smf remarks at The Jack and Denny Smith Library and Community Center at Mount Washington School

I have been asked by a number of people (two’s number, right?) to circulate my remarks made at the ribbon cutting ceremony for The Jack & Denny Smith Library and Community Center at Mount Washington School on Monday April 30. Here they are:

Good afternoon – This is day we thought would never come — look at us here, look at me. I’m smiling so hard it hurts!

THREE YEARS AGO almost to the day we stood in a tent – I called it magic that day - on this spot and broke ground for this project; that was a joyous and bittersweet day. We had just lost Denny Smith …who had wanted so much to be with us. We missed Denny that day as we missed Jack. They will never walk the halls of this building, they will never attend a community meeting in this room or pull a book from the shelves of the library upstairs – but close your eyes and they are here, next to us, urging us on. Urging the children and the teachers on – reminding us that where we live is an anthill ….and it is our job to make a mountain of it.

Today is the culmination of well over a decade of collaboration and battles with LAUSD and ourselves, involving the Mount Washington community, civic leaders, community activists, schoolchildren grown to young adulthood, politicians, teachers, a cast of characters from Jack’s columns and most notably Mount Washington’s First Family: the late Jack and Denny Smith.

That Jack and Denny have a children’s library as their memorial is as apropos as Mulholland’s fountain. That’s what they were about.

Our adventure has its parallels in the adventures of Jack and Denny in building their Baja dream home recounted in “God and Mr. Gomez” – and indeed it was only through the grace of God and Mr. & Mrs. Smith that our dream comes true this morning. Jack lived the beginning of the adventure and he would’ve loved and relished the convoluted entirety of it. Had he written of it as it was going on it would’ve been infinitely more fun. Jack was a journalist and always told the truth, but he also heeded the storyteller’s credo and left every story better than he found it! He did that over 6000 times in over 6000 columns over thirty-seven years.

When I first came to this school I had the hand of a kindergartener in my hand – last Friday she completed her work and turned in her eleventh grade books – she is today a high school senior.

On that day I noticed that this school – this truly extraordinary school – had no cafeteria, auditorium or even a real library. I soon met other parents and community members who had noticed the same thing. This is Mount Washington, we became activists on the issue. We had meetings and events – I met Jack Smith the famous Mount Washington icon and columnist-celebrity (not to be confused with celebrity-columnis!t)

We had a vision. We had a challenge. And we had a struggle before us. And not to whine about it ….but it’s taken far too long to get to here today.

You know those motivational posters with the iconic solo mountain climber in a blizzard struggling up a steep rockface? PERSEVERANCE. Ours isn’t not much of a mountain …but here we are!

We are here thanks to a lot of folks I’m not going to thank personally, we know who they are – you know who you are.

I am going to thank the generations of schoolkids and their teachers who since the sixties have attended this school without the core facilities it has needed …and this community was promised. And I’m going to thank the voters and taxpayers who voted and paid all the school bond moneys from BB, through K, R and Y –

• So that all kids will have Schools in their neighborhoods
• So no children will be forced to ride the bus
• So that we have Full Day kindergarten in very elementary school …and that David (Tokofsky) is your legacy to this district.
• So that schools are made whole
• And so we can end the year-round/multi-track calendar once and for all.

Five or six years ago I moderated a campaign debate among eleven candidates for City Council upstairs in the rotunda – the makeshift-for-forty-years auditorium of this school and elicited a campaign promise from each and every one of them to get this building built. The one who won that election kept that promise – I’m not thanking any individuals today – but we remember who you are Eric (Garcetti)

Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls – there are other schools in this district lacking in core facilities. That will not do. When we are done building all the schools and fixing up the old ones 200,000 kids will still be attending class in temporary portable bungalows. That will not do.

Today is a truly wonderful day for the kids of Mount Washington, a day that dawns ever brighter every day into the future – our hearts soar on the wings of eagles.

But we have a way to go. Onward!

LAUSD SEES A FUTURE IN CAREER ED

by Rick Wartzman | California & Co./LA Times

April 27, 2007 — Aa Supt. David L. Brewer pledged last week to transform the culture of the troubled Los Angeles school system, he once again emphasized the need "to ensure every student graduates … college-prepared and career-ready."

Though it sounded like the same old, same old to me, Santiago Jackson couldn't help but smile. He loves that line.

Until it became Brewer's mantra, "I hadn't heard the words 'career-ready' coming from a superintendent for a long time," says Jackson, the Los Angeles Unified School District official who's in charge of what traditionally was called vocational education but is now known by a new term of art: career technical education.

Jackson and his colleagues are in the midst of putting together a blueprint to increase and improve the delivery of career-oriented classes to LAUSD's vast student body. By June or July, they hope to have mapped out the district's current hodgepodge of offerings in this area and developed a plan for better distributing these resources.

Although it hasn't gotten much attention, their effort could prove as significant as anything anybody is doing to try to shore up not only the long-term health of our schools but also our city's economy and, in turn, the very fabric of our society.

"There really are important opportunities here," says UCLA professor William Ouchi, the author of "Making Schools Work."

It wasn't very long ago that putting kids on a career track was frowned upon by many folks — and for good reason. For years, vocational education was little more than a dumping ground for children of color, including those who should have been encouraged to attend four-year universities.

As a result, these programs "fell off the table in the late '70s and '80s and went missing for almost 25 years," says Jackson, who himself took up the printing trade at L.A.'s Manual Arts High School in the 1960s.

Some continue to worry about stereotyping students and unfairly curtailing their options. Yet when done right, today's career curricula are a smooth blend of technical and academic training.

Students still have to master core subjects that give them the chance to go on to college (at least community college), if that's what they eventually choose. But, where appropriate, the coursework is tied directly to their career goals. Electives, meanwhile, provide plenty of chances to gain hands-on experience — to actually stick your head under the hood of a car, say, or drive a nail into drywall.

By getting a taste of the real world, students often begin to make a link between what they're learning today and what they could be earning tomorrow. For a teenager who might otherwise be bored and jaded and ready to drop out of school, research indicates, this connection can be a powerful motivator to stay and study.

"I see it every day — how self-esteem is raised," says Wendy Ramirez, the principal of LAUSD's East Los Angeles Skills Center.

This week, she and I strolled the campus, which was teeming with activity. In one room, students bused in from Lincoln High were poring over the carcasses of broken computers, getting ready to fix them. Would-be automotive technicians (nobody calls them "mechanics" anymore because the work is mainly computerized) huddled in a garage. In another spot, a student eagerly scanned a flier advertising a new class on solar-panel installation.

The skills center serves both minors and adults. But the idea for this facility, along with 10 others that the district has, is to start focusing more and more on the needs of ninth- to 12th-graders.

Next year, 350 pupils from Roosevelt High will be relocated here and taught a series of classes that revolve, in large part, around environmental science.

This is one of 178 so-called small learning communities and small schools — most of them with career-related themes — approved by LAUSD in the last nine months or so. "We've begun to get some real momentum," says David Rattray, president of Unite-LA, an affiliate of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce that fosters workforce development initiatives.

In addition, LAUSD has 79 special career academies — essentially schools within a school — up and running.

The push by the district is part of a broader movement sweeping the nation and the state. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a product of a vocational education in Austria, has steered millions of dollars into this arena. Scores of bills on the topic have been introduced in Sacramento — many of them being lobbied for by industries that are suffering from a shortage of skilled workers, or fear that they're soon going to be.

The level of interest, compared with five years ago, "is just amazing," says Rebecca Baumann, an aide to Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley), who has written a measure that would direct as much as $1 billion annually toward voc ed.

For all this, though, tremendous challenges remain. Statewide, there is a shortage of trained vocational instructors and, despite the governor's enthusiasm and the bevy of bills being considered, not enough money in the pipeline. School standards need to be revamped so that students (and teachers) are judged on reaching milestones in career education, as well as academic achievement.

Locally, Jackson and his team must strike the right balance between centrally organizing LAUSD's fragmented vocational operations and not suffocating them inside the bureaucracy.

The district may also need to allow for more flexible hiring rules to attract people with strong business backgrounds to its faculty — something that may not sit well with the teachers' union. Jon Lauritzen, the biggest advocate for career education on the school board, could be a key to making this happen. "Everybody says Jon is a tool of the union," notes his chief of staff, Ed Burke. But he says that Lauritzen has opposed the union in the past and is determined to "lead the way" on this.

More, too, needs to be done to involve local businesses. "I don't think we've reached out" nearly enough, Jackson acknowledges.

And all of this must be moved on quickly. At present, about 45,000 LAUSD high school students are on a career-education path. That's far too few in a district with more than 207,000 high school students and a dropout rate that hovers between 33% and 50% (depending on who's doing the counting).

It won't be cheap to get there. Jackson estimates that largely because of equipment needs, a vocational class costs 20% more, on average, than a regular course. But it's an investment that has to be made.

A couple of weeks ago, after I wrote about L.A.'s disappearing middle class, a number of readers contacted me and suggested that vocational education could be a valuable tool to help stem this alarming trend. I agree.

The question, in the end, is whether LAUSD is up to the job.

Before I left the skills center, I stopped for a few minutes and watched a couple of dozen students clad in yellow hard hats training to be power-line workers. This is one of the center's showcase courses — and rightly so.

Graduates earn $70,000 or more out of the gate. The occupation takes brawn and brains — the strength and stamina to clamber up a giant pole and dangle in the air, and the ability to problem-solve (by using Ohm's law, geometry and algebra).

As a Southern California Edison manager helped guide one student heavenward, I got the feeling that this was a metaphor for something. But what?

