Of all the crimes committed against the people of Los Angeles, and there are many, the most unforgivable is the crime committed against generations of the city's children by the public schools.
Horrendous dropout rates that fuel gangs and crime and poverty.
Tens of billions spent on new school buildings but little or nothing achieved in student performance.
Near total resistance to every type of reform effort, relegating yet another generation of children to ignorance. Note how Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent three years fighting for responsibility over the schools only to end up with control of just nine, barely one percent of the district.
In the grand scheme of LAUSD's sins against the people, what happened Tuesday is a small thing -- like the tip of the iceberg that sank the Titanic -- but it symbolized the hopelessness of all efforts to try to work with the district.
About 300 charter school supporters came to the school board meeting to demand that Superintendent David Brewer and the seven invisibles who supposedly represent the people live up to their commitment to house 39 charter schools on LAUSD campuses as the law requires, as the district agreed to, as common decency commands.
But they were denied a hearing until their cries of protest forced the board to allow a single representative just three minutes to make their case. It seems the public that pays all the bills needs a reservation to speak their mind and the board's tolerance for public comment is so limited that the taxpayers, parents and concerned citizens need to book a month in advance.
This from a school system that is one of the nation's worst performing.
This from a school district that offered no cooperation with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's gang intervention and child safety effort at Markham Middle School in Watts while assigning as an assistant principal a man already under a cloud of suspicion for taking sexual advantage of an underage girl, a man now charged with molesting young teens.
This from a district that squanders tens of millions of dollars to enrich unneeded consultants while facing a massive budget deficit and maintaining an army of six-figure bureaucrats who don't achieve a thing.
It's time to pull the plug and put the LAUSD to sleep.
The issue that triggers my outrage is the district's decision to rescind its approval of seven of the 39 facilities where the California Charter Schools Association had identified available space and been given approval to establish charters.
These aren't like LAUSD schools. Parents and teachers have a direct ownership stake, children are motivated to learn and failure to achieve results leads to closure. That's why charters are doing so well and LAUSD schools are not.
"Charter schools put public back into public education," Caprice Young, head of the Charter Schools Association, told me. "The district needs to accept the fact that charter schools are her to stay."
That isn't the position of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that protects mediocrity and failure and thwarts teachers who are dedicated professionals trying to make a difference in the lives of their students.
Young and her team accuse Brewer and the school board of surrendering to UTLA's "bullying tactics," which they say included carefully orchestrated protests and even threats of violence.
The issue for many years was the Valley's demand for breakup of the district into several more manageable districts. That's not good enough anymore. LAUSD must be dismantled and completely reorganized.
The charter movement already is taking the district apart school by school, student by student. Let's not waste another day. Let's end the cycle of failure. Let's end the tragedy. Let's save this generation of children from crime, ignorance and poverty.
Let's put abolishing the LAUSD at the top of the agenda for making L.A. a city of the people, by the people and for the people.
Here's the open letter Caprice Young has sent out appealing for the public's help:
Dear Friend of Public Charter Schools:
I am writing because we need your help to ensure that charter schools can continue to provide high quality educational options to families in
Without warning to public charter school officials, parents and students, Los Angeles Unified School District executives sent letters on April 30th to charter schools purportedly rescinding facilities offers made to those schools just a few weeks earlier, on April 1, 2008. This action is in direct violation of voter approved Proposition 39, and risks leaving these students without an educational home.
Proposition 39 became effective in 2003 after a vote of the people. It requires that public school facilities be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter public schools. To help meet its facilities needs--including obligations under Proposition 39--the District has had access to billions of dollars in bond funds approved by voters since 2002 in Measures K, R, and Y. Regrettably, of the $120 million earmarked specifically for charter schools, roughly $62 million remains unspent.
Last year, after four years of noncompliance and indifference by LAUSD, the California Charter Schools Association and a coalition of charter operators and parents filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court demanding compliance with the law. The resulting legal settlement--executed just days before the purported rescissions-- represented significant progress toward compliance with Proposition 39 and laid the groundwork for collaboration between the district and charter representatives to provide adequate facilities to all public school students, including those in charter schools.
