THE STAKES OF LAUSD’s SCHOOL CHOICE
EDITORIAL IN THE DAILY BREEZE HTTP://WWW.DAILYBREEZE.COM/CI_18827178
9/04/2011 - The leaders of Los Angeles' schools are gambling with the district's future. Hopefully, they are playing the odds, because there's a lot at stake for the future of education reform in Los Angeles.
The district's chips are its new schools. The payoff is a significant rewriting of the district's contract with teachers that includes a number of reforms in the methods used for evaluating, paying and firing teachers. The game ends two months from now.
Last week, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education agreed to a plan that will give district educators first crack at bidding to operate new schools.
Currently, both new and underperforming schools are part of the district's groundbreaking School Choice. Under this program, a number of schools each year are opened up for bidders to compete to operate those schools. In the first years of bidding, schools have