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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school reform effort hopes to spend $15.5 million this coming school year to benefit the 10 schools it will oversee. This plan would require close to $6 million in additional fundraising. Here are some highlights from Howard Blume, whose story on Villaraigosa's plan is here:
Partnership support team and office expenses: $4.043 million
Technology: $1.475 million
Student interventions: $1.391 million
Staff training: $820,000
Building school culture: $765,000
"Scholarly" uniforms: $693,000
Facilities improvements: $500,000
Parent and community meetings: $201,000
Transportation for field trips: $100,000
Source: Budget documents
Teacher Antero Garcia from Manual Arts High School writes:
July 1st marks the beginning of another exciting year at Manual Arts. Like last year (aka last week), I’ll be teaching the 11th and 12th graders in the School of Communication and Global Awareness. Also like last year, my goals in the classroom will be to develop critically thinking students that are prepared for college.
I have several stimulating surprises in store for my students. I hope to share their learning experiences with you as they unfold. In the meantime, I recommend keeping an eye on the Daily Polluter (http://www.blackcloud.org/) and be wary of the Black Cloud that will be soon overtaking our classroom.
As for the school at large, the future for Manual Arts is bright. July marks the beginning of our school’s planning year as an LAUSD Design School (formerly the Innovation Division). Throughout the year, our school will be working closely with our network partners MLA Partnership Schools and WestEd to create proactive change for our community of students.
Sure, you may be comfortably resting or vacationing right now. However, for both my students and me this is the start of another journey. I’ve done my best to ensure that it will be a fun one.
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.
Read more L.A. schools chief wants principals to have more authority »
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:
Read more High school seniors honored for community service »
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.
Read more A young teacher reflects on his year »
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.
Read more No rest for school fundraisers »
Los Angeles Unified elementary school teachers have had a tough time this week dealing with the district's computerized grading system.
Administrators at Lockhurst Elementary have advised teachers to fill in grades and comments by hand, if necessary, said Rod Wylie, who teaches third grade at the Woodland Hills campus.
"It just frosts me that this is happening now," Wylie said. "It's a real inconvenience to do it by hand. We used to, but it seems like wasted time when the technology is available to input and print."
"The culprit was an old system working at capacity and the lingering effects of a probable virus infestation," said Tony Tortorice, chief information officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The system, set to be replaced in the fall of 2010, was a popular step forward in the 1980s, Tortorice said. It works best when teachers access it from school sites. When thousands of teachers enter data from home, however, the system can grind to a standstill, he said.
"The aftereffects of a computer virus made things worse last week. This virus had been hijacking district computers to send e-mails elsewhere, which exacerbated the traffic jam caused by teachers putting in grades. The virus gained entry on computers whose virus software had not been set to update automatically."
-- Howard Blume
Rotary International hopes to make the Guinness Book of World Records this week -- not by moving a mountain, but by building one.
The organization hopes to collect a mountain of 250,000 books at the L.A. Convention Center during its convention this week. (About 150,000 have been collected as of this morning, a spokeswoman says. Eventually, the books will go to schools around the region.)
School children will be at the center today for readings by people whose voices are familiar from the TV show “Jimmy Neutron/Boy Genius,” including Debi Derryberry (the voice of Jimmy Neutron), Mark De Carlo (Hugh Neutron) and Carolyn Lawrence (Cindy Vortex). Other readers include The Times' publisher, David Hiller.
About 20,000 Rotary members from more than 140 countries are attending the convention.
People may donate books today and Tuesday for children in kindergarten through grade three near the South Hall’s main entrance to the Convention Center, at Figueroa Street and Pico Boulevard.
-- Mary MacVean
Next time you pick up your phone for computer help and someone answers in India, think about Bob Compton.
Compton is a venture capitalist from Memphis, Tenn., who is alarmed by what he sees when he travels the world --U.S. students falling behind their international counterparts when it comes to math and science.
Read more Comparing U.S. high schools to India, China »
The way students dress can be an issue, especially when it comes to eighth-grade graduation events, writes Louis De Barraicua, a teacher at Vista Middle School in Panorama City, who shared some pictures with The Homeroom.
"This year, I thought our school did something really cool, which was have students and teachers participate in a fashion show that suggests the ideal (and unideal) attire to wear to these events," Barraicua writes.
 
Eighteen Los Angeles-area schools are among 75 in California that are finalists in the 2008 Governor’s Challenge Competition of the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
Over the next couple of months the Governor’s Council will be reviewing how the finalists supported physical activity and good nutrition on their campus. The three top winners will get $100,000 fitness centers.
