The news that didn’t fit from Nov. 30th

OUT-OF-STATE COLLEGES BOOST RECRUITING EFFORTS IN CALIFORNIA

As the population of high school graduates declines nationwide, Midwest and East Coast colleges are hoping to attract California students to keep their enrollment numbers steady.

LAUSD PAYROLL FIASCO (Thankfully) COMES TO AN END

…though hearing about it never will!

November 27, 2008 -- A costly, 20-month saga of futility and frustration came to a formal close Wednesday when the Los Angeles Unified School District announced that it had settled a dispute with the contractor that installed its payroll system, which overpaid and underpaid tens of thousands of teachers and other employees by tens of millions of dollars.

The district said the company it had hired, Deloitte Consulting, agreed to pay $8.25 million and forgive $7 million to $10 million in unpaid invoices, for a total settlement that was roughly half the amount the district said it spent to fix the rogue system. In addition to those costs, the district sustained many millions of dollars in other losses related to the payroll problems.

“BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS TO QUALITY PRESCHOOL”: live satellite conference and national strategy session – Wednesday morning Dec 1)

Registration is free!

Los Angeles
KCET Studio
Wednesday, December 10 at 9:30 AM

1.3 MILLION CALIFORNIA KIDS LACK HEALTH INSURANCE

November 25, 2008 -- The nation has 8.6 million children who lack public or private health insurance and 1.3 million of them are in California, Families USA, a Washington-based advocate for expanded health access, says in a report based on new census data.

California, the nation's most populous state, is just behind Texas in the numbered of medically uninsured children, Families USA says, and at 12.5 percent has the nation's 12th highest rate. Texas is No. 1 at 20.5 percent.

PARENTS PROTEST OVER LACK OF SCHOOL LIBRARY

Castelar Elementary in Los Angeles has been without a library since 2002, forcing students to walk to the nearest public library every time they need to use one.

In the 1970s, the school's small library and auditorium were combined to create a larger Los Angeles City Public Library. It served both the community and the school well until 2002. That's when the public library was moved to a brand new facility on the corner of Hill and Ord streets in L.A.'s Chinatown.

The district was supposed to replace the school's library, but the project has been tied up in the design phase, and now the budget has doubled

COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER OUSTED + LOS ANGELES COUNTY JUVENILE PROBATION CAMPS MAY TRY CHARTER SCHOOLS

Dissatisfied with the students' performance, county supervisors vote to create three charters within the system and dismiss school board member. Camp teachers question whether the shift would bring improvement in students' skills. smf questions whether this is constitutional …or legal.

MAYOR’S PARTNERSHIP SCHOOL CANCELS DUAL-IMMERSION LANGUAGE PROGRAM AT WATTS SCHOOL

Parents and teachers protest Ritter Elementary elimination of dual-language program

November 24, 2008 - Teachers and parents from Ritter Elementary School will demonstrate outside the school on Tuesday November 25 at 1:30 p.m., to protest the elimination of their Dual Language Program.

For the last 4 years Ritter has participated in a Dual Language Program in which Spanish speaking and English speaking children learn together being taught all of their subjects in both languages. National studies have revealed that children who participate in dual language program substantially outscore their fellow students on state tests.

Ritter Elementary is one of the 10 schools in the mayor's partnership. One of the promises of the Partnership was a commitment to collaborating with parents and teachers in organizing the schools' curriculum and governance. Parents complain that this promise was not kept when the program was suspended without notification of parents.

OUT-OF-STATE COLLEGES BOOST RECRUITING EFFORTS IN CALIFORNIA

As the population of high school graduates declines nationwide, Midwest and East Coast colleges are hoping to attract California students to keep their enrollment numbers steady.

Recruiter Dory Streett holds up a map of Europe as she explains Colby College's study abroad program to high school seniors Rigoberto Vargas, Julio Suastegui and Hector Rios, from left. Colby College, a small liberal-arts school in Maine, and several other small colleges held a mini-college fair last month at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

 

By Larry Gordon | LA Times Staff Writer

November 29, 2008  -- Dory Streett didn't beat around the bush when she spoke to students recently at a high school near downtown Los Angeles about Colby College, a liberal arts school in Maine. It's 3,000 miles from home, there's snow for long stretches and its community of Waterville has only 16,000 residents.

"It's almost as far as you can get," the recruiter told a dozen seniors at Gertz-Ressler High School. The photos she showed of Colby's bucolic campus did seem a galaxy away to many of the mainly low-income students whose school sits beside the Santa Monica Freeway.

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But Streett, who also emphasized Colby's small classes and generous financial aid, urged students to consider a college outside Southern California: "It's for kids who want something different . . . who know they will be in urban areas most of their lives and want to try something different for four years."

It's a message heard more often in California these days, as East Coast and Midwest colleges face an anticipated drop in their local applicant pools and cast a wider net for prospective students.

After a decade of campus-crowding growth, the size of the nation's high school graduating class has begun to decline with this year's seniors, and is projected to drop 4.5% by 2014. Then, modest growth is expected to resume.

The change, however, is uneven across the country, with the deepest dips -- up to 20% over the next few years -- forecast for New England and Upper Midwest states, home to numerous colleges.

Schools from those regions are boosting recruiting in California and other populous states, including Texas, Florida and Arizona, and looking for more students overseas, especially from China and India.

The population trend "certainly concerns schools in the Midwest and the Northeast. And it will force many . . . to start recruiting outside of their traditional regions," said Tony Pals, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Another trend may further reduce the collegegoing population, experts say. A growing portion of U.S. high school graduates are Latinos, who traditionally have lower rates of college attendance than whites. Unless that changes, the drop in potential freshmen may be even steeper.

Uncertainty about the economy and families' abilities to pay also is forcing colleges, especially private ones, to scramble to make sure enough qualified students apply.

"Postsecondary institutions accustomed to filling entering classes with relative ease will likely face greater competition for fewer traditional-age students," declared an influential report, "Knocking at the College Door," released this year by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

Felema Yemane, a senior at Los Angeles' Pilgrim School, says she is nervous about applying to college but hopes the demographic decline will boost her chances.

"Just the fact that it's a little bit smaller gives us a little more chance," said Yemane, who is applying to private and public schools on the East Coast and in California.

Admissions officials say the change is unlikely to make it easier to get accepted by the most prestigious universities, such as Harvard and Princeton, which reject 90 percent of applicants. Nevertheless, those schools say they want to keep up their West Coast recruiting and let potential students know of the sweetened financial-aid deals wealthy colleges can offer.

"I think we are all very aware of the demographics and the changing nature of our applicant pool," said Janet Lavin Rapelye, dean of admissions at Princeton.

But for the next few years, students applying to colleges a notch below the top tier may find it a bit easier to land a spot.

Local high school counselors say they are hearing from more schools around the country that want to send representatives. "We are finding schools recruiting in California that we haven't seen in the past," said Helene Kunkel, a college advisor at Palisades Charter High School.

However, Kunkel said Southern Californians may not be attracted to those campuses if they are far away or lack a familiar brand name. "They do have an uphill battle with some of the kids here," she said.

Even so, this year for the first time, Central College in Iowa and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut are sending envoys to Southern California. Others, including Northeastern University in Boston and the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, have established California offices or placed full-time recruiters here.

Still others, including the University of Vermont, the University of Connecticut, Michigan's Kalamazoo College and Minnesota's College of St. Benedict-St. John's University are coming more often and visiting more schools.

Kalamazoo is boosting recruiting outside the Midwest because of demographics and because Michigan's economic decline makes it difficult for some local families to attend, said Eric Staab, dean of admissions. "It is no longer a time to be a regional college," he said.

The University of Connecticut, where a third of undergraduates are out-of-staters, has sharply increased the time its recruiters spend in California. "As we looked at that receding tide, we decided to have a strategy in place and build our name brand," said Lee Melvin, director of undergraduate admissions.

Central College in Iowa anticipates what admissions dean Carol Williamson calls "incredibly tight competition" from other Iowa schools for students. So she is sending a representative to California for two weeks this fall and again in the spring.

Williamson concedes that Iowa might be an unusual spot for a Los Angeles student, but said the school wants young people who are "willing to step outside their normal box and say, 'I want a different experience.' "

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of high school graduates in the U.S. peaked this spring with about 3.35 million "Echo Boom" youngsters, offspring of Baby Boomers. The number is projected to drop by about 18,000 next spring and continue to decline for the next five years.

New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania are projected to have significant dips while states such as Texas, Florida and Arizona are slated for growth.

California is in a universe of its own. The "College Door" report estimates that the number of California students graduating from high school peaked at 423,615 in 2008. The state projects a slight decrease for 2009 and a nearly 7% decline by 2017.

However, California's population of young people will remain the largest by far -- about double that of Florida and New York -- and will continue to draw recruiters.

That's one reason Colby College, which enrolls half its 1,870 students from New England, sent Streett to California this fall to visit more than 40 schools in two weeks. At a college fair last month at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with representatives of other East Coast colleges, including Middlebury, Mount Holyoke and Bates.

Southern California is a good place to look for ethnic and geographic diversity, Streett told the Gertz-Ressler students, who were mainly Latino and black. "We want that," she said. "That is very attractive to us and that's why we spend a couple weeks out here."

That was good news to Carlos Ramos, a Gertz-Ressler senior who attended recent presentations by several East Coast schools and expects to apply to some of them. Ramos, 17, said he heard a clear message from the out-of-state colleges:

"They definitely want L.A. kids to be there," he said.

PUC TO DECIDE ON SAFETY OF EXPO LINE CROSSINGS AT DORSEY HIGH SCHOOL & FOSHAY LEARNING CENTER

Next week the PUC plans to consider whether Expo Line planners have taken adequate steps to protect students at two campuses along the route.

By Steve Hymon | From the Los Angeles Times

November 28, 2008 - A state authority is set to decide next week whether transportation planners have done enough to make the Expo Line safe as it passes two South Los Angeles schools.

Some residents and school officials want the rail line to either be put underground or on a bridge near one or both schools.

Builders of the $862-million line say that would unnecessarily drive up costs and probably delay a transit system that could open by 2010 and provide an alternative to the Westside's traffic congestion.

The rail line follows a long-dormant right-of-way along Exposition Boulevard and will eventually connect downtown Los Angeles, USC, South Los Angeles, Culver City -- and one day Santa Monica.

But the tracks are slated to run next to the Foshay Learning Center and Dorsey High School.

The Exposition Line Construction Authority, the agency created to build the project, wants to set up rail crossings at street level outside the schools. Community activists and the Los Angeles Unified School District contend that children will be at risk of being run over or killed if the street level crossings are allowed.

On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to take up the matter. The five-member commission has two decisions to make: whether to allow the tracks to cross Farmdale Avenue outside Dorsey and whether to allow the tracks to cross atop an existing pedestrian tunnel next to Foshay.

Last month, a commission-appointed judge suggested an alternative. Judge Kenneth L. Koss recommended that pedestrian bridges be built over the tracks next to both schools and that Farmdale Avenue be closed to vehicle traffic at the tracks. The commission now has the final say.

All sides have expressed concern with the pedestrian bridges, saying that it's not wise to put that many students in such a small space. Transit officials still want to build the street-level rail crossings -- contending that they're safe.

"They're going to end up with a project that hits people," said Damien Goodmon, who is leading the community effort on behalf of the Fix Expo Campaign.

Goodmon said that building trains at street level is not only dangerous, but also ties up traffic and forces officials to run trains so slowly that people won't want to take them.

Many proponents of the train say Goodmon and others have exaggerated the street-crossing dangers and created a "folklore" in South Los Angeles about the Expo Line.

"They're saying we're going to build something that kills kids," said Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a member of the construction authority's board. "It's not something in the realm of possibility. They don't have the substance to carry their own arguments."

Expo Line officials say they will take pains to make the train safe. Construction authority chief Rick Thorpe said the agency would slow trains from 55 mph to 10 mph outside Dorsey immediately before and after school hours and also post security guards on both sides of the crossing gates to keep students from ducking under and dashing across the tracks before trains pass.

That's not enough, say safety consultants for the school district and residents. The problem, in short: Children will be children.

"Kids' risk perception at different age brackets is different than adults'," said Najmedin Meshkati, a USC professor of civil engineering who studies causes of transportation accidents. "They are more prone to risk."

School officials put it this way in a legal brief to the Public Utilities Commission: "Under crowded conditions, as would be expected at the at-grade crossing, students frequently misbehave, pushing other students and inciting fights."

School officials and advocates point to the fact that the Expo Line already plans to have four major bridges and a tunnel separating the tracks from streets along its route. The area near Dorsey and Foshay -- made up predominantly of Latinos and African Americans -- deserves the same safety features that are being built in other parts of South Los Angeles and in Culver City, they say.

Over the last two years the cost for the Expo Line has risen from $640 million to $862 million. Goodmon and school officials say that the line has been able to cope with rising costs, proving that more money can be found when needed.

Thorpe said that bridges and the tunnel were built to mitigate traffic concerns on the largest streets along the Expo Line route. Environmental study of the pedestrian bridges, rail bridges or tunnels and rerouting traffic off Farmdale could mean that the rest of the line would sit completed while a year or more is spent replanning the sections of track near the schools.

Light rail lines that run at street level have become increasingly popular in the United States because they are cheaper to build than subways. Trains operating down the middle of streets are found in parts of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Denver and Portland.

Although most operate without incident, light rail lines in the United States killed 60 people in collisions between 2002 and 2006, according to the Federal Transit Administration.

Critics of the Expo Line plan also say safety problems along the Blue Line light rail between Los Angeles and Long Beach suggest they have reason to be concerned about street-grade trains.

The Blue Line has killed 26 people in vehicles and 65 pedestrians since opening in 1990, and there have been more pedestrian deaths in the last five years than in the Blue Line's first five years. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials say that 20 of the pedestrian deaths were suicides.

MTA officials say that safety features have been added over the years, and they're working to install more equipment to keep people off the tracks. They also say that only one pedestrian death has occurred on the Gold Line, which was built to higher safety standards than the Blue Line, since its 2003 debut. They say that death was a suicide.

"If everybody listens to what we tell them to do, you won't have one fatality anywhere," said Abdul Zohbi, the system safety manager for the MTA. "Any system is as safe as users make it."

No matter how the PUC rules, legal action may follow. Even the planned second phase of the Expo Line, from Culver City to Santa Monica, has generated controversy.

A Westside group called Neighbors for Smart Rail has helped South Los Angeles residents with the Dorsey and Foshay issues.

The goal, members say, is to set a precedent should the second phase of the Expo Line be routed on an existing rail right-of-way near the Westside Pavilion.

If so, they want the train to go over or under busy streets for traffic and safety reasons. Another group, Light Rail for Cheviot, suggests that the other group doesn't want the train going through its neighborhood and is trying to drive up the costs.

Officials suggest that the real problem with the Expo Line is unrealistic expectations.

"Transportation is always a complex and difficult thing to do, and money always comes in fits and starts," said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, a member of the Construction Authority Board. "It's easy to talk about the perfect approach. But that will not happen."

LAUSD PAYROLL FIASCO (THANKFULLY) COMES TO AN END

…though hearing about it never will!

Mitchell Landsberg | LA Times

November 27, 2008 -- A costly, 20-month saga of futility and frustration came to a formal close Wednesday when the Los Angeles Unified School District announced that it had settled a dispute with the contractor that installed its payroll system, which overpaid and underpaid tens of thousands of teachers and other employees by tens of millions of dollars.

The district said the company it had hired, Deloitte Consulting, agreed to pay $8.25 million and forgive $7 million to $10 million in unpaid invoices, for a total settlement that was roughly half the amount the district said it spent to fix the rogue system. In addition to those costs, the district sustained many millions of dollars in other losses related to the payroll problems.

The meltdown inconvenienced and infuriated L.A. Unified employees, bogged down new Supt. David L. Brewer and -- fairly or not -- contributed to the district's reputation for managerial blundering.

Read the rest of the story here.

“BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS TO QUALITY PRESCHOOL”: live satellite conference and national strategy session – Wednesday morning Dec 1o

November 26, 2008

Dear Friend,

Please join us on Wednesday, December 10 for Pre-K Now's live satellite conference and national strategy session, "Breaking Down Barriers to Quality Pre-K."

Registration is free! Click here to find the viewing site nearest you and register, or look at the list of California sites below.

The broadcast will feature success stories from communities where pre-k advocates are overcoming common implementation challenges that can impact the quality of programs. Here are just some of the lessons and activities you can expect from the conference:

• how local public schools and community-based providers have fostered the collaboration needed for a diverse or mixed delivery system;
• how states have built professional development systems that help all pre-k teachers improve their skills;
• how teachers and administrators have employed innovative tactics to better engage families in pre-k programs; and
• how we can make progress on these and other fronts during these tough times for our economy and government budgets.

After the national conference broadcast there will also be some time to learn about preschool policy in California, connect with pre-k supporters in your community and discuss action steps to break down barriers to high-quality preschool in our state.

For questions and information contact: Araceli Sandoval, Deputy Field Director at (323) 254-1416 or asandoval@preschoolcalifornia.org.

We look forward to seeing you on December 10th!

California Viewing Sites

To register or find more event details about a viewing site near you, visit Pre-K Now.

