RECONSTITUTING JORDAN, Not quite half the story

In REMAKING JORDAN DOWNS - Jordan High's staff shakeup puts students on better track [http://lat.ms/18K2lWT] The LA Times returns to the NCLB/so-called-®eform theme that forced reconstitution makes a lasting meaningful difference as measured by student test scores. In this version of the story reconstitution won’t  just save the high school – it will turn around an infamous housing project plagued by crime, poverty and neglect

The magic bullet, the weapon-of-choice and the the target are all wrong.

1. Statistics show almost all reconstitution produces better results in the first year – and these results fall off to inconsequential in subsequent years.  This is great – if you reconstitute schools every few years – as LAUSD has done at Crenshaw.
2. Jordan was split into two schools – part of it was given to Green Dot. Where are the well-spun test score results for that school? 

Jordan Downs has challenges far greater than can be solved by replacing the teaching staff at the high school.  But the article gets one thing right: The project, the community, the challenges+opportunities and the school are  are inseparably connected.  As they are in every neighborhood.-smf