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 [...]
Posts under ‘Elementary’
Ugh!
War v. Education
From the American Friends Service Committee. Hurrah for Quaker simplicity…
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The Keeper of the Testing Papers (LAUSD Waste, cont’d.)
Teachers are cut. Class sizes go up. Summer school goes away.
But somewhere, perhaps on a campus near you, sits a person paid to watch tests. I’m not sure which tests: CELDTS go to Sacramento, as do CSTs (I think). Maybe it’s the forms and affidavits teachers sign before administering the tests? [...]
Kids, Porn, Selling Sex
On Friday several 4th and 5th graders at my school were suspended when they were caught after school watching porn on a PSP. That means 9, 10, and 11 year-olds. One of the boys had downloaded porn onto his flashdrive and was charging other kids a buck a pop to download it onto their PSPs.
Parents [...]
Cuts Hurt Kids!
Yesterday Cuts Hurt Kids emailed asking for support. Here’s what they said about themselves:
The concept behind CutsHurtKids.org is a simple one: help bring unity among the grassroots resisters to budget cuts.
1. See what’s happening at other schools, and
2. if people know of an action to be added, they can submit links of online info/videos/pictures & [...]
Danger!!!!! (More Tales of LAUSD Waste)
This week we had an inspector come by from the safety branch of LAUSD. He had a grim face, a clipboard, and a scratchy pen he wielded with gusto and relish. He scuttled through classroom after classroom and uncovered MANY examples of clear and present DANGER!!!!
Most notably: couches. Yep. That’s right. Couches. Sofas. Cushy chairs. [...]
Cracked, Broken, and Mute: How LAUSD Wastes Money
Yesterday’s LA Times reported the following from our globe-trotting, glad-handing, tv-anchor-bopping mayor (this isn’t TMZ but, btw, who was that cute lady beside him gazing adoringly at him on yesterday’s news reports?):
At Liechty, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa led a forum Monday with teachers and parents, stressing the need for “shared sacrifice” and “creative solutions” to save [...]
Pink Slips Continued
OK, so maybe it’s not the clearest data on Planet Earth, but it’s what arrived in my mailbox today. Basically, it says the union is asking for a 95:5 teacher: administrator ratio.
That would mean 30,057 teachers and 1024.18 administrators in the union’s ideal world.
The latest district proposal is 30,057 teachers: 1582 administrators (rounding so we [...]
Pink Slips
Yesterday was Pink Slip Friday in LAUSD. Friends and colleagues started texting at 6:30 in the morning reminding each other to wear pink, though preferably not pink slips or lingerie of any public sort, to work. It was festive and light-hearted, perhaps because it (and we) were still bleary-eyed about it all.
Then we went to [...]
Buy-Bye Brewer III
Less than a week and it’s done. Man overboard! But not the way the LA Times hoped for. Here are the parting words of the Admiral:
Therefore, I have decided to do what I think is in the best interest of the children, to put all of our students first. Although my two years of service [...]