Has LAUSD finally figured out a way for students to reach new heights? Or will all this turn out to be pie in the sky?

• Rick Wartzman is an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He is reachable at rick.wartzman@latimes.com.

BOARD BATTLE: MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA’S SCHOOL TAKEOVER BID HAS COME DOWN TO A RUNOFF ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

by Dean Kuipers | Los Angeles CityBeat

Saturday, April 28, 2007 - School reform may have dominated the agenda of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during his first two years in office, but you’re not hearing much about it now. Local political observers point out that education, in fact, hardly got a mention when the mayor delivered his 2007 budget last week, or during his State of the City Address.

Instead, in the wake of recent state appeals court decisions ruling that the mayor’s school control bill, AB 1381, is unconstitutional, the battle over control of the schools has now shifted to the May 15 elections for the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education, and specifically to the runoff in the Third District. In that San Fernando Valley district, the mayor hopes his candidate, neighborhood prosecutor Tamar Galatzan, will unseat incumbent Jon Lauritzen and give the mayor a majority on the board friendly to his reform measures.

There is also a runoff in the Seventh District, though it fills an open seat left by retiring member Mike Lansing, and both candidates are running on reform platforms.

The Third District race was shaping up as something of a threat to old alliances, with Galatzan backed by the mayor and Lauritzen backed by United Teachers L.A., the district’s main union and historically friendly with Villaraigosa, a former organizer with the union. Despite this rift – or because of it – the race has been as tepid as those in the past, with the exception of a minor flap over campaign mailers. Lauritzen sent one out showing an unflattering image of Galatzan using students as stepping stones to her political career. In response, Galtazan sent a campaign mailer spoofing the situation, showing a woman reading the newspaper headline, “Tamar Galatzan kidnapped Elvis!”

More eye-catching, however, are the amounts of money being spent on these campaigns. Last December, Fifth District board member David Tokofsky announced he would not seek a third term on the board, citing fears that it would be a $2 million race for a part-time job that only pays $24,000 a year, and with AB 1381 showing the mayor’s willingness to fight dirty by eliminating the school board’s paid staff.

Turns out he was right about the money: to date, Villaraigosa’s school board fund, the Partnership for Better Schools, has put $1.5 million into Galatzan’s campaign, and UTLA has put $475,000 into Lauritzen’s, with the final three-week gallop still to come. Galatzan, though grateful for the mayor’s interest in the schools and the endorsement, also says she wasn’t an unqualified supporter of AB 1381.

“You know the old joke about the two things you never want to see being made: sausages and laws? This reminds me of that,” Galatzan chuckles. “In the legislation, there’s a lot in there about giving the superintendent more CEO-like responsibilities, and that is probably a smart direction. The bill would also take away all of the staff for school board members. I fail to see why that really helps kids.”

For his part, Lauritzen says he was disappointed to not get the mayor’s blessing, noting, “I supported him in his first mayoral bid. He is someone I considered a friend. So it’s a little disappointing to have to go toe-to-toe with him on this campaign.”

And they are going toe-to-toe. The issues on which Galatzan and Lauritzen disagree are not just minor. For instance, charter schools.

“Charter schools aren’t bad, per se, but they do have some problems and they haven’t proven themselves to be a valid method of reform, yet,” says Lauritzen, who tried to impose a one-year moratorium on charters. One strike against them, he says, is that they diminish the number of students in the regular district schools, which then lose funding. They are also subject to lesser degrees of oversight regarding curriculum and accountability.

Galatzan says this is exactly the kind of thinking that needs to go. She points out that charter schools are wildly popular with parents, and over 100 of them have been accepted into the school district.

“These are students who are trying to get the best education possible, and what my opponent is concerned about is how it might cost the district money? That offends me,” says Galatzan. “The charter schools are keeping students in LAUSD who, normally, their parents would have pulled them out and sent them to private schools, or would have moved out of Los Angeles.”

Parroting a line often used by Green Dot charter school chief Steve Barr, Galatzan points out that it should be the job of the district to make charter schools irrelevant, using them as an experiment to find out what kinds of programs truly help reduce chronic district-wide problems, such as dismal academic performance and skyrocketing dropout rates.

The exchange over charter schools highlights a style difference between the two: Galatzan openly admits some of her ideas might fail, and in her platform document, “A Plan to Reform the Valley’s Public Schools,” she proposes big changes at every level, including smaller class sizes, intervention programs to reduce dropout rates, increased school safety, increased local control of schools, and – most important – an all-out war on “downtown” bureaucracy sure to please Valley partisans and disturb district administrators. Some of these would cost money, but hers is the righteous indignation of a mom with two school-age children. Lauritzen has supported many of these same ideas, but has approached them with a glacial pace, and with a cautious eye on budgets, of someone who spent 35 years as a teacher and the last four as a board member.

“She’s really unrealistic about the pace of change,” says UTLA President A.J. Duffy, referring to Galatzan. “We have a 20th century school district, and we have to drag it into the 21st century. The worst thing you can do is rush in and do sweeping changes. What we would want to see is a game plan that will show us where we are now and where we need to be in three years.”

To Lauritzen, reform is already well underway: the district is in the middle of what he calls the “the largest construction program in the western hemisphere,” adding, “That requires bureaucrats.” He’s satisfied that programs like small learning communities and the reduction of middle- and high-school class sizes to 38-40 students per teacher are a good start.

Galatzan, however, says the district should be looking at the changes in elementary class sizes, which are now set at 20 students per teacher. “It’s working!” she cries. “Teachers love it, parents like it, students like it. We have an experiment that worked. So we have to figure out a way to expand that to as many classes as possible.”

The Los Angeles Times has sided with Galatzan, saying in its April 22 endorsement, “Incumbent Jon Lauritzen has repeatedly placed the interests of United Teachers Los Angeles, his biggest contributor, ahead of the needs of students,” and citing his attempts to block charter schools as evidence that he’s just dragging his feet on reform.

Lauritzen, however, says that he’s happy to talk reform, but, in the wake of the defeat of AB 1381, the mayor really has yet to propose anything earth-shattering.

“We’ve waited two years now for a plan out of him and we still haven’t seen anything,” he says. “So, what he expects Tamar or Monica Garcia [the only board member to back AB 1381] or any of the others that he’s supported to do for him, I don’t know. I hope there’s no ulterior motives there, but sometimes you look at things like that and you wonder.” School reform may have dominated the agenda of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during his first two years in office, but you’re not hearing much about it now. Local political observers point out that education, in fact, hardly got a mention when the mayor delivered his 2007 budget last week, or during his State of the City Address.

Instead, in the wake of recent state appeals court decisions ruling that the mayor’s school control bill, AB 1381, is unconstitutional, the battle over control of the schools has now shifted to the May 15 elections for the L.A. Unified School District Board of Education, and specifically to the runoff in the Third District. In that San Fernando Valley district, the mayor hopes his candidate, neighborhood prosecutor Tamar Galatzan, will unseat incumbent Jon Lauritzen and give the mayor a majority on the board friendly to his reform measures.

There is also a runoff in the Seventh District, though it fills an open seat left by retiring member Mike Lansing, and both candidates are running on reform platforms.

The Third District race was shaping up as something of a threat to old alliances, with Galatzan backed by the mayor and Lauritzen backed by United Teachers L.A., the district’s main union and historically friendly with Villaraigosa, a former organizer with the union. Despite this rift – or because of it – the race has been as tepid as those in the past, with the exception of a minor flap over campaign mailers. Lauritzen sent one out showing an unflattering image of Galatzan using students as stepping stones to her political career. In response, Galtazan sent a campaign mailer spoofing the situation, showing a woman reading the newspaper headline, “Tamar Galatzan kidnapped Elvis!”

More eye-catching, however, are the amounts of money being spent on these campaigns. Last December, Fifth District board member David Tokofsky announced he would not seek a third term on the board, citing fears that it would be a $2 million race for a part-time job that only pays $24,000 a year, and with AB 1381 showing the mayor’s willingness to fight dirty by eliminating the school board’s paid staff.

Turns out he was right about the money: to date, Villaraigosa’s school board fund, the Partnership for Better Schools, has put $1.5 million into Galatzan’s campaign, and UTLA has put $475,000 into Lauritzen’s, with the final three-week gallop still to come. Galatzan, though grateful for the mayor’s interest in the schools and the endorsement, also says she wasn’t an unqualified supporter of AB 1381.

“You know the old joke about the two things you never want to see being made: sausages and laws? This reminds me of that,” Galatzan chuckles. “In the legislation, there’s a lot in there about giving the superintendent more CEO-like responsibilities, and that is probably a smart direction. The bill would also take away all of the staff for school board members. I fail to see why that really helps kids.”

For his part, Lauritzen says he was disappointed to not get the mayor’s blessing, noting, “I supported him in his first mayoral bid. He is someone I considered a friend. So it’s a little disappointing to have to go toe-to-toe with him on this campaign.”

And they are going toe-to-toe. The issues on which Galatzan and Lauritzen disagree are not just minor. For instance, charter schools.

“Charter schools aren’t bad, per se, but they do have some problems and they haven’t proven themselves to be a valid method of reform, yet,” says Lauritzen, who tried to impose a one-year moratorium on charters. One strike against them, he says, is that they diminish the number of students in the regular district schools, which then lose funding. They are also subject to lesser degrees of oversight regarding curriculum and accountability.

Galatzan says this is exactly the kind of thinking that needs to go. She points out that charter schools are wildly popular with parents, and over 100 of them have been accepted into the school district.

“These are students who are trying to get the best education possible, and what my opponent is concerned about is how it might cost the district money? That offends me,” says Galatzan. “The charter schools are keeping students in LAUSD who, normally, their parents would have pulled them out and sent them to private schools, or would have moved out of Los Angeles.”

