Come back to LAUSD and make a difference

Parents DO that at the handful of schools that are decent enough to send their kids there, Ellen, like Warner, Wonderland, Westwood Charter, Roscomare, Rustic Canyon, Fairburn, and a bunch MORE in the Valley where schools are better than the close-to-East and S L A westside. But kids aren't sacrificial victims, and where schools are almost all "ethnic" and the white and Asian kids (who comprise 7.8% and 3.5% respectively, citywide) are largely Russian and Armenian immigrants with their OWN gangs, and scores are so low, it would be poor parenting to do this.

Middle and high schools schools except a handful in the Valley are worse -- with the sole exception of Paul Revere Middle and Pali High in the Palisades; even at those, locals are NOT guaranteed admission due to "diversity permits."

A story in the LA Times couple weeks ago about the head of the PTA (or whatever their parent organisation is called) absconded with the entire funds for the "extras" you name, raised over two years by all the kids and a couple dozen of the most active parents, illustrates how hopeless the cause is. Emerson is in the heart of Westwood, in a nice area where homes start at $1 million, but there are also rental units so it's a mixed "south of Wilshire" area, middle to upper middle.

The Times noted how devastating this loss was, since 3/4 of the students qualified for Poverty Assistance, like food stamps and free lunches. My neighbors and I have checked it out for our kids, only too happy to have saved the money and had all our kids from the area in the same school -- but no way. Parents who tried it reported their kids, even girls, being harassed for being white and middle class, not "fitting in." Other articles and parents confirm that there are the same gang intervention programs, types of social problems, as at inner city schools -- the kids bring it all with them. A few brave parents send their kids there for a year until they can try for private school 7th grade -- a huge problem in LA is that public schools are K-5 and 6-8, while private are K-6 and 7-9 or 12. So some are "stuck" for that 6th grade, but apply out soon as they can. The ones who don't make it, panic, to to cheaper Catholic schools even if they're not Catholic, try hard for magnets - it's a fulltime job, navigating the horrible system. The second-tier schools that cost a fortune, often are awful, worse than public schools elsewhere, and the administration is arrogant, knowing they've got you by the cajones. Don't think parents do it out of choice, and many of us would love all the neighborhood kids going to school together.

Sorry, Ellen, you're a couple of decades too late. BUT if you wanted to volunteer to read, serve as a tutor and establish such programs between students/ seniors, and students/ older kids-mentors, that would be a great idea, or just join an established program and promote it.

Now, if you can ever break up LAUSD so that local schools revert back to the locals, they'll be full tomorrow. I know too many people, even with good double incomes as lawyers, who have moved to Palos Verdes, Hermosa and elsewhere to save the crazy cost of educating two kids (over $40,000/yr) that should be saved for college.

I could not state it any better than Anon. 5:04 p.m; except to say that Ms. Vukovich is living in a fantasy world! The 'good' schools are so far a few between now...we are fighting a losing battle to keep them from falling into the hands of the 'social justice'perpetrators.

Face it...LAUSD is now mostly third world! We are forced to self-segregate just for our very survival...not just in the schools, but EVERYWHERE!

An even bigger problem is what to do with the majority of LAUSD 'students' when they leave school...either as drop-outs or the 51% who do not graduate. How many illiterate, unskilled workers can we sustain? And what about the high rate of teen-age pregnancies among minorities? And what about the prospect of even more gangbangers? Every year, 300,000 anchor babies are born in this country! Illiteracy breeds illiteracy...poverty breeds more poverty!

I see no end in sight! Unless and until we stop importing illegals and start returning them to their native countries...

I do understand Ellen's pov, however, I absolutely am positive that the LAUSD exists for the administrators, bureaucracy, staff, union.

Any resemblance between it and a bona fide school district is in name only. 600,000 students in one school district? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Break it up and give it back to our communities and the parents and teachers. Keep the pols out.

