PLAN B/ROUND 1: The Mayor Has His Way – <cut …I mean> A New Way with LAUSD

By smf for 4LAKids

These WebPages mourn.

We mourn the death Tuesday night of "Liberal Lion" Teddy Kennedy - A champion if not THE champion of public education. As his friend Ramón Cortines said: "He was a friend of public education all the time, every day he was in office."

And we mourn the tragic outcome for public education in the LAUSD boardroom Tuesday afternoon with the passage of Yolie Flores Aguilar's "Public School Choice" Resolution.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Barr …which schools do you choose?

We do not question Yolie's heart or her good intent. Her frustration at the lack of urgency of reform in LAUSD is heartfelt and genuine - but 4LAKids cannot miss the genesis of her plan and respectfully questions the authorship. Mayor Villaraigosa probably over describes his role as it being his "Plan B" - Plan A being his failed attempt at mayoral takeover and control, thrice quashed in the courts. But the fingerprints are there - and the confession: "my plan" - must mean something.

Despite public denial of the 'done deal" by the doers - and anguish and attempts-at-amendment and pretence-at-compromise, the Deal as realized was Done.

It wasn't pretty.

The list of advocate organizations named in whereas #5 grew with each draft as the 'me too's' tasted victory and wanted their logos on the t-shirt. A least one of the alphabet soup sponsors (and the most potentially powerful partner) withdrew their support at the last moment. Ultimately the entire list - the total active membership of which is probably a couple of thousand at most - was amended out.

ON THE DONE DEAL: According a speaker in public comment the mayor at one time claimed to have "six school board votes in his pocket".

All six came through Tuesday.

As Meredith Willson wrote:

Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table.
Pockets that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum,
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

Friends, we got trouble right here in (L.A.) River City!

DONE DEAL II: A couple of weekends ago Board President Garcia had a soiree at her house and invited the Board of Ed and the superintendent. Apparently District Counsel Bobbi Fesler gave this get together her blessing - as long as the Boardmembers didn't discuss certain things. Like any pending or potential action before the board.

All well and good - if they didn't discuss those things.  As long as they didn't think about the elephant in the room.

• The Ralph M. Brown Act is an open meeting law - a by-invitation-only-meeting at anyone's house is not an open meeting in my appointment book …even if partners and the kiddies are invited!
• Make no mistake, the invitees were invited in their official capacity; the invitation is addressed  "Dear Board Members" – this was not "Dear Yolie, Tamar, Richard, Steve, Nuri and Marguerite".
• Of course I'm strict constructionist (What part of 'no!' is it you don't understand?) who considers the intent of the law rather than the wiggle room within it.

DONE DEAL III: After the big vote at Tuesday's meeting - but before the meeting was over and adjourned - the Board of Ed had special visitors: Mayor Villaraigosa and entourage! How kewl is that? And did Hizzonner stand in the well of the boardroom and congratulate the Board of Ed? No. He took the superintendent's chair up on the dais and sat therein -- master of all he surveyed. When Superintendent Cortines returned another chair had to be found for him.

• Fifty new schools, financed by $20 billion+ in public financing - schools the taxpayers are about to get higher tax bills for - are to be up for grabs. Charter operators? Mayor's Partnership? Jiffy Lube? C'mon down!*
• As an afterthought - or perhaps a 'leftover' - two hundred existing underperforming schools were added to the mix of schools up for grabs.

It remains to be seen how interested outside operators will be in taking over those "Program Improvement " schools in light of the Mayor's Partnership's record at his ten schools …and that of Green Dot at Locke.

The promise of 'Choice' in the resolution is the resolution is illusory. The charter school model  (parents choose their child's school) is incompatible with the neighborhood school model (all students attend their local school per attendance catchment areas). The lesson of the Belmont Zone of Choice (open enrollment within a greater geographic area) has apparently been lost completely. The YFA resolution commits the District to continue attendance area boundaries - if anything perpetuating lack-of-choice.

The Board of Ed chooses between operators who choose to apply. Yes, the resolution promises to involve parents and teachers and the community in the decision making process - but their role is advisory. The superintendent recommends; the Board of Ed decides. Who's 'Choice' is that?  How many 6 to 1 votes will it take before we realize what's going on?

I suppose operators get to choose whether to honor collective bargaining agreements; under some interpretations of the plan they may get to choose which education standards and provisions of the Ed Code they choose to observe.

