WestchesterParents

Dear Congress members,

I hope you have been following the discussion on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) because it is an important bill that SUPPORTS parents and people who are passionately trying to improve our school districts.

I fully expect that if our Congress members really cares about the kids in our community, they will buck the party establishment just as Dr. Wells did at Locke High School (Watts) and go to the mat to make REAL change in our schools by supporting NCLB.

The problem is not NCLB. It has never been NCLB. The problem has been a California  educational bureaucracy more interested in money and politics than children.

This is what our community is up against:

Read the draft report of  “Where Have all the Seniors Gone?”

I hope you had a chance to see the Locke HS news conference a few days after Dr. Wells was unceremoniously removed as the principal of the school for going charter. It was at this meeting that Steve Barr of Green Dot said they were “invoking No Child Left Behind” and thereby petitioning the district to become a charter school.

• NCLB is not a curriculum.
• NCLB expects that states live up the curriculum that the STATES themselves put together.
• NCLB expects that states show progress in meeting the level of academic performance they spell out in their curriculum.
• NCLB expects that states show that they are continuously improving our schools.
  NCLB does not say teach to the test. In fact it has no test.
• NCLB demonstrates one of two things:
  • That poorly run schools are not effectively teaching students and when this happens, teachers have to go to extremes and teach to the test or;
  • That the states curriculum is more demanding than it should be.
• NCLB also demonstrates that many schools have high academic levels of achievement.  
• NCLB provides options to families stuck in poorly run districts. (Locke, Pacific Palisades Charter, Granada Hills Charter, Amino Inglewood)

David Coffin
www.westchesterparents.org

Posted on May 28th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
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It has been pretty quiet on the LAX expansion front since early December when we had that last “Town Hall” meeting which was on runway safety and moving the north runway. Since then we’ve had no new real news outside of the (a) South runway of the South airfield opening up after moving it 50 ft south, (b) that LAWA chief Lydia Kennard was leaving LAWA to take up a consulting job with LAWA (go figure?), (c)there was some negotiations of LAWA buying the Raddison Hotel to house its administrative offices, (d )the Bradley Terminal is getting a face lift (d) the A-380 paid a visit and the (e) new LAWA chief is Gina Marie Lindsey from Seattle’s Seatac, (f) three holes are still missing at Westchester Golf Course.

A few days ago, the six month silence was finally broken when a new town hall meeting was announced by Bill Rosendahl’s office. Like previous LAWA town hall meetings that began back in March of 2005, this one had a familiar ring. Former airport commissioner, David Voss described previous town hall meetings as “putting on a powerpoint and talking for a half hour or more and the giving the audience 2 minutes each to ask questions or make a comment. “

While we appreciate this new opportunity to be apprised of the North Runway alternatives and safety issues, we were concerned that the community was not a partner in the renovation of the new LAX plan because we were not at the table where these “plans” were being conceived.

Certainly Westchester/Playa del Rey sacrificed more to LAX expansion than any surrounding community as Councilman Rosendahl has said over and over again. Thank you Bill!

Because of that I suggested to the council office that town hall meetings were not all that effective to the planning process and that we needed people like David Voss and Denny Schneider who could work with planners to come up with options that were more acceptable to the community. Town halls offer limited opportunities to the actual planning process. Other community members followed up with the same concern.

Shortly afterwards, Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office suggested that the format be changed to represent two panels, LAWA and the communities of Westchester/Playa del Rey. Each side will have 20 minutes for their presentations. LAWA first and then the community (tentatively, David Voss and Denny Schneider will be representing the community panel) to be followed by community comment.

This town hall meeting was prepared in response to a recent runway incursion that nearly resulted in the collision of two jets. This particular incursion was caused by a pilot who failed to follow the controllers instructions. An Associated Press news article described it this way:

The controller instructed the plane to take the easy turn onto a taxiway called Zulu, to keep it moving and get it out of the way of the landing jetliner. Instead, the SkyWest plane veered hard and started down the wrong taxiway.

“I said Zulu, sir, turn left off the runway,” the controller said.

The SkyWest plane stopped. Then it turned around, headed back toward the intersection, and turned onto the correct taxiway — even as the jumbo jet raced toward the runway.

“Stop right there,” the controller ordered the small plane as a siren sounded in the control tower, warning of a potential collision. Another controller told the jumbo jet to abort its landing and circle around, but it was too late.

However, a computer-assisted reconstruction of the incident, developed by airport officials, indicated a wing of the big Airbus A340-600 may have come as close as 21 feet to the smaller turboprop.”

