More on LAUSD- strike is barred, teacher performance based termination changes in law requested

A couple of stories on the LAUSD teacher issues are continuing in the news.

And L.A. Times story. "School board members acknowledge swifter firings are needed; Four L.A. Unified board members say state laws need to be changed to get rid of underperforming teachers. Support for such efforts has increased in the wake of a Times investigation." By Jason Song May 13, 2009.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/la-schools-supt-reacts-to-teacher-dismissal-controversy-and-flu.html

There's the expected reaction coming from the recent series in the L.A. Times about the many teachers that can't be fired and that still get paid while housed at Beaudry headquarters. The LAUSD Board wants to have the state change laws but the Times items showed that the problems often came from mishandling of complaints and the processing by personnel that should be responsible for attending to hiring and continuing supervision. A lot of the problem is of LAUSD's own processes that you just don't see in the private sector, or if you do see it, the condition changes very soon upon discovery, and the people responsible have their own jobs to worry about.

There needs to be action to remedy situations like the one presented in the Times story, sounding similar in history to the various cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic church, including the Los Angeles Archdiocese under the "leadership" of Roger Mahoney. You may recall that there was the constant moving of priests and others accused or suspected of sexual abuse, instead of addressing the situation appropriately to end the conduct. Sometimes the people new location had some idea of the earlier problems and many times, nothing of the sort was mentioned, and the conduct was repeated upon other victims, usually children. The Archdiocese undeniably received favored treatment by law enforcement during investigations, and no one came in to clean out files and other records like what happens in other cases where it's not a church involved.

So let's not forget that. You had the D.A.'s office as another entity entangled with politics, not wanting to stir up a hornet's nest of controversy- but who suffers from that? It's justice that was shortchanged. It didn't help the victims. That entire scenario was not a good model to follow, but the impact on victims is no less serious when it's in the schools and not the church. In both cases, positions of respect and confidence allowed vulnerabilities of victims to be exploited.

The idea of easing restrictions on how a teacher can be terminated is one of the things that the Board voted for by a majority. President Monica Garcia is one of the persons usually in the union's corner, in the tradition of her benefactor, Mayor Villaraigosa.

Board President Monica Garcia, among others, cautioned that the solution would
be complicated and needed careful study.

Garcia seems to favor "studies" that are costly and that still leave you without any changes when much time has passed and much money has been spent. It seems that she is, in her own way, "running interference" for the union.

Look at her colleague, Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, recently in the news when getting a big chunk of tax dollars as salary for consulting for state Sen. Gloria Romero, "Yolie Flores Aguilar, a longtime friend and political ally of some powerful California Democrats, last year supplemented her income as vice president of the Los Angeles school board with more than $32,000 as a consultant assigned to a state Senate committee that, during her tenure, did not meet or release any reports, " from the story, "California jobs go to those with connections; Lawmakers can hire anyone they choose. Sometimes that means friends and family." By Patrick McGreevy, March 27, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nepotism27-2009mar27,0,1567133.story

Flores Aguilar is in step with Garcia's view of this situation,

"We need a comprehensive strategy, we need to present a well-thought-out
legislation, and we [need] someone who will carry legislation. We have to do all
of our homework," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar.

It all makes you wonder how anything will change when you have such an influence of politics overshadowing the need to act responsibly which is not always to stall things with a "study" but instead to move on making changes. Maybe one of the most significant changes you could ever see would be something done INTERNALLY to make the Headquarters and Sub-District offices do a better job to keep everything up to date. Some training in legal issues would help and some teacher and administrator training to avoid allowing the conditions that create lawsuits. And another improvement might be a novel one: using some common sense, often a scarce commodity in bureaucracies, as I have noticed over the years with many governmental agencies. When somebody asks for explanations for things, there should be prompt and good ones. There should not be cases where people have to construct lies or, maybe notice at that point, that what they have is not a completely responsible situation and they should not have let it get to that condition.

A lot can be done NOW to make the District act responsively instead of being a runaway train that will either crash or take miles and miles to slow down for control to be regained.

The other story is continuing from yesterday's L.A. Times story on the court order stopping a strike- updated for May 13, 2009- "Judge prohibits L.A. teachers strike; He grants a restraining order against the walkout planned for Friday, saying it defies the United Teachers union contract." By Howard Blume May 13, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-strike13-2009may13,0,1958124.story

This strike is still something that many wanted to participate in but the law is what controls. If any complaints are to be made by UTLA members, complain to your negotiators who made up the contract. They could look into seniority as the controlling factor for layoff notices while they are at it.

