that they did not understand, students protested and the media noticed. Schiller’s suspension was ended after two months, but not before the fencing team he coached was forced to cancel their participation in a competition and AP students were deprived of study time. After leading class trips to France and the White House, choir teacher Iris Stevenson was placed in Teacher Jail. “Parents, students and community members rallied” and she was released back to the classroom, but only after students missed her instruction for an entire semester. Stuart Lutz was returned to the classroom with his only discipline being a “‘conference memo’, in which an administrator explained what Lutz did incorrectly and how to avoid such problems in the future.” Lutz was also the beneficiary of pressure on the district, including an online petition,  from people who did not believe that improprieties in field trip paperwork and fundraisers are adequate reasons to remove an art teacher from the classroom for eight months.

Until last month it appeared that Rafe Esquith was headed down the same path. After being placed in teacher jail in March for “telling a joke about nudity in Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,’” publicity was building about this teacher’s stay in purgatory. Several media outlets were covering the story and a well-attended protest was held before the School Board. He had also secured the services of a high powered law firm who “told the district to publicly apologize and let him return to work or be sued.”

Stereotype: “A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

-Oxford Dictionaries

Under President Obama, there have been a record number of deportations. He has also employed the largest amount of border patrol agents. These have combined with other factors to drive a zero percent migration rate from Mexico, a trend that some expect to continue into the future. However, none of this is good enough for the xenophobic wing of the Republican party who still see the value of a good  scapegoat - especially one without the power to vote. According to this point of view, we should ignore the hard working people in search of a better life whose labor is exploited by American businessman and instead claim that “they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bring those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

A retired Kindergarten teacher wrote

 “When kdgtn was a place to play-act, learn the alphabet, build w/blocks, count objects, make friends, be a friend, share, listen to stories and do finger play and sing songs and sit cross-legged on the rug, and understand (sort of ) what a line of others is, and learn to take turns and to speak with an inside voice and to finger paint and to use paint at an easel to paint fire engines and use the colors....NOT to be tested to the core, but to be exposed to the best in early childhood and then to explore and then to own and direct. And then it changed and I retired...could not tolerate the tears and frustrations of little first graders who had to do math facts in short seconds and would instead have bathroom accidents in the room or have tummy aches and cry....filling in bubbles my foot! Testing was in the moment and highly interactive with responses and then reiterations of examples...by observation and gentle care. Miss those days...and feel so sorry for little people today who bark back the rules and verbage but can't get it down or correct on paper YET ! Reading by 9 is excellent; rote learning by 18 is impractical.”

You remember, Kindergarten was fun!

Even today, preKindergarten to some is what Kindergarten was. I have seen the preK homework and it appears to be the end of Kindergarten/beginning of first grade skills of the past.

A very short time ago

I can still remember how teaching made me smile

And I knew if I teach my way

That my students would be happy everyday

And they’d prepare for the future

But testing made me sick

With every test prep I had used

Bad news in the classroom

I couldn't take one more year

I can't remember if I cried

When I was so bored I stepped outside

But something touched me deep inside

The day my creativity died

• The public personality of a Cal Worthington;
• The pleasantness of Sheriff John singing “Laugh and Be Happy” and “The Birthday Polka” everyday;
• The media savvy of Magic Johnson who is not afraid to publicly criticize, even the Lakers;
• The truth of Bernie Sanders;
• The wanderlust of Steve Lopez in order to visit the schools and publicize the issues;
• The classroom experiences of 1,000 veteran teachers;
• The ability to say the buck stops here and to the Board that they are wrong;
• And most of all, a commitment to put the students and the schools first!

It is hard enough to get Americans to fulfill their obligation of voting in elections. In one poll four percent of the respondents would not even take the step of registering to vote because they felt that their “vote wouldn’t make a difference.” Even less of our fellow citizens take a more active role in the democratic process under the assumption that their voice is too small to be heard. However, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges could not have happened without the grassroots activism that had taken place 28 years ago.

I have taught at one of the ten lowest performing schools in LAUSD. I have taught at one of ten highest performing schools in LAUSD. I have taught at schools that are in between.

What is the difference? Is it the community? Is it the dedication of the teachers? It is the experience of the teachers at one school versus the inexperience of the teachers at the other one? Is it the economic levels of the parents? Is it the languages spoken at home by the families?

Is it the expectations and educational level of the parents? Is it the time spent on discipline? Is it parental support for student’s conduct and homework?

It is all of the above!

I always wanted to teach forever. (I still do as a volunteer only.)

Then, LAUSD implemented Open Court in elementary schools, forced the teachers to follow terrible pacing plans, selected textbooks with horrible explanations and limited practice exercises, and the tests became the dark cloud over each school, each classroom, and the entire district.

Open Court was the worst piece of crap this elementary teacher ever saw. Scripted, and among it many flaws, it covered adjectives and adverbs on the same page. There were a million other flaws with Open Court.

The pacing plans for elementary classes were designed by non classroom people who knew nothing. So now each grade in every school does the same skill at the same time and the students must all learn at the same speed, in the same learning modality, like a pair of one size fits all socks trying to fit every foot at the same time.

During the primary campaign, Ref Rodriguez’s supporters accused UTLA of “using ‘racial undertones’” because they used the candidate’s given name, Refugio, in a mailer. Fast forward five months and the new Board member himself referred to his full name several times in his swearing in ceremony on Tuesday. Nevermind what was said or done during the campaign, Rodriguez wants you to pay attention to the present and ignore the contradictions.

The senior teachers are being driven out, put into teachers’ jails, retiring early or changing careers because of their dissatisfaction with what public education has become; pretty soon there will only be new, inexperienced (perhaps TFA) teachers on many school sites.

Teachers will tell you that veteran teachers helped them in their early years of teaching and that they in turn helped others along the way.

As an inexperienced teacher you went to the veterans and asked:

“What do I do in this situation?”

“Did this ever happen to you?”

“A parent is……”

“One of the students is….”

And they always knew what to do!