Parroting a line often used by Green Dot charter school chief Steve Barr, Galatzan points out that it should be the job of the district to make charter schools irrelevant, using them as an experiment to find out what kinds of programs truly help reduce chronic district-wide problems, such as dismal academic performance and skyrocketing dropout rates.

The exchange over charter schools highlights a style difference between the two: Galatzan openly admits some of her ideas might fail, and in her platform document, “A Plan to Reform the Valley’s Public Schools,” she proposes big changes at every level, including smaller class sizes, intervention programs to reduce dropout rates, increased school safety, increased local control of schools, and – most important – an all-out war on “downtown” bureaucracy sure to please Valley partisans and disturb district administrators. Some of these would cost money, but hers is the righteous indignation of a mom with two school-age children. Lauritzen has supported many of these same ideas, but has approached them with a glacial pace, and with a cautious eye on budgets, of someone who spent 35 years as a teacher and the last four as a board member.

“She’s really unrealistic about the pace of change,” says UTLA President A.J. Duffy, referring to Galatzan. “We have a 20th century school district, and we have to drag it into the 21st century. The worst thing you can do is rush in and do sweeping changes. What we would want to see is a game plan that will show us where we are now and where we need to be in three years.”

To Lauritzen, reform is already well underway: the district is in the middle of what he calls the “the largest construction program in the western hemisphere,” adding, “That requires bureaucrats.” He’s satisfied that programs like small learning communities and the reduction of middle- and high-school class sizes to 38-40 students per teacher are a good start.

Galatzan, however, says the district should be looking at the changes in elementary class sizes, which are now set at 20 students per teacher. “It’s working!” she cries. “Teachers love it, parents like it, students like it. We have an experiment that worked. So we have to figure out a way to expand that to as many classes as possible.”

The Los Angeles Times has sided with Galatzan, saying in its April 22 endorsement, “Incumbent Jon Lauritzen has repeatedly placed the interests of United Teachers Los Angeles, his biggest contributor, ahead of the needs of students,” and citing his attempts to block charter schools as evidence that he’s just dragging his feet on reform.

Lauritzen, however, says that he’s happy to talk reform, but, in the wake of the defeat of AB 1381, the mayor really has yet to propose anything earth-shattering.

“We’ve waited two years now for a plan out of him and we still haven’t seen anything,” he says. “So, what he expects Tamar or Monica Garcia [the only board member to back AB 1381] or any of the others that he’s supported to do for him, I don’t know. I hope there’s no ulterior motives there, but sometimes you look at things like that and you wonder.”

LUNCH AT L.A. UNIFIED: A FEW PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE TWEAKING THEIR CAFETERIA MENUS; IS IT WORTH THE EFFORT?

By Joel Stein, LA Times Columnist

April 27, 2007 — Unless you were in jail, at a state-run nursing facility or flying coach on Aeroflot, you had a better lunch than I did Wednesday. Armed with only bravery, a spork and the odd decision to have a light breakfast, I entered the cafeteria at Garfield High School in East L.A. You cannot imagine how difficult it is, at 35, to suss out the cool kids' table.

Garfield is one of 11 public schools that in January started a pilot program to improve lunches. As food has become politicized, what we feed students has become a battleground. Liberal Whole Foods Market shoppers worry about fat kids downing sodas and Fritos at school, and fat kids worry about liberal Whole Foods shoppers taking away their sodas and Fritos. Bet on the Whole Foods shoppers. As tenacious as a fat kid can be when you're trying to grab his Mountain Dew, no one can outlast a yuppie talking about organic labeling.

So Board of Education President Marlene Canter is trying to improve L.A. Unified's lunches. And she wanted me to eat a mesquite baked chicken with her. When you work alone at home, you don't turn down many lunch offers.

After banning candy, sodas and all desserts, Canter wrangled grants from Kaiser Permanente, the California Endowment and the Gilbert Foundation to hire Andrea Giancoli, a registered nutritionist who has been on Bravo's "Top Chef." Los Angeles was not going to hire a school nutrition coordinator who didn't have a head shot.

Making school lunches more nutritious, Giancoli explained, isn't easy. Almost 80% of students in L.A. public schools qualify for free lunches, for which the Department of Agriculture contributes $2.40 a meal and the city pitches in nothing. The kids who can afford lunch are charged only $1. Because of overhead, only about 60 cents of food gets on the plate. But as I would learn, it looks like at least 70 cents.

And you can't just put sprout wraps on the menu. Because — even though lunch is free and there's nowhere else to eat — a huge percentage of students happily hunger strike until 3 p.m. Not only isn't that healthy, but when they don't hand in their food ticket, the school loses $2.40. So if kids want nachos, kids get nachos. And kids totally want nachos.

Although new Supt. David L. Brewer has been able to sneak some whole-grain pizza, baked French fries and turkey corndogs onto the menu, kids have super-senses when it comes to low-fat cheese on their pizza. So Brewer has been having students taste-test dishes that the food service suppliers are offering. Brewer may have the worst job in the world. He's like a wedding planner for sullen teens.

So my expectations were low as Canter showed me around Garfield's cafeteria. It was redesigned, she excitedly told me, to be like a mall food court. Or, I thought, like a corporate cafeteria. Or like a high school cafeteria.

Plus, she explained, the food stations now have innovative signs telling me what I was eating. And they posted a menu for the week, which she hopes to get online soon. I knew it was inappropriate, but I desperately wanted to give Canter a hug.

When we sat down to eat, I found the food all right — at least blessedly succotash- and casserole-free. That mesquite chicken was decent, and there were even cups of fresh strawberries and cut melon. Sure, the chicken parmesan was made of some kind of pressed chicken, and the "grande burger" was a bit gummy with soy filling. Even the guy who ran the cafeteria noted that the vegan barbecue rib sandwich was a hard sell because the kids were spoiled from McDonald's McRib. That's got to be a hard thing to admit.

Student Eduardo Escalante Jr. sat next to me and told me he doesn't eat all day until he gets home. "It tastes like cheap microwave food," he said. When pressed about the improvements, he said that "it used to taste like cheaper microwave food." When Canter asked me what Escalante said, I kind of lied. She's working so hard to do the impossible — serve an edible $2.40 lunch to fast-food-savvy kids from different cultures in a place that doesn't have a real kitchen — that I had to let her dream.

Maybe she'll get farmers' markets to come to schools on weekends so parents can become familiar with champagne grapes and kohlrabi. Even if she doesn't, at least these kids know the school cares about them. Which is more than what Whole Foods does. Because it sure doesn't do a salad bar for $2.40.

SCHOOLS DO NEED OVERSIGHT

Editorial: LA Downtown News

A couple of weeks ago Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was handed his hat and shown the door by the Second District Court of Appeal on the issue of his involvement in L.A. Unified School District.

The flurry of political posturing and angst in the wake of the court's decision almost obliterates a key point: Los Angeles Unified School District does indeed need strong oversight, though perhaps not for the reasons the mayor has put forward.

To be clear, regarding this court decision, we don't dispute much of what he has said and done in the aftermath. We just don't think it is all that relevant.

Yes, perhaps the court case could have been decided differently, and maybe there should be an appeal. Yes, it's good for him to reach out to the existing school board president and the superintendent in an effort to work together. And it may or may not be a good idea if the upcoming school board election puts the seven-member board in Villaraigosa's camp.

It's difficult to focus on the meat of the matter because the politics get in the way. There is so much noise from our ambitious mayor that it takes a conscious decision to rise above the din. He becomes a whirling dervish when he loses, jumping this way and that, trying to see what other issues might get him attention in his quest for the governorship (notice how the schools loss was quickly followed by a headline-grabbing plan to fight gangs). Frankly, we might not mind his being governor (this is not yet an endorsement, and may never be), but we want him to focus on the city's problems while he's here, whether or not those efforts or solutions affect his career advancement.

As we say, his instincts, and those of his advisors, are right with regard to the schools, but not for the reasons they promoted. While his detractors make sense when they say that a politician has no business overseeing academic matters, it absolutely, positively, undeniably, unequivocally makes no sense at all that the school district is allowed to ignore the policies and development regulations of the city of Los Angeles - or any other city for that matter.

L.A. Unified currently answers to no one with regard to land-use decisions. Historically that has provided the District with bully status in the community.

Its actions do not have to conform to any city agency, not in any substantive way. L.A. Unified is not required to follow City Planning regulations or Community Redevelopment Agency policies or traffic mitigation requirements or the restrictions of any other governmental agency that controls city policy. There is a purely ceremonial dance in which LAUSD plans pass by City Council in a rather ethereal waft of air, but City Council is the secondary power. The plans cannot be disapproved.

Los Angeles Downtown News has applauded the LAUSD school-building efforts on many occasions, and recently the paper gave the district an important award at its Downtowners of Distinction event. But that doesn't mean we approve of everything they do. Somewhere in their process an essential truth gets lost that city ordinances should not be disdained. They are the laws made by representatives of the people of the city, a very different reality that ought to be an imperative. Our representatives should have the right to control what happens here.

If it makes sense for you and me to be required to follow the regulations as we build a playhouse for our kids in our backyard, and if it makes sense for a developer to follow the law while, say, building low-income housing, it makes sense for the school district to follow the rules, too. They do not. They do not even pay lip service to the rules. They swagger their way toward their school-building goals.

LAUSD has the right of eminent domain, and they have used it ruthlessly.

