After a break for the holidays, the KNBC’s new experimental digital show, The Filter with Fred Roggin, is back on and edging ever closer to being ready for prime time. Starting next week, it will show on the network’s digital channel 4. 2 each week night, then repeat on NBC proper the next day in the mid-morning.
I was on the show last night. But rather than the He Said/She Said, dueling commentators segments that I have participated in before, this time, I was asked to do a solo commentary with Fred on a single issue, which was fun (as I am Skyped in to the program and bask in the ever-attractive gaze of my laptop’s fish-eye lens).
The issue was an interesting one having to do with the recent move by The Beverly Hills School District to do away with most of the out-of-BH transfer students who have been a feature of the district for several decades. Originally, the BH schools actually courted the transfer kids because, in order to get the millions in state educational $$ that the district needed, Beverly Hills required more students, as the amount of money the district received was pegged to the ADA—Average Daily Attendance—in other words, the number of students who showed up at the BH classrooms every day. Since a lot of Beverly Hills’ kids were going to private schools, the public school district had an ADA that was way too low. To fix that pesky problem, the BHSD opened its gates to 750 to 1000 non-90210 kids each year, who brought with them $5-6 million in state money.
The system worked just fine until this past year when, due to a combination of factors, the district’s ADA calculus changed. First there were California’s statewide draconian slashes in education funds. And then, while most of our homes are still way down in value, property values in Beverly Hills actually went up in the past year, meaning that BH’s education-dedicated property taxes also shot up to the point that they exceed the money that the district was getting from the state. Together, these two elements meant that, rather than having to fork over their education $$ to the state’s common fund, to be reallocated back to them in ADA money, Beverly Hills suddenly was told it got to keep its Edu-bucks to fund its own schools how it saw fit.
Thus, over night, the money-producing transfer students no longer brought a revenue stream to the district, they simply used services. As a consequence, many people in the district wanted them out—sooner rather than later—nevermind that lots of the transfer permit kids had been in Beverly Hills schools for years, some since kindergarten.
(This stand has softened somewhat: in the most recent plan floated, students in certain grades would be allowed to finish up in the district, while those in other grades would not.)
Faced with the prospect of being dumped from BH’s famously arts and extras-laden system back into the budget-starved maw of LAUSD, the transfer students and their parents are fighting the ouster loudly and passionately.
NOTE: To understand all this a bit better, one has to go back to the 1970s when, in a string of three State Supreme Court decisions known collectively as Serrano v. Priest, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a community’s per pupil spending to be dictated by the wealth (or lack thereof) of that community. So every area’s education tax dollars went to Sacramento to be emptied into a common pot for redistribution. However, there is a threshold past which the Serrano rule fails to hold, and the district gets to keep its money (and no longer gets the state’s ADA). Beverly Hills and some other highly affluent communities in the state, like Irvine, have reached that threshold.
Tempers have grown very, very hot around the transfer student issue. There have been slightly threatening remarks posted on Facebook, and persons on both sides of the argument have called each other an escalating string of nasty names.
There will be another meeting of the BH School District Board to discuss the matter on January 12. Just to be on the safe side, the Beverly Hills police have been asked to show up in numbers sufficient to handle any…um…problems.
AP has a story on the issue here. The New York Times, another story here.
“In 2001, Cooper became the first Death Row inmate in the state to obtain DNA testing of the evidence against him after a conviction.
Those tests, completed in October 2002, showed that the spot of blood found on a wall inside the Ryen home belonged to Cooper.
They determined Cooper’s DNA was on the cigarette butts in the stolen Ryen station wagon. And they revealed that blood on a brown T-shirt found along a road about a mile from the Ryen home contained DNA from Cooper and Doug Ryen.”
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I guess some people just to understand the term “Get A Clue”.
Wow! So, money runs things, huh? Who would have guessed that would be a factor?
– – –
“So every area’s education tax dollars went to Sacramento to be emptied into a common pot for redistribution.”
What an absolutely stupid ruling. Celeste, why don’t you throw your bank account into a state-run pot so that everyone, from you on down to the bums, can share in it equally?
Here’s another example of this commie inspired stupidity. Maybe you should read this story. It brings it down to a more personal level.
Hands Off My Pencils or You’ll Be Sorry
Next on the liberal agenda – grade allocation for those who are academically challenged or don’t even come to class.
