Low Performer: More about selection of Lincoln High for school takeover and choices made by LAUSD

The recent decisions by the LAUSD Board have determined winners among applicants to operate 24 new schools and 12 low-performing 'focus' schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) beginning in the 2010-2011 school year. The goal is to improve academic performance, somthing that LAUSD has seen deteriorate over the years. (Photo, right: LHS student protests LAUSD teacher layoff proposals, May 22, 2009. And, no, that's not a color-balancing error; the yellows shown are the actual shades painted on the buildings at LHS- an entirely separate problem.)

SELECTION OF THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE AFFECTED
These selections were based on several factors. The voting was done on a local basis for each school as part of the "Public School Choice" process to determine what the parents, faculty, students, community and other interested parties wanted for each school. The results were evaluated by various teams making recommendations to Supt. Ramon Cortines. Cortines then used the information to send his recommendations to the Board where the final decision was made last month.

But how did Lincoln get into that group to qualify for such significant process? That's explained in the story published five months ago, on October 1, 2010, in EGPnews.com :


"LAUSD Identifies ‘Focus Schools’ Eligible for Potential Outside Takeover- The schools were selected based on the results of the latest Academic Performance Index that offers a complex view of incremental improvements of local public schools." By Paul Aranda Jr., EGP Staff Writer
http://egpnews.com/?p=13007

The problems considered were not just the low test scores but the "progress" made by schools in performance. Lincoln was low in test performance, as you can see in the story, but just as importantly, had not gained and instead, showed a negative for yearly progress in scores. I often criticize the way statistics that may be accurate in themselves, are manipulated by people to slant the picture to favor the presenter's objectives, and you see that with lots of local politicians as they try to make something out of what it is not.

Here, that's not the case and the low numbers, viewed in any light, still are low numbers that stand out for LHS because test scores went into a negative direction, too. The story fills in a picture that shows we have some very steep gains to be made if students coming out of these schools will have the level of education just to be considered "competent" as high school graduates. There's still the problem of the students that quit before graduation, adding to the roster of dropouts that LAUSD is becoming known for. Improving the way teaching is done could keep more in school. Finding ways to "engage" students is what most teachers try to do. If you can do that, it makes the rest of what you do as a teacher much more enjoyable as a teacher, and as a student, too. Being bored or lost is not what you want students to have as the high school experience. It goes for other levels, too, but I use observations and experiences of mine and of others that center on the high school range.


THE OUTCOME OF CHOICES MADE
"Teachers to Run Local Schools- Board turns northeast and eastside schools over to teacher applicants." By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer
http://egpnews.com/?p=16408 February 25, 2010. This report is on the Board's action just over a month ago, where you can see it was not a smooth process.

AJ Duffy, president of the teachers' union, UTLA, urged a rejection of outside applicants. No surprise there, as any union, not just the teachers, will oppose a threat to its membership's jobs and a weakening of union power. Another union leader echoed the same action, still a union-first, students-second or worse, in my opinion. In summary, there were disputes within the Board as Monica Garcia, Board President, favored teacher-led proposals over the outside applications, putting aside the choice recommended by Supt. Cortines, the person working on the recommendations report. You can see here that Garcia, continues to be concerned more with political influences than she is with what should be best for the students to improve.

Garcia, I will add for those not following these things much, has a lot owed to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for her job. She was on the staff of now-L.A. City Council Member for CD-14, Jose Huizar, then moved up when he left. CM Huizar owes much to Villariagosa himself, succeding him as CM in CD-14 when Villaraigosa won the election in 2005 for mayor. Much of the association with Villaraigosa is viewed as a negative now, with all the poor performance of the Mayor finally visible despite the spin that the Mayor and his staff put on things.

But getting to the impact on the students, we saw some dissension on the Board. It was between Garcia and Board member Yolie Flores who favored following the recommendations that the Superintendent presented. Flores did not prevail. This result, from other reports I read in the past, amounted to the Board rejecting a couple of charter school organizations that are the "gold standard" among charters, in favor of going to the untested proposals from the teachers' side. And if you consider that the influence of the LAUSD style on it's teachers imprints on their style to some extent, breaking away from those ideas is really not something of any realistic expectation.

Lincoln High School’s two applicants were approved. The Lincoln High School
Focus Team was approved with reservations, while the ‘Law, Leadership in
Entertainment & Media Academy’ (LEMA) was strongly recommended by the
superintendent. There was no discussion regarding concerns of LEMA’s proposal to
pay students based on academic performance, behavior and attendance.

Eighty-five proposals were submitted for 12 low-performing schools and
24 new campuses that became available under the Public School Choice Resolution
approved last year. Cortines eliminated many of the applicants for submitting
identical proposals for different schools, for lacking details for
implementation, or lacking strong plans to help English Learners, among other
things.

I think that there should have been at least some less defensive attitude shown here. Something should have been done differently, some attempt to allow a charter school operation if it's going to work and help the students. Isn't that supposed to be the goal of the educational system, educating the students?

The politics here are a strong influence. Garcia has consistently responded to situation with decision based on the influences exerted upon her by special interests, including the unions. The Mayor spent much time and energy in his first term as Mayor on trying to assume power over LAUSD schools. That is NOT within the scope of his powers as mayor, and he finally landed a partnership agreement with a few low performers that still have not shown any change from before. In fact, teachers in those schools voiced many complaint after the changes became effective. Not much to show here by the Mayor. Worse yet, the CITY where he was supposed to be managing, continued to show worsening conditions that only NOW he's forced to face up to.

What's to show for all this? Still a weakened school system that's got a money crisis, too. And the City is looking at 4,000 layoff to balance the budget, with services of all sorts being likely to be seriously reduced or eliminated across the city. So we need to see where all the changes approved by the Board will do any good. I am very skeptical since the LAUSD culture is really one that has no effective oversight of anything, tends to act way past the time something should have been done, and makes lots of decisions from the Board level down to the school level that don't make sense and perpetuate the same level of substandard education.

There are some fine products from LAUSD among the students graduating, but that's just it. They are graduating, a result of continuing student AND PARENT effort. Absent that, you add to the at-risk students population. Too often choosing to dumb down or lower the bar is preferred over finding ways to achieve higher goals. The Board talks about higer goals, everybody does. But they don't make them attainable by any plans or facilitations. The Fraud, Waste and Abuse in the system does not help either.

What I am talking about is not the handling of the "good students" that are really a pleasure to teach. They make their teachers look good and will rise to the top anyway. I am pointing to the other end of the spectrum with troubled students that need to be redirected. That may be the more sizeable portion of LAUSD students. Our students still can make some dramatic improvements with all the energy and potential they possess. The need that potential used to take advantage of the EXISTING opportunities for an education now, and not wait for some untested or theoretical solution as the LAUSD's savior as an institution. I used to remind my students of the following observation, or a variation of it, "This is the last time that you will have FREE education. In the future, you or somebody else will have to pay something for you to go to school, so you should try to get all you can now." I discussed this and the ways to do it. I did not just say this as a slogan but I have already written too much here to get into that.

It's a big job and the problems in the system are serious as they also affect getting the education job done. But we have to continue trying; and it might be a good idea to see what worked in the past and what now works for other districts that are doing better- so much so that parents have transferred their children to those districts.

That's the subject of another planned blog posting.

LAUSD plays politics again, Public School Choice recommendation of Cortines ignored.

