Vote for Bennett Kaiser, NOT Luis Sanchez for LAUSD Board, Dist. 5 Election

The LAUSD Board seat for District 5 (or simply, "Sub-district 5" for many) is coming up on TUESDAY, (like all elections), May 17th.  If you have absentee ballots, you may have already voted.  If you still haven't voted, here's some things to think about if you have this office on your ballot.

Luis Sanchez served as chief-of-staff to Monica Garcia, the LAUSD Board President.  From my observations over the years, Garcia's actions show that she's been  more loyal to the political force that got her into office, namely, Antonio Villaraigosa.

Garcia, before being elected to this office, was the chief-of-staff to Jose Huizar, and was supported by him to succeed him in office.  Huizar left LAUSD for City Council in 2005 as Villaraigosa left CD-14 before completing his term (that he promised he would complete and not run for any other office during the CD-14 campaign).   Huizar became thoroughly a follower of Villaraigosa, as he remains today, though not vocalizing that alliance much.    Huizar supported Garcia and it's an all "Villaraigosa" influenced "leadership" that they demonstrate.

VOTE FOR KAYSER- a big reason is to stop the downward spiral of LAUSD's performance and get someone that doesn't have the VILLARAIGOSA Agenda as his guide.    Villaraigosa, if you remember, put aside attention to mandated duties as mayor of Los Angeles to work on affecting, or really, taking over, LAUSD's operation,  The path was a long and costly one in terms of money, time and lost opportunities for the public servants that were involved.

Meanwhile we have a city approaching bankruptcy with a mayor that's been distracted by one thing or another over his entire term of office, yet he has huge influence in moving LAUSD to breakup, a goal of his and his special interest "friends" that I see as benefitting finacially from this.

You have charter schools and assorted partnerships that are not LAUSD controlled being handed brand new multi-million dollar schools, all paid for by the publc from bonds approved by voters many years ago.. I really do not believe approval would have happened if this result had been know at election time.  I think it was a plan all along by many involved here.

As I've already stated before, I am not a big fan of LAUSD and the way it operates, but then I am even more skeptical of the charters and alternative forms when they still are finding their ways to improved education of students.  I don't think handing over schools over like we are seeing now assures success or the responsibility for such actions.  

SANCHEZ would push in this direction as Villaraigosa and friends want that.  There's a fortune in contracts and deals in all this, paid for by tax dollars, that is not visible on the surface and it's an unspoken factor in all the changes.   I don't see the VILLARAIGOSA influence, and it's there more and more as board members of this alignment win seats. 

I think students should come first, not politics.  I recall Monica Garcia's statement, to paraphrase it, that she discovered she was Chicana after arriving at Cal State Berkeley.  I see she's been into activism as we were seeing in the 60s but we are not in the 60s anymore.  Creating issues to support political agendas is part of that "leadership" that produces no real progress with students.  Garcia lost all credibility with me when she supported a charter schools continued funding when it had shown severe criticism of anti-U.S. values in favor of more contrary views. (And it's fine to have a different view, but don't take tax money if you are preaching against the things that created what you have and what you seek.)

KAYSER doesn't have that heavy influence of the opponent and the race card has been played to sway things to Sanchez, or so I have heard (it's rumored, so you can skip this if you haven't seen it happening yourself).    Any "race" factor in running for offices doesn't seem to me to be part of the Job Description and is a cheap way to win votes- but it often works, so we continue to see it.

KAYSER seems more genuine here as one needed on the Board while SANCHEZ is a "worker bee" for the Villaraigosa/Monica Garcia/Jose Huizar style of misdirected and non-productive "leadership" that costs students in favor of making better deals with "friends" and boosting their egos as they get more power.


VILLARAIGOSA and his administration is what I am most familiar with and I see no positive thing overall happening from his office. On the contrary, so much that is bad government and Pay-to-Play has shown up that is like a virus running through all he's connected with, especially the City Council and the Board folks.

Don't make the situation worse. Vote for Kayser.

A retired LHS science teacher's letter on solar power in Eagle Rock Patch

Well, the title may not be quite clear, but what this is about is a letter from Jan Freed, an Eagle Rock resident now retired from teaching, who taught physical and environmental science at two public schools, one being Lincoln High School.  The subject is the need and benefits on moving to solar power as electricity continues to become more expensive.  http://eaglerock.patch.com/articles/letter-from-a-retired-school-teacher-who-has-seen-the-writing-on-the-wall-go-solar


The letter from Freed is very informative and this solar power conversion might be something you may be considering already.  I won't go much now into the usual other complaint that I have about the DWP being operated as out of control public agency from an accountability standpoint, thanks to the enablers aka City Council and the mayor. The creation of a Rate Payer Advocate as approved by the voters really should not have been needed if the City Council itself did its job and did not allow the DWP, essentially, do what the DWP wanted to do, resulting in arriving at our current condition.

LAUSD Board candidates Bennett Kayser & Luis Sanchez, 7:30 pm forum at Eagle Rock Elem.

Well, there's nothing like late notice.  The two candidates in the May 17th runoff election for the Sub-District seat will meet at 7:30 pme tonight in the Auditorium at Eagle Rock Elementary.  (I was among the group that was supposed to be "in the know" on this as one of the sponsoring group, and we had it scrubbed as of  last week, only to find a few days later that it was "on."  Well, coordination isn't always happening where it might be.)

This position is being vacated by Yolie Flores as she heads into the private sector. leaving her mark as a supporter of parent's who want alternatives to classic LAUSD schools that are currently operating in assorted forms.

Kayser would be my choice here since Luis Sanchez is LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia's chief-of-staff.  Garcia was elected to the LAUSD post as Jose Huizar left LAUSD to head on over to the City Council seat in CD-14.  Now remember that CD-14 was represented then by Antonio Villaraigosa who promised to serve the entire council member term  for us here in CD-14, on of many promises that he failed to keep.  That promise to serve out his whole term didn't last too long as we all know the rest of that story.

But Huizar had, as his chief-of-staff, Monica Garcia, and like musical chairs, she moved to take the LAUSD office that Huizar vacated, elected with the weight of Huizar and his benefactor, Antonio Villaraigosa, helping get the votes.

With the sad state of affairs that the LAUSD is in, what with them having shown us huge cost overruns on the many school that are costing way too much and being completed so slowly with one delay after another for many of the more expensively built schools.   The enrollment in LAUSD has been on the decline consistently over the laste decade that there is no longer the numbers of students now as before which created the need for more seats in the first place.

Villaraigosa was now the mayor and he was more interested in LAUSD and making it turn around (yes, he of little relevant experience) than dealing with his mandated responsibility of the city government itself.  But after spending much time, energy and money on the takeover of the school district, and being disappointed in that endeavor by the court's decision that he could not "take over" the District, or even just a little chunk of it, he's finally been able to insert several of his supporter/followers on the Board to have the influence that he wanted.  If Sanchez is elected, it would tilt this power more decisively in Villaraigosa's favor to have Board decisions go the way he and his friends want it to go.  Not a good situation at all for students but then the mayor and crew don't really have that as their main concern.

I think Antonio's got plans to dissassemble the LAUSD from within and all these expensive new schools are being handed over to charters and partnerships, it seems.  I don't think voters would have approved the huge bond measure if they knew the buildings were going to be given away as they have been, and it's not stopping, no, not with the Villaraigosa aligned folks getting their say-so.

At the same time, the city has plunged into financial chaos, as the mayor had somehow put the city business at the lower end of priorites over the years while he manuevered into a position to get into the Obama administration, but Obama was wise to pass over Antonio while taking many of the better staf members to D.C.    Then there was the run for governor. That effort fizzled so badly that his announcement that he was NOT running for governor was of his choice, partly to take care of city business and partly to be a father to his youngest child. 

So the city's floundering and now the attention is back on city government with the budget deficit unimaginably high, and bankruptcy is within reach.  As soon as the July 2009 inauguration was done, Antonion and love interest, Lu Parker of Ch. 5 News, quickly left L.A. for travel to South Africa.  (It was during this time period that the Michael Jackson memorial events happened, using huge numbers of LAPD officers to attend to anticipated crowds by the Staples Center.  I don't think the city ever recovered anything close to what expense it took for all these events to be handled by the police and other city services.

So with all the links to the political machinery of the mayor and cronies like former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, living large while in offices and finding his son on the wrong end of the law with a homicide charge, I think there's more than enough Villaraisgosa-style of influence on the scene to go around for now.

Kayser should get the vote and Luis Sanchez needs to be turned away at the door to keep that Villaraigosa influence from spreading any further.  The track record from Antonio activities just taints all the rest of the picture for me to believe any other of his cohorts will think of students first and not let politics rule their decisions.  Monica Garcia has showed me that problem too many times already, and you know that Sanchez was not chosen for his job as chief-of=staff by disagreeing with her.

Vote for Kayser. And this turnout on May 17th might hit a low of 10 percent of the registered voters who actually will show up to vote and make a difference.   And in  a low-turnout election, anything can happen.  No to Sanchez. Yes to Kayser.

LHS Alumni Association's Spring Dance tomorrow

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 30th, is the date for the Alumni Association's Spring Dance at Maggie's Pub in Santa Fe Springs.

This is a fundraiser that happens to also be affordable.  It's an opportunity to visit with old friends and meet other alumni and just relax for a while.   There is a buffet style dinner that's included and there's music as well.  Come by and visit, eat, trade stories and dance- or any combination of these things.

Check the side bar, and for more details, see Alumni page. A main contact would be Mike Ibarra.

Former Dodger Pitcher Bobby Castillo, LHS alum, at Alhambra for meet and greet on Saturday.

Bobby Castillo, the former Dodger pitcher and a Lincoln High alumnus, will be in Alhambra tomorrow afternoon according to the announcement sent out from KABC AM-790 radio, the Dodgers L.A. network station.  DETAILS: http://kabc.com/Article.asp?id=2156746&spid=11456 that also appears in the current edition of the Alhambra News.

The announcement mentions that Bobby was credited with teaching Fernando Valenzuela how to throw a screwball, a pitch that Valenzuela relied on for much of his career success.

Time and Place: Alhambra Courtyard on Saturday, April 16, from 12:00 noon-3:00 PM

Stop by if you have a chance and visit with Bobby.

Mayor Villaraigosa's State of City speech- Was he talking about Los Angeles?

The State of the City speech for 2011, the 6th one delivered by the mayor of Los Angeles, Antoinio Villaraigosa, and the accompanying delivery style by the mayor is what you'd might expect to hear with all thing in order, a very rosy picture. 

