LA TIMES
Van Nuys high school student wins Princeton Prize in Race Relations
4:31 PM | June 12, 2009
Lauded for her work in uniting students across the ethnic divide, a graduating senior and salutatorian at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, has been awarded the Princeton Prize in Race Relations.
DAILY NEWS
Students to compete in 'White House Music Series'
Daily News Wire Services
Updated: 06/15/2009 06:52:52 AM PDT
Area students from Eagle Rock High School, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and Washington Preparatory High School will join other students from Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans and New York City in Washington D.C. for today's opening of the White House Music Series.
http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12593027
School chief rescinds 505 LAUSD layoffs
DISTRICT: Stimulus funding, retirement program facilitated teacher buy-back.
Staff and Wire Services
Updated: 06/12/2009 10:09:29 PM PDT
Layoff notices for 505 Los Angeles Unified teachers and counselors were rescinded Friday by Schools Chief Ramon Cortines.
http://www.dailynews.com/education/ci_12582315
Week in review: summer school and historic monuments
Updated: 06/13/2009 05:51:19 PM PDT
The closing of summer school
It's not such a surprise that California's budget problems are leading school districts around the state to cancel most summer-school offerings.
For instance, the Los Angeles Unified School District decided to save $34 million by canceling summer school for about 225,000 elementary and middle school students. In response, LAUSD teachers have been offering parents who want their children to remain academically engaged this summer some workshops and take-home resources.
Such efforts are certainly welcome.
The Roman Catholic archdiocese is also attempting to come to a partial rescue, reminding families with students in secular schools that some parochial and other Catholic schools in Southern California welcome summer-semester students as well.
Those classes usually involve a cost - sometimes a (relatively) nominal $100 or so, sometimes much more. But it might beat the cost of day care.
And it surely beats the cost of an uneducated California.
DAILY BREEZE
South Bay high schools make Newsweek's best list
From staff reports
Posted: 06/14/2009 07:04:37 AM PDT
Areawide. Newsweek magazine released its annual list of the 1,500 top public high schools in the country last week, showing some surprising results for South Bay campuses.
Here are the rankings for local schools that made the list: 56, Hawthorne Math & Science Academy; 144, Palos Verdes Peninsula High; 185, Palos Verdes High; 299, Mira Costa High; 351, California Academy of Math & Science; 445, Animo Venice; 582, Animo Leadership; 667, Harbor Teacher Preparation Academy; 738, Redondo Union High; 977, Animo Inglewood; 1,062, Carson High; 1,326, El Segundo High; 1,375, Narbonne High; 1,463, Westchester High.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_12589067
LA OPINION
LAUSD en un estira y encoje de nómina: Asegura que podrá salvar la mayoría de empleos en riesgo; maestros siguen en huelga de hambre
Rubén Moreno
2009-06-13
Huelguistas instalados frente a las oficinas centrales del LAUSD en protesta por los recortes[Fotos: Emilio Flores/La Opinión]
En tres meses el Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) ha dado la vuelta a la tortilla de los despidos hasta asegurar ahora la continuidad de más del 71% de los puestos que planeaba cancelar ante el déficit fiscal.
Entre estos se incluyen 505 consejeros y maestros de secundaria no permanentes que el Distrito Escolar anunció ayer que podrá seguir ofreciendo tras revisar sus cuentas.
Sin embargo, de las 8,846 notificaciones de despido enviadas en marzo, aún hay 2,520 posiciones que podrían ser canceladas.
El superintendente, Ramón Cortines, expresó estar "profundamente consternado por el número de empleados que tenemos que recortar".
"Estamos haciendo todo lo posible para salvar los puestos de trabajo", indicó.
Pero distinto piensan algunos maestros, quienes ayer continuaban plantados, aunque sin mucho éxito, frente a las oficinas de LAUSD con sus tiendas de campaña para exigir a esta institución que mantenga a todos los maestros en clase.
"Por ahora nadie del distrito ha hablado con nosotros, pero vamos a seguir en la lucha", dijo José Lara, maestro de la secundaria Santee y uno de los organizadores de la huelga de hambre con la que algunos docentes quieren llamar la atención del distrito.
Por contra, la activista Dolores Huerta se acercó ayer a los maestros para ofrecerles su apoyo.