However, in response to intimidation and bullying tactics at district sites, LAUSD staff rescinded facilities offers to Charter Schools. We haven't seen this degree of intimidation tactics against students entitled to a public education since the 1960's. United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) orchestrated hundreds of persons, directing them to march angrily and shout threats at
However, we find ourselves in our current circumstances because--despite the settlement agreement--in the years since Proposition 39's passage, the LAUSD Board of Education has chosen to throw up roadblocks to its successful implementation. The Board and staff have treated their legal responsibility to public charter schools in an ad-hoc and arbitrary manner consuming valuable financial and human resources while creating confusion and angst among charter school students and parents. At every turn, they continue to prioritize students attending district schools over those attending charter schools. This recent action only continues the years of mistreatment.
Attached are the email and mailing addresses for members of the Los Angeles Unified School Districts' Board of Education as well as a sample message.
Thank you for helping us to provide adequate learning space to the students of
Sincerely,
Caprice Young
President & CEO
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
Ron -- Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks for saying what we parents have been slowly figuring out now in the last few years: LAUSD is not working. Not in any way that is meaningful and/or efficient for our students/teachers/parents. But don't worry; the Valley Moms are on it. We'll be on it Friday morning en masse downtown, along with other Moms from all over L.A. -- and that's just the start. :)
Yes, Locke being only one example. Last year the Teachers' Union/ UTLA even demanded the firing of excellent Principle Wells -- with the too-happy support of the LAUSD Board -- because he knew enough to put the kids above adult self-interest and supported the school's conversion to Green Dot Charter. Look at the war they have going on, fact that almost half drop out, those who go are afraid they're constantly going to be jumped, despite a lot of money poured into the school and enough security to protect many small towns. Middle schools like Markham already feel these tensions and gang violence spilling over from their neighborhoods into the school.
I'd disagree with you that drop out rates and problems at school fuel gangs and youth violence and other failures, though -- it's more often the other way around. "The community" comes to the school. Even the liberal Times article on Locke today notes that racial tensions have gotten worse since the formerly mostly black school has "very rapidly" become mostly Hispanic; this is the same problem fueling gang wars everywhere in the community, the sense that "their turf" is being taken all at once, and a need to "protect" it as only they know how. But there's no dialogue about this, either at the school or community level, just a "hush hush, don't talk about it and it will go away, let;s all be nice and P C," cover-up, An attitude that's making the grownups mad, too.
And this isn't just in the inner city schools. Even in the heart of Westwood, Emerson Middle has the same gang problems, dropout rates and low test scores are abysmal, local white kids don't feel safe enough even going there anymore. But their parents aren't allowed to take their money, that they're forced to pump into the schools from their expensive surrounding homes, and form charters as they're allowed to be law and decency. These are mostly liberal parents who are far from racist -- in fact, their liberalism is what's caused them to absorb all these gradual changes for the worse.
But they want at least an adequate education for their kids, and to achieve that the right community environment, scale and caring teachers are more important than spending a fortune on huge, prison-like schools. Critics complain charters can kick out the worst students: darned right, and if the UTLA started to think about what's good for the kids who want to learn, they'd do the same: send trouble- makers to strict boot-camp or vocational schools.
You may find yourself running against one of those invisibles...Ron, why don't you rent an apartment in Sunland very soon and run for Wendy's seat? Tamar has money but the community is not impressed, and I think it's going to be the coming race with the lowest bar to hurdle. Also, it's easier to get on all the nearby golf courses. Plus, the Council office needs a bigtime housecleaning.
Actually, Ron needn't go to Sunland-Tujunga. Someone will pull papers to run there and anyone can beat Galatzan.
He is more needed in CD 12 since Greig says he isn't running. Ron Kaye can kick Mitchell Englander's butt and he would only need to move a few streets away!
Go Ron! Ron Kaye for CD 12! Don't make us find someone who Mitchell and Uncle Harvey will out-fund raise. The word on the street is that Mitchell is freaking out over the thought of you running and we in CD 12 will support you fully.