He did not really explain just where the money is going to come from to pay for all the things he described when you have to notice now that the libraries are closed 2 days a week and the LAPD has put a hold on new academy classes until the money situation is settled. 

The mayor is responsible for the city and that interest into LAUSD's area is not anything that's in the city's charter, but that's just a small detail for the mayor, too small to really pay attention to.    Maybe the real issues that a mayor's actual responsibility touches just is not interesting enough.   If you followed what the mayor has done over the years, the story calling him "The 11% Mayor" for all the time spent on real city business is appropriate.   

Since that story came out Antonio's not produced much improvement, hiring Austin Beutner to the be "Job Czar" and head up over a dozen city departments.  Usually each department has a separate person to run it.  DWP was one of Buetner's departments until the recent appointment of a "permanent" general manager.

But the Mayor is never one to let taking credit slip by without attaching his name to it.  And here, you have to really wonder about the "deal" he's talking about with the city employee unions.  There's got to be a lot of Council members wondering how the mayor is going to make his predictions happen when they've been working off and on for the last year to balance the budget.

Well, at least the speech sounded good.  There is one thing I am very sure of, and it's not the accuracy all that was mentioned in the speech. I know that the mayor had somebody write it for him.  The whole thing was too slick.   I really wonder how many of the city council members have begun to doubt Antonio's abilities.  Maybe that's the wrong question since that's probably happened a long time ago.  They now should wonder what is his game plan, since it's not re-election this as his last term.

You can bet on the regular things here, that "friends" will be the ones to get contracts, other deals and the benefit of the money from whatever projects and programs that public tax money supports. Whether it will be spent wisely for something measurably productive is yet another question.   Count me in as one of the doubters of the whole group.  With Wesson, Huiizar, Cardenas and Council President Garcetti each fined for violations of ethic rules and the mayor getting a fine for "ticket gate" with all the free tickets received, how can you have faith in them.  And I forgot that Alarcon's still facing a trial along with his wife for lying on voting documents about where he really lived.

By the way, don't worry that any of them will actually feel any pinch from paying the fines since they have diferent funds that come from the same ones that got them into trouble and these sources will provide the money to pay fines.  So in the end, there's no shame and no pain.   And these are the leaders that continue to be elected and re-elected to office, a real crime that voters had all in the palms of their hands to change.  An especially dismal picture when you see these people win elections with roughly less than 10 per cent of the city's registered voters choosing them as way less than 20% of the registered voters show up at the polls.

I still wonder how Antonio came to see the city as he described in the speech.

Alumni Meeting for April this Saturday at LHS.Tickets for April 30 dance on sale.

The Alumni Association meeting witll be at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, April 16, 2011 at LHS in the Cafeteria. 
There's lots to cover and the Alumni Spring Dance will be two weeks later at the same place as the fall dance, Maggie's Pub in Santa Fe Springs.

See the link in the sidebar.  Tickets are available at $35 each.  You can get tickets at this meeting as well.

Mayor Villaraigosa gives the 2011"State of City" speech today at 5pm.

Look for Mayor Villaraigosa to give the annual “State of the City” speech today, Wednesday, at 5pm.
The 2011 “State of the City Speech” that Mayor Villaraigosa presents each April will be different this time around from what the reports are in the L.A. Daily News and other news sources.

"Villaraigosa to focus on education in his State of the City address-The mayor's emphasis on struggling schools comes as city officials are wrestling with a deficit of at least $350 million and trying to retain services even after deep budget cuts."
maeve.reston@latimes.com
howard.blume@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-of-city-20110413,0,1123266.story

The Mayor has long sought to involve himself in the operations of the LAUSD even though it is outside the jurisdiction of Los Angeles City government. The Board of Education is in charge of running the district. The Mayor directed lots of his attention into getting involved where no other mayor or recent or old memory has ventured. Some wonder why so much attention goes there while the mayor’s personal attention to city business has been demonstrated to be low or worse.

Ultimately the mayor obtained “partnerships” to operate 10 schools that were low performing and so far, no one has reported that this has been a failure. A large segment of the faculty at Roosevelt High were not happy with the way the educational process was being handled by the mayor’s group a few years ago, but that has either been resolved or they have accepted what’s there.

To get back to the speech, the mayor is abandoning puttying more pressing issues into the forefront of the topic. The budget problems don’t do much to show the mayor being at the top of his job, so he will move to the education area, something that really is not the pressing issue for the city administration, but when you consider how severely distressed the city’s finances are now and will continue to be for years, the education area might make the mayor look good, satisfying his ego, and that’s part of the needs for this mayor all along.

The main motivation I expect here that puts “Education” into the spotlight is that it is a distraction from what bad news the budget issues bring us. There has been poor performance by the mayor and city council in handling taxpayer money since Day One.

There is one thing that most don’t notice that’s changed from the first ones made by Villaraigosa, and that’s the style of delivery. In the first one and maybe the second one, too, Villaraigosa appeared to use the Martin Luther King, Jr. “I have a dream…” style that you associate with some greatness of purpose. Unfortunately, there’s been no greatness with this mayor.

Maybe the mayor’s former delivery was made with the idea that these speeches would be part of future videos that all would refer to in L.A. history. Well, that’s not happening, so Antonio’s just using his regular style in making these speeches, finally abandoning the notion that he would ever be a great or even competent orator or that the content would be somehow worthwhile.

