LAUSD'S BOARD'S A MODEST PROPOSAL TO FURTHER DISMANTLE WHAT'S LEFT OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) One of the main reasons approximately 50% of initially idealistic teachers quit the profession within 5 years of starting is their complete and utter failure to receive reasonable discipline support from administration in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). While there was a time when LAUSD administrators supported teachers as a matter of course and served as a buffer between parents and students, now in the age of dismantling schools in favor of charters and privatization, the campaign to force out professional and fairly compensated teachers is in high gear with administrators putting a target on teachers with the clear message to students and parents that you don't have to take responsibility for your actions, you can just blame your teacher.
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17

05 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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2 Comments

IS UTLA UNWITTINGLY HELPING LAUSD GET RID OF TEACHERS?

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) On April 26, 2013 the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) sent out a letter to all of the hundreds of teachers who are presently "housed" in LAUSD offices, their homes, or who have been put on protracted administrative leave with no pay or benefits in a process that normally goes on for years until the teacher is starved into accepting a nominal settlement to resign. What this letter requested was the permission of these targeted teachers to allow LAUSD to give United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) information as to where the teacher was physically and procedurally in terms of their incarceration status leading to inevitable dismissal from LAUSD. What most impressed me about this letter when I received it was the fact that it seems as if up until April 26th nobody at UTLA was concerned enough about the thousands of teachers who are either in the process of being removed or who have already been removed from their jobs without due process of law. Why didn't UTLA inquire before now?
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6

05 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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10 Comments

HOW TO USE PERDAILY AS A REFERENCE GUIDE FOR LAUSD BAD ACTS

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) (For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post) After 3 years and the writing of 472 posts at perdaily, you now have a comprehensive reference database for anybody who is interested in documenting the premeditated and purposeful failing of public education by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and school districts like it around the country. LAUSD openly engages in a strange mix of illegal and incompetent behavior to terrorize incredulous teachers and anybody else who has the temerity to stand up to their willful malfeasance. Given the unchallenged success that LAUSD administration has had over the last few years in removing teachers without ever respecting even basic constitutional guarantees of due process of law, it is clear that they will not stop targeting teachers and debasing public education until legally compelled to do so.
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2

05 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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Deasy's 30 Percent Teacher Evaluation Victory: UTLA's Capitulation and its Consequences By John Fernandez

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) Coward: A man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally.--Sultana Zoraya On January 19, 2013, teachers in the LAUSD approved a comprehensive evaluation system that will include student school wide test data and a host of other measurements, such as attendance rates, suspension rates, English Language Learner (ELL) progress and reclassification rates, and Graduation/Drop-out rates to determine their effectiveness in the classroom. The total vote was 16,892, of which 11,185 (66 percent) voted "yes", while 5,707 (34 percent) voted "no". Only about 50 percent of teachers eligible to vote did so. On February 12, 2013, the Los Angeles Board of Education ratified the 7-page LAUSD-UTLA Evaluation Procedures Supplement (Tentative Agreement). It will go into effect for the 2013/14 school year.
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30

04 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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WHAT TO DO WITH THE MONKEYS RUNNING LAUSD AND UTLA

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water. After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same results.. all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
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21

04 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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6 Comments

CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT FOR AGE AND DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION AGAINST LAUSD

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If you would like to get involved in something that Superintendent John Deasy, and LAUSD cannot ignore with impunity, do yourself and your colleagues a favor and fill out the form below. Last night I had a meeting with a lawyer who is connected to one of the biggest law firms in L.A. They are very interested in going after LAUSD for age and maybe even disability discrimination in a major class action law suit. What they are looking for are teachers who are or were at the top of the salary scale and/or about to vest in lifetime health benefits - that is older- who were forced out of teaching. You don't have to be aged to qualify, just old enough to be or have been removed from teaching because of your age/salary, even though LAUSD never mentioned age when they hit you with bogus charges designed to build a case to dismiss you or get you to resign or retire.
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27

03 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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2 Comments

TAVIS SMILEY'S "EDUCATION UNDER ARREST" IGNORES THE CAUSES

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) When the bubonic plague spread through Europe in the 14th century, people noticed that if you burned enough infected bodies and the houses where they died, you would ultimately get rid of the plague- but not until your population had been significantly decimated. People at the time did not as yet understand what caused the plague, which was actually being carried by fleas on rats that were feeding on human garbage and waste. As long as they dealt only with the symptoms and not the underlying disease, one might say they remained plagued. Tonight at the California Endowment, I attended a prescreening of Education Under Arrest, a documentary Tavis Smiley did on how the zero tolerance policy in our schools has lead to the over-incarceration of predominantly African American and Latino youth. The way Education Under Arrest deals with this modern day plague on predominately youth of color in our public schools is reminiscent of how people initially attempted to address the bubonic plague: Education Under Arrest deals exclusively with the symptoms without ever addressing the clear and imminently addressable underlying causes, which dooms it to as much success in dealing with over incarceration of minority youth as they had in dealing with the plague in the 14th century.
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19

03 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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7 Comments

WHAT DOES FINLAND HAVE THAT LAUSD DOESN'T - EQUITY

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.
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18

03 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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4 Comments

HAVE LAUSD TEACHERS RECENTLY BEEN INFECTED WITH A PERVERT VIRUS OR IS LAUSD'S SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY LYING TO FACILITATE THE PRIVATIZATON OF PUBLIC EDUCATION? (VIDEO)

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) At the end of the following video, Los Angeles Unified School District Board President Monica Garcia asks Superintendent John Deasy, "How long has this [teacher jail] been happening?" To which Superintendent John Deasy says, "It's been LAUSD policy for 15 years," the implication being that Deasy is just enforcing a long established LAUSD policy. The critically important follow up question remains purposefully unasked by Board President Monica Garcia: How many teachers were housed and dismissed or forced to resign 15 years ago and how many have been targeted, housed, and removed under Deasy's reign of terror against teachers. This question remains unasked, because the number of teachers targeted, housed, and dismissed or forced to resign has skyrocketed astronomically since the District saw itself going into the red on its budget as far back as 2004 and even more starkly since Superintendent Deasy's tenure began.
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15

03 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY IS A BLATANT LIAR- SO WHY DOESN'T KNBC'S CONAN NOLAN CALL HIM ON IT? (VIDEO)

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(Mensaje se repite en Español) In applying this fable to the Los Angeles Unified School District and its Superintendent John Deasy, I find it difficult to fault the venomous creature. Rather, I am demoralized by a mainstream media and other institutions that serve as a vehicles to uncritically ferry Deasy's lies to the public, when even a cursory examination of what he says and what they know could out him for the inveterate liar that he is. Deasy can't help himself, but Conan Nolan and his colleague Phil Healy at KNBC with their unfettered access clearly know better, since they once were reporters in the best sense of the word. Alas, they like the turtle will drown along with the rest of us, if they continue to facilitate Deasy's public education privatization motivated war on teachers that has nothing to do with bad teachers, but rather the 87% of the public education budget teachers' salaries represent that Deasy's masters Broad, Gates, Walton, and the other modern day robber barons covet.
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14

03 2013


by Leonard Isenberg
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