Archives for category: Los Angeles
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How Los Angeles Plans to Reopen

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2020 //
47

Los Angeles is trying to figure out how to reopen its schools, safely but with no assurance about how they will pay for the changes.

Sixteen students to a class. One-way hallways. Students lunch at their desks. Children could get one ball to play with — alone. Masks are required. A staggered school day brings on new schedules to juggle.

These campus scenarios could play out based on new Los Angeles County school reopening guidelines released Wednesday. This planning document will affect 2 million students and their families as educators undertake a challenge forced on them by the coronavirus crisis: fundamentally redesigning the traditional school day.

The safe reopening of schools in California and throughout the nation compels the reimagining — or abandoning — of long-held traditions and goals of the American school day, where play time, socialization and hands-on support have long been essential to the learning equation in everything from science labs and team sports to recess and group work.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education guidelines offer an early top-to-bottom glimpse at the massive and costly changes that will be required to reboot campuses serving students from preschool through 12th grade, critical to reopening California. The 45-page framework was developed through the work of county staffers, outside advisors and representatives from 23 county school systems, each of which must develop its own reopening plan….

When campuses closed in mid-March, school systems scrambled to develop a new style of education on the fly — one that relied on “distance learning.” Administrators quickly handed out computers and internet hot spots. Teachers trained on Zoom and other online platforms. Parents oversaw learning at home, even as they faced economic hardship.

Despite these Herculean efforts, school leaders and teachers report uneven student engagement and impediments to learning at home, underscoring the importance of an academically robust return to campus — even as the governor’s proposed budget envisions a cut for schools of about 10%.

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Funding, Health, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: After Long Battle, 5 Charter Schools Join UTLA

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2020 //
7

Yesterday, the United Teachers of Los Angeles scores a big victory, and so did the teachers in five charter schools, who won the right to unionize.

For Immediate Release

May 22, 2020

Media Contact:

Anna Bakalis, 213-305-9654

PERB rules in UTLA’s favor, the union will now represent all educators at five Alliance charter schools

After a two-year legal battle, on Thursday, May 21, the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) certified UTLA as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of educators at the five Alliance charter schools that filed for union recognition:

Alliance College-Ready Middle Academy 5
Alliance Judy Ivie Burton Technology Academy High School
Alliance Gertz-Ressler/Richard Merkin 6-12 Complex
Alliance Leichtman Levine Family Foundation Environmental Science High School
Alliance Morgan McKinzie High School…

“Now that PERB has made it clear that we filed appropriately at our schools, we’re ready to sit down at the bargaining table,” said Kemberlee Hooper, a Physical Education teacher at Gertz-Merkin. “ I’m excited that we’ll have an equal voice in decision making, and I look forward to bargaining over issues like professional developments and a fair and meaningful evaluation process.”

Alliance has been fighting PERB certification since educators at three schools filed for union recognition in May 2018, with two more filing in 2019. But now with this decision, Alliance educators have prevailed after a two-year legal delay intended by Alliance to deny educators their right to bargain and to organize with UTLA. Alliance educators are ready to move forward. They urge Alliance to start setting a better example for their students and the Alliance community by respecting PERB’s decision and its own educators.

Particularly in this unprecedented time, it’s more important than ever that educators have an equal voice in decisions impacting their students, their schools, and their profession. Alliance educators simply want to sit down with Alliance as real decision-making partners and together decide what will make their schools the best place to work and learn.

Alliance educators look forward to bargaining at five union schools and are committed to organizing at all Alliance schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization, Teachers, Unions

Los Angeles: Nightmare Vision as Bain and Company Arrive to “Help” the Schools

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2020 //
44

This story was first reported in the Los Angeles Education Examiner by Sara Roos.

I mistakenly attributed the initial reporting to parent advocate Carl Petersen .

Roos reported that Superintendent Austin Beutner, a former investment banker, has brought management consultants Bain and Company to provide strategic guidance to the district.

With Governor Cuomo assigning the task of “reimagining” education in New York, and Austin Beutner calling on Bain and Company, it bears mentioning that none of these people are educators.

Los Angeles has an elected school board.

Why is the superintendent turning to a management consulting business with no experience in education to guide the district in these troubled times? Why isn’t the school board, which is Beutner’s employer, making the strategic decisions?

This is “disaster capitalism” (Naomi Klein’s apt term) at its worst. This is another instance of the Pandemic Shock Doctrine.

Beutner works for the board. They should stop him before he outsources the district management to unaccountable and unqualified “experts.”