No doubt, airport officials will attempt to characterize this incident at the meeting as a reason to move the north runway further north into the community. A characterization that has no foundation given the North Airfields safety record. A safety record that is due to the current configuration of the runways, their length and relative location to the terminals. Not in spite of.

ARSAC vice-president Denny Schneider wrote: “Los Angeles World Airports is attempting to justify its proposal to move the northern runway closer to homes and businesses by widening the spacing between runways and adding a centerline taxiway as a safety enhancement.

This is akin to asking for the widening of a freeway so that cars can more easily dodge a wrong-way driver who entered traffic from an off-ramp.”

I agree.

Posted on May 26th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: LAX - AIRPORT
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Bright Star Charter School moving on to the Orville Wright Campus?  By law if an LAUSD school has classroom space, charter schools can submit a proposal to the District to use that space. Bright Star which houses a middle school on the Mark Twain (Venice) campus has expanded grades nine and ten and would like to operate a high school of approximately 120 students and five staff members out of Orville Wright starting in September of 2007.

It should be emphasized  that Bright Star Charter School is not a community school. It does not draw students from our community. Bright Star is merely using Prop 39 to obtain and share space for its expanding school.

I have numerous problems with this.. (1) The surrounding residents apparently have not had any input into this proposal.  Bright Star is a charter school and it should have to conform to local planning and land use conditions.  Just because it is piggybacking on an LAUSD school does not mean that it inherits all of the rights of a public school district. (2) Imposing a high school with an entirely separate operation and administration poses a real distraction on the operations of Orville Wright Middle School. (3) The charter is exclusively a commuter school.  This will add some 400 vehicle trips to the residential streets of Kentwood.  (4) It could greatly complicate the affiliated charter school initiative (see article below).

This is not a good idea and LAUSD has alternatives.  Emerson Adult School, formerly Emerson Elementary school. This school would be a much more ideal setting because it’s closer to Lincoln making commutes from MarVista, Venice and other northerly locations more practical and many adult classes (except Mommy and me classes) are run in the evenings and Bright Star runs in the day. Another option is the former 98th St School that was recently closed. Neither schools should have much costs attributed to them to reopen.

Posted on May 22nd, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: MANAGING GROWTH, ORVILLE WRIGHT MS, OUR SCHOOLS
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Is a profound change heading to Westchester/Playa del Rey?  Tentatively being called the Westchester/Playa Neighborhood Family of Schools (Westchester High School could be renamed in the process) there has been top level discussion in setting up an “affiliated charter district” of all the Westchester/Playa public schools, and governed by a local board.  It’s loosely based on the Boston Pilot model (doc).

This affiliated charter district will be a part of the new LAUSD Innovation District that reports to Kathi Littman and Superintendent David Brewer, not to Local District 3.

Update: The motion was approved by the NCWPDR Education committee and will be referred to the NCWPDR Board  on June 5. Minor changes in the wording was made. I’ll post an update when we get closer to the monthly board meeting.

Tonight there is going to be a meeting of the education committee of the Westchester/Playa del Rey neighborhood council to lend support to this. The motion to be heard is:

MOTION DECLARING THAT THE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL OF WESTCHESTER/PLAYA DEL REY SUPPORTS THE FORMAL CREATION OF AN AUTONOMOUS CLUSTER OF SCHOOLS TO BE KNOWN AS THE WESTCHESTER/PLAYA FAMILY OF SCHOOLS TO CONSIST OF WESTCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOLS WHICH FEED INTO IT PROVIDED THAT THE WESTCHESTER/PLAYA FAMILY OF SCHOOLS: (1) OPERATES UNDER THE BEST PRACTICES OF CHARTER SCHOOLS, (2) REPORTS TO THE INNOVATION DIVISION OF LAUSD, AND NOT TO LOCAL DISTRICT 3, AND (3) IS GOVERNED BY AN ELECTED BOARD OF DIRECTORS WHICH BROADLY REPRESENTS THE COMMUNITY AND THE STAKEHOLDERS AT THE SCHOOLS. THE COUNCIL FURTHER ENCOURAGES INDIVIDUALS AND OTHER COMMUNITY-BASED CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS TO SIMILARLY DECLARE THEIR SUPPORT FOR AUTONOMY FOR THE WESTCHESTER/PLAYA FAMILY OF SCHOOLS PROVIDED THE STATED CONDITIONS ARE MET.

Of particular concern still is the long term commitment to local governance by the LAUSD. Remember LEARN?, SBM? (School based management), or SDM (Shared Decision Making).  All these “innovations” were designed to provide more local school site control (although not community) but faded away from a combination of neglect and interference by former school principals, school boards, district administrations and unions. 

