Charter school leader Vielka McFarlane brings personal history, passion to education
Vielka McFarlane, after winning a fight with Los Angeles County schools officials over California's 'parent trigger' law, plans to open a new charter school in Compton.
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 Vielka McFarlane, whose upbringing in Panama taught her the value of education, is passionate about charter schools. Her newest is set to open in Compton after a battle with Los Angeles County schools officials.. (Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times / May 26, 2011) |
Three decades after leaving her native Panama, Vielka McFarlane hasn't forgotten how a first-class education can transform a poor kid with a hard-knocks life.
The Los Angeles charter school operator remembers leaner days and long hours helping her struggling family sell empanadas from a street cart. Her eyes mist when she speaks of her hardworking parents, who sacrificed to send her to the best schools in Panama, despite discrimination from that society's upper-class, and then to Los Angeles in 1982.
So when the Compton school board rejected her petition this year to start a charter school in a city with some of the state's worst standardized test scores,
The Los Angeles charter school operator remembers leaner days and long hours helping her struggling family sell empanadas from a street cart. Her eyes mist when she speaks of her hardworking parents, who sacrificed to send her to the best schools in Panama, despite discrimination from that society's upper-class, and then to Los Angeles in 1982.
So when the Compton school board rejected her petition this year to start a charter school in a city with some of the state's worst standardized test scores,