For a while in recent years, the mayor’s spoken words as heard in the news, were interrupted by “uh’s” and “ah’s” that gave the impression of either some underlying health problem his mental processes, or, simply a lack of preparedness on his part for the subject discussed.

Well, I don’t expect any great surprises as I have come to see most politicians, especially this one, use these moments to set up things for themselves, skipping the possibility that they would admit blame but usually finding some other reason for things turning out so poorly. He used “dreams” a lot in his themes. What I think will be his “dream” here will be some attempt at leaving his mark on the education system. The marks that he left elsewhere were of little use to the residents and businesses of Los Angeles.

Fundraiser Spaghetti Dinner Today at Lincoln Park for 4th of July Fireworks Show

Here's a last minute notice for a fundraiser to go to the 4th of July Fireworks show at Lincoln Park for July 2011.  It's a Spaghetti Dinner with tickets priced at $5 each, and this still is a bargain item that includes garlic bread, salad, and beverage. Sponsored by the Lincoln Heights Chamber of Commerce and the City Dept. of Recreation and Parks.

This is all happening on:
Saturday, April 9th,
from 3pm to 6pm at the Lincoln Park facility, 3501 N. Valley Blvd., Los Angeles.
- where there's lots of free parking, as well.

I don't have details on where contributions can be made for any of you who would like to help out but will post as I learn more on this.  Fireworks displays are one of the things that have a general appeal to the community.  It takes little effort to watch, a real spectator event, and these can be seen on a more widespread way from a distance, that a lot of other events can't match.

These are professionally presented for a safe and enjoyable experience that avoids the risks that people still take with "safe and sane" types of fireworks, and the other totally illegal and hazardous types you always see and hear around 4th of July.  

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This is one of the ways that these events can happen when the public works to support community events.  The City funding of all things is severely diminshed based on a lot of things that I won't go into any detail now, but you know there's lots of blame to go around at City Hall- and the CMs still can find money for pet projects, usually from "discretionary funds" of each CM.

For many events now, there has to be real partnerships put together to raise money to cover events, and if they are important, there should be support to make them happen.

LAUSD teachers get pink slips, even one of the better performers.

Aside from the city government's budget problems, the LAUSD has it's own continuing combination of woes involving budget and personnel. It looks like there is not enough money to keep the current teacher level at the present level after September, so "pink slips" were sent out as a prerequisite to layoffs of teachers.

The other part of the problem for the District is that performance of students still is lagging behind what's needed. Overall, this makes the District's education programs very much of appealing target for takeover by partnerships/charters and whatever other form of non-District operation that is being created.

Focusing on the pink slips story in the L.A. Times, "Singled-out L.A. Unified teacher shares skills with colleagues"- http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-broadous-teachers-20110403,0,4961288.story By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2011.  This is a teacher who has be able to improve student performance so well, that he's been consulted for assistance in improving other teachers' skills. The problem for Mr. Miguel Aguilar, an elementary teacher, is that he received a pink slip to make him subject to layoff. It's not a certainty, but he's still within the group that may find itself unemployed despite superior performance.

The "seniority" list is at work for deciding who goes, as it is in most other union-represented businesses. Performance is not the deciding factor, although a recent court decision appears to allow the District to take into account other factors in retaining teachers where there is overall low seniority within its roster which would leave a particular school without experienced teachers and many subs. The negative impact on the learning potential of students who have had their school cleaned out of such teachers by seniority-based layoffs is what makes the difference. This generally would not apply to schools where the number of the teachers laid off may be less intense.

Mr. Aguilar has 8 years of seniority and is still not high enough on the list to be "safe" which should make the teaching profession one that will have few takers in the current state of the economy. When you have experienced, credentialled teachers out of work, it's not not very enticing a career area for most looking for even a semblance of stability.

In the past, the LAUSD has cut down on the projected job losses and this is always a possibility here. Yet, when that happens and money is found to ward off the layoffs, it can cause doubt on the union's part as to the District really being forthcoming in what they present as the budget condition. We will have to wait and see what happens.

Alumni Association Meeting on Saturday

Meeting tomorrow of the Alumni Association.

Here's a message forwarded from Mike Ibarra:

YOUR ATTENDANCE IS IMPORTANT FOR THE CONTINUED SUCCESS OF THE LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION.

MONTHLY ASSOCATION MEETING NOTICE
DATE of Meeting: SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011
TIME: 9:30 a.m.
WHERE: LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA


PLEASE SUPPORT THE LHS ALUMNI - MAIL IN YOUR $20.00 ANNUAL DUES* (Fiscal Year, July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011) MAIL: LHSAA, PO BOX 31257, Los Angeles, CA 90031

*New Memberships will be valid until May 2012. You get 3 months FREE !

Log onto the high school website for Alumni news and updates:
http://lincolnhs.org/apps/news/?id=4

PARTIAL AGENDA ITEMS:
Come and meet active alumni participants.

Committee Reports
Alumni Association SPRING Dance (April 30, 2011)
Annual Alumni Yearbook Picture (Immediately after (Immediately after the meeting -Wear your Alumni Gear)
June's Executive Board Elections

Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday.