Read more Schools named finalists in fitness competition »
Would school uniforms mean an end to family fights over what to wear to school? Or an end to a student's outlet for creative self-expression? Would children be safer?
L.A. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and L.A. Unified school board member Tamar Galatzan will co-host a roundtable discussion about a proposal for uniforms in LAUSD schools.
The discussion takes place at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Marvin Braude Constituent Service Center, 6262 Van Nuys Blvd. in Van Nuys (Thomas Guide 532, A7)
Among the expected participants are LAUSD Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines; Capt. Phillip Tingerides of the LAPD’s Southeast Division; Los Angeles School Police Chief Larry Manion; Ron Avi Astor from the USC School of Education and School on Social Work; and Verna Stroud, principal at Markham Middle School.
-- Mary MacVean
You can read and discuss today's story about a new study by the California Charter Schools Assn. comparing charter schools with nearby, demographically comparable regular public schools. Or you can read the entire report (and related material) here.
In the interest of setting the record straight: One reader has taken UCLA's Jeannie Oakes to task for not having read the study before commenting on the methodology. Oakes had no way to see the study, because it hadn't been released when The Times asked her to comment. (The paper got an advance copy.)
Also, more than one person has commented that charter schools get to pick and choose their students. That shouldn't be true -- not if they're following the law. California law requires charter schools to take any student who applies and to use a lottery if they get more applicants than they have spaces. Some charters might subtly -- or not so subtly -- discourage students they think would be a bad fit.
Finally, one reader says it wouldn't be valid to compare charters to regular public magnet schools because the magnets are mostly limited to gifted students. That's not true, either, at least not in Los Angeles. A few are designated for gifted students, but the vast majority have no entrance requirement.
One bit of added value we can offer here: a list of the top five and bottom five charter schools in the study, along with the three regular public schools to which they were compared. Click on "read more" below.
-- Mitchell Landsberg
Read more More on the charter school report »
Gabriella Charter School says it might be the only dance-themed public elementary school in the nation. We don't know if that's true, but it sounds like fun. Students get one hour of dance instruction daily -- ballet, jazz, tap, creative movement and world dance.
 
But dance is not just dance at Gabriella:
Twice a week, in "reading In motion" classes, kindergartners and first-graders twist their bodies into letters while singing corresponding sounds.
In a school where most of the students are English learners, vocabulary is introduced regularly and systematically −− parts of the body, directions, places in the room. And students improve graphing skills by plotting points to choreograph a dance.
Last night, the school held its recital -- the photos above -- and on June 19, the school will celebrate its first culminating fifth-grade class. Twenty-five students will participate.
Read more Dance charter school finds its rhythm »
Parent Dan Chasek contributes these photos he took today at Kester Avenue/Kester Magnet Elementary School in Sherman Oaks. He writes: "Its time to rethink Prop. 13 when we're 46th in the nation in per pupil spending. Our future deserves better than 46th place."
-- Mitchell Landsberg
 
These photos were sent to us by Louis Debarraicua, who teaches English at Vista Middle School, which is in Panorama City but is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. They were taken in front of Vista and Noble Elementary School, which is across the street. Debarraicua identified the soaring sign-waver as Julie Husid, 23, a first-year teacher who teaches sixth grade math and science.
--Mitchell Landsberg
Erin Shachory, a parent at Riverside Elementary School in Sherman Oaks, writes:
I write an e-mail blast each week to our parent community (our principal, vice principal and some teachers are on my e-mail distribution list as well). In it, I list reminders for events that week, things to remember or do (e.g.,"Don't forget to wear your school shirts on Friday," and "Early dismissal on Tuesday").
Lately, it has also become a forum for me to let parents know what to expect from the budget cuts, how to contact legislators, etc. On Sunday, I wrote that we would have the picketing on Friday (I had been asked by our UTLA rep to inform parents) -- mostly, I was trying to warn working parents that kids may not be well-supervised if they arrive at school on time and that it might be better to keep the kids out of class until 8:30 a.m., when teachers would be leaving the picket lines.
On Monday, our principal called to tell me it was illegal for me to "advocate" parents keeping their kids out of school. Although I will be keeping my own kids with me while I picket, and they will be tardy to school that day, I wrote a second e-mail with our principal's assurance that kids should go to school and that they will have "adequate, safe" supervision until teachers resume their positions.
Read more Why one parent plans to picket »
Jimmy Biblarz, a student in the humanities magnet at Hamilton High, writes:
The teachers union of Los Angeles in holding a protest from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Friday. Dozens of students are planning to miss this hour of school.
