Parent Revolution

Wendy Greuel meets with 24th Street Elementary parents

It took a while, but Los Angeles mayoral hopefuls Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel finally met with parents and students on Monday at Los Angeles Unified's chronically failing 24th Street Elementary School, where the district's first "Parent Trigger" took place.

The Parent Trigger, which is viewed as a controversial yet unique education reform tool, allows parents to take over a chronically failing school through petition, which is what recently happened at 24th Street Elementary.

While current L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa quickly supported the takeover at 24th Street, Garcetti and Greuel -- especially Garcetti -- hesitated. That's all over now.

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Gloria Romero, Democrats for Education Reform: She won't back down.

See also: "LAUSD Supe Fires Lemon Teachers" and "Firing the Bad Teachers."

A few days ago, the teachers union wing of the California Democratic Party tarred the growing numbers of breakaway Democrats who, in sync with President Obama, point the finger at teachers unions as a big obstacle to fixing crappy schools.

Democrats who see fixing bad schools as "civil rights for children" are really closet Republicans. Dean Vogel, of California Teachers Association (CTA), said as much at the Democratic State Convention, attacking Democrats for Education Reform and Students First as GOP/corporate fronts. CTA is, itself, a massive special interest -- an apelike lobbying entity feared by duly elected California Democratic legislators who are too afraid to cross it. In fact, that's how CTA infamously killed a law to fire sex-pervert teachers, SB 1530. A badly watered-down version, AB 375, is alive -- because CTA backs it. In May, the teachers unions will bring their strange roadshow to L.A., targeting LAUSD Supe John Deasy, who's been firing inept teachers, embracing charter schools and boosting graduation rates:

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Sal Castro

Sal Castro, an Eastside teacher who helped solidify the Chicano movement that shaped Civil Rights-era Mexican American identity, died on Monday at the age of 79 after battling cancer.

While he was vilified by the L.A. Unified School District in 1968 for leading student walkouts over a lack of Latino curriculum, this week he was lionized by school officials:

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Fred Harper

Greuel-Cetti

Update: Greuel discovers education reform after mayoral lambasting, challenges Garcetti to debate. See on next page.

Will political twins and L.A. mayoral candidates Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti -- a.k.a. "Greuel-Cetti" -- ever talk specifics, and not just platitudes, about the most serious problems facing Los Angeles? The kind of problems that can determine the future of a young kid from Boyle Heights or South Los Angeles?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa brought that into sharp focus yesterday during his farewell State of the City speech at UCLA, where he slammed Greuel-Cetti for their disinterest in education.

"It has been so disheartening to see our mayoral candidates devote so little time to a serious discussion of how to deliver a quality education for all our children," Villaraigosa said. "Education reform can't be a footnote on a campaign mailer or fodder for an attack ad."

Whoa! In fact, Greuel-Cetti have been so dispassionate about public schools that one has to wonder if they know anything about them. So as required reading for the candidates, here's the Essential L.A. Weekly Guide to Education Conundrums and Screw Ups...

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Gregory Bojorquez

Eric Garcetti

The Parent Trigger at 24th Street Elementary School in West Adams keeps chugging along -- despite what L.A. mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti thinks about it.

Today, Latino and African American parents at 24th Street Elementary will vote to ratify who will operate their kids' school next year. They had previously, and successfully, petitioned to take over the chronically failing Los Angeles Unified school through California's Parent Trigger law.

The 24th Street Elementary School Parents Union steering committee has recommended a "joint operator" in which L.A. Unified and non-profit charter school operator Crown Prep Academy share the duties.

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Courtesy of Gage Middle School

Students & faculty play flag football at Gage Middle School

Huntington Park was dubbed the city with the fattest kids in California in 2012, which prompted students and faculty at heavily Latino Gage Middle School in Huntington Park to team up and try slim down the student body's bodies.

After an article posted by L.A. Weekly and headlined "Huntington Park Has the Fattest Kids in California; Manhattan Beach has the Skinniest," many parents and students spoke out in the comments section. While some blamed not enough public parks or awareness programs, others blamed fast food and the cost of raising a large family with a poverty-level income.

Gage Middle School has decided to try and cut the fat. "The students reacted angrily to the article, and felt that it was a dubious honor that they wanted to shed," explains teacher Ruben Hernandez.

Here's how:

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Josephine Runneboom / LA Weekly Flickr pool

UCLA has been on a roll when it comes to outsize rankings for what is, essentially, a big, urban state college.

After scoring a top-10 position in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings earlier this month the university is boasting that many of its graduate programs have made the latest U.S. News & World Report annual Best Graduate Schools top 20:

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photosteve101

Some classes in California public higher education are both required and sometimes impossible-to-get.

And as tuition continues to rise at UC and Cal State campuses, students looking to wrap it up in four years are caught up in a waiting-list world of education.

No longer. Not if Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg has his way:

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UCLA Images

UCLA is the eighth best university in the world, according to the latest Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings.

That's even better than last year's 13th place for the publication's World University Rankings, in which Caltech came in at No. 1. The latest showing for the Westwood campus ...

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Eric Smidt gave $50,000 to elect a pro-reform slate to LAUSD.

Eric Smidt must be L.A.'s least-written-about, super-rich, self-made guy pouring money into Democratic races in the U.S. Now he's given $50,000 to the Coalition for School Reform to elect Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez to the powerful LAUSD Board of Education, and to re-elect incumbent Monica Garcia.

