Don't Forget South Central

Starting at dinner time on Friday the 12th, the texts and phone calls started coming in.  "I'm fired,"  "guess I'll be looking for a new job" or  "I get it, LAUSD, you don't want me."  Apprehensive teachers had made their way home to find their pink slips waiting for them. Unlike last year, the teachers were realistic about their chances of getting another one this year.  Nothing can really prepare you for getting the letter that tells you you have less than four months left of being a teacher and working with your students.  LAAMS lost 23 teachers last year, and with that fact in mind, and no clear UTLA plan of action, our new crop of RIF'ed teachers are grim about their future, and the future of our school community. At least 10 new RIF's have been confirmed, but LAUSD saw it fit to send duplicate RIF's to last year's laid-off teachers who are currently working as substitutes.  In a time of contra...

    Teachers and students from Central Falls HS Firing the Central Falls faculty was wrong, for reasons we see every day here in South Central Los Angeles. 1.  The premise is that the 74 high school teachers, and no one else, was responsible for the students' academic struggles.  Not socio-economics, not gangs, not the parents, not the students themselves.  What a mistaken assumption.  If this were the magic bullet, wouldn't it have been used more often?  It hasn't because results have been mixed, at best. 2.  If these teachers are fired, it will scare the bejeezuz out of other teachers who will shape up in order to not lose their jobs.  Wrong.  Most teachers, especially the good ones, are not motivated by money or threats. 3.  When you start with a brand new staff, it will establish a new climate and higher expectations for the students and better test scores.  Where has this been proven to hap...

Tonight was the fourth townhall meeting regarding the LAUSD New School Giveaway proposal, held at Hamilton HS on the Westside. We have to wonder if this is an exercise in futility as was the effort to retain the dozens of new teachers our school lost during the massive budget cuts that occurred at the end of the last school year. At tonight's meeting, there were a scant 110 or so adults present. We would say 20% were parents, 50 % were teachers, 20% were charter school advocates, and 10% were District staff. The presentation revealed that aside from the 50 new schools that would be open to a new governance system, all PI 3+ would also be deemed "struggling" and subject to takeover by any of the following: 1. Charter school organizations 2. Pilot school programs 3. University affiliated programs (LMU Family of Schools, UCLA Community Schools) 4. Traditional schools The LD3 Superintendent, Michelle King, said teachers would be welcome to submit proposals...

According to this report, the language in the LAUSD New School Giveaway proposal will open up the possibility of not only giving governance of new schools to the highest bidder best proposal, but will also put the 34 LAUSD high priority schools on the chopping block. LA Academy is one of them. This blog has chronicled the pain and heartache of the budget cuts, the marginalization, and the massive teacher layoffs on the South Central community. In addition to these issues, we have had to deal with the skimming of the cream of the crop students by charters who have opened up shop in the neighborhood. While parent choice is important, it is also crucial for them to know what they are getting into. Do parents really know, or are they being blinded by propaganda? For sure, many parents have been let down by dysfunctional schools in the inner-city. But how much of that is the function of our society as a whole, which doesn't really seem to care what happens to...