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By Anon2
This comment was posted today in response to earlier postings by Sandra Tsing Loh and Ellen Vukovich on to save L.A. public schools

I think everyone can agree that we would like to have the following, for free (or for our tax dollars and deductible charitable contributions), and within a short drive or walk of our houses:

1) strong academics
2) safe environment

Some would also like to have some diversity and less materialism and elitism, but others want the opposite on all three things (although few would admit that).

Regardless of exactly what we want, most would also prefer all of this was possible without much parental effort.  That is, if we could get away with it we would like to free ride on the efforts of others, including parents of prior generations of students who established such a great school.

A few would like nothing better than be involved at a micro-manager level, often to the detriment of their kids and the regret of their kids' teachers and principals, but that's another story and they are the exception.

All Sandra's saying, if I'm reading her correctly (and all I'm saying if I'm not) is that she found this latter preference was impossible to achieve within the LAUSD. 

The former goals, though, are not impossible in LAUSD if you are willing and able to get involved and if you do the work to investigate all of the options.  For instance, you may not be zoned for Emerson, and it may not be a magnet, but you can still apply to and go to the SAS program as a permit kid because there is space.  So, she (and I) have investigated and worked our way through the system and have found it is not as bad as it is described in the papers and by neighbors with distant recollections and it actually can be quite good (especially if you also want diversity and a lesser amount of materialism and elitism).

The impetuous fool in me came out a while back and I declared publicly I was going to engage in an act of civil disobedience and carry a bag of garbage down to City Hall on Bastille Day and deposit it as an act of civil disobedience.

Foolish I might be but I'm a man of my word and on Monday I'll bring a bag of garbage and leave it on the steps of City Hall as a symbol of protest, an expression of my anger over soaring trash and other fees and the declining quality of life in the city I love.

I've learned since I made that declaration that we don't need acts of civil disobedience to change L.A. from a city rotting in the failure of its leadership to a city rising on the energy of its people.

The outpouring of support from hundreds of dedicated people from all over the city who have worked so hard for so long to make our community better has helped me to see the light.

We have the numbers. We have the knowledge and the skill. We have the leaders in community groups of one type or another to take power from the special interests without acts of defiance.

Nothing but greed holds the power structure together and it will crumble in the face of a united community. Our elected officials are held hostage by the unions, developers and contractors who flatter their delusion of self-importance with the money that keeps them in office.

From the Eastside to the Westside, from San Pedro to the Valley, I've heard over and over similar stories of frustration with our city government and our elected officials, and with their neighbors hiding behind indifference and ignorance.

The issues may be different in different neighborhoods, in different communities of interest, but the experience is the same. We get the runaround while special interests are buying access and favors.

It's time to put aside the differences and find the common ground that brings us together as people, as residents of L.A., as people who want a great city with great schools and great neighborhoods.

The power structure has used these differences -- race, class, needs, values -- to keep us separated and weak, begging for crumbs from the table of power while the insiders feast on the city's wealth.

We need to change the system. We need to seize power and make our government accountable to us, to do what we want.

There's only one way for this happen. It's through a community coalition that is united in support of each other, united in demanding openness, honesty, accountability and respect for the people of the city.

This is America and the basic civil rights of the ordinary men and women of L.A. have been trampled upon for too long. We have a right to own our schools, our neighborhoods and our city.

On Monday -- Bastille Day when the French Revolution began more than 200 years ago -- people from every part of L.A. are coming to City Hall at noon to Take Back Los Angeles -- Demand A Great City.

We don't need garbage to symbolize our frustration. We need each other.

We'll listen to each other's stories of the failure of city government to serve us and the failure of the schools to serve our children. We'll talk about overdevelopment and bad development, traffic congestion and poor public transit and we will open the dialogue on how to solve these and so many other problems now and in the long run.

We need to learn from each other. We need to understand each other. And we need to come up with solutions that achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.

We know there are no easy answers. But through an honest and open public conversation we can do a lot better than what we've been doing.

Whether there are 30 of us or 300 come to City Hall on Monday, this will be the start of something big, something great. It's not going to come from high from the people in power. It's going to have to come from the grassroots, from you.

This rally is only the first step. We will follow up quickly with a town hall meeting to organize our coalition of the people. And we will build on that and grow more confident with each success and see those on the sidelines step forward into the public arena.

That's my dream anyway, fool that I might be. But I know now that there are others who share that dream and are willing to help make it come true.

By Sandra Tsing Loh
(A writer and performer, Ms. Loh appears regularly on Public Radio's Marketplace with "The Loh Down" and on KPCC with "The Loh Life."  and has written several books, including "A Year in Van Nuys." This article was submitted as a comment to "Come back to LAUSD and make a difference.)

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 (inadvertently) 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. 

By Ellen Vukovich

Community correspondent

I have a small proposal which could have large implications for changing LAUSD schools. At minimum, it would stir things up. At maximum, it might even succeed.  

Imagine if parents with children in private schools enrolled them in their neighborhood public schools. Instead of paying tens of thousands for school tuition, they could donate one-half of that money to help to pay for what LAUSD no longer provides -- like supplies, art, music and shop classes along with some field trips.

This is key: Parents could take the time and dedication they currently lavish on private schools and do the same for their children's new schools.

Can you imagine if every neighborhood school was filled to the brim with parents and children that way? Can you imagine how that would inspire the teachers and staff?  Students might be inclined to want to learn. 

