Time to rally behind REAL school choice
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.
The unfortunate part of all of this is the “white flight” is catching up with the parents who ran instead of taking control of heir neighborhood schools. Many of the Westchester parents jumped into the local catholic or religious schools, only to find out the upper level schools were too expensive to get into so they ran to El Segundo or Manhattan Beach schools. This allowed the children from surrounding neighborhoods to come to the Westchester schools and the level of education took a dive because the parents of these children didn’t value education the same way. I wonder how many teachers were told they were giving too much homework to the students of Westchester, Venice and various other high schools?If you want better schools, you will be better parents and take over your local schools and oust those who don’t want to study. There also has to be a better way of evicting or suspending the students who don’t want to take charge of their learning. That, in and of itself, is what causes a school to lower it’s education abilities.
You’ve over-simplified this and failed to consider many of the underlying details. There IS NO SUCH THING as “parents taking over your own schools” in a district like the LAUSD where residents have only one representative on the school board, a school board whose larger interests is untanglling (or further tangling) the mess they made of the 587 schools they manage and where the unions are firmly entrenched in micro-managing every aspect and every minute of the school day.
Parents have been trying to take control for years. We’ve tried it starting years before our kids became of high school age and ended up with a poor compromise called the iDesign schools where both the district and the unions continue to leverage their influence. Our first choice was to become an independent charter high school like Pacific Palisades Charter High School but the district and UTLA boss Duffy squelched that effort.
As for “white flight,” it simply doesn’t exist today. What you see today is a “parent flight” away from a compromised and dysfunctional district whose primary focus is on intervention (because the students aren’t meeting AYP) and meeting union demands. Parents see where the money and emphasis is going and its not on towards the kinds general and upper level courses and opportunities that they favor. These parents are finding academic excellance and opportunities in private, public charter or intra-district public schools that are as diverse, if not more diverse than what we are seeing in the LAUSD.
I am not oversimplifying anything. The clear facts are this: No kids from outside of Westchester could come to Westchester schools if the parents of Westchester filled the seats. If you send your kids to El Segundo, Mira Costa, or other schools, then you are just as guilty of causing the downtrend on these schools as are others. I have watched Westchester schools for over thirty five years go down the drain academically as white parents, Asian parents and upper middle class parents flee the schools in this community for “better” schools instead of staying rifght here and going to Cowan, Loyola, Paseo Del Rey, Wesport Heights, and Open. What happens when they do this? They go to St. Anastasias, Visitation, St. Jeromes, Westchester Lutheren, St. Anthonys and various other schools in our area. Then when it comes time for High School, it is also too costly for them to pay for these private High Schools, and they run to other neighborhoods. If they occupied the schools of their residence, no one else could “Permit” into these schools. The Airport has over ten thousand employees, mostly from outside of the area, who bring their children from their own neighborhoods to Westchester. IF we removed the work permit for everyone, then perhaps we would see the “neighborhood” kids come back. White flight exists and is a healthy virus on our community. The parents of this community don’t seem to understand the dynamics of this area as much as you would like to pretend. They just run to smaller districts, not because they are better, but because they don’t have the same demographics.
Duffy or no Duffy, UTLA has great teachers, it’s the parents in the neighborhoods that have to support the schools to make this a better transition for our kids.
And, by the way, there is more than one way to take over a school. How about going to the schools and visiting? They have to let you in. You may observe classes. You may be a part of the operating boards of the schools. Participate and see what you can do. Complaining about the teachers isn’t a solution.
Another myth told and re-told. This was often repeated by high school administrators and boosters speaking to local families. We began hearing that in the late 1990′s when there were 1800 students at WHS. “If your kids come to the school there will be on fewer seat available for CAP students” they said. But of course this was not true and in fact there was quite a bit of controversy when LAUSD announced that they would be adding trailers to the campus. With the subsequent addition of trailers the student enrollment grew to 2101, them 2300, then 2534, and peaked at 2726 in 2005.
The enrollment has since dropped now to about 1800 due mainly to the new schools that have been built and due to an exodus to students due to charters. Charter schools are independent of LAUSD so they are not within the system and in fact some are not even union. At least with intra-district transfers students are going from one union school (UTLA) to another (CTA).
Now as far as differences between LAUSD high schools and schools in other districts… Here are your public school choices: http://westchesterparents.org/?p=832
Well, we will just have to agree to disagree. The enrollment at LAUSD is down all over. The paretns of Westchester have been fleeing all along, and now they want to blame the system of permits. They had an opportunity to send their children to LAUSD charter schools, and stay within the system. Many chose not to. They had the opportunity to join the magnet programs, and many chose not to. Now they are being returned home, and who’s fault is it? Certainly not LAUSD’s. There are adequate numbers of seats now, and they don’t want to give permits out.
I am not impressed by the public schools who print a 65 page catalog for their students. I am also not impressed by someone from Howard University saying nobody from some of the P1 schools have made it to Howard. Is that the school’s fault or the parents fault? Or, at a stretch, both?
The management at LAUSD are fat, no doubt about it. I can’t believe the students of those 65 course catalog schools all get the courses they want, and that some don’t go empty. You make it sound like NONE of the LAUSD schools are doing well, not even the charter or magnet schools. Obviously your arguements are one sided. Don’t all schools have a cap on enrollment due to numbers of teachers and numbers of classrooms? Yes they do.
I guess your other choice is….move out of Westchester into the school district you want to send your children to, and don’t fix the problem.