You see in the story that there still was an impact from the threat of the strike, where cancellations of events and changes in schedules had to be made in anticipation of the strike happening, including a Lincoln High trip to Glendale Community College. While maybe not all people are going to college, the things like this trip being lost for that day is another waste of time in the planning and need for rescheduling. Exposure of even Community College facilities to many students is often enlightening. Many have not been exposed to what many of us now take for granted as know by all. Students don't necessarily "know all" about anything, and assuming so itself is a reason for a less-than-the-best learning environment to be presented. Such things like a strike that upset the school day have to be subordinate to what gets an educational experience accomplished for students at every opportunity.

Lots in this area- imparting personal knowledge and skill- can be helped along by persons with such personal knowledge showing many or even just a few students, those things that they otherwise would have to learn about from reading books, or from "field trips," and maybe not learning at all. There are so many people who are themselves potential resources for information that would be able to give students a richer learning experience, more easily getting students "engaged" in the process to perform better academically and at least be sure of what they do know from such mentors efforts.

The mentor approach is something that even I as a former teacher and alum of the school don't hear about as "happening." If I were a parent of an LHS student I might have that information, but even there, I am not sure that parents, in general, know much about what happens in school. I see numerous learning opportunities lost through the short-sightedness of people in administrative roles who remain confined in thought to ritualistic procedures. Some other approaches that seem to be "new" are often explored, including the "small learning academies" ("SLCs") that still don't make complete sense to me- if small is the only way to educate, then why do other districts with comparable populations have academic performance so much better without resorting to SLCs?

I will get into SLC discussions later and I don't think it's the panacea for the poor performance that many believe it to be.

The Court says "No" to a strike by the L.A. teachers.

Well, the LAUSD went to court today and won in their bid to stop the teachers' one-day planned strike on Friday, May 15, 2009. "Judge halts teachers' strike," by Howard Blume, 12:47 PM May 12, 2009
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/judge-halts-teachers-strike.html The story is very short but there were a few more details added by the reports on the radio. The bottom line is that the teachers cannot strike because the contract between the school district and the teachers union has a no-strike provision that was bargained for as any contract term. The strike would be a violation of the contract term and the strike would cause "irreparable injury" (something that can't be fixed by pulling out a checkbook and paying money). Of course any and every possible outcome (negative ones) that the district could think of was included in the request.

The union tried to say that the court was without jurisdiction to decide the labor matter but the court disagreed and based it's ruling on the fact of this being a contract matter and that planned action would be a breach of the agreed upon terms. The ruling determines that the no strike is permissible, so it's not like "May 15th" is not possible under the order, but another day would work as not specifically barred. That's not what the decision is about and you could see some unhappy people brought back into court if they try to work around the decision and strike anyway. Contempt of a court order can get people arrested and ordered to be incarcerated as punishment.

The ruling probably is the best thing for the union and they don't realize it. Walking out on Friday would have alienated what public support that they might have since the message is "we don't deserve to be laid off." Lots of people don't deserve it, it's just something that is done to save money. That applies to how a school district operates, too. The idea of a strike would also waste the day for the students, even if there are substitutes for coverage, not to mention that there would be more expense run up in paying for subs to come in. Thinking about the effect of the planned action didn't seem to matter in the union decision to strike.

The L.A. Times story that's linked here also has a lot of reader's comments and most of it seems to be pro-union and against the court decision, but the thinking still doesn't show any recognition of the issues for the court to decide and some of it is of the extreme type. It doesn't matter anyway for most posting their comments- the court order is going to be considered wrong by them and that's all there is to it. A few others express some reasons why a strike should be avoided and that's definitely not a part of the majority view appearing in those comments. Some people identify themselves as teachers but don't indicate how many years of service they have or what level they teach. Another talks of urging a strike anyway, (a bad move) but it sounded like it was from a non-teacher.

Any interpretation other than permitting a strike was going to get criticized. The ruling seems to be sound and it saved the teachers from going out to picket schools, and annoying some, maybe lots, of the parents. Yes, this was really a blessing in disguise for the union and saved them from losing more support that would have happened as they continued to work on avoiding layoffs. And that's the way the picture looks- not "saving their jobs" but "avoiding be laid off." The same general idea but "saving their jobs" is largely associated with individual actions for survival and the other is more like getting favored treatment that others don't happen to get. At this point, the teachers are ahead from a sympathy viewpoint.

