LAUSD FIGHTS WORK STOPPAGE: Teachers will stay away from class on May 15 to protest the cuts

by Rubén Moreno | La Opinión

May 5, 2009 -- The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is “reviewing all the options” to avoid a work stoppage during one day of instruction called for by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).

The teachers union plans not to teach class on Friday, May 15, in response to the layoffs of teachers approved by the school board.

During the next few days, students will be involved in assessment and performance tests, which is why the union defends “May 15 as the least controversial day” because of the tests being conducted.

Seventy-four percent of teachers voted in favor of carrying out the stoppage, out of a total of almost 27,000 teachers who cast their ballots in a vote organized by UTLA last Thursday.

Almost 75% support

“It hasn’t been an easy decision to make, but we don’t have any alternative since the superintendent has decided to increase class size and bring chaos to the schools when the District has money to avoid the layoffs,” said A.J. Duffy, union president.

LAUSD Superintendent Ramón Cortines said he understood “the frustration that some teachers may feel” because of the financial situation the District is facing, and he said he hopes that they fulfill “their responsibilities every day,” including May 15. Furthermore, he called the union’s action irresponsible because it “violates the law and the contract with the union.”

The last time that teachers did not show up in their classrooms was last June, although the stoppage was only for an hour at the beginning of the school day to protest the state cuts in education.

At that time, LAUSD officials requested the intervention of the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB), which found in favor of the teachers and did not consider the stoppage illegal because it could not find enough reasons that it would cause some time of public harm.

“That option [appealing to PERB] is one that we may take, but we are still not in a position to say what we will do. It’s too premature, and we are considering all options,” said Lydia Ramos, spokesperson for the school district.

So far, LAUSD has rescinded the layoffs of 1,996 teachers that had already been approved, whereas 1,360 certificated employees agreed to take early retirement. District officials extended until Friday the date to request early retirement, which could help to save more jobs if additional people sign up for the retirement program.

3 from La Opinión: THREE CASES OF VIRUS IN THE COUNTY +TEACHERS BEING LAID OFF + SUBSIDIES FOR SCHOOL LUNCHES IN DANGER

Three cases of virus in the county

Several schools have closed in California because of the AH1N1 flu

Editorial staff of La Opinión

May 4, 2009 - Among the first three cases of A1N1 flu confirmed in Los Angeles County, which were reported on Saturday night, there is a student of California State University Long Beach who is one of the probable cases.

This person began to feel the symptoms of the disease last weekend and on Monday he visited a health center for students.

The authorities suspect that there are two more cases in the city. The municipal official in charge of health Helene Calvet reacted by declaring a local health emergency, which allows her department to request that doses of Tamiflu be sent to treat people who could potentially become infected.

“The appearance of these cases does not change our recommendations to the public, but rather confirms what we suspected: that this virus is already in Los Angeles County,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, county public health director.

“We want to remind residents that there should be no panic. For the time being, the new flu virus has the appearance and the behavior of the regular one, the one we already are familiar with.”

There were also more cases confirmed in San Bernardino, Imperial, San Diego, Sacramento and Marin counties.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) there have been no confirmed cases.

All together, the Public Health Department of California had confirmed by yesterday up to 29 cases of the disease, with 130 probable cases that are still being examined. There have been no deaths due to the illness.

School closures

California State University San Diego yesterday temporarily closed its Children’s Center because several children and staff members presented symptoms of the flu, due to an “abundance of precaution,” said the director of the center Gina Jacobs, after it was discovered during the week that a student on the campus was probably suffering from the A/H1N1 virus.

Many of those infected in California are students, and several school districts responded by closing schools as a precautionary measure. Among the counties where classes were to be canceled are San Bernardino, Alameda, Marin, San Diego, Yolo and San Joaquin.

The Berkeley Division of Public Health identified a probable case of AH1N1 in a student at Malcolm X Elementary School and in his father. The school will remain closed for one to two weeks.

Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, Marin County, was also closed after a case of the virus was reported there.

Dr. Fred Schwartz, director of public health for the county, announced yesterday that the school would remain closed at least until Wednesday.

Schwartz said that the student, as well as a 35-year-old man from Novato, are confirmed cases.

On Friday, the county closed Bahia Vista Elementary School in San Rafael.

Fielding said that his department does not consider it necessary for the time being to close schools in Los Angeles County.

Principals and teachers have been asked to pay attention to children who sneeze or seem sick.

Visits stopped

All state prisons yesterday stopped visits to prisoners after one of them, in Centinela State Prison in the city of Imperial, turned out to be positive as a probable case of AH1N1 flu.

Luis Patino, spokesman for the prisons, said that it wasn’t known when the visits would be resumed.

The prisoner and his cellmate were isolated, and their symptoms are mild, said the spokesman.

Dr. Steven Ritter, the medical director of jails, said yesterday that the closure was a precautionary measure to protect the public, the prisoners and the staff.

Critical and legally obligatory activities like attorneys’ visits, medical evaluations and visits from social workers ordered by a judge were continuing but with additional precautionary measures.

Flu on the military base

Al Lundeen, spokesman for the Public Health Department of California, said that examinations were being performed on military bases. At Camp Pendleton it was confirmed that three marines had contracted the virus and been placed in quarantine.

The average age of the people with confirmed and probable cases is 18 years old, which means that many of those affected are members of the student population.

The official asked people to take the necessary precautions. In the whole country, the number of confirmed cases jumped yesterday from 160 in 21 states to 245 in 34 states. A baby in Texas who was returning from Mexico is the only victim who has died.

 

Teachers Being Laid Off

by Gabriel Lerner | La Opinión

May 4, 2009 - I am meeting with four high-school students. Two graduate in June and will continue in higher education; the other two have another year to go. For them, the billions of dollars that are being taken away from education mean the loss of teachers, classes, laboratories and opportunities.

Five teachers they know are being laid off, including Ms. Graner, who teaches history, and Mr. May, who teaches psychology.

Classes will have 40 students instead of 35. This, they tell me, means less attention from the instructor, more noise in the classroom and less concentration.

“In the Calculus BC class they had to fit in 52 students; there weren’t enough seats, and some students had to stand and lean against the wall.”

