Teacher Layoff plans in Los Angeles

NYT. Jennifer Medina.

LOS ANGELES — Last year, when the school district here handed out thousands of layoff notices, Samuel Gompers Middle School in South Central stood to lose half of its roughly 150 teachers. Now, with the district planning to lay off as many as 4,500 teachers under what school leaders call a doomsday budget, the school could have been even worse off.

With districts in California likely to issue as many as 30,000 layoff notices to teachers in the next two weeks — state law sets a March 15 deadline for the notices to go out — and school systems across the country facing huge budget cuts, the battle here will be closely watched. And parents and advocates in other cities could file similar lawsuits.

In many ways, some advocates see the battle between politicians and unions leaders as a distraction. More important, they say, is the fact that after years of budget cuts the students who have the greatest need for stability in school have become the least likely to have it.

“It is really cynical for the political vultures to make this about a victory against the unions,” said Michelle Fine, a professor at the City University of New York who testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness in the case. “This is really just about how we distribute the pain. The remedy itself is very sad.”

But under a court ruling, not a single teacher at the school would be let go. Instead, Gompers and 44 other schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be exempt from any layoffs at all.

The ruling, which ratified a settlement agreed to by plaintiffs and the school district, is being appealed by the teachers’ union. And even as it plays out in a state where schools are facing the prospect of devastating layoffs, it could have implications for districts across the country facing similar cuts. The lawsuit has the support of, among others, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who once worked for the teachers’ union here.

Last spring, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups sued the school district on behalf of parents, saying that their children’s right to an education, guaranteed in the State Constitution, would be violated by the layoffs. Like most districts in the country, Los Angeles has long had an agreement with the union that layoffs are based primarily on seniority, so that the most recently hired teachers are the first to go. That left schools like Gompers, already saddled with high teacher turnover, the most vulnerable.

Lawyers for the parents argued that the layoffs would disproportionately affect poor, black and Latino students, who are more likely to attend schools that are difficult to staff and have a high proportion of inexperienced teachers.

If the ruling is upheld for the seemingly inevitable layoffs this summer, Los Angeles, the second-largest district in the country, will be among the first to dismiss teachers using criteria other than seniority.

“It’s simply crazy to say that we have to do this based on when people were hired,” Mr. Villaraigosa said in an interview. He has spent considerable effort attacking the union’s policies in recent months and said that the lawsuit was just one of many steps he hopes will overhaul the way hiring and firing is done in the city’s schools.

“This is really just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “But we have to start somewhere. We haven’t had any other kind of real change, and this clearly opens the door to more.”

But Julie Washington, the vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said that the ruling was “gutting seniority” and that the new layoff process would wreak havoc in the city’s schools. In the last several months, Ms. Washington has received dozens of calls from union leaders in other parts of the country who worry that they could soon be fighting similar lawsuits.

“You could have a senior teacher who is a nine-year veteran and has spent thousands of hours training and getting better here lose her job,” Ms. Washington said. “All of that is just disregarded with one swoop.”

In essence, the ruling put the rights of students above the job protections that teacher unions widely consider sacrosanct.

“These students deserve the best of what we have promised them,” said Catherine Lhamon, a lawyer with Public Counsel and one of the lead lawyers in the case. “If you have students who are going to see 17 different teachers in a year because so much is churning, they are not getting that. This puts districts on notice that they cannot do that, no matter what the budget circumstances are.”

With districts in California likely to issue as many as 30,000 layoff notices to teachers in the next two weeks — state law sets a March 15 deadline for the notices to go out — and school systems across the country facing huge budget cuts, the battle here will be closely watched. And parents and advocates in other cities could file similar lawsuits.

But the case also points to a split among the advocates who are pushing for the changes. Many political and school leaders say that seniority-based layoffs are antiquated and should be abolished entirely. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the District of Columbia schools, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York have crusaded against so-called “last in, first out” policies for years. For them, the court ruling is Los Angeles does not go far enough.

In many ways, some advocates see the battle between politicians and unions leaders as a distraction. More important, they say, is the fact that after years of budget cuts the students who have the greatest need for stability in school have become the least likely to have it.

“It is really cynical for the political vultures to make this about a victory against the unions,” said Michelle Fine, a professor at the City University of New York who testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness in the case. “This is really just about how we distribute the pain. The remedy itself is very sad.”

The plan would most likely mean teacher layoffs in middle-class areas that are accustomed to having the same teachers come back year after year. So while Sonia Miller, the principal at Gompers, will have less turmoil this year, the churn will be passed on elsewhere.

“You cannot emphasize how hard it is to teach at a place like this, and to have teachers who want to be here walk out the door is devastating,” she said. “What I want is for my kids to have a fighting chance, and that’s all I really care about. This ruling will by no means make equal education across the board, but at least we will have a chance.”

LOS ANGELES — Last year, when the school district here handed out thousands of layoff notices, Samuel Gompers Middle School in South Central stood to lose half of its roughly 150 teachers. Now, with the district planning to lay off as many as 4,500 teachers under what school leaders call a doomsday budget, the school could have been even worse off.

But under a court ruling, not a single teacher at the school would be let go. Instead, Gompers and 44 other schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District would be exempt from any layoffs at all.

The ruling, which ratified a settlement agreed to by plaintiffs and the school district, is being appealed by the teachers’ union. And even as it plays out in a state where schools are facing the prospect of devastating layoffs, it could have implications for districts across the country facing similar cuts. The lawsuit has the support of, among others, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who once worked for the teachers’ union here.

Last spring, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups sued the school district on behalf of parents, saying that their children’s right to an education, guaranteed in the State Constitution, would be violated by the layoffs. Like most districts in the country, Los Angeles has long had an agreement with the union that layoffs are based primarily on seniority, so that the most recently hired teachers are the first to go. That left schools like Gompers, already saddled with high teacher turnover, the most vulnerable.