Leave it up to Woody to find a blog called `The Weekly Shit’ 🙂
I do think many in Beverly Hills are behaving shamefully in how they’re tossing out students who enrolled under the impression they’d be able to continue on. They’re allowing kids in 10th to finish high school for example, but not those in 9th, which puts those who’d otherwise have gone to private schools in a pickle, since private schools accept most of their students for 9th. And so on down the line.
However, many students aren’t rich enough for a good private school anyway, and will have to go to their local school. Which shouldn’t be as much of a nightmare as it is; and if there’s an honor’s program, maybe it’s not as bad as they think — but the physical facilities definitely won’t be able to compete. Except for the eastside, there are no new schools built elsewhere and those like Uni, Fairfax, Hamilton, Emerson Middle etc., sure could have used upgrades long ago. And these are the schools that the people adjacent to Beverly Hills would be sending their kids to anyway. For the record Celeste, the property prices in these Beverly Hills adjacent areas are generally on a par with Beverly Hills, if you look at the monthly zip code guides in the Times. Go figure. Despite this, people who have been permit families often felt patronized, and made to feel like they should express abject gratitude. A lot of Beverly Hills residents argue “so move here, like we did,” though of course, that often means a huge jump in property taxes, and giving up a home one otherwise loves. It’s not easy to get a fair price for one’s house, either, right now, unless it’s very high end in the multi-millions where the inventory is finite and buyers’ incomes aren’t.
Meanwhile, many students’ families are renters because they can’t afford to buy in the city but wanted the educational opportunity for their kids, and they’ve been among the most vocal that they don’t want to subsidize better off people. Things are more complicated than just that everyone in Beverly Hills is richer than the permit families.
I understand they will allow minority students who increase their diversity — they’ve always been admitted under different terms.
Has WBC changed their moniker to SBL? They sure sound the same. No big deal, just wondering. Kids shouldn’t be booted due to this course of events, it’s b.s.
Was hoping you’d weigh in, SBL, as you know the schools in that area better than I do, as well as the daily fabric of the area itself.
Interesting that some of the renters are making the biggest fuss.
SureFire, cannot reveal moniker secrets but I would say that your instincts are good here.
I should clarify that it’s not just renters but those in the smaller homes in S Beverly Hills who are among the most adamant against extending the permits, in my experience, and that’s corroborated by a story in this week’s Beverly Hills Courier.
Talking about a permit parent and her two kids who have been taking a petition around in the “southeast of Beverly Hills,” i.e. the smaller houses in the cheapest area of box homes and duplex rentals (the “Slums of Beverly Hills,” as one movie called it), the article says the petition has had few signers and quotes a typical resident of Hamel Dr. who chose not to be named: “I am not sympathetic. I had my dream house in Cheviott Hills and I gave it up to move into Beverly Hills…” It probably is true that a $700-800,000 house in Cheviott would be over a million in Beverly Hills; the difference between Beverly Hills and L A seems to evaporate over the $1.2 mark, and north of Sunset; homes in the hills are often more than the same size in the flats of Beverly Hills, and not much different from what the same house would cost in the hills. (Yes, I considered all this carefully too, and know permit families and those who chose to live in the little boxes and “sacrifice for the kids.”)
The wealthier families in the city aren’t as worked up about it on the whole, maybe because they are more comfortable with where they are and have more options.
With the two new school board members being elected partly on a platform of ending permits, it’s likely a done deal.
Larry Mantle (KPCC) did a show on this issue recently too, and one of the women speaking on behalf of Beverly Hills parents vehemently opposed to continuing the permits was SO condescending to the permit parent speaking for the other side, it made me think, who’d want to put up with that attitude anyway if at all possible not to. Would I want to be a kid made to feel second-class?
Come on …
If your a transfer student from a LAUSD school in areas like south central or southeast LA, then I’ll take your side for crying foul play.
If its a LA city side upper yuppie area like those surrounding the city of Beverly Hills – “Mid City” “Mid City West” “pico/Robertson” “west Hollywood”….just to name a few, you have no reason to cry.
You live in extremely pricey nice areas with great LAUSD high schools.
I think some people just want their kids not to inter-mix with low income students – like the rich cultural mix at Los Angeles High.
The adjacent schools like Fairfax and Los Angeles High have some overall good high school educational program – unless your a jack ass delinquent. What school doesn’t have them…
But, then again, i understand how no one wants to deal with LAUSD as an administrative entity and the headaches that come with an overcrowding school. Its a completely piece of shit school district that drops the ball on every policy making issue at the top.