Two quick cases in point: the Ambassador Hotel site and the Belmont Learning Complex site. Carefully thought-through and vetted land-use policies had sensibly and obviously designated the Ambassador site for high-rise development because it is on Wilshire, the city's most well known metropolitan street, one with sky-high land values. The school district snapped up the Ambassador with appalling disregard for any kind of good urban planning or the dollars involved. They decided it should be reassigned as a school site, and there was nothing the city could do to stop them.

In another part of town, the City West Specific Plan locked in the corner of First and Beaudry for a massive residential development, one essential element that made all the other aspects of the plan work. The City West Specific Plan took years of discussion, planning and compromise among neighbors, landowners, political leaders and stakeholders of many descriptions.

After dozens of parcels had been assembled for the eagerly anticipated housing, the LAUSD sauntered in and took the whole thing for the new Belmont Learning Complex (now part of the Vista Hermosa project). Again, it didn't matter that City Council had approved the City West Specific Plan after years of wrestling with pertinent issues. The school district had the right under state law to take it by eminent domain, and they did. Yes, the school was needed, too, but LAUSD ignored serious effort and investment by the citizens of the city in plans for its own future. The fact that the district failed to adequately test the land for toxicity and earthquake faults - resulting in a school that is still under construction nearly a decade later and will cost more than $300 million once complete - only adds fuel to the fire.

Currently the district is in a huge brouhaha in Echo Park over a similar conflict involving eminent domain, so there is a new battle on the horizon.

The mayor and his policy makers should keep at it. They should continue to try to find ways to solve the issue of LAUSD oversight until they get it right. The behemoth is capable of great damage, as is the mayor if he doesn't pause, listen, think and try something new.

▲ The Downtown News is absolutely right that LAUSD, the mayor, the Board of Ed and the City of LA are in need of oversight. That’s why there’s a Construction Bond Oversight Committee, public meetings and regular elections for elected officals. That’s why there are courts of law and an editorial board at the Downtown News.

However the DN is beating a dead horse on a bridge over troubled water long since past to the sea on its "two quick cases in point!"

Both the Belmont Learning Complex and the Ambassador/RFK-12 are land acquisition projects over a decade past …good grief, LAUSD gained title to both in the past millennium! LAUSD publicly followed all the proper land acquisition procedures in both. Yes, corners were cut on the DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION of the woebegone Belmont project …but not in OBTAINING the land! The Ambassador site is one of the most adjudicated property transfers in the history of land deals. In both cases the land was purchased with the very public goal of building much needed schools. Eminent domain is not some dead-of-the-night/back-room- deal forfeiture – they are legal actions where courts insist on being convinced of the overriding public necessity …and they insist that fair market value be paid. - smf

'OPEN COURT' STILL ON TRIAL IN LAUSD: Curriculum debated as election looms

by Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer, LA Daily News

April 28, 2007 — Seven years after Los Angeles Unified expanded the Open Court curriculum to most campuses, the highly scripted teaching program remains controversial, with administrators, school board candidates and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa divided over its effectiveness.

Open Court provides educators with highly detailed lesson plans, classroom activities and teaching instructions for each grade level — tools that former Superintendent Roy Romer said helped reverse a decline in student achievement.

But critics say the curriculum limits teaching innovations and also stunts the development of English-language learners, who comprise about 43 percent of all students.

Villaraigosa, who is pushing hard to reform the Los Angeles Unified School District, says the results of Open Court have hit a plateau and it's time to allow teachers more creativity in their classrooms.

Even Ray Cortines, the mayor's education deputy who introduced Open Court to LAUSD when he was interim superintendent, believes it's time for a change.

"I never meant that after we got us focused on skills in reading that there shouldn't be some flexibility by teachers," Cortines said. "We have made progress and we've probably made greater progress at a faster pace than other schools, but we're so far below grade level."

FLEXIBILITY DEBATED

Open Court, he said, doesn't allow enough time to develop vocabulary and speaking skills, which are essential for English-language learners.

But LAUSD administrators disagree, saying Open Court has a built-in flexibility that allows teachers to modify lesson plans to meet the varying needs of their students.

"There is a lot of flexibility because the teacher has to be really knowledgeable about who their students are in order to teach any kind of program. But the point is, we don't say, 'This part is too hard for them — we're going to skip it,'" said Jim Morris, superintendent of Local District 2, which encompasses the San Fernando Valley.

"That's what we want to avoid because that's how we end up having lower standards for kids."

The curriculum issue also divides the two candidates vying for a critical Valley seat in the May 15 school board election.

Incumbent Jon Lauritzen and challenger Tamar Galatzan each say teachers should have greater leeway in the classroom, but they disagree about the extent to which educators should be able to select a curriculum.

Lauritzen supports giving teachers greater choice in selecting their own tools, particularly at schools that have met the target score of 800 on standardized math and English tests, said Ed Burke, his chief of staff.

The incumbent, a veteran teacher, also is concerned that Open Court focuses too heavily on math and English to the exclusion of science and social science.

"Jon has been for teacher and school flexibility for some time and he has been advocating that," Burke said. "And he has been looking at the other areas since he feels a school is not just one subject — it's several subjects."

But Galatzan argues that Lauritzen hasn't tried during his first term in office to shift authority for curriculum from district headquarters to local schools.

If she's elected, the longtime city prosecutor said she would work to give teachers a greater ability to develop and customize curriculum.

TEST SCORES GOING UP

"It's obvious that Open Court has some strengths, but that doesn't mean it couldn't use a dose of adrenaline to empower it so it increases flexibility for teachers and enhances the students' experience," said Mike Trujillo, Galatzan's campaign manager.

"If Jon Lauritzen really wants to support teachers and give them a greater role in choosing their curriculum, he wouldn't be so opposed to charter schools."

LAUSD test scores at the elementary-school level have outpaced gains statewide for years, but even district officials agree the improvements need to be accelerated.

"Complete materials, high standards, common assessments, professional development and coaching and collaboration among teachers — they're the key to getting good results for our kids," said Morris, the District 2 chief.

▲smf opines: The mayor in his campaign for mayoral control was at one time a supporter of Open Court and scripted instruction; now he’s changed his mind. I’d be delighted in this “flip-floppery”…except that I suspect he’s right; I’ve been uneasy with one size fits all/lock-step/If it’s Tuesday it must be Chapter six,. Page thirty-seven instruction” for a while. Two years into his regime as the “Education Mayor” he was bound to learn something – good thinking is good thinking whether driven by the “aha moment” or the electoral imperative. Good job!

Not to argue with my friend Jim Morris, but the part about the great deal of flexibility has certainly been well hidden from classroom teachers and Open Court Coaches.

Open Court® does not encourage critical thinking, by teachers or students. Open Court was not designed for English Language Learners – but that’s a size it’s required to fit. Open Court is the very profitable product of a textbook publisher, a publisher with a monopoly on elementary reading instruction – not just textbook sales but curriculum and the morning schedule of every LAUSD elementary classroom! That monopoly, however, is not on good thinking or educational practice/pedagogy. The same can be said of UTLA, the mayor, the Board of Ed, longtime-city-prosecutors and certainly yours truly! Needs, programs and all the rest differ from school-to-school, classroom to classroom, child to child. Good teachers know this and practice it without a script.

A DRILL CAN'T FIX LAUSD: The mayor can no longer rely on giddy enthusiasm in his quest to reform L.A. schools.

by Sandra Tsing Loh, Contributing editor, LA Times

SANDRA TSING LOH is a contributing editor to LA Times Opinion (the Op-ed section once briefly known albeit quickly forgotten as Current.) She is also not-very-secretly the LA Times School Me! blog’s lead Magnet Yenta. She takes her solo show, "Mother on Fire," to the Women's Building in San Francisco next month. STL is smf’s education commentator heroine – so the Afghan Taliban may as well plow under those poppies and raise ranunculus for the Rose Parade!

April 28, 2007 — IT HAS BEEN a year since The Times ran this marvelous front-page photo of our mayor. I remember seeing it and exclaiming, right into my morning coffee, "Wow!"

What a tale of urban renewal it tells! To wit: Tony V … picked up a drill. Until Tony V arrived at City Hall, did any mayor even think to just pick up a drill? Mayors previous to Tony V were not even aware a drill was needed. Jeans, too, they did not own. Or a simple T-shirt. Such garb was unfamiliar to them. But not to our Tony. Let's go, L.A.! Together we can do it!

And, in fact, the photo did mark a happy occasion. It was taken during Big Sunday, L.A.'s annual citywide day of service. Last year, more than 32,000 volunteers volunteered at nearly 250 nonprofits. Big Sunday 2007 is this weekend — a catalyst for many positive relationships that will continue throughout the year. At the same time, as its founders suggest, the beauty is, if you roll up your sleeves, you really can get a lot done in just one day.

Contrast this giddy moment with that other, less successful mayoral fix-up project — rescuing L.A.'s public schools. If only it had all proved as simple as embracing Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez in a laughing bear hug! (Another memorable front-page photo, remember?) To get control of the LAUSD via Assembly Bill 1381, Tony didn't bring his drill to Sacramento, he brought his toothbrush! His jammies!

Unfortunately, as our mayor (and close readers of this paper) should know by now, the Los Angeles Unified School District is a gelatinous Borg whose essence is less discernible through crisp, image-making moments, Capitol slumber parties and campaign promises than through endlessly snarled court decisions, civil codes, state laws and charter restrictions.

Indeed, if Tony wanted to wield his drill at a school, we can just imagine the district's mood-puncturing objections:

"Records indicate that your drill is not OSHA-approved."

"Hey Tony! Don't look now, but you're about to drill into a reservoir of trapped toxic gas."

"While the mayor drills for free, District 3 union workers lose medical benefits."