The Board President, Monica Garcia, is on the radio talking about how they are getting early retirement benefits packages available for non-teachers now. That would save many jobs, she says. I don't know the actual terms, other than hearing that 40% of the employee's salary would be paid over time- I suppose in periodic payments like the how paychecks are issued. And then the pension benefit is there, too. So do they get a 40% of salary payment for a number of years AND the retirement benefit sum, or JUST the 40% payment? It seems that it's not a cheap way to eliminate employees, but there are lots of teachers taking early retirements. Lincoln High has a several of its own teachers retiring at the end of this semester and some have lots of years there- a few arriving as I graduated or soon thereafter. For the others, there might be a few that have been enticed by the lure of the "Early Retirement" deal.

The union could take their case further, but it's very "iffy" that the decision would be changed and it's more expense for what amounts to little practical purpose- people already know what they want and trying to leverage the LAUSD, as inept in management as they tend to be, still gets them no new wave of public support. And as I said earlier, a strike would get some people who have not strong opinion to form one, a negative one.

And time moves on, so look for more news soon.

May Day is over, May 15 UTLA Teacher Strike Coming

The May Day protests did not make much news, the freeway traffic was not any lighter and the LAPD has not new problems from crowd control handling. Now what we have, according to the news is that the UTLA, the teachers union, is calling for a one-day strike on May 15, 2009. The L.A. Times reported this planned action that is supposed to influence the LAUSD Board of Education in acting on the budget without cutting any teachers. "L.A. teachers union plans 1-day strike; The work stoppage could fall on a day for AP testing." By Howard Blume May 2, 2009 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd2-2009may02,0,5015121.story

The teachers have voted their approval of the action and it looks like you can look for that to happen. May 15th is a Friday and the story points out that the month of May has lots of testing events happening. Lincoln High School's calendar http://www.lincolnhs.org/apps/events/view_calendar.jsp?y=2009&m=4&id=0&rn=591120 shows some of this on their website, and the strike date, 5-15-09, has a few events that could be disrupted if the teachers are missing. One event, the Jr. ROTC awards is listed on the Calendar at 1:00 p.m. and at 8:00 p.m. The first blocked out time period is probably for students to be recognized by the student body, and the evening hour is for parents and the public. That might be affected since an absence of teachers supervising supportive functions for the evening event ceremony could keep it from going on as scheduled. I think the daytime event would be a casualty for certain.

I think that the move is something that is going to lose public support and create some hostilitiy from the public. The Union and the teachers' position to save jobs in something that really is a part of the overall fallout from the economic conditions coupled with the usual ineptitude LAUSD demonstrates in handling money. I think the Board is trying to keep a safety margin my not applying all the stimulus funding at one time. That would save some jobs but the problem does not end there. The budget problems are expected to continue to the next year as well, and so the Board wants to have some resources to address the situation, at least in part.

If the strike goes on, the disruption to the students day would be very likely, even if there are other teachers who don't leave. Not all teachers are members of the UTLA, but the equivalent of "DUES" payments are taken out of the paycheck's of all the teachers anyway under some arrangement, so being a member at least lets you a vote.

Every day that's disrupted simply makes a difficult situation, providing a good level of education, that much more difficult. That goes for the students leaving campus to protest anything as well as the teachers not teaching. By the teachers actions of adding to this disruptive condition, I think it's a big negative to the role they play. What you have here is the "job preservation" role superseding the "provide an education to the students" role. Most of the newer teachers voted for the stike I would expect since they are going to be the group from which layoffs will come.

The union asks for parent suppport but the support of parents is more emotionally based that logically based overall. The story reports a parent saying, "I'm there to do whatever it takes to have my daughter get a good education." But supporting this option to arrive at a short term preservation of jobs might not be the best thing in the long run. There's still a lot to examine, but parents involvement is pretty easy to enlist if you address their emotional side and show how their child is served by it. It doesn't have to be an accurate picture, but that will get parents into this. For that reason, it's hard to use general parent assessments of the situation to be the best barometers of worthiness of the move.