I am proud to be protesting with the teachers, waving my sign that reads, "Students support teachers!"
It will make an even bigger statement if the kids get out and protest the governor's unprecedented budget cuts and will say publicly that we care about our education and deserve proper equipment and funding! I strongly encourage every student to get out on Friday and protest for our education!
 It's that awards time of year.
Kendall Perrin of Orange, left, was among the teenagers from around the country -- 35 of them from California -- to win a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. Kendall was honored for her novel, her English teacher wrote to tell us.
“Miss Lavender Venumn was a malevolent serpent. Her soft emerald eyes could destroy you with a single glance, and her alabaster arms struck children until they burst like little bottom bombs.”
So begins 13-year-old Kendall's tale of Miss Lavender Venumn, the spank-a-holic owner of Miss Lavender’s School for Happy Orphans.
More than 1,100 students in grades seven to 12 were honored, some of them eligible for thousands of dollars in scholarship money. It's the 85th year of the awards.
“Since Scholastic’s founder M.R. Robinson established the Art and Writing Awards, the program has been an oasis for the more than 13 million creative young people who have participated,” said Bryan Doerries, program director of the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, which administers the Awards.
Past recipients include Andy Warhol, Robert Redford, Sue Miller, Richard Avedon, Zac Posen, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Otterness, Sylvia Plath, John Lithgow, Joyce Maynard, David Salle and Francine Prose.
Kendall goes to New York next week with her mother, Barbara Perrin, and her home-school English teacher, Clarissa Ngo, to be honored at Carnegie Hall.
Read more Teenager writes novel, wins award »
Can there be a student who would not want to learn math and science if it included making ice cream? Franklin Avenue Elementary School in Los Feliz is holding it's 15th F.A.M.E. Night on Thursday -- Family Activities in Math and Science Exploratorium. It's a hands-on celebration with displays, activities and demonstrations in the classrooms.
Aside from making ice cream, students will take part in and lead demonstrations with the likes of the World Famous Lizard Boys Mobile Zoo and a UCLA chemist. Snacks include volcano cake and fried crickets.
-- Mary MacVean
The top speller in the Scripps National Spelling Bee was 13-year-old Sameer Mishra of West Lafayette, Ind. His winning word: guerdon, meaning a reward. The last of three California finalists, Tia Thomas of Coarsegold, near Yosemite National Park, made it as far as the 13th of 16 rounds.
See more about the bee here. You can read more about Sameer here and see all the preposterously obscure words he correctly spelled here.
-- Mitchell Landsberg
The jury is in, and it sides with Dorothy.
The jurors were not exactly her peers, however. Sixth-graders in Valley Glen argued the case of the County of Oz vs. Dorothy Gale, in which the Kansas farm girl was tried for the water-melting murder of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Dorothy was found not guilty of premeditated murder.
Above, the murder is reenacted: (From left) Alexis McCarthy as Dorothy, defense lawyer Ryan Kopelowicz; Oz weather woman Lola Rain Mintis Hankerson; defense lawyer Jordan Rowe, and Scarecrow Aiyana White.
Below, Prosecutor Travis Goddard questions Judge Graham Mekjian.
The jury, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judge and witnesses were all elementary school students participating in the Laurence School’s Kids Court program. For six months they studied the legal system, including meeting with judges at Van Nuys Superior Court.
Laurence, a private elementary school, hasn’t missed a court date since its mock trial program, recognized by the National Bar Assn., started in 1991.
“Students not only learn about our judicial system, they also get an opportunity to perfect their critical-thinking and debate skills,” says Lauren Wolke, the school’s assistant head and a lawyer who created the program 19 years ago.
-- Mary MacVean
Photos courtesy of the Laurence School
Patrick Henry Middle School in Granada Hills was one of 10 schools awarded a $9,000 grants meant to encourage schools to stage productions of one of the young set's runaway hits, "High School Musical."
This photo shows the opening night performance last year of Disney's High School Musical live stage show at the Kodak Theatre.
The NAMM Foundation and Disney Channel announced the recipients of “Disney’s High School Musical: The Music in You Grant Program” at a recent trade show.
Patrick Henry was the only California school to win one. Its production is scheduled for June 12-13.
-- Mary MacVean
Photo by Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
There are two new reports out about California charter schools today, one from USC and one from Stanford.
The USC report is the big one -- it's the annual Charter Schools Indicators report from the Center on Educational Governance. By its own account, it offers "mixed messages" about the state of charters in California. (Charter schools are public schools that are run independent of school districts, typically by private, nonprofit organizations.)