Los Angeles
KCET Studio
Wednesday, December 10 at 9:30 AM

also

Camarillo Ventura County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM El Centro Imperial County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 9:00 AM Fairfield Solano County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM Merced Merced County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 9:45 AM National City South County Regional Education Center Wednesday, December 10 at 9:00 AM Ontario HMC Architects Office Wednesday, December 10 at 9:00 AM Pleasant Hill Contra Costa County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM Redding Shasta County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM  Redwood City San Mateo County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 9:30 AM - 12:45 PM

Sacramento Sacramento County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM San Bernardino San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office Wednesday, December 10 at 12:00 PM San Diego San Diego County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 9:00 AM San Francisco City College of San Francisco Wednesday, December 10 at 9:30am - 11:45am San Jose FIRST 5 Santa Clara County Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM San Marcos North County Regional Technology Center Wednesday, December 10 at 9:00 AM Stockton San Joaquin County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM Ukiah Mendocino County Office of Education Wednesday, December 10 at 10:00 AM

 

---

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about the Pre-K Now satellite conference.
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If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Preschool California Updates.

1.3 MILLION CALIFORNIA KIDS LACK HEALTH INSURANCE

SacBee CapitolAlert: California by the Numbers | Posted by Dan Walters

November 25, 2008 -- The nation has 8.6 million children who lack public or private health insurance and 1.3 million of them are in California, Families USA, a Washington-based advocate for expanded health access, says in a report based on new census data.

California, the nation's most populous state, is just behind Texas in the numbered of medically uninsured children, Families USA says, and at 12.5 percent has the nation's 12th highest rate. Texas is No. 1 at 20.5 percent.

Families USA, confirming previous reports, says that 88.2 percent of uninsured children come from families with at least one working adult. Families without earned income usually qualify for one of the public medical plans such as Medi-Cal. It's been estimated that more than 6 million of the state's 38 million residents lack health insurance.

Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried and failed to gain legislative approval of a plan to cover virtually all of the state's uninsured residents.

 

The full Families USA report is available here.

Phoebe Smolin, a senior at Hamilton High School, writes A LETTER TO THE COLLEGE BOARD

from the LATimes Homeroom Blog

November 25, 2008

Dear College Board,

It’s over. My long-running battle with you and the numbers you seek to define me by is finished. As my final act of surrender, I seek to prove, once and for all, that your tests say nothing about me or any creative student who submits to them.

First of all, to assuage my terrible relationship with math, every day for one month last year I went to my math teacher at six o’clock in the morning to mend it. I go to one of the top and most intense magnet schools in Los Angeles, take challenging classes, and am in the top 10% of my class. I read because I love to read, not because I’m forced to. I respect my teachers and I am absolutely addicted to learning. I am in multiple clubs and hold several leadership positions. I voluntarily wake up early and stay out late on Saturdays to protest for equal rights. I do community service around my city and around the world. I’m highly curious about everything. I play three instruments and write my own music. I have amazing friends from multitudes of cultural backgrounds and I am simply and enthusiastically passionate about living — qualities that don’t amount to a College Board number.

High school trains us to find our own voices, to figure out in our own innovative ways how to make a difference. Colleges advertise themselves as wanting to accept individuals willing to challenge themselves and be involved in their communities. How, then, does it make sense to judge us each by the same exact test?

College Board, I have taken your SAT twice, both times receiving the same score. The first time, I spent a fortune for a tutor, the second, I didn’t. Now, my results on that test can very possibly negate my exceedingly hard work and great grades I’ve earned over the last four years. They have the possibility of diminishing evidence of the radiating passion I have for learning and living. My results on this money-hungry test will tell the institutions I want to attend that I am not good enough; that I am not “prepared for college,” as you so kindly script in your introduction to the test, even though I am positive I will do just as well or even better than anyone who is paired with a higher set of numbers than mine, and my teachers would agree.

I understand that money is an issue to you. But I feel that it’s becoming the sole reason you administer this test. Today, for example, I wrote the College Board to ask a question about one of my Subject Test scores. In response, I was called a “customer” — not a student, not a person, but a customer. If that is not enough evidence for the nature of this test, then I don’t know what is.

Your numbers do not reveal a person who wants every opportunity to learn, to contribute and to change the world. While all other aspects of my life assure me of my abilities, your test negates them. For $45, you invalidate my commitment of hard work and you do the same for millions of high school students around the world who contribute great things but are not wired to do well on your tests. So, College Board, I hope that you hear me and those I speak for. Rather than treat us as customers who fill your coffers, regard us as the inspired students you claim to cultivate.
Thank you for listening and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,
Phoebe Smolin

 

• Phoebe Smolin, a senior at Hamilton High School, is a mixture of dedicated student and laid-back human being. When in school, she is active in all of her classes as well as involved in various clubs including Youth Task Force and Nevians. She also writes for Hamilton’s literary journal. Outside of school, she takes part in political protests, plays various instruments, takes pictures, travels, and, of course, writes for The Homeroom.

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PARENTS PROTEST OVER LACK OF SCHOOL LIBRARY

Parents Protest Over Lack of School Library

KNBC-TV.com | Updated 12:48 PM PST, Mon, Nov 24, 2008

Getty Images

Castelar Elementary in Los Angeles has been without a library since 2002, forcing students to walk to the nearest public library every time they need to use one.

SEE VIDEO HERE

In the 1970s, the school's small library and auditorium were combined to create a larger Los Angeles City Public Library. It served both the community and the school well until 2002. That's when the public library was moved to a brand new facility on the corner of Hill and Ord streets in L.A.'s Chinatown.

The district was supposed to replace the school's library, but the project has been tied up in the design phase, and now the budget has doubled. Parents have been organizing a protest for the next LAUSD Board meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The district heard about the planned protest and scheduled a last-minute meeting at the school on Friday, Nov. 21. Parents who are not satisfied planned to attend the Nov. 25 school board meeting.

COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER OUSTED + LOS ANGELES COUNTY JUVENILE PROBATION CAMPS MAY TRY CHARTER SCHOOLS

 

STOP PRESS: The following email is from former LA County Board of Education Member Sophia Waugh, who was presumably ousted last Tuesday as part of what appears to be the attempted charter takeover of County Juvenile Court Schools.

November 24th, 2008

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This letter is sent with sad news and deep disappointment that my 14 ½ years on the L.A County Board of Education came to an abrupt end by action taken in closed session last Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

This action was brought forward by Supervisor Antonovich (who appointed me).

Unfortunately, Supervisor Antonovich never gave me the opportunity to speak with him about his concerns despite my requests to do so or to the Board of Supervisors. Needless to say, I felt this was unfair, shocking and very hurtful after serving as his appointee for 14 ½ years.

Whatever the issues were I wanted to resolve them with him personally.

There are few things that I particularly want my friends and colleagues to know how proud I am for the things I have accomplished the past 14 1/2 years.

First, I have served on state-wide leadership positions with California County Boards of Education(CCBE)and California School Boards Association(CSBA). I have effectively networked linking LACOE with school district board members.

My tireless efforts encouraging collaboration between parents, principals, administration and probation has been successful. I have made myself available to all our LACOE staff, understanding our resources and programs, attended many meetings, visiting our community schools, special education schools, camps and halls often as possible.

I am proud of the role I played in the chartering of PTA models in our community schools, camps and halls.

We used the most successful avenue to connect our parents back to their children education and school.

My commitment to our Head Start parents has been to empower them to be a voice for their children, to ensure a strong Head Start program and to a successful transition for their children into K-12 education. I have encouraged Head Start parents to further their education so they can be self-sufficient and a model for their children.

Most important of all, I am thankful having had the opportunity to work with each of you. As two of my colleagues said to me; “as one door closes, another is waiting for me to open”. I am sure there are other greater challenges awaiting me and I look at this as another opportunity to serve.

My tenure on the LACOE Board has been exemplary and gratifying.

To each and everyone, thank you so much for your friendship, you will always be remembered.

 

 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY JUVENILE PROBATION CAMPS MAY TRY CHARTER SCHOOLS

Dissatisfied with the students' performance, county supervisors vote to create three charters within the system. Camp teachers question whether the shift would bring improvement in students' skills.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske | LA Times Staff Writer

November 24, 2008  - Students held at Camp Joseph Scott, one of 19 juvenile probation camps in Los Angeles County, are some of the toughest to teach.
Locked in classrooms behind 12-foot fences topped with razor wire, many of the girls sport tattoos with the emblems of some of the region's most infamous gangs. Although most are high-school students, on average they read at a fourth-grade level and have fifth-grade math skills.

Photos: Camp school

 

Karen Berns has taught math there for 15 years. Over time, she learned to be vigilant. At the end of each class, Berns collects the girls' pencils. Otherwise, they might use them as weapons.

"I got my experience from years of teaching with these kids," said Berns, 55, who is known as "Granny" to her students. "It takes a long time to get that."

Now, the veteran teacher's future at the camp is uncertain. Earlier this month, Los Angeles County supervisors -- dissatisfied with teacher performance at the camps -- voted to create charter schools at Camp Scott, which houses about 100 girls, and nearby Camp Kenyon Scudder, which houses about 60.

Supervisors also approved a charter for boys, possibly at Camp Glenn Rockey in San Dimas, which houses about 80.

"All of these kids who are in camp now get the same model of education: the cookie-cutter model," Robert Taylor, Los Angeles County probation chief, told supervisors when he presented them with a 35-point plan to improve education at the camps last month.

But there are many unanswered questions -- including how much the charters will cost to operate and how they will be authorized and staffed. Among the options under consideration for operating the charters: Green Dot, a private company that runs several charters in Los Angeles, and Bonita Unified School District in San Dimas.

The charters would be the first in the county camp system. Education at the camps is supervised by the county Board of Education and managed by the state-funded Los Angeles County Office of Education. The office employs about 240 teachers, who average about 19 years of experience, according to state records.

Many teachers at the camps oppose the change, arguing that the switch to charters is an excuse for the county to hire cheaper, less-experienced, nonunion staff.

"I am proud of the instruction provided," said Darline P. Robles, superintendent of the county education office. "At the heart of these programs is a corps of teachers who are dedicated to making a difference with an incredibly challenging group of students in perhaps the most difficult of learning environments."

By law, school boards, not county governments, are responsible for authorizing charters. Once a charter is designed, including a proposed budget and staff, by law the board is required to get the signatures of at least half the number of teachers needed to staff the charter. If not enough teachers sign on, the board or county could petition the state for a waiver to start the charter, a move the county probation chief and supervisors are already exploring.

Supervisor Don Knabe, who backs bringing charter schools to the camps, says administrators and teachers with the county education office have been underperforming for years and need to be challenged.

"You need to have multiple educational opportunities for these kids," Knabe said.

On state tests, students scored below those in county-run probation schools in nearby counties. Last year, 21% passed a state high school exit exam in math, compared with 35% in Riverside County and 25% in San Bernardino County. In English exit exams last year, 24% passed, compared with 34% in Riverside and 28% in San Bernardino.

The most recent state assessment of the L.A. County-run schools, conducted in 2006-07, showed students completed about 5.2 credits a month, which is considered less than sufficient.

The push to improve education in the camps comes as the county juvenile detention system also faces increased pressure by federal Justice Department officials to improve safety. A scathing report on safety conditions by federal investigators, and a threat by the Justice Department to sue if the county failed to act, spurred the Board of Supervisors last week to announce plans to hire a team of independent monitors for the camps.

A committee made up of probation and county education office officials is reviewing charter plans this month, starting with the girls school, which could open within six months, Taylor said. The boys charter is not expected to open for a year, he said. Taylor is to report back to the board with a more detailed plan by Dec. 14.

Although many charter schools teach at-risk and violent youths, few instruct youths who are in detention, according to the California Charter Schools Assn. One that does is Five Keys Charter School, which the San Francisco Sheriff's Department started six years ago. The school says students enrolled there for at least a month increase academic levels by about two grades.

Some veteran teachers at Los Angeles probation camps say that if a charter school can demonstrate results, they would be willing to make the shift. But they question whether that would happen.

"We're dealing with a whole new breed of kids. These are gang kids. Tough kids," said Roger Gitlin, a union representative at Camp Scudder who has taught probationers for 18 years and opposes the charters. "Many of them have never even gone to school, kids who are born into a tough situation, and we are supposed to provide some sort of miracle formula."

Still, Gitlin said: "I understand Mr. Knabe's frustration. He wants results."

 

●●smf’s 2¢: embarrassingly. the overwhelming majority of LA County court school students are from LAUSD. 4LAKids is confused by what authority the Board of Supervisors creates these charter schools – that authority resides in the county and state Boards of Education exclusively. This action seems to violate the same constitutional provision violated in LAUSD v. Villaraigosa over AB1381 [STATE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE IX, SECTIONS 5, 6 AND 8 – dealing with the separation of municipal government from school governance.]   

And who is the charter petitioner?  The parents of the “new” charter schools? …or the teachers at the existing schools?

MAYOR’S PARTNERSHIP SCHOOL CANCELS DUAL-IMMERSION LANGUAGE PROGRAM AT WATTS SCHOOL

Parents and teachers protest Ritter Elementary elimination of dual-language program

 

Published on United Teachers Los Angeles(http://www.utla.net)

 

November 24, 2008 - Teachers and parents from Ritter Elementary School will demonstrate outside the school on Tuesday November 25 at 1:30 p.m., to protest the elimination of their Dual Language Program.

For the last 4 years Ritter has participated in a Dual Language Program in which Spanish speaking and English speaking children learn together being taught all of their subjects in both languages. National studies have revealed that children who participate in dual language program substantially outscore their fellow students on state tests.

Ritter Elementary is one of the 10 schools in the mayor's partnership. One of the promises of the Partnership was a commitment to collaborating with parents and teachers in organizing the schools' curriculum and governance. Parents complain that this promise was not kept when the program was suspended without notification of parents.

Questions have arisen about the legality of the program cancellation. Under California state law, when the parents of 20 children at a single grade level request an "alternate program" the school must provide it. UTLA believes that parents may have been denied their right to request a waiver. The school is also required to annually notify the parents about their right to choose a program.

"Dual language programs are invaluable in this global economy," stated A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "Our concern is for the community and the parents, who want a dual language program and have been denied their legal rights. UTLA believes that our job is to stand up for the students."

Over 30 schools in LAUSD currently have dual language programs. Other communities are starting new dual language programs. UTLA is committed to standing up for the needs of children, teachers and the community.

What: Protest to reinstate dual language program at Ritter Elementary
When: Tuesday, November 25, 1:30 p.m.
Where: Ritter Elementary 11108 Watts Avenue L.A., 90059

The news that didn’t fit from Nov 23th

Cortines & Reilly explain it all for you: SPECIAL TELEVISED INFORMATIONAL MEETING ON THE LAUSD BUDGET CRISIS

Monday, November 24th @ 3:30 PM on KLCS | Channel 58

check your cable listings

SUPERINTENDENT DAVID BREWER’S REPORT CARD: It’s The L.A. Times That Fails To Make The Grade

November 18, 2008 - The Los Angeles Times newspaper has rarely offered a fair and balanced portrayal of the black community. It usually was (is) a strategic player in the witch hunt to depose black leaders, no matter who they were (are). Whether it was former Lt Govenor Mervyn Dymally, the late Mayor Tom Bradley, former Police Chief, Willie Williams or now their latest target, Los Angeles Unified School District, David Brewer, you could rarely ever expect to read anything positive about local black leadership in the L.A. Times.

CALIFORNIA IS CUTTING EDUCATION FUNDING AT ITS OWN PERIL

The costs to the state in the long run will be much greater than the expense of supporting our schools now.

With California's budget now facing an $11-billion shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed billions of dollars in spending cuts, most of them aimed at the state's already beleaguered schools, colleges and universities.

L.A. UNIFIED CONSIDERS STARK MIDYEAR BUDGET CUTS

The district almost certainly will have to reopen this year's budget and find about $200 million to $400 million to meet an anticipated shortfall. Larger class sizes, layoffs and early retirement are increasingly possible.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has developed stark new plans including larger class sizes, layoffs and early retirement incentives to deal with a worsening state budget situation.

District officials -- already in the process of identifying $400 million in cuts for next year -- almost certainly will have to reopen this year's budget and find about $200 million to $400 million to meet an anticipated shortfall. The budget-cutting is becoming a painfully familiar routine: Officials had to eliminate 680 jobs just to balance the books last June.

2 from The Times: DO THE MATH + GIVE SCHOOLS LEEWAY

L.A. UNIFIED NEEDS TO DO THE MATH

Facing millions in cuts, the school board has to become financially prudent and focus on its core mission. Now that the Los Angeles Unified School District has more construction money than it knows what to do with, all it needs is enough money to operate the schools it already has.

GIVE SCHOOLS LEEWAY ON USING FUNDS

If state and federal authorities can't give California schools extra money, they might look at providing flexibility in letting schools allocate what they do get.

For California's schools, the question of the state budget shortfall comes down to this: Will they have an utterly unthinkable year, or just a horrible year? Even if the Legislature approves new taxes or other ways to raise revenue, the current projection is that $2.5 billion will be cut immediately from education.

The prospect of a sudden drop in funding has school officials so flummoxed that many are engaged in magical thinking, insisting that extra revenue must be found, somehow, somewhere. These days are short on fairy dust, though. The federal government, the most likely source of financial aid, is besieged with bailout requests.