We'll see if the teachers union does not hit a bad chord with the public by this move. You have to wonder if they have gone too far at this time when so many others are being laid off and my say, "Why should teachers be immune from this?"

There's also talk of an initiative to add more sales tax for education. Another bad move, in my opinion, but that's not a certain decision so far. As it is, the sales tax is too high. I don't think that all the people who voted for the sales tax really understood what the respective ballot measures really meant. Another reason for having an informed electorate and not rely on the best t.v. ads for the truth. Well, the authorization vote is done and we will see if they strike, which I say is another way to shoot yourself in the foot on this issue, and should be avoided.

LAUSD easing teacher firing plans; Galatzin not happy with decision

"LAUSD backs off plan to ease firing of teachers;
The board fails to pass the proposal, instead creating a task force to study the issue." By Howard Blume April 29, 2009, L.A. Times, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd29-2009apr29,0,425306.story

A proposal to make it faster and easier to fire ineffective, unprofessional or abusive teachers failed to pass at Tuesday's meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Education. A slim majority instead voted 4 to 3 to establish a task force to study the issue.

The resolution had been presented by board members Tamar Galatzan and Marlene Canter, who said she had pushed the issue behind the scenes since last fall.

Galatzin was interviewed on the radio Wednesday afternoon, expressed thorough frustration with the Board's outcome, choosing to conduct "a study of the issue" instead. She acknowledged that this particular action was effectively, no action.

The influence of the teachers union on the issue is obvously pretty heavy. There is always the thought that one's job can be endangered by the subjective judgement of a few superiors. This is the usual reason for rejection of anything that would weaken teacher's job security, but also results in throwing up a formidable firewall for the teachers with tenure.

"Let's all sit at the table," said board member Richard Vladovic, echoing calls
from leaders of the teachers union. "Let's slow it down and do it right."

The successful amended motion to establish a task force was offered by Vladovic,
Yolie Flores Aguilar and board President Monica Garcia.

The hardest part of making this thing work is finding a way that removes as much subjectivity as possible from the evaluation process. If student improvement is a measure of teacher performance, then how is that going to be assessed? If a student is a high performer, how much higher a gain would be possible? If the student is a poor performer, what amount of that behavior do you attribute to the teacher and what part is the responsibility of the student? And there you see a few of the problems. For issues not including student performance, the evaluation might be made more objectively. But the presence of a lot of vindictive and some simply ignorant superiors looms over the situation, and will remain an obstacle acceptance of this change happening.

You have administrators who are in their positions and still don't know basic concepts of law where retaliation is a legally barred practice, but it gets done anyway. The actions actually constitute legal violations, whether the interpretationj by the actor conforms to the view that a violation has been committed. In a school situation, you have the irony present where there are many actions taken to "preserve" rights of students, and then the same people will do things violative of employment laws and other laws and common sense when it comes to dealing with the adults on the school site.

The other offensive basis that makes me wonder how anything would be carried out comes from seeing how a school can be managed or mismanaged in various forms or areas. There have been general and specific observations that I knew of where certain supportive personnel were not properly supervised, causing delays for teachers getting materials and equipment in operation in a timely fashion. The practice was generally acknowledge by many teachers but they were stuck with the condition, lest it be made worse by complaining. A lot of that is in the past at some sites as administrators change, but the practices result in a subpar level of support for teachers and others, ultimately impacting on delivery of services (teaching) to the students. So who do you trust to judge teachers?

I am a skeptical of fairness easily assured. Galatzin appears to be the most pragmatic member since David Tokofsky was on the Board. She's accessible to the media and her presentations don't sound contrived with a lot of platitudes and mumbo-jumbo that's supposed to sound legalistic and serve as a response to a question, like others on the Board. You might look to the local area for examples. Board President Monica Garcia sidetracked the plans and for any "study" to be done, you know that if it's an LAUSD project, it's going to be a huge WASTE OF MONEY - a prediction that so much of the Board's track record will support.

But some situations don't need that- where students have been hurt and a pattern and practice is found with these problems, you should act to terminate; but that would make the school liable, too, based on the inevitably long lead time allowed to fester by the District before any action is taken. Again, it's often a case of the personnel (including management levels, or especially management levels, I should say) absolutely ignorant of the impact of the laws (and for some, either just ignorant of law altogther or acting in spite of the law), in which case training is essential (and often missing or inadequate) if that exposure to more liability is going to be stopped. It's' a big problem and a having such a huge district does not make for a condition conducive for solutions to happen. Even small districts have their own large problems, but they can get to them sooner, in my opinion. If there was a whistle-blower provision in LAUSD for internal ills, I am not aware of it, but you would expect it to either need lots of extensions to take calls, or just an answering machine for lack of faith in the system acting and not retaliating against a caller for his or her trouble.