The report shows the charter movement growing strongly (there are now 617 charter schools in California, up 13% from a year ago) and improving its financial stability. But the academic picture is murkier. There has been a sharp increase in the number of charter schools with high Academic Performance Index scores, and they outpace traditional public schools by that measure. But there has also been a slight increase in the percentage of very-low-scoring charters -- and those are also outpacing traditional schools. And charters don't have a great record when it comes to teaching English to non-English speakers, a critical need in California.
From Stanford comes a report from CREDO, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes. Researchers there looked at what happens when you offer rewards, such as concert tickets or iPods, to charter students who do well in school. The report, "Paying for A's," found that the rewards work for reading achievement, not for math. Go figure.
Click on "Read more" below for a news release summarizing the USC charter report.
-- Mitchell Landsberg
Read more Report offers mixed message on charter schools »
An 11th-grader from Flintridge Preparatory School won the Patricia Beckman Project of the Year Award, Senior Division, at the California State Science Fair held earlier this month at the California Science Center.
Sarah Waliany received $10,000 for her project, "Transformation of Herceptin-Sensitive Breast Tumor Cells into Resistant Cells." She had already won the Sweepstakes Award for Senior Division at the 58th Annual Los Angeles County Science Fair.
Flintridge Prep -- apparently a hotbed of budding scientists, scored five other wins:
- Eighth-grader Meredith Lehmann won 1st place in mathematics and software with "Accurate Simulation of Influenza Pandemics"
- Eighth-grader Eli Weinstein won 1st place in physics and astronomy for "A Study of Galaxy Clustering."
- Senior Magnus Haw received a fourth-place medal in physics and astronomy for "Are Black Hole Masses Too Large?"
- Sophomore Dorothy Silverman earned third place in the earth and planetary sciences category with "Influence of Site Effects on Peak Ground Acceleration."
- Eighth-grader Kirill Slobodvanuk received a fourth-place medal for "Geomagnetic Storms on GPS Devices" in the Earth & Planetary Sciences category.
Chamlian Armenian School had two honorable mentions for seventh-graders: Nanor Kassabian for "Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right Temperature Effect on Development of D. Melanogaster," and Emin Abranians for "Airplane Lift: Wing Curvature Generates Lift."
-- Mary MacVean
First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush Hager read their new book, "Read All About It," to a group of second-graders from Esperanza Elementary School at the Central Library in downtown L.A.
Thursday's event was held for major supporters of the library and its foundation.
“Read All About It” tells the story of a boy named Tyrone who excels in all aspects of his schoolwork except reading. By the end -- big surprise -- he changes his mind about books.
Veronique Peck introduced the first lady, who is a librarian, and her daughter. The event was arranged by Peck, a longstanding library supporter whose late husband, Gregory Peck, established the Gregory Peck Reading Series in 1995.
--Mary MacVean
Photo by Howard Pasamanick, Howard Pasamanick Photography
Remember grade school field trips, when you would -- assuming you remembered to bring in a signed permission slip -- get a day off from classes, board a big yellow bus with 40 screaming classmates and visit a museum, play or zoo? (I remember touring the Limerick nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, which looking back, is a tad odd).
Well, those trips are fewer and farther between as school districts across the nation grapple with budget shortfalls and the school day grows increasingly crowded because of high-stakes standardized testing. Educators and field trip coordinators, such as Elise Bernardoni, an education specialist with Friends of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., are worried that the decline is shortchanging students.
"The thing that is most important about coming to our zoo or any zoo is to get the experience of seeing animals up close. That instills such awe and wonder and appreciation for nature and conservation," she said. "Learning about that in the classroom is all well and good, but ... if you’ve never seen an elephant up close, how on earth can you know how incredible they are?"
Read the full story.
-- Seema Mehta
A group of Florence Nightingale Middle School students participating in a national academic competition recently put the L.A. Unified school board through a mock quiz, asking them questions such as what compound gives water in Newfoundland a brown color and what the square root of 12 is.
For the record, the board only got one of four question right, correctly saying that Mercury has the hottest temperature of any planet.
-Jason Song
Jordan High School's student newspaper, the Bulldog Times, has an article in this month's edition taking issue with an article in that other Times -- um, this one. Student Evelyn Garcia, writing for the Jordan paper, is critical of a story reporting on the findings of a recent survey conducted by a youth organization, South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action, whose findings included the contention that many students in South L.A. high schools are depressed. Not so! says Garcia, whose newspaper conducted a survey of its own among Jordan students.