"Insiders Versus Charters at LAUSD-
Strings were pulled, and Ramon Cortines was stopped by his own Board of Education," By Beth Barrett, Thursday, Mar 11 2010. L.A. WEEKLY
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-03-11/news/insiders-versus-charters-at-lausd/2

This is a good article to show the politics that are involved to replace the real concern for the children's educational opportunities in the recent LAUSD process to select operators for 30 schools, 12 new and 18 lowest performers. This happens to include Lincoln High among them. The big issue here is that Superintendent Ramon Cortines made recommendations following the voting done at each of the school locations from several factions including the parents. This was the Public School Choice voting, a purely advisory operation, but one that was to be seriously considered by Supt. Cortines.

Well, there were some preliminary reports released after the voting and the Superintendent made recommendations for which schools should be operated by which group. The groups making the proposals were groups led by the principal, as in Lincoln's case, teacher-led proponents, also done at Lincoln, and other groups including the Mayor's Partnership and some charter schools. Lincoln had only the two competing interests that I commented on in an earlier posting after the elections. I thought that since both groups were from esentially the same roots, the LAUSD, I think that there is a strong influence there that will really not be much of any real change.

Other schools, like the Esteban Torres Learning Center, had lots more applicants so there was quite a lot of potential for change. What resulted in the outcome that was finally decided by the LAUSD Board, led by Board President, Monica Garcia, to ignore the recommendations of Cortines and to exclude charter school applicants in almost every case.

There had been concerns before that the charters had cherry picked students and so they could expect better results when compared to the LAUSD. In this situation, requirements for accepting under policies of inclusion were to be followed. That would mean that students would not be screened out as often done before, so more of a cross section would then compose the student body and the educational needs of underserved students would be addressed. That was not to be seen in the case, as mentioned in the L.A. Times editiorial referenced below. I don't regularly agree with the editorials in the Times, but I think that this was one very correctly stated.

"Editorial-
A lesson for charter school operators - After lobbying for a plan to let outside groups run some L.A. Unified schools, the charter operators were almost shut out. Now what do they do? "
March 02, 2010
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/02/opinion/la-ed-charter3-2010mar03

One main point of the L.A. WEEKLY story was that Board member, Yolie Flores, the one who proposed the idea of voting for the operators, was in the lead here as a reformer to try to make a major change happen with the district. I really did not like the way Yolie Flores handled the Eagle Rock High dispute with the football coach, the principal and others in the faculty and administration a few years back. Nothing was settled there until Supt. Cortines personally became involved and settled the matter, although less than satisfactorily, in my view. That issue with the "consultant" employment with Gloria Romero was not a good sign, either, as far as I was concerned.

Well, now Flores seems to be doing her job and thinking about the education of the students. The others still appear to be bound by overriding concerns for political affiliations. Remember that Monica Garcia was working under current city council member Jose Huizar when he was president of the Board. Both he and Garcia had a lot owed to Mayor Villaraigosa as he really got them elected to their respective posts. In the last election, the Board majority is now weighted in favor of Villaraigosa, and the deference to the Mayor's Partnerships applications shows.

You can read the story to see how you have special interests- and that includes unions- exert influence to sway the outcomes of events. It is not quite illegal, but you see that somethings get seriously affected by the entry of such forces. When you see the name of Maria Elena Durazo mentioned, you know that there is some intense interest by the union here. She is probably the single most influential leader in labor since the death of her husband Miguel Contreras several years ago. He preceeded her in the union leadership, and you can see that influence in the area was enough that he had a learning center named after him.

Well, this story does a good job of showing reasons why things happen the way that they do, and that's not what the general public is widely aware of. There is a comment section after the story that is filled with comments longer than the story where the author, a 2007 magnet school retiree just can't criticize enough. Briefly, I don't think his criticism is well-placed as much of the target really isn't part of the focus of the story. I won't get into that much more than to say that most of what's stated can be distinguished and refuted although there is some validity to many of the observations made, but they don't really go to this story but to education on a broader level, and specific application to the LAUSD. (You can read that, too, and there's a lot, and form your own opinions. )

It was good to see that Flores appeared to be on the right track as far as what a Board member should be doing. I hope that she continues in that path and that this experience deters her from doing what is right. Garcia, on the other hand, is too entangled in politics, as she should be since she has no demonstrated performance of any real benefit to students, so far, and she needs political friends to keep getting her elected.

More on the LAUSD rejection of Charter Schools applications.

"The charter school test case that didn't happen - If they hadn't been mostly shut out of bids to run a slew of new L.A. Unified campuses, the groups might have demonstrated how they handle students with challenging needs." By Howard Blume,
February 26, 2010 - L.A. Times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charter26-2010feb26,0,1231323.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

The story is pretty rich in content to tell you that there is a good helping of politics that goes on in decisions by the LAUSD Board when it comes to everything. The Public School Choice voting for preferences of takeover proposals a few weeks ago, leading to School Superintendent Ramon Cortines to recommend among them just which ones will walk away with the right to set up shop and do some serious schooling on campus.

I was surprised with what the Board Member, Yolie Flores Aguilar, said since it made so much sense and I had not noticed that kind of thing as one of her qualities. I guess I was still miffed about her good fortune to double-dip and work for Gloria Romero and pull in thousands as a consultant without any observable work produced while on the Board.

And in this instance, charters agreed to operate by more inclusive rules in exchange for access to state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar campuses.

"This would have been an opportunity to have [charters] rise to the challenge as we in the district do every day in serving these populations at an equal level," said board member Yolie Flores, who brought the school-control proposal to the board in August.

Union president AJ Duffy was speaking the party line and I have come to take what he says with the proverbial grain of salt. He is never one to be constrained in his comments by actual facts.
His job is to work for teachers and of course, perpetuate the power of his union. The collateral benefit to actual children who are the students to be served is always secondary as a priority.

Read the story and see what I mean. Maybe there SHOULD have been a charter allowed to try it's hand since LAUSD has had years with the results being shown among these low performing schools. The addressing of needs of special education and English Language Learners if attempted by charters who are not without some success was not allowed. It's political, remember?

The title of labor czar could have been applied to Maria Elena Durazo, as the labor head with considerable influence that is thrown the way of the LAUSD, who in its typical and characteristic style, is hopelessly unable to resist any of it. I think the role held by the Board President Monica Garcia fits nicely into a too-cozy relationship where Garcia's very comfortable. Too often I think we have something of hero-worshipping substituting for objective and productive actions taken on behalf of students and the publie in general.

Although Supt. Ramon C. Cortines favored mostly internal proposals, he had also recommended giving schools to Green Dot Public Schools, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and ICEF Public Schools, which all came away empty-handed. All are charter management groups with a track record in the city.

Flores, the author of the reform strategy, had argued that Cortines' recommendations should be followed without exception.

The personal issues override the fiduciary duties owed by the public officials. And what the heck does that term mean? I doubt that Garcia is even aware of the concept, as appears to be the case with so many local politicians.
=========================================================
"fiduciary duty
Definition
Employees' or directors' legal and moral duty to exercise the powers of their office for the benefit of the employer or the firm. Directors owe the duty of utmost good faith and must not put themselves in a position where their personal interests and their fiduciary duties may conflict. Also called fiduciary obligation."

So there is the quick "in a nutshell" definition. A little more elaboration below will give you a better basis from which to evaluate how it is so constantly breached by our politicians.
================================================================

"Breach of Fiduciary Duty Law & Legal Definition
A fiduciary duty is an obligation to act in the best interest of another party. For instance, a corporation's board member has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders, a trustee has a fiduciary duty to the trust's beneficiaries, and an attorney has a fiduciary duty to a client.

