WestchesterParents

On Tuesday April 6th, LAUSD school board members Steve Zimmer and Tamar Galatzan will be proposing a compromise resolution to the school board to allow students already permiting out into neighboring school districts to remain there until they graduate.  The meeting will be held at 1PM at 333 S. Beaudry Ave., Board Rm on 1st Floor, Los Angeles 90017

I hope that you can all be there to express to the school board that education opportunities for students must trump the districts desire to handcuff them into seats of poorly performing schools in an effort to grab for more school dollars.   

Regardless of how the school board vote goes however, there are going to be a huge number of families that will have the door to a quality education shut closed on them unless the board amends the resolution to allow all students intra-districts permits to any districts that have room for them. Short of that, we need to look ahead and start lobbying state representatives to promote legislation that promises real choice in schools and even file law suits if they fail to.

So far state and federal “school choice” legislation has been very limited in scope and have provided very little real opportunity for us.

For instance, Senate bill SBX5_4 which we all hear about is limited to 1000 lowest performing schools and no district may have more than 10% of its schools on the list.  In a district with 587 schools, only 59 of LAUSD’s can be on the list and those will be spread out over elementaries, middle and high schools. 56 of LAUSD’s high schools alone are PI schools. Clearly SBX5_4 like other legislation before it falls far short of choice.

If there has been one benefit handed to us since Cortines ill-advised policy announcement, it has made us realize just how precarious our rights to school choice and quality education really is and in turn has provided us an opportunity to rally thousands of parents and students together at Stop LAUSD From Denying Permits For Inter-District Student Transfers!!  It took just one guy (Cortines) and a memo to the school board to take away our opportunities to quality education. It will take a thousand angry mom’s, dad’s and students to get it back.

We must take advantage of this opportunity and demand that our legislators write meaningful school choice legislation for all.

Posted on March 31st, 2010 by westchester dad
Tags: OUR SCHOOLS
15 Comments »

LAUSD TO DENY QUALITY EDUCATION TO STUDENTS.

In a press release announced today, [Daily Breeze story] LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines pulled the trigger on intra-district transfers for families seeking quality schools.  No new out of district permits and students on existing permits will have them denied next year. [See Cortines new transfer policy]

Make no mistake about it, this is all about money. Your child’s education takes a back seat to LAUSD’s money woes.

“Just about every school district in the Los Angeles area is experiencing massive budget deficits but ours is the largest at $640 million,” said Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines.

Clearly Ramon Cortines best days are behind him. In his first tenure as LAUSD superintendent he bucked heads with the establishment setting up mini-districts in an effort to decentralize the top heavy districts and bring more autonomy to local schools.  For many of us at that time he was a hero. But we were soon disappointed when he walked away from this interim job before he finished the job of reforming the district.  

An education reformer? Not anymore. Upon his return, Cortines has not only inherited the problems left by his predecessors Roy Romer and David Brewer, Cortines has become an integral part of the problem. Under Cortines supervision, the school district has amassed a $640 million debt,  seen its dropout rates climb hover around 50% and graduation rates fall below 40%. Now he’s ready to throw a tiny segment of the districts student population representing just over 1%, under the bus by forcing them to leave schools that are better managed and offer far more opportunities than their home district. Force them to enroll in schools that have been targeted by the state as having persistently failed to meet state standards.

“It is time to bring our students home to LAUSD where we still have plenty of excellent schools for them to attend and we have great teachers to instruct them.” – Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines

Still have plenty of excellent schools? 

This is Ramon Cortines world view of excellent schools:

• 359 of the districts k-12 schools have persistently failed to meet the states academic targets for multiple years. Up from 292 schools in 2008.  These Title I schools are designated as “PI” schools and are on the states watch list.
• 56 of his 71 high schools (78%) are “PI” schools and are on the states watch list.
• Another 11 schools (14%) have persistently failed to meet AYP but are not targeted (yet) because they are not Title I schools.
• Only 8 of Cortines 76 high schools are in the upper 50th percentile and 6 of those are in the San Fernando Valley.  Only four have earned a state ranking of 7 and above.
• The entire school district is in year 3 as a “PI” district having failed to repeatedly meet state targets. It enters the “corrective action” phase where the California Department of Education must take more aggressive action to turn the district around including abolishing or restructuring the district.
• An average district dropout rate of  49.75%
• 422,654 students in the district are enrolled in “PI” schools and are eligible to transfer to non-PI schools. Up from 364,027 in 2007/08.
• The total number of “PI” schools in the district has increased from 313 to 359 between 2008 and 2009.