If you run for the School Board or City Council, I will kick in money to your campaign, Ron. And I will certainly kick in money to carve LAUSD into smaller, locally managed districts.
LAUSD should be completely dismantled! Throw out all of the gangbangers and start all over with small clusters of charters. Separate the non-English speakers from the English speakers! Unfortunately, half of the kids in LAUSD are illegal or children of illegals (and should not be allowed on the taxpayer's dime), but the least we can do for OUR kids is...separate them!
In the good old days, kids were disciplined! Even our ex-gangbanger mayor was expelled from Cathedral High for disciplinary reasons! It worked then...and it will work now!
Brewer is now proposing ANOTHER bond - $3 Billion dollars worth...for what???? For Mexico's illiterate third worlders! The Belmont and Santee school fiascos should have been enough to outrage the public at large, but the crooks in City Hall are trying to steal MORE money from us!
Segregate, segregate, segregate! The problem will only be exacerbated because of the uncontrolled borders and the abusive mis-interpretation of the 14th Amendment!
Many years ago I knew a lady who taught for LAUSD. She said the most accurate quote I think I've ever heard about the district:
"It's a great place to work but I would never send my own children there."
Tragic, yes? I do not agree that all LAUSD schools are a mess. Many are, but some are great. I have also met some of the best teachers I've ever known working for LAUSD.
However, the reason this teacher said she loves working there but would never subject her own children to such a system is because of the benefits and salary she got. The leadership of the district is not the only party at fault in the failures. UTLA also has a great deal to do with the continued failures of the students while the employees rake in the cash.
I have hoped the district would break into 7 or 8 more manageable districts for many years. The UTLA is against this, of course, because they are so very powerful now.
It riles my gizzards to no end when I hear both LAUSD leaders and UTLA spout off about how they are so child-focused. Baloney! Ask anyone working there if they would take a 10% or 20% pay cut if science could prove the money would go to improve teaching, cafeteria food, playgrounds, buildings, and parent involvement.
Many studies have already proven that small school districts seem to "magically" do more and perform better for their students than huge districts. Parents feel more empowered and employees of these smaller districts are more accountable. Even the children are more accountable.
But that's just science.
In the meantime, the kids lose. More prison populations are supported instead of more college prep work. Social problems, like addict parents, gang crime, weapons, and drug use can all be handled more efficiently and with greater watchfulness in smaller districts. BUT WHO WANTS THAT?
I dunno. I have always believed that real love involves self-sacrifice. I do not believe the UTLA or the leaders who seek to keep LAUSD as one huge, messed-up, dysfunctional "family" know anything about really loving kids.
If they loved them, they would break it up.
I know I'm late to this game, but I couldn't let the comments of Anonymous 5/13 7:53 pm regarding Emerson Middle School lie there. This is exactly the kind of fear-mongering, group-think, process that helps perpetuate down cycles for schools that are actually fairly good. Emerson DOES NOT have a gang problem. Indeed, it had so few incidents that they had to fight to keep their safety officer last year. Palms has some issues with gangs, but Emerson just isn't part of anyone's turf and they stopped busing completely the kids from South LA last year. Westwood Charter sent 27 kids there last year and at least 35 or 40 (almost a third of the 5th grade class) plans to go there next year. Fairburn apparently has a had a surge of intended enrollees there as well for next year. They've got a fantastic new principal, an SAS and Individualized Honors Program for gifted kids that has some of the highest scores in the city (with leaps in scores that equal or outpace the Palms/Paul Revere numbers), and the Westwood kids report NO SAFETY CONCERNS. They also have a great drama and music program. Having said all of that, the test scores of the non-SAS/IHP students are definitely lagging (although even those numbers are dragged down more by the disabled/special needs students), but they've picked up too and the principal is tackling this with new programs (including afterschool tutoring). In other words, the school has work to do and could and should be a lot better. Also, LAUSD may hurt as much or more than they help. However, when you exaggerate or rely on old fears and rumors (many of which are spread by parents who are indeed quite racist at base, despite their liberal voting patterns,a dn who run because the school is majority Hispanic), you just hurt a good school from rebuilding.