I gently mock; but citizens of Los Angeles, in a way, we are all Tony V. Like our mayor, many of us will get a well-deserved Big Sunday adrenalin rush tomorrow (my family is helping build a lemonade stand; we love lemonade, we love underprivileged kids, it's a win/win!). But when confronting the school district, even the most well-intentioned Good Samaritans can find their wings clipped.

Recently, a mother at my daughter's school wanted to volunteer her time to start an after-school knitting club. Third-, fourth- and fifth-grade girls around her were possessed by knitting fever (picture glasses glittering with excitement). They couldn't wait to make scarves, bags, hats.

But no. Battle-scarred LAUSD veterans went into red alert. No knitting club! No! Some fourth-grader stabs her finger with a needle and it's a multimillion-dollar lawsuit!

Because I did not duck quickly enough when the California PTA insurance guideline booklet was flung, it fell to me to look for possible (yarn-friendly) loopholes. And yes, if the PTA sponsored the activity, interestingly enough, the state PTA insurance did cover everything from crafts to "cow bingo" (apparently a beloved old PTA fundraising chestnut in which players bet money on where a cow is going to poop — how delightfully Midwestern. Who knew?)

But even more fascinating is what school activities aren't allowed. These include donkey basketball, dart games, dunk tanks, fireworks, monster trucks, pyrotechnics, stage diving, air shows and yes. . . human cannonballs.

"Human cannonball" is listed, without irony, in the official California PTA "do not do" guidelines. Which means, by inference, some freewheeling parent group once — once — eagerly offered it up: "Human cannonball spring fundraiser." Festoon with bunting, what could go wrong?

As an LAUSD parent trying to Do Good, I, like Tony V., am certainly no fan of the bureaucracy. But at the same time, I've come to see that, as with any truly democratic organization, rules and regulations are part of the continual balancing act between what's good for the community and the (human cannonballing) individual. Public schools — and public school systems — are, after all, living human organisms, full of diametrically opposed personalities. (Indeed, sometimes public school life can feel like living in a commune of divorced parents trying to cooperate for the sake of the children while their home is undergoing constant remodeling. If you're lucky!)

Because of the complexity, moving the LAUSD into a new era will take more than a quick swing of a hammer, the stroke of a pen or the embrace of a buddy. Would-be reformers will only truly get their chance if they come live with the Borg as we are, for a year, a month, a week. Or at least, for our very busy mayor, as Principal for a Day?

I see a photo op!

Do bring your toothbrush.

Don't bring a drill.

District school honored for design

from LATimes' SchoolMe! blog

Apr 27, 2007 1:18:10 PM - L.A. Unified's Maywood Academy High School (right) was named a semi-finalist in the 2007 Sustainable Leadership Awards for Design and Development. The campus is the first LAUSD high school to receive such a distinction, according to a district press release.

Maywood Academy’s sustainable features include: the "use of recycled content in its construction, improved storm water management, use of drought tolerant plants and shrubs, maximized use of daylighting to save energy costs and improve visual comfort and implementation of various energy efficiencies - including a cooling system which shuts off when windows are opened, and a 'cool roof' which insulates indoor temperature."

See more photos here.

WE DON’T KNEAD NO COOKIE DOUGH!

by Dan Basalone & Scott Folsom | from the AALA Newsletter

• Basalone is the Executive Director of Associated Administrators of LA (AALA – The LAUSD Principals’ Union); Folsom is President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTA/PTSA

Week of April 23, 2007 — There was a scary article in the Wall Street Journal on March 29, 2007, with the provocative headline: PARENTS REBEL AGAINST SCHOOL FUNDRAISERS. If this shocks you and makes you throw up your hands and bemoan the end of the world as we know it, this article is targeted directly to you!

Before we go any further, let’s tell you who we are. This article has two authors, both of us are parents. Dan is a former principal, and Scott is a PTA president. We believe in the teamwork of parents, administrators and teachers in education, and in public education itself, big time! We do not subscribe to the doctrine that says public education is currently failing American youth—nor are we comfortable with the status quo or hark back to some mythical golden age when everything was just swell. We were there, it wasn’t! The education of American youth and the reform of American education–-like laundry and painting the Golden Gate Bridge–-are challenges that will never be completed.

Text Box-AN OBSERVATION: The PTA bake sale--a sacred institution--is the world’s most dubious economic model: Parents bake food at their own expense, using their own ingredients and investing their own time--then sell it to themselves and contribute the income to the school! Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith are scratching their heads!

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two figures in history who really couldn’t stand each other until late in life, agreed that the education of youth was a paramount mission of the new democracy. Indeed, free public education is probably America’s greatest contribution to democracy. We have passed from the colonial “publick schools” and the one-room schoolhouses of Mark Twain’s memory to progressive schools as espoused by John Dewey to the factory models of the twentieth century and now to small school learning communities and standards-based instruction. We have gone from McGuffey to Dick and Jane through phonics and whole language to Open Court.

That being said, the one invariable has been the home-school connection. So when parents rebel against school fundraising, there must be some fundamental disconnect, right? Parents must be missing some point, not wanting to pay their fair share? Wrong!

More and more parents are being asked to pay for stuff like teacher’s salaries, copier paper, paper towels, and toilet paper–that should be paid for by the schools! If some parent wants to donate a few books to the library, that’s one thing, but when parents must band together to buy all the books and pay for the librarian’s salary, that’s too much! Field trips to museums should be paid from a school’s educational budget, not from the bake sale money. PTAs should be raising funds to support PTA programs like parent education, after school programs and legislative advocacy–not to make up for budget shortfalls at their schools.

Scott cites twice in his PTA career where schools have had photocopy machines wear out on his watch — a modern school without a Xerox machine is plumb out of business! Principals (sorry Dan!) have come hat in hand to PTA for a couple of thousand bucks. They appealed that the school district and the school itself have no budget line item for worn out copiers–the PTAs or the booster clubs must come through with the candy/gift wrap/cookie “dough”!

Over the last few decades, parents have demanded equality of funding and services in our schools so that less wealthy schools and districts were not treated unfairly within the public school system. Serrano v. Priest, Rodriguez Consent Decree, and Chanda Smith Consent Decree were litigated in response to this demand for equality, and the parents won in all cases. Fundraising is by its very nature more profitable in those schools and districts with more socioeconomic wealth and where parents are relatively free to volunteer their time in schools. School districts and the state have an obligation to provide a free and equal public education for all their students. Does this apply to fundraising inequities?

How do they do this at schools in poor neighborhoods you ask–where the parents can’t afford cookie dough and gift wrap–or to pay for cupcakes twice? They pay for it from Title I funds! But we have news for all: Title I funds are supposed to augment a school’s education budget, paying for stuff that’s lacking in the program, and not replacing the school’s worn out copier! Sooner or later government auditors with sharp little pencils and green eyeshades – or congressional fact finders out for some headline ink – are going to question where schools and districts spent their Title I funds. “We spent it on stuff the state should’ve been paying for” is not a good answer!

School fundraising is big business–and it’s a for-profit one that makes a lot of income for the fundraising companies. Schools often receive, on average, less than 50% of the money raised, according to the Association of Fund-Raising Distributors & Suppliers, the industry’s own trade group. Much of the product sold, be it cookies, candy, chocolate, pizza dough, doughnuts, etc., are of dubious (or negative) nutritional merit, the gift wrap is expensive, and do we really need all these magazine subscriptions? The big businesses that engage in school fundraising leverage a large unpaid and highly motivated sales and distribution network (parents)–and their marketing scheme generally avoids collecting and paying state and local sales taxes.

A survey released recently by the National Association of Elementary School Principals reports:

· Eighty-five percent of the principals responded that they have seen an increased need for school wide fundraisers within the last decade;

· 56 percent have concerns about this increase;

· 64 percent would stop fundraising if they could.

· In 67 percent of the schools, PTAs/PTOs are responsible for fundraising.

· 35 percent report that their school's average annual earnings from fundraisers are between $10,000-25,000. Although a much smaller percentage, 3 percent, have seen average annual earnings from fundraising exceed $75,000.

· 20 percent hold 5-10 fundraisers a year; and 3 percent hold 10-15.

Many principals believe fundraisers have become too much of a distraction to the school's instructional day. A common theme in many of the principals' comments is that fundraisers place too much pressure on young children to sell products, and can also be burdensome to teachers, parents, and community members.

"Until our schools begin receiving the appropriate funding necessary to purchase these resources, which in many cases are very basic items that all schools should have, we will continue to see an increase in the number of fundraisers," says NAESP's executive director, Vincent L. Ferrandino.

National PTA advises local PTAs to have three ‘non-fundraiser’ events for every fundraiser; due to pressure from school budget shortfalls many PTAs find themselves with that equation reversed.

Because of PTAs unique position of being independent of schools and school districts, PTAs keep funds they raise separate from the student body funds. Some principals feel threatened by this–feeling an entitlement to control funds raised on campus. The reality is that “student body funds” are kept in school district bank accounts and are subject to the restrictions of and attachment by the school district itself. PTA accounts are fully insured against fraud and mismanagement; as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, their books are fully open by law. This is not always true of “PTOthers” or booster clubs – for that reason district policy requires that all funds from these organizations raised on campus be deposited in student body accounts.

There are many other strategies to address fundraising; School Book Fairs that put books into kids’ hands–and usually benefit school libraries–are win-wins. Box top gathering and programs conducted by supermarkets, credit card companies or retail stores (Target comes to mind) that contribute a small percentage of receipts to schools are excellent. And it may be easier for all to solicit ten dollars than sell twenty dollars worth of unneeded merchandise.