Its almost identical and similar to the LA County Supervisors (more specifically Molina).
I always watch the LA County meetings on my local cable channel and it always seems like an award ceremony extravaganza show. People are losing their homes and jobs – but they just keep giving away these great awards and county scrolls to people like hotcakes.
SBL: A lot of Beverly Hills residents argue “so move here, like we did,†though of course, that often means a huge jump in property taxes.
Well, duh. The people in Beverly Hills taxed themselves for better schools for their kids. If their money should go to people on the outside who didn’t vote for more school taxes, then the folks of Beverly Hills would vote down their property taxes and use that money for private education.
Why do liberals feel so entitled to other people’s money? It’s sickening.
Poplock, you’re an idiot on this issue and spout off based on some biased preconcetions that had NOTHING to do with fact. NO the priciest areas surrounding Beverly Hills do NOT have the best schools, in fact, they’ve been neglected at the expense of massive building projects elsewhere. The buildings are old and in bad shape, while LAUSD has had had a hugely expensive building boom on the eastside, schools like the controversial Broad Performing Arts, Belmont, Contreras, etc.; Bernstein on the E. end of Hollywood is about as “west” as it gets, until the school on the former Ambassador site is built, and that’s not exactly a “rich, white” area either. This is on top of the budget cuts affecting teachers and classroom sizes: Celeste even linked to the LATimes story showing Fairfax, the school of the “rich hillsides,” with upto 40 kids per class IN a very old1930’s building with peeling paint, worn-down grass, etc. (They DID rehab a classic auditorium recently, though, but that’s it.)
MAYBE it’s precisely the fact that the people paying the most in taxes who have been neglected that is one of the things fueling the surge of a very militant bunch of Homeowner Associations in CD5. Where there are a handful of good elementary schools, but beyond that, they are really angry at the disparity they see between themselves and neighbors in Beverly Hills. (The comparison to the number of cops and response times between Beverly Hills and adjacent areas is another huge rallying cry for homeowner groups who tend to be older — the families with young kids often move to the suburbs or buck up for private schools.
However more ARE staying and enrolling their kids in the local schools like Emerson Middle, becoming very active; schools like Fairfax and Hamilton have excellent honors and magnet programs which have attracted some locals back, as well as those from around the city, but they’re still just about 7-10% white, majority Latino, then black, despite the demographics of the surrounding area. If the buildings and grounds were upgraded even close to Beverly Hills or what’s happened on the eastside of LAUSD, it would make a big difference in getting people to take another look. Because on the whole, these people are far from racist, genuinely embrace diversity as long as the schools are safe and clean and good, and in fact are far more liberal than in the suburbs in general or they would have moved there long ago.)
Ignorant know-nothings like Poplockerone dismissing all this as some deluded racism by rich white people shows what we are dealing with in this city.
And Woody, your comments also don’t address realities, just another stereotype from the OTHER side of the political spectrum, that people in L A are paying less taxes than in Beverly Hills. That is NOT the case: the issue about taxes rising when you move has to do with STATE Prop 13, which freezes taxes to a certain percent based on when you buy your home, but when you sell and buy ANOTHER one, your new taxes are based on the new purchase price. In fact, it’s people in Beverly Hills who are paying among the least in taxes for the kinds of homes they have, because so many are older folks who bought decades ago.
In an interesting exercise, involving another Beverly Hills controvery, the fate of the former Robinson-May dept. store at 9900 Wilshire, next to the Hilton, valuable because of its ginormous parking lot and land, Homeowner Assns. have been very vocal against a major project involving condos/ retail, etc., concerned with traffic. (The usual westside issue in addition to schools and cops.) The city was frustrated because they need tax revenue too, are hardly swimming in money as perceived, and noted that the angry homeowners in the hills North of Sunset Blvd. which made the biggest fuss — although they’re well north of the site — paid an average of just over $2,000/year in property taxes, or just over $40,000 for 22 homes, many mansions bought when $200,000 got you a large home that now sells for 10X that or more. Meanwhile, younger families buying into Beverly Hills OR LA adjacent areas, are paying at least $10,000/year taxes based on a $1 Mil purchase price. (This was a feature in the Beverly Hills Courier 1-2 years ago.) Now with the financing falling through on 9900, the whole issue is stalled anyway. But meanwhile, the city has lost that tax revenue and other retail and hotel taxes are down — another reason the permit problem is coming at a financially sensitive time for the city.