A fiduciary obligation exists whenever the relationship with the client involves a special trust, confidence, and reliance on ithe fiduciary to exercise his discretion or expertise in acting for the client. The fiduciary must knowingly accept that trust and confidence to exercise his expertise and discretion to act on the client's behalf.

When one person does agree to act for another in a fiduciary relationship, the law forbids the fiduciary from acting in any manner adverse or contrary to the interests of the client, or from acting for his own benefit in relation to the subject matter. The client is entitled to the best efforts of the fiduciary on his behalf and the fiduciary must exercise all of the skill, care and diligence at his disposal when acting on behalf of the client. A person acting in a fiduciary capacity is held to a high standard of honesty and full disclosure in regard to the client and must not obtain a personal benefit at the expense of the client. "
===================================================

And that doesn't seem to be what we are getting from electing these people into office.

On with the charter situation and their exclusion- You can see the turf issues in the story. The teachers feel an entitlement and it is viewed that way by the union, too.

Charters should not be allowed to run new schools, paid for by taxpayers, that were intended for all children, said A. J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

Well, Mr. Duffy missed the idea that the charters WERE going to address serving those children, but you see how defensive they get. What else do you or can you expect him to say? "Let them try out and we will find out if they know what they are doing."? No, that's not a good approach since they children might actually do well- and that's not good from the union's way of looking at things.

Turf enters the area where the Board did not follow the Cortines recommendations, and he was the one with a large role in conducting the evaluations of the voting and the program proposals. Like I said, it's politics and not any way following duties within their fiduciary obligation. How can anyone expect this Board to improve things when it keeps following a political path that's about adults and not the education path that affect children?

2 things from LAUSD- Cortines resigns from side job and 100 percent graduation rate made a goal.

Two things coming out today in the news from LAUSD. One is the resignation from the job at Scholastic by Supt. Ramon Cortines. That side job (a side job with a six-digit paycheck) was really not a big deal to me since I think they were paying him for his name and his position, while the Board and not Cortines made decisions on the educational products that were purchased. I could be wrong- but he's resigned and so, on with business. And at this stage of the game, who else would really want to take over for this ship's captain as the icebergs are getting closer and bigger and the radar is failing.

The second and more important item is the story in the Daily News on the plan to get 100% graduation rate. "LAUSD reform effort aims for 100% grad rate. EDUCATION: Coalition of leaders signs pact modeled after successful schools program in Boston." By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer, Updated: 02/17/2010, 08:46:48 PM PST http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14422596

Somehow, I am sure Monica Garcia had a big part in this deal. She's been saying for years that this is the goal of LAUSD, and I think that all during that time, the enrollment has continue to drop and the dropout rate still is dismal. That might be due to the inherent problems with the huge district and the inability it has to respond to new adaptations to the changing situations quickly enough to be useful. That rapidity of response happens at about glacial speed. There is so much disconnect in the District that we might wonder how things cannot be worse.

That Boston model is not too impressive as you consider that the story mentions the length of time it's been going on and the proportions of changes are not too impressive, at least not to represent this as being a clear solution. I agree that gears of societal elements have to mesh to get things improved, but I have said that there have been a lot of little things that could be instituted all along over the years to re-direct the course for a collective improvement. It didn't happen so now they look for a big fix. Too much, too little, too late. That sums up the changes planned, the impact expected, and the time implementation begins.

The parts reported in the story seems to show this plan for 100% graduation is DOA:

It has produced several academic gains for Boston, including increasing college attendance rates from 50 percent in 1985 to 78 percent in 2007.

Still, even after 28 years the agreement has missed the mark on other key goals, like improving the region's graduation rate, which has remained at 60 percent.

Let's see. 50 percent jumping up all the way to 78 percent is nice. A 28 percent gain for all you statistical fans. Unfortunately, it took 22 years of climbing to reach that level. We can't be too impressed with an average improvement of just over 1% a year. In fairness (and you won't get that with politicians using statistics here) there could be some large jumps relative to hitting upon some key parts of the program, and the actual year-to-year data is not shown here, so much of this gain actually could have been happening in recent years, and that WOULD be a good sign.

The other part of the quoted item from the story is that the main item, the graduation rate, is still an anemic 60%. We might match that overall in the foreseable future but it's should already be better than that.

Reading in the reader COMMENTS for this story shows that there's an abundance of negative reaction to this announcement. Maybe smaller, do-able goals would have been more realistic and thus, more supportable by the public, but there's been too much backsliding over the years. I have to say that the teachers are not necessarily the problem, and probably not the problem at all for a lot of schools. It is how all the work force is deployed, and the strategies used and the goals that are set that will have a lot to do with outcomes. Morale might play a bigger role than the subtlety of the topic allows it to be shown in this District.

One comment caught my attention above all the others:

"True Freedom" in Pasadena wrote, "100% grad rate? EASY!
Just kick out half the kids."

At this point I would be favorably impressed with major attention given to promoting literacy and at least giving the students a key to opening up more knowledge on their own. The blame for not learning is not all on the school but when you don't provide ways to remedy such thing, the lack of enthusiasm on the students part should not be any surprise. Each year as students approach some mode of exit from the LAUSD schools, it's one unforgiveable and a huge disservice that many still have not attained even a moderate level of reading abilty.

Reading is one of those areas where improvement happens with continued practice, exercising what's been learned in the preceeding excursions into reading to make progress with improving skills. But for poor readers, the difficulty met in attempts at reading makes them all the more averse to plunging repeatedly into the task. And I think that accounts for what it all creates. It looks like "good readers" will become better readers and "poor readers" will get worse without some intervening acts of somebody else occurring. The job of noticing the poor reading skills condition and seeking a remedy usually defaults to the classroom teachers. Here is one bottleneck to the flow of hoped-for progress. Among teachers without the leadership of a good administration, you have a wide range of skills that may or may not be applied with all due efficiency, nor will all weaker-skilled teachers be aided to shore up their skills in the area to be part of the solution.

That's the problem with a too-large school district and uneven supervision or absence of monitoring. But for the poor or very poor readers, all the reasons don't matter. It's their problem if no one helps now. Well, I think that's important to the drop out rate. Maybe if there was not that "A-G" college track in place, you wouldn't shut off many who would excel in vocational areas given the opportunity. Thank you Mr. Huizar who unhesitatingly takes credit for this "achievement."

There's a statistic that sort of goes with the graduation rate and that's "how many go on to college?" But you don't get much into THIS follow-up question because no one wants to ask it, "How many entering college actually get a degree?" And you can break that down into "WHICH DEGREES?": AA degrees (2 years or a full schedule of classes) or a BA or BS degree (4 years of a full schedule of classes). You have many students never finishing a degree program for any number of reasons. But just getting into college is NOT the answer if weak skills leave a student unprepared for the work level needed or makes the effort a task that is not taken seriously. That last part has to do with "work habits," and THAT really never gets proper attention by parents, teachers and of course the students who need that improvement.

It all affects how they perform academically. Many people may have a course here and a course there and really make a couple of years of progress a being a college student quickly becomes their career. But that side of things really is not the kind of things you hear about very openly when educators talk about getting students into colllege. It should be considered a long time before even if college is not considered. Some training with parents, teachers and students in how to develop good work habits and not try for all-nighters, cramming or other approaches for neglected contact with their assignments over the quarte or semester.

For many of this group of weak readers with or without good work habits, they will be quite defenseless in the struggle to make a productive life for themselves. Unfortunately for too many, the realization of that condition comes too late.

LAUSD LIMITS PUBLIC COMMENT at Meetings- another step backwards.

