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 [...]
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Funny Things About Federal Funds
Teachers & Money
There’s a lot of talk out there to link individual teacher pay to test scores. While I’d be thrilled to get a pay raise (and in an earlier post, I shouted, ‘Bring it on!’), here’s why I don’t think this is a good idea.
First all the usual reasons: teachers will teach to the test and [...]
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 [...]
Brewer v. Teachers
Here’s what the LA Times said the preliminary cost of buying out Brewer will be:
Because the board terminated Brewer “without cause,” he’s entitled to receive a buyout specified under his contract. The terms under the contract are 18 months’ salary, totaling $450,000, and his expense account over that period, which adds $67,500. He’ll also get [...]
Buy-bye Brewer II
In today’s LA Times, Steve Lopez, who’s awesome at pitbulling (aka tattling out) public officials to make them accountable, wrote a great column describing eating with Brewer at–where else?!–the Pacific Dining Car.
$16.95 crab cake appetizers and $28.95 salads later, he requested the Superintendent’s expense accounts. Here’s what happened:
When the documents arrived, much of the information [...]
Buy-bye Brewer?
All week LA’s newsmedia have been buzzing excitedly about the possibility that flailing David Brewer might be forced out or bought out or somehow thrown overboard the leaky ship that is LAUSD. The LA Times (which, not so by the way, has rolled its education blog, The Homeroom, into a new blog that covers not [...]
Thanksgiving Tales
The #1 most emailed article at the LA Times today concerns a controversy over kindergarteners from one Claremont elementary school dressing up as Native Americans and trekking over to visit kids at another Claremont elementary who would dress as Pilgrims. Apparently, a mom/Seneca/professor of Native American literature, along with some friends and colleagues who also [...]
The Obama Girls Go To Washington
In the first place I can’t believe I’m writing about this. When hundreds of kids are dying of gunshot wounds in urban school districts like Los Angeles each year, when migrant workers’ children are unable to get educations, not to mention the 90+ million children around the world who who don’t even get to go [...]
And Now for Something Less Fun
A Safe Classroom
Today’s LA Times featured a heartbreaking story about a 14 year-old, learning diabled boy named Jeremiah Lasater who shot himself in the boys’ bathroom of his Acton high school on Monday. He was 6′ 5, awkward, and nerdy, according to kids quoted in the article. He’d been bullied for quite some time, though [...]
