Nick Melvoin has a lot of ideas for L.A.'s schools
A special prosecutor for teacher sexual misconduct, a single-payer healthcare system for L.A. Unified, teacher evaluations based 40% on “measurable academic growth” — incoming school board member Nick Melvoin has ideas on how to improve schooling in Los Angeles.
Melvoin, 31, won a seat on the Los Angeles Board of Education after a historically expensive, hard-fought campaign marked by relentless mudslinging from outside groups, which contributed nearly $15 million. Much of that mudslinging was paid for by supporters of charter schools on behalf of Melvoin against school board President Steve Zimmer, a two-term incumbent.
The election of Melvoin in District 4, which stretches from the Westside to the west San Fernando Valley, and Kelly Gonez in District 6 gives charter supporters their first majority on the seven-member board of the nation’s second-largest school system.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated, and are typically set up as nonprofits in L.A. Unified. They are free of many of the restrictions placed on traditional public schools.
Melvoin sat down with the Times education team to answer questions about what lies ahead. Some of his ideas might surprise the pro-charter forces that helped launch him into office. For one thing, Melvoin appeared to side with traditional campuses that object to the sharing of classroom space with charter schools.
The top 5 items on his to-do list
1. Financial transparency, as a prelude to tackling the long-term budget deficit.
2. A rebooted relationship between charter and district schools through which successful schools become models for struggling ones. He believes the competition for classroom space can be managed with less contention.
3. Universal enrollment. He wants to see a single system for enrolling in any public school, including charters. (The district has one in the works, but its plan right now doesn’t include charters.)
4. A reinvented system for recruiting, training, placing and evaluating teachers.
5. A process that would put all schools under an accountability system similar to charters, Nick Melvoin has a lot of ideas for L.A.'s schools - LA Times:
