EduTales

LAUSD claims the local districts are being streamlined and administrative positions are being cut.  ’Claims’ is the operative word.  Like so much with the district, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

About a month ago, a source told me that while local district ‘Directors’ are being cut, new positions called ‘Principal Leaders’ were being created at slightly lower salary grades.  These positions were being tailor-made for the old ‘Directors.’

Today in my inbox I received a job announcement that shows they couldn’t bear to demote themselves from that coveted ‘Director’ title.

Meanwhile teachers–and all positions in and near the classroom–continue to be cut.  I heard the District even wants to eliminate aides.  Please call/write/email your board member and complain!  PLEASE!!!!

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4LAKids found a juicy tidbit in the latest newsletter of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles:

LAUSD has hired two part-time lawyers at exorbitant rates when they already have 37 full-time attorneys on staff.  Here’s the blurb from the AALA paper:

$250,000 for six months of work and $312,700 for 13.5 weeks of work.  Hmm.  And district says they have no money.

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That means $2,161.29 per pupil!  Really, isn’t that a bit much?

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Tidbits from the last three weeks:

Half of all art & music positions will be eliminated next year, and the remaining ones will be cut the year after.  In 2012, there will be no art, music, dance, or theater teachers in LAUSD.

A teacher who went down to file paperwork at Beaudry (the district-owned skyscraper downtown) told me they’re now locking the cubicle areas.  She needed to use the restrooms, and so, was let in.  There she saw tens of people just hanging out, checking their email, chatting, basically doing nothing.  And they want to cut teachers!

A local mini-district superintendent (say that ten times fast!) visited our school smiling a lot, saying nothing, and wearing 3-inch heels and a short skirt.  That’s how teachers know someone’s not really a teacher and is on their way to the bureaucratic side.  They wear shoes & clothes that are impossible to get down and dirty with kids in.  They buy a Mercedes or Beemer.  They smile and say nothing that means anything.

Her visit was followed last week by 12 (yes, that’s right, 12!) administrators who walked through our classrooms for three hours, and then took a long lunch during which they checked their email and calendars and phone messages, and then disappeared, presumably to debrief.  12 administrators @ ~$60/hour (administrator pay scales begin where teacher pay scales end) x 6 hours (you know they counted this as their whole day!) = $4320.

That’s a very expensive DAY for us!

That’s almost the cost of an aide for half a YEAR.

And what came of it?

You guessed it.

Nothing.

Zero.

Zilch.

Well, that’s not completely true.

I now know how a penguin feels when we watch it inside its exhibit.

Free the penguins!

Cut the administrators!

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Tonight I was over on Tom Vander Ark’s blog.  TVA, you might remember, was formerly of Bill Gates’ ed foundation and one of the short-listed candidates in the last LAUSD Superintendent search–the one that yielded. . . da-da-da-dah. . . Admiral Brewer.  He’s posted a bit from Fareed Zakaria’s interview of Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google:

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google.

You know, I wonder about how we educate kids. I watch, you know, my kids go to school. And one of the things they have to do with great — what takes a lot of time is to learn to spell properly.  Is it worth teaching people how to spell properly in a world in which every — there’s spell checks everywhere?

SCHMIDT: You can imagine education changing a lot. After all, when I was growing up, they forced me to memorize everything. But now, why do I need to remember that? I just need to learn how to search for it.

So, whether it’s Google or your other choices for getting information, teaching will be learning about how to ask the right question, and then sorting through the choices and answer.

Most people now believe that the right way to think about education is, rather than a fixed textbook, rather here’s a subject, here’s a subject, here’s a subject. You guys go figure it out. All the information is out there now.

What you really need to do is to teach people to be curious.

After a grueling post-Thanksgiving-vacation day trying to get thirty-two 5th graders to focus but instead seeing them write gems like

I was board on the brake

I was ready to worship anyone who told me not to worry about spelling.  Really, I was.  But in my heart of hearts, I knew the discussion didn’t fly.

Put the lovely sentence ‘I was board on the brake’ into Microsoft Word’s spell check and you get:

The spelling and grammar check is complete.   OK.

Now I wouldn’t mind my student’s sentence at all, if, as I’ve been trying to teach my class, you use language and mistakes to create a comic strip or some sort of wild invention.

Imagine a surfboard cruising the Venice boardwalk equipped with wheels and gears and brakes. . .

or skinny-jeaned skateboarder high fiving his slouching friend: “Dude, I was board on the brake!”

(translation: “that was so amazing I cruised right through even though everyone was trying to stop me!”)

Connect language to visualization and see what emerges:  metaphors. . . poems . . . Rube Goldberg machines. . . collages. . .characters. . .

Creativity, in my classroom, forgives a lot of sins.

But of course that’s not how the student used the sentence.  Quite the opposite.  It meant to convey  disengagement (with a vacation?!!!) and, quite unintentionally, enacted those feelings in its very own structure.  Board-bored, break-brake, who cares.  Those details or rules don’t matter (even though the kids have been learning homophones since 2nd grade).  Those details or rules don’t matter because they’re not entertaining.  I don’t want to pay attention to them–that’s what my student was thinking.  It’s boring, Ms. B., he said when I asked him.