A decision on LAUSD Layoffs; Stimulus funds to apply now.

"L.A. school board OKs cuts that could lay off thousands," 5:37 PM April 14, 2009, reported by Howard Blume, the education reporter for L.A. Times, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/moments-ago-the-los-angeles-board-of-education---approved-budget-measures-that-could-result-in-more---than-5000-job-losses.html

The final deadlines for decisions are not here yet, but high schools and middle schools will be most affected with the teacher retentions set to preserve elementary school situations above the others. The seniority system largely means younger teachers out and older teachers in, but the protesting teachers don't want any layoffs. A lot of non-teaching positions will be cut, too, but the story and parent concern is mostly on the classroom situations.

Board member Tamara Galatzan was not in agreement in the voting, 4-3, and her district has a lot of the burden as lots of middle class schools in the Valley will be hardest hit. There's more to come on that story.

If there is a change in the system, it's going to be an uphill battle to change the contract to something other than "seniority" to determine layoff priorities. It's unlikely to see teachers with seniority voting on any proposal to give up that term and use some "merit", "quality", or "effectiveness" as a basis for retention with the first problem being to have it introduced as a proposal and then, maybe first, to see "how" you can determine "quality" teachers? Get a class with a bunch of tough kids with their social skills being hostile to compliance and you may not look to be as effective as the Advanced Placement or Academically Enriched classroom teacher, and so on.

A radio news report just played a sound bite of some teachers outside the Board meeting shouting, "Strike, Strike." Well, THAT would be probably the worst choice for teachers to follow and the union would not do well to choose that action in times of extended budget deficits in LAUSD and other districts, and when enrollment in the District is dropping each year.

LAUSD "h.s. No. 9" needs a principal; Cortines will make the "artful" selection.

The LAUSD’s “high school No. 9” that is supposed to be a jewel of the downtown skyline is really turning out to be a problem for the District. It’s a $242 million school, according to the story in today’s L.A. TIMES, “Discord builds over new downtown arts school; Only months before it is to open, it has no principal and there is disagreement about who should run it and who should go there," by Mitchell Landsberg, April 6, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/los_angeles_metro/la-me-arts-high6-2009apr06,0,1125806.story?track=rss
I mentioned this project and the growing delays and cost overruns that diverged from the original plans. [see: Part II- New High School ("H.S. #9") for Downtown Area March 26, 2009, and LAUSD Back to the Future High School, HS #9, "parent tours"? on March 7, 2009] How long was the delay? The involved architectural firm included mention of the “2007” original completion date in its own blurb, "Cool school worth waiting for; Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Los Angeles Flagship High School delayed one year," appearing in World Architecture News.com, Monday 19 Nov 2007. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=1607

So what’s the problem today? The District seems to have a problem in its search for a principal to handle this school with the specialty “arts” function. Furthermore, some of the supporters of the project are now becoming critics. The story points to an idea to turn “high school No. 9” over to charter schools for handling and the billionaire, Eli Broad, is complaining about things. Broad, I remind you, is the one who had a lot of influence in selecting this extravaganza of architecture. He was a pal of Mayor Villaraigosa in the big “Grand Avenue Project” that was planned to run from the Civic Center to Staples Center.

The idea of having a monumental design, with the school to serve as a book end on the north side of the project, was part of this whole notion of self-indulgence. The “Grand Avenue Project” is experiencing it’s own problems now. “L.A.'s upscale downtown delayed; As the economy takes a toll on plans, observers focus their concern on two mega-projects: Grand Avenue and Park Fifth,” By Cara Mia DiMassa, L.A. Times, February 25, 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downtown25feb25,0,6053516.story


The "GrandAvenue Project" has a separate history of shadiness beginning with what was presented to get it started, being a lure for the developers in the downtown area, along with tax dollars and tax concessions provided as financial aid. It’s seriously behind in getting going and a few maneuvers to shift taxpayers' money over to help pay for it still continue, but not rightfully. In short, it’s wasting tax dollars of many people for the unnecessary and fanciful ideas of a few.