They don’t rule out that the District will get rid of more teachers and teaching equipment and reduce schedules.

March 13, when 27,000 teachers in the whole state –– nine out of every hundred –– received their pink slips, teachers, parents and students protested. Many came to class dressed in pink.

“I didn’t know, but soon we began to talk to the teachers who received the letters.”

They surrounded the teachers and expressed their sorrow. What will they do now?

“No one knows. Since in other places new teachers are also being laid off, they will probably leave teaching.”

Laying off teachers, which until recently was considered politically incorrect, is now permissible and is happening across all of California, with its thousand school districts, in an unstoppable current. More and more the solution adopted is to join the $11.6 billion in cuts to education.

In a recent meeting with La Opinión, the supervisor of a school district with 2,000 students said that of her 114 teachers, 23 would be laid off.

Last year, the Burbank School District honored Debbie Winsteen and 10 more elementary school teachers for their quality and achievements. Last week they laid her off.

Adriana Gervais teaches seventh grade in a school inaugurated in 2004. Only five of the instructors in the school did not receive layoff notices.

Kristen Vogel teaches third grade in San Francisco; her husband is a temporary fourth-grade teacher in Santa Rosa. Both are expecting their layoff notices.

And in Los Angeles, LAUSD, which employs 40,000, will lay off 2,000 elementary school teachers and 1,500 secondary teachers. The fate of the rest of them depends on the elections.

Tuesday, May 19, voters will decide Propositions 1A and 1B, among others. The second of these promises to return $9.3 billion to education beginning in 2011 and in installments, if we pass the first measure.

The teachers unions are divided. The biggest one, California Teachers Association (CTA), supports it and has spent millions of dollars on the campaign. But it is opposed by the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), which proposes getting back $9.3 billion in the courts, and the Association of University Faculty (CFA).

The wave of layoffs isn’t waiting for the results of the elections.

The Vallejo District, which will cut 10 million, will send the layoff letters on May 15, four days before the vote.

In Chino Valley, they’ve already lost 160 teachers and three elementary schools.

Public education is being attacked. The schools in poor areas and with immigrants are the most affected. Since in these schools there are more teachers without seniority, their layoffs will be deeper.

It would seem that governments have reneged on their obligation to invest in the education of those who need it the most because they have less.

The statements of support are just that, mere statements. Tirelessly theories are woven, plans are made and they announce decisions that take away the little that is left.

The current strategy considers education like just another business. Instead of children they see test results, although 65% of prisoners haven’t finished high school.

What’s encouraging is that independent groups of parents, teachers and students are springing up, who shake off their iPods, show interest in what is happening around them and come forth with enthusiasm and a will for change.

Before the cuts, California was in 47^th place in the nation in its per student expenditure. With the cuts and their results, the abyss is the limit.

gabriel.lerner@laopinion.com

 

 

Subsidies for school lunches in danger

The increase in demand and the reduction of resources cause problems throughout the state

Victoria Waters | La Opinión

May 2, 2009 - More students than ever are applying for meals subsidized by the public schools of California, a tendency that worries the authorities because with resources being reduced they fear not being able to satisfy the needs of all the applicants.

“Our schools provide nutritious and essential food. If we want our students to be successful, we have to continue operating these programs,” said the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, during the Convention of the Nutrition Association in California Schools this week in Sacramento.

In the last year, the percentage of applications to receive free or reduced-price lunches has increased 12% to a total of 3.1 million students in the whole state of California.

This translates to 28 million additional meals this school year for a record of 770.6 million meals a year.

“The need for help is increasing, and we have to find ways to make sure that these students have this meal, which for many is the only one in the day,” said O’Connell.

The meals include breakfast, lunch and snacks, and they are under the strict state nutritional standards, which exclude soft drinks, foods with high levels of sugar or fat, and fried foods.

The increase in applicants for meals was not expected, and the funding, explained O’Connell, is not sufficient.

In spite of the fact that the program is financed mainly with federal funds, it also requires state money.

The additional $31 million for the program, which was included in a legislative bill, did not materialize because the bill stalled in the Education Committee of the Assembly this month.

Now, those funds, said O’Connell’s office, will be included in the new California budget plan, which is to be submitted at the end of May.

However, the approval of the bill is not a sure thing, particularly because of the precarious economic situation in the state and the uncertainty about the growing deficit.

Nevertheless, the bill has some powerful allies.

“Our students cannot make decisions or learn new concepts if they are going hungry,” said state Senator Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who supports the increase in funds for food programs.

In recent years, several districts have had reductions in their meal programs that they have had to absorb in various ways, including the elimination of choices on menus.

“We have had to be very creative and spend our funds more intelligently and without affecting the students we serve,” said Laura Benavidez of Food Services for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

This district, the largest in California and the second largest in the United States, is serving some 5.5 million additional meals this year compared to 2008. The increase in cost, according to Benavidez, could reach 10 million dollars.

In other districts, like Sacramento and Oakland, the problem isn’t as severe, but it is significant.

“This year the program will experience $200,000 in losses, and that affects everyone. Last year, we had similar problems, and we managed the best we could,” said Jennifer La Barre, director of nutrition services for Oakland.

Due to the losses, said La Barre, the salad bar will be eliminated as of May.

“We still give our students good choices, but we also have to pay attention to our funds,” maintained La Barre.

“Any additional money would be a great help because thousands of children and families depend on this service,” added Benavidez.

The state budget will be divulged the third week in May.

Fifty-one percent of California students participate in the program of subsidized meals in the schools.

LAUSD WANTS TO MAKE FIRING TEACHERS EASIER

By George B. Sanchez, Staff Writer | LA Newspaper Group/ Daily News

23 April 2009 -- Embarking on a monumental task that some say is doomed to fail, Los Angeles Unified school officials are taking aim at state laws that make it virtually impossible to fire teachers.

Facing unprecedented layoffs, including 3,500 teachers with less than two year's experience, district officials and their allies say they need the power to cull bad teachers from the ranks or students will suffer in the classroom.

"It's about weeding out people who shouldn't be working with our kids," said Tamar Galatzan, a board of education member who represents part of the San Fernando Valley.

