LAUSD: July 2008 Archives

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.