I’m sure in AL where you live people would expect to have terrific schools for a purchase price of $1 Mil, wouldn’t they, Woody? OK, now tell us why liberals are stupid to be putting up with this and how YOU would have fixed it. On second thought, you don’t have to tell us, we know.
SBL, I don’t live in Alabama, but I am leaving for Tuscaloosa in about an hour. In that state, good schools are in towns and counties that support the schools. In areas that don’t spend money on schools and create waste, the schools aren’t up to par. That’s the way it goes.
It sounds as if the State of California has really messed up the tax situation in Beverly Hills, like it has messed up everything else. I’m surprised, if I understand you correctly, that taxpayers cannot vote or have to pay more for local school bonds. Something’s not right about that. I also wonder how much of the property tax goes to the state versus stays with the city.
One way to solve your problem is to elect people who will run the state correctly and not interfere in local school affairs.
A better suggestion is for you to move to Alabama.
Woody, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here — are you actually objecting that California RESTRICTS voters’ ability to vote for MORE taxes? If it makes you happy, LAUSD IS wanting to call in some bonds which would add $1000/year to property taxes, but would do nothing to improve the situation. As I said, Property taxes are pegged statewide.
Because of the disparities that exist, many liberals want to abolish Prop 13 altogether, which would mean everyone’s taxes rise as their property values do: so those lucky old people who got a $2-3 Mil home for $200,000 in the early 70’s and are paying a pittance, would see their property values soar to 1.2% I THINK, with annual increases (not 1% as I implied earlier), or $12,000 per mil = $24-30,000/year up. However, this jump would be so precipitous, many would lose their homes, and a jump of this magnitude without any increase in services in the near future (and frankly, there seems no awareness by LAUSD except Tamar Galatzan, or other leadership that the westside IS being treated unfairly, so most would probably react as does Poplock, and regard this extra money as a “bank” to use elsewhere in the city), would fuel a huge outcry. AND massive sell-offs and a plunge in property values statewide…some tweaking seems necessary, but with the politically polarized Assembly we’ve got, nothing sane seems likely in the near future.
Yeah, SBL or WBC, whomever you are, I would object if my state said that our county voters couldn’t spend more money for our schools. It’s none of their business.
In fact, we spent so much that the BoE had enough to construct a new school that has never been used and is boarded up. (Great planning, guys.) Houses for sale in the area typically have signs saying that the house is within our school district rather than the sorry bordering ones. The county also has to investigate and throw out a couple of hundred students every year whose parents register with a false address but don’t really live in the county.
The difference between those slobs and us is that we voted to make our schools better with special taxes. They didn’t. It was important to us and shows our priorities vs. those of people who will serve french fries the rest of their lives.
California is too messed up. I suggest that the state throw out its constitution and adopt Alabama’s as its new one. But, we all know that California is imploding, and no one in position to make changes is going to make them. So, at some point, the state will declare bankruptcy and have to be bailed out by the rest of the country – not that I want to.
What a timely article!
55% Say Better for California To Go Bankrupt Than Be Bailed Out
I was just thinking…if the state goes bankrupt, all of its union contracts are voided. Talk about getting rid of an albatross around your neck….
Whatever. Your going on about how people who pay more in taxes have better schools than their neighbors and v.v. is exactly counter to what’s happening in this case, but don’t let facts confuse you — like Poplock, you’ve got your dogmas and will stick to them.
As far as your other frequent rant, that you’re subsidizing CA, we’re a donor state, paying a lot more to DC than we get back, which is one of our problems — so your endless griping about how you think you’re subsidizing CA is way off base.
However, it is true that a majority of residents may think we’re better off declaring bankruptcy and voiding all union contracts and starting from scratch — something we’re hearing more and more at the local level in L A, too, where we’re in an almost similar situation, or may be by next year. (With the state raiding our local gas taxes as it cuts educational funding, etc.) Throwing up our hands and inviting bankruptcy doesn’t sound sensible to me, but it reflects the helplessness and exasperation people feel.
Somewhere I added that some communities waste their money – like paying too much to union teachers – and incompetency and politics. So, they may spend more money on schools, but they waste it. Generally, everything else being equal, the more money that a school has the better it can be.
California is a donor state? Well, the donor state wants $8 billion fron the recipient states.
You get so little for your money.