Bill Ring, in last week's 4LAKids wrote: "…. true public school choice means I have a choice as a parent as to the school my child will attend."

"Me."

"I choose."

Bill wasn't allowed into the Boardroom Tuesday. There wasn't room for him. Or maybe his radical ideas.

Three speakers spoke extraordinary Truth to Power Tuesday afternoon:

Jackie Goldberg, the liberal lioness of L.A. politics presented the actual bond language of the five school construction bonds to the board. It may be language previous boards wrote but is nonetheless binding on this board because it was enacted overwhelming by the voters. "If this resolution passes," Ms Goldberg warned, "Have no doubt. You will be sued!"

Boardmember La Motte posed a couple of good questions but in the end questioned the Board's authority to give up any schools to anyone, citing the California Constitution, Article IX, §6, ¶3: "No school or college or any other part of the Public School System shall be, directly or indirectly, transferred from the Public School System or placed under the jurisdiction of any authority other than one included within the Public School System."

And Boardmember Zimmer - almost a tragic figure - spoke of his anguish, disputing the process and the outcome - bemoaning the raw politics and threats made against him by both sides. Decrying the fact that the fight was about the fight and the color of the t-shirts - not about the kids. Ultimately Zimmer held his nose and voted yes - in order, he said, to be at the table in the future.

Ms LaMotte retorted that she was not voting for it and she would be at the table too ...because that's what the people elected her to do.

As for Winners and Losers…

The parents in the light blue t-shirts, paid for by the mayor and Green Dot celebrated their victory and filed back onto the buses that bused them in.

As Jackie Goldberg said three years ago in the fight against Plan A, when adults fight with adults over adult issues it is always the kids who lose.

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* OK, Jiffy Lube, a for-profit corporation is excluded. But the Jiffy Lube Educational Foundation? C'mon down!

A PROBLEMATIC PARTNERSHIP: MAYOR’S PROGRAM TO BOOST 10 NEEDY SCHOOLS HAS HAD A CHALLENGING FIRST SEVEN MONTHS

New parent center at Gompers Middle is a win for the mayor's Partnership for L.A. Schools, but the fledgling program has had its problems.

Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hobnobs with parents after he inaugurated the refurbished center for them at Gompers Middle School, a victory for his Partnership program.

By Howard Blume | LA Times

February 25, 2009 - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday unveiled a refurbished parent center on a middle school campus in South Los Angeles to spotlight his fledgling improvement efforts at 10 schools.

The updated parent room at Gompers Middle School was joyfully received, but his overall effort has hit snags as his team struggles to boost student achievement while also including teachers and parents in vital decisions on how to move forward.

Tuesday was all about the successes of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, the nonprofit that has managed, on the mayor's behalf, some of the city's lowest-performing campuses over the last seven months.

"We remember the bathrooms that didn't work, the graffiti all over the school," he told the assembled students, parents, dignitaries and others. "This is a new day."

The event coincided with reelection campaign ads for Tuesday's city primary that tout Villaraigosa's education accomplishments. But it was not until late in his first term that the mayor obtained control of a group of schools -- after an abortive effort to gain authority over the entire Los Angeles Unified School District.

Although state test scores won't be available until late summer, the mayor can point to cleaner campuses, tree plantings, community picnics, school uniforms and a policy to have principals evaluate teachers three hours a day. Operationally, his team had to scramble, quickly hiring seven principals and dealing with 35% staff turnover at Markham Middle School in Watts.

Security concerns at Markham prompted the mayor's team to hire four new guards there, leading to a reduction in campus crime, said Partnership Chief Executive Marshall Tuck.

There has been no increased security at other campuses -- although that element is highlighted in campaign materials.

Tuck asserted that the campuses are, in fact, more secure because they are better managed, with classrooms that are more engaging. To date, he said, the Partnership has not had an opportunity to leverage ties with the city to make the streets around schools safer.

Beyond the 10 schools, consultants first brought in by the Partnership played a key role in developing districtwide school report cards and a pilot data system intended to help teachers track student progress.

But Exhibit A this week was the Gompers parent center, for which the mayor's group has provided two computers, a copy machine, furniture and a 46-inch, high-definition LCD TV with free educational programming -- all new and mostly donated by DirecTV.

"This is a remarkable change," said foster parent Nathaniel Perkins-Ali, who likened the center to a "second home."

The $6,000, plus volunteer labor, for the parent room contrasts with nearly $12 million that the district has spent on the school in recent years from bond funds for re-piping, heating, flooring, sprinklers, roofing, security cameras and more.