In the end we have to agree with NAESP’s Ferrandino: "Until our schools begin receiving the appropriate funding necessary to purchase these resources, which in many cases are very basic items that all schools should have, we will continue to see an increase in the number of fundraisers.” Maybe we all (teachers, principals and parents) need to say enough already; The System needs to be paying for the very basic resources that all schools should have!

A POOR GRADE FOR LAUSD SCHOOL AGAIN: Westchester High ranks in bottom fifth in state. Review hits on achievement, communication, truancy & discipline

By Paul Clinton, Daily Breeze Staff Writer

Thursday, April 26, 2007 — A top-to-bottom review of Westchester High School urged administrators of the Los Angeles Unified campus to improve substandard student achievement and communication with parents and the community, and address truancy and disciplinary problems plaguing the school.

Westchester High ranks in the bottom fifth in the state academically, state data shows.

The five-member committee from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, an independent quasi-governmental agency that reviews school performance, announced the results of the review Wednesday in the school auditorium.

Over the past school year the panel analyzed data provided by Westchester staff involving everything from graduation rates and truancy to curriculum. The review culminated with three days of interviews of parents, teachers, administrators and students.

The school says it has a graduation rate of about 89 percent of students who start their senior year. However, the number of students who begin their freshman year at the school and do not graduate from Westchester is about 50 percent.

It is not known how many of those students graduate elsewhere.

In announcing the findings, committee chairman William Brand also credited Westchester High for its student-friendly atmosphere, willingness to improve and variety of course offerings.

"We want to come back and get some real accountability in this area," Brand said. "Nobody is negative about this school."

The school's problems aren't likely to keep it from gaining accreditation so it can continue to operate, officials said. Schools rarely lose accreditation. Crenshaw High School lost its accreditation almost two years ago, but the agency restored the status after the school agreed to an administrative overhaul.

Nevertheless, teachers union chief A.J. Duffy called for a "change of direction of the leadership" at Westchester High.

Los Angeles school board President Marlene Canter, who represents the district where the school is located, said she had not seen the audit. Canter said she has been pushing for "high expectations and rigor" there.

"I've been calling on the district for many years to increase the amount of professional development to our teachers and administrators in the areas of classroom management in order for all schools to become more effective," she said.

The accreditation group requires follow-up review after one-, three- and six-year terms depending on the effectiveness of the school. The group is expected to announce its follow-up for Westchester High in June.

Three years ago, the agency offered a slightly more optimistic view of the school. But that report contained many of the same concerns it aired Wednesday.

Like many LAUSD high schools, Westchester High graduates a lower percentage of students than schools in many other Southern California districts.

Three out of four students attending the school are below proficiency in basic subjects such as algebra, geometry, English and science. The school needs to develop better strategies for low-performing students, Brand said.

Discipline and truancy issues also have plagued the school for years, teachers and parents said.

On a typical school day, as many as 10 percent of the 2,200 students arrive late to class, said Leslie Bragg, a teacher and the school's Title I coordinator.

Community efforts to improve the school bubbled over in an April 20 letter to the accreditation committee from the Westchester/Playa del Rey Neighborhood Council. In the letter, the council lamented the fact that no principal has stayed at the school for more than three years since the early 1990s.

Principal Anita Barner, now in her third year in the top staff post, said a fix-it plan has been drafted and improvement measures are being rolled out.

"We will see improvements as we move into small learning communities and a four-by-four schedule," Barner said. "Learning to dialogue better helps us to move forward with increasing academic achievement."

The school is moving to an altered version of its block schedule that will have students taking four classes for four 10-week terms in a school year. Students will take each class five days a week, instead of on alternating days.

In March, the district also approved Westchester High's plan to divide the school into four small learning academies in September. Incoming ninth-graders will be placed into one of the academies. Other students can apply for entry to theme-driven small schools emphasizing humanities and the arts; media, communications and technology; and health and environmental studies.

The school is using a $1.7 million LAUSD grant to divide the campus into the smaller units and $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education to establish and operate small learning communities.

Gail Levy, who will have two daughters at the school in the fall, isn't convinced the improvement plan can be properly put in place.

"Nobody's clear enough on the mechanics of how it works," Levy said. "And they don't communicate with parents."

Westchester High, which has produced a string of professional basketball players, has tried to lessen its image as a training ground for the NBA by honoring students who have excelled academically, maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher, Barner said.

The school draws about half of its students from Westchester, Ladera Heights, Windsor Hills and Playa del Rey. The other half arrives via district buses from Inglewood and other surrounding communities.

Also, students living in the Westchester High's enrollment boundaries often get permits to attend Venice High, Hamilton High or El Segundo High.

NOTE THE CATCH 22 TREND FOR A CAP RECEIVER SCHOOL WITH DECLINING NATIVE ENROLLMENT: Eighth graders in Westchester High's enrollment area can also apply to attend Beverly Hills High School on their diversity permit program. As all these schools have declining enrollment there is competition for "good" students.

For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect, Too

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

In an honors philosophy/literature class, Esther Mobley, center, participates in a discussion of “Man’s Search for Meaning.”

by SARA RIMER | The New York Times | Sunday, April 1, 2007

NEWTON, Mass., March 31 — To anyone who knows 17-year-old Esther Mobley, one of the best students at one of the best public high schools in the country, it is absurd to think she doesn’t measure up. But Esther herself is quick to set the record straight.

“First of all, I’m a terrible athlete,” she said over lunch one day.

“I run, I do, but not very quickly, and always exhaustedly,” she continued. “This is one of the things I’m most insecure about. You meet someone, especially on a college tour, adults ask you what you do. They say, ‘What sports do you play?’ I don’t play any sports. It’s awkward.”

Esther, a willowy, effervescent senior, turned to her friend Colby Kennedy. Colby, 17, is also a great student, a classical pianist, fluent in Spanish, and a three-season varsity runner and track captain. Did Colby worry, Esther asked, that she fell short in some way?

“Or,” said Esther, and now her tone was a touch sarcastic, “do you just have it all already?”

They both burst out laughing.

Esther and Colby are two of the amazing girls at Newton North High School here in this affluent suburb just outside Boston. “Amazing girls” translation: Girls by the dozen who are high achieving, ambitious and confident (if not immune to the usual adolescent insecurities and meltdowns). Girls who do everything: Varsity sports. Student government. Theater. Community service. Girls who have grown up learning they can do anything a boy can do, which is anything they want to do.

But being an amazing girl often doesn’t feel like enough these days when you’re competing with all the other amazing girls around the country who are applying to the same elite colleges that you have been encouraged to aspire to practically all your life.

An athlete, after all, is one of the few things Esther isn’t. A few of the things she is: a standout in Advanced Placement Latin and honors philosophy/literature who can expound on the beauty of the subjunctive mood in Catullus and on Kierkegaard’s existential choices. A writer whose junior thesis for Advanced Placement history won Newton North’s top prize. An actress. President of her church youth group.

To spend several months in a pressure cooker like Newton North is to see what a girl can be — what any young person can be — when encouraged by committed teachers and by engaged parents who can give them wide-ranging opportunities.

It is also to see these girls struggle to navigate the conflicting messages they have been absorbing, if not from their parents then from the culture, since elementary school. The first message: Bring home A’s. Do everything. Get into a top college — which doesn’t have to be in the Ivy League, or one of the other elites like Williams, Tufts or Bowdoin, but should be a “name” school.

The second message: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t work too hard.

And, for all their accomplishments and ambitions, the amazing girls, as their teachers and classmates call them, are not immune to the third message: While it is now cool to be smart, it is not enough to be smart.

You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote in an e-mail message, “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”

“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.

If you are free to be everything, you are also expected to be everything. What it comes down to, in this place and time, is that the eternal adolescent search for self is going on at the same time as the quest for the perfect résumé. For Esther, as for high school seniors everywhere, this is a big weekend for finding out how your résumé measured up: The college acceptances, and rejections, are rolling in.

“You want to achieve,” Esther said. “But how do you achieve and still be genuine?”

If it all seems overwhelming at times, then the multitasking adults in Newton have the answer: Balance. Strive for balance.

But balance is out the window when you’re a high-achieving senior in the home stretch of the race for which all the years of achieving and the disciplined focusing on the future have been preparing you. These students are aware that because more girls apply to college than boys, amid concerns about gender balance, boys may have an edge at some small selective colleges.

“You’re supposed to have all these extracurriculars, to play sports and do theater,” said another of Esther’s 17-year-old classmates, Julie Mhlaba, who aspires to medical school and juggles three Advanced Placement classes, gospel choir and a part-time job as a waitress. “You’re supposed to do well in your classes and still have time to go out.”

“You’re supposed to do all these things,” Julie said, “and not go insane.”

Stress Trumps Relaxation

Newton, which has a population of almost 84,000, is known for a liberal sensibility and a high concentration of professionals like doctors, lawyers and academics. Six miles west of Boston, with its heavily settled neighborhoods, bustling downtowns and high numbers of immigrants, Newton is a suburb with an urban feel.

The main shopping area, in Newton Centre, is a concrete manifestation of the conflicting messages Esther and the other girls are constantly struggling to decode. In one five-block stretch are two Starbucks and one Peets Coffee & Tea, several psychotherapists’ offices, three SAT test-prep services, two after-school math programs, and three yoga studios promising relaxation and inner peace.

Smack in the middle of all of this is Esther’s church, the 227-year-old First Baptist, which welcomes everyone regardless of race, sexual orientation or denomination, and where Esther puts in a lot of time.

