What has caused the deterioration of LAUSD schools? (Los Angeles, Long Beach: fit in, renting)

[faunablues]

I attended LAUSD schools from 1994-2005.

First of all, I'm not sure if these complaints about ESL are based in any actual figures... does anyone have some? In elementary school, I was in a couple of bilingual classes (I'm not of Latino heritage; my mom insisted because she knew the teacher was good). It was regular class. I had some classmates who were less proficient at English - few - maybe 2 per class of 30. If I recall correctly, they had some afterschool tutoring. Is it that much of a burden? And, would people be singing a different tune if these 2 students per 30 were European or Asian immigrants, or is it because they're speaking Spanish? I have to wonder. It's amazing to me that someone can (presumably) live in this region for long enough and have such an antagonistic view of Latino immigrants. Anyway.

I don't know about what issues LAUSD has in their administration, other from a student perspective (the administrators (save for the principal and vice principal) at my middle and high schools were in fact not educators, which in retrospect i find kind of weird. it's odd to be the administrator of something without background in that work, right? and generally, the administrators did not like students, any of them. I feel like I can say this as someone who was a good students both in grades and behavior - they hated dealing with students, myself included, and we hated going to them with any problems because we'd automatically be at fault for something, even if the issue wasn't a matter of someone being at fault. Overall an unpleasant experience). Some of the teachers I had were great, however, I tended to try for the classes in the 'honors' or 'magnet' programs or whatever. My boyfriend had non-honors classes, and sadly, the teacher were not so great. I don't mean that, well, they're teaching at the remedial level or something. I get that you have to teach at the level of your class, if that's what it is. I'm talking about 12th grade English class where you do word searches all day, and a single essay about how your summer was. That's not English class, it's daycare. With math, they used the same textbook as the honors classes, but would only get through a quarter to half of what the honors did. I can't help but think that this isn't only for reasons of NEEDING to only go that far (but really, do the majority of students happen to have a lower than average IQ? how does that make sense?), but because there was often difficulty controlling the class in terms of behavior. Is it the homes the students come from? The teachers (some were very successful, some were not)?

Undoubtedly these things have many factors, but I'm tired of the black and white regarding teachers (either they're solely to blame, or how dare we ever blame them). Some teachers are terrible, and as a student, there was little recourse. If you complain to the ever-great administrators, nothing was done, because as the student, you were at fault.

Granted this only comes from my experience at one elementary, one middle, and one high school, but I doubt that others students had significantly different experiences.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by John23

-Say for benefit the other 70% go to college. I'm sure a lot of those need remedial classes in english or math (or other subjects). I bet you not even 50% of those attending LAUSD are proficient in all subjects by their 2nd year of college.

Stat on the news (NBC) a few days ago said 40% of incoming CSU students need remedial classes in English and/or math to get up to snuff. Which is an unfortunate way of spending dwindling college funds.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by faunablues

the administrators did not like students... the homes the students come from

The two main problems, in no particular order. In such a milieu, we can appreciate how difficult it is to be a teacher caught in between.

[faunablues]

True. But the fact remains that it seems it's difficult to deal with a teacher who is genuinely not doing a good job, at least from my experience. If we as students complained about a teacher, it must have been because the class was too hard (especially if the complaint was about assignments or grading), or because we had some grudge against the teacher. It seems like it should be clear there is some discrepancy when, for instance, one AP English class would have a pass rate of 85%, and another would be 40%, and it's at the same school.
Hell, we had a teacher who was touching female students inappropriately (not illegal, just utterly creepy, and it clearly only happened to the nicer looking girls), and yet we couldn't seem to do anything about it because there was nothing overt enough. Not sure what happened to that guy, but we lost two other teachers for having relationships with students. One of them was simply moved to an LAUSD admin office (not sure about the other). Other than a lay-off, how exactly do you get fired? Maybe it has to do with the teacher's union, I don't know.
Another problem that leads to is actually the teacher blame. For whatever reason there's little that's done about individual teachers with complaints, and then when a school performs badly, it comes down on everyone. The teachers do a great job and are totally efficient lose class time for the sake of more testing or other means of attempting to improve grades and literacy.

[Miss Deed]

Originally Posted by AD1985

I heard they weren't always as bad as they are now; anyone have any idea what caused them to fall into decay?