I am going to city hall on July 14th, at noon. The way this city is run, from city hall to the departments, to the city attorney's office to OUR schools, not theirs, it is a disaster that has already happened!!!!!

I wonder why it has taken us so long. It isn't because we don't care, it is because we TRUSTED a group of people who have failed us miserably.

I think change is possible here, but it is also a must change situation. The honeymoon is over.

Theodora Howell

I've got a better idea. Let's take all the doctors and have them work for the city, instead of working in private practice. Everyone will be healthy and happy. And another idea. Let's have all the building contractors work for the city, instead of working as a private business. All buildings will be constructed perfectly. And another idea. Let's put all the restaurants under city control and ownership. No more need to worry about health standards, right? Let's have the city control everything!!! Make the city a better place.

Or take another, alternative tack. Let's scrape LAUSD altogether. Let's set tiered standards for each private school, no public schools. If the students can't pass the minimum standards, then three strikes and the kids out... to boot camp.

There is only one way to fix LAUSD besides breaking it up. Eliminate the outlandish magnet programs. It's the only answer. Every kid in the neighborhood should have to go to their neighborhood school and no busing them to other schools for any reason. None. There should be someone to check out every fake address in the school. If 90 parents from the east valley weren't driving their kids to the north valley while 120 parents from the west side weren't driving their kids to the south valley and 90 parents in the south valley weren't driving their kids to a school downtown, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Pay close attention to the traffic now and see how it flows over the summer until the schools start up in the Fall and the hundreds and hundreds of parents are all driving their kids to various schools around the city.

All kids should go to their neighborhood schools and additionally, they should walk their fat little butts. Their parents could then have more time to actually volunteer to do something in the school. At least they would be more motivated if they didn't have to drive 32 miles to school every day.

Magnet programs my butt. It's busing. Stop pretending it's not.

And your kid aren't really gifted either.

6:34, someone else who's been hiding in the cabbage patch too long. "My" nearest school is a bit far for my kids to walk, and neither of them has a fat butt. The elementary school in the flats of West Hollywood is about 4 miles downhill from our home in Coldwater Canyon as the crow flies, but clearly that's not a walk or remotely safe even for adults. The Middle school is even further and in a worse neighborhood -- I wouldn't even walk there. The high school, forget it, and given the location, "local" means nothing, but that those of us in the hills have NO schools and must drive to another kind of neighborhood, that neither we nor our kids even know.

Ron's old-timer readers clearly have NO idea what they're talking about in this era. (Oh, and I'm quite sure you don't have hundreds of westsiders driving kids to public schools in the valley or the rest of your demographic shift: busing is pretty much from the inner city to those areas, and as the term implies, they have buses. Which has to be inconvenient for kids bused for over an hour each way.)

You're full of it, too, sneering that no one's kids are "gifted," but don't know what that means. Telling parents that their kids should "suffer through" unchallenging classes with the learning-challenged is just as cruel as telling "special learners" to do so -- in our public schools, they get literally 100 times as much financial support as the smart ones. All you people giving "advice" when you know nothing about the state of public schools -- or anything outside your little community -- is ludicrous. You might as well start showing up at Public Comment in City Hall daily with that handful of kooky regulars, and tell them how to run the whole city.

The only area I sort of agree on, is it seems silly to have magnets for Art, Math, Performing Arts, Science, etc. at such young ages: if all kids were exposes to all these areas in challenging ways, they wouldn't have to choose. Career choices are hard enough once they're in college. It all adds to the nightmare of the "Choices" magnet program, along with their crazy points system: like, encouraging you to apply to one of these programs knowing you won't get in if you're white, but if you're rejected several years in a row, your points might equal those for being a "minority" -- in a racially defined, not statistical way, of course. It's way too confusing and dumb to make parents play these games. Sandra Singh Loh of KPCC has written about this in a funny but truly harrowing way. It's just a prime example of the convoluted ways LAUSD tries to stay relevant, but wastes time and money and will never work.

That's Sandra Tsing (not Singh) Lowe, Asian not Indian Asian.

