A group of parents, teachers, and scholars wrote a petition to the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is hiring Teach for America to supply inexperienced teachers for students with disabilities. It is astonishing that the board would want to place young college graduates into classrooms with students who need well-trained teachers, not youngsters with five weeks of training.
PETITION
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/lausd-rescind-the-tfa?source=c.em.cp&r_by=856483
Cancel the contract that pays TFA to recruit untrained interns to teach our vulnerable special education students. Identify reputable programs to recruit graduates and student teachers who are committed to the teaching profession, to our schools and our students.
The long version–
This is to urge the LAUSD school board to immediately rescind its contract with TFA for special education services. Our most vulnerable students deserve the most qualified professionals possible.
Los Angeles Unified School District ratified a contract with Teach For America to provide trainees to fill 25 teaching positions in special education at its November 10, 2015 board meeting. There was no debate on the matter; it was hidden in the consent calendar with attachments of attachments buried deep.
While Board member Dr. George McKenna raised important questions about TFA’s retention rate and its commitment to our students, the answers he was provided were misleading because they rely on unchecked data from TFA itself, according to a report in American Prospect (1/5/15). The truth is 87% of TFA recruits plan to leave teaching after their internships end, according to a recent article in Bloomberg News (3/9/15). LAUSD was only the most recent stop by TFA on a statewide campaign over the last few months making the same claims about the need for special ed TFAers. Most school districts from Chula Vista to Santa Ana resisted the sales job after public outcry. But those districts held actual discussions about the controversial contracts with TFA.
LAUSD senior staff needs to go back to the drawing board to create partnerships with reputable teaching programs to recruit teachers who will be qualified on Day 1 and are likely to remain committed to the teaching profession.
TFA is one of the tools that Eli Broad is using to attack our schools and undermine the very fabric of the public school system in Los Angeles (his foundation is a top funder of TFA). Our elected leaders just endorsed that by approving this contract. It should be rescinded immediately.
We are a coalition of public education advocates that includes:
Tina Andres, Santa Ana Unified teacher and special education parent
Jameson Brewer, PhD, former TFA
Anthony Cody, co-founder/board member Network for Public Education
Paul Markowitz, teacher and principal, retired
Josh Leibner, National Board Certified Teacher
Ellen Lubic, Joining Forces for Education
Carl Petersen, Change the LAUSD
Betty Jo Ravitz, former teacher and Director of Music
Sari Rynew, retired teacher
Robert Skeels, Juris Doctor Candidate and public education advocate
Julian Vasquez Heilig, PhD, Cloaking Inequity
Karen Wolfe, PSconnect
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Thanks Diane for this post…and please everyone who reads this, sign the petition.
Not only is the BoE of LAUSD doing such reprehensible things like hiring the ‘5 week wonders,’ TFA kids, to teach the vulnerable Special Ed students who require the most highly trained teachers….this BoE actually is considering among their Supt. candidates the most egregious choices possible, including John King, Marshal Tuck, Paul Vallas, and many other avowed charter school supporters… the worst in the nation.
What is wrong with this group of elected, and non elected, LAUSD officials that they continue to waste taxpayers money, and cast aside informed community voices in favor of supporting the desired outcomes of the privatizers?
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“John King, Marshal Tuck, Paul Vallas”
Once you’re in the club, you’re a member for life and virtually guaranteed employment.
How many times are they planning on recycling Paul Vallas? This will be, what, the 4th set of city schools he’s privatized?
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Thank you for posting our petition. We gathered over 400 signatures the first day!
This contract is a death a thousand cuts. TFA is one of the tools that Eli Broad is using to attack our schools and undermine the very fabric of the public school system in Los Angeles (his foundation is a top funder of TFA). Our elected leaders just endorsed that by approving this contract. We need to urge them to correct that and rescind it immediately.
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If this was a buried line item as the petition says, we will be able to see whether this was an oversight, a compromise, a mistake, or worse by the board’s reaction.
Further, I understood the superintendent search process was confidential. The Eli Times posted a list of candidates that included Vallas, Tuck, and King. Their little dream list, I suppose.
With all respect, Ellen, I wasn’t aware that we know who the board is considering. Am I missing something?
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See LASR article last week, Art Ed….
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Thanks for the reply, and thank you for all that you do to keep a watch on this. And to help form the petition!
Looked at LASR and simply cannot find it anywhere that the board has confirmed they are looking at those frightening people.
Everything that I have read reaffirms that this is a confidential search.
Can you post the link to the article you mentioned? If that is written somewhere, I am anxious to read it!
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I read their article and there was link to 43 candidates with photos. I will try to find it. May have mentioned the link here too. Let’s both hunt for it. It almost gave me a heart attack.