Here’s the problem I have with the entire LAUSD system. If you suspend a student, or expell them, your school is looked at in a negative fashion. Why not let the schools expell the troublemakers, suspend the students who cause problems at will, and hold the parents responsible for getting them back into a school that will accept them? Teachers who have to spend an inordinate amount of time on troublemaking students can’t possibly have the time to teach them in a proper fashion. You have to set the tempo of the district by ridding your school sites of the troublemakers and placing them into special schools for troublemakers. LAUSD has a system for that, but often the parents of troublemaking students stall the process, and ask for unnecessary hearings instead of getting their children the help they need. Hence, they end up in nicer areas such as Westchester, instead of being properly placed into schools that will help them with their behaviorial problems.
The biggest advantage these other school districts have when it comes to the permit program is they can cancel a troublemaker’s permit in a heartbeat, sending the youth back to their home school. Unfortunately, that is not the case with LAUSD schools, they don’t get rid of these children who are causing the averages to go down fast enough. They also don’t stand up to problematic parents. As for the teachers, LAUSD does have methods for getting rid of the teachers, but they don’t employ them because it’s hard to do. It should be hard to do. These teachers work hard to get their positions, and why should it be easy to fire them when they are working under extreme conditions?
Dom, when my daughter was ready for kindergarten, I seriously considered Paseo del Rey, which seemed like a very nice school. However, I was told that because it is a magnet, my child could not be guaranteed a place past kindergarten. Because LAUSD has the “choices” program, the idea of neighborhood schools has become history. I’m not judging whether that’s good or bad — I’m all for choice — just telling you the way it is. We sent our daughter to private school, all the while trying to accumulate magnet points. Despite applying to a magnet school for high school, we were turned down. Because my daughter wanted some specific programs that Westchester doesn’t offer, we were left with two choices: private school or permitting into Mira Costa. My daughter made the choice to go to Mira Costa, which was absolutely legal and above-board for the last 20 years or so. Pulling these permits AFTER making a commitment to the families is the part we disagree with. You can’t punish children for adult mistakes.
OK, here’s what you have to understand about the Magnet program. If you are stating some kind of minority on your application, then you probably will not get the school you want. The reality of this program is it was designed to give 60% of the magnet slots to minority non-white students, and the other 40% to the Caucasian students. If your child is Caucasian, they will be placed in the magnet school of their choice because all the non-white slots are taken, and the diversity is skewed in the minority direction, needing Caucasian students to fulfill the other 40%. Whomever told you there was no guarantee for your slot past Kindergarten either saw that you were a minority or saw that you didn’t know the system. Which Magnet high school did you apply for? Did you get on their waiting list? (yes, they all have waiting lists) Did you ask for a Permit with Transportation? Did you just ask for a permit to attend that school? The problem is most parents are NOT educated in the ins and outs of the system, and they default to another district, and now they are pulling the permits. I had a feeling this would happen, and these are not “mistakes” they are purposeful applications of the permit program. Since the program changed, you have to change with it, just like the Magnets that are consolidating into one another, will limit the number of magnet schools available next year. The entire situation is so wrong, but now you have to learn to work it.
Wow, what happened to my answer to you. I guess it was too honest. Someone deleted it. There are ways to get around those hurdles. I guess someone who is moderating this log doesn’t want to let the other parents know it.
Master Dom,
I agree with your comment about taking our schools back. It’s up to us as parents, to continue to send our kids to Westchester schools if we want to maintain our neighborhood schools. LAUSD fills our schools with kids from other districts because of low enrollment in our neighborhood because they are sending their kids across town. I remember kids walking to neighborhood schools rather than buses or 25 + miles each way. Kudos to you and other parents like us that are fighting to better our schools Master Dom!!!!!
Lynda, Go in and talk with Mrs. Sullivan about the wait list. The entire school is a magnet, and a darned good one too. The teachers there are top notch. Get a choices brochure and look it over so you will be familiar with it for next year. Good luck, Dom
The Westchester High School Math/Science/Aerospace Magnet 2009 California Standards test report
Magnet students scoring proficient or above:
Math 13.1%
English 49.4%
Hardly what I would describe as “darned good.” even by today’s standards.
Westchester Dad: If you had read the rest of the strand, you would have seen that Lynda was talking about Kindergarten and I was talking about elementary school. No, Westchester High School stinks, because they are importing people outside of the neighborhood. I wasn’t referring to them. Please don’t spin this toward what you want it to say. Some of the emementary schools are good. I can’t attest for the High Schools at all.
Lynda was talking about high schools.
Was there another Lynda?
I do agree Dom, the elementaries are fine but by the time 4th grade rolls around and you start looking ahead at middle school and high school you start looking for a more permanant and satisfactory solution. This is where the LAUSD really falls apart quickly.
Obviously I came to this discussion late but fortunately this site is often used as a reference source (and wisely so I think). A couple of points:
1) the current state of affairs is just as much the result of “black flight” as it is “white flight”. LAUSD is using divide and conquer to herd both sides like sheep. In short, we are all lambs being led to the slaughter.
2) the black brain drain that started in the seventies pretty much decimated the HBCUs; they just don’t pull the top black students as they once did. A degree from a CSU will be significantly cheaper and held in higher regard than an HBCU degree. And to be quite frank, most west coast kids these days have never even heard of the HBCUs. So the lack of LAUSD students at Howard is more a measure of Howards recruiting difficulties than anything else.