Posted on May 22nd, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
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Last night I participated in a discussion with Superintendent Brewer, Marlene Canter and a number of community leaders and during the discussions someone mentioned that the school does not have a band anymore!  No wonder our community events such as the 4th of July parade and Holiday parade never have the schools participation. 

Other interesting notes:

• There is some $950,000 $980,000 missing.

• Students with detentions (some with as many as 30 hours) had those detentions forgiven if they participated for a few hours in the ‘Big Sunday‘ cleanup. 

On the later point, I’m told that troublemakers have come to expect this every year. Because of that, it makes it more difficult for teachers to have control in the classroom when trouble makers know they will be forgiven. Why does the schools principal do this? Maybe to increase the graduation numbers?

Posted on May 18th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS, WESTCHESTER HS
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Locke High School isn’t a school in Westchester/Playa del Rey. You might have thought so since it seems like every year we are treated by a visit from the wonderful Locke HS Marching Band at our annual 4th of July parade. Westchester High School however has never sent our schools band to our parade. Go figure…

However, Locke has become an important figure to our community not because of their participating in our parade, but because of the leap of faith that their principal and their teachers made to improve the education of the kids that they are tasked to educate. This week Locke High school teachers signed a petition to become a charter school. When the district got wind of that, it unceremoniously escorted the principal out of the school accusing him of using classroom time to gather teacher signatures. Teachers denied that occurred. (See LA Times editorial below)

Despite the fact that Locke High school sits right smack dab in the middle of Watts, it has become a kind of sister school to Westchester, a kindred spirit because of what it has shared with us.

Yesterday Kelly Kane of the WPEF was one of the speakers at the Locke charter school announcment and she said  “… Thank you Locke. Thank you heroic Locke teachers and Principal. Thank you for leading the way… confirming for us that real change is not only possible, but probable… Thank you for showing us a very clear option for Westchester…”

So not only has the Alain Leroy Locke High School shown us what its like to participate in events that show community spirit, it has also shown us what its like when school teachers and principals put the needs of the students and the community first.

The residents of Westchester/Playa del Rey have struggled with an exceptionally poor performing school and an unresponsive district for decades.  It’s Westchester’s turn for a Westchester Charter High School.

This would be the most profoundly positive change this community has ever seen.

LA Times Editorial
Seceding from the LAUSD
Teachers, parents and a principal have sacrificed much to demand that their Watts-area high school become a charter school rather than accept the status quo.

May 11, 2007

THREE CHEERS for Locke High School.Three cheers for its courageous teachers and stalwart principal, who have chosen to break with the dithering Los Angeles Unified School District and a hidebound teachers union to become a Green Dot charter school.

Three cheers for the fed-up parents who showed up at Locke on Thursday morning to lob the first volleys in a revolution that only begins with the school’s emancipation.

By signing petitions to become the first school to secede from L.A. Unified, teachers at long-suffering Locke have jeopardized their own livelihoods and careers. They have no guarantee of employment under Green Dot, but they are putting the needs of their students first.

Principal Frank Wells has already paid the price for demanding change. He was escorted off the Locke campus Tuesday as punishment for working to create a bright future for his students. His crime? Allegedly permitting teachers to use class time to sign the charter petitions. He denies this impropriety happened. Helping students sounds so simple, but look what it’s taken: a rogue school, secret petitions, a career damaged.

Green Dot had been negotiating with the school district over converting Locke, but a major sticking point was the charter organization’s refusal to have teachers remain district employees, covered by the teachers union contract. And so, the bleating of the teachers union trumped the needs of students. Is anyone surprised?

Supt. David L. Brewer said the district’s goal was, and remains, to work with Green Dot to reform not just Locke but also its feeder middle and elementary schools. But the district wanted more time, so Green Dot is going solo.

The time to quibble and negotiate is not while the house is on fire. And no rational observer disputes the fact that the LAUSD is fully engulfed. There can’t be a timetable. Teachers want action. They would rather have better, merit-based pay with Green Dot than the end-of-career benefits provided by their current contract. They want support, order, real input on how to teach and enforced standards of behavior. They want, in fact, the same things that parents and students want. But they’re stymied by the same foe: a district bureaucracy that pledges allegiance to reform and then locks out a principal who pursues it.

The events at Locke give clarity to the real struggle for Los Angeles public schools. On one side are devoted teachers, brave administrators and long-suffering students and parents. On the other are narrow and defensive interests, dedicated to protecting a failed system. There should be no doubt about who deserves to win.