This is not a breaking story, already a week old, but I don't think everyone gets all the news all the time and there's so much there that hidden in plain sight because no one is looking. Well, here is the LAUSD Board of Education coming up with some idea that is supposed to be a solution for their own management of affairs. When there is something that the public wants to speak out on, you will have to come in under the limit set for speakers or you don't get to talk.

None of this has anything to do with merit or obtaining the information needed to help the Board make any reasonable decisions- you already see this is not anywhere near reasonable.

Who is behind this move? According to the story, none other than the Board President, re-elected this year to another term and installed again as President to come up with such examples of wacky leadership like this move. The result of this move will be to have a possiblity, depending on the numbers desiring to speak at any particular meeting, that people will be barred from addressing their concerns to the Board.

It's very astounding to see college educated people who are supposed to serve the people in these posts, to craft a way to stiffle public comment. Monica Garcia is usually the one outspoken on most things- not that it corresponds with sensibility as here, but she usually says more than is prudent in any situation, revealing more and more of her completely politicizing this office and Board. During the time in office, Garcia's done things in a style that is not even close to any verson of diplomacy or tactfulness, and often it approaches simply brash or crude poorly executed thought processes. The termination of Admiral Brewer is the glaring example of this path.

Garcia is part of the Villaraigosa team, having come to power by being successor to Council Member JOSE HUIZAR's seat. Garcia was his chief staffer while at LAUSD and was annointed by Villaraigosa as the one they put their money on to win. The second term was met with- or rather, not met by anyone- there was no opponent for Garcia to face in the election this past March. That's the way it is with most of the offices locally and on up. The money gets produced from special interests and the candidate essentially has some reciprocity expected upon winning the office. Challenger with little cash to lubricate their campaign activity usually wind up shut out, as seen with the grassroot candidates in the last election held, that for CD-2.

But the practical effect is to isolate these decision-makers from the public- or more and more- their critics. Garcia, while appearing initially to be the champion "of the people" and the "downtroddent" now made a role-turnaround and becomes the grinch that stole Christmas, severely limiting the public's opportunity and right to address their elected officials on legitimate and other business, depending on how you interpret Board activity.

But lay it all on being a matter of money, I see, from the comments in the story referenced above. Yes, blame it on outside forces- we really know you are looking out for the students and really don't need interference from anyone outside, even if they happen to be parents or any others with a concern over issues you are deciding.


This is all the result of the public's lack of interest and outright apathy in checking out who is running the show at any number of level in government and relying on the slick campaign brochures that show up in their mailboxes at election time. You know all that has got to be true, right? Politicians would not lie to you, would they? This is a condition that is conducive to the unfortunate conditions that we have.

I guess I have not gotten into the LAUSD topics for a while although I have been keeping track of lots of things that may be news to anyone reading these posts. Really, it's not any confidential information and my sources usually are the same ones anyone else has equal ability to access. But I will continue to share what I find just to let you in on the big scene, a little at a time. Lots of waste, lots of misdirected energy and, of course, a lot of plans that won't work and that are already stale by the time that they begin to be implemented. Who loses? The students first, and all that they could be makes the rest of us losers, too. But in a couple of years, all the LAUSD people move on, get bigger offices, and all their part in fouling this up becomes lost to the memories of everyone.

LAUSD makes a rule change to cut down on time for the public to comment and cause them more headaches. Here's the story-

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_13403511 the story.

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.

Another development in LAUSD teacher layoffs

Here is an item from late yesterday on a development from the LAUSD Board in how they are handling of the layoff situation. "L.A. school board proposes plan to avoid layoffs,"10:41 PM PDT, April 28, 2009, by Howard Blume, LOS ANGELES TIMES - http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-briefs29-2009apr29,0,732323.story

The school board president unveiled a surprise plan Tuesday to avoid teacher
layoffs based on a compromise being pushed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Without advance notice, Monica Garcia proposed using more federal economic stimulus dollars right away to prevent the loss of teachers in the 2009-10 school year, which begins July 1. But in exchange, employee unions would have to match each dollar spent now with pay reductions that would apply to the next school year.

Because of a looming budget shortfall, as many as 3,500 non-tenured local teachers have received notice of possible layoffs, as have thousands of non-teaching employees. In addition, because of seniority rules, hundreds of more-senior employees who lose positions could bump out those at school sites in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

On that front, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines delivered a measure of good news. He predicted that no current principals would be let go because of adequate interest in an early retirement program."

No matter how Monica Garcia wants to look like the hero and save jobs by manipulating the stimulus money, there's a shortfall- and there's also a decline in the enrollment over the last decade, something more and more mentioned in news stories when covering this topic. There's still more money that's coming due and spreading stimulus dollars here stil might be something that will work. That causes some wonder, both as to why there are so many employees still in LAUSD in teaching and non-teaching positions, and why school construction is continuing so hurriedly. The District rep says that there is about one school a month completed, and this will go on for years.

To make this work, the cooperation of people NOT endangered by layoffs has to be obtained. That would mean two things: (1.) a membership vote that would take time that is in short supply, and (2.) the majority of the membership ACCEPTING the proposal and that means giving up pay that they otherwise would keep.

That follows the idea that Mayor Villaraigosa, the collaborator working to come up with this plan, and a "leader" of Garcia, politically speaking. The Villaraigosa plan needs union membership to work and if it doesn't, it leaves the proponent of the plan the virtuous "out" as simply, "I tried, but they didn't go along with it." That makes the Mayor look good if it fizzles and the union is left to blame each other for resulting layoffs. The same outcome could be expected with LAUSD employees. If the plan gets to the point of having a vote for it, the Board President, Garcia, is out of the woods, and the employess have their fate in their own hands when it comes to job losses.

I don't expect much, other that a lot of newer teachers looking for jobs elsewhere, maybe changing career, too. The interns working on credentials while they teach are the ones that I see as being in the most precarious position since the teaching job is an integral component to the credential program, and the time allowed to complete the credential work is NOT open-ended. There is where you will see a real waste of resources should the layoffs make the intern programs disintegrate for many participants.

What makes Jan Perry more than just annoying? Arrogance on Ethics Issues

"Jan Perry's Grand Avenue Conflict; An L.A. politician votes for public subsidies that boost her home's value,"
By Tibby Rothman, Published on April 15, 2009 at 10:36pm, http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-16/news/jan-perry-39-s-grand-avenue-conflict

L.A. Weekly. Here's a good example of what's wrong with City Council members. Council Member Jan Perry, CD-9, is one often shows an arrogant attutude in actions taken more so than in the words spoken. Perry has been firmly opposed to any suggestions that her votes in the Council and committees relating to the area where she owns a condo property downtown should cause her to recuse herself. The idea of recusal from discussions and voting is to keep from having personal bias influencing a particular outcome that affects the official, especially financially. A possible effect on land values affecting one's personal real property in the affected area is such a reason.

A selection from the story last week gives you the idea of the power held and the amount of tax dollars re-directed to the Project that Perry considers something "necessary" to the city.

But even in L.A.’s almost feudal system of development, Councilwoman Jan Perry
stands out.

Exhibit 1 is her relentless pursuit of Grand Avenue, a Frank Gehry–designed, bastion-of-luxury, $3.1 billion development on choice public land owned not by developers but by city and county residents. “The Grand” is a taxpayer subsidized, for-profit project including a park that could cost $83.1 million to blow past all previous park spending records. The proposed extravaganza is within a very short walk of Perry’s luxe, chandeliered, security-guarded condo.

