Green Dot Gets $100,000 Donation

The Westly Foundation announced a $100,000 donation to Green Dot Public Schools on Monday.

The gift is meant to help Green Dot as it assumes control of Locke High School this month. The charter organization plans to convert the campus into eight smaller schools.

The Westly Foundation was founded in 2000 by Steve Westly, who would later serve as state controller, and his wife, Anita.

Green Dot, run by Steve Barr, operates 12 publicly funded charter schools in Los Angeles. Among Green Dot's basic tenets: No school should be larger than 500 students, and more money should be spent at the local schools.

-- Jason Song

L.A. schools chief wants principals to have more authority

L. A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer said this week he would "kick some ass" to improve schools if the school board would give him political cover, which would include standing up to employee unions who might resist reforms.

The comment came at a public but hard-to-reach meeting Thursday on the 24th floor of school district headquarters. The meeting's topic was the governance of the school district, and the discussion gravitated toward giving school principals real power over their budget -- along with demanding real accountability for results.

The room happened to be weighted with administrators -- even a representative from the League of Women Voters was a retired principal. There was broad agreement on a need to decentralize the district.

UCLA Professor William Ouchi offered the New York City schools as an example of progress through focusing on principals. These unchained administrators have used their new authority to reduce the number of students each teacher must handle per day, he said, because that tactic raises student achievement.

The strategy would be impeded in Los Angeles, because of union work rules and because the district bureaucracy largely controls how schools are staffed, Ouchi and others said.

Brewer, a retired admiral, echoed the strong leader theory as something that worked in the Navy.
"The captain of a ship is a god," he said. "I want the principals to be captains of their ships....Then I found out about all the union issues," which, he added, revolve around wrong priorities.

High school seniors honored for community service

One teen has volunteered at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and spearheaded local food-bank efforts. Another has helped out at both ends of the life cycle -- with toy drives and the Oldtimers Foundation. A third spoke out on behalf of the "Jena 6."

All three have been honored for their volunteerism by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The release announcing the honors follows:

Millikan students travel to Beijing for Olympic Cultural Festival

After months of rehearsing, furious fundraising and high anticipation, 45 students from Robert A. Millikan Middle School and Performing Arts Magnet embark today on a once-in-a lifetime trip: performing at the 2008 Olympic Cultural Festival in Beijing.

Students from the Sherman Oaks school will be performing excerpts from their musical theater production of "Ain't Misbehavin,' " as well as ballet, jazz and hip hop dance numbers and musical pieces such as the Pink Panther remix and "Tequila" performed by the school’s jazz band.

Selection of the Millikan students to represent the U.S. is a coup for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"These students have a unique opportunity to serve as ambassadors for our country, our community and our district while performing for the eyes of the world to enjoy," LAUSD Superintendent David L. Brewer said in a statement.

The group also includes two student violinists from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and a violinist from Harvard Westlake, a private school, who will also perform.

The trip was arranged through the nonprofit Intercultural Educational Exchange Assn., which contacted the LAUSD about potential student performers. Millikan was chosen from a list of performing arts schools and sent copies of some of its production numbers to the Beijing Cultural Committee.

The school received the invitation in January, said assistant principal Leah Bass-Baylis. They then had to figure out how to cover the $3,000 per student costs of the trip.

A young teacher reflects on his year

Tim Schlosser, who just finished his second year as a teacher at Southeast Middle School, writes:   

June brought my second year of teaching to an end.  I faced a complicated conundrum: how to process my experience of 180 school days with over 180 students and lend it meaning.  Depending on my mood, it seems that I can take a number of different perspectives on the year:

1) The Relativist: It was much better than my first year.  Nowhere near the number of discipline problems, more of my kids were positive about my classes, and the school year didn’t leave me feeling like I’d just been run down by an 18-wheeler (maybe just a Prius).

2) The Reasonable Pessimist: The year did not meet my high expectations for it.  A few students failed my class throughout the entire year, never putting forth even the minimal effort necessary to rise above the sixty-percent mark.  I should have been able to motivate those students to at least try.

Iron science teachers take on museum challenge

What do science teachers do when you're on vacation? Consider the Iron Science Teacher competitions at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Science teacher contestants are given 10 minutes and a secret ingredient to concoct a science activity that can be used in class. The summer contests take place at noon on Fridays -- June 27, July 11 and July 18.

From left, Kelly Foshee from Arkadelphia, Ark., and Bree Barnett from Pleasanton compete in a past Iron Science Teacher. Their secret ingredient was paint. Parodying the cult Japanese TV program "Iron Chef," the Exploratorium's Iron Science Teacher showcases Bay Area science teachers as they build experiments around a given "secret ingredient" — an everyday item such as a paper-towel tube, a straw or a soda can.