Posted on May 11th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS, WESTCHESTER HS
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Westchester High School calculates it graduation rates by taking the number of students graduating and dividing it by the incoming senior enrollment. To be fair, it seems that ALL LAUSD high schools do this. This is a great way to boost graduation levels to making it seem to the public that the schools are doing an adequate job.  Using this method WHS reported to the WASC that its graduation rates for 2003, 2004 and 2005 was 88.9%, 74.9% and 79.9% respectively.

Then Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa del Rey used a different means of calculating the rate by using the classes freshman enrollment four years previous. It’s letter to the WASC stated that the real graduation rate was 52%, 37.5% and 45.3%.

Eric Davidson, a vice principal at WHS brushed off the NCWPDR numbers saying that “Graduation rates continue to be an issue for public debate. The school has nothing to add to the conversation until a uniform policy is developed and implemented.”

Apparently unbeknown to Davidson, a uniform policy has been developed and implemented (at least as far as the governor is concerned. Who knows if the assembly and senate approved it) . It’s called the  CSSO Graduation Rate Compact and it is a document that has been signed by governors of all fifty states.

The compact uses the incoming freshman class as the base line, not the senior class. It also allows for adjustments to be made for students transferring in and out.

This graduation rate applies to students who receive standard diplomas, not certificates of completion or attendance, nor General Educational Development (GED) certificates.

In a June 2006 report by The Alliance for Excellant Education entitled Who’s Counted, Who’s Counting?, the report specifically criticized basing graduating rates on 12th grade enrollment saying:

“Approved rates included dropout rates (based on highly unreliable data that often depends solely on the student officially informing the school that he or she has dropped out); grade-to-grade promotion ratios (which don’t take into account students who are promoted from grade to grade but do not receive regular diplomas); and even a rate that measures high school graduation on  the basis of 12th-grade enrollment only (which doesn’t capture the thousands of students who drop out before entering 12th-grade).

Even more than 4 years after the law was enacted, states are still using a variety of flawed methods.”

Posted on May 7th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS, WESTCHESTER HS
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Hardly a day has gone by over the last week where I didn’t come across yet another news story on the brouhaha over Santa Monica’s new dog park. It’s been on the TV, newspapers, the Internet just about everywhere. 

If you haven’t heard about it, Santa Monica just built a new park on the south side of the Santa Monica Airport and its the first new park they’ve built in 24 years.  One of the features of the park is a small dog park where people can let their pooches run untethered. 

I did say brouhaha didn’t I? That’s because when LA’s Mar Vista residents from nearby leashed up their canines and walked across the street to visit the park they were being turned away by park security if the animal wasn’t wearing a Santa Monica dog tag.

According to the LA Times, “The situation has prompted howls of protest from indignant Angelenos, including Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who noted in a statement that L.A. residents live close by and will be affected by traffic to and from the location but won’t be able to exercise their dogs there. Rosendahl, whose district includes Mar Vista, added that he was hoping to work out a compromise with Santa Monica officials.

“I have a responsibility to protect Los Angeles residents from unfair practices,” Rosendahl said.

I can understand the indignancy being expressed by our Angelenos but it is a misplaced indignancy. We should be turning around and glaring back at our city leaders and pointingly asking them where are our new parks?

Santa Monica residents got a new park for their property tax payments. They had to wait 24 years but what have Los Angeles city residents been getting for their property taxes? More traffic, fewer city services like street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs. The number of police officers hasn’t kept pace with the population.  Parks have for the most part been entirely off the city’s radar.

Over the last couple of decades there have been many missed chances for building new parks. The city rarely misses a chance to approve high density developments.  An example was the West Bluffs that rise majestically above the Ballona freshwater marsh and have since been developed by Catellus. In 2003 Catellus offered to sell the property but the city failed to even consider making an offer. A West Bluffs park would have been a real jewel having a view of most of West Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Another local example was the Southern California Gas Company sale of various properties around Westchester and Playa del Rey. Some of these undeveloped properties could have been purchased by the city and become small pocket parks and continued to offer residents a respite from corner to corner housing.

Because Santa Monica does the right thing (at least this time) by placing its residents quality of life over high density development doesn’t mean that it should also be burdened by LA’s lack of forsight and buying into the arguement that housing must be provided for anyone who demands it.

Posted on May 6th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR ENVIRONMENT
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Stung by the Daily Breeze article on the WASC visit, Westchester High School Vice Principal Eric Davidson wrote a letter to the editor that attempted to soften and deflect criticism of the schools problems. It’s not clear if the letter was published by the Breeze but the letter is on the school web site.

One example was Davidson’s characterization of the graduation rate first reported in the Neighborhood Council (NCWPDR) letter to the WASC visiting committee.

