School Turnaround “Fresh Start” + Teacher Seniority = Lawsuit
This Wednesday, the ACLU brought a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified to stop anticipated layoffs at three low performing schools that were decimated by last year’s layoffs. We will be featuring one of the schools, Markham Middle School in an upcoming report on school restructuring and know some of the details about the schools recent experience. The situation that Markham has faced over the last couple of years illustrates the need to carve out schools from collective bargaining contracts in order for school turnaround to have a chance. This concept of creating partnership zones that carves out a small group of schools from the collective bargaining agreement has been one of the key elements of the turnaround model that Mass Insight and others have been advocating, and the Markham example clearly illustrates why this is such a key element of a turnaround strategy. The federal government is about to invest $3.5 billion to support school turnarounds using one of four strategies including school closure, charter conversion, school turnaround through a “fresh start,” or school transformation.
Starting in the 2008-09 school year, Markham Middle school was given a “fresh start” after a decade of continuous failure under the federal accountability system. The school was turned over to the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a nonprofit organization started by Mayor Villaraigosa. The Partnership was a concession after the mayor‘s failed attempt at mayoral control of LAUSD. The partnership took over