She quotes senior Steven Hubbard as saying: “I don’t know where they got these results from. From what the L.A. Times article said being lazy and tired means that you’re clinically depressed. If that’s true, then everyone I know is clinically depressed, including the teachers and the president of the United States!!! Where do they get off saying that anyway? I’m always happy, and so are the people that I hang with!”
For the full article, click on read more below.
--Mitchell Landsberg
Read more Jordan High paper strikes back with survey »
The odds were tough: Of the 50,530 applications for magnet schools submitted for the 2008-09 school year, only 13,544 students were accepted to the program they chose, according to L.A. Unified.
The rest of the eligible students were placed on a waiting list. (For those keeping track, remaining on the waiting list earns four points for next year's application.)
So, now what for those who were disappointed? There are options:
1) There's still a chance to attend the magnet school by staying on the waiting list. Parents of students on the waiting list may call the school's magnet coordinator to determine their child’s status on the list.
2) Parents may submit a walk-in application to a magnet that has additional wait list spots at a particular grade level. Parents should contact the Office of Student Integration Services or visit http://eChoices.lausd.net if they wish to obtain a list of magnets that may have available spaces for walk-in applicants.
3) Parents may apply for an open enrollment permit at certain schools.
4) This month, students who meet the Gifted/High Ability requirements may apply to the Schools for Advanced Studies programs.
5) Go visit your neighborhood school.
-- Mary MacVean
Susan Holmes of Pasadena came across one of her grandfather's fifth grade report cards from a Long Beach elementary school. The year: 1902.
It reveals that Floyd Peterson was a good student (99% in writing  and 100% in "diligence"), and that his class had a maximum of 23 students, but that wasn't what caught our attention. On the back of the report card, which seems to have been a common California form, are listed the state's "Legal Points" for parents. They might not be so much different from what you'd find in student handbooks today, but a) nobody reads those, and b) you aren't likely to find such clear, concise English in any school district form these days.
Here's Rule No. 1: "Every pupil is expected to attend school punctually and regularly; to conform to the regulations of the school, and to obey promptly all directions of the teachers; to observe good order and propriety of deportment; to be diligent in study, respectful to teachers, and kind and obliging to school mates; to refrain entirely from the use of profane and vulgar language, and to be clean and neat in person and clothing."
Next rule:
"Every teacher in the public schools must hold the pupils to a strict account for their conduct on the way to or from school, on the play ground, or during recess; suspend, for good cause, any pupil from the school, and report such suspension to the Board of School Trustees for review."
And -- teachers unions take note -- here's the last rule:
"Any parent, guardian, or other person who shall insult or abuse any teacher in the presence of the school, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be liable to a fine of not less than ten dollars nor exceeding one hundred dollars."
That, of course, was big money in those days. Apparently, though, it was OK to insult teachers outside "the presence of the school."
--Mitchell Landsberg
Ramon C. Cortines, the new No. 2 at the Los Angeles Unified School District, dropped by The Times yesterday for an interesting, and revealing, talk with the Editorial Board. Cortines sounded very  much like the guy in charge at 333 S. Beaudry, the district's headquarters. He described his job as handling "the day-to-day operations of the school district, in all areas." Supt. David Brewer? He's the "voice and face of the school district," Cortines said. And what does that mean? He said Brewer's job is to "interface" with the Legislature, governor, federal government and the community. (Doesn't the district pay lobbyists to do that?)
Cortines said he's taken a look at the $480-million in budget cuts that Brewer has prepared in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state budget cuts--and found an additional $15 million or so to cut. And he seemed to foreshadow a battle with the teachers union, among others, when he said: "I’ve tackled some of the sacred cows in my recommendations, such as the issues of contracts, how much money we could receive from that. Such as the issue of health benefits, and how much money we could receive by capping that. And increasing the co-pay."
Cortines was at times unsparing of LAUSD's failures, saying that the district is organized for the benefit of the adults who work there, not the children they are hired to serve. He said the school board passes too many resolutions that "aren't worth the paper [they're] printed on." And he said the district had "abdicated our responsibility" for Locke High School, which is about to be turned over to Green Dot Public Schools, the big charter operator. Students didn't get a pass, though: He said the district needs to enforce "a code of behavior" based on the idea that they don't just have rights -- they also have responsibilities.
While he talked a lot about budget cuts, Cortines said he wants to put more resources into campus security, and also wants to launch an International Baccalaureate program in some schools in 2009.