Astrophysicist Linda Shore, director of the Exploratorium Teacher Institute and host of the competition, says, "We try to show we can do science with anything. We show teachers how to use low-tech materials to illustrate classic principles of science and math."

As contestant Don Rathjen says, "This helps teachers teach the $10 million state science standards on a $10 budget."

After building the gizmos, the teachers have a few minutes to explain what they are and the scientific principles they demonstrate. Judging is done on a less scientific basis, using what Shore refers to as "the clap-o-meter" — audience applause as measured by the human ear.

If you can't get to the Exploratorium, you can watch the competitions here.

-- Mary MacVean

Photos by Amy Snyder, the Exploratorium

No rest for school fundraisers

Erin Shachory, mother of two students at Riverside Drive Elementary School in Sherman Oaks, writes:

So, it's the end of the school year.  I just sent our school community an e-mail congratulating everyone on a job well done, which we can calculate by dollars accumulated.  Our amazing fundraising group -- Parents for Riverside Drive, or PFRD -- announced at the last meeting that we earned more than $100,000 this year for our school.  From what I understand, we have been trying to break the $100K mark for some time and this year we finally did it.  And that's not from the work of just one person, or two, or twenty or even a hundred.  That is from everyone who went to Fall Festival, gave to our Annual Giving campaign, bought pizza after school, attended the Variety Show, went to the 70th Birthday Gala (a special one-time event, which earned about $15K), and bought notecards, baked goods and beverages.  It is a phenomenal feat... and one that, in light of the state of our budget cuts, is essential to keeping our school running in the way that we, as parents, want it to run.  That is to say, like the schools we attended as children.

The end of one school year, beginning of another

This is the final week of school for the current academic year. Teachers will be conducting finals, furiously grading papers, and packing up a year’s worth of student-created work, posters and calculated mess from their classroom. However, for half of the teachers currently teaching at Manual –- including myself –- this week doesn’t at all feel like the end. In fact, for those of us who teach, or are students on B-track at our year round school, our new academic school year will begin on July 1st. For those of you who don’t have a calendar in front of you, this means that teachers and students have no more than a three-day weekend to gear up for a new set of classes and teaching content.

I realize that in the traditional business world, there is no clear analogue to the summer vacation that most students are privy to. Why, you non-educator might ask, should I at all concern myself with the fact that you are beginning your year at the beginning of July? For these students, there is no sense of break from one grade to another. The months of May-August become a huge blur of new and old classes, assignments and looming deadlines. That’s not to mention that trying to learn and prepare for college during 100+ degree beach-friendly weather is a daunting proposition. And that refreshed, excited glow that teachers leisurely stroll into their classes with in the fall? Yeah, you won’t see too much of that. While I can guarantee that we’ll be prepared to teach on July 1st, it will have been after completing another exhausting year. There are many exciting developments that will be taking place as of July 1st and I look forward to writing about them soon. In the meantime, I’m frantically finishing grades, saying goodbyes to my class of seniors and preparing for a year that begins next Tuesday.

-- Antero Garcia

My graduation, my moment of silence

Nick Giulioni, a recent graduate of South Pasadena High School, writes:

I heard my name -- and then my world went silent.  Walking up onto the stage, I was vaguely aware of people cheering, but I was solely focused on the leather folder about to be handed to me.  I shook hands, grabbed the folder, blew a kiss at my family, hugged my former principal, and the moment was over. Someone decided to press the un-mute button as I found my way back to my seat as my friends and I hugged each other before sitting back down.  For over twelve years, we had been working for this moment, and it was over before we knew what had happened.

A few words of advice, from seniors to freshmen

Recently I had my soon-to-be-graduating seniors write letters to the incoming 9th graders. I asked the seniors to reflect on their journey over the past four years at Manual Arts and offer advice, encouragement, and warnings for the new students. The activity was one that allowed students to reflect one more time on the different challenges they have overcome. Most of these thoughts were already fresh in students’ minds from their recent senior presentations.

Advice included explaining to students to stay aware of the college A-G eligibility requirements, noting which campus bathrooms are most frequently locked, and explaining the process required to meet with a counselor to change a class. I’ve worked with most of these students for at least two years and it’s thrilling to see them improve their writing, reflect on their experiences,and guide a new class of Toilers to the Manual Arts family.

In a month that focuses most prominently on graduating seniors and college students, I found that my students appreciated being able to guide the students who will be taking their place. What advice would you give to the class of 2012?

-- Antero Garcia