Cortines & Reilly explain it all for you: SPECIAL TELEVISED INFORMATIONAL MEETING ON THE LAUSD BUDGET CRISIS

Monday, November 24th @ 3:30 PM on KLCS | Channel 58

check your cable listings

SUPERINTENDENT DAVID BREWER’S REPORT CARD: It’s The L.A. Times That Fails To Make The Grade

By Anthony Asadullah Samad | EURweb.com

November 18, 2008 - The Los Angeles Times newspaper has rarely offered a fair and balanced portrayal of the black community. It usually was (is) a strategic player in the witch hunt to depose black leaders, no matter who they were (are). Whether it was former Lt Govenor Mervyn Dymally, the late Mayor Tom Bradley, former Police Chief, Willie Williams or now their latest target, Los Angeles Unified School District, David Brewer, you could rarely ever expect to read anything positive about local black leadership in the L.A. Times. Now being run from Chicago, the L.A. Times has no clue on what is going on in the black community. Truth be told, they never really did—save for a few well respected journalists they had that actually lived in the community and had to jump up and down on their editors’ desks to get anything newsworthy (and positive) in the paper. Okay, so we understand what the L.A. Times is and what it represents. However, the Times rabid attacks on Superintendent Brewer took an unjustified turn when the paper called for his resignation last week (in a November 13th editorial). Now, I’ve called the Times “propaganda press” in the past, but this latest dig against Brewer is over the top.

      First and foremost, you have to ask, who’s tugging the Times chain on this?

Villaraigosa (he better not be—he’s running for re-election in 2009 and wouldn’t want Brewer, who’s only halfway through his contract, to represent to him what Bernie Parks’ contract non-renewal represented to Jim Hahn’s re-election prospects)? UTLA? The LAUSD Board? None of whom have brought the kind of change to the district in the last two years that Brewer has. All of the above have continued to either point out problems or be part of the problem. Their solutions have been part and parcel conjecture at Brewer expense. The Times editorial has to be more about politics than it is about Brewer’s performance, which has been commendable considering the arrays of problems he walked into. On it’s face, the timing of the Times editorial doesn’t pass the smell test. In fact, it down right stinks when you lift it up to try to find out what’s beneath it.

      Brewer, in the meantime, have deflected the complaints of his detractors—some of whom didn’t want him there in the first place—like water down a duck’s back, while working the air, the ground and the sea to remedy the district’s problems. And he’s making progress. What more can he be asked to do, that he hasn’t already done, with a district as large, cumbersome and dysfunctional as LAUSD? Did I say dysfunctional??? I mean to say, deca-dysfunctional. Ten times as dysfunctional as any school district you can point to in the nation. He spent most of his first year cleaning up the doo-doo of his predecessor while he was handcuffed to what most consider a co-superintendent. And he’s still advanced the district. Brewer’s accomplishments are no small feats. First, he landed in the midst of a political school board take-over and survived. He was forced to manage two crises, neither of his own violation—the payroll system and the lead in the water crisis. That was the reason for his “slow start”. If Barack Obama wants to know what its like to fight multiple wars on multiple fronts, have him call Dave. He gave the lowest performing schools the highest priority netting the highest academic gains in recent years (higher than the schools the Mayor is over), created a statewide coalition of superintendents to restore much needed programs in the poorest schools, and got a critical school bond passed—the bond in U.S. history with 69% of the vote, despite two major newspapers endorsing against it and a bad economy. The Times endorsed against and did everything in it’s power, editorially, to defeat the bond. The voters rejected the Times and sided with Brewer to create 50,000-80,000 jobs over 10 years. Brewer beat the Times so now they want to orchestrate his ouster by blaming him when there is plenty blame to go around for others.

      The district projected financial shortfall, the core of the Times apprehension, is tied to the state’s budget shortfall and has nothing to do with Brewer. When the state bleeds, local government bleeds and the district has been bleeding for a while. The test to fiscally turn around the district will take more than the length of Brewer’s contract, but the Times is trying to fail Brewer before he can finish the test. He’s passed every other test in district to date. The test scores are up. The bond was passed. The schools are being built. Bad teachers are being replaced. Violence in the schools is down. In the black community, Brewer is passing the test with flying colors and everybody I talk to is willing to let him finish taking the test. Any anybody who has half a brain knows that nobody can fix this level of dysfunction, one that was 30 years in the making, in four years—much less two. The Times need to stop their biased foolishness.

      Obviously, Brewer has done a better job at adjusting to the L.A. landscape than the Los Angeles Times new owners have. The Times editorial was wrongheaded and misguided. With the way they continue to endorse the wrong choices in the black community (No on Measure Q, Bernard Parks for Supervisor), whatever the Times likes, we don’t (except Obama), and whatever the Times dislikes, we definitely need to take a longer look at. David Brewer included. 

Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and author of the new book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com

CALIFORNIA IS CUTTING EDUCATION FUNDING AT ITS OWN PERIL

The costs to the state in the long run will be much greater than the expense of supporting our schools now.

By Saree Makdisi | Opinion in The LA Times

November 17, 2008 -- With California's budget now facing an $11-billion shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed billions of dollars in spending cuts, most of them aimed at the state's already beleaguered schools, colleges and universities.

The governor's proposal is now on the table of the special legislative session that he called to address the budget crisis, so this is the time to draw a line to defend our public education system, before any further damage is added to the toll already taken by years of budget cuts on the educational -- and hence life -- prospects of a whole generation of Californian students.

Most of the prospective cuts -- more than $2 billion -- would be to California's public elementary, middle and high schools, on top of the $3-billion cut from K-12 funding in the current budget.

According to the Census Bureau, California is already spending far less than the national average for each of its students, and about half what states such as New York and New Jersey and even the District of Columbia spend per student.

There is nothing left to pare. "From Siskiyou County to San Diego, districts have spent reserves, reduced staff, eliminated transportation or increased class sizes over the past difficult year," warned Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction. "The governor's proposed additional $2 billion in cuts to K-12 education would not only create catastrophic disruption in our schools and harm to our students in the middle of the school year, they would damage our future economy."

The governor is also proposing to slash $330 million from community college budgets, $66 million from the Cal State system and $66 million from the University of California -- all, again, on top of cuts that have already been made. In schools and colleges alike, spending cuts have immediate implications for the classroom (fewer instructors, fewer classes, more students per instructor, etc.).

But universities don't just teach, they produce knowledge. In fact, what makes a great university great is that its students are taught by those engaged in state-of-the-art research. And cuts in spending on research can far outlast the transitory budget crises that produced them. A library that is forced to stop buying books may never recover, even if its budget is eventually restored. A lab that can't purchase needed equipment will fall behind. Faculty members whose research stalls can lose touch with their fields and spend years playing catch-up. Many will leave, and schools that develop reputations as underfunded second- and third-tier institutions will find it difficult to replace them. Merely restoring a budget sometime in the future will not instantly undo those kinds of losses.

We live in a global-knowledge economy in which California developed a leading role in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s precisely because of the strength of its education system. Cal State and UC produced many of the highly skilled professionals working in science, computing, gaming, animation, writing and film production that together drive the state's economy. To under-fund our educational system is to jeopardize our position in the global economy.

The problem is not simply a lack of money. We also have some of our spending priorities back to front. Even before the budget cuts, the state planned to spend $5,900 a student in California's higher-education system this year (including community college students) but almost 10 times that amount ($58,000) per inmate in our bloated prison system, which absorbs as much money from the state budget as Cal State and UC combined.

Not only can we afford to spend more on education, but we Californians have repeatedly shown our willingness to tax ourselves for public projects we believe in: Witness the recent votes in favor of Proposition 1A and Measure R to raise transportation funds, and the passage of all 23 school bond measures on the L.A. County ballot, including the $7-billion Measure Q.

No one likes to pay higher taxes, of course, especially in difficult economic circumstances. And the current crisis will force us to make some tough choices. But if we choose not to collectively finance the state's education budget at the required levels, more of a burden will fall on individual students and their families, many of whom simply won't be able to afford it. Cal State and UC both warn of fee increases next year of up to 10% if state cuts go through, and they may also have to deny admission to thousands of qualified students. Community colleges may have to turn away more than 250,000 current students.

Not paying for the education system that made California an economic powerhouse is not an option: We can pay now, or we can pay much more later in lost opportunities carrying dollar price tags just as real as those of tax increases, not to mention the social cost of having a higher-education system beyond the reach of more and more Californians.

California has a $2-trillion economy, the eighth-largest in the world, ahead of Canada, Russia, India and Brazil, among others. Not only can we afford to offer our children a first-rate public education from kindergarten through college, but we are cheating them, and ourselves, if we don't.

But our ability to raise the necessary revenue is currently being blocked by conservatives in the state Legislature who have categorically refused to countenance new taxes -- and hence left the state no option but to cut. By starving our educational system of the funds it needs, they have chosen to protect the narrow interests of those who can afford to send their kids to private schools and universities, rather than the much broader public that voted them into office in the first place. That's a choice they may come to regret at election time.

• Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA.

L.A. UNIFIED CONSIDERS STARK MIDYEAR BUDGET CUTS

The district almost certainly will have to reopen this year's budget and find about $200 million to $400 million to meet an anticipated shortfall. Larger class sizes, layoffs and early retirement are increasingly possible.

By Jason Song and Howard Blume From the Los Angeles Times

November 17, 2008 -- The Los Angeles Unified School District has developed stark new plans including larger class sizes, layoffs and early retirement incentives to deal with a worsening state budget situation.

District officials -- already in the process of identifying $400 million in cuts for next year -- almost certainly will have to reopen this year's budget and find about $200 million to $400 million to meet an anticipated shortfall. The budget-cutting is becoming a painfully familiar routine: Officials had to eliminate 680 jobs just to balance the books last June.

"It was hard enough to do that, so doing it again, in the middle of the school year" could be chaotic, said Megan Reilly, the district's chief financial officer.

District finances have been shaky virtually from the moment the Board of Education approved a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. At the time, officials avoided the teacher layoffs that befell other state school systems, but officials also made overly optimistic assumptions.

The budget included four unpaid furlough days for employees -- to shave off about $55 million -- without negotiating the furloughs with employee unions. Officials hoped for an improved state budget situation that would render the furloughs unnecessary. Instead the opposite has happened. A worsening economy could result in midyear cuts to the district's $8.6-billion budget, even under a proposal -- backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- that would include new taxes.

Statewide, the governor has called for $2.5 billion in midyear cuts to schools; the impact would be doubled, in effect, because the school year would be half over before the cuts could be put in place.

"I have not talked to one superintendent yet who has enough wiggle room to come up with that kind of cut," said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn. "I was on the phone with one superintendent who doesn't know how she would do this without closing schools in May rather than June. I've heard others talk about closing on Fridays. This would constitute the first year-to-year reduction in dollars for schools in California since the Great Depression."

In Los Angeles, teachers union officials have asserted that they would not accept furlough days. They heard encouraging words on that score from Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who said he did not favor them either. Cortines held briefings for employees last week to discuss proposed cuts and answer questions.

"I feel the district made a mistake balancing a budget on the backs of employees," he told employees during one such meeting at district headquarters.

But avoiding furloughs would necessitate cuts elsewhere, Cortines added.

Cortines said he planned steep reductions at the district offices on Beaudry Avenue and other non-school sites, including asking for cuts at the eight regional offices in the 700,000-student school system. These "mini-districts," which are now allocated $37 million, could see their budgets reduced 10% midyear and by half next year.

Cortines' vow to spare schools as much as possible won praise from A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers' union.

"The opportunity to finally destroy this bureaucracy in a meaningful, permanent way is here," said Duffy, repeating his mantra about waste in the central administration.

Cortines also said he would virtually stop using outside contractors except when unavoidable, as in safety matters and food services. He also raised the possibility of offering early retirement plans to employees and ending the practice of providing lifetime benefits to retirees. He suggested that, for new employees, the goal could be to provide benefits until workers qualified for Medicare, which is federally funded.

One proposal would be immediately evident to parents and students: a plan to boost class size to 25 students from the current 20 in kindergarten through third grade. This change would require permission from the state to avoid a financial penalty. But Cortines also wants to lower class size in fourth and fifth grades from 30 to 25, which he cited as evidence that he does not intend to give up on reforms.

Duffy said the union would not consent to increasing class sizes unless the district agreed to "a whole boatload" of concessions, including giving adult education teachers tenure and the union more of a say in ongoing teacher training.

The district and teachers remain at loggerheads over salaries for last year and this year. District officials have penciled in no raises at all, a position the union leadership has threatened to strike over.

Cortines said he hoped to have his proposal to the Board of Education before the winter holidays.

"It's an awesome task we have to do to remain solvent," Cortines said.

Darkness to Light: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION TRAINING FOR PARENTS

Dear Parents and School Community members:

We have heard way too much about child abuse at LAUSD recently – We have heard about violations and we have heard about policy.

There can be only one policy: Zero Tolerance. Child Sexual Abuse can be and must be Prevented!

We cannot afford to be complacent. This is unsettling material; this is powerful and empowering stuff.

If you only go to one District sponsored training this year this one should be the one!

Onward! – smf

Be Prepared – More Info

You can download Darkness to Light's 7 Steps to Protecting our Children by right-clicking on the 7 STEPS link above and choosing "Save Target As". You will need the free software Adobe Acrobat to view the file.

Los Angeles Unified School District

Parent Community Services Branch

Registration Form

Parents and Community

The Parent Community Services Branch, is pleased to present:

The Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training

The Parent Collaborative will sponsor the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training. The training is an effort to raise parent awareness of child sexual abuse and its prevention, as well as provide information to parents and the community.

Date: Saturday, November 22, 2008

Time: 8:30 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Location: Edward R. Roybal Learning Center [map]

1200 W. Colton Street

Los Angeles, CA 90026

Important: Adults only! Sorry, no children.

Send via school mail or fax to:

Parent Community Services Branch

(213) 626-4644

SEATS ARE LIMITED TO THE FIRST 400 PARTICIPANTS

Continental breakfast, lunch, and translation will be provided. Parking will be validated.

This is your confirmation. Please call (213) 217-5272 if you cannot attend.

_______________________________________________

No children! Please return your registration form early.

The registration deadline is Monday, November 17, 2008

Local District _____ School: _________________________________________

Name: _______________________________________________________________________

Address: _____________________________________________________________________

City/Zip: ___________________________________

Telephone: _______________________

Approved: Christopher Downing, Administrator

2 from The Times: DO THE MATH + GIVE SCHOOLS LEEWAY

 

L.A. Unified needs to do the math

Facing millions in cuts, the school board has to become financially prudent and focus on its core mission.

 

Editorial from the Los Angeles Times

November 16, 2008 -- Now that the Los Angeles Unified School District has more construction money than it knows what to do with, all it needs is enough money to operate the schools it already has.

Don't blame local school leaders for the catastrophic condition of the state budget. If the Legislature approves the package of new taxes sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, L.A. Unified alone will still have to cut more than $200 million in the middle of this school year. Without the new taxes, the figure doubles, and further cuts are in store next year.

But the school board must own up to its role in the district's current troubles. It has repeatedly favored the politically flashy over the fiscally prudent. A prime example is the $7-billion school renovation bond that voters approved Nov. 4. The district has no plans for nearly $3 billion of that money; it placed the bloated measure on the ballot because polls indicated that it could get more, and it did, with close to 70% of the vote.

The district can use the new money only for construction and repair, though, while it desperately needs revenue for teachers and textbooks. Had the board split the measure -- with a bond large enough to cover anticipated construction needs, plus a parcel tax to pay for actual education -- L.A.'s schools might be sitting pretty now.

Instead, Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines says that some existing schools might have to be closed even as the district is in the midst of an expansive building program. He's also looking at combining small schools into larger ones that can share principals, support staff and security. The district imprudently hired more staff each year, he said, even as enrollment, its main source of revenue, declined. While some other school districts have set aside enough reserves to save them from the most dire cuts, L.A. Unified has spent money it didn't have.

To their credit, board members had student achievement and welfare in mind when they embarked on offering more services to impoverished children and opening small schools that create a more personalized feel on campus. But they have been too quick to forge full steam ahead on new educational trends without fully assessing them, as well as making sure there's enough money to carry them out. This comes on top of simple, inexcusable waste, such as the district's underenrolled preschools, with too few children to bring in maximum state revenue as families languish on waiting lists for preschool spots.

We hope, along with educators, that schools will be spared from the worst of the state budget cuts. But wishing is no substitute for planning. It's imperative that L.A. Unified learn to use money more judiciously and that it focus on its core mission at a time when it may not be able to afford much else. No one wants to see the district learn the lesson of fiscal responsibility at the expense of students and teachers.

 

 

Give schools leeway on using funds

If state and federal authorities can't give California schools extra money, they might look at providing flexibility in letting schools allocate what they do get.

Editorial from the Los Angeles Times

November 16, 2008 - For California's schools, the question of the state budget shortfall comes down to this: Will they have an utterly unthinkable year, or just a horrible year? Even if the Legislature approves new taxes or other ways to raise revenue, the current projection is that $2.5 billion will be cut immediately from education.

The prospect of a sudden drop in funding has school officials so flummoxed that many are engaged in magical thinking, insisting that extra revenue must be found, somehow, somewhere. These days are short on fairy dust, though. The federal government, the most likely source of financial aid, is besieged with bailout requests.

If state and federal authorities cannot give California schools extra money, they might look at providing extra flexibility. To start, the U.S. Education Department should put an emergency moratorium on the sanctions prescribed by the No Child Left Behind Act. As it stands, schools that have fallen short of their testing targets must spend a chunk of their federal Title I funds on tutors and transporting students to other schools. There will be no improving test scores if schools can't afford basics; the common-sense move is to free this money for classroom use, at least until this crisis passes.

At the state level, large sums of education funding are tied up in a knot of rules about how money can and cannot be used, even when those rules don't always make sense for individual school districts.

School superintendents have been asking for years for leeway on the programthat limits class sizes to 20 students in kindergarten through third grade. The state hasn't paid the full costs of this limit in years, and education scholars are still arguing its usefulness in boosting achievement. Popular as the smaller classes have proved with parents and teachers (at least the primary-grade teachers), they have become an expensive burden that doesn’t always make pedagogical sense. Third-graders go from a class of perhaps 18 students to a fourth-grade class that often has 33 or more, and those disparities are likely to grow if schools have to lay off teachers.

