Schools: June 2007 Archives

In a move expected to spur Los Angeles Unified and other districts across the country to re-evaluate racial-integration programs, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday restricted the use of race in assigning students to schools. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.

The 5-4 ruling from Washington, D.C., leaves the door open for the limited use of race to achieve diversity in schools, but some decried the decision as a step toward weakening landmark integration reforms of five decades ago.

Analysts also said the sharply split decision in two cases, affecting students assigned to schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials said they are still reviewing the cases with outside legal counsel but believe the decision should have no immediate effect on the district's current court-ordered integration plan.

LAUSD General Counsel Kevin Reed said the district is operating under a court-ordered integration plan, dating back to 1982, that has already been upheld by the U.S. Suipreme Court.

Outgoing school board member David Tokofsky will be honored Tuesday by the Board of Education for his years of service to the district. Tokofsky decided against seeking re-election this year and he is being succeeded by Yolie Flores Aguilar.

Tokofsky, whose district stretches from Atwater, and Los Feliz, to Highland Park, East Los Angeles, and South Gate, was elected to the Board of Education in 1995. He is a former high school history teacher who led Marshall High School to national victory in the 1987 U.S. Academic Decathlon.

During his term, Tokofsky initiated policies that resulted in the establishment of Full-Day Kindergarten, creation of an Inspector General's Office, the creation of a Citizen's Bond Oversight Committee and creation of the Human Relations Commission. Additionally, Tokofsky advocated on behalf of the District to secure $1 billion dollars for
state textbooks, and $50 million dollars of Measure K funding for Early Childhood Education Expansion.

It happens every day in the hectic metropolis of Los Angeles, and all signs are that it's getting worse.

Someone cuts you off on the freeway.

Someone's curt on the phone, at a store, at work.

Someone speaks loudly on a cell phone in a restaurant, sharing details of a life you don't care to hear about. Or smokes upwind of you on the patio of a coffee shop.

Rudeness is part of life in many big cities but Los Angeles surely ranks near the top - from road rage to the cold indifference of government bureaucrats when dealing with the public.

Now the Los Angeles Unified School District is taking aim at its own surly workers with new programs to boost "welcome-ness" - inspired by a position created at other school districts as the "director of first impressions." Naush Boghossian n the Daily News.

It's the brainchild of new Superintendent David Brewer, who wants all parents who walk in the front door of a school to feel "welcome and respected."

And he hopes to accomplish that broad task with Los Angeles-area business relaying their customer-service training to all school office personnel, administrators and teachers.

After more than two hours of debate, the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to renew the charter for Discovery Prep in Pacoima for a year. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

Then, a short time later, frustrated, tired and confused, the board negated its vote and postponed a new decision until later.

Charter renewal for Woodland Hills' Ivy Academia was next on the agenda and got a one-year extension after 20 minutes of discussion.

The trouble is Ivy - LAUSD's highest-performing independent charter school - lost out on a $1.2 million state grant that required a longer extension.

Those are just examples of issues facing LAUSD as it deals with the booming charter school movement.

The school board lacks a coherent policy toward charters so its actions are often arbitrary even as the debate on education reform becomes increasingly politicized.

With the debate continuing over the value of charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, staff writer Naush Boghossian in today's Daily News looks at the results of their first graduating classes.

Charter schools, the independent campuses that mostly serve communities with sociological challenges, are touting their graduation successes, with the majority of their students going on to college.

Discovery Charter Preparatory School in Pacoima, one of two charter high schools in the San Fernando Valley, is sending almost two-thirds of its 70 seniors to four-year colleges.

Ninety-nine percent of Discovery's students are on free-and-reduced lunch, 59percent are English learners and 96percent are Latino, Executive Director Matthew Macarah said.

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In his first State of the Schools address since taking the helm of Los Angeles Unified, Superintendent David Brewer III unveiled an ambitious, wide-ranging strategy Thursday to radically revamp the culture and structure of the nation's second-largest school district. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

Presenting a unified front with the mayor and school board, Brewer outlined five guiding principles that will form the backbone of efforts to boost everything from achievement and community involvement to parental support and curriculum.

Brewer conveyed a spirit of hope and optimism and said he's learned that improvements in safety, student achievement and graduation rates can only be achieved through partnerships with the city, cultivating relationships and engaging the community.

Implicitly admitting its antagonism to the charter school movement has failed, United Teachers Los Angeles now wants to unionize their faculties and push for more independence in the classroom. Staff writer Naugh Boghossian examines the new union strategy in today's Daily News.

UTLA President A.J. Duffy says the union has created a committee to study how it can organize charter schools created by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"We have come to the realization that we need to look at organizing teachers at charter schools," Duffy said. "It's not just organizing charter school personnel, which we have an internal committee looking at. It's pushing the reforms that we've been pushing for two years including local control of schools."

With 103 charter schools in operation at the LAUSD - a number expected to grow to more than 150 in two years - UTLA has watched many of its teachers leave traditional public schools. Many of those who remain have demanded the same classroom freedom offered by the charters.

And in what may be a critical first step, charter powerhouse Steve Barr, head of Green Dot Public Schools, is in talks with UTLA as he works to convert the troubled Locke High School into a charter.

Barr's teachers are members of the California Teachers Association,the umbrella organization of UTLA, and are among the few unionized teachers at LAUSD.

With momentum growing for drastic reform at Los Angeles public schools driven by the superintendent and mayor, the politically powerful teachers union finds itself on the front lines of a potentially divisive battle.

United Teachers Los Angeles' own crew of reform leaders is walking a tightrope between privately backing reform efforts it has long sought, while publicly defending the rights of a rank-and-file that is being described as staunchly rigid and unaccepting of change. Staff writer Naush Boghossian looks at the issue in today's Daily News.

Led by President A.J. Duffy, the small team of advisers is keenly aware that it must quickly and smoothly work to engender the support of its membership or risk jeopardizing the unprecedented alignment of leaders to spark a revolution at the beleaguered school district.

After decades of failed reforms, achievement scores lagging well behind the state averages and dropout rates estimated between 24 percent and 50 percent, the lives of more than 708,000 students and teachers hang in the balance - and with that, the health of the city itself.

Now, here's a new way to get kids to stay in school _ bribe them..

Administrators at Crenshaw High School will announce plans on Thursday to give away two new Toyotas next year to two students who graduate as part of it's Excel in School program.

The rules and student eligibility requirements will be given out on what is required. One hopes that gettinig A's is at least part of the requirement.