Change The LAUSD

The current generation of teachers is totally different from the generation that I trained and began with.

We were there for the students, not the test scores.

We had the freedom to plan our own lessons and to schedule them.

The lessons were designed to fit our personality and that of the class.  Lesson plans and pacing plans did not come from publishers, they came from teachers, experienced teachers who were there to prepare students for the next grade and for life, teachers who cared about educating the students and who were not forced to care only about test scores.

We had sufficient time to remediate. An early principal of mine used to say, “Bring the students up to grade level and introduce them to grade level skills.”

We had ample opportunities to challenge and to enrich the students.

We had time for teachable moments.

We had time for fun!

We were not forced to stay within the system. We went beyond to help the students.

In LAUSD elementary classrooms they use workbooks, sheets from the publishers, and photocopies at a waste of millions while enriching the publishers. There is not enough practice on any skill for every student to attain mastery of that skill.

My students used five to six Math books with Math paper folded into 16 squares. The students got plenty of practice and practice equals mastery.

For Language Arts exercises, I used a textbook along with lined paper. I used lined paper for creative writing too. I supplemented the textbook with charts and transparencies and the students worked and there was sufficient practice for mastery.

Do they really learn how to punctuate quotations by putting in commas and quotation marks on a printed page?

My students wrote their own dialogue and put in the punctuation.

LAUSD: Your tax dollars at waste always!

When you were in school did you learn more than the 3R’s:  Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.

Of course you did. If you think hard you can remember map making, singing and dancing, games, Social Studies, movies, slides or filmstrips, Science, public speaking and drama, Health, handwriting, and practical things like learning how to introduce two people, how to carry a chair, how to address an envelope, and so much more.

Don’t you want your children to have these experiences? How did we get to this place? How do we stop it?

We must retake our schools from the test and book publishers, the know it all celebrities (politicians and the extremely rich who never attended public school), the school board members who have no educational background, and the downtown administrators who are entrenched without the knowledge gained by current experiences at the schools.

Wherever thou goest in school today, the fun is gone, the tests are upon, and the students’ future is extremely drawn.

A parent who lives by Palms Middle School chose to send her child to Paul Revere Middle School about seven miles away. This is a heavy traffic drive and the street leading to Revere is a one lane road in each direction.

Why?  Because she wants the best education for her child.

Parents go so far as to use someone else’s address.  This is a common practice as parents in areas where their home school is not to their expectations find other ways to get their children into a preferred school.

Many years ago, a number of students attending an elementary school were found using the same residential address where none of them lived. People have turned the guardianship of their child over to a relative living in the residential area of a desired school.

There are also students using permits with transfer and taking extremely long school bus rides to attend better schools. There are also students who utilize public transportation to reach a school that their family prefers.

All schools are not created equal.

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.

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?

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.

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today. 

LAUSD is robbing your children of a well rounded education, a proper education, an education like they gave you before all the tests.

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today.

Test scores, tests scores: compare them, improve them, at what cost to the students? At what costs to their futures?

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today.

The fun is gone. The creativity is gone. The education in LAUSD has become a business. No longer are the students the bottom line--tests scores are.

You say that is as stupid as widening the San Diego Freeway when they should have built a train transit system on it instead.

It seems that everything in LAUSD is for sale. 

School board candidates receive millions of dollars in campaign funds from out of state billionaires who have no vested interest in the school district.

Class sizes are being raised, so empty classrooms on many campuses are being given to for profit charter schools.

The reformers want LAUSD students (except for special needs ones) to move to those schools in which they and their peers have investments.