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Here you go, Art Ed….read the links…first one is the 43 candidates. But you have to go to LASR site to open the links. And yes, Caprice Young is a candidate it seems. Please let me know your thoughts after you check it all out.
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
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Young: Don’t rule out reform supporters for superintendent
Posted on November 6, 2015 3:30 pm by Craig Clough
Caprice Young
Caprice Young
Among the 43 people identified by the Los Angeles Times this week as potential candidates for LA Unified superintendent were nearly a dozen with a background in charter schools or the reform movement.
One of them was Caprice Young, a former president of the district school board, as well as a founder of charter schools, the former president of the California Charter Schools Association and the current CEO of Magnolia Public Schools.
With at least four of the current seven board members having expressed concerns about the rising tide of charters in the district, including a nearly half billion dollar plan by the Broad Foundation to double their number, was she surprised to see her name as a possible choice?
“I don’t know about surprised or not,” Young told LA School Report. “Overall I was exited about the candidates the LA Times came up with. I think there are a lot of good people on that list. I think everyone who is committed to the students of Los Angeles would be excited to be thought about in that context.”
Young said she had not been contacted by the board’s search committee about the job but didn’t think anyone would before the Nov. 10 board meeting when the results of an online survey and public forums about the search will be discussed.
The Broad plan is unpopular among board members for its potential impact to enroll half of all district students in charter schools, wiping out thousands of union jobs, draining district coffers and causing other extraordinary changes in district operations.
Young characterized the plan as not that big of a deal and said it should not be part of the discussion in a new superintendent.
“What I hope is that the school board isn’t going to make decisions on who will be the next superintendent based on if they are aligned with the Broad plan,” she said. “The real criteria should have to be if whether or not the candidate will be focused on the highest quality of education in Los Angeles, whether it is charter schools, traditional schools or magnet schools.”
She added that the Broad plan “shouldn’t be a litmus test. Frankly, a lot more than $500 million dollars has been spent in philanthropy to expand charter schools already.”
Asked whether the board might overcome hesitations to consider a candidate with a pro-charter background, Young said, “You are asking me to speculate about someone’s intentions. I have no idea.”
So does she think there’s a chance that someone like herself, former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa or Kaya Henderson, the chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools and a Michelle Rhee accolyte, would be considered, as the LA Times suggested?
“I hope so,” she said.
Young said she agrees with the major decisions the board has made so far regarding the public survey, public forums and keeping candidates names private. During her years on the board, she was involved in hiring two superintendents, Ramon Cortines (in his first stint) and Roy Romer.
Young said in her experience, the decisions to not publicly identify candidates and hold open town halls where they can be grilled were good ones.
“It is important to maintain the confidentiality of any candidate that applies whose work might be compromised if their own constituents found out they were interested in another job,” Young said. “The other question is are those public dog and pony shows genuine. Mainly, those kinds of forums turn into halls packed with special interests as opposed to legitimate listening sessions.”
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“Among the 43 people identified by the Los Angeles Times this week as potential candidates for LA Unified superintendent were nearly a dozen with a background in charter schools or the reform movement.”
Oh yes, I definitely read that. The list is filled with all the obvious creepy shills along with a smattering of valid educators (I suppose the stenographers for the 1% had them throw those real people in so as not to look TOO one-sided). I still think/hope it is part the Corporate Media’s ongoing dazzle camouflage rather than what the board is seriously considering.
But here’s the thing, as far as I can tell: Oz has been exposed and the days of pretending are in the past. The two board members who are in on the sham are finally out in the open and the five others seem to know exactly what is going on.
That said, I am still wondering-what are they going to do about it? I would argue that a few of them were elected primarily BECAUSE they were running against corporate kooks. These people have a chance to take a stand for all of us. It is high stakes for me personally, as the individual they select to run this place will decide whether I stay or go.
I love teaching. I love my students. I love my colleagues. I love my community. But if this board betrays us all and chooses one of the super creeps, I will have to move out and move on.
Thanks again, Ellen et al!
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Students deserve better than untrained amateurs and white saviors padding their resumes.
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Thank you, Karen, Ellen, and everyone else involved. Keep up the hard work! I’ll do the same.
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How are they meeting the Highly Qualified Teachers requirement of IDEA using TFA’s?
Isn’t this a violation of IDEA ? http://www.cde.ca.gov/nclb/sr/tq/nclbspecedfaq.asp
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Excellent question! I wonder if Sacramento knows about this. State Superintendent Torlackson might have something to say about it.
By the way, Karen, please make sure Zimmer (TFA “grad”) and the Board don’t see all the personal info I put on the petition. I’ve been the subject of enough retribution. Thank you.