Over the last few years, friends have told me of their experiences with their children going to private schools. Excellent academic programs. A strong support system thanks to active parent participation. Catered lunches.  Themed parties and after-school events.

I went to LAUSD schools and we had some of that too.

UPDATE: Home Depot cancels June 24 meeting at Sunland-Tujunga meeting at school.

n following up the controversy over LAUSD issuing a permit to Home Depot to hold an "open house" in Sunland-Tujunga next week, I asked officials a series of questions and got a written response.

I also spoke with School Board Member Julie Korenstein who represents the area who said the officials in the district's Beyond The Bell program which manages civic center permits and other non-school issues were "just doing their job...as if it were an everyday permit."

She added: "I'm sure Home Depot would be far better off doing it in a neutral place...They're setting up what could be a problem."

Her reference was to the fact the No Home Depot activists are as welcome as anybody else at the Mt. Gleason Middle School event.

As for LAUSD, here's the bottom line: "The permit has been issued and the permit applicant will be permitted to use the facility in accordance with the rules and guidelines."

Here's the full statement from LAUSD's Beyond The Bell officials:

Question: According to the LAUSD website, school sites are available to nonprofits and by extension to community groups for what are pretty benign purposes, which are also spelled out in the state law on public school sites . Why was Home Depot, a highly profitablecompany, given a permit when it hopes to use the meeting to profit indirectly by winning public support for its story?

Answer: The civic center permit was given to Mr. Abraham Mercado who requested use of the facility to conduct a meeting open to the public.  Mr. Mercado submitted an application for a "public meeting re: Home Depot."  A meeting to discuss matters of general or public interest qualifies for a civic center permit.  The District's civic center permit application process is intended to be fair and neutral to all applicants.  We do not judge whether a proposed use is worthy of the use of a school facility because such a subjective determination could result in discrimination.  Mr. Mercado also checked the box indicating that no fees or charges or contributions would be collected at the public meeting.  If Mr. Mercado had indicated that he was going to collect fees, charges or contributions at the meeting, his application would have been denied.

The issuance or denial of an application for a civic center permit is not an indication or LAUSD's support or disapproval of a proposed use or activity.  Permits are granted to individuals, groups, and organizations (non-profit and for profit) based on the activity.  Examples of private and commercial venture groups/companies/associations, etc. that have been granted civic center permits in the past are: 20th Century Fox, Northrop Grumman/Litton, Tribune/KTLA, Ticketmaster, Fidelity National Title Company, Galpin Ford, and Cedar-Sinai Medical Center Group.  Education Code section 38130-38139 and the Rules adopted by the Board of Education for LAUSD apply to the issuance of civic center permits.  Education Code section 38130 and LAUSD Board Rules 1301 and 1302 do not restrict the issuance of civic center permits to solely non-profits or not-for-profit organizations.
 

I know now I will not be alone in a Bastille Day protest at City Hall.

So many others have stepped forward and said they too are fed up with the arrogance and failure of our city government that I know there will be a decent crowd at high noon on the 14th of July.

The question is whether there will be enough decent people to become an army that storms the bastille and shakes the foundation of L.A.'s corrupt political culture.

Saving L.A. -- that's the mission. Celebrating L.A. the place and demanding that it becomes a city, a real city where we all come together around a vision of something greater than ourselves, a great city.

We are at the tipping point. Too much greed. Too much poverty. Too many problems left  unsolved. Bad schools, over-development, traffic congestion, neighborhoods held hostage by gangs, official indifference to the values of the people, fragmented and weak communities -- L.A. teeters on the brink.

It doesn't have to be that way. We can have great schools and great neighborhoods, great streets and great parks, great busineses and great jobs. We can be greener and safer.We can be happier.

But we will never achieve that when all the leadership gives us is choices between paying twice for garbage collection or fewer cops, between power outages and water shortages and higher rates, between something bad and something worse.

City Hall has more than enough money to solve the city's problems. But too much is given away in sweetheart contracts and giveaways to developers and contractors for no purpose other than to maintain the system of failure. Too much is spent in ways that don't matter and too little on ways that would make our lives better and our communities more livable.

We need to spend our money smarter to create the kind of choices people want and the city needs. We need to raise the standards and create the kind of a city where we can choose to walk or ride a bike or take a bus or drive when we leave our homes to go to work or play. We need to able to choose between a good public school or a good charter school. We need good choices, not choices between the lesser of two evils.

The  leadership of this city is incapable of real change. It will take the people. It will take you to step forward and get the revolution started by joining the Saving L.A. Protest and make it a S.L.A.P. in the face of our elected officials, a wakeup call that the rules are changing, that the people are taking over.

I'm just a voice in the crowd. But people are stepping forward who have spent years working in the trenches to make their neighborhoods better, who know how to organize and make this happen. It will take more people to pull this off, to volunteer and turn this into something big and the start of something bigger.

So let me know if you're coming, if you want to help figure out how we make this protest a celebration of the spirit of L.A.'s people and their hopes for the future. We don't need to get mad to get even. We can come together and party and if there's enough of us there, they'll get the message.

This city belongs to you and me. So let's take our gripes and grievances down to City Hall and leave them there as a petition for redress. Every neighborhood, every group has their own set of issues, their own values. We don't need to agree on anything except our right to a government that serves us, not special interests, and our respect for each other's right to be empowered to affect public policy.

This S.L.A.P. in City Hall's face can be the beginning, the dawning of a new L.A. Come join the party!