Lawyers for the parents argued that the layoffs would disproportionately affect poor, black and Latino students, who are more likely to attend schools that are difficult to staff and have a high proportion of inexperienced teachers.

If the ruling is upheld for the seemingly inevitable layoffs this summer, Los Angeles, the second-largest district in the country, will be among the first to dismiss teachers using criteria other than seniority.

“It’s simply crazy to say that we have to do this based on when people were hired,” Mr. Villaraigosa said in an interview. He has spent considerable effort attacking the union’s policies in recent months and said that the lawsuit was just one of many steps he hopes will overhaul the way hiring and firing is done in the city’s schools.

“This is really just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “But we have to start somewhere. We haven’t had any other kind of real change, and this clearly opens the door to more.”

But Julie Washington, the vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said that the ruling was “gutting seniority” and that the new layoff process would wreak havoc in the city’s schools. In the last several months, Ms. Washington has received dozens of calls from union leaders in other parts of the country who worry that they could soon be fighting similar lawsuits.

“You could have a senior teacher who is a nine-year veteran and has spent thousands of hours training and getting better here lose her job,” Ms. Washington said. “All of that is just disregarded with one swoop.”

In essence, the ruling put the rights of students above the job protections that teacher unions widely consider sacrosanct.

“These students deserve the best of what we have promised them,” said Catherine Lhamon, a lawyer with Public Counsel and one of the lead lawyers in the case. “If you have students who are going to see 17 different teachers in a year because so much is churning, they are not getting that. This puts districts on notice that they cannot do that, no matter what the budget circumstances are.”

With districts in California likely to issue as many as 30,000 layoff notices to teachers in the next two weeks — state law sets a March 15 deadline for the notices to go out — and school systems across the country facing huge budget cuts, the battle here will be closely watched. And parents and advocates in other cities could file similar lawsuits.

But the case also points to a split among the advocates who are pushing for the changes. Many political and school leaders say that seniority-based layoffs are antiquated and should be abolished entirely. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the District of Columbia schools, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York have crusaded against so-called “last in, first out” policies for years. For them, the court ruling is Los Angeles does not go far enough.

In many ways, some advocates see the battle between politicians and unions leaders as a distraction. More important, they say, is the fact that after years of budget cuts the students who have the greatest need for stability in school have become the least likely to have it.

“It is really cynical for the political vultures to make this about a victory against the unions,” said Michelle Fine, a professor at the City University of New York who testified for the plaintiffs as an expert witness in the case. “This is really just about how we distribute the pain. The remedy itself is very sad.”

The plan would most likely mean teacher layoffs in middle-class areas that are accustomed to having the same teachers come back year after year. So while Sonia Miller, the principal at Gompers, will have less turmoil this year, the churn will be passed on elsewhere.

“You cannot emphasize how hard it is to teach at a place like this, and to have teachers who want to be here walk out the door is devastating,” she said. “What I want is for my kids to have a fighting chance, and that’s all I really care about. This ruling will by no means make equal education across the board, but at least we will have a chance.”

Fair Use

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. WE ARE MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN OUR EFFORTS TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. WE BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A 'FAIR USE' OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML. IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND 'FAIR USE,' YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.

If any publisher or owner of a copyrighted product believes we have violated your copyright, please contact me and we will usually remove the article, except under the guidelines of fair use above.  We will then post material about the contested issue  from alternative sources.

Problems with the use of test scores to evaluate teachers

In new EPI report, leading educational testing experts caution against heavy reliance on the use of test scores in teacher evaluation

Student test scores are not reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness, even with the addition of value-added modeling (VAM), a new Economic Policy Institute report by leading testing experts finds. Though VAM methods have allowed for more sophisticated comparisons of teachers than were possible in the past, they are still inaccurate, so test scores should not dominate the information used by school officials in making high-stakes decisions about the evaluation, discipline and compensation of teachers.

The Obama administration has encouraged states to adopt laws that use student test scores as a significant component in evaluating teachers, and a number of states have done so already. The Los Angeles Times recently used value-added methods to evaluate teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District based on the test scores of their students, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan supported the paper's decision to publicly release this information, asserting that parents have a right to know how effective their teachers are.  But the conclusions of the expert co-authors of this report suggest that neither parents nor anyone else should believe that the Los Angeles Times analysis actually identifies which teachers are effective or ineffective in teaching children because the methods are incapable of doing so fairly and accurately.

The distinguished authors of EPI's report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, include four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association; two  former presidents of the National Council on Measurement in Education;  the current and two  former chairs of the Board of Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences;  the president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management;  the former director of the Educational Testing Service's Policy Information Center and a former associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education; a former  and current member of the National Assessment Governing Board; and the current vice-president, a former president, and three other members of the National Academy of Education.

The co-authors make clear that the accuracy and reliability of analyses of student test scores, even in their most sophisticated form, is highly problematic for high stakes decisions regarding teachers . Consequently, policymakers and all stakeholders in education should rethink this new emphasis on the centrality of test scores for holding teachers accountable.

Los Angeles Board votes for Charter Schools

Vote could open 250 L.A. schools to outside operators
Backers of the Board of Education decision tout choice and competition. Foes call the move illegal, illogical and improper.

L.A. Unified School District to vote on school choice

District to relinquish control of some schools
In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses -- including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities -- to charter groups and other outside operators.

The plan, approved on a 6-1 vote, gives Supt. Ramon C. Cortines the power to recommend the best option to run some of the worst-performing schools in the city as well as the newest campuses. Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte dissented.

The vote occurred after a tense, nearly four-hour debate during which supporters characterized the resolution as a moral imperative. Foes called it illegal, illogical and improper.

The action signals a historic turning point for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has struggled for decades to boost student achievement. District officials and others have said their ability to achieve more than incremental progress is hindered by the powerful teachers union, whose contract makes it nearly impossible to fire ineffective tenured teachers. Union leaders blame a district bureaucracy that they say fails to include teachers in "top-down reforms."