Why is it that the “private” developments seem to be such a sink-hole for tax dollars? Besides that, you have a lot of politicians totally excited and supportive of these things at the beginning and they really don’t have any liability for ANYTHING when the storm clouds of financial disaster rain down upon it all. Many of these men and women have long departed the scene and moved on to other offices in the meanwhile, too.

If there were really some actual responsibility for spending decisions- any responsibility- you would see a different picture. You would have an entirely different way of handling money and we would not have all the waste and constant rewarding by contracts to the politicians’ “friends.”

In the military, when casualties come from mistakes of fellow military allies, the mistakes are called a result of “friendly fire”- not so “friendly” for the deceased and wounded. In politics they should have some name for that effect, the figurative “killing and wounding” of the taxpayers by serious and continual mishandling by politicians and the contractors who are awarded construction project contracts.

But that’s another story and right now the LAUSD has a very expensive school that Supt. Cortines has to get ready for September classes. I expect that he could get a principal there by just assigning one to the job, but there’s got to be more to it or the job would be done by now. It seems that it would be a prize assignment but then you don't know what strings are attached that may be the downfall of an appointee. If major performance improvement is expected with some rubrics set up to measure that, then maybe the risk is too great for anyone to put his or her career on the line for a constantly changing degree of support that you can't rely on- not to mention turning around the learning style that the LAUSD has typically been known for.

You can see that the charter schools, hungry for facility space, would love to wind up with a brand new school. Charters are public schools in the sense that students can attend them for free and the LAUSD does have an obligation by law to provide some space, but I don’t think anyone really had this, the second most expensive in the country, behind the Beaudry high school financial morass (“Roybal Learning Center”), as one of the available spaces. They haven’t really even tried yet to make this school work.

Another issue is the fact that they are NOT using the school for only arts-interested students. That’s something that I did not have a clear idea about earlier, but it looks like just living nearby to "high school No. 9" will qualify you for an opportunity to attend even if you don’t care about arts or music as an area for study. THAT’s the big mistake of LAUSD, no stranger to mistakes, and if they do not alter that idea, they are in for more criticism, and rightly so. As I said before, you don’t buy a Ferrari to drive it on the daily snails-pace freeway commutes everyday, and you should not have all the “state of the art” go to waste by not having the school fully used to it’s highest capacity and level happens to be.

Supt. Cortines should be better able to handle the situation than his several recent predecessors. But it should never have gotten to this condition, and it’s all because nobody is or can be held accountable, unless there’s been some crime or near-crime that’s provable. What do you think is at stake for Monica Garcia, the president of the Board if things go wrong? Not much. She's just been re-elected to the Board, but running "unopposed," that means only that no one else could finance a campaign against her, not that she is doing any kind of bang up job in solving problems. The political maching is on her side and that's her role. She's a completely political entity, as were her predecessors, and Garcia only needs to satisfy that condition for continued life politically-speaking- meaning here, that keeping her major benefactor, Mayor Villaraigosa content is of primary concern. Any benefit to students or the public would be incidental, possibly better described as "coincidental" to the job of running things harmoniously with the Mayor's preferences.

On that matter, thinking about what behavior passes in politics, we shouldn’t expect much on that basis since the bar on what's “proper” has moved progressively downward over the years- think “limbo lower, now,” here and you get an idea of how far things have come to bring us where we are now.

Outside Consultants Hit Paydirt with LAUSD- Audit findings strike a nerve with Cortines

A story today from the L.A. Daily News has brought out some information that raises more questions about LAUSD spending trends and amounts, "Big bucks for LAUSD consultants," by George B. Sánchez, Staff Writer, posted: 03/26/2009. Some costly spending by the LAUSD on outside consultants during 2006-2007 was a glaring finding. http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_11998276

Supertintendent Ramon Cortines was so concerned with the findings presented to him from an audit that he has somebody check it over and, according to the story, to look over "a defense of the building program by construction chief Guy Mehula." The audit was prepared by Inspector General Jerry Thornton.

While the audit was completed late last month, Cortines said it contained
"unsubstantiated" findings and asked Thornton and Mehula to work out their
differences.

"I am on top of this," Cortines said. "I have concerns with the report and its content."
School board members are only now getting copies of the audit, which Cortines said he would explain to them on Tuesday.

