Cynthia Liu: What’s troubling is that rhetoric surrounding use of student standardized test scores–even if student performance year-over-year is compared to eliminate external influences–appears to include other measures of teacher performance, yet those other measures have never been identified.
LAUSD – Egypt, Wisconsin, Hamilton High Walkout
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Something important took place Friday at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Students at the highly successful magnet school with excellent Humanities, Music, and Drama Magnets as well as six small learning communities who were threatened last week with the loss of 22 of their teachers decided to fight back. Using Facebook and other social [...]
LAUSD Closes Ranks with Principals
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Leonard Isenberg: When I first started teaching back in the late 1980s, somebody told me that principals were Gods and I was foolish enough to believe that they did not mean this literally.
LAUSD and UTLA: Connecting the Dots
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Leonard Isenberg: If UTLA was not in bed with LAUSD, they would aggregate the exploding number of cases against teachers for dismissal where LAUSD has violated these teachers’ California Ed.
All LAUSD Students Deserve Equality of Education
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Yolie Flores: If we truly are committed to an equal education for all children, we must leave behind old and entrenched political agendas and policies and embrace the truths that every child deserves a great teacher and that great teachers must be cultivated, supported, fairly but properly evaluated, and more justly compensated.
The Writer, Chapter 4: A Christmas Wish
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Dennis Danziger: Despite the frequent portraits drawn in film, television and literature of lawyers as thieves in Armani suits, I know most lawyers are tough, smart, and fight like hell for their clients. This is why I was disheartened when someone close to me needed his lawyer to come out swinging, but instead paid a pile of money to a criminal attorney who took a dive.
Villaraigosa Finally Speaks Up Against Teacher Union Reform Busting
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Anthony Samad: Villaraigosa said the unions are “one unwavering roadblock to reform.” He is right on that point. They have been and will be. But he is wrong to have waited so long to speak.
Los Angeles: Epicenter of High School Dropouts — Or Are They Pushed?
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Diane Lefer: Most kids who don’t finish haven’t “dropped out.” They’ve been “pushed out” by a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment, and removal that disproportionately affects children of color.
Delivering What We Owe Our Students: Effective Teachers and Principals
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Yolie Flores: Because ratings based on a single measure cannot determine the effectiveness of a teacher, LAUSD is endeavoring to use several different methodologies to more effectively evaluate our teachers. We share the sense of urgency with the multitudes who have voiced qualified support of a more professional and data-informed culture of teacher and leader performance reviews.
Parents & Community Involvement at Mt. Washington Elementary School – By Invitation Only
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Nina Zippay and Fernando J. Orozco: The parents in this complex and diverse system are firm believers in LAUSD’s mission: “to create critical thinkers prepared to participate in a diverse and complex society.” And it can’t get any more complex than LAUSD.
Oh, Bill O’Reilly — It’s “Our” Country, Too
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Tanya Acker: There are many among that celebrated group of “We the People” who are opposed to the Arizona law but who nonetheless remain deeply troubled by our broken immigration system. I am one of them and, frankly, I do not need to be lectured about the consequences of illegal immigration by Mr. O’Reilly or anyone else.
Why Marcy Winograd? A Personal Story
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I was a teenaged mother. Many said I was too young. Perhaps they were right. But, like any mother, I worked hard and sacrificed. It all paid off. Except for . . .
California Assembly Outdoes the LAUSD and City of L.A. in Sending Mixed Message with AB 1832
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Jasmyne A. Cannick: While Californians were fixated on Tiger Woods and the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor Monday, the State Assembly took a unified step in stifling the voice of the People to bring about change
Creative Cuts, New Concepts for LA’s Schools
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Alfee Enciso: Ask any teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District if they would rather take a pay cut in the guise of furlough days or have five more students in their classes next year. Without a doubt, the latter would be the choice for the majority of our classroom instructors in LAUSD.
Black Leadership Succession: Diane Watson Did It Right
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Anthony Asadullah Samad: People got mad love for Diane Watson, and she’s not one that we were going to let go the way of Dymally. She was going to go out on her terms. Nobody was going to force her out. But I, for one, am glad she did it right. It shows that black leaders can effectively ensure quality future leaders will continue their work.
Weighing In On “Black Strategic Alternatives” For Education (and Anything Else)
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For the past three years, a group of black men within 100 Black Men of Los Angeles have been studying the successful publicly funded single-gender school of our New York chapter, The Eagle Academy for Excellence, as a possible solution to the dilemma facing black boys in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
LAUSD Canceling Summer School: Do We Really Want to Go There?
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The Superintendent of the second largest school district in the United States, Ray Cortines, recently announced that the Los Angeles Unified School District will be canceling summer school as a cost-cutting remedy for the district’s $400 million dollar budget shortfall. Who thought of this bright idea? Can the School Board really be serious? The city [...]
AIG Bonuses: Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game
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I watched this week as the nation’s furor turned towards employees of insurance giant American International Group (A.I.G.) and the $200 million-plus in retention bonus payments recently doled out to executives. Executives, who, as we already know, are largely to blame for their role in A.I.G.’s financial crisis that led to the country’s economic meltdown [...]
Yolie Flores Aguilar: Where Los Angeles Schools Go From Here
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Yolie Flores Aguilar, Los Angeles School Board member and long-time children’s advocate, thinks that the city’s school system will implode if something dramatic isn’t done—and soon. The ouster of Superintendent David Brewer is a regrettable, but necessary part of that change, in her view. Last weekend, we reported Brewer’s views on his ouster and the [...]
Pentagon Targets African-American and Hispanic Kids to Fight Its Wars: Third in a Three-Part Series
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by Sherwood Ross – If African-Americans are overrepresented in the armed forces it is likely because of the military’s practice of “strategically targeting low-income youth and students of color,” the ACLU has found. Result: While African-Americans make up only 16% of the same-age civilian population, in 2006 they represented about 22% of enlisted Army personnel.
Superintendent David Brewer’s Report Card: It’s the LA Times That Fails to Make the Grade
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The Los Angeles Times has rarely offered a fair and balanced portrayal of the black community. It usually was (is) a strategic player in the witch hunt to depose black leaders, no matter who they were (are). Whether it was former Lt Governor Mervyn Dymally, the late Mayor Tom Bradley, former Police Chief Willie Williams, [...]
Barack’s Sister Brings the Heat to El Sereno
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Addressing a largely Latino audience in East Los Angeles yesterday, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng shared stories about her childhood with her older brother, Barack Obama, and the effect he has had on her life. Held in El Sereno’s Hecho en Mexico restaurant, the event drew more than a hundred enthusiastic community activists, local elected officials, and [...]
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