La continuidad de los puestos que se proyectaban suspender llega luego de continuas reuniones donde todos los departamentos del distrito están analizando la situación fiscal para ajustar sus propios presupuestos en base a los fondos existentes y los recibidos en el paquete del estímulo económico federal.
El presidente del Sindicato de Maestros de Los Ángeles (UTLA), A.J. Duffy, criticó al distrito por no mantener a la unión informada sobre el progreso de los puestos que se están pensando salvar y saber los últimos avances a través de la prensa, al tiempo que aseguró desconocer "los números reales con los que se están trabajando".
"Todavía no sabemos cuántos puestos son los que se podrán mantener o si se podrán salvar más de los que están diciendo", señaló.
Cortines atribuyó la rescisión de las notificaciones al "resultado directo del programa de jubilación anticipada y de que las escuelas contraten maestros y consejeros adicionales en los planteles intermedios y secundarias".
El distrito escolar concedió la autoridad a las escuelas para que decidan los puestos que cada plantel puede mantener,
Pero para Lara "no es suficiente lo que se está haciendo".
"Primero dicen que no hay dinero, y luego por arte de magia lo encuentran para mantener algunos puestos", criticó. "Mientras haya maestros despedidos y no usen todo el dinero del estímulo federal para salvar trabajos, el tamaño del salón de clases irá en aumento".
La situación resulta compleja, luego de que el LAUSD enfrenta un déficit de 1,900 millones de dólares en los dos próximos años escolares y sus directivos aseguran que el dinero del estímulo federal no es suficiente para mantener todas las posiciones.
Hasta ahora LAUSD ha obtenido 369 millones de dólares en base al paquete de estímulo federal y no conocerá hasta octubre cuánto será el monto restante por recibir.
Por otra parte, funcionarios del distrito sostienen que lo que se mantendrá son las posiciones y no a trabajadores concretos, luego de aplicarse los derechos de antigüedad de los empleados.
Así, por ejemplo, de los 2,875 administradores que recibieron notificación de despido, 278 de ellos serán transferidos a puestos de maestro, desbancando a quienes ocupaban estos cargos.
Entre tanto, los huelguistas tomarán un respiro el fin de semana para dormir en sus casas, aunque Sean Lyes, maestro de la escuela Lincoln quien asegura no haber ingerido nada más que agua desde hace 17 días, proseguirá en casa con la huelga de hambre antes de regresar el lunes con su tienda de campaña frente a las oficinas del Distrito Escolar.
En tres meses el Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) ha dado la vuelta a la tortilla de los despidos hasta asegurar ahora la continuidad de más del 71% de los puestos que planeaba cancelar ante el déficit fiscal.
Tú sí puedes hablar inglés: Agencias de Contigo |
2009-06-14
"No puedo", "No tengo tiempo", "No lo necesito, mis hijos me traducen", "No me gusta", "¡Qué flojera!", o simplemente: "No hablo inglés, ¿y qué?", son algunos de los pretextos que escuchamos frecuentemente de inmigrantes que no dominan el idioma del país en donde viven y trabajan.
http://www.impre.com/contigola/comunidad/2009/6/14/tu-si-puedes-hablar-ingles-129943-1.html
Educación especial se rezaga en LAUSD: Oficina que sirve a los discapacitados acumula reportes que están sólo en inglés
Rubén Moreno |
2009-06-14
En la oficina de educación especial del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) existen cerca de 1,300 reportes en espera de ser traducidos. O lo que es lo mismo, hay al menos 1,300 padres con hijos en educación especial en el distrito que no entienden por completo las necesidades escolares de sus menores por la barrera del idioma.
USA TODAY
Calif. teachers say layoffs will hurt students
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sean Leys sat huddled and still in a tent on a sidewalk outside of a Los Angeles middle school, fatigued by an ongoing hunger strike but resolved to protest looming teacher layoffs.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-06-13-calif-teachers-layoffs_N.htm
NEW YORK TIMES
No Longer Letting Scores Separate Pupils
By WINNIE HU
STAMFORD, Conn. — Sixth graders at Cloonan Middle School here are assigned numbers based on their previous year’s standardized test scores — zeros indicate the highest performers, ones the middle, twos the lowest — that determine their academic classes for the next three years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/education/15stamford.html?_r=1&ref=education&pagewanted=print
MERCURY NEWS
Layoffs mean LA schools lose new breed of teachers
By CHRISTINA HOAG Associated Press Writer
Posted: 06/13/2009 11:36:02 AM PDT
LOS ANGELES—Sean Leys sat huddled and still in a tent on a sidewalk outside of a Los Angeles middle school, fatigued by an ongoing hunger strike but resolved to protest looming teacher layoffs.