On Tuesday, the school board is scheduled to vote on a pair of resolutions to change state teacher protections as well as internal teacher promotion policy. Among them, they will seek to rewrite codes that favor teacher and administrator seniority during layoffs that allow senior staff to "bump" less senior staff out of their jobs, creating a domino effect that leads to the loss of new, nontenured teachers.

Also, the board has proposed a new evaluation method that would automatically fire teachers if they received two consecutive poor performance reviews. A better evaluation method, say district officials, will improve teaching morale and student achievement.

If approved, the measures will kick off a drawn-out fight with California's powerful teachers unions, who hotly oppose any changes to existing laws. The rules protecting teacher jobs are so effective that just 31 teachers have lost their jobs in the state in the past five years.

Teachers union officials say employees deserve job protection so that they can not be arbitrarily fired by a principal with a grudge.

"Does the public want vocal teachers to be fired because an administrator doesn't want to have a voice of opposition?" said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

District officials missed the Feb. 27 deadline to introduce new legislation this year, so if they do decide to move forward they will have to wait until 2010.

Still, LAUSD board members and Superintendent Ramon Cortines - with the support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - say it is time to overhaul the decades-old legal codes that protect teachers by seniority, but pay scant attention to competency and performance.

While recognizing their proposal will start a long struggle with the teachers unions and likely unsettle political alliances in Sacramento, board members say with so much attention on public education right now, there's no better time to begin.

California school districts do not have the authority to fire teachers, according to state law. If a teacher is targeted for dismissal, teachers have the right to take their case to an administrative hearing, where an administrative judge and two school officials hear the case and decide.

In the past five years, 31 teachers across the state have lost their jobs after administrative hearings, said Kathleen Collins, an attorney for LAUSD.

Approximately 149 LAUSD teachers are currently awaiting a dismissal hearing and have been removed from the classroom. All but 17 - a total of 132 people - continue to receive a paycheck, according to district records.

"There is an incentive for a bad employee to fight because they continue to get paid," Galatzan said.

The two motions were first introduced by board members Marlene Canter and Galatzan on April 14, the same day the board voted 4-3 to lay off nearly 7,000 teachers.

The layoffs were prompted by the district's budget deficit, which some fear could reach $1.3billion over three years.

The layoffs come at a difficult time for Villaraigosa, who this academic year began overseeing 10 schools under a partnership with the district. He has begun to speak out against the layoffs, which could effectively cost him all of the principals and assistant principals and about 200 teachers at the 10 schools.

"I believe in seniority, but you can take things to a point where it becomes unfair to other people, too," Villaraigosa said. "Why should administrators be able to bump into the school? They should bump other administrators but not all the way down."

The motion to change state law, Canter explained, is the first step in an attempt to fix a broken dismissal system.

"These conversations are being held all over town," Canter said.

The second resolution, authored by Canter, calls for changes to the district's internal process that promotes teachers to tenure.

Currently, teachers become permanent after two years with little internal scrutiny.

"It's a passive process," Canter said. "If nothing is done, teachers still become permanent."

The day after voting to lay off teachers, Canter flew to Sacramento to discuss the resolutions with state lawmakers Gloria Romero, Julia Brownley, Karen Bass and Secretary of Education Glen Thomas.

"This type of legislation would be a difficult challenge," said Santiago Jackson, director of LAUSD's governmental affairs unit. "Similar attempts have been made in the past but they failed due to opposition from the California Teachers Association and UTLA."

Mike O'Sullivan, president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, had an even bleaker view.

"It has no chance of passing," O'Sullivan said.

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union said the problem is not with state laws that protect teachers, but principals who fail to help teachers become better educators.

"If administrators would do their jobs and identify teachers who are struggling, give them guidance and assistance; and if those people do not improve, then they should be written up," Duffy said. "If administrators did their job, then we could deal with the issue now."

Over the past months as district officials crept slowly toward making mass layoffs, parents demanded that young and probationary teachers be spared. But parents also understand it is a delicate issue that must balance reform while maintaining protections.

"Many parents feel the seniority should be revised but teachers need protection against discrimination and favoritism," said Diana Kunce, whose children attend Westwood Charter School. "We're interested in true collaboration and true reform. This is a complex issue."

5000? 5400? 6850? The numbers of LAUSD layoffs like the size of the budget deficit and the size of the federal stimulus remains unknown. But however many of them there are they are like, so fired! Or not.

---

Update 4/15 | 3pm:

• Before yesterday’s vote to “save” 1996 elementary school jobs Reduction in Force/RIF/layoff  notices  had been sent to 10,571 employees.

• The final vote technically authorized 8,541 layoffs,

• Superintendent Ramon Cortines and Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly said the district would route state funding to individual schools, allowing them to "buy back" 3,167 positions

• Resulting in a final estimate of 5,374 layoffs.

“Allowing them” being the mother of all assumptions. - smf

---

LAUSD OKs plan to lay off 6850 employees

Los Angeles Daily News – April 15

By Connie Llanos and George B. Sánchez, Staff Writers A divided Los Angeles Unified Board of Education narrowly approved a plan Tuesday to lay off more than ...

Board OKs 5400 LA school layoffs

Long Beach Press-Telegram – April 15

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to lay off up to 5400 teachers and support personnel for the 2009-10 year, hours after saving nearly 2000 ...

L.A. Unified moves to cut 5000 teachers and others

Los Angeles Times – April 15

No one expects every employee with a layoff notice in the Los Angeles Unified School District to be out of work, and most observers believe the current ...

WHO WOULDA THUNK IT?: BOOMERS ARE RETIRING! NYT:Report Envisions Shortage of Teachers as Retirements Escalate + USAToday: A 'tsunami' of Boomer teacher retirements is on the horizon

Report Envisions Shortage of Teachers as Retirements Escalate

By SAM DILLON | New York Times

April 7, 2009 -- Over the next four years, more than a third of the nation’s 3.2 million teachers could retire, depriving classrooms of experienced instructors and straining taxpayer-financed retirement systems, according to a new report.