Yeah woody, we do seem to get too little for our money, and our legislature sure should have balanced the books and put aside for a rainy day, any number of things. But on a local level, as far as LA schools vs. Beverly Hills, the fact is we have a lot more poor people to support: even Beverly Hills’
‘poor’ are working middle class. As Steve Lopez or Tim Rutten put it in an article a while back, we have a lot more “who need” vs. those who have lots to give, than a small boutique town like Beverly Hills. And so this situation.
By comparison, I don’t know if there are still really wealthy areas of Atlanta proper, say, or maybe there, everyone’s already in Buckhead or Cobb County — leaving the “urban core” to rot. Certainly there’s much more of a sense there and many other cities, that one drives into the city to a museum or to work, but then goes “home.” This is pretty much the mentality of parts of ‘the valley’ and many do want to secede for that reason, but they ARE still a part of the city of L A.
LA is a much more integrated and vital city in that regard, where he have suburban areas IN the city and that is much of what makes them so appealing, and why people stay, to have the “excitement and diversity” without having to drive miles from some bedroom community: but still, we’re definitely feeling the economic tension, frankly, vs. the small cities surrounding us, including Santa Monica or West Hollywood even.
In return, though, I don’t think Beverly Hills and these other little towns are weighing into consideration enough what THEY get from us: our world-class museums, policies which create affordable housing and offer social services and mass transit to their maids and gardeners and nannies, proximity to Hollywood and jobs, and a great deal more. The condescending attitude from resident parents, as though “permit people” were beggars all of a sudden, is wrong.
Atlanta suffered white flight at one time, but people are moving back in and taking over what used to be slums and are rehabilitating the houses. So, in those areas, the schools are good. The parents have a lot to do with that.
On the other hand, schools that serve primarily blacks have great facilities but don’t have great results and they suffer from crime, too. My daughter lives in a neighborhood that borders on downtown and she substitutes at various schools, but I don’t want her going back to a top-flight city high school after some shootings there.
I understand about suburbs mooching off the central city. I’ve been there and didn’t like it, but that’s their right. In our area, we’re now seeing all the unincorporated areas going one step further by becoming pretty large towns in their own right, just to get out from under the sorry county commission and running their schools and goverment with more bang for the buck. BTW, they are contracting with private services versus doing a lot of the work themselves.
I’m in Tuscaloosa right now, and to give you an idea of what’s going on here, they have already announced school closings because of snow that’s predicted for Thursday. As a result of the weather, the football game apparently has been moved to L.A., thus I will be tailgating alone.
More on school problems:
Celeste, you’re right BTW to note that BHUSD’s enrollment had been down in recent years because so many chose private schools. Test scores had been significantly down, but last year significantly back up, and I’ve been hearing and reading about how that too is a factor in wanting to limit class sizes. Stats show that 36% of students are foreign born, mostly Persians; non-Persian whites make up 40%, blacks only 5%, Latinos 4% and Asians 17%. Until recently the Persian students hadn’t scored as highly as historically on English proficiency tests, and socially too, there’s been a sometimes tense split between the newcomers and longer term residents, many also Jewish, but with a cultural divide. This is something few want to admit.
Woody, yes of course satellite towns like Beverly Hills have the right to do as they wish, but what irks me is the lack of awareness or appreciation by many that they benefit greatly from proximity to LA in terms of jobs, culture, prestige and social services including schooling, which enable THEM to maintain their affluent lifestyle.
If a tornado came and scooped up Beverly Hills whole and transplanted it more than 15 mins. from LA, instead of being splat in the middle of it, no one would go to Beverly Hills’ famed shops or hotels, etc. It would be “just another nice little town.” So pulling up the bridges over the moat whenever it suits them, but promoting themselves based on attractions in L A which our residents subsidize, just fuels these tensions.
what a self centered wannabe snob.
you make peons look bad.
I hear you can get a great hotel room in Newport Beach for the price of your Beverly Hills home or your Cheviott Hills ch̢teau. You would just have to put up with THOSE Spanish Speaking people from Santa Ana trying to sneak into your school district. THEY dont pay REAL property taxes on THOSE small little homes РTHEY are just renters. You know, the poor people.
Why don’t the parents of the students on Opportunity Permits file a class-action Equal Protection lawsuit using Serrano-Priest as the basis for the suit? I thought all students in CA public schools were to be treated equally? I thought property taxes and the wealth of a community was not to be the basis of a good public education in CA. Hmmm… Beverly Hills and Irvine have more money per pupil than minority communities? Things never change. Where’s the ACLU? MALDEF?