The NCWPDR letter reported that the Class of 2003 had an actual graduation rate of 52%, the Class of 2004 had an actual graduation rate of 37.5%, and the Class of 2005 had an actual graduation rate of 45.3%.  WHS reported in its “Self-Study” that the graduation rates were 88.9, 74.9 and 79.9%.

Rather than acknowledge the unacceptable graduation rates noted by the NCWPDR, Davidson claims the discrepancy between the schools numbers and the NCWPDR numbers are a “continue(ing).. issue for public debate. The school has nothing to add to the conversation until a uniform policy is developed and implemented.”

Sorry Eric, there is no debate here.  The NCWPDR graduation rates were derived using freshman enrollments as the baseline. The school on the otherhand uses the Senior enrollment which conveniently ignores everyone who has dropped out since enrolling as freshman. The dropout numbers between the freshman year and senior year range from 40 to 70% of the class enrollment.

I’m sure with a little more tweeking of the numbers that the school could get the graduation rate up to 100%. All they would have to do is wait until the 4th quarter of the senior year and use that enrollment as the baseline.

Inconsistant communication – Here’s a way out of that criticism, Davidson excuses the problem by saying they’re no different than anyone else. “Inconsistent communication with parents and community members is not unique to Westchester High School.”

In the same paragraph he then goes off on a tangent saying “as the school improves the use of technology, traditional means of communication will need to be evaluated for effectiveness. For example, the Westchester High School website receives nearly 100,000 hits each month.” I’m not sure what his example was meant to address and I’ll hazard a guess that Mr. Davidson doesn’t know what “hits” are or how they translate into better communications.  I’d love to review those logs.

Posted on May 5th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS, WESTCHESTER HS
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The nucleus to create a new Westchester High School (WHS) is beginning to form.

It began with Terry Marcellus’s efforts to begin a dialogue on a charter high school and putting together a meeting with the Charter Schools Association. At the meeting, there were quite a number of parents, particularly private school parents that attended which spoke volumes about the charter school effort and the communities desire to see that.

Then we had the WASC issue where the NCWPDR neighborhood council (www.ncwpdr.org) asserted itself into the process and made it a very public discussion. Needless to say, the neighborhood council succeeded and WHS fell flat on its face with less than flattering articles by the Daily Breeze and the Argonaut.

Add to that the recent Brewer/Evergreen report that described a compartmentalized and uncommunicative LAUSD department structure; the LA Times/Howard Blume article that stated that teachers find their work rewarding and are happy with their compensation “when” they have discipline in the classrooms; and today’s editorial in the LA Times that describes a completely broken system and you have the makings of a trend.

This week the WPEF weighed in and boy did they. I went to their meeting Thursday evening where Dr. Shelly Fryer spoke about the Westchester High School and contrasted it with several other outside district schools (Venice, Culver City, and El Segundo). At the meeting Dr. Fryer spoke about the possibilities and left us imagining a Westchester High School with a 9 API, a 6 year accreditation and 90% + credentialed teachers and a school full of community kids and happy teachers! If only WHS had a strong consistent leadership, a consistent discipline policy, an effective professional development and extended learning possibilities for struggling students. Each of which the other schools exhibited.

Earlier in the day the Argonaut came out with an article on the school that was very critical of it and its lack of communications and accountability. Kelly Kane of the WPEF said “Our mission is to advocate and promote our schools in Westchester,” she explained. “But it is getting increasingly difficult to advocate for a school that is constantly doing worse. Everyone seems to think that it’s okay to have substandard education.”

At the meeting, Ann Wexler announced that she simply wasn’t going to wait any longer for LAUSD to get its act together (I concur. We’ve been waiting twenty years now with nothing but empty or broken promises) and announced a new website and email group to formulate a charter school. At the meeting Kelly Kane expressed her impatience with the schools progress made it pretty clear that there will be change at the high school because her kids are going to attend there.

The WASC reported that the teachers are great.. it’s the administration that stinks just like it did 3 years ago and even 13 years ago.

Who should go? Let’s start at the top and work our way down and begin by firing LAUSD Local District 3 Superintendent Grace Stauther who has rarely ever visited the school during her tenure and never returns phone calls. With her Principal Anita Barner should go immediately, followed closely by Doug Waybright. This school has been in serious decline under the supervision of these people.

There will be challenges of course. Marlene Canter wants us to take another chance with a “best practices”, “innovative schools” approach but be prepared, the rest of the district will make sure that she (and we) ends up back at square one. I would stay away from this idea. For every new innovation we’ve been offered (School Based Management, LEARN, etc..), we’ve ended up with negative progress, 500 more kids dropping out, falling API scores and rising enrollment.

I think its time to develop a charter application.

Posted on May 4th, 2007 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
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