LAUSD now chooses disabled students to suffer cuts due to their own inept management

Well, the LAUSD finally has come around to affect the disabled students as part of the ones to carry the burden for the administration's history of waste, fraud and abuse.

"L.A. Unified to shutter 200 classes, campus for disabled students-
The schoolchildren will be transferred to other classes, sometimes meaning longer commutes to other schools. It's part of the beleaguered district's attempts to deal with a $640-million deficit." By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times,
June 3, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-disabled-20100602,0,7041114,full.story


The millions that they at LAUSD have wasted from malfeasance at the management level was apparent in the hugely expensive payroll software. That payroll software did not work properly and caused problems that costs the district in terms of money and frustration as well as the real impact in shortchanging people in their paychecks and leaving them unable to address their financial obligations, all due to the foul ups of that software.

Step back in time and see in Mayor Sam's posting in September 2007 what was happening- nothing good and it was nothing unusual for that to be the case.
http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/2007/09/lausd-payroll-problems-redux.html


Here is another sample on that particular project from Tim Rutten, usually with a very liberal sort of leaning, but not forgiving on this topic. "The clowns at LAUSD - Who was in charge of the school district's failed payroll system? No one -- and that should be enough to send Supt. Brewer packing. " By Tim Rutten - February 13, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten13feb13,0,1383536.column

The LAUSD over years was lax in most areas where belt-tightening was not even the question, just simple accountability for expenditures made and justifications that made sense, rarely present in LAUSD dealings as long as the paper work was pushed properly.

The education effort by LAUSD was at least attentive to the children in special education programs and those especially needy at the special education centers. There has been a lot of problems with service to the special ed students in the comprehensive (regular) campuses and many obligations of the legally significant IEPs were not met with compliance for a variety of reasons, yet corrective action was only made in sporadic fashion. We had a law that said that all students were supposed to have their textbooks issued and when the spot checks by the district were actually made, still about 13 teachers/classes were not on the ball to show it- even though there was a concentrated effort that week to have ALL needs meet as far as books were concerned. There should easily have been a ZERO non-compliance number but there wasn't. Maybe that was a follow-up for the principal's crew to do before the spot-check, but that water over the dam now.

So you see that simple things don't even go right as they should, so tougher things slip through on a more regular basis.

Now the disabled students see closures that should not be happening, especially when there often is a tightly knit group of teachers, at least more so than at the regular campuses, and the populations served more regularly have parental involvement, often out of necessity in many cases where disabled students are involved.

I don't think that the answer to improved quality overall in education is solved by throwing money at it, but the special ed side of things needs to be maintained for both the producing results and for compliance with the federal and other mandates that don't seem to be given proper attention.

I don't know if this is a done deal, but the way that the district spent money on other things they should not have is what I think about when considering if you have any responsible management at the top there. This edition of the school board bears the current blame, but there is also a legacy of past members, including my own Council member Jose Huizar CD-14, who was the past president and thought that was a "plus" for his campaign for re-elections. I would have thought he should have downplayed that role for all the results that did not materialize under his "leadership."

Huizar's former aide, Monica Garcia, is carrying on her own politically controlled leadership now, heavily if not totally influenced by our loser mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who was so wrapped up in who-knows-what thoughts that he forgot to include the Korean War in the list of wars at the Memorial Day observance at the National Cemetary in West L.A. - and reacting poorly to a comment by adding "Do you want to do this?" or "Do you want to come up here," not a calm and collected reaction to any comment at all. You can find him courtside tonight at the Laker game. Ticket value each: about $4,000. but he's not reporting such things, so I will. So you can see there's influence spread that's around by freebies and Antonio says it's "official business" so it's o.k. Nice try.

Read the story and you may not really see the significance of this kind of facility but it does make a difference in the life opportunities for the future of disabled students especially where there is a signifcant limitation as here with blind and vision-impaired students. Learning is what it is about and diminishing the facilities available for such functional exercises is another problem on top of the reduced numbers of teachers that the budget cuts are causing.

While the LAUSD decides Teachers' fates, the Building program goes on, and poor performance is unabated.