In one interesting moment, Cortines, 75, appeared to choke up when he was asked about his decision to leave the district after serving as interim superintendent for six months in 2000, before Roy Romer came on board. He hadn't sought the permanent appointment. "I made a mistake," he said, then paused to regain composure.
You can read excerpts from the interview at the Times' Opinion section site here. And see what Steve Lopez has to say about Cortines and Brewer here.
--Mitchell Landsberg
File photo by Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times
California’s standardized tests are a taxing experience for everyone involved, so Nogales High School in La Puente is rewarding students who were on time and present every day of the exams with a middle-of-the-school-day carnival today.
On tap are a free barbecue lunch, an appearance by Latin hip-hop artist Malverde, elephant rides, game booths, a Bounce House and 70-foot, state-of-the-art driving simulator.
The reward for teachers is more dubious: They are the key component in the dunk tank ($1 for two balls, with proceeds going to the teacher’s favorite campus club).
Nogales Principal Nancy Padilla wanted an incentive last year to get more students in their seats and thought of the elephant ride. This year, with expanded activities, there was more buzz and even greater student participation during the seven days of exams, which ended April 30 for ninth- to 11th-graders.
“Every kid has to make up every test they’re absent for, which is logistically a nightmare,” Padilla said. “So the more perfect attendance we have, the more it facilitates our ability to make sure testing is complete.”
Seniors in good standing are also invited to the carnival, and the only question is what the school will come up with next year: perhaps a mechanical bull to keep the elephant company?
-- Carla Rivera
Many schools feel compelled to raise money from parents and friends, and perhaps the pressure is growing with the potential for new budget cuts.
There's a "Cruise to the Caribbean" coming up May 17 in Long Beach to raise money for the New City Public Schools, bilingual Spanish-English charter schools for kindergarten through eighth grade. The public is invited for the night of food and entertainment. Get more information here.
-- Mary MacVean
There was joy and hand-wringing in LAUSD-land in recent days, as families learned whether or not their children had gotten a spot in the magnet school of their choice.
For those who were disappointed, the next stop often is trying to secure a seat through open enrollment. Next Monday is the starting date to apply for open enrollment transfers for the 2008-09 school year. By that date, schools should have lists available showing which schools have open seats and how many. You can also find out here.
The deadline for applications is June 2.
-- Mary MacVean
A concert that almost wasn't filled much of the Kodak Theatre on Sunday night with an enthusiastic audience of parents and other fans of more than 300 middle school musicians.
The fifth annual L.A. Unified Middle School Honors Music Program, along with a recent concert for elementary school musicians, had been eliminated last fall to save money. Julie Korenstein, one of four school board members who attended the concert, told the audience that she was outraged by the cuts, and went to Supt. David Brewer to lobby for the funds. When she was rebuffed, she sponsored a resolution to restore them. It was approved unanimously. Giving Brewer the benefit of the doubt, she said he wasn't familiar with the concerts and didn't know how important they were to the district's music program.
If Brewer was in the house Sunday, no one introduced him. His office this morning said the concert was not on his calendar. Korenstein said he attended the recent elementary schools honor concert.
She said this morning that she remained worried about the future of the concerts, given the prospect of budget cuts ahead. "There's no way I will vote for the budget" if the concerts are eliminated, she said.
The two concerts cost $150,000, according to her office.
(Coming clean: I attended the concert because one of my children performed.)
-- Mary MacVean
After writing in today's paper about the latest poll on education from the Public Policy Institute of California, we found some interesting scraps left on the cutting-room floor. In no particular order:
- Most Californians think it's important for the state to collect information about public schools and make it available to the public. For some reason, Republicans are less keen on this than Democrats and independents: only 48% said yes.
- Blacks and Latinos are quite concerned about the quality of teachers in low-income schools; whites and Asians, not so much.
- Everybody agrees that it's important to have art and music in schools, although Asians (at 50%) are the least likely to agree. African Americans (68%) are the strongest advocates for the arts.
- Californians are pretty realistic about their schools. Asked where the state ranked in per-pupil spending nationwide, just 12% said "near the top" and the largest number -- 29% -- said "average." (It's 29th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.) Asked where California's test scores ranked, just 2% said "near the top," and the biggest number, 33%, said "below average." That's about right, although the 18% who said "near the bottom" were closer to accurate when it comes to certain tests.
- Finally, there's this interesting note. Public school parents are apparently happier with their schools than private school parents. Asked to grade their neighborhood schools, just 18% of parents statewide awarded an A and 36% a B. But among just public school parents, those figures rose to 27% A and 40% B. Now, it could be that private schools are worse on average; certainly some of them are. But we're going to postulate an alternative theory: When you write a check for tuition, you might expect more from your school.
-- Mitchell Landsberg
Roy Romer dropped into town this week to promote his new endeavor: ED in '08, an effort to get education onto the agenda in the presidential campaign.
So far, it can't be declared a rip-roaring success. Romer, the former Colorado governor and L.A. Unified superintendent, admits that education hasn't exactly been a front-burner issue, although he says he's had good talks with all of the candidates. As an undeclared Democratic superdelegate, you'd think he might have a little leverage to apply to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But he concedes that the candidates have been more interested in other topics -- the economy, the war, the environment, those flag lapel pins...
Romer says he's already thinking past all that. In a chat at The Times, he said he's thinking about the pitch he'll make to the next president, whoever that is. Twenty-five years after the Reagan administration published the groundbreaking report "A Nation at Risk," he says, the nation is more at risk than ever from better educated foreign competitors in Asia and Europe. The countries with the best educational systems tend to differ from the United States in a few key ways, he says. They often have national standards for education, they select teachers from a pool of their best college graduates, and they have cultures that value and encourage education.
The U.S. public will never stand for a national curriculum, Romer says, but the next president should convene a meeting of all 50 governors and propose that they use international benchmarks as goals for their schools. In return, he says, the federal government should promise resources to help them reach those goals. Once Americans see how far their schools lag behind such countries as Finland, Singapore and Poland, they'll support a push to raise state standards.
He laid out five fundamentals of a better educational system:
1) Higher standards.
2) More rigorous curricula.
3) Diagnostic testing to keep students on course.
4) Better use of data in school management.
5) More intensive teacher training.
Romer noted that the federal government has transformed the nation's educational system before -- most notably in the 1860s, when it created land grant colleges, and after World War II, when it created the GI Bill. "We know how to do it," he said.
Read more Romer: Where's the education campaign? »
We've gotten a lot of e-mail -- some of it scorching, some not -- in response to Saturday's story about a survey of about 6,000 students in South L.A. high schools. The survey found that many students felt unsafe in school and wanted more college-prep courses. More controversial, researchers concluded that a majority of students answering the survey appeared to be showing symptoms of clinical depression.
Many readers welcomed the article and found the survey to be on the money. "Finally a sympathetic voice in the wilderness! Thank you for your timely and well researched piece," wrote one correspondent. "You are bringing a great sense of relief in writing that the lack of safety in some of L.A 's poorest schools is leading to clear signs of clinical depression among students." Another person, who is either very discriminating or doesn't read the paper very often, found the story to be "the best article, thus far, this year in The Times! "
Some people saw it a bit differently. "Hey moron; the answer is school vouchers," wrote one faithful correspondent who flunked the class on semi-colons. Another found the reporting to be "so inadequate and one-sided that it left me clinically depressed." Some resorted to insulting the students who spoke out.
Somewhat more substantively, one reader wrote: "Did any of these respondents stop to think that their schools resemble prisons because they must somehow contain the potential for violence of the 'students' in them? ... This 'survey' was nothing but an attempt to tilt the funding formula even further in favor of the dismal schools, and away from the few and dwindling number of public schools which do graduate a significant number of students who can actually read and write. You better hope Sam Zell doesn’t see this article, or his bloody budget ax will come down on you."
(Note to Sam: Hey, this could be a new Halloween movie franchise -- you and your ax. Just a thought.)
Another reader, Ken Ankenbrandt of Lancaster wrote: "This survey seems to me to simply prove that you can make up a survey to get whatever results you want if you simply cherry-pick the respondents. It also seems to me that having only 1/3 of even these respondents report that they do not feel safe in school, and only 22% reporting that their high school is not preparing them for college and/or a high-paying job, is cause for celebration rather than the apparent hand-wringing of this article."
But the prize for the most comprehensive response goes to Leonard Isenberg, a continuation school teacher at L.A. Unified's Central High School/Tri C, who sent a long e-mail along with a long set of 10 recommendations to solve the problems suggested by the survey. Click on "Read more" below to see what he had to say.
-- Mitchell Landsberg
Read more About that South L.A. high school survey... »
Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes: As I continue to receive criticism and skepticism over teaching about graffiti in my class, I thought I would try something a bit different to provide some insight into the kinds of activities that take place in my class. I am pulling back the curtain, lifting the veil, and giving you an all-access hall pass to become a participant in Mr. Garcia’s Graffiti 101.
