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 ‘LAUSD’
Ugh!
Ever More Bureaucrats
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 [...]
Hot!!!!!
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 [...]
LAUSD’s Inner Nazi
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 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? [...]
Funny Things About Federal Funds
In today’s LA Times Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and Steve Zimmer, board member-elect of the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education, called on teachers to take a pay cut to save the district $45 million.
In response I offer the following federal stimulus and bailout headlines:
Stimulus [...]
More LAUSD Waste and Mismanagement
NBC Los Angeles recently aired a great report on ways to save the classrooms:
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Cost Cutting 101
Today’s LA Times led a piece on the battle over Birmingham High School with the heading, “The outcome of a battle over reform at the Van Nuys campus might shape the future of L.A. Unified.” The mayor’s reform branch (I-Division), a magnet within the school, and a charter supported by some of the teachers are [...]
Mar Vista Moms
Here’s another grassroots campaign that came to my attention. A group of moms in Mar Vista have banded together to create video to promote the changes taking place at Webster Middle School. Mar Vista Moms @ Webster Middle School
What a great way to let people visit a school!
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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 & [...]
