Last week Michelle Rhee created new proposals regarding teaching, tenure, and pay to shake up her moribund school district (latest Washington Post update here). NY teachers have also been getting on the newthink bandwagon led by Randi Weingarten who is both the president of the NY Local of the American Federation of Teachers and of the AFT itself.
Teacher merit pay has pros and cons. For a good articulation of the pros, see Edutopia here. On cons, see Schools Matter’s top ten reasons post here.
There’s no single model for reform out there. All we all know is that the system’s broke so we’ve gotta find ways to fix it. Or at the very least, tinker with it. That’s what they’re trying to do in different ways in D.C., NY, New Orleans, etc.
And here in the earthquake-and-fire land of Los Angeles? In LAUSD, the second largest school district in the country serving almost 700,000 future adults?
Not much happening here.
Aside from natural and budgetary disasters.
Or, if there is, we don’t know about it.
The New York Times & The Washington Post both have education sections/tabs on their online front pages. So does La Opinión. Even the LA Daily News has an Education link under the News tab. The LA Times? Um. Yeah.
Both DC and NY have mayors who have been extremely proactive in sustainedly engaging, for better or worse, with the school system. Mayors who understand that these are our future citizens. Our future economy. Our future, period.
LA? Um. Right.
Do we, the dear citizens of LA, just not care?
Are we still operating in the old paradigm? The pre-Obama world of stasis, division, and segregation. Of not-in-my-backyard and not-at-my-kid’s-private-school so I don’t have to think about it. LAUSD’s largely been relegated to poor Latino and African American children. So is it too late to matter to the (ever dwindling) readers of the LA Times? To the readers of papers and blogs on-line (who have been weighing in on where the Obama girls should go to school, and it’s usually NOT public school.) To the parents who have the time and money to do something? Or are our worlds so segregated that we’re disunited because we’re just not talking to each other?
What will it take for us to change this segregation?
America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
(I know, I know. I’m usually a cynic. But maybe it’s time to try out a new attitude. If Bush could have us shop for America, maybe it’s worth trying to hope for America. Just a thought.)
(And if anyone can refer me to blogs that discuss education in the Latino, Korean, Armenian, Persian, Thai, Chinese, etc. communities, or any other LA blogs focusing on education, please let me know…)
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