Anonymous 5:04 is spreading rumors and fear, which is exactly what Ellen is trying to combat. The reports about Emerson from Westwood Charter parents are highly positive and the number of kids scheduled to go there for the SAS or IHP programs next year has increased dramatically. The rising seventh grade kids (both on their own and with their parents) report no bullying, no safety fears, no gangs and no problems beyond the normal middle school adjustments. The safety officers confirm that, indicating it's one of the safest campuses in the system (the school had to fight to keep the officers there this year). There used to be busing from SLA to Emerson, but that ended before last year because the new schools eased overcrowding problems. The "local" population is still predominantly lower socioeconomic and majority Hispanic because of LACES (in other words, kids as far as the former Louis Pasteur Jr. High are zoned for Emerson), but people are translating fears based on prejudice about race and socioeconomic status to jump to conclusions about what that means about safety and academics. It's very revealing that you hear great things from Westwood Charter parents (which sends the most kids to Emerson of the neighborhood schools), but you hear unfounded rumors from Warner, Fairburn, and Roscomere parents (where such a small number of kids come to Emerson that the information is very limited).

Throwing around charges of "poor parenting" is not constructive. Private school and Paul Revere or Beverly Hills permit parents have to justify to themselves that the high tuitions and/or long car drives are worth it because of academics and socialization rather than elitism and racism; that incidents like the brutal beating by a guy of a girl at Harvard-Westlake last year was isolated (even though there were exactly zero such incidents among students at many public schools during the same period), and that the drugs at those schools are somehow less dangerous because the kids who sell them have wealthy parents. By contrast, parents of LAUSD neighborhood school kids (who have the option of doing something else) have to justify to themselves that they aren't sacrificing their kids' safety and academics for the sake of their ideals or their pocketbooks. They have to rationalize that the cost of a one-on-one tutor is much more educationally effective as a supplement to a 35 student classroom than the private school tuition for a 15-20 student classroom. Neither side has the higher moral ground. Throwing around unsubstantiated accusations about LAUSD neighborhood schools may make you feel better about your decision and feel like you had no choice, but it only makes you part of the problem.

Oh, and that PTA Treasurer at Emerson who absconded with the money? Was he a parent of one of those "ethnic" kids bussed in from the inner city? No, he was one of your neighbors, a local real estate agent with a gambling problem. The same thing has happened at other schools, including some of the most prestigious private schools, but they've avoided publicity. It's not like that has anything to do with the composition of the students at the school. Indeed, almost of the million dollar embezzlers in Los Angeles (usually of their own companies) send their kids to private schools.

Actually, I've never been in a cabbage patch. My home is located in the hills. One son walked 4 miles every day to school and my other son is identified gifted by the school.

I damn sure know what I'm talking about. Too bad I can't dumb it down for y'all.

11:30/38/2:08: Uh-huh. You're nuts, and sympathies to your son, the one who "walked 4 miles every day to school." In the Truman era? Don't bother trying to "dumb it down," you've done fine.

"Poor parenting"?

I'm sending my child to our neighborhood school so he doesn't have to spend two hours a day commuting. (That's not healthy for anyone, much less a 5-year-old.)

I'm sending my child to our neighborhood school so I can be more involved with the school and with his educational experience there.

I'm sending my very white child to our neighborhood school (which is 98% non-white), so he can have the perspective-building experience of being an ethnic minority...which will serve him well for the rest of his very privileged life in this multi-ethnic city, state and nation.

I'm sending my child to our neighborhood school because I've been volunteering there for the last year and found it to be full of caring, concerned, dedicated parents and staff...who may not look much like me, but care just as much about their kids as I care about mine.