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Fraud, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: UTLA Responds to Governor Newsom’s Suggestion to Open Schools in Mid-Summer

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2020 //
12

Governor Gavin Newsom laid out his thoughts about a phased reopening of the state, including the possibility of opening schools as early as late a July or early August.

The United Teachers of Los Angeles responded with their thoughts.

The union said:

An early start to the school year in LA would have to be bargained between UTLA and the LA Unified School District, and there has been no discussion about doing so.

California has led the way on flattening the curve of this deadly pandemic by prioritizing people’s health and safety. As the fifth-largest economy in the world, our leaders understand that the economy should serve the people, and not the other way around. We urge our leaders to stay the course, and caution against prematurely lifting social distancing protections by opening schools in a way that would put students, teachers, and families at risk.

Governor Newsom outlined six very sensible metrics — such as the availability of therapeutics to deal with COVID-19 and drastically increased testing and contact tracing capacity — that would determine when it would be appropriate to lift the pandemic protections. We should meet those metrics before setting unrealistic timelines.

There is much that remains unknown about what will happen in the next few weeks or months. It’s wise to wait and see and make sure everyone is safe.

Categories Accountability, California, Health, Los Angeles, Teachers, Union

Los Angeles: No Student Will Get an F and Schools Will be Closed Until the Fall

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2020 //
6

Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times reports that no student will get an F grade during the coronavirus closure, and schools will remain closed this summer.

Blume writes:

No student will receive a failing grade on their spring report card and Los Angeles campuses will be closed not only for the remainder of the academic year, but throughout the summer as well, the district announced Monday.

The actions are the latest sweeping measures taken by the nation’s second-largest school system in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is still no clear picture in testing, treatments or vaccines and we will not reopen school facilities until state authorities tell us it is safe and appropriate to do so,” L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner said during a Monday video briefing. “The remainder of the school year … will be completed in the current, remote fashion and we will have a summer session in a similar manner.”

The no-fail policy was posted in a late morning bulletin and confirmed by Chief Academic Officer Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, who spoke of educators’ concerns about the family hardships that are likely to limit students’ ability to learn in the district, where 80% of them come from low-income families.

Beutner praised the work of all district staff, especially teachers, during his video briefing, but acknowledged that all students have not had the same access to academic work since campuses closed on March 16.

“Many of the examples we see of successful video learning have a significant selection bias,” Beutner said. “Affluent families with resources at home, schools with years of training and limitless budgets and students with demonstrated aptitude to learn independently. Public schools have in their DNA the commitment to serve all students, irrespective of circumstance, and it will not be so simple.”

The state did not issue a universal mandate on grading, but California Department of Education guidelines say that schools should “enable students to complete state graduation requirements with needed flexibilities” associated with online learning. In their briefings, state officials have stressed that local educators intend to be understanding of students’ situations.

The state guidelines say that schools “should weigh their policies with the lens of equity and with the primary goal of doing no harm to students.”

Categories Closing schools, Education Reform, Health, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: The New Reality: Overwhelmed. Isolated. Unfocused. Very Stressed.

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2020 //
71

While enthusiasts for online learning predict a boom after the pandemic, as students and teachers get used to learning at home online, the reality is different on the ground. Stress, loneliness, and boredom are typical reactions.

A team of reporters in Los Angeles reports on student reactions to the loss of face-to-face instruction.

A senior at John C. Fremont High School in South L.A., Emilio Hernandez has a class load that is about as rigorous as it gets: AP calculus, physics, design, English, engineering and government. He loves talking to his peers in English class, who make all the readings thought-provoking. He often turns to his math teacher, who has a way of drawing the graphs and walking him through derivatives and complex formulas.

Now, with a borrowed laptop from school and family crowded in the living room, he’s struggling to make school feel like, well, school. He has trouble falling asleep and finds himself going to bed later and later — sometimes as late as 3 a.m.

“Assignments that would normally take me two hours or 30 minutes are now taking me days to complete. I just … can’t focus,” he said. “I don’t have anyone giving me direction. It’s just me reading and having to give myself the incentive to do the work.”

It’s been three weeks since school districts across the state have closed their campuses as the novel coronavirus continues to sweep its way across California — sending more than 6 million students home to navigate online, or distance, learning. What started as an emergency scramble to provide laptops and meals for a few weeks has dramatically shifted to a longer-haul transformation of public education.

“The kids are not going back to their classrooms” this academic year, said Gov. Gavin Newsom, who acknowledged the burden on households with the entire state under his stay-at-home order.