The problem is aggravated by high attrition among rookie teachers, with one of every three new teachers leaving the profession within five years, a loss of talent that costs school districts millions in recruiting and training expenses, says the report, by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a nonprofit research advocacy group.

“The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends,” the report says. “Beginners are being driven away” by low pay and frustrating working conditions, and “accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems” that encourage teachers to move from paycheck to pension when they are still in their mid-50s, the report says.

To ease the exodus, the report says, policy makers should restructure schools and modify state retirement policies so that thousands of the best veteran teachers can stay on in the classroom to mentor inexperienced teachers. Reorganizing schools around what the report calls learning teams, a model already in place in some schools in Boston, could ease the strain on pension systems, raise student achievement and help young teachers survive their first, often traumatic years in the classroom, it says.

“In the ’60s we recruited many baby-boom women and men, and the deal we made was, ‘You’ll have a rewarding career and at the end, pension and health benefits,’ ” said Tom Carroll, the commission’s president. “They signed up in large numbers and stayed, and now 53 percent of our teaching work force is getting ready to collect. If all those boomers walk into retirement, our teacher pension systems will be under severe strain, with the same problems as the auto industry.”

This is not the first report to predict widespread teacher shortages unless policy makers took quick action. In 1999, an Education Department study warned that the impending retirement of millions of teachers could lead to chaos, a dire outcome that never materialized.

One economist who spoke out skeptically then was Michael Podgursky, who studies teacher retirement at the University of Missouri. The latest report, too, may overstate the case somewhat, Dr. Podgursky said in an interview. “There’s a bit of hyperbole” in the assertion that the teaching career is “collapsing at both ends,” he said.

The recession may help ease potential teacher shortages because the profession’s relative job security and generous health benefits will probably attract more new college graduates and career-changers than when plenty of good jobs were available.

“Still, the authors make a credible case that the number or teachers who retire will rise in coming years,” Dr. Podgursky said, “and it makes a good deal of sense to develop phased retirement systems that permit retired or semiretired teachers to mentor new teachers.”

__________________________________

A 'tsunami' of Boomer teacher retirements is on the horizon

By Jeanette Der Bedrosian, USA TODAY

7 April -- More than half the nation's teachers are Baby Boomers ages 50 and older and eligible for retirement over the next decade, a report says today. It warns that a retirement "tsunami" could rob schools of valuable experience.

The report by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future calls for school administrators to take immediate action to lower attrition rates and establish programs that pass along valuable information from teaching veterans to new teachers.

"We face a tsunami in the shift of the future of the teachers' workforce," says Tom Carroll, president of the commission, who co-wrote the report. "Over the next five or six years, we could lose over a third of our teachers."

Co-author and director of strategic initiatives Elizabeth Foster agrees: "Whether this big retirement tsunami hits in the next two or three years, or whether the economy keeps them around for a little bit longer, it's coming."

Exacerbating the problem are low retention rates for young teachers: A sufficient number of teachers are recruited at colleges and universities, but many leave the field within five years, Carroll says. "We're trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom, and we have been for decades," he says.

Dan Domenech, executive director for the American Association of School Administrators, says that although Boomer retirements mean a loss of experience, the recession is actually a silver lining. Retirement of higher-paid teaching veterans could help save younger teachers' jobs, and stimulus package money could create training programs, he says.

"If there were no other factors involved, it would be — wow, bad news," he says. The situation is still not great, he says, But with the recession and stimulus funding, "it won't have as adverse an impact."

The report combines statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics with an Internet survey of 400 teachers and 95 principals in November.

Over the next year, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future will host retreats for school administrators looking to combat the problem, Foster says. More information is available at learningteams.org.

"We don't just want to come out and say: 'Here's bad news. Good luck,' " Carroll says. "We're saying, 'This could be bad news, but this could be an opportunity.' "

LAUSD GETS POOR MARKS IN LOGIC 101

By Jonathan Dobrer | OpEd in the Daily News

04/07/2009 — The mission of the Los Angeles Unified School District is to educate our children. It's a hard job with so many people, languages and cultures.

It's even harder when the money dries up and new teachers are pink-slipped, which is what has happened this spring. Now LAUSD faces a brain drain of enthusiastic new teachers and is creating a disincentive for talented young people to choose the "calling" of teaching because of the layoff policy.

One of the major challenges in reforming LAUSD involves the seniority system - which I feel free to criticize even though my wife was both a teacher and a union representative. Seniority is more complicated than it seems.

When LAUSD lays off teachers by seniority, good teachers and new teachers are let go - and that might be unavoidable. But what's worse is that many of them will be replaced by people who haven't been in a classroom for years.

When LAUSD officials say that they are trimming the bureaucracy by nearly 30 percent, they do not say that many of their administrators and bureaucrats have a right to return to the classrooms they voluntarily left - some many years ago.

Their time out of the classroom goes toward their seniority. Therefore, they have a right to return to a classroom with seniority that does not correspond to years spent actually teaching children. Not so for the motivated teachers who taught in charter schools; their years in those classrooms don't count. This is crazy!

Who would you rather have teaching our children - someone who piled up years doing work, that may be important work that was not in the classroom, or someone who spent years teaching?

LAUSD will lay off teachers if it must, but it should change the policy so that charter schools count and more than the years in administrative offices. Only years actually teaching should be calculated in placing or retaining teachers. Of course, all years should count toward retirement and pensions but not advancement in the "calling" that is good teaching.

---

Jonathan Dobrer, a professor of comparative religion at the American Jewish University in Bel-Air, blogs at insidesocal.com/friendlyfire. This column is excerpted from one of his blog posts.

LAUSD BUDGET UPDATE AS OF 2/18/09

Subject to change based on updates from the State

from the office of superintendent Ramón C. Cortines

OVERVIEW

1. Based on current projections from the State, our projected district shortfall is between $600 and $700 million and the prospects do not look any brighter for future years. We also do not know if we will have class size or categorical flexibility, so we must prepare for the worst case scenario.