The story goes on to compare what has been spent on the downtown money pit, compared to what amounts Van Nuys has received. The CRA, "Community Redevelopment Agency," is considered by many to be an agency specializing in wasting the public's money and coming away with not much to show for it. Not the kind of people you'd want handling your retirement funds investments.

Each step of the way, the Grand Avenue Authority, a joint agency composed of five politicians, including Jan Perry, has approved one pricey feature after another: The world-renowned, if expensive, Gehry. The five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The most expensive public park ever built in park-poor L.A. The stunning $246,800 public salary for Grand Avenue Authority staffer Martha Welborne.

But let's get down to the idea of the story, that CM Perry is into "conflicts of interest" by being involved in the decision-making for something that would affect her financial interests, and maybe at the expense of the public's best interests. I'd say it's sort of a Conflict of Interest in the classic sense. Anyway, the idea is not simply a legal one: "Is it illegal or not?" but an ethical one, where you ask, "Is it right to do that?" Perry will have none of that discussion and you'd have to drag her away to keep her from being involved in the roles she plays in making decisions.

As a member of the City Council and the Grand Avenue Authority, Perry has not one, but two, votes on spending public subsidies on The Grand. She lives within 500 feet of the project — and stands to directly financially benefit if The Grand and the Civic Park are erected, dramatically enhancing the value of her own home.

If she were a judge, she'd be subject to a stricter requirment, ethically, at least, where even "the appearance of impropriety" is sufficient cause to find that an ethics violation has occurred. Politicians probably find those concepts very novel, even though many are attorneys and have seen such standards, even being tested in the state bar exam's "Professional Responsibility Exam"- aka "the ethics exam."

Well, read the story, another informative piece from the L.A. Weekly that continues to bring a lot of the operations of our politicians to light. You may say that everone has his or her opinion and freedom to choose what they do, so back off the polticians- maybe even thinking that they are a smart bunch. Smart, well maybe, but intellectually honest? Different story. When you pay them for a level of service in operating the government with TAX COLLECTED DOLLARS- either federal or state collected- then THEY HAVE to act a certain way, so that's why we examine these things.

From the turnout at the last election, many people don't make the connection to how life gets to be controlled by political decisions right under their noses, and then they wonder how it happened. There were lots of people who did not know that there was an election on March 3rd when the Council seats, the Mayor's office, and City Controller's job, among other things were decided by about a combined vote of 18% of all the registered voters in the City of L.A. Less than 20% of the non-voters (78% roughly) could have come out and changed every single result- at least where there were "challengers" running.

Some races for office were "unopposed" like the case with MONICA GARCIA, LAUSD Board President. She had no opponents really because she had the poltical support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa- and you can be sure that what she does is in line with what the Mayor wants to be done. GLORIA MOLINA's last race for re-election as Supervisor of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors was UNOPPOSED- and she had the absolutely silly idea that it was "because the people know what a good job I am doing." And she's got to be in need of serious theraphy if she believes that. It's all about CAMPAIGN MONEY to keep your name and ideas in the face of the public. You already see how uninformed people are who DO vote. Maybe it's good that NOT everyone votes.

And GLORIA has been socking away $1 million a year of discretionary funds, all of tax dollars assigned to Supervisors for their choice of expenditures. After many years, she chose to hand a huge chunk of money to the Mexican American Cultural Museum, or some such title. The point is that this is a cultural matter, and should be handled like anyone does with personal preferences, not making the public's money get funnelled to a special interest project. I think that the money could have been better applied for all the people when you have emergency rooms and hospitals closing and significant services being cut.

In the current cash poor times of woe for government's own handling of money- and the discretionary choice of Supervisor MOLINA is one example of the negative side, I'd say- you really have to think hard about spending choices. Excuse me, but a "cultural" museum is not anywhere close to being a pick. It's personal in nature, really, not a public item. Hebrew schools, Catholic schools, and others, including ethnic-based schools, should be a personal matters; if you want your culture taught, do it, but not at public expense. There's not enough money and that's not what it supposed to be used for. "Culture" is something done by the family and social groups. If you find it weak, talk to that segment to get it moving BY THEM, NOT THE PUBLIC.

Compare another aspect of life where HOME is supposed to create and promote values and behavior. In the LAUSD schoools where courtesy and manners were often a case of first impression for many students, the families have not carried the job forward, and teachers had to fill in the gap if you wanted to reduce a lot of the negatives in social skills for these students, especially needed for a classroom group to operate properly. To do otherwise is to cripple the students by not equipping them with more of "necessary" skills to survive in the real world. Too often that big picture is not seen, and that's a disservice to the students to allow things to continue uncorrected, and especially so for a teacher to be passive about it. These skills are not cultural but universal, yet the students were not all aware of what was needed; that made it our business. Cultural aspects are a private responsibility teach for their own culture, however.

JAN PERRY being well ensconced in her Council position needs some external influences to get her to consider any "Public" good for a change and act accordingly. Remember, she's the one who wanted the nanny-state action of banning fast food outlets in south Los Angeles since the residents were not able to decide for themselves and were getting obese from eating that food. That assumes a lot of things- you can make up your list, almost all being rebuttable. You would almost expect Perry to add to her motions, "Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do." Well, you may be getting the idea now.

The L.A. Weekly has much more on the Grand Avenue Project, being nearly the City's version of expensive waste to match LAUSD's choices in their own Beaudry St. high school and the "Arts High School" ("H.S. #9").

"Open House" at LHS Thursday, 5 pm to 7 pm- visitors needed.

The Lincoln High campus will be the site of an "Open House" event tomorrow, Thursday, April 16, 2009 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. From the LHS web site, "See great displays of student work, including exhibits, demonstrations, and more!" with a PDF file that gives a few more notes.

The school information is listed on the school's web site, but as with most postings, they are sparse on showing any expected details. That's an annoying part of the web "Calendar" feature, I find- and you can see what I mean by clicking the " News and Announcements" for more details on an item and you will get the the identical text in most cases, not very informative. I did see that the Debate team had a competition and LHS had students moving to higher steps in the competitions, but last names were left off on the click-thru page. Maybe it's in deference to security and privacy concerns. Just too "insider," in my opinion, to accomplish giving any real credit to the competitors, the "debators" (and that uncommon spelling may be too "insider," as well). http://www.lincolnhs.org/ Congratulations goes out to the Debate Team, duly earned in spite of it appearing untrumpeted as an achievement and lacking more details for following the nest competitions.

I noticed that there is a Professional Development Day coming this Saturday on campus for teachers. That's one of the puzzling things about LAUSD, well, "another" of the puzzling things about LAUSD. Supt. Cortines mentioned, actually he announced, there were reductions, some of the LAUSD budget-cutting steps taken to try to help the ongoing crisis. I thought it included some Professional Development spending and the elimination of "buy-back" days, but this activity appears to be outside of that expense-cutting action that he announced. Usually Professional Development time is included within the scheduled school time for a teacher, so it's not making any additional impact on costs, it's just shifting the activity for teachers from teaching students to being trained or informed in some additional way.

Saturday's Professional Development activity is getting another day's worth of hours at the teacher's particular pay rate, and that's what I thought had been cut. However, if it's a contract-required item, then I see it's not able to be eliminated. The school's audio "bulletin" announcement sounded like they were still trying to get more participation, which would be good to get while it's there. And there's meals included, always a big "plus" to get teachers involved when you wanted attendance at anything on campus. That's just an observation from seeing attendance improved when food is present.

