Fremont High teachers balk at mandatory reforms

More than half of  the faculty at Fremont High School have pledged to leave the school rather than participate in a mandated improvement plan.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is requiring all school employees to reapply for their jobs. It’s an aggressive attempt to alter what district officials describe as a school culture grown complacent with poor student achievement.

Most teachers have signed a petition saying they won’t go along, staff organizers said.

The ongoing rebellion was underscored at a Friday morning news conference near the school, which is located south of downtown in Florence. A small group of teachers, students and parents took part.

“If new teachers come in, they won’t know anything of the past history of the community,” said Mirna Rico, the parent of a ninth-grader. “There’s a certain stability that students need and, as it is, the school has been very unstable. But it’s getting better.”

Veteran administrator George McKenna countered that progress has been too slow and inconsistent.

“The data is dismal,” said McKenna, the senior administrator for the local region. “And it’s been going on so long long it feels normal to people.”

Only 13.6% of the school’s students tested as proficient in English language arts. Math was worse: Of 3,226 students tested in 2009, only 45 were proficient. Only two students scored as advanced.

Fremont senior Patricia Gonzalez said she had 50 students in her calculus class, which she said was emblematic of a shortage of resources. She said blaming the staff by making them re-interview for positions is the wrong approach.

She, too, said things have improved, which she credits for the recent graduation of her 19-year-old sister and her own academic success. Not all of her siblings have done as well. Of the six that preceded her at Fremont, only two graduated. The others dropped out largely because they felt lost, uninvolved and uncared for in the large school, Gonzalez said.

L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has said he will not back down from the restructuring plan, which McKenna will oversee in conjunction with the principal.

The teachers who refuse to reapply would be assigned to fill vacancies elsewhere.

“We’d like most of the staff to be rehired at Fremont," McKenna said. “They can all be rehired if they participate. We’re still asking them to participate in the restructuring process.”

--Howard Blume

Comments

[james andrews]

The reapply process is to allow the school NOT to rehire some teachers. They know who the bad ones are but the union contract does not let them just reassign them. This process is the best chance for the students. Some of the teachers not rehired may have been well liked, but that didn't make them good teachers.

Schools must be able to replace teachers that don't do the job.

[TAM]

When you only speak Spanish at home you cannot be learning English. Fremont has changed over the years for the worst like most of the schools in LAUSD care. LAUSD has lower the standards too much to accommodate Latinos. These students cannot comprehend Math, and English. Our tax money has been wasted far too long. Third World LA sucks, and we have been set back over 50 years.

[jeff]

"More than half of the faculty at Fremont High School have pledged to leave the school rather than participate in a mandated improvement plan."

Well.....see ya!

[Jim W]

I have to agree with the above post. Illegals have swamped the system and pretty much wrecked it, but they are here and not going away anytime soon. They're also producing faster than any of us can imagine, so we've got to do something to remedy this mess. As a start, let's do a helicopter drop of condoms over the greater Los Angeles area.

[Stephen DeMarco]

What this article and Dr. McKenna fail to mention is that the same teachers who they want/don't want are the teachers who filed to take over the school in November under the School Choice decision made by the school board. They WANTED reform and change at the school. However, unlike many of the other schools that filed, they were denied that chance.
This "restart" of Fremont will lead to nothing but a wasted five years while the new administration and teachers get their feet under them and those students in that time period will be lost.

[The Shark]

Growing up in S. Central as an Immigrant, its not that the teachers are bad, its that they are accustomed to underachieving and a Third Culture. Better teachers make a better school. Watch "Stand and Deliver" and you'll see the same faded LAUSD teachers trying to hold on to what they are accustomed to. IF the brightest teachers were forced to earn their tenure at the worst schools, it would create balance. Just like Sports, were the Best of the New go to the worst team to healp them lift themselves. Fremont High deserves the best teachers to improve. IF the Old Guard is not achieving improvement, then the times must change. Maybe the teachers at Fremont at really good, if they are, they can be confident to be re-interviewed. The good will pass and maybe the under-achieving can be replaced by equally good teachers that stay. There is a misconception that Latinos cannot learn, but truth be told, its a culture of underachieving that keeps them down. You'd be shocked to find when you take a bright Latino from these LAUSD schools and place them with quality education. Why must the level of education in California differ in the inner city than the one that is available in suburban California? It should be the same and the results will be the same. I had to move to the Suburbs to get a better education and it was only a matter of 15 miles outside of the LAUSD and only 3 miles from Garfield High. With no offense, that is the solution: equal education in Los Angeles, California and America.

[hmmm]

Let me get this straight. Only 45 students test as "proficient" and 2 as "advanced" but there's 50 kids in a calculus class? That's ludicrous. Why isn't calculus and pre-calc/trig dropped and class size shrunk for basic math which the vast majority of students seem to need?

[Tornadoes28]

So what's the problem? Let the incompetents leave. If they don't want to come back then good riddance. Good luck finding another job.

[Lou]

The statement that "new teachers won't know anything about the past history of the community" has absolutely no merit and maybe it's part of the problem. The present faculty is stagnant and hasn't moved onward or progressed in their narrow-minded and inefficient methods. All teachers should be re-tested to ensure they maintain the necessary knowledge and qualifications to better instruct and motivate their students. If they haven't "kept up" newer, better teaching methods and effective curriculum, it's their own fault. Further, those teachers who refuse to reapply should NOT be reassigned...just let them resign.

[Teacher Gerald]

Students can learn English while speaking another language at home. Teachers need training to implement the strategies that work for students. Racism isn't going to help.

Our country is made from illegal immigrants - except for the Native Americans.

To succeed we need to invest in education for everyone. Lots of it. That way this country won't go down the tubes.

[Dan]

Cortines and McKenna have been preaching reconstitution for twenty years and have yet to prove that it has worked. How about admitting that a campus originally built for no more than 2000 students is now housing almost 4000. On a campus this crowded, you cannot even find the classroom space to lower class size. How about school security in and around the Fremont community where crime rates are much higher than say the West Valley? Personalized education programs such as smaller classes are critical for students with learning needs and that evidently isn't being addressed. And, of course support the teachers who teach to high standards and properly evaluate those who don't. It would also help to have an adequate counseling staff so that students can address economic concerns as well as learning concerns and involve parents.

[firehawk]

In 1962 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order #10988 which allowed public employees to organize and bargain collectively. That was the start of the downhill slide in "public service." Nowadays it seems as though that the only "service" being done by public employees is service for themselves: more money, fewer hours, can't be fired even if they are lousy employees. Labor Unions of firemen, cops, prison guards, nurses, DMV workers, DWP workers, you name it. California is a beautiful cesspool of ignorance and corruption because no LEADER? has enough nerve to say "NO MORE" to the unions. Adios California. Go with God.

[Annie]

Okay - I don't pretend to be aware of all of the systemic problems of the LAUSD, but one thing that jumped out at me (as a teacher) was the post by a teacher who mentioned there were 50 children in her class. Now, in a college setting, that number and many more is feasible because students CHOOSE to be there, so they will recognize the personal responsibility involved in making meaning from the message/lesson. However, in a public school setting, such a number of students in a regular classroom makes learning prohibitive. There is no room to walk around, the kids talk and goof the whole time, and the teacher wastes more time trying to manage and discipline than actually teaching. One year, my largest class had 35 students, and it was my best performing class of the entire school day (they came right at the end of the day too, which could have been disasterous, but it worked out great!). The following year, the school gave me a class of 40...UGH! It was impossible. The difference those 5 additional students made was tremendous. The classroom we were in was not designed for 40 desks. I couldn't navigate myself around the room without tripping. It was impossible to manage behavior because no matter which direction I turned, there were alwasy some students behind me - outside my field of vision. Maybe what LAUSD really needs is to hire two staffs, a day staff and a night staff, and split the number of kids in school into two shifts. With half the number of kids, teachers would have at least a fighting chance to be successful.

[Bob]

When "all employees" must reapply does that include the school administration? The "leadership" of the school as well as the district are also responsible for the education of the students.

[ralph e shaffer]

The folly of this action is illustrated by McKenna's closing comment: ALL the teachers can be rehired if they will participate in the restructuring. If that quotation is accurate, the "firing" is pointless. What is there about this nebulous "restructuring" that is going to change anything at Fremont? Why didn't the administration start "restructuring" long ago? Apparently McKenna doesn't think there are any bad teachers at Fremont or he would not have said that they can ALL be "rehired." In fact, none of them will be fired. They will only be reassigned to other schools.

Admit it. The fault is not with the teachers. As at least two others have noted in comments about this article, the problem is poverty, the non-native language, and lack of resources.

Don't knock California's public schools. As one writer noted, suburban schools are producing excellent graduates. And No,, this is not the LAUSD of 60 years ago. In those days most of the district was more like suburbia than it is today.

[Seen It All!]

As a teacher I feel compelled to respond. Fifty or forty-five kids in a class? This isn't teaching; it is warehousing! You can't even call it babysitting because any facility with that child to adult ratio would have its license revoked!

I taught middle school for six years. I enjoyed it. But I went back to teaching elementary school because I found it impossible to help the students who needed it most. A one point the teacher next door and I had to shift desks back and forth between classes. She had one period when she needed extras so she would borrow some of mine. Then I would do the same for the following period. As one person mentioned, you could hardly walk through the classroom.

For few years K-3 in LAUSD had a 20:1 student teacher ratio. As of next year minimum class size in those grades will be 29:1. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the numbers of students per class increase even higher. Smaller class size works. You have time to help students individually. Also, because students are less crowded you see less conflict and have fewer discipline problems.