Ramon Cortines school district is financially broke.  $640 million broke, so he’s looking under the sofa for loose dimes and quarters.  It’s highly doubtful he will find enough coins to benefit a district that is in a downward spiral and losing enrollment to charter schools. What he will do is turn kids and their families lives upside down. 

Because there are so few schools above the 50th percentile, students that find themselves having school choice taken away from them will soon find letters like this in their mail boxes after they enroll in their “new and improved” school advising them that it has not met the states AYP and they have the option to be bused to a non-PI school, if they can find space for them. 

If they do find a seat at a non-PI school it will likely be a long bus ride paid for by the district to a  distant community served by the LAUSD, to a school that will be only half as good as the school in the district that once welcomed them.

Simply stated, Cortines does not have enough seats in quality high schools available to him. And what few seats that are available should be going to the students already trapped in his under performing schools.

Posted on March 17th, 2010 by westchester dad
Tags: GENERAL, OUR SCHOOLS
9 Comments »

Well the rubber has finally hit road.

Despite all their posturing, Money does matter more than your child’s educational opportunities in the Los Angeles Unified School District and there is no more stunning example of that than the school board vote last month that quietly authorized the policy change behind our backs.  They want their $9,500 back even when it means your child will be forced to enroll in one of the districts substandard schools.

Because the district is facing a $640 million shortfall, the LAUSD is gearing up to deny up to 80% of the transfer permits it currently extends to thousands of Los Angeles students who have sought better academic opportunities outside of the district.

Parents don’t make these herculean efforts to obtain transfer permits out of the LAUSD without a good reason. In Westchester/Playa del Rey for example the local high school here has failed meet the states AYP (Average yearly progress) for 10 years running.

In 1999 the school was already well below the 50th percentile earning a dismal “4″ in the states ranking system where 10 is best. Since then, Westchester High Schools ranking has dropped to a “1″ where it rests at the bottom 10% of the states schools.

For many parents, the districts announcement will likely result in their children being pulled from excellent public schools ranked in the top 30% in the state and dragged into schools ranked in the lower 40%.

While this may monetarily benefit the district it could have serious consequences for other districts and the state.  Students enrolled in smaller surrounding districts cost the state roughly $8000 per student per year. If these students are denied permits by the LAUSD and forced to enroll in LAUSD schools, the cost to the state will go up by fifteen hundred dollars per student to $9500.

The boards vote also flies in the face of the goals set by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) which was enacted by congress to offer parents public school choice when their neighborhood school fails to meet academic expectations and annual yearly progress.

NCLB provides that if a school fails to meet academic milestones (AYP) the district must offer students another choice of school within the district. However, what happens if well over 50% of the districts high schools are on the states watch list because they are failing to meet AYP?  And worse, what happens if the district itself is on the watch list as is the LAUSD? (Sounds like an opportunity for a NCLB federal lawsuit to me.)

NCLB also states that when a school does not meet academic milestones and is designated a “PI” or Program Improvement school, the district cannot offer students another PI school as an alternative. With over 50% of LAUSD of its high schools falling into the “Program Improvement” category, there are few if any LAUSD schools where students could go. Consequently parents seek out inter-district transfers.  Suitably close hight schools near Westchester for example (Venice, Hamilton, University, Gardena) are all on the PI watch list.

The district believes that by denying families permits, it can steer $51 million that now goes to other local districts back to the LAUSD budget assuming all these students end up in LAUSD schools and not private schools or charters.  However the State of California would stand to lose even more education dollars when these students are moved from less costly and more more academically proficient school districts that receive about $8000 into a very expensive low performing LAUSD school district that receives $9,500 per student. 

Families wishing to enroll their children in other districts should continue to file for inter-district permits with the district. If they later receive a letter denying the permit they can file this appeal [form] to the Los Angeles County Department of Education.

I would also suggest that you call, write or fax your LAUSD board member and let them know how you feel about this policy. The board contact list can be found at http://laschoolboard.org/. Steve Zimmer is the school board member for most of the west side.

Posted on March 14th, 2010 by westchester dad
Tags: GENERAL, ORVILLE WRIGHT MS, OUR SCHOOLS, POLITICS, RAISING CHILDREN, WESTCHESTER HS
11 Comments »