The audio bulleting for April 14 also contained the announcement that the Field Trips to ELA Community College and L.A. City College was cancelled due to low numbers of Parent Permission slips returned for the Tuesday and Wednesday trips. The events were being rescheduled for next month and students were urged to get the papers in on time. That announcement was somewhat related to expectations that students have, and even just the act of touring the Communtiy Colleges doesn't grab their attention.

Expectations of attending college after high school seems to be held only by the LAUSD Board and not students or their families. In LAUSD, just staying in the system to graduate from high school is its own special kind of achievement, and an end in itself. Some interest in going to a college or post-high school training is stirred up at school but there's only so much you can do. If you don't have families pushing education as a valued commodity, then the uphill battle is waged on a steeper slope. Some may disagree with that observation and maybe a lot of the students have other activities conflicting with the time for the field trips, and maybe some are just focused on applying to four-year colleges and universities, not the two-year schools. I just don't know. I think my view is closer to what the situation actually is. You should note that the community colleges threshold for admission is the attainment of age 18.

Maybe Council Member Jose Huizar was wrong in taking steps to change curriculum to a mandatory college track for every student, something he takes credit for doing while he was on the LAUSD Board of Education. Changing values would have been a more useful endeavor instead. Monica Garcia, the Huizar-successor at the LAUSD, is concerned with reaching "100 percent" graduation rates for schools. Some people say that you should work on things in increments and move on as fast as those steps permit. Assuming a 100-percent graduation is going to happen just ignores a lot of realities for students, and even the ones who want to graduate run into personal situations, not the least of which is teen pregnancy for girls.

But all that wasn't in the bulletin, of course.

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.

Academy Awards tonight- Did you want your Tax Dollars given to them?

Well, it's Academy Awards time again, and the City Council for our city is still not getting the message to cut excess spending when they grant this even SPECIAL EVENT WAIVERS- that means, the extra expense to the city that "your" event will create in police, traffic, fire and trash and other services from the CITY OF LOS ANGELES is FREE to you. The taxpayers will absorb the cost. It comes down to who you vote for and "do they care about 'YOU'?"

So watch the Academy Awards or not, you are paying for a chunk of it by City C0uncil's 11-0 vote for it, $410,000.00 in fees and salaries that the City will eat, while going beyond the parking meter hikes, trash fee boosting rampage and other people-gouging measures to meet nearly $450 million in the red for city operations. Actually, "we" are the city, and the $410,000.00 is taken out of the General Fund, the city's "piggy bank," that we have to re-fill.

"First Grammy, now Oscar gets fees waived by L.A. City Council," L.A.Times, by Maeve Reston, 1-30-09. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/first-grammy-no.html This brief news item (It's no wonder lots of people don't see these things happen under their noses) also reminds us that Council approves $5 MILLION dollars each year for special event fee waivers. Some might be justified for community benefit where all are welcome and have a common interest, but I still have not ever received an invitation to the Grammys or the Academy Awards shows for all the dollars my city government spends for them.

"Los Angeles City Council votes to waive fees for Academy Awards," UPI News Service, 1-30-09. http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/los-angeles-city-council-votes-waive-fees-for-academy-awards-1015876.php Another short item- very little splash in the news, but it's an example of special interests continued influence, all credit for the business it brings included, but REALLY, DID THEY EXPECT the Academy to pack up and take it's business elsewhere?

The Academy needs L.A. to bolster its image as much as L.A. wants to keep them pulling in some dollars this night will generate. The economy is in a recession, and in case you haven't noticed, the movie industry really has less and less of real MOVIE STARS and good movies each year. The glamour days of Tracy, Gable, Hepburn and that era are gone. Even the action heroes are getting to be covered by lesser knows. Fine that some movies are outstanding, but we have a time now that PEOPLE of the city are covering the bill, and it somehow doesn't make me feel better, and certainly not "warm and fuzzy," when you see this kind of money-spending going on in such tough financial times.

No, you might have a hard time seeing that the City is in a crisis, even the mayor was gleeful in noting the passage of more TAX measures (sales tax increase) for transit in "a recession." The guy just loves to spend money on things that VILLARAIGOSA WILL TAKE CREDIT FOR, even if things like subway to the sea will not be done for 30 years or MORE, by estimates and will remain all taxpayer's responsibility to cover meanwhile.

So enjoy the "stars", most of whom really are "celebrities" and not "stars" because, in terms of talent, many of them are interchangeable with one another, some just get more publicity to make them more noticed- and you might see that the publicity does not have to be all "good publicity" to help their careers.

More reasons to go VOTE on Tuesday, March 3, and show your displeasure- or maybe, as some I have talked with say, "Oh, they are all like that," and "What difference will my vote make?" A low voter turnout multiplies the influence of the few voters who DO come out. You have sample ballots- mark them BEFORE you get to the voting place and you will be done in a flash. Again, you know I have little admiration for most politicians, not just the city ones. And they need to be rotated OUT- are you getting your money's worth from the $186,000.00 salary that each council member makes? (and they get their 20 person staff, and 8 free cars with gas credit cards to "work for YOU.")

Again, you are the people in charge- not the representative. Can you FIRE them if you don't like their performance? YES, It's all about voting. Don't let the tail wag the dog.

I say, if they are ALL are like that, at least get some NEW ones in to begin different connections that will break the current choke-hold on city government. A biased and corrupt government benefits from voter APATHY, and if you don't vote, don't complain- you only get this chance for SHOWING your views to Council and Mayor ONCE every 4 YEARS. Don't ignore it- their special interests groups sure won't be missing this vote.

Do not let the developers continue with all the other special interests, to tell THESE elected officials what they want. Did you know that some of these guys get private meetings with the council members very easily when most in the public don't have the privilege of the same consideration? And it's all connected to "how much did you say you contributed to my campaign (or "favorite charity," etc.)?"

Voting is free and with 11% OF REGISTERED VOTERS IN THE CITY being the predicted turnout- EACH vote means an enormously significant part of the decision. Besides, the ballot is short, there probably won't be ANY lines for voting and parking meters WITHIN ONE BLOCK of the poll are NOT to be observed- FREE to go vote. 5 minutes and you are done.

The poll workers will be the most bored people at work on Election Day with such a small turnout- be part of that, give them some company for five minutes and stop assuming you don't matter. If you don't vote, you REALLY don't matter.

IN Lincoln Heights, are you happy with Ed Reyes' job? HE IS part of all this and if you don't like it, voting does send a message, especially when HE TAKES THE VOTE FOR GRANTED, like his boss, MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA who refuses to debate and thereby avoiding big time embarassment- Ed can win, but he doesn't have to get it with YOUR vote.

The same goes for other areas besides just Lincoln Heights- our poor performing, loud talking LAUSD Board member MONICA GARCIA is running unopposed because of power of the political machine, NOT MERIT- and, as VILLARAIGOSA'S team player, she's done nothing to make any real changes to boost performance of your child or your neighbor's child. Handpicked by the mayor is not a good sign, so what did you expect- she's a pal of Jose Huizar, worked for him when HE was LAUSD president (and that was a sad performance, too, but JOSE still doesn't see it as such). IT'S ALL POLITICS and you need to act NOW, and not when the next bunch of changes is dumped on you. That's too late.

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.

Lincoln High featured in Debate team article in L.A. Times

Did you know that Lincoln has been organizing student participation in a different kind of high school activity than we regularly find in a high school: “Debate.” The L.A. TIMES published an article last week on this topic, featuring LHS as one of the high schools where this is happening, "No argument: High school debate is popular once again," http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-debate20-2009jan20,0,1406037.story It’s good to see that amid the trend of reduced activities in LAUSD schools over the years due to decreased interest and funds, that is worsening now even more with tight budgets all around, that there is something that can be both helpful academically to an individual student, and operate to represent a school’s program.