Another concern: about a third of teachers in the US are at or approaching retirement. We are laying off large numbers of teachers who will most likely find jobs outside education and choose not to return to education in the future. We will once again have a teacher shortage and end up hiring people with emergency credentials who haven’t had the opportunity to fully prepare themselves for teaching.

[al]

In response to TAM,
Math is universal.........speaking Spanish at home has nothing to do with their lack of knowledge in math.
There's a lot of motives involved in the lives of many of these kids that stand in the way of a good education and educational environment,which you obviously ignore.

Good habits start at home......many kids aren't that fortunate,most have both parents working,lack a mom or dad.....live in motels(poor)...live with relatives,live with people that are doing drugs or involved in multiple vices.

Please stop whining about our tax money being wasted.....It's being wasted overseas.
Being wasted in numerous other ways that are totally irrelevant to the well being of our young American minorities and young Americans in general.
If politicians cared about fixing these problems at home(US),it could be done.
But,it's not important to them.

That's the real world we live in...............i live here,in South Central Los Angeles......and work at Fremont High.

[al]

Yes Jim,

Lets do that...drop condoms over Los Angeles,that will take care of the problems...(Immigrants).

I see ignorance has no boundaries.

[Lucy47]

What it comes down to is that there is a broken system at Fremont. One of the few ways to fix a broken system is to implement radical change. The most radical change you can implement is to reconstitute staff. Although this implies that it is the teaching staff's "fault" that students are not achieving, this is not necessarily the case. Often times, it is not just the teaching quality, but the mindset of the staff that is preventing the school from turning itself around. Therefore, the reconstitution is not as much about teaching quality, but more about keeping the teachers with the right attitude and getting rid of the teachers who want to maintain the status quo.

[John David]

The math teacher in this artilce needs to help me with my math. The LAUSD website states that it serves 694,000 students. The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) website states that it is a union serving 45,000 members.

694,000 divided by 45,000 is 15.42.

How can any class in Los Angeles be "overcrowded." Is my math right?

[Sue]

Would love to hear from other teachers about what is talked about in the school lunchroom. In my experience, teachers talk about students with problems and the major roadblocks in trying to help them. Teachers have to live with chaos in the classroom on a daily basis with little or no support from administration. It is ludicrous to believe that teachers don't want the kind of reform that will create a more positive environment for learning. Of course, we need great teachers, but where do you think they will come from? What will attract the best teachers? Do we think it will be lower salaries, less benefits, no job security(after spending 4-6 years paying for college), larger class sizes, competition due to merit pay, etc., etc. No matter what kind of reform is decided on, it won't work unless teachers, parents, and students buy into it. The way to do that is to first allow teachers to participate in decision-making. That's how you make them accountable.

[Latino]

Amazing..how one can read comments about how immigrants are the cause of our decline in the educational system and the individuals who are writing it can't write worth of squat...*laughing*...amazing.

[E.A.]

Although teachers do need to take responsibility for their part in student performance, they are not the only ones to blame for poor school performance. Parents have a lot of the responsibility for student success, and not once have I seen this mentioned. True, in a non-affluent neighborhood, parents are not able to provide as much time and attention as parents in affluent neighborhoods and lack of finances also has much to do with that, but parents need to prioritize and focus on what is important. We can't expect a student to go to school and learn all they have to learn to prepare them for these standardized tests when at home there is no accountability. A lot of students never turn in their homework, which means that they are not spending the time needed to prepare for their classes the following day; and what does this mean? That there is no accountability at home. Teachers can't do it all alone, and for the blame to fall upon them is wrong. It's hard to decipher whether this re-hiring process is the best solution or not since we do not know both sides of the story. What we do know is that students are not doing well academically, and something needs to be done to help remedy that. However, if not all teachers go along with the re-hiring process, and they are assigned to fill vacancies elsewhere then what's the point? The bad teachers will just be moved to be inefficient at other schools.

[TAM]

Teacher Gerald:

We have been investing our money, and we have not gotten anything in return that is positive. We cannot continue to throw good money away any longer. As long as the students, and their parents do not take responsibility for their education also nothing will change. Everyone blames the teachers, but the teachers are not with them 24/7. The students are not studying, and during their homework at home, but that is their teachers fault. As long as people continue to make excuses for them the test scores will continue to be below low.

These students are not learning English because their test scores proved it. To learn another language you have to study, and they are not.

[Tara Murphy]

Lack of parental involvement, lack of personal motivation on the part of students, high ESL student population and other weakness in the educational system are NOTHING compared to incompetent, unqualified, undedicated teachers and their union(s). This is true in L.A. and everywhere in the country. If any union needs busting, it's theirs. Then start all over again with rigorous standards and fairness.