2. My philosophy for moving forward will be the same as the 2000 Plan adopted by the Board

a) Central offices are to be right-sized and to focus on core operations, monitoring and oversight

b) The local districts are to provide support and service to schools

c) The schools are the heart of our District and are where teaching and learning takes place

3. Federal Stimulus money will provide some temporary relief, since the money is for one time expenses (spread over two years). Flexibility and use of this money still has not been determined.

a) Although the stimulus money has yet to be finalized, I will recommend that the majority of any unrestricted resources to be set aside to protect the schools.

CENTRAL – RIGHT-SIZED

We will be streamlining the central office to ensure the majority of our resources are at the school site.

1. I have recommended a 30% reduction in most central offices. We are in the process of reviewing the budgets and discussing how to implement our decentralized governance model.

2. Further, I am considering a recommendation to reduce the work year for most non-school based employees. Besides providing substantial savings, it will emphasize that our highest priority is support of the local school.

3. We are also reviewing outside contractors with the goal of substantially reducing costs and administered accounts.

LOCAL DISTRICT OFFICES SUPPORT AND SERVICE TO SCHOOLS

Via the decentralization of the central office, the local district offices will be responsible for working with their schools to ensure each school receives the service and support they need.

1. However, I am recommending that local district offices be cut up to 50%. I will expect my leaders in the local districts to work smarter to target services to the schools that need the most support.

2. While we have benefited from many ancillary programs that support our student population, we must now cut some of these programs to focus our limited resources on our core instructional program.

LOCAL SCHOOLS – WHERE TEACHING AND LEARNING TAKES PLACE

My approach is to build a school district from the classroom out, so that we can minimize the impact on teachers. The percentage of cuts will be the lowest at the school level, but given the cumulative size of our school budgets, the dollar amount will be large.

1. Since we don't have all of the necessary budget information from the State, we must be conservative by noticing a potentially larger number of certificated employees on March 15^th

a. All certificated administrators will be notified

b. Since central and local district certificated employees have rights to the classroom, we will need to notify some permanent teachers.

c. To ease the impact on our novice teachers, we have implemented an aggressive early retirement incentive program (ERIP)

NEXT STEPS

February 26^th: 2009-10 Budget Development process with recommendation for March 15^th letters

March –June: Hold public reviews of the budget to ensure we all agree on our priorities

Council of Great City Schools – Update on Stimulus Package 2/17/09

Disclaimer – details have not been finalized on how and when the funds will be allocated to LAUSD, especially the State Fiscal Stabilization funds

Overview of Federal Stimulus Package - Jeff Simmering

Five major types of aid to be expended over a 2 yr period (potential for flexibility to spread over 3 yrs)

1. Non Categorical Aid – State Fiscal Stabilization: $40B for education (broadly defined)
   1. Proportionally allocated based on split b/w K-12 and higher education state reductions
   2. Distribution of funds will vary state by state, but can be used to backfill state cuts
   3. Distributed on per capita basis
   4. Use of funds are based on ESEA, IDEA, Perkins, School modernization or repair
2. Categorical IDEA: $12.2 B ($11.3B traditional part B, $400M early Childhood, $500M infant and toddler)
   1. 50% of funds can be used to offset Spec Ed use of General Funds
3. Categorical Title I: $13B ($10B Regular, $3B School Improvement)
   1. Allocated by targeted and equity formulas
   2. 95% will be passed through to LEAs
   3. 1% used for State Administration
   4. 4% school improvement activities
4. Secretary Bonus or Incentive: states that have made good progress will be awarded $5B ($2.5 allocated on basis of Title I)
   1. Progress defined as states that are increasing equitable distribution of teachers, improved data systems, and improved assessments
5. School Construction Bonds - $22B tax subsidizes or bonding authority
   1. After you sell your bonds the interest that you pay will be given a tax credit
   2. Can be used as new construction and land acquisition

Council of Great City Schools estimate of stimulus for LAUSD (over two years)

- Title I: $398M

- IDEA: $168M

- Ed-Tech: $9.7M

- State Stabilization has not been determined

Key Takeaways for LAUSD

1. We will need to be flexible in our projections until we receive the final allocations from the State

2. We need to be conservative with our projected use of our funds, because we do not know the magnitude of the cuts that from the State

3. Stimulus funds are one time funds, so we can not rely on using them to cover ongoing expenses

4. Depending on the cuts from the State, we will use the majority of the funds to help schools offset some of their reductions

STATE HELD HOSTAGE

Sacramento Bee cartoonist Rex Babin

LA Times: LAUSD CHIEF SCRAPS TEACHER LAYOFF PLANS + Daily News: URGENT – NO MIDYEAR CUTS, SAYS LAUSD

"Due to the lack of clear information from Sacramento, the need for stability at schools in the second semester, and the high level of interest in a retirement incentive program, there will be no mid-year teacher layoffs."- Superintendent Ramon Cortines

LAUSD CHIEF SCRAPS TEACHER LAYOFF PLANS

by Howard Blume and Jason Song | LA Times OnLine 

10:26 AM, Friday January 23, 2009

The Los Angeles Unified School District has scrapped contingency plans to lay off as many as 2,300 teachers, a move that puts the district into greater financial jeopardy but would spare thousands of children from classroom disruptions. The decision was made by Supt. Ramon C. Cortines after lengthy consultations and announced moments ago.

Last week, the school board voted to give Cortines the authority to send pink slips to newly hired teachers, who can be dismissed on 14 days' notice. If Cortines had followed through, many students would have lost familiar teachers in mid-semester. Some classes could have swelled in size; others would likely be taught by replacement teachers who had been bumped out of non-teaching positions.

Cortines decided the resulting impact on instruction in the district would have been unacceptable.

"We will still need to make extremely difficult cuts, but at least we can ensure that the critical connection between our teachers and students will not be disrupted this school year," Cortines said in a memo to board members.

Cortines' decision was buttressed by a strong response to the possibility of an early retirement incentive. If teachers follow through at the end of the year, the district could save millions of dollars. And it would then need the less-expensive, less-experienced teachers now at risk of being laid off.

Cortines' action did not apparently require the school board's approval because it essentially continued the status quo. Other austerity measures, such as a freeze on many consultant contracts, remain in force, and additional cost-saving moves remain on the table. And the picture for next year -- when new cuts must be made -- could prove even bleaker if the district slides into a deficit.

