Why It Doesn't Matter Who's Running Your Charter/Public School...
While occasionally we hear groups like Ben Austin's Parents' Revolution talk about finally empowering parents or LAUSD talk about small learning communities as if just saying these things was all that is necessary to accomplish the difficult task of charting a new course for LAUSD schools that in the final analysis actually gets us somewhere other than more failure. Without the specificity and the well thought out and methodical approach to undoing the damage to our student population, you can rest assured that like the much touted LEARN reforms of the 1990s nothing will change.
"Los Angeles Unified officials released a list Monday of 17 new and chronically underperforming campuses that will be up for grabs under a district reform plan that allows teachers, charter operators and nonprofits to apply to operate campuses." Let me suggest what should happen in this second round of alternate operators running LAUSD schools and what will most likely happen. One of the 17 schools up for grabs is Audubon Middle School where I started my own teaching career 24 years ago. In checking on its status over the years I have found that little has changed their because most of the students age-determined grade level has nothing to do with their actual ability. Irrespective of whether a teacher, administrator group or charter group ge