Change The LAUSD

The large corporations have either purchased or forced the closure of the smaller competitors and have said goodbye to the mom and pop stores.

The banks have taken over the smaller banks and financial institutions so we just have colossal behemoths of finance.

The legislators, national and local, have been bought and paid for through campaign contributions and they listen to persuasive lobbyists.

The Brothers Rich are trying to buy a Republican Presidency through their selection process, influence, and contributions.

The cost of MiSIS is now $133 million. 

No one knows the costs of the iPad mess and the health costs to students who did not get air conditioning because the money was spent on iPads and WiFi enhancement.

The Food Services investigation is still taking place. What about the waste, loss of time, and heavy caloric foods of Breakfast in the Classroom?

How much has been spent on housing teachers in teacher jails and paying their substitutes?

What is the cost of the outside law firms and investigators?

Doing our best to waste your tax and bond money from Chatsworth to San Pedro, to mismanage our personnel from Sylmar to South Gate, to fail your children from Tujunga to Topanga, to serve them lousy food from the mountains to the sea--we are LAUSD.

• The great feeling a teacher experiences when a student’s light goes on when they acquire a skill they struggled with.
• The pleasure of sitting down on the rug and reading to or having a discussion with the class.
• The time to review a skill until everyone in the class has mastered it.
• The opportunity to sit and play a learning game with the children.
• Teachable moments.

Sure, go ahead and hold teachers accountable for test scores. Even attach their raises to the scores. Make it so they can be terminated; but wait.

Who holds the principals, assistant principals, and deans accountable? What about the downtown administrators, the superintendent and his assistants, the local administrators, and the school board members?

No one holds them accountable! The school board hires the superintendent. He and the school board hire his assistants. He and the school board select the downtown administrators and the local administrators who in turn choose and support the principals.

“I felt bad collecting my salary while being forced to sit home without doing the work.”

-David Binkle

Last December, David Binkle’s paid suspension was announced with typical LAUSD double speak. At the same time the press office was stating that he had “been temporarily reassigned pending the conclusion of an internal investigation into a CONFIDENTIAL personnel matter,” (emphasis mine) a leaked copy of the Inspector General’s draft audit stated that they “found that the program is currently at a minimum being mismanaged and at worst being consistently abused.” While the district initially stated that the investigation was likely to “wrap up in late spring or early summer,” last month they stated “they could not estimate when the investigation might be concluded.” In the meantime, Binkle was being paid his $152,000 salary not to work, a situation that was unfair to both Binkle and the taxpayers.

• Welcome back, I hope you all had a good summer.
• I know that you are anxious to get into your classrooms.
• There have been some changes, so me let me introduce your new staff members.
• Now you will sign the forms promising to report child abuse.
• Test scores. (Everybody groans)
• In and of itself, the test scores were a little up in some areas, a little flat in others, and lower in some.
• If you will turn towards the wall, our coordinator will show our scores with her analysis.  (Teachers start to draw, cutout, and prepare materials)

Schools may be closed for the break,

But teachers have a lot to make.

Lesson plans for the the school year,

With lessons that are precise and clear.

Schedule learning so the students have the knowledge for each test,

So for the teachers the break is not true rest,

Wherever they go they still are thinking about what the kids need to know,

And about the room environment, papers to correct, and observing the students grow.

that testing is the best use of instructional time and resources for the students of LAUSD?

You never come to the schools. Members of the board, you are politicians, not educators, and the downtown administrators who once worked in a schools and now advise you, forgot what it was like two seconds after they left the schools.

Yet, you spend the money; you order the tests; tell the teachers what to teach; buy the lousiest textbooks; cut support staff and supplies from the schools; raise class sizes; and then raise hell with the principals, who raise hell with the teachers if test scores don't go up.

So what gives you the right to judge each teacher by his or her test scores?

Teaching is not testing. Teachers have a heart and care about the students first and test scores last.

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sadly, the death of two people last week in a shooting at a Louisiana movie theater will not do anything to start a meaningful dialog about gun control in our country. If the 13 people in Binghamton, 13 people in Ft. Hood, three people in Huntsville, eight people in Manchester, six people in Tucson, eight people in Seal Beach, seven people in Oakland, 12 people in Aurora, six people in Oak Creek, six people in Minneapolis, three people in Brookfield, 27 people in Newtown, five people in Santa Monica, 13 people in Washington, D. C., three people in Ft. Hood, seven people in Isla Vista and nine people in Charleston were not enough to spark a discussion about who has access to guns, why should another two lives matter to our politicians? When Obama initially ran for president, the NRA warned that we have never “faced a presidential candidate...with such a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms,” but as President, Obama has only expanded the rights of gun owners. And the carnage continues…

Lately, I have been drawn to watch episodes of the 1950’s T.V. show, The Lone Ranger.

During every episode, the morality, the goodness, and the righteousness of The Lone Ranger and Tonto stands out.

Every teacher in America is The Lone Ranger. We fight against the system that we know is wrong. We do what we can to prepare our students for the next grades and for life. We are there for our students.

Every teacher has had former students come back or contact them. These former students are full of great memories and thankfulness.

Instead of “Who was that masked man?”  they say, “I wish my kids could have you as a teacher!”

Their memories and their success are the SILVER BULLET we leave behind.