"The premise of the resolution is first and foremost to create choice and competition," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who brought the resolution, "and to really force and pressure the district to put forth a better educational plan."

She and other backers said they expected the district to improve its own performance and to also compete to turn around schools. Bidders could apply to manage schools by mid-January.

For the charter school operators, the biggest prize is 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.

"It's absolutely indispensable, of critical importance to us," said Jed Wallace, chief executive of the California Charter Schools Assn. "It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity: 50 new school buildings coming online at the exact same time that a cadre of charter operators has demonstrated that it can generate unprecedented levels of student learning."

Charters are publicly funded but independently operated and free from some regulations governing the traditional administration of schools. They also are not required to be unionized.

Some of them have failed to outperform regular schools, according to some recent research. But backers of the new plan say that only the top-notch charter companies have a realistic shot at operating any of the 250 campuses that could be included, about a fourth of all district schools.

Finding locations for schools has been a paramount problem for charter groups. Synergy Academy in South Los Angeles, for example, occupies rented space in a church 500 feet from where a new L.A. Unified school is being built.

Among those who could take advantage of the board action is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who could use it to enlarge the 11-school effort run by a nonprofit that he controls. Villaraigosa, who helped elect a majority of the seven-member board, was an active participant Tuesday, speaking before more than 2,000 parents, teachers and others before the vote.

For several board members, particularly those with strong union ties, the debate was heated and often agonizing. Steve Zimmer, for one, sought to require that teachers, other union members and parents approve any school's reform plan through separate majority votes. At high schools students would also vote.

Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles were once again frustrated that their own version of reform -- democratically run school sites with substantial and mandatory teacher input -- played second fiddle. Union President A.J. Duffy threatened legal action to thwart the Flores Aguilar plan.

Duffy chastised board members, especially those most closely allied with the mayor.

"When all is said and done you will have sold this district down the road for political gain for some of you," he said at the meeting, "and for a mayor whose own program has been a dismal failure. And if you end up . . . giving the mayor more schools, then shame on you."

Other critics have joined Duffy in questioning whether schools built with bond funds to relieve crowding, can be turned over to entities not under direct district control.

For their part, charter schools may have to operate differently in district-owned sites. They could be required to enroll more disabled students and higher numbers of lower-income students than at some current charter schools.

Both sides gathered coalitions of supporters. The charter-backed group Families That Can organized a massive rally outside district headquarters before the vote.

And the critics were not exclusively union members. Some called the plan an abdication of district responsibility or a failure to acknowledge district progress.

David Crippens, who chairs the committee overseeing school-construction spending, cautioned against "change for the sake of change."

But school board President Monica Garcia, a Villaraigosa ally, asserted that "kids can't wait. . . . My support for this resolution is in the hope that the district can move faster."

Shortly after the vote, Villaraigosa savored a political and policy victory at district headquarters in downtown L.A.

"We're not going to be held hostage by a small group of people," Villaraigosa said, referring to the teachers union and other opponents. "I'll let you infer who I'm talking about."

howard.blume@latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times. Click on the title to read the entire article.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-schools26-2009aug26,0,4203620.story

Los Angeles teachers protest budget cuts

The Los Angeles Times
June 4, 2008

The Los Angeles Unified School District's attempt to stop teachers from protesting proposed state budget cuts by reporting to work one hour late this week was denied Tuesday.

The state Public Employee Relations Board declined to file for an injunction on the district's behalf, so the demonstration, organized by the United Teachers Los Angeles union, should take place as planned Friday.

Teachers are expected to spend the first hour of the day picketing outside their schools, which means classes will be delayed and students will be supervised by aides and administrators.

The teachers are protesting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget, which would result in a $353-million shortfall for L.A. Unified.

The school board is scheduled to vote on the budget next week, but district officials have said they will have to lay off teachers and cut programs to balance the books.

District officials asked the employee relations board last week to stop the protest, saying they were concerned about safety, especially at schools that have experienced student violence.

Police had to break up a brawl at Locke High School in South Los Angeles last month that involved 600 students.

"I'm concerned that we are going to have kids at school unsupervised for an hour or kids who choose not to go to school at all. Neither situation is a good one," board member Tamar Galatzan said.

Employee relations board members could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

David Holmquist, the district's chief operating officer, said that he was disappointed in the decision but that L.A. Unified still hoped to prevent the walkout and would file for a temporary restraining order this week.

"We are going to do everything we can to ensure student safety," he said.

Union President A.J. Duffy said the protest would not endanger students and was the best way to draw attention to the budget shortfall. Teachers will not be paid for the time they spend picketing, and "that's the strongest message we can send that these budget cuts will hurt our kids," he said.

Duffy said he expected as many as 40,000 teachers to participate. "Anyone who doesn't will be crossing a picket line," he said.

District officials and principals have started making contingency plans. At Hancock Park Elementary School, students will be divided among five campus locations, where they will be overseen by aides, parent volunteers and administrators, and will spend the time in reading activities and physical education, Principal Judith Perez said.

Perez said she expected all of her teachers to picket and that they would be welcomed back on campus after the demonstration.

"There's no hostility," Perez said. "I respect UTLA and their decisions."

jason.song@latimes.com

When School reform works - and then is crushed

Liberating the Schoolhouse

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080430_liberating_the_schoolhouse/

By Wellford Wilms

Eighteen teachers, Baldwin Park High School’s “leadership team,” sit in a semicircle with their arms folded across their chests looking at the floor. The year is 2003 and the new principal, Julie Infante, an exuberant 44-year-old woman, explains how they are going to lead this high school out of its academic doldrums together. The teachers are clearly skeptical, either distrusting what Infante is saying or disbelieving that they can do it. The Los Angeles County school has hit bottom. The campus is littered with trash, fights are common, students cut classes without penalty, test scores are so low that the school’s accreditation is in jeopardy, and the faculty is demoralized. The stakes are high because failure is an invitation for the state to take over.

