And while we’re on the subject of LAUSD and it’s….little problem…when it comes to giving up control of ANYTHING….EVER, with all the hug-hug, kiss-kiss going on between Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the newly-reconstituted, Reforms R Us school board, it was widely assumed that Antonio would be given control of a “cluster” of schools this fall. In fact, this past Thursday he said in an interview that, come September, he fully expected to be overseeing one of the city’s low-performing high schools and the middle and elementary schools that feed into it.
(FYI: that’s what everyone means when they say “cluster.” Although, more and more, the term when applied to the school board seems to call up…well….oh, never mind.)
Oooops. Seems not. On Friday, Sup/Admiral Brewer and LAUSD board Prez Marlene Cantor explained that, no, they couldn’t possibly fork over the cluster in 2007, that it would be at least 2008 before such a hand off could take place.
“There’s a process to this,” said Brewer, “and it’s about autonomy and choice, and one of the things about choice is you have to go in and work with the faculties and communities to convince them to partner with you…….” Yadda, yadda, yadda. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Whatever.
According to Naush Boghossian at the Daily News (who is usually spot on with such matters), the mayor’s office has since been busy putting little smiley faces on the mess. (What the mayor really meant is we’d start the planning process in September. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Planning process is what we said all along.)
It’s not that we think the mayor’s got some magic bullet exactly. But the reality is, when and if he ever does get his cluster there will be tons of public and political of pressure on him to show marked improvement in the schools under his care, so it’s likely Antonio will be at least moderately innovative. And for the rest of us, it’s a clear case of ABTWWG—Anything’s Better Than What We’ve Got.
But, instead, it’s another delay, another excuse, another promise. And nothing new happens in LA schools. Again.
To continue with Pokey’s analogy, expecting government to correct its own problems is like asking L.A. gangs to clean up their act.
The Daily News sure missed the real story on this one: It’s not the Mayor who “flunked” but Supe/Adm. Brewer and Kanter, who refuse to let the Mayor take charge of his “cluster” before more than another whole year is wasted, so that MAV can’t possibly have a chance to look good on this school reform issue during his current term as Mayor. Even if he gets control of school(s) starting 9/08, that will be too late to show any results.
And of course, the LAUSD can’t can’t anyone showing them up, or actually doing a good job educating the kids. In NYC the teacher’s union fairly quickly approved Green Dot to run a charter school similar to what they wanted to do here, and have shown good results doing, but UTLA shot them down: IF they can’t do a good job, no one else will be allowed to,
For Brewer and Kanter to claim that no one is ready to accept the Mayor’s help now is hogwash. He already had some private funding and significant community support lined up, and with the spotlight shining on them, the selected schools would be lucky indeed.
The real problem is, Brewer had no qualifications for the job except his much-touted “enthusiasm,” his top-down military approach to problems (just the opposite of what’s needed), and Kanter’s open assertion that he can stand up to the Mayor in the “charisma” and ego departments. Well, ego he and Kanter have aplenty, but we’re paying this guy 400K a year to learn about education from the ground up, and after 8 months (about 300K plus expenses), he unveiled a bold plan to… authorize a study. And now, they have to study and stall the Mayor some more.
Meanwhile, the district is so broke that Brewer is laying off hundreds of people left and right, and wants to charge community groups to use school facilities after school (the brand-new pools won’t open all summer at all — when those could probably be profitable for a minimal usage fee). Such after-school programs are exactly the kinds of things that keep kids off the streets, busy and learning and socializing and of gangs — no doubt, much more cost-effectively than anything the City can concoct with all its bureaucracy.
When are the media going to lay blame where it belongs: On the inflated, pompous and power-hogging egos of Brewer and Marlene Kanter, and the “leadership” of UTLA?
Though I am largely in agreement about how screwed up LAUSD is, let me point to one thing they do right: the highly-gifted magnet at North Hollywood High School, which routinely sends EVERY ONE of its graduates to college — with well more than half usually going to the top-tier UCs (primarily Berkeley and UCLA), Ivies, and other top-25 private schools.
Granted these are very, very smart kids (that’s why they call it a highly-gifted magnet), but it’s a guarantee that they would not be succeeding as well if they were mainstreamed. The success of the enterprise owes largely to the efforts of the HGM coordinator (Phyllis Spadafora) and the support of NHHS’s principal (Randy Delling), and to the excellent work of the HGM’s faculty, who provide the kids with an education that is every bit the equal of what they’d be getting at Harvard-Westlake if they could afford it. Major kudos to LAUSD for keeping the HGM open in the face of those who would say everyone should be treated the same.
Oh, and by the way: if you think LAUSD is screwed up, you should take a look at St. Louis.
I’m sure St. Louis is screwed up, but sorry, my dear, no one on the national scene is scrutinizing them, like they are LA.
As for the N Hollywood magnet: you mention one principle and a unique situation, which has existed long before the Kanter/ Brewer power-grab show.
I don’t know the details of this school, but I’ll make one observation re: a graduate: at a recent alumni event of my Ivy League school (don’t want to be too specific here) there was one guy around mid-20’s who was good-looking, articulate and who fit in every other way, except: he had a nervous twitch, and kept looking over his shoulder. When confronted he said he’d been trying to get over this ever since attending the N H’wd High gifted magnet, where the “smart” kids were just snacks waiting to be eaten up by the rest of the population — at lunch, recess, every time they were out of their insular classes. He learned how to fight and “act tough” to avoid getting beaten up and insulted all the time, but he literally always had to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to get attacked. He may as well have been describing the state pen.
He’d have loved to get out of that environment, if he could have afforded it, but his family was poor. My college gave him a scholarship, and he has the education all right — and the lifelong fear of being attacked, belittled and worse for being “smart.” Seems this social issue is one the magnet hasn’ dealt with — and I hear there’s a similar problem at Walter Reed middle school (tho the kids are younger and not quite as hardened yet), which has a gifted magnet also.
Excellent analysis, Maggie. Frankly it hadn’t occurred to me that Brewer and Kanter were specifically putting off the handover so AV couldn’t show results during his first term. But, now that you’ve said it, I suspect you’re dead on.
I’ve been trying to give Brewer the benefit of the doubt, but after this last stunt, I’m over it.
Great comment. Keep ’em coming.
(And, although I was out of town when the Green Dot/NY deal was sign, I’ll indeed be blogging about it, since it points beyond itself to a world of issues.)
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Bob, you are so, so right about No Ho and the magnet system in general. It’s the one genuine jewel in the LAUSD system. (My son went to Portola, the highly gifted middle school in Reseda.) That’s precisely why the Seattle/Louisville Supreme Court decision of last week was so alarming. Some legal analysts think our magnets are protected by state law, but I’ve seen evidence as of this morning indicating that conservative groups are going to file against LAUSD and Berkeley magnet systems ASAP and they believe they can win.
Celeste, my understanding is that the Supreme Ct. opinion does not apply to schools/districts operating under existing court orders — which is precisely the situation with the LAUSD magnet schools. Thus as far as I know, the LA magnets are safe from that particular attack. (I could, of course, be wrong; it happens.)
Oh, and both of my kids also went to the highly-gifted middle school at Portola; it was then, and it remains, a terrific school.