For those who look to school for learning and social structure, the new reality is sinking in: There will be no school as we know it after spring break. No prom. No year-end field trips. No projects to present inside a familiar classroom. Navigating the three months left in the school year, leaders said, calls for patience and dedication from educators, self-motivation from already stressed-out students and swift actions from school districts typically mired in bureaucratic obstacles.

“These aren’t normal circumstances. It’s the most uncharted territory that we’ve been in,” said State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “We’re stronger together and we can help all of our kids as we work together.”

Many are already rising to the challenge. Yet each step forward means moving past bureaucratic hurdles and cost constraints and taking on persistent problems of student poverty and stubborn achievement gaps…

Overwhelmed. Unmotivated. Stressed. Stressed. Stressed.

These were the words that popped up over and over again on social media and in conversations among students across Los Angeles during a recent virtual town hall with a Times reporter and Heart of Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization in MacArthur Park that provides free after-school programming for underserved youth. About two dozen students shared just how complicated distance learning can be.

Many said that their homes were crowded enough already, and that school and after-school programs were their sanctuaries — a place to escape. Others worried not only about their grades but about the well-being of their families. Some students have been using their own savings to get food for themselves and younger siblings to avoid stressing out family members.

Categories Education Reform, Los Angeles, Online Learning, Students

Los Angeles: Schools Discover Snafus of Distance Learning

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2020 //
59

The Los Angeles Times published a disturbing article about the problems and obstacles that students and teachers are encountering as online learning becomes the new normal. For many children, instruction is inaccessible.

The gaps between the haves and have-nots are glaring.

“ Misti Kemmer, a fourth-grade teacher at Russell Elementary School in South Los Angeles, is working hard to keep her students learning now that schools are closed. She shares detailed lesson plans on Google Drive, sends messages to families every day and delivers YouTube lectures from her home.

She’s trying to look at all this stuff on a tiny cellphone after dinner hours,” Kemmer said. “How much is a 9- year-old going to get done?”

“There’s this whole distance-learning thing, but how much learning is actually going on?” she added.

“But only three or four of her 28 students accessed their schoolwork last week, she said. Some don’t have computers and others are without internet access. One student can only open assignments on her father’s phone when he gets home from work.

“Almost all K-12 schools in California were shuttered last week. But from top state education leaders to district officials, including L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, the message has been clear: Even though campuses are closed, learning will continue.

“While we are in very unique circumstances at this time, we are still providing education to our students,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said earlier this week. “School is not out, but we are finding a different way to deliver it.”

“But the reality is complicated.

“As teachers scramble to adjust to an entirely new world of education, they are coming up against significant barriers.

“There is uneven access to technology, difficulties communicating with students and parents, and uncertainty about expectations at a time when many families are suffering.
And even for educators who have long used online learning tools and whose students have easy access to them, it is challenging to rely solely on technology.

“Many teachers are grappling with this while also adapting to the tough realities of working from home.

“At Marianna Avenue Elementary School in East Los Angeles, teachers and administrators scrambled after the closure was announced March 13 to make sure every student in first through sixth grades took home a Chromebook laptop, said Estela Campos, a coordinator at the school. The school is fortunate to have enough computers for nearly every student, she said.

“But teachers are struggling to get their students online — some children had never used the computers at home and many families don’t have internet access. In some cases, children in higher grades are now having to take care of their younger siblings while their parents work and are unable to dedicate time to their own schoolwork, she said….

“Erin Fitzgerald-Haddad, a seventh-grade math teacher at the San Fernando Institute of Applied Media, a Los Angeles Unified school, has the know-how and resources to make a transition to distance learning smoother.
Fitzgerald-Haddad said teachers and students at her school were regularly using digital platforms like Schoology, an LAUSD learning management system, or Google Suites long before the closures last week.

“The school was able to send all students home with an iPad or Chromebook, though some opted out, and the school put together a YouTube channel where teachers have been posting daily videos. Faculty are also checking in with students and monitoring their work online, she said.

“Even with their expertise to quickly mobilize resources, though, Fitzgerald-Haddad has noticed differences in how students are adapting to distance learning.

“Maybe it’s different at the high school level, but [for] eighth grade and younger, I do not believe it’s reasonable to expect students to be learning on their own,” she said.

“While some students are advanced and will be able to pick up the material on their own, the Schoology platform allows her to see that some aren’t keeping up.

“The ones that really need the support, they’re the ones I’m having to make phone calls to,” she said….”

Categories Los Angeles, Online Learning, Students

A Controversial Interview about SLAYING GOLIATH with Larry Mantle of NPR, Southern California

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2020 //
34

This interview on KPCC-NPR in Southern California by Larry Mantle was conducted a few days ago.