http://www.mercurynews.com/natbreakingnews/ci_12584825
NEWSWEEK
The Top of the Class: The complete list of the 1,500 top U.S. high schools
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Public schools are ranked according to a ratio devised by Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement, Intl. Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students at a school in 2008 divided by the number of graduating seniors. All of the schools on the list have an index of at least 1.000; they are in the top 6 percent of public schools measured this way.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/201160/output/print
COMPUTER WORLD
Computer science is widening the education gap: Minority students are in danger of being made technologically rich but cognitively poor
Richard Tapia
June 15, 2009 (Computerworld)
This article is excerpted from the afterword to Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing, by Jane Margolis, and is reprinted by permission of The MIT Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9132825
EXAMINER
LAUSD is setting up a task force to improve teacher quality
June 14, 4:11 PM
Are any members of the task force going to be teachers or will they be administrators, business, and college people who are not in schools? College personnel look at teaching from an idealized point of view, and business people look at the bottom line. Only teachers see the human factors—teachers working with students individually, in small groups, in large classes, and in multiple classes each day.
LA OPINIÓN
AT VIEW PARK DROPPING OUT IS NOT AN OPTION: The charter high school graduates 100% of its students for the third year in a row
By Rubén Moreno | La Opinión (translated by LAUSD Translation Service)
June 11, 2009 -- Chairs, flowers, balloons shaped like mortarboards and great music. To the casual observer it would seem to be just one more graduation in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). But the one celebrated this week at [View Park Prep HS] Charter had something different about it.
For the third year in a row, this small independent high school in South Los Angeles graduated 100% of its seniors. On the stage, 67 impatient students waited to receive their diplomas and then have their picture taken with their togas on.
The secret to their success, according to Michael Piscal, president of the Inner City Organization Foundation (ICEF), which operates the school, is that “we have very few students, and that allows a much closer and more personal relationship with the teachers and parents.”
Charter schools, whose growth has been rapid in California due to their success, operate independently of the administration of school districts and can handle their funds directly, offer a specialized curriculum and limit the number of students.
In View Park, there are 400 students in the four high school grades. This is a much smaller number than the 5,000 that attend some traditional schools like Roosevelt, or the more than 3,000 that Santee accommodates in its classrooms.
While in the regular schools in LAUSD, 67.5% of students graduate, charter schools operating in Los Angeles achieved, in 70% of all cases, better results than the traditional campuses with which they could be compared in the realm of academic progress.
“There is an extraordinary commitment on the part of our teachers to teach youngsters,” added Piscal, who emphasizes the importance of the “rigorous programs, excellent teachers and a welcoming environment” for families.
For Tymita Bennet, who radiated happiness at her daughter Gynai Seaborne’s graduation, the key is that parents can be involved at school “because we feel welcome.”
“Although there have been difficult times, we have always had the support of the teachers,” added the student, one of the 40 graduates in this school who have been admitted to the UC system, whereas the rest of them will attend Cal State, community colleges or out-of-state universities.
According to Darnise Williams, the principal of the school, this campus not only sets a goal of graduating all of its students, but also for them to be accepted in one of the hundred best institutions in the country so that they can contribute what they have learned once they are back in their communities.
But not everyone will return to their real origins. Clarice Valentine arrived in California after Hurricane Katrina, and she appreciates the support she has received at this school to help her graduate.
“For a lot of people Katrina was a nightmare, but it saved my life,” said the student. “I was afraid to come to Los Angeles, leave my friends and face a new environment. That’s why I focused on my studies, and now when I see my life before the hurricane, I don’t recognize myself,” she added alluding to the fact that if she had remained in New Orleans, she wouldn’t have graduated.
Once you’ve graduated, “now is when the real work starts,” said Clarc Douglas, a well-known African American lawyer who was the speaker at the graduation ceremony. “The country and the state need you in order to progress. Don’t let other people’s opinions become your realities.”
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