In relative terms, Villaraigosa has raised little new money. A much-publicized $50-million donation has to be spread out over 10 years -- and must also pay for the mayor's education team. The Partnership, however, has won greater control for schools over dollars once managed by the school district.

The parent center was more about symbolism than dollars spent.

Leadership teams at these schools, for example, have set goals of getting 50% of parents to participate in at least one activity geared toward student achievement between January and June. They're also pushing parents to sign compacts to encourage their involvement.

"Parent participation was never really linked to student achievement," said Ryan Smith, the Partnership's director of family and community engagement. He said that not one of the schools had a functioning PTA.

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A little PTA 101 here, and a wee bit o’ history:  For a school to have a PTA requires active participation and approval of the principal.

• As a plaintiff to the action Mendoza v. Villaraigosa, which overturned the mayor’s attempted and unconstitutional takeover of LAUSD,  PTA as an organization made no points in the mayor’s office.
• There was a functioning PTA at Santee Education Complex – and one was in formation at Markham MS;  the principals at both schools were supporters of and advocates for PTA. At Markham Deputy City Attorney Michelle Mcginnis was instrumental in introducing PTA to Markham.
• However with the advent of the mayor’s partnership and the placement of new principals at those schools PTA ceased to exist.  Coincidence?  You decide.  - smf

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But some teachers and parents said their role was limited after a promising beginning. The months leading up to the Partnership hand-over were a high note at the Santee Education Complex south of downtown, said English teacher Jordan Henry. "In our short turbulent history, it was the most optimistic we ever felt," he said. But despite good intentions, once the Partnership gained control, "the collaboration disappeared and it became -- and largely still is -- a top-down system."

One problem arose at Ritter Elementary in Watts, where scores of parents wanted to continue a dual-language Spanish-English program. The Partnership recently agreed to form a task force to tackle the issue.

"Since September, we have been struggling for the reinstatement of the program, and it's taken until now to do something about that," said parent Fanny Trujillo. "They seem to be listening right now, but it took three demonstrations in front of the school."

From the start, the Partnership has had to manage sometimes conflicting goals at its schools. Its leaders profess faith in democratic school governance -- which, like democracy, can be slow and messy.

At the same time, the mayor's team wanted to accomplish a rapid, significant rise in student achievement, and hired assertive administrators who believe they know how to get that done.

Teachers union President A.J. Duffy said he remained committed to working with the Partnership, but "I'm not sure leadership of some of these schools understands that if you really want buy-in from stakeholders, you have to give them a piece of the action. This is not the paradise it has been portrayed as in some quarters."

Steve Lopez: MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA, RECESS IS OVER ON L.A. SCHOOLS REFORM.

 

 

Steve Lopez: Points West | Los Angeles Times

December 10, 2008 -- Back when he was running for mayor of Los Angeles and calling education the No. 1 issue in the city, Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign put out a news release chiding his opponent for not being more involved with the schools.

The headline was:

"Jimmy Hahn, Please Report to the Principal's Office."

No one can dispute that Villaraigosa has been more involved in the schools, but somebody needs to call Tony V. into the principal's office too.

If I were to fill out Villaraigosa's report card on his role in education, I'm not sure whether I'd give him a C, a D-plus, or an Incomplete.

On the up side, the mayor had his fingerprints all over the ouster this week of slow-moving Supt. David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, so we owe him a debt of gratitude. It seems a little sneaky that he left the dirty work to Monica Garcia, the school board president he helped get into office, but I guess you can understand why he didn't want to rile black voters who supported Brewer.

The bigger question, though, is this: How did we get stuck with Brewer in the first place, and end up giving him an early Christmas present -- a minimum $517,500 an buyout?

In part, because of Villaraigosa's clumsy politics.

Back in 2005 and 2006, Mr. Smooth got out a megaphone and screamed that L.A. Unified was failing miserably, despite improvements under then-Supt. Roy Romer. For the sake of the children, Villaraigosa blared, he had no choice but to take over the district. Not that he had any jurisdiction or experience, but that's a crumb of a concern for a man of Villaraigosa's appetites, especially with the usual heavyweight suspects -- Eli Broad and Dick Riordan -- cheering him on.

And so Tonio rammed a piece of sloppy legislation through Sacramento, giving him extraordinary new powers. A judge eventually tossed out the legislation. But the school board didn't wait for the ruling.

