At Superintendent John Deasy’s urging, the Los Angeles school board last spring voted to restructure Crenshaw High because of its low test scores.
The school will be divided into magnets.
All of the staff had to reapply for their jobs.
Curiously, the veteran teachers who were most outspoken in their criticism of the restructuring were not rehired.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a former teacher in LAUSD, I can vouch for the fact that all teachers who stand up or speak out are shut down and sometimes punished. It’s a dirty district and needs someone to come in and clean house of the tyrants with power.
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LAUSD always goes after those who stick their head up. I had the California State Auditor audit LAUSD for Falsely Charging Teachers with False Charges of Child Abuse for Whistle Blowing. It is the only time a person has ever had LAUSD audited by the State. The audit is Nov. 1997, 96121. The situation is worse now than then and is against the agreement between LAUSD and the State of California. A friend now has a data base of over 600 teachers falsely accused or terminated or about to be terminated illegally without “Due Process.” If you make waves, are at the top of the salary scale or about to vest in lifetime benefits within the “Rule of 80” which is the combination of your age and years working for LAUSD. When you reach the rule of 80 you have lifetime health and retirement benefits. LAUSD would rather have a 5 week wonder from TFA who might stay 2 years and then leave which means they have no health benefits or retirement benefits after they leave. Win, win, win on the money side and lose, lose, lose on the student education side. Deasy being who he is and controlled by who he is has the preprogamming from the Broad Academy and the Gates Foundation to rip and tear the district apart and to hell with the students and our community. This coming from a guy with a phony PHD and work record who is hired by the Gates Foundation one week after he quits his job when the phony PHD stories are first in print. What does that say about their ethics? They stink. PLAS, the mayor Villaraigosa’s schools, just did the same to a very popular teacher at Santee High School. Can’t have those pesky teachers who the student love stay around now can we?
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The courageous stand tall and apply wisdom to win the war.
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John Deasy himself, and others like him, are a big part of the problem. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times Magazine, he told the reporter how he taught for a couple of years but knew that teaching was not “enough” for him. So he set his sights on greener pastures (i.e. more money, power and prestige). As long as he and other citizens hold the work of teachers in such low regard, we should not expect to see improvements for the children of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
As for nearby (high-scoring) Palos Verdes, Beverly Hills and San Marino, well, THEIR teachers are “the best.” The leaders of these districts (who have legitimate degrees) want to be first in line again to hire the best qualified teachers when the next shortage hits. They NEVER shame their teachers.
For the Board members of LAUSD, here is some advice if they truly want to raise achievement for the students in your district:
Hire a well-qualified superintendent with an excellent track record AS AN EDUCATOR and a legitimate doctorate from a university with an excellent reputation (Columbia, NYU, Berkeley etc.). Advise this person to treat the teachers with the greatest respect and provide them with the resources that they need to be successful. In this way, when it’s time to hire teachers, the district might be at the front of the line.
The Los Angeles Unified School District has some of the best teachers in the state but John Deasy, with his fake degree, does not realize it.
Within the next few years, Deasy will be exposed for what he is, and he will be out. Hopefully, the district will choose more wisely next time.
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“. . . if they truly want to raise achievement for the students in your district:”
If a superintendent applicant “wants to raise the achievement for the students” then I would throw his/her application into the trash and look for someone who wants to see the teaching and learning process improved especially for those few teachers who may need the extra help.
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If “the teaching and learning process improved especially for those few teachers who may need extra help,” wouldn’t that improve the achievement for the students?
We are truly in a “stupid period” in American education.
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The sad thing is everyone knows what the district is doing and the state, the Feds, do nothing.Our veteran teachers are being targeted, our special Ed students are being dumped into overcrowded classes, our union is missing in any type of action, it’s bad man.The up side, blogs like yours and BT which unite educators around the country and let us know we aren’t alone in this fight for public education. in solidarity with all teachers!
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I don’t know the specifics of that district other than what is reported in this commentary. However, in our district, which has achieved Excellence with Distinction for 5 years, there is definitely a “rolling of the eyes” at the older teachers. They force feed professional development in half hour sessions, tell us that we will have to figure it out ourselves, and to include what we glean in our lesson plans, which are lengthy and cumbersome for elementary teachers. There is simply NO PATIENCE for anyone who isn’t quickly adept at new computer programs or who doesn’t wish to spend hours and hours dealing with the changes in their “spare time”. I was one who worked on things despite not being a child of the X-Box generation. But, they made our lives rather miserable with little support that was sincere. We got holiday and end of year pats on the back for working hard. The truth is, the older teachers’ opinions no longer mattered much at all. They’d rather listen to someone new who was willing to fall lock-step into the “changes” that made no sense in the manner of implementation. We succeeded in our district, not because of the changes, but in spite of them. We found ways to teach what we knew was best, regardless of inserting programs like Lucy Calkins Writing into the curriculum. We were forced to use the primary level DRA kit even though in 4th grade the approach is different. And we were observed on our ability to implement the kit in a way that wasn’t possible at our level since there weren’t sufficient periodic tests after 3rd grade. No matter, we had to do it, and if not, we were insubordinate or trying to fight “the changes”. It was so disgusting. And exhausting. And unhealthy. And depressing.
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The older teachers have no patience for “anyone who isn’t quickly adept at new computer programs”?
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Deb,
“Older” teachers have the same responsibilities and workloads as newer teachers. Actually more because they are given the most challenging students, extra responsibilities, and expected to mentor new teachers with 0 extra pay or hours. If you need additional support, I suggest you talk to someone who is paid to do this. It’s called an administrator.
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OMG. Misunderstood. I didn’t say that the older teachers didn’t have patience. The administrators and trainers didn’t. They gave us minimal training and then we had to spend HOURS figuring things out on our own. The younger teachers were a little faster but they were just as frustrated. The administrators didn’t care. They couldn’t even do the things we were expected to do. They just said, “Do it” and “I want it in your plans starting next week” and gave no one support.
I wasn’t saying that the older teachers didn’t work on things but the paltry sum that we received from RttT only paid for the bare bones of Prof Dev. So our district dabbled in as many different ideas as possible. I attended all the classes, on my own time, in the summer. I tried to do as much as I could given the fact that I wasn’t raised on using a computer or video game consoles. I did fine.
Many didn’t. do so well. They needed much more assistance and it just wasn’t there. They moved so fast that it was next to impossible. In any case there was NO respect for teachers’ opinions. There was NO input from the veteran teachers. They just kept making us feel more and more like we were in the wrong profession becauise we weren’t young and fast enough for them. All of us over 50 have now retired, except the art teacher. We did their biddiing. We got nearly 100% passage rates. We met AYP. But, they wore us down. We didn’t and don’t believe this testing is good for children.
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Teachers who exercise their Freedom of Speech are punished. A teacher in my district who had a child in our district shared her opinion at a school board meeting. She was told by the school board president, ” Need I remind you young lady, who pays your salary? In June that year she was assigned to a different school & grade level for the following school year which was not her preference.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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You must be a brown nosing lap dog to be treated like you matter … and it is just unconscionable.
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Do the citizens ever learn the real reason for restructuring Crenshaw? Superintendents and school boards use test scores to generate community discontent, leading them to believe they can do whatever they want to “save” the failing school, including big contracts with “consultants” (their friends) and big purchases of technology. Where’s the political discourse? Where are the real journalists? Has everyone been bought off by the Gates Foundation and Wal-Mart? Why do we never learn about the reasons for restructurings and closings?
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