Boring.

Everything is boring.

Could you find a way to make it interesting, I asked him.

I completely agree with Schmidt and Vander Ark.  We need to help students rediscover and value their own internal curiosity.   We need to generate sparks.  If you’re curious, nothing is boring, especially not your mistakes.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t pay attention to details & rules.  You can only make those poems and machines if, in the first place, your mind can visualize the difference between board and bored and break and brake.  You need to know the grammar in order to improvise.

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Anthony Cody, a National Board-certified teacher in the Bay Area, has launched a project to get teachers to write to President Obama.  He’s planning on gathering the letters and mailing them to the White House on November 23rd. Here’s mine:

Dear President Obama,

I’m not a worrywart by nature. I teach 5th grade in a high-poverty school in Los Angeles, so I can’t afford to be. But when I do let my optimistic guard down, here, in a nutshell, is what I worry about:

The Resegregation of Education in America

On the one hand we have an America of students who arrive at school well-fed, well-dressed, well-cared for. They have a rich array of experiences and a consistent exposure to language and numbers. They participate in a wide variety of extracurricular activities with their parents or tutors or coaches. They attend schools with broad, creative curricula including art, music, science, and technology. They have little difficulty with standardized tests because, given their backgrounds and the knowledge frameworks they bring with them, symbolic manipulation comes readily to them. These kids look beyond standardized testing to a world in which they will move with ease, becoming doctors, lawyers, musicians, film makers, presidents. For them, school is a springboard into the knowledge economy.

Then there’s the other America.

This America is filled with schools of have-nots. These children come to school without an ease with symbols, be they letters or numbers. They come from families where the primary language may not be English, or, even if it is, where there may be little emphasis on literacy and numeracy. These children attend schools that, battered by standardized testing requirements, primarily teach language arts and math through scripted programs and test prep materials. These students may be able to speak fluently and function in an oral society, but when it comes to the more complex, creative skills of symbolic manipulation that offer entry into the knowledge economy, they are and will be at a loss. The rare few will escape from this confine and leap into the middle class, but the majority will stay where they are or fall further behind. For these students, school is a tall and untraversable wall.

Schools and public education are the nurseries of American democracy. Nurseries call for care, nurturing, creativity, and joy, not dreary rote testing and metrics. They should, to borrow from the page of Sidwell Friends, a small Quaker institution you may have heard of, “offer…a rich and rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum designed to stimulate creative inquiry, intellectual achievement and independent thinking in a world increasingly without borders.”

Shouldn’t all children have access to the sort of education you value for your daughters?  Or is resegregation the future we want for our country?

Sincerely yours,

MizzB

Tattleteaching.com

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Is this where you want them to go?

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This week teachers learned the district is thinking of:

1. cutting days out of the school year

2. increasing class sizes in January

3. cutting the number of teachers again.

And then the following landed in my inbox:

Position/Title: Director of Operations

Organization: The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools
Organization Description: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has made education reform of Los Angeles schools, which have the second highest student enrollment in the country, a centerpiece of his administration’s agenda. The Mayor created the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (the Partnership), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is partnering with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and other education-related organizations in Los Angeles to dramatically improve schools in Los Angeles. The Partnership currently runs twelve schools with approximately 18,000 children and 1,500 school-site employees, with budgets exceeding $150 million per year.

Position Description and Responsibilities: The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools is seeking an accomplished professional to help direct the Partnership’s school site operations, with a focus on budget and human resources. These services are being dramatically redesigned under the Partnership model and the Director will be responsible for the redesign and execution of the new processes, in close collaboration with Partnership leadership, Partnership school sites and LAUSD central office staff. The Director will be responsible for developing and executing strategies to ensure that schools are provided outstanding service using metrics that will be jointly defined by the Director.

The potential of this role is very high because the lessons learned with Partnership schools will be fed back into LAUSD to be replicated at a broader scale. The Director will be integral to working with LAUSD to ensure that the entire district learns from the Partnership’s new operational strategies.

This role reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and will manage one full-time individual. The specific responsibilities across the different areas would be developed jointly by the Director and COO based on the needs of the organization. Key job duties might include:

Support LAUSD’s development of a new “per pupil” budget model that provides budget transparency, accountability, equitable resource allocation and flexibility for school sites. Lead the implementation of the new budget model at Partnership schools.

Train all Partnership principals, school leadership teams and others on their budgets so that school stakeholders (administrators, teachers, parents and others) better understand the resources they have and how they can most effectively allocate their resources.

Develop tools and other mechanisms to help principals and school stakeholders effectively manage their budgets over the course of the year.

Develop the strategy and implementation for human resource services (hiring, retention, and management) in the Partnership schools.

Manage the staffing of all school site positions across all classifications, jointly with the school sites and LAUSD central office staff.

Jointly with LAUSD, manage the staff and employee relations processes for the Partnership schools.

