PUT OUR CHILDREN FIRST THIS JUNE

BY Mónica García and John Deasy IN tHE hUFfINGTON pOST |http://huff.to/elipE2 García IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE LAUSD BOARD OF ED, DEASY IS THE LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT-ELECT

March 11, 2011 03:49 PM - Public education in Los Angeles is teetering on a financial precipice. Our leaders in Sacramento should choose to let voters determine the outcome on the June ballot.

The choice: encourage the tremendous promise of our teachers and schools -- accelerating student achievement, reform-driven innovation, a culture of accountability, and classrooms equipped to prepare our youngsters for college and, or career. Or, saddle the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) with a $408 million budget deficit resulting in the layoff of more than 5,000 teachers, impossible counselor ratios of 1,000 students to one, eviscerated support services, and overflowing classrooms housing too many children but preparing far too few.

The future of more than 671,648 K-12 students is dangling over that precipice.

We write today because our students need their state representatives to give voters the opportunity to support their academic successes.

If state legislators agree, in June you will have the chance to vote to extend temporary tax increases that would otherwise expire. The school district's budget gap could be reduced by $183 million for the 2011-12 academic year. That difference would save thousands of positions for teachers; preserve smaller classes in the elementary grades of 24 students instead of 29 to one teacher; and provide hundreds of additional counselors to help prepare our students for productive futures.

After three years of state budget cuts totaling $1.5 billion already carved from Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) resources, core classroom services are the only thing left to reduce.

You may be asking yourself: why should state legislators -- or Los Angeles voters for that matter -- continue to invest in public education? The question is fair, and the answer is this. In those same three lean years, as this school district weathered the worst financial crisis in recent memory, our schools were renewed by the fresh thinking and bold leadership of our courageous Superintendent Ramon Cortines, and a Board of Education committed to ending business as usual.

The school district has eliminated waste, dramatically downsized administrative offices, and put thousands of out-of-classroom employees back in the classroom teaching students. We have invited teams of teachers, universities and charter schools to submit their best plans for turning around our lowest performing schools and for opening our newest schools. We have broken many of our vast overcrowded campuses into smaller, more personal schools and signed groundbreaking reformed teacher contracts. We have cut red tape, empowered school sites, and unleashed a new culture of innovation and accountability.

Now, as Superintendent Cortines prepares to hand the reins to a new, incoming superintendent, our leadership team remains united in our commitment to accelerating these reforms and dramatically lifting student achievement.

This is not the complacent, bureaucratic LAUSD of old. Rather, positive results are already starting to show. Test scores are up. So are graduation rates. Many middle class families are opting back in to public education. This school district has never been so cash-starved. At the same time, this school district has never had so much new life.

We have a winning team and we invite you to join it. Choose to support a school district that, as so many independent commentators have stated, is in the midst of a rebirth. Choose to help land public education safely on the side of student achievement, where there are enough teachers in our classrooms, enough counselors to prepare students for college, and the chance for every child to graduate.

Knock on your legislator's door and let him or her know you want to invest in the students of Los Angeles.