LAUSD takes on `school choice' plan - ContraCostaTimes.com:
Fiercely opposing the plan is organized labor and some community leaders, who see the reforms as divisive and polarizing.
Hundreds of protesters on both sides of the issue are expected to crowd today's board meeting downtown. Streets surrounding LAUSD's Beaudry headquarters will be blocked off by around 10 a.m."
Labor organizations have blasted the mayor's involvement with the proposal.
"After voters decided that they did not want the mayor involved in our schools, this is his alternate route to get his takeover," said Andrea Canty, a spokeswoman for the California School Employees Association.
The mayor was also sharply criticized this month for attending "invitation-only" town hall meetings about the school choice plan sponsored by the Parent Revolution, a parent group funded by the Green Dot Charter organization, that excluded several parents.
A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, has vocally opposed the school choice plan, calling it the "privatization" of public education.
Duffy cited recent studies, including a Stanford study released this spring that revealed that about 30 percent of all charters nationwide are performing worse than comparable noncharter schools.
"Is no one reading the data?" Duffy asked. "Charters are not doing any better. This is clearly an attempt to break up UTLA."
Fiercely opposing the plan is organized labor and some community leaders, who see the reforms as divisive and polarizing.
Hundreds of protesters on both sides of the issue are expected to crowd today's board meeting downtown. Streets surrounding LAUSD's Beaudry headquarters will be blocked off by around 10 a.m."
Labor organizations have blasted the mayor's involvement with the proposal.
"After voters decided that they did not want the mayor involved in our schools, this is his alternate route to get his takeover," said Andrea Canty, a spokeswoman for the California School Employees Association.
The mayor was also sharply criticized this month for attending "invitation-only" town hall meetings about the school choice plan sponsored by the Parent Revolution, a parent group funded by the Green Dot Charter organization, that excluded several parents.
A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, has vocally opposed the school choice plan, calling it the "privatization" of public education.
Duffy cited recent studies, including a Stanford study released this spring that revealed that about 30 percent of all charters nationwide are performing worse than comparable noncharter schools.
"Is no one reading the data?" Duffy asked. "Charters are not doing any better. This is clearly an attempt to break up UTLA."