Schools don't have to participate in the program -- as long as they're willing to face a mob of snarling parents -- but then they get none of the associated funding. It makes better sense to continue funding the smaller classes, but allow schools to raise the limit to 24 or 25 students.

The Legislature also should free up the sizable sums tied to other so-called categorical programs -- money that can be used only on arts and music education, say, or gifted students. Each program has worth, and each has a dedicated lobby that will shout doomsday if the money isn't preserved for its cause. But these discussions should take place at the local level, where school administrators, teachers and parents can determine the priorities that work best for their children in this bad year.

The news that didn't fit from Nov 16th

SUPT. BREWER’S FAILINGS

Editorial from the Los Angeles Times: L.A. Unified needs a leader who can guide the school district through tough times. Brewer isn't the one.

smf doesn't agree, see below.

CALIFORNIA BUDGET ANALYST RECOMMENDS RAISING VEHICLE LICENSE FEE

Mac Taylor forecasts that the state will need to close a $27.8-billion budget gap in the next 20 months. He calls for a smaller sales tax increase than Gov. Schwarzenegger has suggested.

FORGING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR LAUSD: NEW PROGRAMS, NEW FUNDING

Expanding its role as a leader in the green schools movement, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is not only saving energy, it is creating energy. LAUSD just weeks ago began construction to install one megawatt of renewable solar power at the Pico Rivera General Stores and Food Warehouse, with expected completion before the end of this year. This project is the first in the District’s program to install as much as 50 MW of renewable energy technology, including solar power, at schools and other facilities.

CALIFORNIA'S CAR TAX MAY BE ON THE ROAD AGAIN: THE VEHICLE LICENSE FEE THAT GOT GRAY DAVIS RECALLED AND ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER ELECTED LOOKS LIKE A GOOD IDEA… AGAIN.

An LA  Times editorial points out that the Car Tax/VLF served California well for 60 years. Undoing it has failed the state for six years. Until last year reimplementing it would have actually balanced (or come close to balancing) the budget. It's not enough anymore, but it's got to be on the table. Along with spitting the rolls on Prop 13 …but one sacred cow/third rail/taboo metaphor at a time.

And as Gordon Gecko said  “Greed is Good!”  Imagine how good it can be when driven by panic: Two LA Times articles describe how Wells Fargo Bank and Goldman Sachs – subsidized by the Feds - appear to be enriching themselves and their clients at California's expense

GOLDMAN SACHS URGED BETS AGAINST CALIFORNIA BONDS IT HELPED SELL

The Wall Street titan's activities could have harmed taxpayers, officials say

Goldman, Sachs & Co. urged some of its big clients to place investment bets against California bonds this year despite having collected millions of dollars in fees to help the state sell some of those same bonds.

BUSH'S TAX BREAKS FOR BANKS COULD COST CALIFORNIA $2 BILLION

Wells Fargo is state's chief beneficiary of change that allows banks to write off losses when taking over failing institutions.

Even as California's fiscal woes mount, the state is slated to lose an additional $2 billion in coming years as a result of new tax breaks the Bush administration created for a small group of banks including California-based Wells Fargo.

APOLOGIA (or not!)

Erroneous information published in 4LAKids last week was verbatum from School Board Member Galatzan's E-newsletter - and she is in turn quoting Senior Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines - so the error goes far deeper - and further up the food chain!

2008 ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH CONFERENCE :: Sat, Dec 13, 2008

ICEF PUBLIC SCHOOLS RECEIVES $2.1 MILLION TO SUPPORT EFFORT TO PRODUCE 2,000 COLLEGE GRADS FROM SOUTH L.A.

ICEF Public Schools — a charter school organization that serves the predominately African-American community of South Los Angeles —  today announced that it has been awarded $2.1 million to support its effort to produce 2,000 annual college graduates from its “Education Corridor” in South Los Angeles.

BULLYING+FEAR+LOATHING MEET “FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS” IN EAGLE ROCK

Following are two stories, one of a scientific study of aggression in young men and the other the incomplete story of an unfortunate incident told four times. They are the same story – and before one jumps to the conclusion that’s it’s all football's fault, I refer you to Seventeen Reasons Why Football is Better than High School by Herb Childress.  - smf

BULLY’S BRAIN FEELS JOY IN OTHERS PAIN

Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, researchers said Friday.

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EAGLE ROCK COACH HIT WITH HELMET, ALLEGEDLY BY EX-PLAYER, GAME AT BELMONT CANCELLED

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FOOTBALL GAME CANCELLED AFTER UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS : Eagle Rock High school nixes game with Belmont High

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EAGLE ROCK HIGH SCHOOL COACH IS ASSAULTED: He is struck from behind during practice, allegedly by a disgruntled former player apparently upset about the firing of the previous head coach. Friday's game is canceled.

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ASSAULT ON COACH SHOWS CRACKS AT EAGLE ROCK

SUPT. BREWER’S FAILINGS

L.A. Unified needs a leader who can guide the school district through tough times. Brewer isn't the one.

smf doesn't agree, see below.

Editorial from the Los Angeles Times

November 13, 2008 - The Los Angeles Unified School District is not without accomplishment. It has recently seen student test scores improve, and it is on track with a vast, long-term effort to build enough schools for all of its students. But along with much of California, the district is heading into troubled times -- largely financial -- that threaten its classrooms and students, and that will test its management and educational skills. This is a treacherous moment for a school district that has long operated on the edge of failure, and it demands unimpeachable leadership. In such a moment, the district cannot afford a superintendent who holds the title but isn't up to the job.

Retired Vice Adm. David L. Brewer reaches the second anniversary of his four-year contract today. We liked him from the start -- his intelligence and affability were and are strengths -- though we had reservations about whether he had the necessary political and educational acumen. Time has only exacerbated those concerns.

Brewer started off with good intentions and big plans. Since those early months, however, he has done little to inspire loyalty and much to stoke misgiving. He stumbled in putting together his command team and responded to crises with flow charts and management-speak. He was unable to dissuade the school board from shelling out close to $35 million the district didn't have so that cafeteria workers could receive health benefits, a noble gesture to those workers but one that came at the expense of students. He was either unable or unwilling to talk the board into putting a financial package on the Nov. 4 ballot that would have provided for both construction and instruction. Most of his own ideas -- such as getting rid of bad teachers or creating a mini-district for failing schools -- faded out or were scaled back until they were hardly recognizable.

Eventually, Brewer's accumulated missteps -- and his dismaying lack of prowess -- led to an arrangement in which he ceded much of his authority while preserving the illusion of his leadership, a revision of his job description that avoided roiling the city's ever-tenuous racial politics. Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines was hired in April to oversee academic matters for the district, while Brewer continued to preside over administrative matters such as payroll and construction; Brewer also acts as a public figurehead and attends the protracted board meetings. This is classic Los Angeles politics: Administrative and racial comity is achieved by paying two superintendent-level salaries for one complete superintendent-level package. It also typifies all that is wrong with L.A. Unified. The district protects administrators who fail rather than students whose futures depend on a solid education.

Brewer does not deserve all the blame for his administration's ineffectiveness. He inherited a highly politicized district and a gutless bureaucracy, both stymied by a teachers union that is effective at defending its membership but too often indifferent to the needs of students. The board majority that hired Brewer acted too hastily to bring him aboard, eager to close the deal before Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa could gain more control over the district; the newly elected board majority that followed clearly gave its allegiance to the mayor, not the new superintendent.

For his part, Brewer was overconfident about his ability to navigate the political shoals that lay ahead. Shortly after starting his job, he was confronted with an enormous payroll snafu, as a new computer system put in place by his predecessor repeatedly spat out inaccurate checks -- for months, some teachers were overpaid, some paid not at all. Though Brewer tackled the problem competently, he also compounded it, first by trying to blame district employees for the mess and then by hiring expensive and ineffectual public relations consultants to spin a new image for the district.

Today, L.A. Unified confronts a budget shortfall of at least $200 million. It is faced with the possibility of closing schools and laying off staff. There is talk of curtailing elective courses and preschool offerings. Students stand to suffer, as do teachers. Supt. Brewer, meanwhile, continues to receive $300,000 a year plus hefty perks.

Halfway through his contract, it's no longer time to voice hopes or to prod Brewer toward action. In the interests of the students he is charged with educating, Brewer and the board should acknowledge that he isn't a good fit for the job of superintendent. They should chart a graceful course for his departure and embark on it sooner rather than later.

 

●●smf’s 2¢: At this risk of appearing to (gasp!) defend the status quo I’m going to respectfully dissent from The Times position on this one – but I hope we all rally 'round their editorial board’s previous pronouncement that California needs to re-implement the Vehicle License Fee!

Superintendent Brewer and Senior Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines have actually created a very interesting power dynamic in the “David & Ray Show”; the truth is that the District needs someone to be Senior Deputy Superintendent —someone has to be number two  …or perhaps in Ray’s case, number 1.1.

And actually both of them, neither being ‘someone else’s man’, do a pretty effective job at keeping city hall and the Board of Education - and those who would put on the power suit and solid tie and assume the myth of The Power Elite - at bay.

The real challenge the district faces is one of economics and lack of political will in (and money from) Sacramento – problems not of Brewer's doing. Overall performance by kids in test scores and API and AYP are improving in LAUSD at a faster rate then the rest of the state – even though we get less and less money every year.

Back in they day when the search was on for A New Superintendent my candidate was Lawrence Summers: former Treasury Secretary, former Harvard President,  former chief economist of the World Bank.  In light of the current economic and credit debacle how kewl would what've been?  Call me Mr. Prescient.  

But Larry is going to be busy on the national stage, so let’s let David and Ray do their thing and may the Times editorial board deal with it’s own demons of declining readership, advertising revenues and an absentee owner who knows much about real estate and little about newspapers.

CALIFORNIA BUDGET ANALYST RECOMMENDS RAISING VEHICLE LICENSE FEE

 

Mac Taylor forecasts that the state will need to close a $27.8-billion budget gap in the next 20 months. He calls for a smaller sales tax increase than Gov. Schwarzenegger has suggested.

LAO REPORT: Webcast: Assessment of Special Session Proposals HTML   |  Summary

LAO REPORT: Overview of the 2008 Special Session Proposals November 10, 2008 HTML  |  PDF   |   Summary “We concur with the administration’s assessment that the state’s struggling economy signals a major reduction in expected revenues. Combined with rising state expenses, we project that the state will need $27.8 billion in budget solutions over the next 20 months. The state’s revenue collapse is so dramatic and the underlying economic factors are so weak that we forecast huge budget shortfalls through 2013‑14 absent corrective action. From 2010‑11 through 2013‑14, we project annual shortfalls that are consistently in the range of $22 billion.”

By Jordan Rau – LA Times

 

November 12, 2008 — Reporting from Sacramento — While offering the grimmest forecast yet of California's finances, the Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal analyst recommended Tuesday that lawmakers pare back Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 1 1/2 -cent sales tax increase and instead hike fees on cars.

In a new report, Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor forecast that the state would need to close a $27.8-billion budget gap during the next 20 months. That projection is more than $3 billion higher than the Schwarzenegger administration has estimated.

"The numbers are just truly awful," Taylor told reporters. "There are no good options left."

The analyst's wider budget gap was influenced by the rapid decline in the state's housing market. He projected that school districts would lose $1.5 billion over the next three years, requiring the state to fill that gap.

The economic downturn also has led to more people on health and social services programs. In addition, firefighting costs are higher than projected.

The governor last week called a special session of the Legislature and proposed deep cuts in services and tax increases to deal with California's collapsing finances.

Though calling the governor's proposal "credible," the analyst said that raising the sales tax would further hurt the economy by discouraging Californians from buying products locally and instead shifting them to Internet purchases that escape the state sales tax.

Schwarzenegger's proposed increase would make California's sales tax, which varies from city to city, the highest in the nation, at an average of about 9.5%, the analyst said.

"That's not something you want to be No. 1 in," he said. Taylor recommended a smaller increase of 1 cent on the dollar.

The analyst favored increasing the annual vehicle license fee, from 0.65% of a car's value to 1%. It is an idea that has traction among Democratic lawmakers, but one that Schwarzenegger has resisted.

His opposition to that fee was a main plank of his 2003 election, and he reduced the fee, then 2%, as one of his first acts in office.

The governor instead has proposed charging people an additional flat fee of $12 more when they register their automobiles each year. That would bring in only about a 10th of the $1.6 billion in revenue that a vehicle license fee increase would net.

The analyst said that without major changes, the state would run shortfalls on the order of $22 billion annually over the next five years even if the economy rebounded.

Taylor offered some variations to the $10.6 billion in cuts to schools, healthcare, welfare and transit that Schwarzenegger has proposed, but he endorsed the governor's view that the severity of the budget gap requires both new revenue and program cuts.

"The magnitude of the problem has now reached such a level that we're not clear how you could do one side or the other," he said.

Shortly after Taylor spoke to reporters, Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks), the ranking Republican on the Assembly budget committee, issued a statement saying, "We strongly disagree with the analyst's call for higher taxes."

Some GOP votes would be needed for the Democrat-led Legislature to pass any tax increase.

Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday urged the federal government to bail out states as well as banks.

"We think that with the state of California about to go over a cliff, we ought to be part of the bailout as well," she said at a news conference. "Can we have $5 billion or $10 billion?"

The analyst said that although California should press for federal assistance, lawmakers should not count on or wait for such relief, which he estimated would probably not be more than $3 billion.

"If the state has any hope of developing a fiscally responsible 2009-10 budget, it must begin acting now," Taylor wrote in his report.

Forging a Sustainable Future for LAUSD: New Programs, New Funding

Samantha Koos | Green Technology Magazine

November 11 - Expanding its role as a leader in the green schools movement, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is not only saving energy, it is creating energy. LAUSD just weeks ago began construction to install one megawatt of renewable solar power at the Pico Rivera General Stores and Food Warehouse, with expected completion before the end of this year. This project is the first in the District’s program to install as much as 50 MW of renewable energy technology, including solar power, at schools and other facilities.

“We are excited about launching our solar energy program,” LAUSD Chief Facilities Executive Guy Mehula said. “This is the first of many renewable energy projects coming in the next year, as LAUSD has many buildings that have the capability of drawing energy from the perennial Southern California sun.”

The solar project at the Pico Rivera warehouse is significant for many reasons, one being the sheer size of this first-of-its-kind project for the District. The project will incorporate 6,000 solar panels to generate 1 MW of power which will reduce CO₂ emissions by an estimated 1,141 tons, equal to eliminating the consumption of 2,408 barrels of oil or eliminating the annual emissions of 190 cars.

The project will deliver the District immediate savings and provide a long-term hedge against rising peak power prices with no upfront system cost. Through a power purchase agreement, the District will purchase the electricity the solar installation generates from a third party financier. As a further benefit, LAUSD will retain 100 percent ownership of the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) associated with the installation. RECs are certificates that represent the “greenness” of renewable energy, and are a legally recognized measure of an entity’s commitment to green power.

As this first solar project gets off the ground, LAUSD is already evaluating the possibility of moving its facilities toward “grid neutral,” which the California Department of the State Architect (DSA) defines as a facility that generates as much electricity on site as it uses annually. In the meantime, LAUSD is preparing for the installation of another 660 kilowatts in three schools set to start in early December, and more projects are in the queue, with a projected 5.7 Megawatts under contract by the end of 2008.

The District played a key role in developing green school guidelines after 2001 through the Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) school building criteria (www.chps.net). These criteria, which have been refined since they were first introduced in 2003, include recycled and low-emitting materials, energy and water efficiencies and daylighting. LAUSD’s CHPS schools also now incorporate solar technology in their designs.

LAUSD views its new sustainable, high performing schools as valuable teaching tools, and is working to ensure that vegetated “green” roofs, which reduce energy costs by insulating buildings, are incorporated into school designs to be safely accessible or in easy view for instructional purposes. Other plans in the works include educational kiosks that are connected to the photovoltaic cells in solar panels to show in real time the energy being produced, as well as utilizing students’ own creativity to help develop ways to communicate a building’s green features effectively.

Given its size, from the number of buildings it operates to the number of students it educates, LAUSD is in a unique position to push the winds of change toward sustainable living. Beyond buildings and renewable energy, opportunities to promote sustainability at LAUSD range from how food is dispensed at school cafeterias to how students are exposed to environmental curriculum in the classroom. With execution of the first solar power agreement, other possibilities for more environmentally responsible operations at LAUSD are emerging.  From solar heated pools to fuel converted from food waste - if it is good for the students and the budget of LAUSD and good for the environment - it is likely under consideration.

To coordinate the wide range of sustainability initiatives in the District, LAUSD has set up a Sustainability Steering Committee, coordinated by LAUSD’s Director of Sustainability Initiatives Randy Britt.

“We are very excited to be a part of a dynamic program that is in a position to make a positive difference in the lives of our students, our faculty, and our community,” Britt said. “We want to lead by a positive example to ensure a sustainable future for our students for generations to come. Our vision is clearly to become the most environmentally friendly large school district in the United States, in all that we do.”

The passage of Measure Q will enable LAUSD to continue greening its campuses for today’s students and for future generations. The $7 billion school repair bond upgrades schools to accommodate modern technology and addresses educational needs, creates capacity to attract, retain and graduate more students through a comprehensive portfolio of small high-quality Pre-K through adult schools, and promotes a healthier environment through green technology.

Efforts to make LAUSD green began nearly a decade ago when LAUSD began its $20.3 Billion New School Construction and Modernization Program. The Program has delivered 76 new schools and more than 17,500 school modernization projects to date.

