WHY LENNY ISENBERG WILL NEVER BE LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT
(Mensaje se repite en Español)
While I'm probably the last person in the world the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) entrenched and purposefully dysfunctional leadership would like to have take them up on their clearly disengenuous offer to help them find a new superintendent to replace the habitually retiring and morally challenged Ramon Cortines, I will push on nonetheless and let you the reader determine if what I propose makes more sense than what they have been doing purposefully wrong for generations.
For a long time the purpose of LAUSD has not been to educate students, but rather function exclusively to serve the financial and political interests of its corporate vendor population that would actually be threatened if those exiting public education in the 12th grade had enough mastery of K-12 academic standards like math and English to question why LAUSD pays significantly over fair market value for almost all goods and services it receives (see Belmont and Ambassador Hotel school construction contracts for starters). Take note of the inherent conflicts of interest that always permeate all LAUSD contract negotiations- even this process of superintendent selection- that never are questioned by any local, state, or federal regulatory agency. Why is that?
This is all the more offensive to the fundamental public interest to see children educated, since the exclusive rationale for the very existence of a dysfunctional behemoth like LAUSD- the second largest public school district in the country- is what is called the economics of scale. An enormous entity with the buying power of LAUSD should pay far less than anybody else, but winds up in this dytopic reality always paying more for virtually everything it uses, with the noteable except of teachers, which it continues to drive from the profession- those with the most seniority are first to go- while discouraging idealistic young people from ever considering teaching in the first place.
Key to changing LAUSD for the better is challenging an incestuous process where the primary requirement for ever being considered for the post of superintendent is ensuring LAUSD's entrenched bureaucracy- and the greedy corporate interests that keep them in power- you will never challenge the clearly illegal feeding frenzy that continues to go on at LAUSD at taxpayer expense.
In examining just one qualification for being considered superintendent, it should become perfectly clear that those who presently pick the superintendent have no intention of having a superintendent who could ever have the skill set to challenge the corporate interests that continue to predominate over critical education priorities. Why is having been a teacher with no business or legal background a prerequisite for being chosen to run a multi-billion dollar public education business entity like LAUSD? This clearly makes no sense, since this only assures that the superintendent will not have the ability to address the rampant fraud that continues unabated and unaddressed at LAUSD.
Putting aside Superintendents Cortines and Deasy's actions of questioning legality, where Cortines took $150,000 a year from Scholastics for years while LAUSD superintendent, while Scholastics had a $14 million testing contract with LAUSD. Or Deasy's giving a clearly illegal inside track for an iPad contract to Apple and others in complete derogation of an open bidding process, one must take note that after an initial muted outrage, no investigation of these or even more pernicious illegal actions- see Belmont and Ambassador contracts- ever seems to go anywhere.
But spending ones time keeping track of the multitude of illegal or just plan ill-advised actions of LAUSD administration and their corporate masters does little to address the profound need for excellent public education for a 90% LAUSD student population of poor people of color who continue to be pushed through school without the basic educational skills to necessary to become productive and employable members of society...and out of the largest prison population in the world.
Given that over 90% of the predominantly White middleclass no longer attends public school, but goes to defacto segregated and expensive all-White- or close to it- private schools, the actual unspoken agenda of public schools for a long time now has been to keep the rapidly becoming majority poor people of color populations in their place by depriving them of the quality education that public school districts like LAUSD gave to all their students in the 1950s and 1960s, that might allow these young people to becoming a meaninful majority of once poor minorities.
In what now remains a defacto segregated public school system like this, the vast majority of students are socially promoted through it without mastery of grade-level standards, until they either drop out or are graduated, even though they have in no way come close to fulfilling the objective requirements for graduation or being educated.
Even if one were to take an amoral approach to this reality, where you were not concerned with the lack of basic equity in this system of public education, I would argue that to allow it to continue amounts to inflicting a death blow to American society, because we are rapidly developing an uneducated majority population objectively unable to maintain the social and legal institutions that have made this country the dominant world culture for over a hundred years.
Factors that must be addressed, considered, and resolved in the choosing of and establishing the enforceable mandate for a new LAUSD superintendent might start with:
1. Candidates for LAUSD superintendent are chosen by parents and teachers of LAUSD schools and have no tenure of office, but are subject to removal by a recall election at any time they do not achieve the goals established by the parents, teachers, and administrators in a citywide election held yearly.
2. Social promotion is immediately ended. While it is humiliating for students who don't pass school during any given year to not move on with their age group, it is far more humiliating and expensive to the student and society to push students through school without basic skills and enough mastery of basic grade-level standards to become productive members of society. Not doing so presently is ultimately degrading to a mostly poor minority population, while making them an expensive burden on society for the rest of their lives.
3. In a state that is now majoritarily Latino, LAUSD should at a minimum be bilingual Spanish. There is literarily no downside to doing this, given recent scientific evidence that shows that the bilingual brain processes all language- including science and math- in a faster and more efficient manner than a monolingual brain. Past thinking that this makes it harder for bilingual students to be assimilated into society has been shown to be completely wrong. Bilingualism has no downside. But most importantly, it not only gives lipservice to telling students who speak Spanish that they are objectively valued, it substantively makes their culture a vital component of Los Angeles, California, and American culture. I would offer one exemption from the bilingual Spanish as a requirement and that would be the substitution of any other language than English for any school community that prefers a different language. If the only downside to this linguistic requirement is that your ancestors had to give up their native language as a requirement for becoming an American, you might reflect on your loss and not require Spanish, Korean, Chinese, or other immigrants to make the same mistake your ancestors were forced to make to the detriment of this country that ironically has prospered most importantly because of its diversity in how it looks at things.
