Change The LAUSD

Sign The Petition Here (Even if you do not live in Los Angeles): LAUSD: Rescind the TFA Contract

Cancel the contract that pays Teach for America (TFA) to recruit untrained interns to teach our vulnerable special education students. Identify reputable programs to recruit graduates and student teachers who are committed to the teaching profession, to our schools and our students.

Miller, Cortines, Romer, Thompson, Brewer, Anton, and Handler.  Not a basketball team, but the names of the LAUSD Superintendents over the last 30 or so years.   

Why so many? They tried a former governor with limited educational knowledge. They tried an admiral with almost no educational knowledge and his buyout was expensive.

Is the District truly governable?  It is large and unruly stretching from Chatsworth to San Pedro, from East Los Angeles to Pacific Palisades. It takes in students from cities and county areas:  Gardena, San Fernando, Carson, West Hollywood, Marina del Rey and more. At some schools parents are involved and truly act as stakeholders, yet at other schools parents are just trying to survive in this world.

All the news about the district has been coming from the downtown Beaudry Headquarters.

Fighting off the Broad initiative to have half of the students in the district leave to attend charter schools.

One idea proposed downtown is to make the entire district a charter district.

The other major issue is the potential for financial doom in the immediate future.

Where has all the money gone?

Ask any teacher or employee at a school if they have ever had enough money or resources. Ask them if they or their students benefit from the money wasted at Beaudry, the programs rolled out (like the new Restorative Justice Program, MiSIS or iPads) which are rolled out half assed and end up costing millions more to correct.

News from a school district, especially a gigantic one like LAUSD, should be positive and should be solely about the schools and what is going on with the students.

When an LAUSD bureaucrat says that the District will call parents before a phone survey begins so that they will know when to “wait for the phone call,” it becomes apparent how little touch the bureaucracy has with reality. The J. F. Kennedy High School Theatre was closer to empty than to full during a meeting asking for input, but somehow the District believes that parents will wait by the phone like a high school senior who does not yet have a date for the prom so that they can express their opinion? If they had any contact with these parents, the District would realize that they have so bombarded them with robocalls that they instinctively know to let them go to voice mail. These calls are the boy who cried “wolf.” It will be surprising if enough of these phone calls get answered to give the District any meaningful results.

“Everybody on the Republican stage is better than Hillary Clinton.”

-Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush stated at a town hall that he does not “want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives.” He then went on to say that the electorate should “elect Trump if you want that.” In the second Republican debate he told Trump that “you can’t just talk about this stuff and insult leaders around the world and expect a good result.” After saying that “if you have intellectual curiosity as a leader, you can grow into the” presidency, he pointed out Trump’s limitations with the qualification of “I’m not sure Mr. Trump has much intellectual curiosity.” Can Bush stand by these criticisms about Trump and still say that his current opponent is more qualified than Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State? In Bush’s mind does adding a (R) after your name give you special super powers that automatically makes you a superior candidate? Most importantly, has a pledge to the RNC to “endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is,” become more important than serving the best interests of the American people?

The Los Angeles Times reported on November 4, 2015, that the LAUSD is headed for a major funding shortfall.

In my 35 years of teaching in Los Angeles, LAUSD always follows the same pattern:

First, the forecast of financial doom in the future.

Then, oh where can we cut, oh where can we cut?

 “Charter schools allow parents, teachers and the community to transform our public school system.”

-California Charter School Association

As Eli Broad prepares to implement his plan “to reach 50 percent charter market share” within the LAUSD, now is the time for Angelenos to begin asking what this privately controlled system would look like. While Broad claims that his takeover of public education will bring an “expansion of high-quality charter schools in Los Angeles,” is there any proof that existing charter schools have reached this standard of excellence? Do charter schools help to “ensure that no Los Angeles student remains trapped in a low-performing school,” or would this expanded network of publicly funded private schools continue to cherry-pick the easiest to teach students who are more likely to increase their school’s reported test scores. Most importantly, do these schools actually want “parents [who] are effectively engaged” or will their right to elect representatives to the governing boards be revoked once these schools are established?

The seven members of the school board are elected. Do they care about education or is it politics they care about? Are they educators, parents with school age children or are they aspiring politicians?

Warren Furutani and Jackie Goldberg, former school board members, got elected to serve in Sacramento. Rita Walters and Jose Huizar got elected to the City Council. Bobbie Fielder went to Congress.

It is name recognition. Once they are serving on the School Board, they find an elected seat that is to be vacated, they run, and since their name is known they win. Look at all the politicians who have switched between Sacramento and the Los Angeles City Council. They have become career politicians enjoying the perks, the attention, the limelight, and the fame. What else can they do?

When they see another elected office opening up do they remain on The Board of Education or are they bored of education?

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”

Steve Zimmer and George McKenna made clear where their loyalties lie when they joined Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez to block public access to the finalists in the search for a new Superintendent. At the October 13th Board meeting, Monica Ratliff proposed a resolution that would have made “the finalists public, but her effort failed.” With Scott Schmerelson and Richard Vladovic voting “yes,” only one more vote was needed to ensure an open process. Despite the significant support that both Zimmer and McKenna have received from the supporters of public education in past elections, neither felt that the public deserved a final say on who will be the next leader of  our district.

Here are the proven ways to get sent to teacher jail:

1.Be at the top of the salary scale.

2.Be close to vesting in lifetime benefits.

3.Be an advocate for your students and their families.