That's Smidt, not Schmidt. In 2012, Smidt gave $114,300 to Dems from Montana to Washington D.C. He's a major art collector -- now -- but he and his dad started a mail-order tool biz in North Hollywood when it wasn't "NoHo" and didn't have a trendy theater in sight. Smidt embodies the yawning split in the Democratic Party -- those who defend the California Teachers Association and United Teachers Los Angeles versus the growing number, like Smidt, who battle these unions and demand better schools:

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Kevin James

UPDATE, 5 p.m.: Eric Garcetti breaks silence on Parent Trigger. After the jump.

UPDATE, 4 p.m.: Wendy Greuel tells L.A. Weekly she supports the Parent Trigger. Eric Garcetti is now the only mayoral candidate who remains to be silent. After the jump.

After Los Angeles Unified School District board members approved a Parent Trigger earlier this week, mayoral candidates Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel refused to comment on the historic vote, which allows parents to take over a chronically failing elementary school in West Adams.

Now mayoral candidate Kevin James and two Parent Trigger heavyweights are speaking out about that silence -- and Garcetti and Greuel's commitment to education reform is being questioned. With an alarming 21 percent dropout rate at L.A. Unified, it's no small matter.

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See also, "LAUSD's Dance of the Lemons," and "Can Kate Anderson, Mom of Twins, Fix LAUSD?"

DonkeyHotey

Michael Bloomberg gives L.A. a taste of his teacher reform views.

Los Angeles Unified School District, whose teachers union UTLA has squelched attempts to raise student learning by making ineffective certified teachers relearn subject matter and skills, just attracted $1 million from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to elect candidates in three LAUSD school board races.

Bloomberg has forced change upon New York's under-performing low-skills teachers. Now, he's reached across the U.S., trying to oust LAUSD board member Steve Zimmer, a Westsider who for years has waffled and flip-flopped on reform. Zimmer faces fellow Westsider Kate Anderson in the March 5 primary. Bloomberg is also trying to elect Antonio Sanchez in the Valley and Eastside incumbent Monica Garcia, a slow-starter who now backs reform -- and is hated by UTLA union activists. It's about to get juicy, folks:

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uclastore.com

There are times in life when cheaper is not necessarily better: when you're choosing a doctor, a life-mate or, perhaps, an institution of higher learning.

In this case, we'll give UCLA props. It keeps scoring big lately: The Westwood campus was recently named one of the best schools in the world by Times Higher Education. And it got more applications for fall than any other U.S. university.

Now the prestigious Princeton Review says UCLA is among America's top 5 ...

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UCLA / Facebook

Money, money, money, money.

That's what's first and foremost on the minds of America's incoming freshman, according to the latest Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey administered, in part, by UCLA.

According to the numbers ...

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SD Dirk / Flickr

Last year UCLA made the top 20 on a prestigious list of the world's best universities.

Today the school announced that it has received nearly 100,000 applications for freshman spots and undergraduate transfer admissions, making it, UCLA, says ...

... the most applied-to university in the country and one of the most sought-after colleges by exceptionally talented students from California and around the world.

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LA Unified board president Monica Garcia

Read "Los Angeles Unified School District Braces For First Parent Trigger Take Over."

Parents of children who attend the failing 24th Street Elementary School in West Adams dropped a signature petition on Los Angeles Unified School District officials in downtown today, pulling the first Parent Trigger in the country's second largest public school system.

The Parent Trigger, a California law, allows parents to take over a chronically failing school and institute various changes, including setting up a charter school. Past parent triggers have faced stiff opposition from teachers' unions and school district officials.

No one knows exactly how L.A. Unified board president Monica Garcia and her colleagues will respond, but superintendent John Deasy "promised" to work with the parents in the days ahead, according to Parent Revolution executive director Ben Austin, who helped organize the 24th Street Elementary parents.

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24th Street Elementary

Los Angeles Unified School District will finally become a target of a Parent Trigger, a California law that allows parents to take over a failing school in which their children attend, according to L.A. School Report.

Parents at 24th Street Elementary School, with the help of Los Angeles-based education reform group Parent Revolution, will deliver the required signature petition to L.A. Unified officials in downtown on Thursday morning to start the process of taking over the school, according to Parent Revolution officials.

By law, more than 50 percent of parents at a given California school must sign off on the Parent Trigger, which allows parents to institute various changes such as creating a charter school.

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Gov. Jerry Brown

With new findings coming out of the California Department of Education, the state is clearly failing to provide good instruction to special education students.

The Cabinet Report revealed yesterday that special education students in California rank near the bottom in reading and math proficiency compared to other states. California also scores low in special education funding.

During last year's campaign season, Governor Jerry Brown promised to provide more funding for cash-starved public education systems through Proposition 30, which voters approved and raised state income and sales taxes. Will Brown now follow through and be sure woefully under-performing special education students get their slice of the fiscal pie?

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USC

Song Girls vs. Shelley Long.

You complain about all these immigrants in L.A., pointing to some of our more colorful, downtown-adjacent environs as hotbeds of foreignness?

Okay.

But do you ever point the finger at ... USC?

Yes, our Trojan friends are responsible for much importation of overseas talent, it would seem:

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Ed Honowitz

Pasadena Unified School District board member Ed Honowitz, who, like many other California public education officials, has been dealing with drastic state budget cuts, warns that if voters don't pass Proposition 30 or Proposition 38, California schools could fall off a "fiscal cliff."

"Failure of both initiatives triggers huge budget cuts reducing K-12 and community colleges by $5.4 billion," Honowitz writes in an opinion piece he sent to L.A. Weekly. "Districts statewide will have to shorten the school year by three to four weeks."

The Weekly wrote about the two ballot measures in the cover story "Molly Munger's Prop. 38 Is Spoiling Jerry Brown's Prop. 30. She's Not Sorry."

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