You can read the article for some insight into the high school setting that some of you might recall, and if you have been out of school for a number of years, then don’t really bother to recall since those times are very different from what’s happening in the high school experience today. If you compare your experiences to those of current students, there’s a lot that doesn’t match. That might be because of changes that happen due to technology and social views, as well as the management of school funding.

WHAT WAS YOUR SCHOOL EXPERIENCE?
The different experience brought out in this story is a vivid example of how we former students at Lincoln had limited and lesser ranges of experience in our school life as a general condition. Having less exposure to what’s out there in the world doesn't help the learning process nor does it get the students prepared in the best way for handling future situations. Some other high schools were able to provide students a wider scope of experiences that helped them to be better students. A lot of this happens, too, because of what is done by parents who work on doing more for their children's education, since you can’t expect the school to be any substitute for what parents can do. It just shows how important it is for parents to work with educating their children, and not to expect everything is a teacher’s job to do. Reasons for this can be varied, but for education to happen, it has to be done consciously, not accidentally, for the best effect.

DEBATE- A TIME FOR A CHANGE, A GOOD CHANGE.
But this topic, “Debate,” is really one developed in the school setting that is different from most sports by the simple reason that most equipment for needed, besides the teachers and students, is already there to start.

By now, you might still wonder, “What is debate about anyway? What does it do for students or anyone?” I pulled out some selections from Wikipedia, presenting a few interpretations on what I see can be a very broad area.

Here is how it’s defined: “Debate (American English) or debating (British English) is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examine the consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examine what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is technique of persuasion.”

And the special skill that this brings out is “argument” and they don’t mean the kind you might expect when two people become angry. What happens is what we in a school setting prefer, discussion, and it happens in a special way.

Continuing with another very brief part taken from that Wikipedia section, the part that we have in the high school program is the competitive aspect of applying the learned skills so that we have something to judge:

“A rule-based competitive debate is often encouraged in high schools and
colleges. Often, it takes the form of a contest with explicit rules. It may be
presided over by one or more judges. Each side seeks to win, by
following the rules, and even by using some rules to break other rules, within
limits. Each side is either in favor ("for, 'Affirmative' "), or opposed to
("against, 'Negative' "), a statement (proposition or Resolution)
which if adopted would change something with the exception of some high school
and college debate where moots may hold no outcome, i.e., the moot "ignorance is
bliss".” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate

As I mentioned before, among the memories as a student in high school, having any debate competiton or real training about that in class was not part of the picture. I don’t remember calculators, computers or cell phones in school either, but here we are. I am glad for the changes, generally, and this is one where “better late than never” applies in seeing it at Lincoln.

WHAT DOES THIS BRING OUT IN STUDENT PERFORMANCE?
While I am glad to see that change here now, the ones who can participate really are fortunate they are equipped to do so, both in terms of their own hard work and study, their own natural ability, and the assistance along the way from parents, friends and teachers. In the bigger picture, we still don’t have enough progress by so many other students to be able to expect participation from that greater group.

IS SCHOOL ATTENTION BEING MISDIRECTED OR NEGLECTFUL AS TO SOME STUDENTS?
That’s just the way it is. Briefly, you can look to the Magnet Program at LHS involving the Science department and you will have something roughly, by my estimate, about a fifth of the school population of around 2700 or 2800, qualified for participation. That means that the Magnet Program has an actual pool of about 500-plus who can benefit from participation in the program. The majority of the school is excluded as a result. You wouldn't think that was the case, as my recollection of all the P.A. daily announcements of the "Magnet Programs" plans, meetings or other activities came across very loud, but not clear, over the school P.A. system installed during or before the "modernization" a few years back.

P.A. volume levels at Lincoln seemed to be well over the OSHA safety limits for preservation of our sense of hearing but complaints literally were made on deaf ears. We had no control over the volume in our rooms, and it must have had a setting in the main office as "FULL BLAST', so a lot was garbled when people spoke too loud. If you were a community neighbor to Lincoln, you had a better knowledge of what's going on than the students in school who covered their ears or talked over the intrusive announcements. When you happened to be walking out in the campus during the "bulletin" announcements, it sounded more like echoes across a prison yard- I could never ignore that impression every time it happened. That's a complete aside and something that goes into the "I don't miss that part" bin. I do think that this daily delivery to the small target audience made the rest of the students suffe in more than just the aural overload sense, and needlessly so.

The daily bombardment of irrelevant items was not a positive event for the students or the other teachers with decibel-resistant speakers. All it ever did was to get a lot of students either more resentful of, or more oblivious to, that program itself, as well as to all the other announcements coming across the P.A. system that should have been submitted for the printed daily bulleting, which instruction to teachers and administrators was perpetually ingnored during the few years I was at LHS, leaving that handout with virtually no changing news to break up the boilerplates paragraphs inserted throughout.

Of course, the Magnet program is not able to handle that many students at one time and all those students are being kept out by their own choice since a big part may have little or no interest in becoming involved. Reasons for students lacking interest in further achievement is something that deserves it’s own discussion, and that will be left for another time.

But what seems to happen in many school settings, Lincoln included, is that the “good” students or “high performers” will be what carries the rest of the school in any given assessment category, and a result, will get the better attention and benefits while in school, perhaps being considered as “favored treatment.” This turned out to be one of those "unintended consequences" when it came to state tests and dealing with NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND standards of the API ratings, while very low average scores were avoided by the good results of many "high" performing students. Leaving the consideration of fairness aside, you will often, if not always, find that the students who are performing well will turn out to be the ones that will succeed under any set of circumstances, even without any extra training or programs. Was that Darwinism at work? I don't know, it just works out like that.

The real problem in high schools are at the other end of the spectrum, those that don’t get good report cards, and those that don’t have a good handle on English skills or math, who become moody, withdrawn, passive, boistrous, inattentive or defiant and who have to be unhappy with the high school experience when it comes to successfully accomplishing any studying or testing.

THE WAY THAT THINGS WORK OUT LEAVE WEAK PERFORMERS LESS SUPPORTED.
And that job of preparing these underperforming students to handle work at their grade level with some proficiency is what remains the daunting task for LHS and other LAUSD schools from K through 12. Everyone wants to teach the high performers since, among other things, they allow a teacher to move through planned lessons at a consistent pace and you see home work coming in from everyone, with pretty good level of classroom behavior, too. The also serve to make the teacher look good as a teacher. There’s always a few students who will cause assorted conflict, but not consistently or characteristically so, I’d say.

We get back to he other students who are more challenged, more rebellious, more distracted, and who are less prepared and less supported by family, friends and teachers in getting the most from attending school will be the real concerns of the educational system. Here is where you might find that part of any school’s problem that still has no solutions for improvement.

It is nothing new, and the results don’t really change from year to year, but we continue to have more dropouts, those being the ones who don’t get to graduate either “on time” or ever. Some will manage later to earn a GED, but others will not and won’t care to. This is where I see we are now. Solutions come and solutions go, but unless you have students WANTING to get through school WITH some achievement, it’s going to be a losing proposition.

DID BRINGING THE "ALL COLLEGE PREP" NO-CHOICE TRACK HURT STUDENTS?
Our vocational training is now almost all gone from the campus site, with Skills Centers off-site as the available-but-not-quite-equivalent alternative. We have an "A to G" track that is a college prep program for everyone in high school, as if everyone is going to go to college. It winds up just pushing more to drop out. Very talented students drop out, too, not just the the "troublemakers." Many are just bored with what they are presented with. Of course, a student may be bored by having missed lots of school or not doing the class work and home work assignments. Then besides just being bored, he or she is then mystified by the discussions and assignments, becoming more and more detached from the subject, left further and further behind. Leaving school under those circumstances begins to sound like a reasonable choice.

