LA School Board Fails Again at Reform, Caves to Union Pressure While Children Suffer
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 10:19AM 
In yet another stunning cave to the unions, the Los Angeles Unified School District, responsible for one of the largest and worst performing school districts in the nation, delayed the opening of the system to competition.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
Faced with unrelenting union opposition, the Los Angeles Board of Education put on hold Tuesday a proposal that would have allowed charter operators and other outside groups to bid for control of 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.
The plan, led by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, would have made available, through a competitive process, new schools that are part of the nation's largest school construction project. The district could compete to run these campuses, along with independently run charter schools, the mayor's office and other institutions and nonprofit groups.
And of course, this story would not be complete without the usual reference to the Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's impotence and incompetence in fixing this system. Again according to the Los Angeles Times:
United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy said he saw the hand of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the effort -- as a way to get more schools under his control.
The mayor's office said it strongly supports the resolution, but Villaraigosa's school board allies could not reach a majority vote this week.
The real victims of this third-rate political theater are the students of the system - kids who are condemned to attend shoddy schools, that habitually underperform, while 50% of the LAUSD budget is spent at headquarters!
The immorality of this situation is complete.
But there is hope. A non-profit organization called parentrevolution.org is organizing parents and taking control. Please visit the site now and join us in this quest!
Here's a clip from our latest rally in front of the LAUSD HQ:
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Reader Comments (3)
I was at those footsteps in front of the LAUSD headquarters about a month ago, watching the teachers of Los Angeles get arrested. They blocked the entrance to the building sitting down. They didn't stop people from going in and out. Chants were being made. Then, the teachers walked into the middle of the street and blocked the whole street. Eventually, hundreds of police officers, most of them later commented to the teachers that they agreed with what they were doing, marched up to around 30 teachers and arrested them. Later that they, hundreds of students came to support the teachers. It was amazing hearing that from all over LA, students were leaving their classrooms, shutting down classes, and sitting in the middle of the school together in support of their teachers. At the time, there was plans to fire over 3000 teachers.
Now I hear they want to privatize schools by handing students to charter schools. Allow private organizations to educate our students. Privatization is one of the problems with education and this will only worsen the situation. Charter schools seem like they would be a good idea, if the interests of the corporations didn't have so much control over them. Only the rich can afford to open and run charter schools. Such proposals actually remind me of the early 1900's when a man actually owned an entire city outside of Chicago. He had control of the labor, education, housing, and everything else. The people their were under full control of this man and his corporation. They lived in some of the worst conditions imaginable. An important factor of education is the parents. But most importantly, teachers should have control of how to teach their students. Leave pedagogy to the teachers. We must eliminate the privatization and bureaucracies that is failing our students. . This will only happen with more actions like the two at the steps of LAUSD.
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Well i think that the schools are in a way trying to hide something because i made an intent to view the website entitled Parent revolution and the school's internet server blocked it which makes me wonder" Is the school trying to hide the horrible truth that the schools are not doing their job and that they might be overthrown?" I found this very confusing because schools shouldn't be blocking public information just because it deals with what they are doing wrong
I think that schools are trying to hide something too great of a topic.
Thank you for your time Fernando Espuelas.