Racing to beat the mayor's possible takeover, the board quickly named a surprise-pick superintendent. In a neat trick, the announcement came just as Villaraigosa hit the ground in Asia on a trade mission.

Operating behind a news blackout over at the Beaudry Avenue Kremlin, our heroes had gone with a recommendation from former state senator and current county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, among others.

Welcome to Los Angeles, retired Vice Adm. Brewer.

No education experience?

No problem. Glad to have you aboard.

And now, two years later, Brewer walks the plank after barely getting the ship out of the docks.

Before I move on, though, let's look back on a great moment from the conspiracy to dump the vice admiral.

I'm talking about the day when Garcia, a Villaraigosa ally, was chasing fellow board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte to Union Station, where the latter was boarding a train for a meeting in San Diego.

Garcia had realized it might look bad to dump Brewer while LaMotte, the one black board member, was absent. So she sped over to the train station along with a trusty aide, hoping to stop LaMotte before the train whistle blew. The aide was apparently the quicker of the two, even in high heels. She valiantly gave chase but reached the platform just as the doors of the train were closing. I have only one complaint. At a time when everything's captured on video and ends up on YouTube, why not this? So here's where we stand:

Villaraigosa ally and capable Senior Deputy Supt. Ray Cortines appears ready to take the helm, at least on an interim basis. And for the time being, Villaraigosa still pulls strings on the board. (Although he appears to have lost one potential ally on Tuesday. In a perfectly bizarro twist, his presumed candidate for one open seat, the reform-minded Ben Austin, didn't qualify for the ballot because -- are you ready for this one? -- his signature-collection company gathered its John Hancocks in the wrong neighborhood.)

As I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, now is the time for Villaraigosa to come out from behind the curtain and show us what he had in mind when he insisted three years ago that he could do a better job running the schools.

He doesn't have the direct control enjoyed by the mayors of New York and Chicago, but with Cortines in charge and the board on his side -- at least for now -- he's running out of people to blame for anything less than dramatic reforms and improvements.

So what should he do?

"The advantage the mayor has is a really good bully pulpit," said Charles Kerchner, who wrote a book called "Learning From L.A., Institutional Change in American Public Education."

Kerchner said the district needs to move toward a collection of mini-districts with many different teaching models available to parents and their children. His co-author, David J. Menefee-Libey, said funding shortages and Sacramento-based control of schools are daunting challenges, along with the vast number of poor and language-deficient L.A. students.

But if Villaraigosa has a strength, it's his ability to bring different parties to the problem-solving table, including legislators, parents, administrators, the teachers union and the business community.

"If anybody could pull a civic association together, he would be the guy to do it," Menefee-Libey said.

I stopped by Roosevelt High School on Tuesday morning to see how things were going on one of the 10 campuses Villaraigosa took control of earlier this year in a deal with the district. Too early to tell, I was told by the principal and teachers. But they also told me there's plenty of frustration, and some flagging faith, over the slow rate of change.

Slow change is unacceptable from a guy who talked such a big game.

Get moving, Tony V., or prepare to report to the principal's office.

UPDATE: THE APPEAL ON AB 1381 MENDOZA v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA

The hearing in the court of appeal is scheduled for Monday, April 2, at 9:30 a.m.
The court of appeal is located in the Ronald Reagan State Office Building on the third floor, at 300 S. Spring Street in LA. [MAP]

The appeal will be heard by a three-judge panel.

This time the mayor's (Appellant's) side will get to go first and last; the Respondents go in the middle. It will be similar to the trial court hearing, although somewhat more formal. This is the only action on the court's calendar, it will probably start right away.

The plaintiffs believe we have the facts and the law on our side - we are confident that the action was decided correctly in the Superior Court and in the strengths of our argument and our legal team. We understand that the law is a surprising thing and that our adversaries are strong and capable of the unexpected.

The issues haven't changed much since the trial court, but we'll just have to see how it goes. - smf

Links and more:

Case Summary Docket Scheduled Actions Briefs
Disposition Parties and Attorneys Trial Court

Case Summary

rial Court Case:	BS105481
Court of Appeal Case:	B195835		Supreme Court Case: S149380
Division:	3
Case Caption:	Los Angeles Unified School District et al. v. Hon. Antonio Villaraigosa et al.
Case Type:	Civil
Filing Date:	12/22/2006
Oral Argument Date/Time:	04/02/2007 09:30 AM

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