Hello. If any of you would like to stop complaining, slinging mud, or blaming "bad parenting" on those of us who actually attend public schools, we might be able to fill you in on what is ACTUALLY happening. I have two children who now attend our local public home school (although we had many options - we felt this was the BEST choice for our kids). And - we did our homework. When my children were 2 and 3 years old, some fellow mothers and I started a little organization to research what actually makes a good school (not just a good reputation). Out of that research was born the Westchester Playa Education Foundation. 5 moms with 12 kids, has blossomed in just three short years to several thousand parents, teachers, stakeholders, community organizations and businesses who are ACTIVELY supporting, changing, advocating and, did I mention, CHANGING our local schools - all 7 of them - 5 elementaries, 1 middle school and 1 high school - all extremeley diverse in every way. We have raised money, changed curriculum, hired Principals and teachers - and forced LAUSD to create a new division to oversee our community led autonomous new school district. Feel free to look us up - our numbers are increasing - but we are fully ENGAGED in our schools NOW (www.wpef.org). We didn't need to break up LAUSD - we needed to demand that they work WITH us. We have a lot more work to do - but I am happy to report that my children are thriving, as our my friends' and neighbors' children in all of our schools - yes, even Westchester High School! And I know I am not only a GREAT parent for sending them to our local public schools - but a model citizen for my children. Giving back to/with/in the public school system is the second most rewarding thing I've ever done. Parenting is the first.

So, you go Ellen. Write on!

Thanks to all for a frank and amazing discussion, although I always wonder what it means to comment "anonymously." (Does that reflect a fear LA's roving Armenian gangs will come after one online? Presumably the ones who don't graduate and hence cannot type? We digress.)

All questions of morality aside, here is a practical flea's eye--or parent's--view of the LAUSD. In certain middle-class, educated, more-tending-towards-white generation(s) before ours (I am 46 and my daughters are elementary-aged), there was an unspoken assumption that most urban public schools were the pits, and it was completely socially acceptable to move to where the white people were or grab a silk-lined parachute into private school. The mentality was to each his own, and the faster better-heeled families could pull that portcullis down behind them the better.

Unfortunately, such dog-eat-dog thinking is a bit like strip-mining in that it leaves behind, for the next generation of families, a blasted dog-eat-dog landscape. When I started looking at kindergartens for my older daughter in 2004, houses in a "good school district" like La Canada started at $1 million while tuition at a "good" private kindergarten started at $15,000/year (now it's more like $20,000). Such are the economics of fear which, while destructive for new families with more than one child and limited incomes, are fabulous at lining the pockets of realtors, private schools, private school "counselors," and (inadvertantly) the city of Portland.

So that's why many of us have our children in the LAUSD. We love this city--its vitality, its energy and yes, its diversity--we're staying, and we simply can't AFFORD to parachute our children out and away from the world in which we live. And it makes utter financial sense. Debt and bankruptcy are not responsible family options; while private school tuition isn't tax-deductible, donations to public schools via educational foundations are; amazing parental "superdelegates" like Westchester's Kelly Kane--a formidable new type of highly-skilled/full time/working mom--are bringing public education into the 21st century; and, perhaps surprisingly to some who read this blog, it turns out not all Armenians are gang members. Some happen to be brilliant violinists with a weakness for Bartok, like the extraordinary CSUN grad who teaches violin at our Title One (58% poor) LAUSD school. In Van Nuys. Where violin starts in kindergarten. Why? Because--here's what--working together as a community, we can!

That said, I realize there are people in LA who find even the words "Van Nuys" themselves scary (north of Victory! north of Victory!) and I'm fine with that. The city is big enough to hold the LAUSD AND all private schools. I've got Korean kids down the block graduating from Van Nuys High right into Harvard and Stanford who've never even HEARD of Harvard-Westlake. As a child of immigrants myself, I can tell you those immigrants do find value. (And we have an AWESOME 99 Cent store. But I suppose that's a subject for another blog.)

How many of you have actually been on a public school campus? Before you gripe about the quality of public education, you should check it out for yourselves. Public school is awesome! Not only are the teachers more qualified than private, your child will learn about real diversity among people whose ailments are far less scary than the Harvard Westlake drug dealing ring.