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URGENT: No midyear cuts, says LAUSD

By Melissa Pamer, Staff Writer | LA Newspaper Group

Posted: 01/23/2009 10:40:24 AM PST

Los Angeles Unified School District announced this morning that it will not cut teaching positions midyear, a drastic and unpopular move that had been discussed earlier this month in response to state budget cuts.

"Due to the lack of clear information from Sacramento, the need for stability at schools in the second semester, and the high level of interest in a retirement incentive program, there will be no mid-year teacher layoffs," Superintendent Ramon Cortines said in a statement.

The Board of Education voted last week to approve laying off almost 2,300 teachers, most of them in elementary schools.

At the time, Cortines said he was seeking alternatives to the cuts, which would have been based on seniority.

The district has already cut more than $400 million from its budget this year, and is looking to cut another $400 million now, depending on what happens with budget negotiations in Sacramento.

United Teachers Los Angeles had vowed to fight the layoffs, and the union has planned a march in downtown Los Angeles next week to protest state and local budget cuts.

More than 2,000 certificated employees are interested in early retirement, which would help the district financially, Cortines said in the statement.

CHICAGO SCHOOLS vs. LAUSD: Their supe is Obama's new education man. Our supe is nice, but ...

By David Ferrell | LA Weekly

 

Jan 21, 2009 - It’s been a rocky start for Ramon Cortines.

The genial 76-year-old bureaucrat — who was never on anyone’s list of tough-minded academic reformers — was thrust into the top job at the woefully problem-plagued Los Angeles Unified School District because he seemed the steadiest hand after Superintendent David L. Brewer was booted out the door.

Almost immediately, critics questioned whether Cortines has the chops to helm wholesale changes in the city’s failing middle and high schools. He was seen as a good-intentioned man who paled in comparison to change agents like Chicago Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan, chosen to be Barack Obama’s secretary of education, and Washington, D.C.’s Michelle Rhee, a young freethinker lauded by Time for her “battle against bad teachers” in the abysmal schools of the nation’s capital.

While nobody’s ready to put Cortines in the dunce corner, many see him merely as a competent stand-in until a true savior arrives. To counteract the inevitable whisper campaign against him, Cortines unleashed two salvos last week: an eight-page mission statement detailing goals for his first 100 days, and districtwide school “report cards” mailed to homes to provide parents with data about how each campus is doing.

Illustration by Ken Garduno

“While nobody’s ready to put Cortines in the dunce corner…..” - OK, apparently the LA Weekly editor and/or illustrator Garduno are!   The School Report Card site More than you ever wanted to know about the school report card: REPORT CARD FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR PRINCIPALS The First 100 Days Plan:  THE OVERVIEW  (1/7 | 2 pages) |    THE WORK PLAN (1/12 | 8 pages) No Cost @ What Cost? - The 4LAKids article referenced

 

Both salvos were, by many accounts, duds. The mission statement was vague while breaking no new ground. It cited the usual ideals, like “growth” and “progress” — part of any academic program for time immemorial. In the words of one high school–level educator on the city’s Eastside, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, “It’s mumbo jumbo.”

Sounding pugnacious, Cortines defends himself to L.A. Weekly by saying, “People will be critical — and I will accept that criticism — but you can either do something or not do anything at all. And I choose to do something. It’s a step in the right direction.”

His 100-day plan may appear vague to some, he concedes, but he disagrees with that view, saying, “I don’t think it’s vague. I think it makes it very clear what we intend to do and when we intend to do it. Nothing like this has ever been done before. It’s not an intellectual document. It’s not a strategic plan — this district doesn’t have a strategic plan. What I’m trying to do is model what we’re trying to do and let the people know if you’ve met those benchmarks.”

But in fact, his 100-day plan states some pretty obvious, well-worn points as goal No. 1: “Guide, train and equip teachers, administrators, staff and those providing support services to achieve consistently high-quality levels of instruction and learning through a coherent three-tiered instructional framework that aligns evidence-based pedagogy, behavioral supports and differentiated interventions to ensure every student by name receives equitable access to instruction and supports that result in high levels of proficiency.”

And that prompts the doubting Eastside educator to respond, “Is that perhaps the worst grammar-syntax education piece you’ve read in your life?”

Cortines’ second salvo, his school report cards, were grandly unveiled at a press conference that featured Cortines and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. While the 100-day goals struck many as uninspiring, the report cards were even worse, perhaps — an act of political grandstanding to many. The report cards include percentage scores in a multitude of academic subjects that provide little context, if any, for comparing similar schools against each other, and provide no way for parents to determine if their child has an effective teacher, or a teacher whose students are known to chronically fall behind.

Savvy cynics suggest that the report cards could be useful later on, once Cortines has been in charge for long enough to issue a new round of equally vague, but more glowing, scores.

While acknowledging that the report cards do not yet show all the information he hopes they will, Cortines says parents with whom he’s talked appreciate receiving the feedback. Sending out the reports “is not for the purpose of comparing schools one with another,” he says. “It’s to give you facts about your school. Yes, all of the data is not there, but it will be forthcoming each year when we get that kind of data.”

Yet activist Scott Folsom, vice-chairman of LAUSD’s Bond Oversight Committee, expressed his frustration on his blog, 4lakids.blogspot.com, saying, “I don’t believe most parents have an understanding of what they’ve been handed. The district was in a hurry to roll this puppy out — in a hurry, I think, because of the change in regimes.”

Folsom is bothered by the persistent impression that nearly all of what happens at LAUSD headquarters, and on its highly politicized elected school board, is a product of clashing adult political agendas, with a continual failure to focus on ways to improve teaching and classroom achievement. “I don’t see a lot of evidence that children are being placed first,” he says.

Though not a rah-rah leader, Cortines has solid credentials, having worked in education — and having dealt with the political squabbles — in New York City, San Francisco, Pasadena and San Jose in addition to Los Angeles. Folsom, who knows Cortines, says he is seen by many as a straight shooter who may have what it takes to rescue the city’s many bad high schools and middle schools.