No, I won’t be collecting homework and I won’t be making calls home. However, I am inviting you to follow along with my class. At the beginning of each week, I’ll post a key activity that my 11th graders will do in class. I’ll include some of the major questions students will be asked, their reading assignments, the lesson’s learning objectives, as well as any other resources you may be inclined to investigate. You’re encouraged to partake in this digital class, offer insights or questions, and engage in the kinds of critical dialogue that are so crucial for learning.
That being said, I need to make it clear that I am not endorsing any kind of illegal activity. To the many who have pointed it out, I am fully aware that some graffiti is illegal. I am also aware that it is something that some of my students place a lot of value on. I’m hoping that, as a community of students (and online as adults) we can use graffiti as a means of mastering the expected skills within a high school English class.
Pre-Teaching Activity
My students return from vacation next week and our official assignment will be made available at that time. However, for all of you anxious overachievers, let’s begin with a standard teaching activity. You’ll need a piece of paper and a pencil -- I’ll wait until you’re ready. Now, what we’re going to create is a KWL chart: create three page-length columns on your paper labeled: Know, Wants to Know, and Learned.
In the left, “Know,” column write down all the facts you know about graffiti. In the middle column write down any concepts you want to learn about graffiti and any questions you have. At the end of May, you’ll revisit this chart and write down what you learned or any remaining questions you have. Looking over past comments about this project, I think there is a lot of frustration and anger toward graffiti –- particularly gang graffiti.
However, this is an opportunity to think more open-mindedly about graffiti –- what do you really know about it? (Hint: Not all graffiti is made by gangs.) Where are the gaps in your cultural knowledge?
Read more Welcome to Graffiti 101 »
When teachers at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex School of Justice ask for participation in classes today, they will be met with silence from more than 900 students, more than half the school. The din that generally acts as background to high school life will be stilled, as the school marks a Day of Silence, an effort to bring attention to and stop bullying of gay and lesbian students at schools. Events will occur around the country today and Friday.
A student at left applauds a speaker talking about the protest at a school ceremony Thursday. The button honors Lawrence King, 15, who friends say had endured anti-gay taunts and slurs long before he was fatally shot and killed at his Oxnard school in February, allegedly by a 14-year-old classmate.
At the end of the ceremony, about 50 students from the school's Gay Straight Alliance placed black carnations on a coffin to symbolize the "death of homophobia."
Today, the participants plan to break their silence with an assembly. On Friday, students will see a preview of "Tru Loved." Cast members Jasmine Guy, Bruce Vilanch, Nichelle Nichols and Elaine Hendrix were among the speakers at Miguel Contreras on Thursday. Also there were officials from several organizations, including the Day of Silence sponsor, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
L.A. Unified School Board President Monica Garcia said she was inspired by the students and their efforts toward "a more just and humane world." The biggest cheers went to Lydia Castillo, a student at the school who organized today's protest.
-- Mary MacVean
Photos: Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times
Lauren McCabe, a teacher at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, writes:
Environmental Charter High School celebrated Earth Day last Friday. This annual event gives our students the chance to teach and become leaders in the movement to save our Earth. More than 700 elementary students visited our campus that day, visiting booths that displayed projects that our high schoolers had been working on for weeks. For my seniors, this event is one of the capstones to their last year in high school. They were in charge of leading small groups of children around to the booths, making presentations and sharing their own expertise in the environment.
Projects elsewhere for Earth Day 2007 included a project in Rio de Los Angeles State Park, where this art-covered bench is located.
While the celebration at Environmental Charter could have quickly turned into a chaotic, migraine-inducing nightmare, the entire process went smoothly and gave our students the chance to step up and shine as stewards in their own community (thanks to the intensive planning and preparation of some of my amazing team members)!
Once all of our ECHS students were in place, I had the pleasure of watching the magic unfold. As the elementary students arrived, my seniors greeted them, checked them in, and one by one took a small group of energized little ones through our campus. I was amazed at how well some of my most introverted students engaged and interacted with their group. Without any directions to do so, the seniors had their groups singing chants, playing get-to-know-you games, and even lining up in a straight line. (Any elementary teacher can tell you how difficult that is!)
This was one of those days where I wanted to run up to every adult visitor on campus and point and say “Yeah, that’s one of mine.” I was so proud, but it wouldn’t be right to take the credit for the thoughtful young men and women these people have become. It has been through their families, previous teachers, friends and, of course, their own initiative, that these students are now capable of giving back the knowledge and kindness that they have received.
What would the world be like without ECHS and its students? Pretty boring if you ask me … and probably a lot less green!
Photo courtesy of Earth Day Network
In our final list of recommendations f | |