In recognition of its leadership, LAUSD received Global Green’s California Environmental Leadership Award and is an inductee of Green California Schools Hall of Fame.

For more information on LAUSD’s $20.3 Billion New School Construction and Modernization Program, please visit www.laschools.org.

High Performance Schools:
The New Jewels of Los Angeles
The second largest school district in the United States, the Los Angeles Unified School District has been called a behemoth, top heavy and inefficient, controversial and downright impossible to manage. None of this has prevented the district from launching a green schools initiative of unprecedented scale.

Read the story

 

Under Construction
A look at two of the high performance schools included in LAUSD's $20 billion school construction and renovation program.

View a slideshow

TODAY @ A State without a Budget/A Government without a Clue…

CALIFORNIA'S CAR TAX MAY BE ON THE ROAD AGAIN: THE VEHICLE LICENSE FEE THAT GOT GRAY DAVIS RECALLED AND ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER ELECTED LOOKS LIKE A GOOD IDEA… AGAIN.

An LA  Times editorial points out that the Car Tax/VLF served California well for 60 years. Undoing it has failed the state for six years. Until last year reimplementing it would have actually balanced (or come close to balancing) the budget. It's not enough anymore, but it's got to be on the table. Along with spitting the rolls on Prop 13 …but one sacred cow/third rail/taboo metaphor at a time.

And as Gordon Gecko said  “Greed is Good!”  Imagine how good it can be when driven by panic: Two LA Times articles describe how Wells Fargo Bank and Goldman Sachs – subsidized by the Feds - appear to be enriching themselves and their clients at California's expense

 

GOLDMAN SACHS URGED BETS AGAINST CALIFORNIA BONDS IT HELPED SELL

The Wall Street titan's activities could have harmed taxpayers, officials say

Goldman, Sachs & Co. urged some of its big clients to place investment bets against California bonds this year despite having collected millions of dollars in fees to help the state sell some of those same bonds.

BUSH'S TAX BREAKS FOR BANKS COULD COST CALIFORNIA $2 BILLION

Wells Fargo is state's chief beneficiary of change that allows banks to write off losses when taking over failing institutions.

Even as California's fiscal woes mount, the state is slated to lose an additional $2 billion in coming years as a result of new tax breaks the Bush administration created for a small group of banks including California-based Wells Fargo.

Apologia (or not!)

Harry Shearer in his syndicated radio program reads corporate apologies weekly, with the Wings song “We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert” playing in the background. 4LAKids isn’t quite that sorry.

Here is an actual facsimile of School Board Member Galatzan’s e-mail newsletter sent to her subscribers last week – and picked up in the Sunday Nov 9 4LAKids:

 

In a message dated 11/10/2008 12:50:14 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Deborah Ernst Director of Federal and State Education Programs at LAUSD wrote 4LAKids:

Hi Scott,

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to correct misinformation that appears in 4LA Kids.  For the record, there is not a prohibition on using Title I to reduce class size imposed by the District. In fact, Title I Schoolwide Program schools have been able to use Title I resources to reduce class size since 2003.  This information has been made available to schools numerous times in both budget and program communications. Page A-26 of the 2008-09 Program and Budget Handbook for Title I and Economic Aid (EIA) states the following: 

“Title I Schoolwide schools may purchase (using Tile I or EIA funds) the services of a highly qualified, register carrying teacher to reduce class size in literacy, mathematics, science and social studies classes.”

Based on an analysis of student achievement data, schools are asked to identity the grade level or department that would benefit from reorganizing or restructuring utilizing class size reduction.  This need is described in the Single Plan for Student Achievement and approved by the School Site Council.  Attached are the pages that provide direction to schools and the form to be submitted with the budget adjustment request to the local district for this expenditure.

I am sure you agree with me that this flexibility is an example of freedom to be innovative as well as forward thinking on the part of the District.  Thanks in advance for sharing this information with interested groups. 582 of the 615 Title I schools are operating Schoolwide Programs and can choose to fund additional positions to reduce class size.

Sincerely,

Debbie Ernst

Deborah S. Ernst

Director, Federal and State Education Programs

333 S. Beaudry Avenue, 16^th Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90017

 

4LAKids responds:

Dear Debbie:

Thanks for responding to the 4LAKids Newsletter, and I will publish your correction on the 4LAKidsNews Blog.

However I'm gonna respectfully cop a plea here: The information published was verbatum from School Board Member Galatzan's E-newsletter - and she is in turn quoting Senior Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines - so the misunderstanding goes far deeper - and further up the food chain - than I!

Onward -

smf

2008 ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH CONFERENCE :: Sat, Dec 13, 2008

ICEF PUBLIC SCHOOLS RECEIVES $2.1 MILLION TO SUPPORT EFFORT TO PRODUCE 2,000 COLLEGE GRADS FROM SOUTH L.A.

CA Department of Education Grants Will Help ICEF Enroll 1 in 5 South L.A. Students by 2020

ICEF Press Release

Los Angeles, CA – ICEF Public Schools — a charter school organization that serves the predominately African-American community of South Los Angeles —  today announced that it has been awarded $2.1 million to support its effort to produce 2,000 annual college graduates from its “Education Corridor” in South Los Angeles.

The awards, issued by the Public Charter Schools Grant Program of the California Department of Education, will help ICEF scale up its Education Corridor — the 45-square-mile region bound by the four major South Los Angeles freeways — through the creation of 22 new public charter schools.

The grants, including $600,000 each to the Frederick Douglass Academy Elementary and the Lou Dantzler Preparatory Charter Elementary School, and $450,000 each to the ICEF Vista Middle Academy and ICEF Vista Elementary Academy, will fund opening new public charters and increasing enrollment at ICEF's schools.

"We’re please that the California Department of Education has awarded us these generous grants," said Michael D. Piscal, founder of ICEF Public Schools. "Through the creation of the Education Corridor, ICEF will create as many high-performing public schools as it takes to prepare enough of our youth to compete and succeed at the top 100 colleges and universities in our nation. Our goal is to eventually produce 2,000 college graduates each year from South Los Angeles."

Fewer than 10 percent of all incoming high school freshmen within the Education Corridor receive their college diplomas. The dropout rate for existing public high schools in this region is more than 50 percent, a trend ICEF Public Schools intends to reverse.

ICEF Public Schools in October announced plans to expand from 13 to 35 public charter schools in four years. When fully enrolled, ICEF Public Schools will enroll one in four public school students in South Los Angeles, including more than half of the community’s high school students, and will help produce 2,000 college graduates each year. ICEF’s expansion plans will serve to alleviate its incredible demand: The waitlist to enroll has at times exceeded 6,000 students.

ICEF’s "Education Corridor" plan will uniquely concentrate all its efforts on a defined geographic region that is one of the nation’s most underserved communities. Also, unlike most charter schools, ICEF’s schools, which begin with kindergarten and go up to high school, will focus on educating students beginning with the first day they enroll in school through graduation.

ICEF’s 13 public charter schools, including its three flagship View Park Preparatory charter schools, serve more than 3,000 students. Its track record of success for African-American students includes two graduating classes, with every single graduate accepted to a college or four-year university. None of the students who began their ninth grade with ICEF – which features a rigorous academic program – dropped out of high school. Out of every Los Angeles public high school, View Park Prep most significantly outperforms its nearby high schools serving predominantly African-American students.

###

About ICEF Public Schools
ICEF Public Schools (Pronounced “Eye-ceff,” for the Inner City Education Foundation) was founded in 1994 to transform the Los Angeles community by creating first-rate educational opportunities for its minority youth. ICEF currently operates 13 public charter schools, including four new schools which opened this fall, with the goal of preparing its students to attend and compete academically at the top colleges and universities in the nation. ICEF’s flagship school, View Park Prep, has now graduated two classes, with 100 percent of its graduates accepted to college.

BULLYING+FEAR+LOATHING MEET “FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS” IN EAGLE ROCK

Following are two stories, one of a scientific study of aggression in young men and the other the incomplete story of an unfortunate incident told four times. They are the same story – and before one jumps to the conclusion that’s it’s all football's fault, I refer you to Seventeen Reasons Why Football is Better than High School by Herb Childress.  - smf

 

BULLY’S BRAIN FEELS JOY IN OTHERS PAIN

from Science Briefing in the LA Times

November 8 - Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, researchers said Friday.

The researchers compared eight boys ages 16 to 18 with aggressive conduct disorder to a group of eight adolescent boys with no unusual signs, tracking brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

In the aggressive teens, areas of the brain linked with feeling rewarded -- the amygdala and ventral striatum -- became very active when they observed pain being inflicted on others, according to the study in the journal Biological Psychology.

They showed little activity in an area of the brain involved in self-regulation -- the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction -- as was seen in the control group.   -- times staff and wire reports

• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE: Bullies May Enjoy Seeing Others in Pain: Brain scans show disturbance in normal levels of empathy
• Abstract: “Atypical empathic responses in adolescents with aggressive conduct disorder: A functional MRI investigation” by Jean Decety, Kalina J. Michalska, Yuko Akitsuki, and Benjamin B. Lahey.

 

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EAGLE ROCK COACH HIT WITH HELMET, ALLEGEDLY BY EX-PLAYER, GAME AT BELMONT CANCELLED

By Gerry Gittelson, Staff Writer | LA Daily News

Article Last Updated: 11/07/2008 11:14:13 PM PST

Eagle Rock High School football coach Johnny Lopez, seen in this 2008 file photo, began his tenure in the job in a difficult situation: The players remained loyal to their former coach, who left Eagle Rock under bad terms, as reported in an Oct. 25, 2008 Daily News story. On Thursday, Nov. 6, an ex-player allegedly struck Lopez in the head with a football helmet, and the team canceled its Friday, Nov. 7 game with Belmont. (Hans Gutknecht/Daily News)

Nov. 8 -  - Eagle Rock canceled its game Friday at Belmont of Los Angeles after Eagles coach Johnny Lopez was allegedly assaulted by a former player Thursday on the school's practice field.

According to reports, the unidentified player speared Lopez with a helmet in the back, then jumped the fence as Eagle Rock players looked on.

"Someone hit him with a helmet, a (graduated) defensive lineman who was hanging out with us," said senior lineman Nick Obregon, who witnessed the event but declined to reveal the ex-player's name. "Everyone was antagonizing (the former player), saying he wasn't down to do it, and that they would pay him five bucks to hit (Lopez) with his helmet. Coach (Lopez) went down for about 10 seconds. He didn't even chase

RELATED STORY:
Johnny Lopez's difficult road
at Eagle Rock (10/24/08)

him, just reached for his radio."

Sources said Lopez was taken to the hospital.

Practice had just been canceled Thursday because not enough players dressed.

Eagle Rock principal Salvador Velasco announced that Friday's game was canceled "due to not enough practice," said Mike McKay, an Eagle Rock teacher and former football assistant.

Lopez and Velasco did not return phone calls Friday.

"The kids were upset when they heard the announcement," McKay said. "If I was Belmont, I would be ticked off. There's a lot of frustration, and people have done some dumb things."

Belmont head coach Robert Levy was not available for comment. Belmont assistant John Cunino said: "I'd rather not comment. It's not my place."

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FOOTBALL GAME CANCELLED AFTER UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS

Eagle Rock High school nixes game with Belmont High

By Keith Esparros | KNBC News

Updated 4:39 PM PST, Fri, Nov 7, 2008

It was one hit that in part caused the cancellation of tonight's football game between Belmont High and Eagle Rock High, and that blow was delivered a day before the game was to take place.

According to Eagle Rock principal Salvador Velasco, a former player attacked head football coach Johnny Lopez with a blindside tackle.  The hit was enough to send Lopez to the hospital, to get checked out, and is the latest spark in a rocky relationship among Lopez, his players, the school, and a former coach.  Yesterday's practice had been canceled because not enough players showed up, and Velasco says it was that lack of practice that led him to cancel tonight's game.

He says Lopez's trip to the hospital was purely precautionary, and that Lopez was expected back to work Friday afternoon.

Lopez took over the football program this year, replacing Jerry Chou.  According to an article in The Daily news, Chou was well-liked, and had led the Eagles to four divisional titles.  Depending on to whom you speak, Chou either resigned, or was essentially fired by Velasco.  Either way, all sides indicate the present players have issues with Lopez. Up until now, those players expressed their displeasure with verbal criticisms and by refusing to attend some practices.

The Daily News reported about the team's frustration in its October 25 edition.

"At first, we were very rebellious against him," senior running back Andrew Trejo told the paper. "But we did give him a shot. It was, `This is what we got, let's make the best of it.' Now, the only reason we haven't quit is because it's more like, `If you quit, I'll quit.' If one of us quits, 11 of us leave. Everyone's just kind of waiting for one to go."

Lopez doesn't want that to happen. He told The Daily News it pains him to be coaching players who, quite frankly, don't want to be coached by him. He sees it, he feels the glare. He knows where the loyalty lies.

Now the dispute has been elevated to a new and troubling level.  Officers with the LAUSD school police are investigating the incident.

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EAGLE ROCK HIGH SCHOOL COACH IS ASSAULTED

He is struck from behind during practice, allegedly by a disgruntled former player apparently upset about the firing of the previous head coach. Friday's game is canceled.

By Corina Knoll and Eric Sondheimer | LA Times Staff Writers

November 8, 2008 -- An Eagle Rock High School football coach allegedly was assaulted by a disgruntled former player who graduated last year, officials said Friday.

It was the latest episode in a series of conflicts related to the firing of the previous head coach.

Coach Johnny Lopez was bending down to pick up a ball when a young man struck him from behind during practice Thursday afternoon, witnesses told school Principal Salvador Velasco.

Lopez, who used his walkie-talkie to alert school officials, suffered minor injuries, Velasco said.

The school canceled Friday's game against Belmont High School, mainly because officials said too few students had practiced.

Velasco did not reveal the name of the alleged attacker, but said he believed him to be a former student who had played football for the Eagles.

"This person came into one of our offices [Thursday afternoon] upset about his former coach. He was . . . told to leave the campus," Velasco said.

Reached Friday, Lopez said: "I'm kinda like on pain pills. I really don't want to talk to anybody."

The incident appeared to be related to a controversy that erupted earlier this year when hundreds of students circulated a petition and held a protest in response to the firing of former football coach Jerry Chou.

Velasco has maintained that Chou wanted to resign but changed his mind a few days later when it was too late. Since then, Chou's supporters have been outspoken about their dislike of Lopez, and some players refused to participate in practice.

Chou, who remains at the school as a physical education teacher, said he does not condone the students' actions.

"It's sad, but kids make bad decisions," he said. "I think there's a lot of frustration and anger still going on at this school."

Velasco said the decision to forfeit Friday's football game against Belmont High was not because of the assault. "Half of the team being on the bleachers instead of practicing made it clear to me it wasn't safe for them to play," he said.

Belmont football coach Rob Levy said he was disappointed.

"It was our last home game," he said. "You don't want to win a game on forfeit."

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ASSAULT ON COACH SHOWS CRACKS AT EAGLE ROCK

By Vincent Bonsignore, Staff Writer |  Bonsignore is an assistant sports editor in charge of local content at the Daily News.

Nov. 9 -- The call arrived at 8 a.m. Friday morning, the male voice on the other end saying: "You're not going to believe what happened with the Eagle Rock football team."

The caller then proceeded to explain how a former Eagle Rock player allegedly assaulted first-year coach Johnny Lopez at practice Thursday by attacking him from behind while wearing a helmet, apparently sending Lopez to the hospital and forcing the cancellation of the Eagles' game at Belmont on Friday.

With just one game remaining, it wouldn't be a surprise if they just canceled the rest of the season.

Reportedly, the player was egged on - perhaps even paid - by current players on the team to carry out the cowardly act.

It was a shocking story, but the saddest part is that I wasn't surprised it happened.

If you've paid any attention to what has happened at Eagle Rock over the past year or so - and the Daily News has reported on it every step of the way - you understand a terrible disservice has been done to the kids on the football team by most of the adult figures in their lives.

It goes back to Eagle Rock principal Salvador Velasco's decision to get rid of coach Jerry Chou after last season. Chou had submitted a letter of resignation during the season in protest of Velasco's handling of some coaching matters at Eagle Rock. But Chou was under the impression his differences with the principal were resolved when he reached an accord with Velasco and coached the final few games of 2007.

Chou was shocked when Velasco informed him he'd have to re-apply for his job if he wished to coach the football team again.

Insulted, Chou declined to re-apply and ultimately moved to Glendale High as an assistant while remaining at Eagle Rock as a teacher.

The parents and players were enraged, pleading with Velasco to reconsider through protests, phone calls, letters and meetings.

Velasco held firm.

In came Lopez, the innocent victim in all this, blindly walking into an impossible situation. The players, out of loyalty to Chou, never gave Lopez a fair chance, disliking him for the sole reason he was replacing the coach they adored.

Whether Lopez is a good coach or not - some around the program argue he's in over his head - is irrelevant. He's the coach. Period. And the players and parents at Eagle Rock should respect that.

The players' initial disappointment is understandable, but that it was allowed to fester shows they didn't receive the proper guidance, which would have allowed them to move on and accept the new coach as their leader.

When that disappointment turned into unchecked hate, an event like the one that happened Thursday became possible.

Neither Chou nor Velasco is above blame for their original disagreement, and we'd like to think both would handle certain things differently if given the chance.

But what happened happened. Life goes on.

The real damage is what transpired in the aftermath of Chou's dismissal and the chaos that has ensued since Lopez was hired to replace him.

