Schools: August 2007 Archives

In a split vote, L.A. Unified's new school board agreed to pay health benefits to part-time cafeteria workers - a decision that will cost the cash-strapped district $105 million over three years and could force layoffs of other workers to cover the expense. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

Board members who voted against the plan Tuesday said it could set a dangerous precedent and open the floodgates for other unions demanding full health benefits for their members.

Since the district's preliminary budget has already been submitted to county education officials without the benefits package, Superintendent David Brewer III has about a week to find $30 million in his 2007-08 budget to pay for the first year of the plan. The district's budget must be finalized by Sept. 10.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. Unified leaders Wednesday touted their "historic" partnership as the key to transform the city's most-challenged schools and the catalyst to reform the entire beleaguered school district. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

The product of months of negotiations between the mayor's education team and the school district, the plan calls for Villaraigosa to manage two families of schools under a five-year contract.

If the schools don't meet goals for test scores, graduation and dropout rates, they'll be forced out of the partnership.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to announce as early as Wednesday plans for a major partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District that would give him control over two groups of low-performing schools. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

The plan would include significant support from teachers and communities in order to deflect opposition from the teachers union, and would give each school in the group greater local control.

The partnership, details of which have not been officially released, falls short of Villaraigosa's initial goals of having a key role in running the nation's second-largest school district with direct control of three clusters of schools.

]Seeking to elevate performance at Los Angeles Unified schools, Superintendent David Brewer III said Friday that he will hold administrators accountable for the first time with new evaluations, dropout and test-score benchmarks, and districtwide reviews. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

In his first official back-to-school address to thousands of administrators, Brewer vowed a cultural revolution this year in the 708,000-student district.

"Failure will no longer be an option at LAUSD," he told nearly 2,000 principals, assistant principals and LAUSD administrators gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Fewer English-language learners in Los Angeles schools are passing the California High School Exit Exam on the first try, even though the overall student passing rate remains relatively steady, according to results released Thursday. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

The number of L.A. Unified School District English-learners who passed the English portion of the exam on their first try dropped to just 27percent - down from 49percent two years ago and 30percent last year.

Just 32percent passed the math portion of the test, down from 47percent in 2005 and 34percent last year.

The drops reflect a statewide decline among English-learners, with just 36percent of California's 10th-grade English-learners passing the English portion of the test - down from 42percent in 2005.

Four hours after arriving at her Los Angeles hotel from the Philippines, a jet-lagged Lolita Magno was thrown into a nonstop schedule of orientations, training sessions, paperwork and getting documents both for her new life in America and her new job teaching science at a Los Angeles Unified school. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

Despite pangs of homesickness and the uncertainties of a foreign environment, Magno knows she's begun a three-year journey that will offer her invaluable experience and knowledge she'll take back to her students in the Philippines.

Los Angeles Unified's teachers union stepped into district-reform efforts this week, proposing a charter-like model that would give campuses greater control over budgets, hiring and curriculum. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

If it gains support, the United Teachers Los Angeles model would become the only formally approved alternative to the increasingly popular charter-school movement, which has drawn interest from more than a dozen San Fernando Valley schools.

Under the union's proposal, schools would receive at least 95 percent of funding from the district but would also get full control over expenditures, hiring, curriculum, class schedules and professional development.

Los Angeles Unified students made little academic improvement in test results released Wednesday as district officials acknowledged that significant work lies ahead in getting all students prepared for college. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

More than two-thirds of district students in nearly all grade levels are not proficient in English-language arts, according to 2007 Standardized Testing and Reporting, or STAR, results.

And while more students achieved proficiency in math - particularly in the elementary grades - the numbers still lag far behind those typical in the state.

Test results also showed no inroads in efforts to reduce racial achievement gaps.

Tracking one of the biggest educational issues facing Los Angeles, five teams of high school students Friday released results of their own study into why students drop out. Daily News.

The findings, from surveys of dozens of students, showed common themes ranging from a lack of engaged teachers and student boredom to frustration and outside community pressures.

A high dropout rate - anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to various studies - has plagued the Los Angeles Unified School District.

With city officials and celebrities creating a splash of summer scandals, the Los Angeles Unified School District is setting out to teach all of its employees how to distinguish between right and wrong. Naush Boghossian in the Daily News.

And leaders of the behemoth public institution, which is occasionally pelted for lapses in ethical standards, hope a new $25,000 ethics-training video will be one of the keys.

The 30-minute video, created as a mock television show, raises ethical questions that fall into what it dubs "The Gray Zone."