Remarkably, in three years, between 2003 and 2006, with coaching from UCLA’s School Management Program, the teachers and the principal accomplished a stunning success. By every important academic measure, the school made impressive gains. The campus was cleaned up, the number of disciplinary cases fell, student absenteeism declined, and test scores improved dramatically. Not surprisingly, the teachers felt more positive about the administrators and less isolated from one another, and their job satisfaction increased. But, in 2006, in an equally astonishing turn of events, the board of education and the superintendent removed Infante, replacing her with a new principal who began to reverse the bold steps that had produced the turnaround.

What happened? Why would the board and superintendent undo the actions that had produced such remarkable results? It was because they failed to understand what Infante and the UCLA coaches had accomplished. They were blinded by their own ambitions and by their conviction that administrative top-down control is the only way to run the schools. What they could not see was that Infante had turned the leadership of the school upside down, leading from behind the scenes and encouraging teachers to take control. As the teachers expanded their responsibility, a new professional authority began to emerge among them that translated into new norms for the school. Instead of blaming everyone but themselves for the students’ failure, the teachers took on collective responsibility for the students’ success.

This is a story about why bottom-up educational reforms that work cannot survive in the face of top-down control. It is ultimately a story about the use of power. The dominant belief is that top-down control is the only way to hold principals and teachers accountable for measurable results. The less prevalent belief is that bottom-up collaboration between teachers and administrators is a source of innovation that builds commitment to and support for successful reforms. The conflict has become especially important in the face of the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, which requires administrators to produce high test scores or risk their jobs. The pressure for test scores leads school boards and superintendents to mandate what is to be taught and to reward principals and teachers who comply and punish those who do not. The effect of the law, says author Jonathan Kozol, is like placing a “sword of terror just above teachers’ heads,” causing many of the best of them to leave the profession.1 As boards and superintendents usurp authority, the teachers who stay often become docile, as do other workers in stifling bureaucracies, resigning themselves to being told what to do. It is little wonder that without authority and leadership at the schoolhouse, gains made one day are so often erased the next.

Amazingly little research has been done on the subject of why school reforms are rarely sustained. Most of what passes for research is really little more than polemics. Books with promising titles like “Failure Is NOT an Option” and “Creating a Positive School Culture” invoke rhetoric about what should be done, without analysis of the underlying problems. How many years has education been a top national priority, and how much have we learned from the billions of dollars spent? Quite a few, and not much. The few research studies that have been done show that reforms do not last because leadership changes, districts change their focus, teachers lose their motivation, and energy for innovation diminishes.2 But a close examination of the shakeup at Baldwin Park High School reveals an even more fundamental culprit: adherence to the belief that power can only flow from the top to the bottom.

I have seen the clash of these beliefs in every organization I have studied over the past 30 years, from schools and universities to trade and teacher unions, to corporations and police departments. The research is clear: Collaborative decision-making invariably improves employees’ productivity, the quality of their work lives, and their job satisfaction.3 But these improvements always wither with the introduction of top-down control, which strips employees of their professionalism, weakens their commitment to the organization’s goals and dampens their motivation to work hard and do a good job.4 In Baldwin Park we see both sides of the conflict play out. Once the board and superintendent decided to impose their control on the school, they destroyed the collaboration between the principal and teachers that had made it so vital. They also squandered the chance to build a new model of school-led reform that could have sustained the improvements over time. Unfortunately, Baldwin Park could be any school district in the country because the automatic and destructive use of top-down control is such a familiar and discouraging story.

The Turnaround

Baldwin Park is a medium-size city about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. The school district comprises 14 elementary, four middle and three high schools, one of which is Baldwin Park High School. Baldwin Park High has an attractive campus built in the 1950s with low-slung buildings now housing about 2,400 students, 88 percent of whom are Latino. Nearly 20 percent speak little English. Students come from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, with more than half receiving reduced-cost or free lunches. The school employs 84 teachers, who have taught there for an average of 10 years.

Before 2003, for as long as anyone can remember, the school had operated in the traditional manner. Teachers talk about how power had always been held by administrators, which had been the cause of many of the school’s problems. Recalled one teacher, “We’d always had a top-down management style from time immemorial, and most of the problems on the campus were the result of the administration rather than the administration preventing them.” The school also had a reputation for being rough. Sergio Corona, a school board member who was its president during the turnaround, had attended Baldwin Park High School. He called it a “gladiator school.” “People would come in from other cities every day and there were fights. I’ve seen rumbles at that school, and they were bad,” said Corona. It was little wonder that Baldwin Park also suffered from a poor academic reputation. Mark Skvarna, a 53-year-old career Air Force man with a graying crew cut, came to the district in 1998 as its fiscal officer and became superintendent in 2001. He acknowledges that the school had the lowest possible statewide ranking on student test scores. “Its numbers were in the dumps. It was the worst of the worst,” Skvarna said.

By most accounts, hiring Infante was an act of desperation. The students’ low academic performance, measured by the California Academic Performance Index (API), was an embarrassment to the district, and the school badly needed new leadership. The API, a scale that runs from 200 to 1,000, is determined by annual testing. “At the time, the school was a 475 or 479, and it had been dropping and dropping. I think they were at a loss to know what to do with it,” said Infante. Corona recalled that he asked Infante during her hiring interview: “We know that it’s not the greatest school. What can you do?” Infante convinced him of her “game plan,” explaining that the teachers felt alienated and that she wanted to empower them. “She was not telling me things I wanted to hear, but she had a coherent, logical plan ... that focused on learning,” said Corona. Infante was hired. Though the board and district office hoped that her ideas would work, no one grasped how radical her plan really was.

Shortly after she took over as principal in 2002, Infante brought in UCLA’s School Management Program to help her organize the teachers to rebuild the school. The program had a reputation for teaching principals and teachers to work collaboratively. The UCLA staff had helped Infante when she was an assistant principal in El Monte, a neighboring district. Now in Baldwin Park, two UCLA coaches signed on to support Infante and the 18 teachers who made up a new “leadership team.”

In early 2003, Dan Chernow, executive director of UCLA’s School Management Program, who knew my research and my interest in education, asked if I would like to join the project to document its progress. He showed me the school’s abysmal statistics and described UCLA’s plan to coach teachers to take responsibility by running their own meetings on the assumption that, by setting their own priorities and being responsible for follow-through, they would become school leaders. I told Chernow that I thought his strategy would fail. I had learned from my industrial studies that changing an organization’s culture required changing how the work was done. In the case of Baldwin Park High School, I told Chernow, it meant changing what happened in the classroom. I was certain that his plan, like other reforms, would never reach the classroom or, more likely, that it would be swept aside by some new idea. But Chernow persisted, assuring me that I could write about whatever I found. Despite my skepticism, I agreed. Baldwin Park presented the chance to test my own ideas while I documented what I knew would be a certain failure. I was in for a surprise.

When I began the research, observing meetings, running focus groups and interviewing teachers and administrators, I was struck by the firmness of Infante’s convictions about sharing decision-making power. One day I asked her if being a woman had anything to do with it. She drew up her short body in her chair and retorted: “I’m not the nurturing kind. I’ll nurture kids, or someone in a professional way, but I’m not a touchy-feely person.” Though not “touchy-feely,” she had been deeply influenced by a principal in her former district who had taken her under his wing when she left teaching to become an administrator. He called her “the young one” and made sure that she was exposed to the school’s operations. Infante recalled that he “was looking at me as not just an assistant principal but thinking about what he could do to help me succeed. It shaped a lot of my dealings later with teachers because all of us want the same thing—to be motivated to try different things and to expand our horizons.” She said she had learned about sharing decision-making in El Monte, where she helped build a new school from the ground up. “It has to be a team effort,” she told me, weaving the fingers of both hands together. “Teachers and administrators have to do it together.”

Infante’s Vision

Months before Infante took over at Baldwin Park High, she visited the campus, talking with teachers to get a better picture of what was going on. She describes sitting in on meetings where teachers passed the time talking about housekeeping and pointing blaming fingers at the administrators and at each other. It was common to hear teachers talk about the school’s “culture of failure,” she recalls. “The teachers felt completely isolated. There was no trust among them, there was no concern to know what each other were doing. The teachers were overwhelmed and just trying to survive.” The teachers’ sense of isolation was passed along to students, who were oblivious to the shadow their test scores cast on the entire school community. “Students had no idea how their behavior shaped the school’s poor image and that their failure ultimately came back to hurt them,” said Infante. “The adults didn’t know how to communicate with the students, so it was clear that it was going to take a lot of dialogue to turn this into one school [community].”

To reverse the school’s course, Infante knew that the teachers had to become part of the decision-making process, something they had never done. “I wanted to develop a leadership team from a cross-section of the school—not just the cheerleaders,” she explained. John Otterness, a former mathematics teacher who was one of the UCLA coaches, recalled, “Julie tried to make it a diverse group, not just the traditional leadership thing where you pull in the department chairs and that’s about it.” Infante said she asked for volunteers who “wanted to be part of an earth-shattering experience. I wanted them to feel honored to be selected and to know that they were on the ground level of change.” Infante also included the local teachers’ union representative to ensure that the union would feel part of her plan. After consulting with members of the faculty and department heads, Infante chose 18 teachers to be the new leadership team.
Read the entire fascinating article at the web site:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080430_liberating_the_schoolhouse/

What school is like for some

From the Los Angeles Times
Many South L.A. students frightened and depressed, survey finds
The report, prepared by a youth group with help from Loyola Marymount, says that the conditions of their schools is contributing to a loss of hope and drive.
By Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

April 26, 2008

A survey of 6,008 South Los Angeles high school students shows that many are frightened by violence in school, deeply dissatisfied with their choices of college preparatory classes, and -- perhaps most striking -- exhibit symptoms of clinical depression.

"A lot of students are depressed because of the conditions in their school," said Anna Exiga, a junior at Jordan High School who was one of the organizers of the survey. "They see that their school is failing them, their teachers are failing them, there's racial tension and gang violence, and also many feel that their schools are not schools -- their schools look more like prisons."

The survey, released late Thursday, was conducted in seven South L.A. public schools by a community youth organization, South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action (SCYEA), with technical guidance from the psychology department at Loyola Marymount University. It suggested that many students in some of the city's poorest, most violent neighborhoods believe their schools set the bar for success too low -- and then shove students beneath it.

In fact, the student organizers said they don't like to use the word "dropout" to describe their many peers who leave school. They prefer "pushout," because they believe the school system is pushing students to fail.

"We're ignored -- our schools are ignored," said Susie Gonzalez, another Jordan 11th-grader who helped organize the survey. "They give us the short end of the stick. . . . They expect us not to amount to anything."

Only about one-quarter of the students surveyed said they felt safe at school while 35% said they don't. Just under half said their school is preparing them for college or a high-paying job, and 93% believe their school should offer more college-preparatory classes. Fewer than half could define the "A to G" curriculum that is the college prep standard in California. The youth organization, which advocates educational equality, fought for six years to push Los Angeles Unified School District to require such a curriculum for all students. The curriculum spells out the types of college prep classes and number of years they must be taken to qualify for UC and Cal State schools.

Two thirds of the students, nearly all of whom were African American or Latino, said they wanted their schools to offer more ethnic studies classes.

The schools surveyed are among the lowest performing in the Los Angeles Unified School District and are in an area where dissatisfaction with the traditional public school system is driving many students into charter schools.

The survey's findings contrasted with a February school district report in which 90% of students questioned at selected schools districtwide said they were being pushed to do their best and 80% said their classes "give me useful preparation for what I plan to do in life."

That same report was sharply critical of the district's efforts to get all students into a college-prep curriculum by 2012. "With the current school climate and instructional quality," it said, "a significant proportion of the students who enter the ninth grade in 2012 will not only fail to meet college eligibility, but will also fail to graduate from high school."

Monica Garcia, president of the Los Angeles Board of Education, said she welcomed the survey and believed the district was responding to the students' concerns. "This is energizing, this is encouraging," she said. "We need the consumers of our services to be advocates of change."

But Jordan High Principal Stephen Strachan took exception to some of the results, saying the survey was skewed to provoke negative responses. He said his school has made great strides in preparing students for college and has created a "safe haven" from a violent community.

He did not, however, dispute the findings about depression. "This morning at 10 o'clock at Simpson's Mortuary, a 16-year-old was buried. That's one of my students who was shot in the community," he said. "I hear kids say, 'Too many people are dying in our community.' And that plays on the psyche. . . . It's really hard to focus on Algebra 2 when your friends are getting shot in the community."

Cheryl Grills, a professor of clinical psychology at Loyola Marymount, said that she was struck by how many students volunteered answers to one question about why they sometimes skip school. More than half hinted at depression, saying they were tired, had trouble sleeping, felt helpless or hopeless, were bored or felt lazy, among other responses.

She compared those responses to the symptoms of clinical depression from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. "Much to my horror and shock, they almost completely matched up," she said.

That led her to conduct a follow-up survey among 52 students. Of them, 67% reported that they had "felt sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more," and had "stopped doing some of their usual activities" as a result.

"That's clinical levels of depression," she said.

Grills said that while the initial survey did not select students randomly, she believed it was scientifically valid because of the large sample size. She said there was significant uniformity of results among the seven schools: Jordan, Crenshaw, Dorsey, Fremont, Locke, Manual Arts and Washington Prep. Students from Gardena High also participated, although the survey was conducted outside school.

Alice Rubenstein, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Rochester, N.Y., who has written widely about adolescent psychology, agreed that the survey hinted at widespread levels of clinical depression. Given the environment in which the students live, that's hardly surprising, she said.

Students in South L.A. "live in a depressive environment where they feel helpless or hopeless partly because their choices are so limited," she said. "These kids are living in an environment where this is their state much of the time. It's very much a sociological issue as well as a psychological issue."

Rubenstein added that surveys of the general adolescent population tend to show that anywhere from 15% to 30% are depressed, well below the levels suggested by the survey. She added that the survey did not include the students most likely to be depressed -- those who were not in school.

At the announcement of the survey results, at the headquarters of the Community Coalition of South L.A., students played a home-made version of Monopoly that told much the same story as the survey.

Where the familiar squares of Baltic, Atlantic and Marvin Gardens might be, the options included Drugs, Dean's Office and Drop Out. Jail was a place to go when you're pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason. Restroom was where the player was likely to encounter gang members. Where Boardwalk should have been, the square read: "Dead."

As the game began, one student landed on Liquor Store and was told that, on his way to school, "You wind up in front of a liquor store and you find one of your homies smoking a blunt." When Juan Zamora of Jordan landed on Chance, he was told that "you're one of the lucky students who actually know and see a college counselor." His choices: Go to UCLA or "stay on the block and wind up selling drugs to support your family."

And when Sam Anguiano of Locke landed on P.E. Field, he was told that shots had been fired while he was running during gym class -- should he hit the ground or run? When he answered that he'd run, he was told: "You run away and are safe, but later that evening you find out that your friend was the one who was shot."

That was about as good a roll of the dice as anybody got. The one exception was Juan, a 17-year-old junior, who hit the ultimate Chance: "Your friends and family support you," the card read. "You don't die."

mitchell.landsberg

@latimes.com

Take a look at The Homeroom, The Times' blog about education. We're interested in your views about your schools, education policy and learning.

94,000 missing votes in Los Angeles

About Those 94,000 Votes Missing in L.A. County’s Democratic Presidential Primary Totals


By Paul Hogarth

While Hillary Clinton won last week’s California primary, the gap would be narrower if we counted every vote. But in Los Angeles County, the Registrar of Voters disqualified 94,500 ballots from “decline to state” (DTS) voters – because most did not fill an extra bubble to say they were voting in the Democratic primary. These voters requested a Democratic ballot, were given a ballot with only Democratic candidates listed, and a manual re-count would clearly indicate who they meant to vote for. But if they didn’t check the extra bubble, the machine did not pick up their vote – a fatal design flaw beyond any voter’s control. To not count these votes would violate state law, as well as the California Constitution – which requires every vote to be counted. With the close delegate count at stake – along with overwhelming proof that non-partisan voters favored Barack Obama – it is incumbent on L.A. County to count every vote, and to do it now.

Last week, 189,000 “decline-to-state” (DTS) voters in California’s largest County participated in the presidential primary – a 20% increase in turnout over 2006. Each party can choose whether to allow DTS voters in their primary, but only two have done so: (a) the Democratic Party, and (b) the American Independent Party – an ultra-right, nativist party. For a DTS voter to participate, they had to request a ballot in one of these two parties. An overwhelming number picked the Democratic ballot, as poll workers were required to keep track by marking it in the voter rolls.

But here’s where it got tricky. As the sample ballot shows below, DTS voters who got a Democratic ballot were given a list of the presidential candidates. But directly above (and in smaller font), they were also told to mark a bubble that they were voting in the Democratic primary. According to the election machines, 94,500 DTS voters who asked for such a ballot did not pick a candidate. While some may have abstained, it’s clear that a solid majority were disqualified simply because they did not fill in that extra bubble.



Was filling the bubble necessary to prevent DTS folks from voting in more than one primary? No. If you asked for a Democratic ballot, you only got a list of Democratic candidates – and so could not possibly vote in the American Independent primary. From the voter’s mindset, taking that extra step appeared redundant – assuming that they even noticed the fine print in the first place. Given the circumstances, most probably did not see it at all.