WHAT "LEADERS" DO DOES NOT REALLY APPEAR TO HELP
The dropout problem is addressed unrealistically by LAUSD leadership. The "A-G" track is still part of the council re-election campaign boast of FORMER LAUSD President JOSE HUIZAR (Now the Council Member for Council District-14), although it's not "a positive" change as I contend here, but a negative one, not even harmless enough to be a neutral value. HUIZAR'S place on the LAUSD Board was filled by his former aide, now the Board President, MONICA GARCIA. GARCIA is fooling no one with her absurd "100% graduation goal." She needs to start beating a different drum. Ms. GARCIA, who announced that it was not until she attended U.C. Berkeley that she really learned about the Chicano struggle and needs and the social injustice. In this case, maybe it was not "better late than never" in getting involved with social change. Trying to revive the 60's style of activism is long past and, Ms. GARCIA, sorry you missed it, but move on. I am glad that you made it to U.C. which was probably a big part of it's effect on her education and attitude.

What Ms. GARCIA needs is to sit in on some classes and see that we would be lucky if everyone would be able to write a simple declarative sentence or have an ability to read books, standard classics of a high school curriculum level. For the record, LAUSD has never had a "100% graduation rate." Even at the grad school level, not everyone who begins a program is able to finish it. All this unrealistic boasting does not do much for MS. GARCIA'S credibility nor her ability to assess the problem.

WHAT DOES "NO VOCATIONAL EDUCATION" DO FOR STUDENTS?
This part of the educational component now missing is that part where many students find they can flourish and apply their talents, developing their skills and satisfying their needs that in turn allows them to “tolerate” the academic side of school that is not so interesting to them. THAT is the part of the day that lets students have their time in vocational training that is comparable to the arts programs as being something special to each student and a time when they work to be able to enjoy the results of what they learn and put them to use.

If the powers that be would take a breath and look at what you have, it might help them find solutions or improvements. Let's look at this situation regarding the trend for "healthy living" that is becoming more popular, whether we want to hear it or not from our politicians. Aside from eating habits and choices, EXERCISE is important.

Many people have the benefit of working at jobs where a lot of physical energy is not needed, but then, avoiding weight gains and keeping the circulatory and other body systems has been attended to, for many, by lunchtime walking. Other choices include joining groups for sports or outdoor activity for exercise needs and then theres's the gym membership and putting hours of time for that activity to burn calories. Lots of people wind up feeling and looking better from all this.

Exercise works for improving physical health and for our mental health, too. "Endorphins" produced during strenous exercise make us FEEL better, almost drug-like in their effect. So you see, to be healthy, it's not all sitting just still and working quietly, but mixing some activity to use up the rest of your body's parts so it stays in working order. Physically and mentally, there's a greater feeling of well-being.

"ONE SIZE" DOES NOT FIT ALL.
NOW, getting to my point, putting a student in only classes for math, English language (reading, writing and literature), science and very little else is done without much to differentiate the time and activity in any part of a school day from any other part. We don't even have P.E. to use for an outlet for physical activity, having been cut from a P.E. class as a requirement every semester, down to only two years out of four now, a 50% cut in that area. Taking out the vocational classes from a student's choices is what leaves students without their "reward", "highlight", "creative outlet", "physical break" or "favorite" time, or any other label attached to that different kind of needed activity is, simply stated, a functional mistake.

I nearly forgot about the female students' side of things as electives went. They had the "homemaking" style of vocational opportunies in education. "Cooking" "Sewing" "Typing" and so on, were what you found in the 500 building- and the sinks of old still are there, with the old wall mounted ironing boards to be found in some rooms before the "modernizaton" took the reminders of the "past" out of the school. Those classes permitted boys to enroll, but there weren't many. I was in a typing class with one or two other guys, and that turned out to be the most practical one I ever took at Lincoln, using the skills in college and later, almost a necessity for students today with computer work.

The variety for the mind and the physical interaction makes for a different and enhanced learning experience. We might not be able to continue in the vocational field in a career sense, but the experience helps in other ways and any practice in the learning process is of benefit in improving learning skills that can be applied for other subjects. A shortsighted LAUSD is what we have by their idea of clearing out all the shops since some, mainly Latinos exerting their influence, thought that if you eliminated vocational ed, everyone would HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE (and I think this might be what justified such change for CM JOSE HUIZAR) and not, I suppose, be headed for a job as some lowly worker, as they saw it. They did not consider the "dropout" option taken so often by so many in response to these curriculum changes.

The school district needs to use better strategy and to look back to what was taught in the times when I and many others were able to stick it out, not drop out and learn a few things. My parents would have had a big part of that decision if I ever tried to consider it. These days, too many parents are isolated from the schools and, unfortunately, their children, so like the "Las Vegas" motto, they treat it all like, "What happens at school stays at school." Involved parents can be so helpful to their child's improvement or good performance without having to be college educated or even without having English language or math skill. Parents need to keep their children on the right path by showing they care. Single parent families and a high divorce rate don't help things, neither does having babies from teen mothers. "An uphill struggle" is what you have there from the beginning. But let's look again to the school district's side of action.

VOCATIONAL CLASSES WERE SUPPORTIVE OF A SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
Dropouts decide at some time not to come back to school, and making the choice to remain in school is not helped when you take away those elements where students find they achieve success and satisfaction. I recall my own time at LHS with auto shop and drafting being among the best classes for my enjoyment in a different way than just doing well in the purely "academic" side. Some students were able to actually begin to head toward their career activity by our school's print, metal, wood, auto and other shop classes available. Low pay is certainly not the characteristic of most trades now, and a society without such skills will leave us to turn to what, China, for filling that need like it does for most manufacturing formerly done in the U.S.?

STUDENT ACTIVITY SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IN WIDER RANGES OF TOPICS AND AREAS.
The students who are able to participate in the debate program should be congratulated for applying themselves here. It may not be as glamous as catching a touchdown pass, putting the ball in the hoop with a 3-point shot, or hitting a bases-loaded home run, but it’s something worthwhile that gets into a style of thinking for continued benefit since you will always have to think while awake. Well, I suppose it's your choice there It’s exercise for your brain. And for more exercise, you still can try out for school sports to do those other things, too. At least as long as there is funding and as long as there are sponsors who can provide the time and energy to help, it's all there for you. Did you know that golf was another area for LHS student activity these days? It's a different LHS from before.

On the negative side, we don’t have a tennis team- or even tennis courts. Franklin High has lots of them, and nice ones, too. We have a conversion fom tennis to basketball courts there now. THAT is a sport that we DID have in my time, and I remember seeing Rudy and Steve Salas of the band, TIERRA, in the school yearbook as members of the varsity tennis team. And don’t forget about 10 years later that Rudy Moreno, comedian and actor, was a baseball team player for LHS. I remember Louis "Benny" Torres of Cl. of S'68, who was on the journalism path early when he worked on the "Railsplitter" school newspaper before we had an internet. He went on to win awards as a journalist while working for KNX-RADIO 1070-am. A variety of experience benefits students.

Let’s hope that our debate team members can be remembered in years to come for their work on the present debate team activity, and that we see more of these and other students in this activity given the recognition deserved while they are still students here. Getting due credit and support for such things is necesary to sustain movement in that positive direction.