It's an injustice so truculent it has created a poisonous culture in which high school football players actually think it's OK to express themselves through physical intimidation. All because of a lack of perspective and guidance - by adults.

The line of guilt is long and clear.

There is Velasco, the principal who completely misread the situation, then bungled any chance of reconciliation out of arrogance. All Velasco had to do was understand where Chou was coming from when he first submitted his resignation, then tear it up after the two reached an accord.

Instead, he embarrassed the popular coach by making him beg for his job. In the process, he turned his back on the people he's paid to serve - the parents and students at Eagle Rock - by disregarding their support for a coach they loved.

This was a successful coach who guided the Eagles to four straight league titles and two consecutive City Invitational championships.

Chou deserved better, but when players and parents tried to convince Velasco he was making a grave mistake by getting rid of him, Velasco turned a deaf ear.

But Velasco isn't the only one to blame.

Chou, the ex-coach, is apparently too proud to sit his former players down and explain the importance of getting over their disappointment and moving forward in a positive direction, rather than linger on in rage.

I'd like to think Chou pulled his former players aside and told them he appreciates their support and devotion, but it's time to move on and fully support the new coach.

I'd like to believe that, but in light of what happened Thursday, how can anyone be sure?

If he has, clearly he wasn't forceful enough. Chou is probably the one person who can quell the discontent, but the fact the outrage continues tells plenty.

And let's not forget some of the parents, so emotionally tied to the program and former coach that they either stoke the flames of outrage or do nothing to extinguish it.

Either way, they've allowed a fury within their sons to burn so intense that at least some players appear to believe physically assaulting the new coach is acceptable behavior.

Is there anyone at Eagle Rock capable of teaching these kids right from wrong? Is there anyone willing to step up and tell the players life doesn't always work out in your favor, but you can't resort to breaking the law as an outlet for your disappointment?

The kids deserve blame, too. No doubt they were hurt by Velasco's decision to let Chou go, but after expressing their displeasure and voicing their feelings, Velasco stuck to his decision.

It might not seem fair, but that's the way life is sometimes, and it's high time the players at Eagle Rock understand that. You can either accept it and support the new coach or move on. But to resort to physical violence is unacceptable.

An innocent man was assaulted on a football field Thursday, and his only transgression was replacing a popular high school football coach.

It should never have happened. But the actions of the adults at Eagle Rock High allowed it to.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

The news that didn’t fit from Nov. 9th

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

From the Associated Administrators Los Angeles Weekly Update of October 27, 2008

4LAKids doesn't necessarily agree with all the points below - but agrees wholeheartedly that LAUSD had a great tendency to leave business unfinished, responding to crises and not following through on the business at hand.

This is a failure of the Superintendent, The Board Of Education, District Staff - and because it's ingrained in the culture - of administrators and even the employee unions. If

We the District actually stayed the course and followed through on the reforms and initiatives we started out on we'd be farther along! – smf

AALA, in its continuing effort to keep LAUSD on track, is publishing this list of unfinished business facing the Superintendent and Board of Education.

· High Priority Schools Initiative

· Promising Practices

· Foster Care Initiative

· Senior Staff Development Program.

· Performing Arts High School

· Support For Principals

· Health Benefits

ARTS EDUCATION NEWS: CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE

The Legislature is scheduled to convene a special session in the coming days to deal with the deficit in the state budget that has emerged since the budget was signed in September. Further cuts in state services, including education, will certainly be discussed, along with proposals to raise revenues.

ALLOW OUR SCHOOLS FREEDOM TO INNOVATE

by School Boardmember Tamar Galatzan in her Galatzan Gazette newsletter

At a meeting of the Governance Committee last week, Senior Deputy Superintendent Ray Cortines mentioned something very interesting that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

When addressing ways the District can support school-led innovation, he used Title I funding as an example.He said that many people wrongly believe that federal law prevents the use of Title I dollars for class-size reduction.This prohibition is actually imposed by the District.

STATE ALLOCATION BOARD DIVVIES UP $225 MILLION AMONG SCHOOLS

Thursday, November 06, 2008 -- The State Allocation Board, the state office that decides how state funds are disbursed for the construction and renovation of public schools, has approved payments totaling $225 million for some 310 public schools, or an average of nearly $726,000 per school. The board, in the state government flow chart, is linked to the Office of Public School Construction and the Department of General Services.

LOCAL ELECTIONS/NATIONAL TRENDS - VOTERS PASS ALL 23 L.A. COUNTY SCHOOL BOND MEASURES:

Fifteen receive more than a two-thirds majority, including LAUSD’s $7-billion Measure Q and LACCD's $3.5-billion Measure J + 82% OF BONDS PASS NATIONALLY

It wasn't Los Angeles County's 23 school bonds that drove people to the polls Tuesday, but voters willingly added all of them to the Barack Obama victory parade.

Despite a long ballot, national economic duress and competing tax measures, most of the bonds easily cruised to victory, including the largest ever for a California school district: the $7-billion Measure Q for Los Angeles Unified. It won support from 68.9% of voters.

3 FROM THE HOMEROOM: ROONEY REDUX

• LAWSUIT ALLEGES SCHOOL OFFICIALS KNEW ABOUT SUSPECTED MOLESTER
• OUTSIDE REVIEW ON MOLESTATION EPISODE GETS BAD MARKS
• L.A. UNIFIED'S NEW MEASURES TO PROTECT STUDENTS

LA UNIFIED SEEKS TO BUILD APARTMENTS ON ITS SURPLUS LAND

The district says the low-cost units could house teachers, helping to reduce the attrition rate. Families of students could live there as well, facilitating house calls by teachers.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to develop low-cost apartments on as many as 12 campuses in an effort to help teachers find less expensive housing and live closer to their jobs.

District officials have begun asking real estate developers to submit housing proposals on school campuses in Hollywood and Harbor Gateway and are reviewing other campuses where apartments could be built on surplus land.

GROWING PAINS AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The premise of this series of blogs in the NYTimes is “How would you rebuild it if a hurricane came through and blew your school district away?”  Unfortunately it isn’t a hypothetical.

As part of our professional development sessions at the start of this school year, the faculty at my school participated in a team-building exercise to learn more about our leadership styles. Each corner of the room was labeled for one of the four compass points, and included a brief description of a guiding personality style — action, care, detail, and, the corner I chose, speculation: “likes to look at the big picture before acting.”

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

 

From the Associated Administrators Los Angeles Weekly Update of October 27, 2008

4LAKids doesn't necessarily agree with all the points below - but agrees wholeheartedly that LAUSD had a great tendency to leave business unfinished, responding to crises and not following through on the business at hand.

This is a failure of the Superintendent, The Board Of Education, District Staff - and because it's ingrained in the culture - of administrators and even the employee unions. If

We the District actually stayed the course and followed through on the reforms and initiatives we started out on we'd be farther along!  – smf

AALA, in its continuing effort to keep LAUSD on track, is publishing this list of unfinished business facing the Superintendent and Board of Education.

HIGH PRIORITY SCHOOLS INITIATIVE – It has been almost two years since this initiative was begun, and, toour knowledge, the identified schools are still waiting for their promised support. In addition, WASC accreditation was built into the accountability for the initiative, but instead, the District is embarking on another "school report card." Formal accreditation is the most creditable form of accountability for schools at any level, and it is already in place …so why reinvent the wheel?

PROMISING PRACTICES – For over two years, the Superintendent has stressed the need to share promising practices exemplified in schools with demonstrated success. While we have seen glimpses of these practices mainly when they are highlighted in the newspapers or on television, no organized or concerted effort has been made within the District to share these successes in a collegial manner. Rather, we have seen outside consultants hired to tell us what we are doing wrong and what we should be doing differently. AALA has always contended that our greatest professional development asset is the collective educational wisdom of District personnel. AALA is still requesting a structured District system for sharing this wisdom.

FOSTER CARE INITIATIVE – The needs of foster care children has been an area of concern for many years. To date, apparently no effort has been made to bring the District and the County of Los Angeles together in a true partnership to assist the neediest of our students. Social workers assigned to foster children could be assigned to schools where they could monitor the care for significant groups of foster children and truly serve as guardians as the Courts decree. Again, AALA is looking for the Superintendent and the Board of Education to provide the leadership to address this societal need.

SENIOR STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM – For over two years, AALA members have been promised a senior staff development program so that qualified LAUSD individuals could have a transparent pathway for administrative leadership and promotional advancement. The Superintendent has acknowledged the talent within the District; however, no system for administrative development has been put into place. Instead, the District still seems to place a greater value on individuals from outside the District. The paraeducator career ladder, teachers academy, and principals academy are examples of what could be done with coaching and mentoring for the highest administrative levels. Again, actions speak louder than words.

PERFORMING ARTS HIGH SCHOOL – AALA is still waiting for the donations from Eli Broad and his colleagues in the Grand Avenue Partners to pay for the enhanced cost of the "waterslide" high school at 450 N. Grand Avenue. The cost escalated from 78 million to 230 million based on an agreement (can you say arrangement?) with Broad and his shadowy associates. We are still waiting for the money, which could be used to refurbish older schools and pay for any maintenance costs currently coming out of the general fund budget. And, AALA is still waiting for the transparency that this “verbal” agreement deserves.

SUPPORT FOR PRINCIPALS – AALA continues to address instances of inappropriate interference in school activities by a small number of Local District and Central office administrators, who appear to have lost sight of their primary purpose-to assist and support rather than meddle. Mr. Superintendent, please reinforce your statements at your opening administrative meeting where you stressed the need for local school initiative and the rendering of support for principals.

HEALTH BENEFITS – When will District leadership recognize that health benefits are an inalienable right of all eligible employees? Employees are overly stressed with the lack of good faith bargaining and the seemingly unwillingness of District leadership to support an agreement so carefully initiated by former District Superintendent William J. Johnston and supported by all subsequent superintendents through good times and bad.

Arts Education News: CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE

from the ArtsEdMail e-newsletter connecting the Arts Education community in California.

November 5 , 2008-- There is a blessing in Jewish custom, known as the "Shehecheyanu", intended to encourage the offering of thanks for new and unusual experiences, typically recited at the beginning of holidays and to celebrate special occasions. Although the purpose of ArtsEdMail is to provide you with the up-to-the-minute information you need to advocate for arts education, we must take a moment to share with our readers this remarkable, new, and unusual moment in our country's history.

And lest we forget what lies ahead in our own state, the Legislature is scheduled to convene a special session in the coming days to deal with the deficit in the state budget that has emerged since the budget was signed in September. Further cuts in state services, including education, will certainly be discussed, along with proposals to raise revenues.

The Governor has indicated he is thinking about both increasing revenues and mid-year cuts. Whatever actions may be taken must occur before the end of November, when this legislative session ends. December 1 marks the beginning of a new session, with the inclusion of 40 newly elected legislators.

From this vantage point, it is difficult to assess what the impact of these anticipated cuts may be for arts education. We expect to share in the burden, and to protect our fair share of the funding we have worked so hard to achieve. As we learn more about where this discussion is going, we will let you know. If you have questions or would like to share stories of what is happening in your school district, please contact California Alliance for Arts Education Executive Director Laurie Schell or Policy Director Joe Landon at caae@artsed411.org or joe@artsed411.org.

California Arts Council Gives Over $1 Million to State Arts OrganizationsThe California Arts Council is pleased to announce approved funding for 130 arts organizations for the agency's "Artists in Schools" program, a grant program designed to support artists in residency activities that take place in the classroom and in after-school settings. For a list of funded organizations, click here.

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National News

Illinois Releases Comprehensive Arts Education Guidebook
Illinois Arts Alliance released Committing to Quality in Education: Arts at the Core, the first arts education guidebook specifically designed for Illinois teachers, principals, superintendents, parents, and community partners. Arts at the Core offers direction and tools to assist stakeholders in strengthening arts education. For more infomation, click here.

Fine Arts in the Classroom Develops Leaders in the Workplace
"Strengthening arts education in Milwaukee schools will produce creative, entrepreneurial graduates who can help transform Wisconsin's economy," local educators and artists said Tuesday. They offered testimony at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center during the last of nine public forums hosted around the state by the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education. Click here for more information.

New Parent Handbook from Pennsylvania
A new parent handbook has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; the Pennsylvania PTA; and the Division of Standards and Curriculum, Bureau of Teaching and Learning Support of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the handbook includes information about how parents can support, improve, and advocate for arts programs in the schools. Click here.

Ohio Critical Links Project
The Ohio Critical Links Project, a two-year program promoting localized learning communities of arts educators, has completed its first year of classroom inquiry work. Co-sponsored by the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA) and the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), project participants include ten Ohio teachers from throughout the state. The Ohio Arts Council is providing additional support. The project is based on Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, an arts education research compendium published in 2002. The project's goal is the creation of a network of theatre educator learning communities and a Web-based index of best teaching practices based on the classroom research work of the participating teachers. For more information, click here.

Museums Bring Education Efforts to Scale
A report by the New Media Consortium says that museums are working in partnership with educators to expand arts education in schools. An interesting experiment has been unfolding in Texas that looks at arts education problems with novel solutions. Since October 2005, the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation has been working with the New Media Consortium (NMC) to help museums across Texas learn to scale their education efforts. Click here.


Staten Island Schools Finding Ways to Offer More Art Programs
Despite an increased focus on test scores, Staten Island schools have been finding ways to offer more art programs to students by connecting with cultural organizations in their neighborhoods. According to a report released yesterday by the city Department of Education, 84 percent of Staten Island schools teach their students about the arts through partnerships with local groups. Click here to read article.


Merrifield "Neglecting the arts hurts our children"
Colorado Rep. Michael Merrifield defends against criticism of the recent study of arts in schools, saying that the findings are indeed valid, and pleas for giving "the next generation the gift of creativity and collaboration, abstraction and the arts." Click here to read more.

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Announcements

New CA PTA Website
Check out the redesigned SMARTS webpage on the CA PTA website. SMARTS is California State PTA's program to encourage arts education. To view, click here.

CCA Teaching Institute
The CCA Teaching Institute (TI) seeks to transform the culture of teaching and empower learning through professional development in the arts. TI pioneers contemporary pedagogies and proven programs, training educators and teaching artists to be leaders in arts instruction at the pre-K The first of its kind in the Unites States, TI's Arts Learning Specialist Certificate provides a meaningful opportunity for pre-K through 12th grade educators and teaching artists to advance professionally. A model for contemporary arts education excellence nationwide, this certificate program was developed by CCA Center for Art and Public Life in partnership with the Alameda County Office of Education. For more information visit CCA TI on the web by clicking here.

Summer Music Institute
The Kennedy Center/National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute is a 4-week summer music program at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., for student instrumentalists. This program is open, by recorded audition, to students who are seriously considering orchestral music as a career, and are in grades 9 through 12 or are a college freshman or sophomore. Nominations are due to California Alliance for Arts Education by January 20, 2009. To view the 2009 Summer Music Institute application, click here.

Call For Nominations: 2009 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards
The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards recognize individual leaders who are advancing innovative and effective solutions to significant issues in California. Award recipients will each receive $125,000 to support their work to benefit the people of California. The award also includes communications activities, undertaken together by award recipients and the Foundation, to educate policymakers and practitioners about the solutions they have implemented. Nominations can be submitted online by clicking here. Nominations are due by January 16, 2009, and awards will be announced in the summer of 2009.

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Conferences, Professional Development

So Cal Museum Educators Offers Evaluation Workshop
The Museum Educators of Southern California (MESC) is sponsoring a workshop series that focuses on the essentials of evaluating public programs on Monday, November 10, 2008 9:00 AM-12:00PM. The MESC ESSENTIALS series offers museum educators basic tools and strategies for success in the field. Participants will leave with tools and information they can put to use immediately. The cost is $15 Non-members/ $10 Members. For more information or to register, visit the MESC website at http://www.mesconline.org.

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Resources, Funding Opportunities

Music Matters Grants for 2009
Music Matters offers grants that will focus on educational reform in school music programs and independent music programs. Grants will be awarded in April 2009 to schools and music programs throughout the United States. Grant amounts for this cycle are between $1,000-$12,000 each and are made on an annual one-time basis. Click here for more information.

VSA Arts Guide to Evaluation
VSA arts has released The Contours of Inclusion: Frameworks and Tools for Evaluating Arts in Education. This practical guide features essays that provide examples of the design and use of evaluation for arts education in inclusive settings can be found here.

Spotlight Awards Student Scholarships
The Music Center Spotlight Awards is a nationally-recognized scholarship and arts training program for Southern California high school students in the performing and visual arts. Open to all students who attend high school in Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties. The deadline for Visual Arts is December 1, 2008. For more information, visit Spotlight online by clicking here.

Nathan Cummings Foundation Grants
Nathan Cummings Foundation offers funding towards projects in the arts, the environment, health, and Jewish life. Arts funding supports education and advocacy with a focus on underserved communities and efforts to make existing institutions more accessible to disadvantaged groups. Open to nonprofit organizations and institutions of higher education. The first step in the application process is a 1-2 page letter of inquiry to the foundation.To apply, click here.

VSA Arts and MetLife Foundation Invite Proposals
Nonprofit 501(c)(3) performing and/or exhibiting arts organizations who are creating or have an established educational program are eligible to apply. A maximum of 10 awards of up to $15,000 will be awarded. For information on eligibility and to download the application, click here.

Identifying the Right Grant-Makers for Your Program
Identifying the right grant-maker for any program or project is a straightforward, step-by-step process that can greatly increase your organization's chances of securing grant funding. Click here to learn more.