* 2011 Tiger Spring Dance *
Only 15 days left for $35.00 ticket Price

Frank Beltran, Retired Principal
Vice President -Membership, LHSAA
f.beltran@gte.net
f.beltran@mac.com
213.200-1007

L.A. Clean Sweep endorses in L.A. City Elections on Tuesday- your vote is important. In CD-14, elect Rudy Martinez

LA CLEAN SWEEP IN THE MAIL -AND ON CABLE TV IN FINAL DAYS.

Election Day is Tuesday. Just a very quick message for voters living in the city and in an even numbered district-

The local organization I support, actually a city-wide local group, is the L.A. Clean Sweep movement. It was formed to bring us responsible government to City Council and end the corruption that you can find in the news every week. All this costs the taxypayers who live and work in Los Angeles in the form of reduced services for increased costs, while deals happen to help "friends" and special interests but not much to better the conditions.

As we have seen Los Angeles conuncil persons act in a continued manner that creates no improvement while their management and that of the Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, heads us closer to a bankruptcy each day.

We want to sweep out the old and put in people who want to change the practices that have put us in this situation.

The candidates endorse by L.A. Clean Sweep reached after a detailed process including candidate interviews and finally a vote on the recommendations by the membership to produce this list.

Here is the complete LA Clean Sweep Candidate List:

District 2: No Endorsement

District 4: Stephen Box

District 6: Richard Goodman, David Barron, and Jamie Cordaro

District 8: Councilman Bernard Parks

District 10: Austin Dragon

District 12: Kelly Lord and Brad Smith

District 14: Rudy Martinez

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Rudy Martinez is challenging Jose Huizar in CD-14, a district that covers Eagle Rock, El Sereno, Boyle Heights and areas of Downtown.

I have followed the activities of city hall for a few years and the need for changes now is crucial if the city is going to change at all. We have seen examples of the city council use meeting after meeting to produce little action on its services and personnel. For approximately 9 months, they debated and maneuvered things to be more of an employment agency to put hundreds of people into the DWP, separately run (as you may have noticed from several news stories over the months).

The City created ERIPs early retirement that cut over 2400 people out of the general budget to lower the staffing. An entire accounting department was effectively stripped of its staff by the numbers taking the early retirement package. That was an expensive offering to entice retirement and the condition just mentioned was not seen until it was already done.

Another 300 people not paid from "general funds" used ERIP that did not help the budget since they were not paid from "general funds" but the expense only added to the costs of the program. As usual, lack of accountability runs rampant in city hall and needs to change.

This is just one example and there are many dozens more examples that show us that the highest paid council in the country ($15,000 per month salary) does not make for bettter performance.

You may have noticed that Council member Bernard Parks is an incumbent endorsed by L.A. Clean Sweep. Parks is probably the only one who has paid attention to the budget among all the CMs. He is not perfect but he does present the financial conditions to the council as it is, and many don't want to hear that. For month's they used to say "the 'B-word' in reference to "bankruptcy," very representative of the state of denial they pursued in the years since the budget crisis has worsened. Mr. Parks was often the bearer of bad news that was often not truly recognized by the other CMs.

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IN CD-14
CM Jose Huizar has failed in his representation of CD-14. His ads say "He's a fighter." Really? He's not done much in his 5 plus years in City Council although he loves to claim credit for everything by attaching, "Jose Huizar Presents...." This past year was an all out effort to try to claim credit for anything as if it was money coming out of his own wallet. The real picture is that it comes from taxpayers in one way or another and much of what Jose claims credit for would have been done by anyone in the office as part of the job.

He does have favorites, putting around a milliong to "Bring Back Broadway" and working to put a street car in, a very expensive proposition but that's Jose. Being a friend of Mayor Villaraigosa and supported by many of the same supporters the Mayor should tell you a lot. CM Huizar was selected as the successor to CD-14's council member when the Mayor cut short his term to run for election as Mayor, even though he promised to serve out his full term as CM in CD-14.

There are very many CMs loyal to the Mayor and you do not hear any criticism from them of the many opportunities that have come where some better leadership did not happen.

In this campaign, the relationship that Huizar has with the Mayor is kept very quiet so as to keep peace with the Mayor and to avoid showing the tie with the failed Mayor, lest people see the link.

Rudy Martinze in CD-14 is the better choice. Putting most of the campaign money from his own pocket tells you he is not in any sense a "bought and paid for politician"-notice Huizar's funding comes from assorted factions and it's there with the expectation of "getting what they paid for," otherwise called "patronage politics."

Rudy Martinez has successful private sector business experience that you don't see among council members and this is what's been absent in the City Council for many years. Martinez should be able to bring a better perspective that could only improve what the City Council does. Huizar, like most in the current council, is a career politician, looking ot maximize his time in office and then move on to another. Maybe we can make that move happen sooner.

In CD-14, vote for Rudy Martinez. This will be a low-turnout election which means you can come out and have a bigger impact than you might have in the state-wide elections. Many people are registered and just don't bother to come out thinking everything is not going to change. Come out, make the changes happen. If you put the same people back for another four years, how can you expect that they will change their behavior after already working at least one full term?

Vote March 8th- City Council -Elections for Even-Numbered Districts.

Tuesday, March 8th is the next election for the even-numbered districts. 7 council seat are involved.

Lincoln Heights is in Council District 1, and not involved until 2013. Expect Ed Reyes to run for whatever other office comes open first in either state or federal levels since he will be termed out in 2013.

