Glad a newspaper is noticing that the Los Angeles area is in the forefront in the movement to give over the schools there to outside bidders, to have them no longer run by the school district.
The editorial makes a very important point as well about technical high schools once privatized required all to take college bound courses.
Stop L.A. Unified's 'charterization'Change is not necessarily reform. Genuine reform produces lasting, beneficial improvements and isn't concocted by editors or frustrated school boards willing to try just about anything.
That was never more evident than during the debate over the current plan to allow outsiders to operate dozens of LAUSD campuses. As The Times notes in its Feb. 1 editorial, "Bidding to run L.A.’s schools," the district's mislabeled Public School Choice initiative has resulted in ugly misinformation campaigns and popularity contests over which organizations should run several L.A. Unified schools. Change, yes; reform, hardly.
Privatizing public education is but one of many elixirs offered over the years as panaceas for whatever ails California's schools. One fad after another has been foisted on children, their parents and teachers by supposed do-gooders, many of whom really wanted to promote a particular ideology or seek financial gain.
I say amen to that. I went through many of those fads in my many years of teaching. It was almost a joke to see the same trends return about 5 or 6 years in the guise of something new.
But this "fad" of turning schools over to private operators is no joke, and soon it will be too late to stop this madness.
One of the genuine reforms, championed by early 20th century progressives, was vocational education. A 1901 Times editorial called for the establishment of a polytechnic high school in Los Angeles emphasizing manual training. Such instruction was not part of the traditional curriculum, as teaching young people a trade had been the responsibility of the home, craft guilds and unions or private businesses.
Times Publisher Harrison Gray Otis was no progressive, but as a businessman he realized the need for high school graduates trained in occupations that an industrial society needed. When such a school, Manual Arts High, opened in 1910, The Times was ecstatic.
Now, ironically, vocational education doesn't have a place at Manual Arts, an L.A. Unified school operated by a nonprofit organization. At Locke High School in L.A., a campus operated by charter school organization Green Dot, everyone must take a college-bound curriculum. Both schools are at the forefront of the "everyone goes to college" movement.
That idea is not only ludicrous, it is tragic. Not everyone will go to college, that is simply not ever going to happen. They are taking away life training skills for so many to make sure that Educational Management Companies get their profits.
Usually the silence is deadening, so it is good to see the L. A. Times speak out.
Los Angeles seems on the verge of allowing
what amounts to "hostile takeovers" of up to 250 public schools.The corporate charter school movement is getting ready to rear it's ugliest face as LAUSD prepares to action off 250 schools (with part of this process headed by former Broad Resident Parker Hudnut). Media outlets in LA have frozen out the voice of teachers, painted union members as totally crazy, and refused to take any kind of critical look at this rapid expansion of charter schools despite a growing body of evidence that should give us reason to pause.
..."Up to 250 Los Angeles public schools may be soon available to outside bidders. There are 12 in the original group, more to come.
"Garfield High, which became nationally known as the real-life setting for the film “Stand and Deliver,” will be among the first group of local schools eligible for takeover because of persistent academic failure, a high-level district source has told The Times.
Garfield’s selection means that the nation’s second-largest school system will invite bidders — from inside and outside of the district — to run the East Los Angeles campus of 4,600 students. This “request-for-proposal” process could apply to more than 250 schools under a Board of Education resolution passed last month, but the initial set of schools will number 12, sources said. Included are Jefferson High in Central-Alameda, Lincoln High in Lincoln Heights, Burbank Middle School in Highland Park and Maywood Academy High in the southeast L.A. County city of Maywood.
This retired teacher never thought she would someday see "hostile takeovers" of public schools. The corporations are organizing the parents using their big money, and they are pretending they are real grassroots organizations.
And then there is the "Parent University", another laboratory experiment launched by Green Dot. According to Green Dot:
lapu developed an innovative program called “ Parent University ” in which parents gain skills to communicate with teachers and administrators to advocate for their children and use organizing tools such as primers on graduation requirements and school-quality scores, among other supports. The effectiveness of Parent University and the sheer number of parents attending serve as examples of the changing face of human capital in Los Angeles education reform, as parents gain both expertise and a voice to push for positive changes for their children and their communities (ibid).
Green Dot’s organizing efforts make them now poised to seize some of the 250 charter schools that LA has released from public governance. Why did Barr start Parents Union? Simple: to organize parents and teachers so they would rebel against their under-serving public schools and throw their lot in with Green Dot.
And I totally agree with the ending of the L. A. Times editorial when they pointed out that when the deed is done it will not be undone.
"Unfortunately, legal and financial barriers will keep the schools in the hands of entrepreneurs long after the public, Times editors and school board members realize that this "reform" was more detrimental to our children than any of the failed experiments of the past."
DU Donor