ALLOW OUR SCHOOLS FREEDOM TO INNOVATE

by School Boardmember Tamar Galatzan in her Galatzan Gazette newsletter

7 November - At a meeting of the Governance Committee last week, Senior Deputy Superintendent Ray Cortines mentioned something very interesting that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

When addressing ways the District can support school-led innovation, he used Title I funding as an example.He said that many people wrongly believe that federal law prevents the use of Title I dollars for class-size reduction.

This prohibition is actually imposed by the District.

I’ve been wondering ever since how many other rules and restrictions the District
created for the ease of recordkeeping or other suspicious reasons?

With LAUSD facing both a budget crisis of epic proportions and a steady exodus of dynamic schools from the District and into the charter community, we must allow our schools the freedom to innovate.

I am not talking about tinkering-at-the-edges,but an every-thing-is-on-the-table
brainstorming session.

Schools are being asked to do more with less; let’s allow them to decide how and when to spend the dollars. The District should stand aside and free schools from bureaucratically-imposed-burdens.

Instead we must work with parents, teachers, administrators, staff, and students to spend money in a way that most benefits the kids.

 

●●smf’s 2¢: 4LAKids hopes that the boardmember is doing more than “thinking about ever since” and “wondering ever since how many other rules and restrictions the District created for the ease of recordkeeping or other suspicious reasons?”  

These are questions that should challenge sleep at night.

As a public trustee she needs to be demanding the answers and transparency she seeks – and sharing what she finds with the rest of us.

Go for it Tamar. You are not alone at that table with everything on it  – we have our sleeves rolled up and our edge-tinkering tools stowed away.

We have your back!

Q, RATED: Why the LAUSD bond passed, and big

Measure Q is 70 pages in length and the detail on proposed spending seems infinite. But there are also long passages where it gets vague and speculative.

Less like a hard business plan, you might say, and more like a prophecy of Nostradamus.

 

 

 

 

Central High School #9: The High School for the Fine and Performing Arts.

By Marc B. Haefele | LA CityBeat

November 6, 2008 -- In the end, it was more about school bucks than school books.

The folks who most actively backed Prop. Q – the $7 billion educational bond measure that passed Tuesday with almost 70 percent – were not the 45,000 teachers and the 700,000 pupils in the LAUSD. Sure, the district itself dropped 20 grand on Prop. Q “informational” materials. This was reported by the Times as undue influence, but didn’t matter a bit in the end.

What was really at issue was voter confidence in the LAUSD itself. The passage means it’s somehow still there.

The truly big spenders behind the proposition were actually the region’s biggest contractors and building-trade unions: They collectively socked in most of the $700,000 funding for Yes on Q, which was on your ballot if you lived in the 710-square-mile school district that includes Los Angeles, unincorporated East L.A., and eight entire L.A. County cities. There was a terrific reason for this support in the form of thousands of potential new construction jobs in a time and place where such jobs are getting scarce.

The $7 billion will build, complete, or renovate hundreds of elementary, middle, and high schools in the 878-school LAUSD. If the idea sounds overfamiliar, that’s because this was the fifth multi-billion-dollar LAUSD bond measure proposed since 1997. Q’s better-publicized predecessors were BB, K, R, and Y. Their passage provided $19 billion in school construction funds. The results were a rare and widely proclaimed LAUSD success story. In the late ’90s, the much-maligned LAUSD was running year-round multi-tracked class schedules in 227 schools, seriously blunting teaching quality, such as it then was. Now the facilities, at least, are a lot better. All that handsome new school construction you see all over town has made the big difference, with lots of shiny new classrooms and about half as many year-round multi-track schools.

As the LAUSD tells it:

“Since 2002, the District has completed 72 new K-12 schools and 30 early education centers and expansions, built 59 additions to existing schools, and added approximately 75,000 new K-12 classroom seats. There is progress being made at older schools too. More than 17,110 repair and upgrade projects and approximately 1,200 technology projects have been completed at schools throughout the District.”

Not bad for starters. But there’re still 200,000 kids in temp classrooms, the average school is 45 years old, and the average class is still supersized. Also, those prior spending measures did nothing for the aspiring, burgeoning charter schools outside the LAUSD’s official Big Top, and they want help too.

Enter Q. It is 70 pages in length and the detail on proposed spending seems infinite. But there are also long passages where it gets vague and speculative. Less like a hard business plan, you might say, and more like a prophecy of Nostradamus. These waffley fringes occasioned the Times’s and the Daily News’s editorial opposition. On the other hand, while there was a well-bankrolled “Yes on Q” organization, there was no corresponding “no” group. LAUSD’s long-serving hordes of angry critics seemed to be sitting this one out.

Not all critics did. Now is a good time, if you are in the pundit biz, to talk tough about slashing public spending, particularly if you subscribe to the century-old economics dicta recently embraced so passionately by Sen. John McCain. Otherwise you might, like the contractors and building trades unions, support the idea of $7 billion creating new jobs and thus trickling back into the increasingly parched local economy. On the other hand, servicing the bonded debt is to cost district homeowners an additional $60 per $100k in assessed valuations – something like an average extra $250 a year (in addition to the $123 per $100k already being assessed). That’s the kind of wealth redistribution many recessioning property owners might not be expected to embrace.

Another possible negative was the fact that the LAUSD (which has had nearly $5 billion in assistance from the state in recent years) was taking a likely $440 million lop in anticipated state operating funding this year and might best concentrate on dealing with that rather than building more schools. Nor has Superintendent David Brewer III earned the public confidence inspired by his dynamic predecessor, Roy Romer. There’s less accountability, as the Monday Times story about former Assistant Principal Steve Thomas Rooney suggests. After this alleged pistol-wielding child molester was transferred around the system instead of being fired, the only disclosed result was an orgy of fingerpointing. This is irresponsibility of the kind one associates with the LAUSD of the ’90s. To an uncertain extent, the voter approval of Q suggests that despite increasing problems, the recent eight-year era of voter confidence in the district’s self improvement may not yet have ebbed.

What of the long fruitless war between Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the LAUSD? As we all know, despite certain campaign promises, the mayor still isn’t running the L.A. schools the way mayors do in Chicago and Washington DC. But he’s taken charge of a handful of bad schools and embedded his capable education sidekick, Ramon Cortines, as Brewer’s deputy. Now peace reigns between City Hall and the district, relatively speaking – yet even this comity somehow affected Q. The story goes that the district originally wanted just $4 billion in new bonds. The mayor’s polling found public support for $7 billion. Was this “what the public will bear” approach the right way to assess the actual need, in tough times, for a school spending package equaling roughly half the LAUSD’s entire $14 billion annual budget?

Apparently it was.

Rooney Redux: “WHAT PART OF ‘UNLAWFUL SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH A MINOR’ IS IT THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND?”

opinion by smf | 4lakids

In the PILLSBURY REPORT LAUSD’s hired gun/outside counsel $209,000. investigation of the Rooney Matter – blame is assigned to Dan Issacs, then the District’s former Chief Operating Officer for the memo he sent out following Rooney’s initial arrest.

The report finds that Isaacs did not make clear the allegation that Rooney was a suspected child molester.

 

Here’s the memo:

 

The ‘smoking gun’ part of the Isaacs Memo says:  “Mr. Rooney was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon in an incident that occurred on January 1, 2007. LAPD is also investigating allegations that he had an unlawful sexual relationship with a minor.”

Any and everyone on the distribution of the memo who read those words and didn’t immediately understand the allegations wasn’t paying attention.

LAUSD is governed by memos and bulletins;  informatives, resolutions and policy.

The skill set required of a leader in such an environment is separating the important from the trivial; failure is defined in the inability to do so.  The EdSpeak word for this is “Decoding”.  We expect it of the beginners and we must expect it of the experts.

As memos go, that one was as clear as they come.

The Pillsbury report faults Isaacs in that he did not spell out that the person Rooney allegedly assaulted with a deadly weapon was the stepfather of the girl he was suspected of having an unlawful sexual relationship with.

• Please… Mr Rooney was (and continues to be) an alleged perpetrator, innocent until proven guilty. He continued to be a District employee, albeit one under suspicion of two very serious offences.
• The alleged assault-with-a-deadly-weapon victim and the alleged sexual abuse victim – a minor – are entitled to a certain amount of privacy; the young girl an extraordinary amount of it.

Mr Issacs is also faulted because he did not circulate this memo to the Employee Relations Office and the Staff Relations Office (two silos in the Beaudry bureaucracy) — although it was circulated in a timely manner to those two offices by others on the circulation list.

 

We must stop the blame game and the witch hunt because there is plenty of blame  to go around …and no witches!  There is however darkness and evil. There is black and white and infinite shades of grey.

And though the word has descended into overuse and discredit — there are evildoers preying on children.  —smf

 

THE PILLSBURY REPORT on the LA Times Website, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request.  Also known as The Markham Middle School Report or Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman final report re: The Markham Investigation, dated June 2, 2008  -- plus Board Resolutions and Policy bulletins.

STATE ALLOCATION BOARD DIVVIES UP $225 MILLION AMONG SCHOOLS

By Capitol Weekly Staff

Thursday, November 06, 2008 -- The State Allocation Board, the state office that decides how state funds are disbursed for the construction and renovation of public schools, has approved payments totaling $225 million for some 310 public schools, or an average of nearly $726,000 per school. The board, in the state government flow chart, is linked to the Office of Public School Construction and the Department of General Services.

The disbursement, announced by the governor’s office, includes more than $192 million in grants from voter-approved Proposition 1D, which will be used to pay for new construction and modernization projects at 46 schools throughout the state.  Proposition 1D also funds projects that allow public school campuses to incorporate more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly features into their designs.

Of the $192 million in Proposition 1D funds, the board allocated $480,000 of the “green schools” funding to two schools – Valley View Elementary in El Dorado County and McElhinney Middle School in Riverside County.

Proposition 1D was part of the $10 billion voter-approved bond measure supported by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of his Strategic Growth Plan in 2006.  Since 2007, more than $2.8 billion of Proposition 1D funds have been issued to school districts statewide.

In addition, the board awarded $16 million from Propositions 47 and 55 – which were approved by voters in 2002 – to fund construction projects at two schools. Across the state, 269 other schools will also receive more than $16 million from the state general fund to make emergency repairs.

In 2006, California voters approved borrowing some $42 billion to pay for improvements and expansion of the state’s infrastructure. The borrowing was pushed by Schwarzenegger.

“Since then, the governor has facilitated and expedited the allocation of billions of dollars from the 2006 infrastructure bonds to launch key projects, create jobs and stimulate California’s economy,” the governor’s press office said.

According to the administration, the governor has announced a series of public spending decisions. Those include:

• $624.6 million in Proposition 1C and Proposition 46 in housing bond funding.
• About $136 million in Proposition 1B funds for 99 transit projects statewide.
• An allocation of $2 billion since 2007 in Proposition 1D funds for new construction and modernization projects for schools statewide, including construction and modernization of 29 charter schools.
• About $382 million in Proposition 1B funds for transportation projects across the state.
• $3.5 billion in Proposition 1B bond funds for transportation and goods movement projects across the state.
• $394 million in Proposition 1B bond funding for 106 transit projects statewide.
• $40 million for port security from Proposition 1B funds.
• $73 million for affordable housing projects in Proposition 1C and Proposition 46 funds to help more than 1,600 California families rent or purchase affordable housing.
• $211 million for expedited implementation in Proposition 1E funds to four critical levee improvement projects in Northern California.  
• $69.5 million in permanent low-interest loans from the Proposition 1C housing bonds to jump-start 14 affordable multifamily projects up and down the state, helping more than 1,000 California families and individuals realize the dream of an affordable rental home.

LOCAL ELECTIONS/NATIONAL TRENDS - VOTERS PASS ALL 23 L.A. COUNTY SCHOOL BOND MEASURES: Fifteen receive more than a two-thirds majority, including LAUSD’s $7-billion Measure Q and LACCD's $3.5-billion Measure J + 82% OF BONDS PASS NATIONALLY

 

By Howard Blume and Jason Song From the Los Angeles Times

November 6, 2008 - It wasn't Los Angeles County's 23 school bonds that drove people to the polls Tuesday, but voters willingly added all of them to the Barack Obama victory parade.

Despite a long ballot, national economic duress and competing tax measures, most of the bonds easily cruised to victory, including the largest ever for a California school district: the $7-billion Measure Q for Los Angeles Unified. It won support from 68.9% of voters. (The bonds needed 55% to pass.)

Similar good fortune befell the $3.5-billion Measure J, placed on the ballot by the Los Angeles Community College District and approved by a nearly 70% margin.

"We knew the kind of voters Obama would attract to polls included young voters, immigrant voters and other people who historically have put a lot of faith in the education system or investing in the future through education," said Measure J campaign consultant Richard Katz, a former state legislator.

Katz's worry, however, was that a first-time voter would wait in a long line, "do the Obama thing" and leave without making it through the rest of the ballot.

His campaign therefore upended conventional wisdom by targeting low-propensity voters. Mailers emphasized the role of community colleges in job training and also re-training people who suddenly need or seek new careers.

That theme, Katz said, resonated helpfully with the foreboding economic news -- even though bonds result in property tax increases.

Voters already are paying off a total of $2.2 billion from college district bonds approved in 2001 and 2003.

The existing bill is even steeper at L.A. Unified, the nation's second-largest school system. Voters already had approved $13.6 billion through four local bonds since 1997 to fuel the nation's largest school construction and modernization program.

L.A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer dismissed the burden of new taxes as secondary to the benefit of additional construction jobs. "This is the best economic stimulus package we could have," Brewer said Wednesday.

Going to the well again, however, angered some civic leaders after the bond package doubled in size at the last moment.

But steadfast proponents included Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had agreed with expanding the bond after polling suggested voters would support it.

Villaraigosa appeared on campaign mailers, as did Police Chief William J. Bratton, a mayoral ally. The larger bond also resulted in more money promised for facilities for charter schools, which maintained a neutral position in the campaign.

That $1-million effort included seven mailers, which especially targeted Republican women, a group identified as persuadable, said Measure Q campaign consultant Steve Barkan. L.A. Unified produced three "informational" mailers of its own.

"I heard about the reasons to vote for it, but I never heard reasons to vote against it," said Lizeth Robles, 18, a South Los Angeles resident who attends UCLA. On Tuesday night, she voted for it, as did her Spanish-speaking father, who presses clothes for a dry cleaner.

Edwin Morales, 26, said he also had no hesitation voting for both the college and K-12 bonds because he personally remembered conditions at Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights and at East Los Angeles Community College, from which he graduated in 2006. He is working his way toward a political science degree at Cal State L.A. with a job as a valet.

The most dominant school bond victory belonged to Alhambra Unified, which claimed 74.8% of votes for its $50-million measure. Fifteen of the 23 bonds got more than a two-thirds majority, which had been required before California lowered the threshold to 55% in 2000.

The $13-million bond for Acton-Agua Dulce Unified, in north L.A. County, prevailed in a squeaker, with 55.5%. No other bond received less than 60% support.

Long Beach Unified Supt. Christopher Steinhauser said he was never in doubt about his district's $1.2-billion Measure K: "People are very supportive of schools because they can see an immediate result in their community."

_____________________________

●●smf’s 2¢ – Nationwide, 82% General Obligation Bonds were approved by voters – 82% of bonds on the ballot were approved …not necessarily with a pass rate of 82%!

The Bond Buyer – a trade online daily newspaper reports that nationwide k-12 school improvement bonds had a success rate of 87.3%.

Voters approved $54 Billion of $67 billion of bond measures on the ballot, $34 billion of $40 billion on K-12 school improvement bonds. 

This is impressive – but a very small number – with a huge amount of potential impact – when compared to numbers being bandied about in the current bailout of the financial and credit markets – the rock bottom beginning price of which is $700 billion. 

Enough with the bailout, how about some investment in the future?  The time is right for the federal government to assume payment of interest of K-12 (or P-14  - including pre-school and community college/workforce development) school facilities construction and improvement bonds – a way to plug immediate investment dollars into school modernization and improvement ….and the economy and the future. Let the local voters vote for the bonds  and the local taxpayers pay the costs – with the Feds paying the interest – for school construction and modernization general obligation bonds.

 

Chart from The. Bond Buyer

3 from the Homeroom: ROONEY REDUX

 

•  Lawsuit alleges school officials knew about suspected molester

• Outside review on molestation episode gets bad marks

• L.A. Unified's new measures to protect students

all by Howard Blume, Times Staff Writer

 

Lawsuit alleges school officials knew about suspected molester

08:57 AM PT, Nov 3 2008 - A recently filed lawsuit claims that senior Los Angeles school officials knew that an assistant principal remained a molestation suspect when they assigned him to a Watts middle school last year.

The lawsuit contradicts assertions by senior LAUSD administrators. They have denied knowing that police believed that Steve Thomas Rooney, 40, posed a risk to other girls. These administrators have contended that they thought Rooney had been cleared by police and by the central district offices.

Rooney quickly got into trouble after arriving at Markham Middle School in September 2007; he faces molestation-related charges involving two students from that school and two from a previous assignment. He has denied wrongdoing.

The new litigation, filed by Michael Hopwood -- a district employee who is also a former elected member of the Compton school board -- calls into question an internal report on the Rooney episode commissioned by the school district. The report, by the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman,  is examined in today’s Times.

---

(see: Report cites mistakes in L.A. Unified's handling of suspected child molester, following)

also:

• Markham Middle School report (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman final report re: The Markham Investigation, dated June 2, 2008 plus Board Resolutions and Policy bulletins.)

• Dan Isaacs memo

• Discipline policy

---

The report by the law firm has been used by Supt. David L. Brewer to assert that no current district employee is directly to blame for sending Rooney to Markham. In particular, Brewer defended Carol Truscott, who heads one of the district's eight geographic areas.

In preparing the report, the law firm interviewed 28 people, but missed  Hopwood, an operations coordinator under Truscott who has now come forward with explosive allegations in a lawsuit filed last month.

In his lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Hopwood alleges job discrimination and retaliation for, among other things, protesting Truscott's decision to return Rooney to a school site.

Hopwood, an elected member of the Compton school board in the 1990s, contends that he met with Truscott and Anthony Armendariz, another operations coordinator, in the summer of 2007 to discuss the handling of Rooney. At the time, Rooney, an assistant principal at Fremont High in South Los Angeles, had been removed from contact with students because police were investigating both a gun-brandishing charge and possible sexual improprieties. But no sex charge was filed, and the gun charge was dropped because the girl at the center of the case wouldn’t testify against Rooney.

In the lawsuit, Hopwood alleges that he urged Truscott not to return Rooney to a campus, but that Truscott responded that “she would not have a ‘non-productive’ administrator.” Hopwood also charges that after police arrested Rooney for allegedly molesting two girls at Markham, Hopwood claims that Truscott warned him “that he must be loyal to her in the Rooney matter.”

Truscott could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, but in the law firm’s report she denied knowing that police investigators continued to suspect that Rooney was a sexual predator. And in a statement to The Times, she said that “had the full law-enforcement details been shared with me, I would have acted differently. Anyone who knowingly puts children in danger should be fired.”

Hopwood and Armendariz declined to be interviewed.

-- Howard Blume

 

Outside review on molestation episode gets bad marks

08:55 AM PT, Nov 3 2008 -- A report into how a man suspected of sexual misconduct was returned to contact with students received mostly poor grades from those who reviewed it at The Times' request.

Former assistant principal Steve Thomas Rooney, 40, faces molestation-related charges involving four students — two from Markham Middle School in Watts and two from Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles, where Rooney had previously worked. He has denied wrongdoing.

After Rooney’s March arrest, the LAUSD hired an outside law firm -- Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman -- to review Rooney’s path to Markham.

The report has been used as the basis for imposing no apparent substantial discipline on any current district employee. But the report has obvious shortcomings, said district and law enforcement sources. Some of these issues are outlined in a today's L.A. Times article, but there are others.

One is the range of interviews conducted by the law firm.

As an example, the law firm accepted the contention by members of the Employee Relations and the Staff Relations departments that they did not know Rooney was suspected of sexual misconduct. They said they knew only of a gun charge against Rooney and insisted that their contacts with police never mentioned anything else.

The law firm never verified the accounts of these departments with police, according to the list of interviews conducted.

Employee Relations was responsible for tracking criminal cases involving district employees. Staff Relations was responsible for advising officials regarding these employees once an investigation had concluded. Neither department raised concerns about Rooney being returned to contact with students.

In fact, if these L.A. Unified employees had contacted detectives or reviewed documentation related to the investigation, they could not have missed that the inquiry was primarily a sexual-misconduct investigation, law enforcement sources said.

Almost all sources spoke on the condition that their names would not be used. The district employees noted that they were unauthorized to speak. Some law enforcement sources also were not authorized, and they emphasized the importance of maintaining a good personal and departmental working relationship with the school system.

One person who commented was A.J. Duffy, head of United Teachers Los Angeles. He questioned why the gun charge by itself didn’t warrant an internal review. Rooney was originally arrested in February 2007 for allegedly brandishing a gun at the stepfather of a student.

“That’s an issue that should be taken with the greatest degree of seriousness,” Duffy said. “If they didn’t, that shows how bad they are at doing their jobs.”

Moreover, at least two Fremont teachers had complained about alleged outbursts of anger from Rooney on the job.

Others took issue with the report’s focus on former district Chief Operating Officer Dan Isaacs. The report criticized Isaacs for not telling everything he knew about the police investigation of Rooney in a brief memo Isaacs sent to the Board of Education, L.A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer and 11 other top officials.

Isaacs sent out the memo at the time of Rooney’s February 2007 arrest, and about five months before his own retirement. At that point, Rooney’s job status remained in limbo; he was being kept out of contact with students in a desk job at the local district office.

In a recent interview, Brewer named only Isaacs as a person deserving blame for the Rooney episode.

“You cannot lead and manage by memo,” said Brewer, who had a cool relationship with Isaacs. “The chief operating officer walks out of the door, and it was a single point of failure. He had the information and nobody else had it.”

One on-the-record defense of Isaacs and his memo came from Michael O’Sullivan, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents L.A. Unified administrators.

“The content of that memo was extraordinarily well done,” said O’Sullivan, who has hired Isaacs to work part-time for the association. “It does not give unnecessary information. It simply states the facts. It was the typical heads-up memo. And it went to everyone who should have it.”

Another matter that drew critical response was the report's handling of who, if anyone, was responsible for making sure Rooney was fit to return to a campus. The report ultimately faults no one directly, although it acknowledges district policy stipulating that the local district superintendent (Carol Truscott) and an employee's immediate supervisor were responsible for a follow-up probe. In this context, Truscott's underling Greg Braxton supervised Rooney after he was pulled from Fremont High in South Los Angeles. (Braxton has since become the principal at the new Roybal Learning Center.)

The relevant policy is laid out in Bulletin 3357, adopted in October 2006. It states that an employee’s administrator and the local district superintendent should conduct an internal investigation once a law enforcement inquiry or trial has ended with no conviction. That’s because such an employee may still deserve to be fired, face other discipline or pose a threat of some sort.

As described briefly in today’s Times article, the law firm’s report accepted Truscott’s and Braxton’s contention that they never saw the 2006 policy.

A couple of district sources, who were not directly involved in the Rooney case, insisted that they too were unaware of the 2006 policy. Others found that contention difficult to believe.

Still, administrators aren’t supposed to conduct probes that parallel or precede police investigations, because that can undermine police work, said former district general counsel Kevin Reed.

The problem, he added, was that some administrators took the admonition not to interfere with police matters too far. To clarify matters, the district adopted a sexual harassment policy in 2004.

Sexual harassment, as defined, includes inappropriate “conduct of a sexual nature.” And the policy stipulates that “as soon as the law-enforcement agency completes its investigation,” administrators are responsible for “conducting a prompt investigation into whether sexual harassment had occurred.”
Thus, anyone who missed the 2006 policy should at least have been aware of the 2004 sexual harassment policy.

Twice a year, administrators must certify in writing that they have reviewed the sexual harassment policy as well as rules pertaining to the reporting of child abuse.

One reason for the 2004 policy — and its repeated review — was to instill the notion that all employees must take personal responsibility for the safety of children. No one should assume that keeping children away from harm is someone else’s job.

But even with the 2004 policy, not everyone seemed to be getting the message. The 2006 policy was necessary, Reed said, because there was “an incomplete understanding” that once a criminal prosecution ceased, administrators must ensure that it’s appropriate to return an employee to contact with students.

In other words, Truscott and Braxton were perhaps far from alone in their mistaken understanding of how they should proceed.

In the wake of the Rooney incident, Brewer has centralized the management of employees under a cloud, an adjustment that Braxton commended.

“I am glad the district has instituted a policy for returning people to schools that involves a series of checks and screenings at the central district level,” Braxton wrote in an e-mail to The Times. “This is where many of us had always understood it to be.”

Similarly, Truscott noted: “As tragic as this is, it has resulted in stronger protections for the children.”

The new system may be improved as far as tracking and managing these cases, but it moves in a different direction than insisting on individual responsibility at all levels, which Reed was trying to accomplish.

-- Howard Blume

Rooney Redux: REPORT CITES MISTAKES IN L.A. UNIFIED’S HANDLING OF SUSPECTED CHILD MOLESTER

No current employee is directly blamed. Administrators refuse to disclose what disciplinary action was taken in the case of Steve Thomas Rooney.

By Howard Blume - From the Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2008 - A confidential investigation into how a suspected child molester was assigned to a Los Angeles Unified School District middle school has concluded that no current employee was directly to blame, even though several made mistakes. The report itself has been criticized, as has the response of the district, which declined to disclose what, if any, disciplinary action resulted.

Steve Thomas Rooney became an assistant principal at Markham Middle School in Watts last year after police had warned the district that they suspected Rooney had had a sexual relationship with an underage former student.

Months later, police arrested Rooney on suspicion of molesting students at his new school. Rooney, 40, faces charges involving four students -- two from Markham and two from Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles, where he had previously worked. He has denied wrongdoing.

After Rooney was arrested in March, the district hired a law firm, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, to review his path to Markham. The Times obtained the report through a Public Records Act request.

---

• Markham Middle School report (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman final report re: The Markham Investigation, dated June 2, 2008 plus Board Resolutions and Policy bulletins.)
• Dan Isaacs memo

• Discipline policy

---

Among its findings:

* Local District Supt. Carol Truscott, who made the decision to move Rooney to Markham, violated district policy by not first initiating an internal probe to see whether he posed any threat or should be disciplined. She responded that she didn't know that district policy mandated such an inquiry.

* Scott Braxton, who worked for Truscott overseeing schools, violated the same policy and offered the same reason.

* Dan Isaacs, the district's former chief operations officer, failed to share sufficient details regarding allegations against Rooney.

* The district's Employee Relations Department tracked only a gun allegation against Rooney, and the separate Staff Relations Department didn't advise Truscott to launch an internal review. Representatives of both departments claimed to be unaware of the sex allegations.

* The Los Angeles Police Department failed to keep reminding district employees about the sex allegations.

The $209,000 inquiry revisited district actions between February and September of 2007. At the start of that period, police detectives were investigating allegations that Rooney, on Jan. 1, 2007, threatened the stepfather of a former student with a gun.

Detectives quickly concluded that Rooney had a sexual relationship with the underage girl, whom he had taught at Foshay, according to police.

As related in the report, police alerted senior L.A. Unified officials in early February about their intent to arrest Rooney on the gun charge. At the time, Rooney was an assistant principal at Fremont High in South Los Angeles. Over several days the police had multiple conversations with the district regarding the alleged sexual improprieties, the report said. Those briefed included Isaacs, two aides, school district Police Chief Lawrence E. Manion and two of his officers.

Isaacs called Truscott and sent a brief memo to the Board of Education, Supt. David L. Brewer and 11 other top officials but did not inform the Employee Relations Department, which monitors criminal investigations involving employees. (Isaacs told the law firm that he called that department.) The memo stated that, in addition to the gun charge, "LAPD is also investigating allegations that [Rooney] had an unlawful sexual relationship with a minor."

The report criticized Isaacs because the memo "failed to mention everything Isaacs knew."

In a statement in June, Brewer went further, singling out Isaacs for "the mishandling of the Rooney case."

District and law enforcement sources criticized the report's focus on Isaacs, who retired more than two months before Truscott approved sending Rooney to Markham. Isaacs declined to comment.

In an interview, Kathleen Collins, an attorney for L.A. Unified, defended the Employee Relations staff and criticized police: Staff members "are interfacing with law enforcement, but law enforcement wasn't telling them about the sex allegations," Collins said.

Police officials had no comment on that. But "when you talk to the school district chief of police and the head of district operations, you've made that notification," said Charlie Beck, LAPD chief of detectives.

After the gun arrest, Truscott assigned Rooney temporarily to a desk job under Braxton. Months later, the Staff Relations Department told Truscott and Braxton that the gun charge had been dropped, so Rooney could be returned to a campus.

L.A. Unified policy, adopted in 2006, stipulates that both the local superintendent (Truscott) and the employee's supervisor (Braxton), are responsible for follow-up investigation regardless of whether prosecutors file charges. The case stalled mainly because the Foshay student wouldn't testify against Rooney.

The report says that Truscott told the law firm that "because she was never specifically told by the district to investigate, she did not investigate or inquire about investigating. . . . Truscott also stated she did not investigate because the incident did not occur at school, did not warrant 'digging deeper,' and she did not know a former student was involved."

Braxton told The Times that he had believed that his responsibility was to follow the direction of the central office.

Truscott relayed a statement through the district. "I think about those families all of the time," the statement said in part. "I didn't know about the new policy, and had the full law enforcement details been shared with me I would have acted differently."

This explanation falls short for Gordon Phillips, an attorney representing the students.

"A teacher is exhibiting bizarre behavior, brandishing a firearm, and you're also told he's having sex with a minor," Phillips said. "What else do you need to hear?"

Brewer said the district disciplined one or more employees but would offer no specifics. He defended Truscott, a 30-year employee, by saying that it was easy to miss new and amended policies because the district recently replaced paper distribution with online postings.

But according to veteran administrators, new bulletins are still distributed by e-mail, with Internet posting for reference. This system has been in place for about five years. In addition, local districts have monthly principal meetings at which new policies are reviewed. And, twice a year, administrators must certify that they've reviewed certain policies, including those pertaining to child abuse and sexual harassment. One of several changes arising from the Rooney case is that the superintendent himself now must sign off before an employee under a cloud returns to a school.

LA UNIFIED SEEKS TO BUILD APARTMENTS ON ITS SURPLUS LAND

The district says the low-cost units could house teachers, helping to reduce the attrition rate. Families of students could live there as well, facilitating house calls by teachers.

By David Zahniser | LA Times staff writer

 

Nov. 1 -- The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking to develop low-cost apartments on as many as 12 campuses in an effort to help teachers find less expensive housing and live closer to their jobs.

District officials have be gun asking real estate developers to submit housing proposals on school campuses in Hollywood and Harbor Gateway and are reviewing other campuses where apartments could be built on surplus land.

But the development plan is drawing fire from opponents of Measure Q, the district's $7-billion construction and repair bond issue on Tuesday's ballot. Critics contend that the district should not seek to increase property taxes to pay for new facilities if it has enough real estate to start housing its employees.

"They're complaining that they have a lack of revenue and yet they don't do the obvious thing with surplus property, which is to sell it to the highest bidder in a way that wouldn't conflict with . . . a school," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

Coupal said the district should stick to educating children. But L.A. Unified officials say the housing initiative will meet a critical need by creating apartments for school employees who are having trouble finding reasonably priced homes near their jobs.

District officials said they could save $20,000 each year in training costs by reducing the teacher attrition rate at three campuses. And they argue that Measure Q voters should be encouraged by the district's efforts to maximize its land holdings in a way that generates long-term rental income.

"We're always trying to utilize our assets better," said John Creer, the district's director of planning and development. "But we're not doing it to the detriment of our core mission, which is to provide education."

Measure Q is the district's fifth bond issue in 11 years. The measure includes at least $400 million for new schools and at least $450 million for the construction and expansion of charter schools.

The campaign has coincided with efforts by the district to lure real estate developers to its school sites, particularly those with parking lots that can be converted into school parking garages with housing on the upper levels.

In Glassell Park, the district is finalizing an agreement with the Los Angeles Community Design Center, a nonprofit group that plans to build 45 units on district-owned land next to Glassell Park Elementary School. Although the rental terms have not been finalized, Creer said the project would provide parking for school employees and rental income under a 66-year lease.

In the Harbor Gateway neighborhood, L.A. Unified has requested proposals for a district-owned site next to Gardena High School. And in Hollywood, the district hopes to attract a developer who will build four levels of underground parking and at least five levels of housing on district land across from Selma Elementary School.

District officials informed school board members last month that the Selma project could grow considerably taller, given the high density of new developments in Hollywood. And they argued that in addition to housing teachers, the new residences could be used to bring children back to Selma, which has lost 43% of its students over the last four years, in large part because of rising rents.

"With enrollment declining, we're hoping to create workforce housing and maybe repopulate the school there," senior facilities project manager Sam Mistrano told the school board's Facilities Committee.

That argument infuriates a representative of the California Charter Schools Assn., which has been pressing the district to free up some of its available space -- including vacant land -- to help open and expand charter schools, which are public schools but are not bound by as many state education rules.

"The district would rather pursue this than get their own kids the charter space that they need," said Gary Larson, a spokesman for the group.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has been raising money for the bond measure, endorsed the district's housing initiative in May. So did Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who sent the district a letter favoring the concept earlier this year.

Hahn now says that she was wrong about the housing plan, which was presented to her before the district placed the measure for $7 billion in bonds -- twice the amount originally proposed -- on the ballot. Hahn said she is perplexed by the school system's desire to build homes in Harbor Gateway when, as part of its school construction program, it is destroying homes in nearby Wilmington, another part of her district.

"There are certainly a lot of hurt feelings because the district has taken people's homes," she said. "So for them to be in the business now of building housing is a cruel twist."

L.A. Unified officials compare their effort to one in the Silicon Valley, where 40 apartments were built by the Santa Clara Unified School District for its teachers. That district charged rents that were well below the market rate in that expensive housing market.

A nearby early model for the L.A. district's housing proposal can be found in Canoga Park, where the nonprofit group New Economics for Women built both a 119-unit affordable housing project and a 450-seat charter elementary school. In that project, the group retained ownership of the housing and sold the school to the district for $15.9 million.

New Economics for Women pays the district $1 a year in rental income, said Beatriz Stotzer, president of the group's board. One-fifth of the school's students live in the nearby housing, allowing teachers to make house calls on their students, she added.

"It's a very easy opportunity [for teachers] to visit the student in their own home, so that they know they're being valued and watched," she said.

Affordable-housing developer Robin Hughes, who is working on the Glassell Park project, said the apartment proposal will provide an opportunity for L.A. Unified to make up for some of the housing it has eliminated. Still, she conceded that teachers will probably be ineligible for the homes near Glassell Park Elementary.

"Their income is probably too high for this particular site," said Hughes, who is also one of Villaraigosa's appointees on the citywide Planning Commission. "But there are other sites that the district is looking at."