In CD-14, you have two choices, the incumbent, Jose Huizar and the challenger, Rudy Martinez. Antonio Villaraigosa was once the CM in CD-14, promised to serve out his term of office and then ran for Mayor and won. Jose Huizar may also cut his term short if he is re-elected, and run for City Attorney.
(more on this later).


There also is the Board of Ed. election for some offices- Yolie Flores is not running again so District 5 will have a new member of the Board.

The L.A. City Council put several ballot measures up for the voters to decide. In some cases, it was put to the voters since the council could not decide the matters themselves.

More on these items to come.

Abraham Lincoln's Birthday Comes and Goes- Unnoticed at LHS?

An Unnoticed Day at Lincoln High School- Again?

I think that it's become a tradition at the alma mater to let opportunities for any gains in knowledge to slip through the fingers of those who try to assure us that our students are learning all that they can.

Lincoln High School, as the namesake of one of the greatest presidents in the history of this country, seems not to be able to make any progress in informing the students attending the school of any of the history of Lincoln.

I have come not to expect very much at these times that the students could become engaged in learning even a minimal amount of history from an abundance of sources.

A bit of celebration of the life of Lincoln might go a long way to instill a little knowledge and pride in the school. For many, I think the test scores have become the singular interest in their being and what really could do a bit to advance education and character simply falls by the wayside.

As usual, I have to add that, "I could be wrong." Maybe there is some focus on the life, times and accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln individually by some teachers, but the entire school is not involved in any common recognition as I determine from searching the LHS web site. There might be some large benefit with not much outlay of effort if each February there was a focus on this president. They have a year to try to do better in 2012.

I think that we have an easy job to find out so many things about this person in comparison to less prominent presidents and smaller figures in history that have high schools named after them.

I think that this blame falls to the leadership of a school. At Lincoln, it seems that the ills that plague the entire LAUSD operation are similarly present at the school where test scores, achievement measures and a number of theories have all the attention, along with so many efforts at recognizing "diversity."

It's all disappointing that these times come and go with little notice. Instead, there should be much, much more attention given to use this as an opportunity to involve students in some common theme especially directed to LHS as the district's high school uniquely bearing the name of Abraham Lincoln.

SOME LINCOLN FACTS -

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809.

President Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.

He was assassinated on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play entitled Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre.

This was the first Presidential assassination in American history.

The first formal observance of his birthday took place in 1866, the year after his assassination, when both houses of Congress gathered for a memorial address. While Lincoln's Birthday did not become a federal holiday like George Washington's, it did become a legal holiday in several states.

-From http://www.calendar-updates.com/info/holidays/us/lincoln.aspx with links to other Lincoln sites.

Also on this site is the Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg
November 19, 1863
================================

MORE ABOUT LINCOLN FROM his place among the U.S. Presidents at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ below:


ABRAHAM LINCOLN
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln

LHS alumnus Carlos Moreno, resigns as California Supreme Court Justice for life in private sector.

Carlos Moreno, California Supreme Court Justice

Many of the older alumni are more familiar with Justice Moreno, an LHS 1966 Summer Class graduate (and that Summer-Winter label is truly a sign of the old times) than the more recent LHS alumni. Justice Moreno will soon be Mr. Moreno as he's resigned from the California Supreme Court to pursue private practice after a substantial period of service.

There's a story from the February 1st edition of the "California Bar e-Journal" that will familiarize the younger people about him, as well as add some insight for many of us who actually knew him from way back. Here's the link,
http://www.calbarjournal.com/February2011/TopHeadlines/TH1.aspx

Congratulations is in order for his service on the court and we hope to see him around as he resumes practice locally.

Mayor's Anti-Gang Official in Fight with Cops, Arrested

Yes, as the L.A. Weekly story put it, Blanca Martinez-Navarro went gangsta on the cops at the Conga Room downtown. It all seems very bizarre and does nothing to promote any credibility for that program when you can chalk this up another case of employee bad conduct here.

The story about tells it all:
City News- "Blanca Martinez-Navarro, Gang Reduction Staffer For Mayor Villaragosa, Arrested At Conga Room For Allegedly Attacking LAPD Cop," By Dennis Romero, Mon., Jan. 24 2011 @ 7:00AM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/01/villaragosa_staff_arrest.php

Another interesting part of this is the comments added to the story. While I can't go for the "spic" reference, there's something to the idea of reverting to apply some parts of early life experience, if she did actually come from an environment of gang activity. Worse, it may be a current method of dispute resolution that slipped out in a moment of stress.

Either way, it's completely unacceptable but Mayor Villaraigosa has 2 very obvious choices to make: Upon verification of the facts (if the reports are correct) he will discharge her for her bad conduct and that will be that, which I would choose.

The other choice is to keep her, provide some counseling and blame her stressful life issues, with a need to protect her husband from the perceived harm from the police. Of course the husband and the wife were in or approaching a "domestic violence" condition but these things turnaround on responding cops all the time. Her perception of the situation that she might think supports defending her husband appears to be affected by a large quantity of alcoholic beverages. My opinion as created by reports but it's hard to spin this in a good way.

Antonio would try to keep her employed to downplay the embarrassment it's brought to the unit and to the mayor for choosing such persons.

Agan, to mention the comments, some are too supportive of so many things "wrong with this picture." Read them and compare. He's just too forgiving and I do not see why. I wonder what WOULD have to happen to make him change his view. I think she like many needs to actually claim RESPONSIBILITY for her own conduct. That's a big part of what's missing in the lives of so many people these days.

