Prometheus 6

I linked the editorial in Urban school districts are shot full of holes from silver bullets for two reasons.

1. The title, lifted from the body of the editorial, is a banging bit of rhetoric.
2. It is both true and unfortunate.

Yes, the systems are fouled up far more than the people, but correcting that takes years.

LAUSD counters charter takeover bid
District and union officials scramble to pull together reform plans to appeal to Locke High teachers.
By Joel Rubin
Times Staff Writer
May 15, 2007

In response to a surprise plan launched by a leading charter school organization to take control of one of Los Angeles' most troubled high schools, school district and teacher union officials are hurriedly trying to counter with reform plans of their own.

Years the L.A. school district ain't got.

Last week, Green Dot sent shock waves through the district when it announced it had quietly collected signatures of interest from a majority of the tenured teachers at Locke, clearing the major legal hurdle toward converting the low-performing Watts campus into 10 small charter schools beginning in 2008.

If the signatures are verified, the Board of Education would appear to have little choice but to approve the charter proposal because state laws make it difficult to reject operators such as Green Dot, which has posted promising results at its schools.

Green Dot has gotten good results, better than LAUSD in the schools they now operate. I don't know their systems and procedures but it seems they are working well. Whether they will scale or can be replicated such that the entire district can run the same way with the same or greater efficiency is an open question that we will find the answer to shortly. Because the counter-offer the district proposes is essentially to turn the disputed school into a charter school run by the city rather than Green Dot.

...Zeus Cubias, a math teacher at Locke, chafed at word of the district's attempt to assuage the faculty. "It's too little, too late," he said. "And not just now, but years too little, too late."

Cubias said that although many teachers who signed the Green Dot petition were still dubious of the charter conversion plan, they "feel like there isn't any other option" for the school, which for years has languished as one of the worst in the district.

If they can't change the teachers' minds, Green Dot will have essentially taken the school from LAUSD. You gotta see that will be absolutely unacceptable to every holder of every government fief. Hence the sweetener added to the pot.

Littmann and regional Supt. Carol Truscott said the district's proposal would raise the prospect of Locke partnering with a local university on teacher training programs.

And the teachers union has their own offering too.

I don't think either works. I suspect the LAUSD is about to get rolled.