Another consequence of the LAUSD building boom is that it goobles up neighborhoods and displaces people as it demolishes housing. The current catch phrase in City Council is "affordable housing" that a developer or the developer's friendly Council member has to mention in the presentations and it's like a secret password to open the doors to approval of more development, only the "secret password" is neither a secret nor what it purports to be, "affordable." Demolishing of housing happens often to the areas where the housing costs are relatively low, and where many people may have long paid off their homes. At the same time LAUSD schools are being built, a certain number of families are usually displaced, taking their children with them. This is only a little of what happens in the whole eco-system of construction in the LAUSD environment.

See what the blog, L.A. Curbed has to show in Echo Park where change is continuing
"Curbed Wire: Echo Park Loses A Street, Hollywood Construction Report," Thursday, June 4, 2009, by Dakota. http://la.curbed.com/archives/2009/06/curbed_wire_echo_park_loses_a_street_hollywood_construction_report.php Marathon Street is being closed by the City as requested by the LAUSD for school construction, although the size of the school will not be changing.
The posting refers to the blog, "The Eastsider L.A." for more details.
"City blinks in stand off with school district over Echo Park street closure " from June 2, 2009. Much of what I mention is also noted here, not by coincidence, not by copying ideas, but because that is what actually is there for all to see, no matter who writes or comments on it.

The LAUSD is down to about 2,000 teachers to be laid off, but the Construction program is still going full speed ahead. It's on course to have about 110,000 empty classroom seats by the end of the program in 2012, as the enrollment continues to decline. A few months back, a District person said they were completing one school a month.

How does that work? Building goes on in the face of declining enrollment and the District is searching for money to keep the teachers from being laid off? Well, most of the reason is due to the fact that the money on the operations and money on the construction and modernization side is required to be kept separate. So you can pass by a number of sites and see construction continuing while nearby schools have teachers launching campaigns to save their job.

Money for the building side was authorized by one of several bond measures from years back. Because the wheels at LAUSD spin slowly, you have a long delay that comes between the voter approval and the actual spending.

The bonds for the school buiding programs were approved by voters in the usual way, "Looks like a good idea," and a "Yes" vote is generated. That creates authorization for BORROWING money to do the work. I think most voters see most Bond measures for the first time when they hit the polling place and read the inviting language that welcomes a "Yes" vote- and here we are, loaded with more public debt and more schools are being popped out month by month, destined to be populated by charter schools, the only ones that are growing.

One of the ideas of handling money that I noticed in working in public agencies, and in the LAUSD in particular, contributes to the condition. That happens when there is money available in the erratic funding channels, often a feast-or-famine matter. You just don't give it up, and the "use-it-or-lose-it" rules that most bureaucracies follow in budget matters where "saving" or "carrying over" the money is not allowed, simply creates a culture of spending. And sometimes that is done with uneconomical choices made as a result, sometimes those choices are outright wasteful of the money available, but the "were going to lose it anyway if we don't spend it," works to remove any guilt on these matters. It's like a gift card that has an expiration date, spend it or it's gone. (Note: In California, actual gift cards, by statute, don't expire... yet).

Meanwhile, LAUSD continues with trying to be all things to all people without really equipping students to be able to do the best that they can. The main problem that LAUSD schools have that keep most low performing students in that category is the poor reading skills possessed. Some in high school really are three grade levels behind according to assessment testing. I and other teachers exchanged the same question, "What happened earlier when they were one or two grade levels behind?" Another factor for high school problems arising is a change in school practices. From what my 9th grade students told me, middle school did not introduce them to either "final exams" in their classes, or "failing" in their report cards and repeating the grade. All produced bad results, making high school their rude awakening in some cases, when it should not be a battle against students- they just were not taught anything differently, part of the "system's" casualties. They were not prepared for high school, just as high school is not sufficiently preparing the masses for "after-high school" life, what ever it may be.

Well, you always have good students, succeeding students and student that excel in school. They are not the problems. The attention to the other end of the spectrum is what causes so much of whatever problems you want to examine, in or out of school. The dropout problem in intertwined with this condition, as well, and until the LAUSD stops diluting its attention by spending disproportionate time on diversity and multiculturalism (as with City Council, overemphasis on "diversity" really now operates to promote separatist mentalities, no assimilation here) and begins pushing the academics and actual subjects of functioning in society, we will continue to see this poor outcome, unabated and still sucking up tax dollars for little rewards in exchange.

Charter schools vary in their approaches, but what helps them is the flexibility they are afforded by being of a much smaller organization. They can react more quickly to needs and adapt which keeps them successful in most cases. The LAUSD is too large to do that and until they truly subdivide the District, it will stay the way it is.

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.