“I want to give Ramon Cortines every chance in the world to succeed at what he’s doing now,” Folsom says. “But the school district is a huge bureaucracy. We churn through superintendents. . . . We have a history of starting on the road to reform and not following through.”

Cortines may be hamstrung at the outset due to the district’s $400 million deficit. However, one of his staunchest supporters is LAUSD’s former Chief of Instruction Ronni Ephraim, whose departure during Brewer’s bungled reign was seen as a big blow to LAUSD’s one success story: the steady, sizable gains in reading, math and other subjects among poor and minority Los Angeles grade-school kids — achieved in large part through improvement of classroom teaching.

Ephraim led those instruction reforms under former Superintendent Roy Romer, moving steadily ahead despite intense opposition from longtime political factions which, even now, hope to dumb down what is being taught in grade schools so that more students will seem to be succeeding.

Ephraim, who is training future teachers at USC these days, believes that Cortines is capable of hacking the flab out of the budget while improving student and teacher performance. She adds that Cortines’ 100-day mission statement may have been deliberately nebulous to give him the flexibility to tackle what many see as an all-but-impossible task.

“The man is totally focused on improving instruction for students,” she says. “If he says he’s going to do something, he does it. He has integrity. He has a work ethic beyond most human beings. ... He will hold people accountable for doing their jobs.”

Both his 100-day game plan and the school-report-card gambit were dreamed up in part by a hired gun — Boston Consulting Group, a global idea factory with offices in Moscow, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Dubai and other cities, including L.A. Using grants from the Gates Foundation, Dell Foundation and other sources, Boston Consulting has gone just a bit overboard, according to critics, in putting a glossy sheen on what the district is doing, at the expense of transparency.

Cortines says he played a direct role in developing the report cards along with Boston Consulting, and that the content and format were vetted by 700 people before the cards were mailed to parents. He downplays the firm’s role in shaping the 100-day plan, saying much of the work was also done by the district’s own personnel.

Nobody from the firm responded to L.A. Weekly’s requests for an interview. The company’s Web site explains, “The Los Angeles office has developed numerous innovative concepts, including a blueprint for how media companies can thrive in a world of consumer control, groundbreaking work on offshoring biopharma research and development, and a new way of capturing value through IT outsourcing.”

No mention of any expertise in public education. “The word ‘children’ doesn’t appear there” either, says Folsom, the academic blogger. “They’re about profit, about producing widgets. They’re bean counters with stopwatches who are trying to do time and motion studies. Education is a completely different creature.”

More disturbing is the idea that such political razzmatazz may mask what Cortines is really about — one of the problems that plagued the departed David Brewer and led to his demise. Or maybe, as longtime LAUSD observer Joe Hicks says, the masking is necessary because Cortines is not a take-charge reformer like Chicago’s Washington-bound Duncan or Washington’s charismatic and controversial Rhee.

The schools in Los Angeles are not nearly as bad, by test-score measures or any other yardstick, as the infamously inept schools in Washington, D.C., which spend $13,000 per student — to no effect. Washington is now undergoing “Rhee-form,” and several other cities, including Chicago and New York, have made bold moves to focus on why and how some teachers continually fail while other teachers, given the same set of circumstances and the same mix of student backgrounds and student income levels, continually succeed.

So far, in his short time as superintendent, Cortines has not addressed that fundamental reform issue in public statements, nor in his report cards or his 100-day goals.

“We need someone like that who’s willing to come in and clear the decks,” says Hicks, vice-president of Community Advocates Inc., a local think tank. “Someone who says, ‘We’re going to fire teachers, fire principals. We’re going to arm-wrestle with the [teachers] union.’

“I know Ramon Cortines. He’s a very nice man. He certainly will be more efficient and effective than David Brewer was. Brewer was just an abysmal failure. But Cortines is just not the kind of kick-butt [superintendent] the district requires. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is not what this city needs.”

LAUSD BOARD VOTES TO POSSIBLY LAY OFF 2,300 TEACHERS

The 4-2 vote authorizes the job actions if no other options are found to decrease a potential $250-million budget shortfall this year caused by the state's financial problems.

By Jason Song | LA Times

January 14, 2009  -- Because of the state's budget uncertainty, the Los Angeles school board agreed Tuesday to potentially lay off up to 2,300 teachers if no other options become available this year.
The Los Angeles Unified School District faces up to a $250-million shortfall, and the move could shave about $50 million from that figure. But Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, in his first board meeting as head of the district, said he hoped not to send the notices.

"This is strictly a place-holder," he said. "I am still trying to find alternatives."

The board voted 4 to 2 for the option with members Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic voting against it. Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte was absent from Tuesday's meeting.

Cortines also outlined his priorities for his first 100 days, saying that the board, district officials, parents and others need to work together to improve instruction, increase safety and stabilize the district.

But in the middle of all this, Cortines must deal with the worst budget crisis since the early 1990s.

District officials could send notices to 1,690 elementary school teachers and 600 high school and middle school instructors, which would result in a complicated process in which administrators would have to reschedule classes and more experienced teachers would bump younger instructors from their jobs.

Teachers with fewer than two years of experience would be at risk.

About 1,100 academic coaches and 400 administrators with teaching credentials could return to the classroom in that scenario, according to the district.

If teachers are laid off, they may have to return some of their pay to the district because of their salary schedule.

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said the union would fight any layoffs and warned the district to keep cuts out of the classroom.

But the normally animated Duffy also soberly acknowledged the severity of the situation. "This is truly one of the saddest days for this district," he said.

Cortines and other district officials outlined a grim financial picture for this and upcoming years and are asking state legislators to allow the district to use funds earmarked for certain programs, including class-size reduction, for general instruction.

"We need every flexibility available," said Chief Financial Officer Megan K. Reilly.

The district now receives about $200 million annually from the state for limiting some elementary school classes to 20 students. L.A. Unified officials have proposed increasing average class size by five students next year while keeping the state funding.

Elementary school class size could rise to more than 30 students, Cortines said. But he added that he believed it would be nearly impossible for students to learn in that environment. Cortines also said he would recommend to the board that it consider introducing a parcel tax that could be used for instruction, if approved by voters.