Manage relationships with LAUSD departments, including budget services, fiscal services, staff relations, employee relations and human resources.

Develop a strategy for how to rapidly scale operations as the Partnership expands.

Regularly brief the Partnership’s senior management team on progress.

Manage the recruitment process for Partnership staff.

Develop policy implications for LAUSD and help District leadership implement recommendations.

Qualifications:

At least 5 years of professional experience in school or related operations.

Management experience in leading teams and/or managing relationships with partners and service providers.

Candidates should be self-starters who are capable of developing and executing strategic and implementation plans in conjunction with other partners.

Strategic thinker with intense focus on performance and proven ability to execute effectively against strategy.

Candidates need to have a strong belief in providing outstanding customer service.

Experience working in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment a plus.

A proven track record of consistently exceeding goals. 

Strong analytical and quantitative skills, and excellent interpersonal skills.

Experience working in operations roles in a school district, charter management organization or other education service organization a plus but not required.

Must be reflective and open to new ideas and opinions.

Graduate degree a plus, especially in business or law.

Salary: Compensation will be highly competitive and commensurate with demonstrated skills and work experience.

Please send inquiries and applications (cover letter and resume) via email to:

Je-nee Tyson

Operations Associate

The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

1541 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 200

Los Angeles, California 90017

jenee.tyson@partnershipla.org

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a diverse workforce.

This position is exempt from civil service requirements.

Whatever all that means.  Because clearly the students need more. .  . ADMINISTRATORS!

I wonder how many other admins are being hired.  Anecdotes, anyone?

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Another brilliant idea from the LAUSD bureaucrats downtown.  Three years ago they spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing classroom ac units with thermostats programmable only downtown (remember all those bond measures you’re still paying for?).  This summer we’ve returned to our classrooms to find that they’ve reprogrammed the thermostats so that the ac units won’t turn on until the classroom temperature reaches 77 degrees.

77 degrees.

Imagine:

34 pre-teenage bodies in a small room watching the thermostat, waiting for it to hit 77.

Ms. B, it’s at 76.

Me: OK guys, breath really hard.  Think towering, grandiose thoughts about yourselves.  Then let all that hot air out.

30 kids pant and heave (4 are always too cool to move).

If we open the doors–which, by the way, in a brilliant design move, are both on the same wall precluding any possibility of cross-ventilation–the temperature drops just enough to be slightly less uncomfortable, but then the thermostat never triggers the ac.

And in a classic LAUSD move, you know when the triggers have been scheduled to reset?

3PM.  20 minutes after the kids leave.

So when I’m working in the room after all the bodies have gone home, I have to put my sweatshirt on.

Who says downtown doesn’t care about kids?

What I want to know is what are the ac trigger temps at the Beaudry Building where all these brilliant minds work.  I’ll bet they’re well below 77.

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This last week two incidents highlighted the district and its administrators’ disregard of freedom of speech.

First, 15 8th graders at Liechty Middle School were denied their diplomas when they turned their backs on their graduation keynote speaker, LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia. They were protesting increased class size and teacher layoffs.  As they demonstrate in the video, they silently turned their backs.  In their seats.  Didn’t even stand up.  No shouting, chanting, booing, etc.  It’s what I’d call very civilized dissent.

But not allowed.  Ban them!  Take away their diplomas!

Now, today’s LA Times tells us that 18 year-old Aurora Ponce, class valedictorian at the previously well-regarded but recently more tumultuous Accelerated Charter School, has:

1) been barred from giving her speech at commencement and

2) lost her summer tutoring job.

Why?  Because she participated in a sit-in to protest increased class sizes and teacher layoffs.

Off with her head!

Out of control kids?

I think NOT.  Kids should protest.  It’s part of democratic engagement.  And it’s a good cause.  These kids aren’t jumping around asking for More Junk Food Now! or We Want 360 Days of Vacation! or Freedom to Text in Class!

They’re looking at the situation they’re in, seeing that it really and truly sucks, and they’re finding their voices as future (and present) citizens.  They are participating in participatory democracy.

It’s the administrators who are out of control. How can you not brook the slightest dissent? How do you become so threatened and literal-minded that you enforce obedience and discipline at all costs?  How do you find your inner Nazi?

And is it legal?

The Supreme Court gives mixed signals on this front.  In Morse, et al. v. Frederick (2007) the Court ruled that it was okay for an administrator to suspend a student for unfurling a pro-marijuana banner.  But today in Safford USD v. Redding, the Court ruled (8-1–hurrah!) that an Arizona administrator was out of line when he had a 13 year-old girl strip-searched because he suspected her of hiding prescription-strength ibuprofen (the equivalent of 2 Advils).

I’m not a lawyer, but I hope these kids find a good pro bono attorney who will take on the constitutional issues involved.  I found a great page that delineates the free speech rights of students and how they’re more restricted than the free speech rights of citizen-adults.   Unfortunately, the page focuses on high school and college students, when, increasingly, it’s the middle schools that are leading the way in strange administrative behaviors.  I guess it’s all part of teenagers growing up faster and faster.

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