It turns out the bubble was there for mechanical reasons – due to a fatal design flaw in the voting machines that was beyond any voter’s control. The optical scanners were only set up to read your choice if you filled in the bubble, because each candidate was then boiled down to a number. If, for example, a DTS voter picked candidate #10 without filling in the bubble, the machine wouldn’t know whether to count Democrat Hillary Clinton – or Diane Beall Templin of the American Independent Party. So they would just say that the voter picked no candidate.

Machines are not humans, so it’s easy to see how they couldn’t catch that problem. But a hand count could determine what the machines did not – basic voter intent. When we learned in 2000 about Palm Beach’s infamous “butterfly ballot,” everyone was sure that Holocaust survivors did not vote for Pat Buchanan – including Buchanan himself. But there was no way to definitively prove that they meant to vote for Al Gore – and the remedies under law were not clear. Here, it’s just a question of getting enough human beings to sort through the 94,500 ballots – and determine which candidate they picked.

So far, the L.A. County Registrar of Voters only agreed to do a sample hand count of 1% of the “unmarked” ballots. But that's illegal, because the State Constitution requires them to count them all. Proposition 43, which passed in 2002, gave each California voter the constitutional right to have their vote counted. And California Elections Code Section 15701 says that even if it takes longer than a statutory deadline, the county can ask for an extension.

“It’s not good enough to do a 1% count,” said Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign. “The statute is very clear – all votes have to be counted.” The Courage Campaign, a political non-profit based out of Los Angeles, alerted the Registrar of Voters about this ballot problem on the eve of the primary – and have hired attorneys to enforce the law if necessary. 20,000 people have signed their online petition since Thursday, and State Senator Dean Florez has demanded hearings in Sacramento.

These votes must be counted – for legal reasons, moral reasons, and (yes) political reasons. Barack Obama has wide appeal from unaffiliated voters who joined the Democratic Party to vote for him in the primary, so it’s fair to assume that the bulk of these voters are his. Counting these votes won’t change who won California, or even Los Angeles – as Hillary Clinton won the County by almost 170,000 votes. But in the critical delegate race that may go down to the wire, these 94,500 votes could make a real difference in several Congressional Districts.

“It is a basic issue of trust,” said Jacobs. “Are we going to tell people that their votes didn’t count – when an unprecedented number of independents turned out to participate in the presidential primary? It’s simply a question of voter rights.”

Voters were outraged in 2000 that Florida couldn’t get its act together in the general election – besides the blatant chicanery that the President’s cronies were involved in. But the “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County only affected 19,000 voters. Here we have a fatal flaw in L.A. County that disenfranchised 94,000 people. And with the delegate count as close as it is, like Florida it could prove decisive in picking the next President.

It’s not a question of introducing legislation to prevent this matter from happening again -- the law already requires it. These votes are just sitting here – and the Registrar must do a hand re-count to determine what voters really meant. It isn’t rocket science, or even brain surgery. It's democracy.

Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, an alternative online daily newspaper, with whose permission this article is republished.

Posted on February 12, 2008
On California Progress Report

Villaraigosa and school reform

Villaraigosa pushes school partnership as vote nears
Parents and teachers at three L.A. high schools and their feeder middle schools will decide whether to join the L.A.'s mayor plan or stick with LAUSD's model.
By Howard Blume and Duke Helfand
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

December 10, 2007

Teachers and parents at seven low-performing middle and high schools will decide Tuesday whether to join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in his effort to dramatically remake their schools. Those campuses are in line for what the mayor said are historic infusions of money and more authority.

This week's balloting will culminate months of hard-charging organizing in neighborhoods and schools by the mayor, his allies and staff. Villaraigosa tried to close the deal himself last week by repeatedly visiting Eastside and South Los Angeles schools, meeting separately with teachers and parents at Roosevelt High, Jordan High and the Santee Education Complex. He and his staff also have made multiple visits to four middle schools that feed into those high schools.

"I want to ensure that teachers have a voice," he told instructors at Jordan. "We want to create a partnership with teachers, classified [non-teaching employees] and parents."

The mayor's overtures received a mix of enthusiasm, skepticism and uncertainty. Villaraigosa made his entreaties even as Los Angeles Unified School District officials develop their own strategy for low-achieving schools, including those courted by the mayor. The school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a plan proposed by Supt. David L. Brewer.

The mayor has said that the partnership would operate only in communities and schools that invite it. For schools to participate, a majority of teachers on each campus must vote yes as well as a majority of parents who choose to vote.

Specifics of how schools will operate under Villaraigosa's partnership will be worked out on individual campuses, the mayor said. Responding to numerous questions from teachers, he said repeatedly that he wants schools to come up with their own solutions and make decisions on curriculum and budgets independent of the central bureaucracy.

"The specific plan," Villaraigosa said to parents at Roosevelt, "is going to be developed and created by you in the schools."

Villaraigosa's tack is strategic as well as philosophical because the veteran politician knows he has an election to win. He's emphasizing local control and funding, while speaking generically about possibly contentious issues, such as what would happen to ineffective teachers or exactly how much progress schools would need to make.

"We've got to have the vote first," he said in an interview Friday. "You can't put the cart before the horse."

Part of his message was to characterize Brewer's reform plan as "status quo" and "top down." The mayor said he meant no disrespect, only to set his initiative apart from the latest "imposed plan."

District officials have suggested that Villaraigosa is exaggerating that distinction, but the mayor frequently scored points with crowds by comparing his pledges to L.A. Unified's track record.

At every stop, teachers peppered Villaraigosa with questions: Who would manage the schools? What would he do about classroom discipline? Why should teachers choose his approach when other promises of help have withered away?

Veteran Jordan teacher Miranda Manners questioned whether he understood large urban high schools and called the mayor's presentation fuzzy. "I want to go with the district because this partnership is vague," she said in an interview.

At nearby Gompers Middle School, nine teachers, including the school's two union representatives, signed a letter last week that praised the partnership for offering more money and autonomy. Joining the mayor, the teachers said, is "a risk worth taking."