Mantle made it clear–at least to me–that he favors charter schools, so I was constantly asked to defend my criticism of them. I later learned that Los Angelenos know Mantle as a charter champion. One of the hypothetical questions are posed was “what would be wrong with a district that was half public schools, half charter schools?” Another time, he praised Eli Broad and wondered why I didn’t regard him as a generous philanthropist. You get the drift.

When the callers were put on the air, all of them were charter parents who challenged me.

There were no questions or comments from public school parents.

The parents who called in do not believe that charters divert funding from public schools, where most of the state’s children are. I suggested that they google Gordon Lafer’s study, “The Breaking Point,” which documents the many millions that three California districts lose to charters. I also suggested that California has been underinvesting in its schools for many years and is now below the national average.

I think every parent has the right to make the choice they think is in the best interest of their child, but I think every policymaker is responsible to improve and prioritize the public schools that enroll 85-90% of all American children.

In AIRTALK’s tweet about the show, which appeared pretty quickly on March 11, the show’s tweet says that I consider the 2010s to be “banner years” for public schools. This is ridiculous. Whoever wrote that line obviously did not read the book. The 2010s were a time of budget cuts, teacher shortages, the combined negative effects of NCLB and Race to the Top, VAM, Common Core, and worship of mandated standardized testing. It was a horrible decade for schools, with the only bright spot being the rise of the #Red4Ed movement in 2018. I am assuming that no one at AIRTALK read the book. The topic of conversation was: How dare you dare to question the need for and value of charter schools?

The show takes about 20 minutes. Listen and tell me what you think.

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles

Los Angeles and San Diego Announce that Public Schools Will Close

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
47

I will not post any more notices about school closings, because there are so many of them. Every day brings news of another district or city or state that is closing its public schools in response to the coronavirus, in an effort to reduce exposure to the virus. Some of these closures are limited to a few weeks; some are indefinite. In every case, I hope that district officials have given serious thought to supplying meals to children who depend upon them. As reader Chiara pointed out, the closures remind us of how important our schools are in the lives of children–the social interactions, the opportunity to learn, the library, the clubs, the musical groups, the sports, the peer relationships, access to social services, and exchanges with human teachers. Being online just isn’t enough of a substitute for human relationships.

This story appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles school officials on Friday voted to shut down the nation’s second-largest school system effective Monday, citing concerns over the rapid spread of the coronavirus. The district has about 900 campuses serving more than 670,000 children and adult students.

Schools will be closed for two weeks while the situation is evaluated, said L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner. There will be 40 centers where students and families can receive services, including meals, starting on Wednesday.

The “family resource centers” will be open weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will offer childcare and hot meals. The district hopes to have a list of locations soon.

Los Angeles district officials said that they will also offer televised and online lessons in an attempt to help families.

School district employees will continue to be paid, even if not directly involved in working with students.

San Diego Unified School District will also shut down on Monday. Neither district said when schools would reopen.

Categories Closing schools, Health, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: UTLA Calls on Superintendent and Board to Close the Schools and Create Support System for Students

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
9

The United Teachers of Los Angeles issued this statement tonight:

UTLA calls for LAUSD to close schools

Tonight UTLA called on LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner to take decisive action to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“We are calling for the rapid, accelerated, and humane closure of LAUSD schools,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said. “Other countries have shown that a proactive — not reactive — approach slows the spread of the virus, makes sure healthcare providers are not crushed with overwhelming demand, and dramatically reduces fatalities.”

As part of the call for school closures, UTLA released 10 Common Good Community Demands to support students and families, including 15 additional paid sick days for all LA County workers, a weekly disaster stipend, and creation of a food supply network.

“The state has a $20 billion reserve and this is exactly the time to tap into that reserve to support students and families,” Caputo-Pearl said. “There is an opportunity here to build a social safety net through our Common Good Community Support demands. Let’s take the opportunity to build those now.”

UTLA’s call for an accelerated timeframe for school closures is supported by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents nurses, medical technicians, and other healthcare experts across the country.

“As a healthcare union representing workers on the front lines of this pandemic, we must take proactive steps to protect our communities,” said Sal Rosselli, president of NUHW. “Although closing schools is a difficult decision, only decisive action will slow the exponential growth of this pandemic and prevent our healthcare system from becoming overloaded.”

Link to the UTLA Statement on the Proactive Closure of LAUSD Schools

Categories Education Reform, Health, Los Angeles
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