The inspector general, the district's internal watchdog, said he would not release the report to the media until late next week.

Check the rest of the story and see what else you might consider as the union has, that might affect the extent of the teacher layoffs. The construction has been going on for years and at the same time, District's schools have seen enrollment continue to decline each year, making you wonder about the entire scheme of things and how this makes sense. It mght be that the spending is being done as quickly as possible just to do it before somebody sees this conflict in logic and reels all these characters in.

District officials defend the practice, saying consultant contracts ebb and
flow with the various stages of construction and have said district wages don't
measure up to industry standards.

They add that special consultants are particularly needed to efficiently
carry out the nearly $20 billion school construction program.

One of the things I found from the teacher training by the District a few years back, was that there were "consultants" who were formerly LAUSD employees and then went private with their skills, being able to earn a better income. That personnel transition was something that was applicable to those providing services related to the pupils, but as for this audit and whether it applies exclusively to the construction of buildings is not known to me.

UTLA President AJ Duffy has not seen the report but is duly concerned and offers no "benefit of the doubt" meanwhile to the District, instead suspecting more poor handling of finances to the detriment of the teachers.

There looks to be more to come from Superintendent Cortines very soon and we will see how the Board members handle it. If there is any action to be done, I hope we don't have to sit through a whole lot of verbage and jargon before the get to the answer and if there something wrong, it would be a refreshing change to see somebody admit it, and not go into "cover up" mode.

Monica Garcia, LAUSD President, has L.A. Times reluctant endorsement in relection bid while running unopposed.

The L.A. Times today did not eagerly endorse MONICA GARCIA, President of the Board, for reelection for the District 2 office.

See: "A strong L.A. School Board; L.A. voters have several good choices. We pick three and hope they make students their priority."

They could have said "NO" to the endorsement and still print the comments that they did. It all fits. She is running unopposed and so she will be elected unless there is the nearly impossible outcome where she does not get the majority of votes cast for the office. With no other name on the ballot for "District 2", what do you think voters will do?

The Times was able to admit and to notice that Mayor Villaraigosa's selection for this office has not done much to advance her cause for re-election. MONICA GARCIA takes her cues from the Mayor and that probably is the reason all has not been going well in the education side of city operations.

The LAUSD is an entirely separate governmental body from the City of Los Angeles, and the responsibility for education decisions in the local public schools rests solely with the Board. The Times gives reasons that support its decision to be unenthusiastic in endorsing GARCIA that I agree with.

Read the Times item yourself. The LAUSD bond measure of $7 billion that passed originally was set at $3.5 Billion, but the last meeting on the decision for the amount had it jump to double that amount. There was not a specific application for all this money, but they wanted it to cover whatever they might need later. That was like, "let's ask for as much as we can and if we get it, we can decide later how we will spend it." So now taxpayers have that financial burden, like an unwanted tattoo, it's not going away.

Further, this is a GARCIA-led Board that has gone on a mission to build more schools as much and as fast as possible, displacing people, demolishing homes, (many homes in low income areas, pushing residents out), and then in Echo Park, doing this so rushed (rushing even while the case was in court waiting to be decided) that the opposition prevailed in court that ordered them back off and essentially start over. The LAUSD was responsible for not complying with required steps, like an inadequate environmental impact report, costing the public lots of tax dollars (again) and putting people out of housing.

But MS. GARCIA seems more concerned, as the Times sees also, with social justice so much that education turns out to take a back seat. First it's important to be able to perform well in school which will make the rest improve. That over-50% dropout rate is still there, and many parents who can manage it will continue to put their children in schools other that LAUSD. Even Mayor Villaraigosa did not have confidence in the system to allow his children to attend local public schools, and he made no apologies for his decision, he simply said he did not want to risk his own children's well-being.

The enrollment in LAUSD has noticeably been declining for years, but you would not know it from the rush for more construction that continues. Students are leaving for private schools, parochial schools, charter schools, or just leaving the District. But what happens withall this construction? Each new school needs another complete administrative population and faculty to operate and with each new school, comes new costs. The costs of schools has been out of control, another LAUSD trademark but the leadership survives unchanged at Beaudry St. District Headquarters. This year the budget is going to make some changes necessary for all the big spending of the past in assorted categories, but still there has not been a product to show for it.

GARCIA will be re-elected but not because she earned it.