Change The LAUSD

“While working for two years as an accountant, Eli Broad saw his homebuilding clients making much more that he was, and he and Edythe’s cousin’s husband decided they, too, could build houses.”

-Broad Foundation

There are some who like to quietly give to charities, being careful not to draw too much attention to themselves. Eli Broad is not this type of person. In a dispute with MOCA, an organization where he had been named “Founding Chairman,” he told the trustees that he wanted his “name on the building...in big letters, which were to go on the front of the building.” He had to settle having the lobby named after him, at least until he built his very own museum. However, when he gives money, he does not just want public recognition; he wants control. Broad and his wife, Edythe, are self-described venture philanthropists who focus “their charitable giving in a new style of investing that was more akin to their business acumen.”

My name is Bilbo Billionaire and my family through three generations has continued to double our fortunes every year. No one in my family, no one in my peer group, and no one on my Board of Directors, and no one in any of their families has ever attended public schools. We have been at the top private schools all the way.

I am investing in charter schools and online schools because both are real moneymakers. I have spent millions on local school board and statewide elections on candidates who advocate charter school education. I am strongly opposed to advocates of public school education.

(The following is fictional)

Amelia Bedalia Elementary in LAUSD is the future of education, so we follow the party line and it is reported in Pravda, I mean the LA School Report.

We teach solely to the test.

Language Arts and Mathematics are the only subjects taught. 

Physical Education is one day a month for 20 minutes.

Recess has been eliminated. Lunch is 15 minutes and only for eating. Bathroom breaks are strongly discouraged.

They are controlling, do whatever they want to, and never apologize -- that is the LAUSD.

It doesn’t matter who the Superintendent is, who the Board of Education members are or who the top district administrators are.

The LAUSD does what it wants to and never apologies:

LAUSD elementary students are completing the wasteful, monotonous DIBELS today.

Each teacher in Kindergarten through fifth grade has to sit in front of a computer with each student one at a time, while the student reads to the teacher. 

The teacher must hear the same passage over and over again. The tests take 7-8 minutes per student for fourth and fifth grade. Thirty or more students are in the fourth and fifth grade classes.

The rest of the class must work independently while the teacher concentrates on the test. Kindergarteners and first graders have to work independently, which is not easy for them.

“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?

“...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.