Corruption, they have always been corrupt but the white chalk crime spree literally will end with the senseless manslaughter of hundreds if not thousands of children. The criminal indifference of school leaders is only out done buy their hubris. These schools are tragic stains in the history books waiting to happen. It is not unlike 9-11. Experts warned that we were over due for a terrorist attack ( and a devestating hurricane in the south's below sea level cities) but we left things wide open anyway. We didnt know what hit us and frankly it should have been much worse.
As bad as inner city schoolss are ws are remarkably effecient and incident limited in LA given the overcrowding and poor leadership We have HSs built for 2000 kids which is crazy l but crinpimnao insanity is cramming 3678 in that run down school wth half the bathrooms out of commission and a paranoid principal so preoccupied with petty, punitive reprisals he walks around with an amplifier in his ear eavesdropping on classes, teachers having lunch together, meetings and conversations from across the room.
LAUSD fires teachers, pays them less and demands more every year. The admin has expanded 25% in a decade and billions were squandered on fiascos like Belmont Learning Center.
That school was built on this old diary. It was the most expensive school ever built . Unfortunately, the earth is full of toxic gas that can destory your brain with a few whiffs. The massive school was finally torn downl

Now you'd think these suits would cut their losses and move on,instead, they tore down and decided to block off the gas with a special foundation . Scientists thet were hired to help secure then project balked, ummm 5th grade physics standards explain that porous gas will not be contained, and this one is volatile, one fellow was so insistent he was fired and claims he was threatened, it is not really hard to believe,if the FBi did a cursory investigation they'd drop RICo charges all over LAUSd and UTLA. They tend to comport themselves like thugs with sanitized jargon instead of colorful slang.
The school is full of faculty and kids who are unaware of all this because the media is owned by Eli Broad who also seems to own the district and pretty much everything else in LA. I wonder if he will own it when the schools it seiaed by an earthquake, it is built in a fault line and American Scientist ot only predicted 9-11 and Katrina , it predicted a massive earthquake in LA.
Why has lausd become a symbol of failure and creepiness? We let it.

[Csonka]

Everyone knows, but no one is allowed to say.

[braddomo]

White flight started back in the 60s and 70s and then replaced by illegal immigrants and their offspring. So that is one reason.

[John23]

Why hasn't innovation replaced white flight as the culprit?

-You're in a state with a lot of technology. You'd think LAUSD schools by now would be wired out the kazoo with Google this, Oracle, Apple this. The schools would be like a hotbed of technology and innovation.

You hear about people going to Finland to study their school success. You'd think people would be coming here to study all this technology and all these hot new things. "Cutting edge" doesn't seem to describe the situation.

Isn't it kind of ironic. You have all these upstarts and entrepreneurship in California. And our poor LA schools can barely get you to pass math. ESL kids are going to need help, but what about the asian kids or other middle class immigrant kids?

-I'd rather see the schools experiment with computers and tablets than changing a few words in a textbook and publishing a new edition.

[Elle Oh Elle]

I'm a little surprised no one has pointed out that even after all these things, it's not just LAUSD schools. I know schools in Arizona and Nevada are similar. In reality, most good higher education exists on the East Coast and not here except for a few names.

I remember reading a study not too long ago that compared to 10+ years ago, high school seniors now learn what kids used to learn in eighth grade as recently as the late 1990s. Oversimplification and a larger population don't help...

[majoun]

Originally Posted by John23

Why hasn't innovation replaced white flight as the culprit?

-You're in a state with a lot of technology. You'd think LAUSD schools by now would be wired out the kazoo with Google this, Oracle, Apple this. The schools would be like a hotbed of technology and innovation.

Corruption's the reason. If all that money was given to LAUSD as it is right now then most of it would be in someone's offshore banking accounts.

LAUSD is like the Bank of America or Barclay's of school districts. "Too big to fail" means "too big to exist".

You hear about people going to Finland to study their school success. You'd think people would be coming here to study all this technology and all these hot new things. "Cutting edge" doesn't seem to describe the situation.

Isn't it kind of ironic. You have all these upstarts and entrepreneurship in California. And our poor LA schools can barely get you to pass math. ESL kids are going to need help, but what about the asian kids or other middle class immigrant kids?

-I'd rather see the schools experiment with computers and tablets than changing a few words in a textbook and publishing a new edition.

I would too. But in order for that to happen, LAUSD has to be dismantled and broken into smaller districts.