LAUSD GIVES ME A CHANCE TO BE A HERO FOR STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND FAMILIES - CARE TO HELP?
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) offered me close to a quarter of a million dollars and vesting in my lifetime health benefits, if I would agree to settle and not go to the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) to vindicate myself against charges fabricated against me. I reported that my school, Central High School Continuation, was graduating students and giving diplomas to students with low elementary school English language and math skills. After stalling the process for 3 years, most financially strapped teachers would have jumped at this offer, but I could not.
What I could not rationalize away was that I was being given the option to just walk away pretty much financially intact, if I would just forget about the fact that 59 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, LAUSD remains segregated (closed to 90% Latino and Black) and toxic to students and teachers. But more importantly, I see a real armageddon for our society in the not too distant future, if something is not done to finally address the travesty that LAUSD and districts like it around the United States represent to predominantly poor and minority students of color. Nobody is offering these students any money after screwing them out of their right to an education and the ability to reach their potential and dreams, so how could I