Before being named superintendent late last year, Cortines vowed to spend as little time in the boardroom as possible because he wanted to spend more time working on reforms and visiting schools. But he was present for the entire meeting, possibly because most of it focused on the budget.

 

The rest of the stories:

LA board OKs layoff plan for nearly 2300 teachers San Jose Mercury News
School Report Cards Give Grim Grades MSNBC
LA school board approves teacher layoffs Contra Costa Times
MyFox Los Angeles - Center For American Progress
all 76 news articles »

SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT: Mid-Year Layoffs Undermine Teacher Quality

“When a school district announces mid-year layoffs, there is little doubt about which teachers will get the axe. It’s an exercise in “last-hired, first-fired.” For instance, none of the 2,300 teachers that Los Angeles Unified School District anticipates laying off will have been in the district long enough to earn tenure—a coveted employment status almost entirely separated from serious notions of quality teaching.”

SOURCE: AP/Tina Fineberg

New teachers, like these picking up literature during an orientation for teachers entering the New York City public school system, are often the first to be layed off.

By Robin Chait, Raegen Miller | Center for American Progress

January 14, 2009 -- Each week brings new headlines about the symptoms of economic recession. One of these symptoms, mid-year layoffs of teachers, is particularly troubling. The past few months have seen layoffs announced in Los Angeles, Memphis, and Dallas. Mid-year layoffs tend to happen when state tax revenues fall below anticipated levels.

Education funding is the single largest expense in most state budgets and therefore cannot escape the economic pinch. Data released by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers shows that together, 31 states “face existing fiscal 2009 budget gaps totaling $30 billion.” Education Week reports a 9 percent cut to education funding in Alabama, and major, imminent cuts to education budgets in New York, California, and Virginia. We haven’t seen the last of mid-year layoffs. Indeed, many more are projected in school districts from California to Massachusetts to Florida.

Mid-year layoffs create obvious hardships and turmoil. The laid-off teachers are left in the lurch, classes are consolidated, discretionary programs are cut, and teachers’ relationships with students are severed. Nobody argues that students’ experiences in school are enriched by such events, and it would be nice to avoid mid-year layoffs altogether for these reasons alone. Yet there is another compelling reason to dread mid-year layoffs: They may undermine the quality of the teacher workforce, both immediately and going forward. The reasons have to do with which teachers are laid off and what signals the selection procedure sends to future teachers.

When a school district announces mid-year layoffs, there is little doubt about which teachers will get the axe. It’s an exercise in “last-hired, first-fired.” For instance, none of the 2,300 teachers that Los Angeles Unified School District anticipates laying off will have been in the district long enough to earn tenure—a coveted employment status almost entirely separated from serious notions of quality teaching. Mid-year layoffs can actually cut into the ranks of tenured teachers in districts with less turnover and fewer non-tenured teachers, but teachers’ contracts generally ensure that seniority, measured by length of service, is the chief criterion used in reducing staffing levels. In other words, teacher quality—in terms of the ability to foster learning—never enters the picture.

Since teacher quality is the most important school-based determinant of students’ academic progress, it’s important to consider how mid-year layoffs affect it. In the short run, it’s not terribly clear what the result is. On the one hand, teachers with only one or two years of experience tend to be less effective than their more experienced colleagues, so dismissing some part of the former group may actually improve the average level of skill of teachers in a district.

On the other hand, dismissing the least experienced teachers may have a negative effect on average teacher quality. Some of the most energetic and positive teachers are those with very little experience. For example, Teach for America corps members, who are carefully selected for academic skill and commitment to working in high-poverty schools, have been shown to be at least as effective as more experienced teachers. And what about teachers who are new to their current employer but have documented records of success elsewhere? They are just as vulnerable to being laid off as hapless rookies.

The immediate effects of mid-year layoffs on the overall quality of a district’s teaching force depends on the prevalence of particularly capable novices and highly effective veterans who lack tenure. But the result of layoffs depends on the remaining veterans’ ability to cope with larger classes even in schools where the teachers vulnerable to layoffs tend to be less effective.

Mid-year layoffs are most insidious and clear when we look further out. The way the layoffs are handled sends the signal that when push comes to shove, what really matters is seniority. These signals will make it harder for districts to attract the kind of teachers they will seek in the future—energetic, committed, and effective teachers who want to be rewarded for their hard work rather than the amount of time they have spent in a position. High-profile insults to the role of teacher quality in decisions about layoffs are most unfortunate as school districts strive to become strategic by aligning personnel practices and desired results.

It would clearly be ideal for school districts to have financial contingency reserves that would allow them to get through the year with the staffing pattern envisioned in September. This is a tall order in the short term, but a possible priority for states and districts once this recession has ended. Districts and states can do everything in their power in the short term to ensure that the least effective teachers are the ones let go. Despite being saddled with personnel systems driven by tenure policies and seniority, there have to be some ways to maintain a high-quality teaching staff even during mid-year layoffs. For example, early retirement incentives may be a ticket to keeping energetic, effective teachers with low-seniority in the classroom.

What’s more, there are now mountains of student achievement data linked to teachers—something that didn’t exist during the last epidemic of mid-year layoffs in the early 1990s. Efforts to bring this data to bear on questions about teacher quality should be redoubled, especially when sorting out which teachers are chronically ineffective teachers.

Mid-year layoffs highlight the inadequacies of the current human resource systems for teachers and the need to strengthen the teacher tenure process. Districts should work to ensure that only effective teachers get tenure. When layoffs are necessary and tenured teachers are protected, at least then we would know that the teachers who are retained have met a meaningful standard of effectiveness. Mid-year teacher layoffs are never a good thing, but they do remind us of inadequacies in our teacher policies and create some urgency for reform. Hopefully states and districts will use the current crisis as an impetus to revisit tenure policies to ensure that all students have access to effective teachers.

More on teacher quality:

• Report: Teacher Turnover, Tenure Policies, and the Distribution of Teacher Quality by Raegen Miller and Robin Chait
• Event: Addressing the Teacher Quality Gap
• Column: Policy Matters: Solving the Teacher Quality Dilemma by Robin Chait