The test-prep business is booming. Kaplan (“Be the ideal college applicant!”) is practically around the corner from Chyten (“Our average SAT II score across all subjects is 720!”), which is three blocks from Princeton Review (“We’re all about scoring more!”). My First Yoga (for children 3 and up), with its founder playing up her Harvard degree, is conveniently located above Chyten, which includes the SAT Cafe.

High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.

“I think it’s unfair,” Esther said, explaining why she decided against an SAT tutor, though she worried about her score (ultimately getting, as she put it, “above 2000”). “Why do I deserve this leg up?”

Parents view Newton’s expensive real estate — the median house price in 2006 was $730,000 — and high taxes as the price of admission to the prized public schools. There are less affluent parents, small-business owners, carpenters, plumbers, social workers and high school guidance counselors, but many of these families arrived decades ago when it was possible to buy a nice two-story Colonial for $150,000 or less.

Newton North, one of two outstanding public high schools here, is known for its academic rigor, but also its vocational education, reflecting the wide range of its 1,967 students. Nearly 73 percent of them are white, 7.3 percent black, nearly 12 percent Asian and 7.5 percent Hispanic. Many of the black and Hispanic students live in the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston, and are bused in under a 35-year-old voluntary integration program.

Newton North has a student theater, winning athletic teams and dozens of after-school clubs (ultimate Frisbee, mock trial, black leadership, Hispanic culture, Israeli dance). There is an emphasis on nonconformity — even if it is often conformity dressed up as nonconformity — and an absence of such high school conventions as, say, homecoming queens, valedictorians and class rankings.

‘Superhuman’ Resistance

Jennifer Price, the Newton North principal, said she and her faculty emphasized to students that they could win admission to many excellent colleges without organizing their entire lives around résumé building. By age 14, Ms. Price said, the school’s highest fliers are already worrying about marketing themselves to colleges: “You almost have to be superhuman to resist the pressure.”

If more students aren’t listening to the message that they can relax a bit, one reason may be that a lot of the people delivering the message went to the elite colleges. Ms. Price has an undergraduate degree from Princeton — she makes a point of saying that she got in because she was recruited to play varsity field hockey — and is a doctoral candidate at Harvard. Many of the teachers have degrees from the Ivy League and other elite schools.

But the message also tends to get drowned out when parents bump into each other at Whole Foods and share news about whose son or daughter just got accepted (or not) at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Penn or Stanford.

Or when the final edition of the award-winning student newspaper, the Newtonite, comes out every June, with its two-page spread listing all the seniors, and their colleges. For that entire week, Esther says, everyone pores over the names, obsessing about who is going where.

“In a lot of ways, it’s all about that one week,” she said.

There is something about the lives these girls lead — their jam-packed schedules, the amped-up multitasking, the focus on a narrow group of the nation’s most selective colleges — that speaks of a profound anxiety in the young people, but perhaps even more so in their parents, about the ability of the next generation to afford to raise their families in a place like Newton.

Admission to a brand-name college is viewed by many parents, and their children, as holding the best promise of professional success and economic well-being in an increasingly competitive world.

“It’s, like, a really big deal to go into a lucrative profession so that you can provide for your kids, and they can grow up in a place like the place where you grew up,” Kat said.

Esther, however, is aiming for a decidedly nonlucrative profession. Inspired by her father, Greg Mobley, who is a Biblical scholar, she wants to be a theologian.

She says she is interested in “Scripture, the Bible, the development of organized religion, thinking about all this, writing about all this, teaching about all this.” More than anything else, she wrote in an e-mail message, she wants to be a writer, “and religion is what I most like to write about.”

“I have such a strong sense of being supported by my faith,” she continued. “It gives me priorities. That’s why I’m not concerned about making money, because I know that there is so much more to living a rich life than having money.”

First Baptist Church counts on Esther. She organizes pancake suppers, tutors a young congregant and helps lead the youth group’s outreach to the poor.

On a springlike Sunday afternoon toward the end of winter, Esther could be found with her father, her two brothers and members of her youth group handing out food to homeless people on Boston Common. She had spent the morning in church.

About 2 p.m., a text message flashed across her cellphone from Gabe Gladstone, a co-captain of mock trial: “Where are you?” Esther, a key member of the group, was needed at a meeting.

Esther messaged back: “I’m feeding the homeless, I’ll come when God’s work is done.”

Fending Off ‘Anorexia of the Soul’

On a Saturday afternoon in late November, Esther and her mother, Page Kelley, sat at the dining room table talking about the contradictions and complexities of life in Newton. Esther’s father was with his sons, Gregory, 15, who plays varsity basketball for Newton North, and Tommy, 10, coaching Tommy’s basketball team.

Ms. Kelley, 47, an assistant federal public defender, and Mr. Mobley, 49, a professor at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, grew up in Kentucky and came north for college. Ms. Kelley is a graduate of Smith College and Harvard Law School. Mr. Mobley has two graduate degrees from Harvard.

Amid all the competitiveness and consumerism, and the obsession with achievement in Newton, Ms. Kelley said, “You just hope your child doesn’t have anorexia of the soul.”

“It’s the idea that you end up with this strange drive,” she continued. “One of the great things about Esther is that she does have some kind of spiritual life. You just hope your kid has good priorities. We keep saying to her: ‘The name of the college you go to doesn’t matter. There are a lot of good colleges out there.’ ”

Esther said her mother is her role model. “I think the work she does is very noble,” she said.

“She has these impressive degrees,” Esther said, “and she chooses to do something where she’s not making as much money as she could.”

As close as mother and daughter are, there is one important generational divide. “My mother applied to one college,” Esther said. “She got in, she went.”

Back from basketball practice with his sons, Mr. Mobley joined the conversation. To Mr. Mobley, a formalized, competitive culture pervades everything from youth sports to getting into college. He pointed out to his wife that the lives of their three children were far more directed “than any of the aimless hours I spent in my youth daydreaming and meandering.”

Ms. Kelley asked, “Is that because of us?”

“Yes — and no,” he said. “It’s because of 2006 in America, and the Northeast.”

The bar for achievement keeps being raised for each generation, he said: “Our children start where we finished.”

As the afternoon turned into early evening, Esther went out to meet her best friend, Aliza Edelstein. The family dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Bandit, was underfoot, trolling for affection.

“I’m not worried about Esther because I know her,” Mr. Mobley said. “Esther’s character is sealed in some fundamental way.”

Ms. Kelley, however, wondered aloud: “Don’t you worry that she never rebelled? When I was growing up, you were supposed to rebel.”

But she acknowledged that she had sent her own mixed signals. “As I’m sitting here saying I don’t care what kind of grades she gets, I’m thinking, she comes home with a B, and I say: ‘What’d you get a B for? Who gave you a B? I’m going to talk to them.’

“You do want your child to do well.”

Mr. Mobley nodded. “We’re not above it,” he said. “It’s complicated.”

On a Fierce Mission to Shine

To sit in on classes with Esther in her vibrant high school where, between classes, the central corridor, called Main Street, is a bustling social hub, is to see why these students are genuinely excited about school.

Their teachers are pushing them to wrestle with big questions: What is truth? What does Virgil’s “Aeneid” tell us about destiny and individual happiness? How does DNA work? How is the global economy reshaping the world (subtext: you have to be fluid and highly educated to survive in the new economy)?

Esther’s ethics teacher, Joel Greifinger, spent considerable time this winter on moral theories. An examination of John Rawls’s theory of justice led to extensive discussions about American society and class inequality. Among the reading material Mr. Greifinger presented was research showing the correlation between income and SAT scores.

The class strengthened Esther’s earlier decision not to take private SAT prep.

In her honors philosophy/literature class, Esther has been reading Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, “Sophie’s Choice” and Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Amid a discussion of the strangely unsettling emptiness Frankl encountered upon his release from a Nazi concentration camp, Esther quoted Sartre: “You are condemned to freedom.”

Her honors teacher, Mike Fieleke, nodded. “That’s the existential idea. If we don’t awaken to that freedom, then we are slaves to our fate.”

A few weeks earlier, Esther, taking stock of her own life, wrote in an e-mail message: “I feel like I’m on the verge. I feel like I’m just about to get out of high school, to enter into adulthood, to reach some kind of state of independence and peacefulness and enlightenment.”

More immediately, she wrote, Mr. Fieleke had told her “he thought, from reading my papers and hearing me speak in class, that I was just on the verge of some really great idea.”

“I asked him if he thought that idea would come by next Wednesday, when our big Hamlet paper was due. He said I might feel this way all year long.”

The most intensely pressurized academic force field at school is the one surrounding the students on the Advanced Placement and honors track. About 145 of the 500 seniors are taking a combined total of three, four and five Advanced Placement and honors classes, with a few students even juggling six and seven.

Esther’s friend Colby takes four Advanced Placement and one honors class. “I’m living up to my own expectations,” Colby said. “It’s what I want to do. I want to do well for myself.”

Another of Esther’s friends, from student theater, Lee Gerstenhaber, 17, was juggling four Advanced Placement classes with intense late-night rehearsals for her starring role as Maggie, the seductive Southern belle in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” It was too much. About 4 a.m one day last fall, she was still fighting her way through Advanced Placement physics homework. She dissolved in tears.

“I had always been able to do it before,” Lee recalled later. “But I finally said to myself, ‘O.K., I’m not Superwoman.’ ”

She dropped physics — and was incandescent as Maggie.

Esther’s schedule includes two Advanced Placement and one honors class. Among certain of her classmates who are mindful that many elite colleges advise prospective applicants to pursue the most rigorous possible course of study, taking two Advanced Placement classes is viewed as “only two A.P.’s.” But Esther says she is simply taking the subjects she is most interested in.