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Always Learning, TFA is conferred the Highly Qualified title automatically, just by being TFA. They are given preferential treatment at every expense. They are conferred with Quickie-lube certifications and weekend Master’s degrees. It boggles the mind.
Traditionally trained, certified and licensed novice teachers need not apply–TFA is here to ruin the landscape.
I don’t know how they’ve gotten away with it except that our government has made it so.
Remember, during one of the last government shutdown, TFA was gifted with our tax dollars. The Highly Qualified language was written into the legislature–shame on our elected toads.
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In California, any teacher who passes the CSET (for special ed the multiple subjects CSET) is considered highly qualified.
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The corporate business community decided years ago that children with disabilities were not worth spending money on because educating all children does not produce a good return on their investment. Since the corporate business world has a lock on the reigns of power in this country, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else believes about education.
Unfortunately, there are also far too many communities in this country that would organize against any sports programs being cut, but consistently stay silent when programs for children with disabilities are cut or compromised.
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What’s wrong with the people who run TFA? This is psychotic.
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Wendy would dig up the dead and pay them nothing if she were able to. Its always been about her 6 figure salary from the start, for her and her elite kind. It was a way to create jobs, pad a resume, get some debts paid off. It never was about the children. When it got political, ka-ching. She was able to proliferate her stench further and wider – and her hubby benefited by Wendy’s revolving door of scabs. Ka-ching. The psychosis is top down, fed by the likes of Eli and the Waltons.
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“New Princeton Thesis: ZFA
Zombies for America
Six weeks under ground
Teachers for hysterica
Work for free, we’ve found
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Thank you Dam. 🙂
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Kind of interesting that they feel they have to distance themselves from Broad, even if it’s not *technically* true that they’re separate from Broad since he’s on the board 🙂
“Backers of a plan to greatly expand successful charters and other high-quality public schools in the Los Angeles area have formed a nonprofit organization to move the effort forward, The Times has learned.
The new organization, called Great Public Schools Now, is based in Los Angeles and will take the next steps in a plan that initially was spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. A draft of that proposal, dated in June, called for raising $490 million to enroll half the students in the L.A. Unified School District over the next eight years.
The nonprofit will be run by two executives from ExED, a local company that specializes in helping charter schools manage their business operations. Former banker William E.B. Siart will chair the governing board; Anita Landecker will serve as interim executive director. No other individuals or foundations are being included in a Wednesday release about the organization, an apparent effort to distance it from the Broad Foundation, which became a target of critics of the proposal. Eli Broad or a designee, however, is expected to occupy one seat on an 11-member board of trustees.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-charter-nonprofit-20151118-story.html?utm_content=bufferd06fe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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It boggles the mind that the Board would even consider TFA to fill special education teaching positions. Can’t you just see them writing IEPs and holding IEP conferences much less teaching special ed students? What a joke!
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OFF TOPIC:
Funny cartoon from L.A. Progressive…
It sums up charter schools in a little over 2 minutes:
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THANKS!
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Hilariously tragic! Thank you.
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When I became an intern special ed teacher, I had 5 weeks of training. The job was so stressful that I developed stomach problems. I was also put in charge of a “language enriched” class, which was a way my district was getting around providing speech therapy services to students in these types of classes. I had never been taught how to properly assess students, although I was expected to give official tests to students. My principal also decided that my class did not need any district curriculum, until I got the director of special ed involved. I was pressured not to report this Williams violation. When my para was absent, I had no lunch or bathroom break. I was also changing diapers and managing students with self harming and violent behaviors. This is why there is a shortage of special ed teachers.
I was not a great teacher, but there are shortages in special ed, and I was certainly better than a sub. Many districts are giving stipends to encourage special ed teachers to stay. My current district has vacancies. I am against TFA and intern teachers in general, but until we address the shortage of special ed teachers (and the reasons behind it), sometimes they are the best option. Teaching special ed is challenging and it is not for everyone. I wish my students when I was an intern were getting the same level of services I can now give my students. My current stressors are different now. Hours and hours of paperwork have replaced the stresses of trying to teach the most vulnerable, academically struggling and behaviorally challenging students.
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TFA–coming soon to special ed. classrooms in YOUR city & state…
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How much more evidence is needed that the goal of the corporate privatizers is to destroy our system of public schools simply for profit and to stay loyal to their neoliberal ideology – even at the expense of our most vulnerable students? The answer is clear as is their motivation and ethical essence!
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Speaking of petitions, in UTLA, we can’t even get our own union to endorse efforts to get the California Charter Schools Act of 1992 repealed: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/repeal-charter-school-act-of-1992-in-ca-ballotWhen UTLA Activist Francisco Martinez introduced a motion at an Area meeting, our own UTLA President argued AGAINST the motion. Diane, please write about this issue, so we can get our union moving forward on fighting the encroachment of charters!
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