Villaraigosa repeatedly insisted that the issue of money plays in favor of his team.

"You saw the way I raised 50 million bucks like that," he said at Roosevelt, referring to the largest single private pledge to the nonprofit that will manage his schools project.

"And I've got two big healthcare providers lined up -- but you can't write about that yet," he said, waving his microphone at a reporter.

A huge source of funding for both Villaraigosa and Brewer will be the state's Quality Education Investment Act, which for seven years will give dozens of low-achieving Los Angeles schools up to $1,000 per student per year.

Schools qualified for this funding -- and the attention from the mayor and Brewer -- by scoring among the lowest on standardized tests. But they have other problems as well. Santee, although only in its third year, also has been marred by ethnically tinged student fights and administrative turnover. Because of overcrowding, it has to operate year-round. Parents and students at Roosevelt, one of the nation's largest high schools, have complained about lack of access to college-prep classes. Jordan is adjacent to the gang-plagued Jordan Downs low-income housing project. One anti-gang activist at the mayor's forum had lost two of her sons to the violence and instability -- one shot by gang members, the other by police.

At the meetings, Villaraigosa had to overcome residual skepticism related to his failed effort to gain authority over the school system, which critics called divisive and undemocratic. The mayor had better luck recently securing a majority of allies on the school board.

"After helping to elect a reform board, I could have easily checked out, but I'm too committed to this," Villaraigosa said in the interview. "It's essential that the mayor partner with the school district."

For veteran teachers, some misgivings stem from seeing one wave after another of purported reforms sweep through schools with great fanfare, only to be ineffective or quickly abandoned.

"I want to make sure these promises are kept for our kids," Jordan history teacher Walter Rich told Villaraigosa.

School board member Richard Vladovic stood by the mayor's side during his Jordan visits.

"You're lucky if you are part of this partnership because you're going to have more of a say," Vladovic told the teachers. "There are a lot of 'must-do's' in [Brewer's plan]. You've got a choice here because you can opt in."

In a later interview, Vladovic said he, too, didn't mean to castigate Brewer, but called Villaraigosa's team more complete.

The superintendent, a retired admiral who lacks a background in public education, is still seeking a chief academic officer. For his effort, Villaraigosa has tapped Ramon C. Cortines, the former head of the Los Angeles and New York public schools, as chair of the board. The acting executive director is Marshall Tuck, who was chief operating officer for Green Dot Public Schools, which runs charter schools in the Los Angeles area.

Villaraigosa received one of his warmest receptions at Roosevelt in Boyle Heights, where about 150 teachers turned out one recent afternoon. A meeting that night for parents attracted 750.

At Roosevelt, the turnout and support resulted from six years of organizing to advocate for better schools, said Board of Education President Monica Garcia, a Villaraigosa ally who represents that area.

On the Eastside and elsewhere, the partnership has paid or recruited community groups to promote his plan, draw people to meetings and circulate petitions -- supporters claim more than 5,000 parent signatures. The $200,000 organizing effort is funded by grants from Verizon, the Hewlett Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the California Community Foundation, according to the mayor's office.

Most of those same community groups also receive funding for various purposes from the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, whose leaders are working closely with the mayor's team.

Even at Roosevelt, some critics made their opposition plain, wearing yellow shirts or carrying signs with messages such as "Roosevelt No! To Villaraigosa's partnership," "Our kids are not for sale," and "Can we trust you?"

Villaraigosa responded with charm as much as logic. He frequently stayed longer than promised, hamming it up with a little quickstep as he drew winning raffle tickets at Jordan -- organizers had put together a giveaway of a $50 Target certificate, a camera and a color TV to attract Jordan parents.

During the parents session at Roosevelt, which was conducted in Spanish, one woman virtually accused Villaraigosa of thievery. Villaraigosa addressed her by name and added: "One thing: Give me a hug."

She did.

A rodent that scurried across the floor became a Villaraigosa prop. "Is that a mouse?" he said. "We're going to get rid of the mice."

At Jordan, the mayor was unequivocal about his effort: "If you think things are fine at Jordan, then the partnership isn't for you," the mayor said. "When so many of our kids can't read and write, I say it's time for change."

howard.blume@latimes.com

duke.helfand@latimes.com

Police assault Los Angeles marchers and news

Remember: this is Fox news.



FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. WE ARE MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN OUR EFFORTS TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. WE BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A 'FAIR USE' OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML. IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND 'FAIR USE,' YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.

Immigration marches in Los Angeles: May 1

Judge blocks Mayor Villaraigosa's school takeover

Judge scuttles mayor's school takeover plan
By Howard Blume
Times Staff Writer
December 21, 2006

A judge today nullified legislation giving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa substantial authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District, a stunning setback to Villaraigosa's plans -- already in progress -- to assume direct control of dozens of Los Angeles schools.

The mayor, at a news conference this afternoon, said he has instructed lawyers for the city to appeal the ruling. He said he would also ask that the California Supreme Court hear the appeal directly.

"We will not be set back," Villaraigosa said.

He added: "We refuse to be deterred by the forces of the status quo."

The ruling was a sweeping victory for the school district and puts in question the mayor's education agenda, which was embodied in the legislation before the court.

Under Assembly Bill 1381, Villaraigosa would have ratified the hiring and firing of future superintendents through a Council of Mayors that he would have dominated. And he would have had direct authority over three low-performing high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them.

Judge Dzintra Janavs found the entire law defective and ordered public officials "to refrain from enforcing or implementing" any part of it.

Anti Latino bigotry and L.A. Schools

this blog has argued against the take over of L.A. Unified Schools by the Mayor. (See prior posts)
A court has blocked the take over.
However, here you can read a report and then read the comments by readers. It sounds like the S.O.S. crowd.
Duane Campbell

http://mayorsam.blogspot.com/2006/12/lausd-wins-first-legal-round-against.html