4. All local schools K-12 would be run by a School Congress made up of parents, teachers, and possibly students. This entity would supply delegates to the annual LAUSD convention to vote on district priorities and would also choose all administrators at the school, who would have no tenure of office and would be subject to removal at any time, if the School Congress finds that the administrator is not fulfilling their mandate to the school. This would get rid of the top-down model that has been used at LAUSD and replace it with a two-way accountablity model similar to what exists in a parliamentary system of government, where the executive branch can be challeged and removed at any time.
While this decentralized system of power would be less likely to be perverted for improper reasons like the present corporate dominated LAUSD leadership, I would still empower LAUSD, the Country Board of Education, the State Department of Education, and the federal education authorities to function as an independent oversight to hold local School Congresses accountable- nobody should be immune from independent oversight by relatively objective authority.
5. The Common Core testing tyranny should be brought to an end, because it is a false mistranslation of what Common Core has meant in Europe and elsewhere that have functioning and successful public education systems. In these countries, Common Core is a point of departure, where the common core of knowledge at any grade level is seen as a point of departure from which students and teachers expand their knowledge into other areas of intellectual endeavor at greater depth. In the United States, entities like Pearson, which have been given virtual monopolies on what is- and is not allowed to be taught- have set up a rote system of education as to what must be learned that all but puts barbed wire around what a teacher is allowed to teach. Noticeably missing from this system of non-education are critical thinking skills that have been replaced by a testing regimen designed to create human parrots and not free-thinkers capable of taking an active part in a vibrant democracy. This form of non-education is designed to create a passive population incapable of challenging the corporate plutocracy that has seized control of this country and virtually all of its institutions.
6. The total capacity of all colleges and universities in this country is 30% of high school graduates. And that's of true high school graduates who have not been social promoted or had their California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) fixed by teachers being intimidated by their administrators to pass all students irrespective of whether they can read, write, or do math. What are the other 70% of students supposed to do? What needs to happen as soon as possible is a reinvigoration of what once was an exceptionally good industrial arts program that can offer education and career training for the 70% who are not going to college. And it should also be noted that I can train a student in six month to become a state certified welder with a starting salary of $40,000 a year. This same student could also choose to go to college, while working at their high paying trade, and not come out of college profoundly in debt as most college graduates are today.
While the aforementioned is anything but a complete list of public education reform measures that could be adopted by a new and honest superintendent to turn around LAUSD and be a template for doing so everywhere around the country, where school boards remain presently under the thumb of corporate interests to the detriment of student, parents, and teachers. Alas, anything even remotely resembling any of what I have mentioned here will be scrupulously avoided in the present superintendent search process.
However, if anybody would like me to take on this challenge with my 40 years of educational, business, and legal experience, I would be happy to do so. And of course, you would only have to pay me what a teacher makes. Maybe, you might throw in one paid auxiliary, given the initial endless hours that will have to be spent to pick up the mess left by the likes of Deasy and Cortines. And maybe to sweeten this offer, I would say that you wouldn't have to pay me anything unless the parents, students, and teachers...and even administrators of this district didn't agree at the end of my first year- if I make it that long- that things are a whole lot better at LAUSD.
If you or someone you know has been targeted and are in the process of being dismissed and need legal defense, get in touch:
Lenny@perdaily.com
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Thank you Mr. Isenberg for your carefully thought out proposals and insights into the monster that is LAUSD. I somehow avoided teacher jail by moving to a job that was in an office, after my principal hounded me for five years. But I've had many friends who have had to leave for no good reason. All were excellent teachers. I only have one quibble - and would like to share the research if you want it -- and that is the fact that not promoting students also doesn't work. What really works is finding out the best way to teach them, reducing class sizes, throwing money at the problem (supplies would be nice, field trips, etc.) and more. And I want to give thanks for your excellent idea about restoring bilingual education which does work!! We who teach young ones have seen that learning to read in Spanish for example is actually easier than English. But one last item - I worked for about 7 years in what may now be called Procurement (or something else, I've lost track). I was responsible for ordering and inventory, and inspection of items sent to the warehouse before being dispersed to schools. Since I left - about 1983 - Procurement became a FOR PROFIT outfit. Prior to that we had to watch carefully what was purchased, and for the most part followed the "low bid" process (which is not necessarily the best, but kept down costs). Now that Procurement is FOR PROFIT, guess what? The top salaries are out of control, and I am guessing that this has increased the costs of everything the district purchases. After all, there is much profit to be made by the greedy heads of this division. And if it works for them, surely it works for all the divisions. I guess I should get a PhD in this and really investigate. Thanks again for all you do.
As you correctly take exception with, just ending social promotion does not work, unless it is coupled with an intense program as early as possible in a student's school career to get them caught up to grade level.
The longer one waits, the more assurance there is that irreparable damage will have been done. But for at least what I would propose as a transition period away from social promotion to a timely system of education that addresses all students academic needs in a timely manner, I would look at where all students at all grades are actually at and give them what they need and can process- instead of dishonestly continuing to ignore easily verifiable reality- so no further avoidable damage is sustained.
However, one must realize that students presently in a system that has no expectation that they will learn at the age appropriate time has already- and continues to- damage these students with its criminal negligence. And just how many high LAUSD administrators actually put their children in LAUSD or comparably dysfunctional districts around the country?