What's coming up? LHS Alumni January meeting

"WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK"

Maybe not. Well, if you don't post one day and then don't do it again each day until now, you get a big break in the blog like here. But a lot happened in that big month of a break- some of it noted below.

So the constant rains have subsided for a while, the Rose Parade has come and gone and Lincoln High's pilot program participation for an early beginning the school year in August is now adopted by the LAUSD district-wide, beginning next August. A few days later, we get some very cold weather- and "cold" to L.A. natives comes in at a higher mark on the thermometer than for people coming to L.A. from other parts of the county. But it was very cold for a while compared to other cold spells.

There was a Christmas Parade in Lincoln Heights down North Broadway on what may have been the hottest day in December, with a few participants needing some help at the end from the paramedics and police on duty. Roosevelt High made its appearance for the first time in this parade.

When I was last following the season, the LHS Tigers varsity football team was going into the city playoffs with a pretty impressive record but then encountered an early loss on the road, ending the 2010 season much better than we've seen in recent memory. The team, coaches and supporting personnel all deserve a big hand for the work put into a very successful season.


ALUMNI ASSOCIATION MEETING

After taking the month off in December, the Alumni Association is having the first meeting for the year at 9:30am on Saturday. I don't have the location down as a certainty, as the meetings were last held at the "Cafe in the Heights" after a long run at the LHS camus across the street in either the student cafeteria or the teachers' cafeteria. So more on that coming up.

There's another dance coming up in Spring that should be as good as the last one. It has a good chance of that happening probably because it will be held at the same location, Maggie's Pub in Santa Fe Springs. More details coming, or check http://www.classmates.com/ for the event.

So, there's the quick recap and now to put my writen here for a while instead of on other people's blogs.

Opposition in Compton by some parents to Parent Trigger & petition

The situation in Compton's McKinley Elementary is continuing to be focused on the Parent Trigger petition that initiates a change of the school's operators. A petition has to have 51% of the parent's signing it to have this become effective. Now, as reported by the L.A. Times, the opposition is claiming that many of the signers were not told the truth and that some are rescinding their signature.

"Effort to convert Compton school to charter draws fire- Some are withdrawing signatures given under the 'parent-trigger' law to make school a charter, saying they were intimidated or misled."
By Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1211-compton-school-20101211,0,4177045.story

So the parents are really saying that they did not read the petition, but they signed it anyway. There are some claiming intimidation by the petition signature gatherers and it appears from the story that pressure is being put on many to rescind their signature. The way it looks to me is that, unless there is outright fraud, like having forged or fictitious signatures, the number of those signing the petitions should be left alone.

I doubt that the legal process requires that once the petition initiating the change is presented with the sufficient number of parents signing it, that there has to be any more samplings to see there is no "buyer's remorse," otherwise there is no certainty, something necessary for planning, on the decision represented by the petition.

I am for this change to see what actually can be carried out by the new operators as specified for a couple of basic reasons: 1. Time is up: The school has had a long time with poor performance and recent improvement still did not move it up to the acceptable level; 2. Immediate change will happen in operations once operations are transferred. No assurance of any such move away from "status quo" condition can be made by the school district by leaving it alone to continue with whatever plan is in operation.

The defenders of the school use the big jumps in test scores to show effectiveness but the jumps can be very huge when you start off with a very poor performance. This goes for most conditions in life. Any improvement is a huge one when things have been going wrong. When things go better, the corresponding changes to plans will unlikely to be so dramatic.

Another analogy for this idea, a school analogy: A student can move up his or her grade from a "Fail" to a "D" relatively easily by eliminating some things he is doing, be it truancy or not turning in tests. A move up to a "C" level would be also within reach by a little more action on weak areas. This still leaves the grade at an "average" level, but a tremendous difference from a "Fail."

So, moving the grade in this condition becomes more difficult, though not impossible, when seeking a "B." More effort by the teacher, student and with the studying, that can be helped at home by a parent simply allowing a set amount of time daily for the student to do homework.

In Compton, the gains may be, for sake of example, moving from the "Fail" level to a "D" level, and then later to a "C" level, or close to it, but attributing the continued gains by leaving the situation as it is set just does not assure the continued rise in scores will happen.

If this change does happen, there is nothing to tell you that it will happen with any appropriate speed. Maybe a bit of explicit discussion of timetables and a recitation of actual plans could reassure me on this but we are past that now that the Parent Trigger petition is filed.

I think thae the accusations on both sides will begin to heat up and the district was mentioned in an earlier news story as not allowing any charter schools to operate in Compton so far, nor would the district appear to be changing that condition volutarily.

In this overall situation, I am looking at the impact, positive impact, on the students. I don't say too much for what the future holds for the current faculty roster or others who would be displaced at McKinley by the change. That's another situation connected to this matter but that concern will no doubt be working on stopping the change from happening, and that would just continue to frustrate the situation, doing exactly what the Paent Trigger was created to change.

We will see what develops and whatever happens will be something that I am sure that many other districts are looking at for future changes that may be heading their way. Again, tough as it may be, the parent involvement needs to be cultivated by teachers and anyone else seeking to improve education. In the case of low performing schools, their very existence as they are set up could depend on what the parents perceive is happening in the education of their children. Again, it's the perception important here, not any actual good showings, but that helps, too.

