LA Schools: Can’t We All Get Along?

VOICES-“Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people; do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward!” —Walt Kelly, June 1953 

I was on a radio talk show recently, all expert+observant: the senior citizen of parent engagement.  Listen [mp3]  I proposed that the fault in The Current Situation doesn’t lie with John Deasy and/or the Board of Education and/or the teacher’s union - but in the failure of the superintendent and the board and the union and the parents and the administrators and classroom teachers and students and the politicians and powers-that-be: All The Moving Parts/We the People - to agree and move on.

The host quite wisely challenged this: “Is that possible in a district this size? Is it realistic?”

He is quite right. But Hope springs infernal.

I responded that it is possible. But it won’t be perfect and it won’t be pretty. It’s democracy.

LA’s poet-philosopher Rodney King, a complicated, bruised Black man steeped in equal measures of substance abuse and pathos, inserted unwilling into the melting pot Where It Never Melts/It Just Explodes –Rodney, beaten-and-not-stirred – said it when the unintended consequences exploded upon us all: “Can we all get along?”

Rodney’s philosophy and my philosophy and Steve Zimmer’s philosophy is an easy philosophy to believe in, and a hard one to live. It is Blessed are Peacemakers. A beatitude. A key to heaven.

Sainthood only comes after two miracles are confirmed; but before even that one must be dead. Always tiptoeing on the narrow border between peachiness+sacrilege: Christ was crucified and Rodney drowned in a backyard pool. Not a California dreamlike David Hockey pool - all aqua+sun-dappled – but in black midnight water in Rialto.

Q: Can we all get along?
A: Yes.

But probably only in a world where the superintendent is not John Deasy with all the baggage he has brought.

To Miramonte and Telfair and De La Torre – and the failure to report child abuse to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing; to Vergara and iPads and Apple+Pearson emails and MiSiS and the déjà vu of yesteryear’s evaluation – to his prickly urgency and his bulldozer reforms – we can add his letter to the Alameda Superior Court sent in support of the plaintiffs in Cruz v. California,  – in which LAUSD is a unnamed defendant.

“LA schools Supt. John Deasy, who oversees Jefferson High, supported the lawsuit in a letter to the court. He wrote that the practice of enrolling students in non-instructional classes is "indefensible."

"These courses serve no conceivable pedagogical purpose and defy every norm and standard adhered to by professional educators," Deasy wrote. "The fact that these courses are used anywhere is antithetical to education, but the fact that they are being assigned to students who are academically behind and have not fulfilled graduation and college entry requirements is outrageous." - LA Times 10/3/2014

Lest we forget: Superintendent Romer reconstituted Jefferson High School in 2005 under No Child Left Behind. Superintendents Cortines and Deasy took over and “transformed” Jefferson High School under Public School Choice 1.0 (citing NCLB) in 2010-11 - bringing in a handpicked principal, reforms and staff. Excuse my language, but doesn’t his letter to the judge testify to his failure in the ‘transformation’? And admit to what a crappy job he’s done (and is still doing – the current court action specifically addresses failures at Jefferson in the past eight weeks) being superintendent?

Sure, you can’t win ‘me all …and winning doesn’t always make you popular when you do. But what has Deasy done besides going on Jimmy Kimmel Live and announcing the End of Chocolate Milk in LAUSD that we can all agree has worked?

There has been progress as measured by test scores …but there has been similar incremental progress in almost every district in the state. In spite of budget cuts and RIFs and charter schools creaming the better students.

The Friday Surprise Announcement: “LA Unified reports big rise in its graduation rate” is exceptional+unruly.

LA Times: “But the good news comes with a substantial caveat. The rate is calculated based on students enrolled in comprehensive high schools, and it leaves out students who transfer [or are transferred] to alternative programs — which frequently include those most at risk of dropping out.

“For example, Bernstein Senior High in Hollywood had a graduation rate of 62%; Alonzo, the "option" school on the corner of that property, had a graduation rate of 5.2%. Santee Education Complex, south of downtown, had a rate of 68%; Kahlo High School, the alternative campus on its perimeter, had a rate of 10%.

“Once the alternative campuses are factored in, LA Unified's rate drops to 67% — much less impressive (then the claimed 77%) but still surpassing what the district has accomplished in recent history. The previous year's rate of 65% also did not include students in such programs.”

"If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."

There are no half-victories in the battle between disruptive reform and the politics of nice.

We, all of us, superintendent, board, parents, teachers, unions, staff, community and the media are spending, have spent, and continue to spend way too much time on John Deasy.

Enough already. There are the futures of children at stake.

Can we all just move along?

(Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD. He is the former President of Los Angeles 10th District PTSA and represents PTA as Vice-chair the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. Scott is a member of the California State PTA Board on Managers. He blogs at the excellent 4 LA Kids … where this perspective was originally posted.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 82

Pub: Oct 10, 2014