TOGETHER WE CAN TAKE BACK YOUR SCHOOL, FOR YOUR CHILD, YOUR COMMUNITY, AND OUR FUTURE.
Watch our video to find out how you can transform your child's school. If 51% of the parents at your school sign the petition demanding a better school, we will guarantee your child a great school, in your neighborhood, within three years. Click here if you can't see the video above.
We had an amazing event today- for those who couldn't make it, we'll have some great pics, videos, and thoughts up in the next 24 hours. For now, please enjoy our latest video... the official Parent Revolution Music Video! See what you get when you combine dedicated parents, radical change in our schools, and a remix of the Beatles' "Revolution." Enjoy:
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On July 1st, parents from throughout Los Angeles are going to the first LAUSD School Board meeting of their new term. We will announce two things. First, that over half the parents of the Venice and East LA communities have signed our petition demanding change. And we will tell them in no uncertain terms that parents- from Venice, East LA, and everywhere else- will not and cannot wait another moment for LAUSD to fix our schools. We will demand great schools NOW- rooted in whats best for our children (not bureaucrats or special interests)- or we will take our children and leave for new high-quality, non-profit charter schools in our neighborhood.
Come stand with us and make your voice heard. LAUSD can ignore one or two of us. But they cannot ignore hundreds of parents, standing in front of them, simply asking for the best for their children. You can RSVP by clicking here.
What: Tell the School board: Fix our schools now!
When: Wednesday, July 1st, 9am
Where: LAUSD Headquarters- 333 S Beaudry Ave, Los Angeles CA 90017
The latest round of budget cuts are horrendous, and we stand with the parents and teachers who have been bravely speaking out against them. Eliminating summer school, full day kindergarten, and arts and music programs will irreparably harm our schools. It is important to remember, however, that we all know that our schools have been broken since long before this round of budget cuts. 50% of students weren't graduating high school before the budget cuts. Only 11% were making it to college before the budget cuts. Our school system has a systemic, constant problem- it just isn't designed to serve children. We are demanding serious, common-sense reforms for our schools and our children.
We are now coming to the end of the first year of the new Locke High School, post-revolution. For those of you who haven't been following this story, in May 2007, following years of the kind of neglect, patronization, and disrespect to which Los Angeles school parents are commonly subjected, the majority of the tenured teachers at Locke decided they were fed up and weren't going to take it any more: they circulated and signed a petition that ultimately freed them from the clutches of district bureaucrats. Next week Green Dot Public Schools, which took over the management of Locke, will be hosting its first graduation ceremony at a school that some will hardly recognize. (You can read more about this year at Locke and their upcoming graduation here from today's LA Times).
At the old, LAUSD-managed Locke, students by the dozens would freely circulate during class time, stomping on classroom doors kept shut by teachers in a desperate attempt to preserve some teaching time. At least, this was true of those teachers who were trying to teach; others were essentially retired on the job, for example watching World Cup soccer in French during a U.S. History class while their students videotaped them on their cell phones. District administrators were generally powerless to remove these non-performers nor even to maintain anything beyond a bare minimum of order on campus, being bound by an enormous, out-dated compilation of regulations and contract stipulations that made satisfactory school improvement virtually impossible. A group of us saw how hopeless the situation was, and took action to create change for our students.
Today those changes are readily apparent. The campus is orderly, even serene during class time, a word old Locke hands would not have believed possible to truthfully apply to this school. Eight days ago I witnessed one of the most amazing things I have seen in 16 years of involvement in education: due to a variety of circumstances (Sigalerts, graduations, illness, professional development, and so on), a single principal with only one campus aide succeeded in getting all students, including the late ones, into class in an orderly manner within 20 minutes of the start of the school day. In the past 13 campus aides and 7 administrators could not achieve this, yet under the new order, with every adult on campus genuinely concerned about our students and believing in a Green Dot core value, "An unwavering belief in all students' potential", what the naysayers said wasn't possible suddenly is.
What can parents learn from our experience? That a few determined individuals- whether parents or teachers- with a will to make a difference can. That all children can learn. And that when campuses are competently and professionally managed, with accountability but also with far less intrusive oversight, there really is hope for all of our children in Los Angeles. And with the Parent Revolution, now YOU have the power to create transformative change at your child's school.
Bruce Smith taught English at Locke High School for seven years.
News Flash: the LAUSD school board voted yesterday to form a committee to study whether the bureaucracy should be able to fire child molester teachers.
Some school board members touted this as a historic victory for children, which will reverberate through the annals of education reform history. Board member Tamar Galatzan lectured UTLA President A.J. Duffy: "With all due respect, Mr. Duffy, you're on the wrong side of history on this issue.” While Duffy is a nice guy, you’ll get no argument from me that he’s on the wrong side of history. But the board members who think we need a commission to study whether we should fire child molesters stand side-by-side with Duffy.
We are living in a Revolutionary moment, where these
The Parent Revolution is about taking back our schools NOW, dragging the LAUSD kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, and empowering every parent in
So, thanks for the committee. Give our regards to the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat. We’ll see you at the Revolution.
Read More |I just read a thoughtful op-ed from Tuesday's LA Times arguing that LAUSD should use all it's stimulus money exclusively on hiring back teachers, rather than letting principals and local school sites make decisions on what to do with the money. There was one part, however, that as a parent I found troubling. Towards the end, the authors write that "The LAUSD's Big Three -- (Superintendent) Cortines, the board and UTLA -- can put no other goal ahead of students."
The idea that there is an all important power structure, be it the "Big Three" or anything else, that does NOT include parents, is an unfortunate example of the status quo in our education governance. The experts, the politicians, and the teachers union- in this mindset, those are the three and only three relevant powers in our schools. Parents make a nice talking point, but ultimately aren't trustworthy with real power over their child's education.
The parents leading the Parent Revolution desperately want to keep good teachers in the classroom, not lay them off. We desperately want the district and union leaders to put aside their own interests and do whats best for kids, not adults. But as even this op-ed implicitly acknowledges, we cannot always trust them to do so. Everyone in the so-called "Big Three" has an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to our kids. Parents are the only ones who don't. And that is exactly why we need to fundamentally transfer power to parents if we ever want real change in our children's schools. That is precisely what the Parent Revolution will do.
Read More |A front page article in yesterday's New York Times illustrates how widespread support for the Parent Revolution's agenda is. In the past few years, we have done a great job identifying failing schools, but not a very good job actually fixing them. The Parent Revolution is saying enough is enough- these schools need radical change, and they need to be fixed now based on what's good for kids, not grown-ups.
In yesterday's Times article, is clear that we have the President and his Secretary of Education standing with us. They are setting a goal to transform 1,000 failing schools every year, even shutting them down and re-opening them when necessary. While the Parent Revolution doesn't support any one particular method of transforming schools- that should be left up to local parents- we are united in targetting schools that are utterly failing our children, and finding ways to transform them.
Now, both the administration and the article make clear that this is no easy task. But as a man named Mr. Hassell says at the end of the article, "As a nation, we'll never have the capacity to do this work successfully until we make the commitment." We know that parents are making that commitment- over 5,000 have already signed up for the Parent Revolution here in Los Angeles. Now its time for everyone else to step up to the plate, and make the commitment to give parents the schools their children deserve.
People across the country will be watching our campaign to fix failing schools by giving parents power. We're fighting not just for our kids, our schools, and our future, but those of children throughout the country. Sign up to be a parent leader, and get involved today.
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Fernando Espuelas de Univision apoya la Revolucion al aire y fuera del aire