The Compton parents reached a critical point in terms of confidence in the future of education of their children and that's what controls the situation. On the surface, it does not seem to be an unreasonable choice. For children, education delayed is education lost. There are lots of students performing at below-grade-level by the time they enter high school and it's not fun for teachers or for students as extra work has to be done to remedy that deficiency.

Consider that here is where you get that dark shadow of poor performance falling upon many of them, heading them into deeper into the direction of "at-risk" or "high-risk" and then, too often, they don't get out of it, and instead, they encounter more unsuccessful experiences than successful experience in high school, lose interest in school and ultimately they drop out.

Yet another separate factor for problems in education is that these student often becoming involved wtih gangs somewhere along the line. That impact nearly always is a negative one as it relates to schoool performance, be it a distraction in the best case scenario or an obstacle to gaining progress in school performance.

If the Parent Trigger is followed up in Compton, you should take the opportunity. When LAUSD was operating in our days, even while fooling around in school, it left most graduating with a fairly usable level of skills. Not the best conditions for all, of course, but way better than what you see for too large a number of students now. If you recall from that era, we could fill out an employment application well. Now, especially if you have been in a position to see them, too many cannot even do this task without assorted difficulties entering the process.

I will end this here and see what happens next in this situation.

"Parent Trigger" as an alternative to "status quo" in schools

There was a story in the L.A. Times this week about an underperforming elementary school in Compton being the subject of a different manner of operation that's come into law in California. It's known as the parent trigger and in short, it can change the operation of a school by a majority of parents petitioning for the change. In the Compton case, a charter school operation will be in charge of the school.

"Parents present signatures to take over a Compton school-
Using the new 'parent-trigger' law, they take the first step in demanding a charter operation at McKinley Elementary." By Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-compton-school-20101208,0,5155683,full.story


The L.A. Weekly has it's own story on the situation with updates, "Compton Parents Petition to Take Over Chronically Failing Public School Through 'Parent Trigger' Law, Send Shock Waves Throughout the Nation," By Patrick Range McDonald, Wed., Dec. 8 2010. http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/12/parent_trigger_compton_unified.php

This story has reader comments that give assorted views. The main thing here that I see is that the parents using this approach will force the change whereas current methods of complaints on progress have resulted in the snail's pace rate of change in many cases, with little noticeable change to encourage any more patience.

The criticism can be made that you could have a schools educational process equally fumbled after a change but weighing that possibility against continuing "as is" or "status quo," the temptation is strong to make a change, especially if the operators of the school program have been considered and identified in advance. There would be not much point in moving control of a school from a group with no performance improvement methods working to parents without any plan for or idea of what's going to be done next. The goal should be to improve education immediately, not to make a change for just a hunch that it would be better.

My continuing reluctance here is that the special education aspects in education will likely be poorer not better. In working to make for better performance, you can see that the problem areas, the challenges, will be given some attention to reduce that aspect of responsibility. In that regard, you may be allowing for an increasingly disparate impact on students due to a variety of disabilities that a non-conventional school would seek to exclude among their duties.

We see the teachers union against this and that's expected; only the reasons will differ and some may be valid and others obviously weak. Again, this is in Compton and not the LAUSD, so much is still to be seen, and it is at an elementary school level and not a high school.

My observation here is that teachers, supported by their administrators and staff, need to work on linking up with the parents (and that can be one formidable task with some parents) so that there is communication and a better level of response to the needs of the students. At least among parents signing petitions, the perception currently in place demonstrates that this is not happening and a change is called for. Teachers who want to avoid this outcome would be well served to head this off by working to establish contact with parents and develop something of responsiveness to student needs as well as show what's been done and what the student needs to do (especially where classroom management problems involve the student).

LAUSD considers August start for all schools

The LAUSD is considering moving up the starting date for the next school year to August. The change will be about 3 weeks earlier than the regular date so that the fall semester will begin in August instead of September, which was the traditional month for back-to-school that most of us were used to.

Lincoln High was one of about 17 schools that began school in August, a plan that is hoped to move up test scores for the district. Many parents are opposed the plan for a number of reasons that the Daily News story reports on: "Some Valley parents are opposing expansion of LAUSD's 'early start' plan," By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer. http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_16729944

People mention the heat of August but there's air conditioning in nearly all schools and besides, the heat can come as late as October as with this year and a summer can be mild, again, like this year.

My idea on the resistance here is that it interrupts vacation schedules for everyone. The teachers, for example, will have a shorter summer break but there will still be the same number of school days, with a longer winter break.

Parents probably will have to re-arrange schedules but then that’s part of the overall differences in life now compared to even the very recent past. All things considered, I don’t think this will do much for the improvement of test scores or anything else to a significant degree. What might change test scores for the better, along with the rest of school life, is getting better work habits practiced by the students, with some regular cooperation from parents, not to mention having the district and site administration begin dealing with disruptive students in more appropriate ways and consistently so.

The LAUSD is becoming more desperate for getting better results with the tests. I wish they would have been a little more frugal in that building binge that burned up millions of dollars- at least they could have ACTED like they cared about tax dollars instead of going on spending sprees with architects and artists instead of accountants deciding what will be spent on buildings.

It’s nice to have good buildings, but even poorer settings can generate educated students where there’s motivated students and involved parents to cooperate with the classroom teachers, a condition that’s not seen by many schools.