Damn the Metaphors, Full Speed Ahead

LA SCHOOLS AND OTHER MUSINGS-“You may ask, why is measles—a disease that had effectively been eradicated through vaccination—suddenly back? Well, like most things, you can blame it on science-denying affluent California liberals. […] This is Marin County, They’re not rednecks. They’re not ignorant. They practice a mindful stupidity.

“Let me see if I can put this in terms a cable TV audience might appreciate. It’s like America is in an isolated farmhouse, and the measles are zombies. And for some inexplicable reason, they’ve risen from the dead and are looking for—oh, I don’t know—brains. So everybody in the farmhouse has been given the task of boarding up windows and doors in their areas to keep out the zombies, because it’s well established science that zombies have a difficult time with wood. […] And you trust everybody’s going to do their job. 

“And then you wake up and it’s two in the morning and THERE’S A F-WORDING ZOMBIE GNAWING ON YOUR BRAIN AND YOU’RE LIKE WHAT THE F-WORD, WHO DIDN’T F-WORDING BOARD UP THEIR WINDOW? And that’s when some lady from Marin County who you let into your farmhouse goes, “Oh, I read an article on a wellness forum that says we shouldn’t sleep in boarded up rooms because they F-word you all up.” And you know what you say back to them? “BRAAAAINS.” | Jon Stewart on the Daily Show - 3 Feb 2015|

@HillaryClinton: The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let's protect all our kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest | 7:45 PM - 2 Feb 2015

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HERE WE GO AGAIN: A Daily News Article that went to print on Groundhog Day began: “After more than 100 years with Los Angeles Unified School District, the western San Fernando Valley’s oldest high school could become an independent charter this fall.

“More than 70 percent of teachers at Canoga Park Senior High School have voted to cut ties with LAUSD in favor of joining forces with another ex-LAUSD school turned charter campus, El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills.

“The article continues: Under the proposal, Canoga Park High would be ruled by El Camino Real Charter High School’s board of trustees. The seven-member body is elected by parents, teachers and staff.

“Other senior leadership positions also would be filled with staff from El Camino Real Charter High, according to the 138-page charter petition filed for LAUSD’s approval.”

That structure: “Canoga Park High would be ruled by El Camino Real Charter High School’s board of trustees” tortures the meaning+definition of “independent” charter school. I suspect we have entered the “consolidation-of-power/mergers+acquisitions” phase of corporate charter expansion. Can “hostile takeovers” be far behind? …unless we consider Granada Hill’s purchase and shutdown of Pinecrest School as hostile. The $5.6 million purchase was funded by a tax-free school construction bond issued as part of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And how exactly did buying and shuttering a school stimulate the economy, Mr. Biden?

Coincidence or co-inkydink?: Canoga and El Camino and Granada Hills are all in Tamar Galatazan’s district. The demographic/socioeconomic whiteness+middle-class-ness of those West Valley communities is probably over-understood; Canoga Park High School is a Title One school with 65% students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. [See this: True or False? FREE+REDUCED-PRICE LUNCH = POOR about that] FYI: ECR is 17% F+RL; Granada Hills 47% F+RL.

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AND SEEING AS I’M WRITING ABOUT FREE LUNCH, there is the removal+investigation of the director of the LAUSD Food Services Division. I consider David Binkle (photo)– who has been sent to the Café LA version of ‘teacher jail” - a colleague and a fine person …a friend even. I’m not about to toss him under the bus. While that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of wrongdoing it does mean I’m incapable of being neutral or unbiased.

My reading of the news stories points to highers-up – people with their offices on the 24th floor of Beaudry – and their Hollywood friends being a little too cavalier with the federal School Meals money. I have said before that I passionately support the Breakfast in the Classroom program …and that I abhor the way the Deasy misadministration rolled it out. Now I sense the metaphorical ship has hit the sand and the Officer of the Deck is being blamed for steering the course plotted by a captain who left in his personal lifeboat last October.

DEASY LEFT LAUSD HOLDING THE BAG. That bag includes iPads and MiSiS, the Pearson Contract (which wasn’t with Pearson!) a huge budget deficit (and a wider ethical one), Vergara and an impasse in labor negotiations. 

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We can add to that this Food Services Fiasco, the special MiSiS scheduling debacle at Jefferson (which this week grew to include Dorsey and Fremont), and the unapproved-by-the-Board-of-Ed (but binding) contract with the CORE Waiver Districts and the US Dept. of Education. That compact requires annual standardized tests to evaluate teacher performance – and last week the California Superintendent of Public Instruction informed Superintendent Cortines that those tests would not count for the second year in a row. (see: GREAT NEWS ABOUT TESTING!) I doubt if U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, his legal team and the folks who mail out the government checks will feel so generous – and a lot of the good work we do in LAUSD rely on that funding.

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THINGS COULD BE WORSE: Rather than the dysfunctional current LAUSD Board of Ed the District could be governed by the LA Times Editorial Board. This morning they proved it out in their endorsement in the upcoming elections. The Times is desperate for change …and clings desperately to the status quo.

The editorial board supported Deasy to the bitter end – and now celebrate the calm, shorter meetings and less rancor. They acknowledge Cortines putting out the fires Deasy left – but never called the alarm when they should’ve seen the smoke.

• Their bipolar endorsement of Tamar Galatzan is reminiscent of their brutal endorsement of Tamar’s BBF Monica Garcia two years past. (“We consider Garcia a poor choice for the school board, and we always have.” ) One suspects they want to endorse Scott Schmerelson – but someone else won’t let them.

• Their endorsement of Andrew Thomas over Bennett Kayser is more mysterious. Thomas is a good man with no understanding of the politics and goings-on in LAUSD politics – if you are going to undo a bureaucratic mess you better understand how it works/doesn’t work! They commend Ref Rodriguez for his commitment to middle school education while failing to note that Kayser was a dedicated middle school educator. No mention is made of the fact that Rodriguez has proposed to eliminate high stakes testing while Thomas embraces testing enthusiastically.

• They endorse Richard Vladovic – correctly – and criticize his lack of leadership (“Not the leader we had hoped for…”) Luckily we don’t get what the editorial board hopes for; we get the school board the voters-who-vote vote for.

• The recent debates have been about John Deasy and not the Board of Education. Or (God-forbid!) Education Policy, Curriculum, Instruction and Pedagogy. Genuine criticism has been focused on the incumbents for being asleep-at-the-switch during Dr. Deasy’s misadministration. I cannot give them a pass – but they were lied-to and deceived by their superintendent.

Galatzan was one of Deasy’s most vocal champions, Kayser was one of his most outspoken opponents. In Vladovic’s defense: Deasy threatened to quit if Vlad became Board President …it’s not Dr. V’s fault that he didn’t!

Charter schools are not the disease; their growth is a symptom of the malaise. Where once charters could’ve/would’ve/should’ve been clinical experiments in progress - they have become vectors of the infection of runaway ®eform.

The debates and the lawsuits and the discussion – and even the sleazy campaign mailers - have been about the past and not the future. They have been about iPads and MiSiS …and not about children.

¡Onward/Adelante!