More News than Fits 12/23

PAY 2 PLAY + SDUSD GETS AN ADMIRAL OF THEIR OWN

• A valley sports league protests LAUSD's misbegotten policy to charge for after school playground use by kids and
  
• San Diego gets an retired navy flag officer to head their schools too.

The Daily News says that LAUSD AND CITY MUST WORK TO MAKE BETTER USE OF SCHOOLS

LAUSD TOLLS MIGHT SURPASS $210 MILLION: New payroll system continues to drain the District.

LAUSD TRIES TO STEM THE OUTFLOW - An effort to bring neighborhood children back to neighborhood schools.

Obituary: MARNESBA TACKETT: A LONG LIFE WELL LIVED IN PURSUIT OF LA EQUALITY: As chair of the Los Angeles NAACP’s Education Committee, Tackett raised money to pay for the Supreme Court briefs submitted by Thurgood Marshall in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. case that desegregated the nation’s schools in 1954.

That done, she turned her attention to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which she found was just as discriminatory as the district in Topeka.. She had textbooks with stereotypical presentations of blacks removed from the classrooms and she filed and won a lawsuit, Crawford vs. LAUSD, to make the Jordan High School facility and environment more conducive to the educational process.

SCHOOLING ANTONIO: The mayor learns to settle for less than a total takeover of L.A. Unified - or - TKO! MAYOR V DISSES ROMER. While the mayor touts his takeover of the cluster of schools as an issue of accountability, some parents have expressed skepticism about the plan, calling it little more than a political ploy and worrying that students under the plan will suffer if the mayor loses reelection in 2009 or runs for governor in 2010.

States' Evidence: WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE 'ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS - or - "GAMING NCLB" - Avoiding becoming a Program Improvement school, district or state - through legislation rather than education - and without risking losing the federal funds!