Daily News: LAUSD pays for fliers backing mayor's plan

LAUSD pays for fliers backing mayor's plan
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 12/10/2007 09:31:15 PM PST

Los Angeles Unified officials have sent thousands of fliers urging parents and teachers to let Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa manage some district schools in what critics decried Monday as a biased campaign that misuses taxpayer funds.

The district paid for the fliers and automated calls to remind parents about today's vote at seven schools, but critics say the information is essentially an advocacy campaign for the mayor's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

One flier obtained by the Daily News from the district's innovation division lists the benefits of a yes vote to join the partnership but makes no mention of any potential drawbacks.

"Any time a government official or the government itself has a stake in the outcome of an election, it's unfair to use public money to influence that election," said Tim Bittle, director of legal affairs for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

"It sure sounds like the mayor has a stake in the outcome of this election, because if he can persuade the parents and the teachers to approve this plan and then he pulls off some positive reform, it's going to be a publicity opportunity for him and his quest perhaps for higher office."

But Kathi Littmann, executive director of the LAUSD's innovation division, said her office is working with the mayor to develop the reform effort and did a thorough job informing communities about the issues in a limited amount of time.

Read entire story here: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_7687537

Various News Articles on Brewer's and Villaraigosa's Reform Efforts

DAILY NEWS: School reform facing hurdles
Read entire article here: http://www.dailynews.com/ci_7334829

Just two weeks after announcing an ambitious effort to reform Los Angeles Unified middle schools, Superintendent David Brewer III finds his plan already foundering amid fierce opposition from the politically powerful teachers union.

Brewer, who proposed creating a special district of 44 low-performing schools, already has had to eliminate 10 of the sites and still faces opposition from teachers over the remaining schools. Only one San Fernando Valley school remains on the list.

And new rumblings have surfaced that union leaders and teachers in the proposed schools intend to kill the plan entirely.

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LA TIMES: Idea for failing schools fails to please educators
Read entire article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd1nov01,1,5272754.story?coll=la-headlines-california

The L.A. Unified chief says his plan to group lagging campuses into a district is now 'only an option.' Among the many complaints from critics is that his proposal would stigmatize such schools.

Faced with stiff opposition from the teachers union and little support elsewhere, Los Angeles schools Supt. David L. Brewer has backed away from his plan to put nearly four dozen poorly performing schools into a separate "transformation district."

The superintendent's retreat comes only about four weeks after he unveiled the plan, which was widely viewed as an answer to critics who said the retired Navy admiral had accomplished too little in the year since accepting the top job at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

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DAILY NEWS: LAUSD drops five of six Valley schools from reform list
Read entire article here: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_7283026

Just a single San Fernando Valley school is in the running to participate in two key reform efforts widely touted by the mayor and schools chief as a key to boosting performance at Los Angeles Unified.

Superintendent David Brewer III said Thursday that he has cut five of the six Valley schools named in his original reform effort targeting 44 low-performing sites.

Sigifredo Lopez - president of the Parent Community Coalition, which represents 1,800 parents in the Valley and the rest of the district - said parents don't trust the mayor or Brewer.

"Reforms are coming out, but parents are saying nothing makes education better for children and brings more parent participation - that these reforms are political," he said.

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THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION BLOG: Brewer Reform: Dead in the Water?
Read more blog entries here: http://www.insidesocal.com/education/

Daily News: De facto LAUSD breakup

Daily News Article...
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_7178278


De facto LAUSD breakup

If it works, it doesn't matter what it's called
10/14/2007 05:13:51 PM PDT

LOS Angeles Unified School District Superintendent David Brewer's plan to create a separate district for low-performing schools and to target middle schools for reform is an acknowledgment that something drastic needs to be done to improve education.

Brewer says that this is a step toward improving the LAUSD by empowering this new mini-district of the 44 worst-performing schools to be more flexible and to have the autonomy to tailor solutions to meet the students' needs. In addition he will create "personalized learning environments" at all of the district's 92 middle schools, which he said have been long neglected.

It seems the de facto breakup of the country's second-largest school district, begun with the mayor's breaking up two school clusters, is accelerating.

No one, of course, would call it such. That word carries too much political baggage.

"It's our way to try to create more smallness out of largeness," one district official said.

Whatever. But it doesn't matter what words people use to describe this important decentralizing of the power of the LAUSD. All that matters is the principles of breakup - such as empowering schools, the principals and the communities to take charge of their schools and educational needs, and not cede them to the vast and often uncaring LAUSD bureaucracy.

When it comes to schools, smaller is always better. It's what district secessionists have been saying for years.

Still, what counts is that this carving out of special districts be more than just a public-relations stunt. There's a real danger of ghettoizing the special district full of low-performing schools once they've been removed from the rest of the district.

If this breaku- er, reform effort, has a chance of succeeding, it needs more than just a separation. It needs sustained commitment to the ideals of smaller, more autonomous and innovative schools.