She also shrugged off advice that it would look better on her résumé to take another science class instead of her passion, A.P. Latin. Like so many of her classmates, Esther started taking Latin in the seventh grade, when everyone was saying Latin would help them with the SAT. But now, except for Esther and a handful of other diehards who are devoted to Latin — and to their teacher, Robert Mitchell — everyone else has moved on.

“I like languages,” said Esther, who also takes Advanced Placement Spanish. “And I really like Latin.”

Who Needs a Boyfriend?

This year Esther has been trying life without a boyfriend. It was her mother’s idea. “She’d say, ‘I think it’s time for you to take a break and discover who you are,’ ” Esther said over lunch with Colby. “She was right. I feel better.”

Esther turned to Colby: she seems to pretty much always have a boyfriend.

“I never felt like having a boyfriend was a burden,” Colby said. “I enjoy just being comfortable with someone, being able to spend time together. I don’t think that means I wouldn’t feel comfortable or confident without one.”

Esther said: “I’m not trying to say that’s a bad thing. I’m like you. I never thought, ‘If I don’t have a boyfriend I’ll feel totally forlorn and lost.’ ”

But who needs a boyfriend? “My girlfriends have consistently been more important than my boyfriends,” Esther wrote in an e-mail message. “I mean, girlfriends last longer.”

Boyfriends or not, a deeper question for Esther and Colby is how they negotiate their identities as young women. They have grown up watching their mothers, and their friends’ mothers, juggle family and career. They take it for granted that they will be able to carve out similar paths, even if it doesn’t look easy from their vantage point.

They say they want to be both feminine and assertive, like their mothers. But Colby made the point at lunch that she would rather be considered too assertive and less conventionally feminine than “be totally passive and a bystander in my life.”

Esther agreed. She said she admired Cristina, the spunky resident on “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of her favorite TV shows.

“She really stands up for herself and knows who she is, which I aspire to,” Esther said.

Cristina is also “gorgeous,” Esther laughed. “And when she’s taking off her scrubs, she’s always wearing cute lingerie.”

Speaking of lingerie, part of being feminine is feeling good about how you look. Esther is not trying to be one of Newton North’s trendsetters, the girls who show up every day in Ugg boots, designer jeans — or equally cool jeans from the vintage store — and tight-fitting tank tops under the latest North Face jacket.

She never looks “scrubby,” to use the slang for being a slob, but sometimes comes to school in sweats and moccasins.

“I think sometimes I might be trying a little too hard not to conform,” Esther says.

She says she is one of the few girls in her circle who doesn’t have a credit card. But she is hardly immune to the pressure to be a good consumer.

During the discussion around the dining room table, Esther’s mother expressed her astonishment over her daughter’s expertise in designer jeans. They had been people-watching at the mall. Esther, as it turned out, knew the brand of every pair of jeans that went by.

So what were the coolest jeans at Newton North?

“The coolest jeans are True Religions,” Esther said.

“They look,” she said, and here she smiled sheepishly as she stood up to reveal her denim-clad legs, “like these.”

Aliza and several of Esther’s other friends chipped in to buy them for her 17th birthday, in November.

Encouraged to Ease Up a Little

The amazing boys say they admire girls like Esther and Colby.

“I hate it when girls dumb themselves down,” Gabe Gladstone, the co-captain of mock trial, was saying one morning to the other captain, Cameron Ferrey.

Cameron said he felt the same way.

One of Esther’s close friends is Dan Catomeris, a school theater star. “One of the most attractive things about Esther is how smart she is,” said Dan, whose mother is a professor at Harvard Business School. “There’s always been this intellectual tension between us. I see why she likes Kierkegaard — he’s existential, but still Christian. She really likes Descartes. I was not so into Descartes. I really like Hume, Nietzsche, the existentialist authors. The musician we’re most collectively into is Bob Dylan.”

Sometimes, though, everybody wants some of these hard-charging girls to chill out. Tom DePeter, an Advanced Placement English teacher, wants his students to loosen up so they can write original sentences. The theater director, Adam Brown, wants the girls to “let go” in auditions.

Peter Martin, the girls’ cross-country coach, says girls try so hard to please everyone — coaches, teachers, parents — that he bends over backward not to criticize them. “I tell them, ‘Just go out and run.’ ” His team wins consistently.

But how do you chill out and still get into a highly selective college?

One of Esther’s favorite rituals is to hang out at her house with Aliza, eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching a DVD of a favorite program like “The Office.” Their friendship helped Esther and Aliza keep going last fall, when there was hardly time to hang out. Esther recalled in an e-mail message how one night she had telephoned Aliza, who is also a top student, and a cross-country team captain, to say she was feeling overwhelmed.

“I said, ‘Aliza, this is crazy, I have so much homework to do, and I won’t be able to relax until I do it all. I haven’t gone out in weeks!’ And Aliza (who had also been staying in on Fridays and Saturdays to do homework) pointed out: ‘I’d rather get into college.’ ”

By Dec. 15, Newton North was in a frenzy over early admissions answers. Esther’s friend Phoebe Gardener had been accepted to Dartmouth. Her friend Dan Lurie was in at Brown. Harvard wanted Dan Catomeris.

Esther was in calculus class, the last period of the day when her cellphone rang. It was her father. The letter from Williams College — her ideal of the small, liberal arts school — had arrived.

Her father would be at her brother’s basketball game when she got home. Her mother would still be at the office. Esther did not want to be alone when she opened the letter.

“Dad, can you bring it to school?” she asked.

Ten minutes later, when her father arrived, Esther realized that he had somehow not registered the devastating thinness of the envelope. The admissions office was sorry. Williams had had a record number of highly qualified applicants for early admission this year. Esther had been rejected. Not deferred. Rejected.

Her father hugged her as she cried outside her classroom, and then he drove her home.

Esther said several days later: “Maybe it hurt me that I wasn’t an athlete.”

But she was already moving on. “I chose Williams,” she said, with a shrug. “They didn’t choose me back.”

About that thin envelope: Mr. Mobley, unschooled in such intricacies, said he hadn’t paid much attention to it. He had wanted so much for his daughter to get into Williams, he said, and believed so strongly in her, that it was as if he had wished the letter into being an acceptance.

“It was a setback,” Mr. Mobley said weeks later. “But it’s not a failure.”

And Then One Day, a Letter Arrives

Has this all been a temporary insanity?

Esther’s friend Colby learned in February that she had been accepted at the University of Southern California. Soon, more letters of acceptance rolled in: from the University of Miami, the University of Texas at Austin, Tulane. With the college-application pressure behind her, she can go back to being the pragmatic romantic who opened her journal last August and wrote her “life list,” with 35 goals and dreams, in pink ink.

She wants: To write a novel. Own a (red) Jeep Wrangler. Get into college. Name her firstborn daughter Carmen. Go to carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Learn to surf. Live in a Spanish-speaking country. Learn to play the doppio movimiento of Chopin’s Sonata in B Flat. Own a dog. Be a bridesmaid. Vote for president. Write a really good poem. Never get divorced.

In mid-January Esther was thrilled to receive an acceptance letter from Centre College, one of her fallback schools, in Kentucky. But she was still dreaming about her remaining top choices: Amherst, Middlebury, Davidson and Smith, her mother’s alma mater.

Esther’s application to Smith included a letter from her father. He wrote about how, when Esther was a baby, they had gone to his wife’s 10th college reunion. He described the alumni parade as an “angelic procession of women in white, decade by decade, at every stage in the course of human life.”

He wrote about seeing the young women, the middle-aged graduates and, finally, “the elderly women, some with the assistance of canes and wheelchairs, but with no diminution of the confidence that a great education brings.”

“I still remember holding Esther as we watched those saints go marching into the central campus for the commencement ceremony,” he wrote.

“Lord,” he concluded, and he could have been talking about any of the schools his daughter still has her heart set on, “I want Esther to be in that number.”

Epilogue: Esther learned last week that she had gotten into Smith. She learned on Saturday that she had been rejected by Amherst and Middlebury. She is still hoping for Davidson.

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Website for Newton North High School.

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Excerpt from the report of the NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES - COMMISSION ON PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS, accrediting agency for NNHS:

"Newton North High School is a vibrant learning community pursuing excellence in a
deplorable and discouraging physical setting. Fortunately, the school culture is far
superior to the facility that houses it. In the words of parents: “Kids thrive here!”; “There
is a home for everyone here!”; “Newton North is faculty-rich!” In the words of the
superintendent of schools, “Kids are not lost here; they are found here.” One does not
come away from a visit to this school without realizing that “school pride” rises to the
level of “school love” at Newton North.

"The school climate at Newton North High school can only be described as positive, even
uplifting, both in terms of professional culture and student culture. The professional staff
understands that positive student behavior and focus on learning is more about
relationships and high expectations than about policing and punishment. Consequently,
there is a learning environment where teachers overwhelmingly model positive, mutually
supportive adult behavior, where students exercise a lot of responsible autonomy, and
where teachers are greatly appreciated by their students. Newton North has, for a long
time, imbued in its staff and students the strongly held values underpinning its new
mission statement: open-mindedness, honesty, human dignity, appreciation of diversity,
social conscience, compassion, and individual responsibility for achievement. Virtually
everyone in the NNHS community understands and values the school motto, “Learning
sustains the human spirit,” – staff, students, even parents."

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▲To a person engaged in school construction, modernization and repair - this is instructive.

It proves that a well run school can overcome and triumph over the challenges of limited physical facilities. Obviously NNHS deserves better facilities and should get them — and just as obviously - as we have always known - a school is far far more than walls, roof, classrooms, playground, books and a flagpole! —smf