Moron Education
I received this note from a former LAUSD teacher regarding Title I students. He didn’t know the source of this report but that his experience at LAUSD corroborates the comments.
In describing the waste of students who took advantage of the schools’ free breakfast and lunch:
These meals include cereal bars, fruits and juices that would make a Marriott proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with trays of it being dumped in the trash uneaten.(Teachers) estimate that well over 50% of these students are obese or at least moderately overweight. About 75% or more of them own cell phones.
Cell phones? — No wonder they can’t afford meals at school…
“Some of these schools provide day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls (some as young as 13) so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.”“(The teacher) was ordered to spend $700,000 on her department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year even though there was little need for anything; her budget was already substantial. She ended up buying new computers for their computer learning center; half of which, one month later, have been carved with graffiti by the appreciative students who obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.
“(The teacher) has had to intervene several times for young and substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students here in the country less than three months who raised hell with the female teachers, calling them “putas” (whores) and throwing things (bringing many teachers to tears).
After stonewalling efforts to audit LAUSD incompetence, graft, and the serial retardation of millions of students since 1972, school board member Jon Lauritzen says that LAUSD’s charter schools need more oversight and that some may be closed down.
Talk about nerve…
As I wrote here and here, the reason charter schools and vouchers fail is because they are deliberately underfunded by school districts that oppose them. LAUSD’s $13.4 billion annual budget (not counting Title I and other funding) translates into $18,431/year per student, but only a fraction of that reaches classrooms.
If schools like Fenton Charter received the full $18,431 for each of their 1300 students, their $24 million annual budget would easily provide the resources necessary to educate their students. Lauritzen cuts these schools short and then complains that charters and vouchers are failing. And when we demand to know where the wasted funds go, the LAUSD board refuses to tell us.
Which brings us to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert B. Freedman, who seems to recognize the dysfunction.
In his tentative ruling this week, he has decided that 46,000 high school seniors who flunked the mandatory high school exit exams should get their diplomas anyway because, as Attorney Arturo Gonzalez says, If the state is going to deprive a student of a diploma based on a single test, then they must ensure that every student has an equal chance to prepare for it.
This is consistent with my arguments.
In affluent neighborhoods, parents and children served by public schools enjoy competition that low-income students do not. When public schools fail in affluent neighborhoods, parents can pull their children out and place them into private schools. LAUSD directs the best funding, teachers, and resources toward affluent neighborhoods and away from low-income parents who are stuck with what they have.
Fully funded charters and vouchers would level the playing field by providing opportunities that LAUSD and other monopolized union schools never will. Since 1972, the LAUSD has turned our public schools into drop-out factories, redirecting billions of dollars away from students toward unions and the politicians who support them.
After 34 years, its time that funding is assigned to students, not dysfunctional school boards.
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Clark Baker is a senior contributor* to CaliforniaConservative.org. He is an author, a filmaker, a father and a retired LAPD officer. And he’s currently running for a seat on the California Assembly.
You may read more of Clark’s work here and regarding his campaign here (Scroll down). For more, visit JoinClark.com, the official campaign website.
Technorati Tags: California, Los Angeles, LAUSD, Education, Title 1
May 10th, 2006 at 11:57 am
I think that part of the LAUSD’s problem is that it’s simply too large.
Break it up into a lot of smaller districts (dealing with smaller total number of both students and dollars) and I suspect that improvements will happen.
Along with giving the LAPD the authority to haul disruptive students out of class to give them a chance to cool off in jail prior to their parents coming to get them… and being told that they have been suspended for a week and it’s the parent’s responsibility to ensure the kid isn’t wandering the streets during school hours that week…
Then start deporting them.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
I have written about this before, on other sites. Here in the Bay Area, we have two KIPP academies. They are public charter schools, one in Oakland and one in San Francisco. Their kids are over 90% minority. They go to school from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. They wear uniforms (no opting out, if you don’t like it, leave). They go to school all day every other Saturday. On average, when a kid has been in one of these schools, their reading goes up 2 grades the first year. Why is this rocket science? End the madness. Vouchers. Choice. And just think about it….no “school districts” to mismanage and waste our money.
May 10th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Can we get a “Hallelujah!!?”
Great comment. Great ideas. Thanks Scott.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
??????????
you gotta watch this video where Murdoch discusses his upcoming fundraiser for Hillary Clinton
May 11th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Last night when I went home from work, I had a conversation with a couple of neighbors about this piece. There is another aspect to this that people don’t usually think about: what is the future going to be like with a vast population of unsocialized, uneducated, unskilled people? The kids who are failing in public schools are going to be around for a few decades. What is going to become of them? The future looks grim. Who is going to hire them for a job when they can’t read? Who is going to put up with the attitude and the lack of social skills? Who is going to put up with the inability to stick with the job? Sadly, they won’t even get jobs as burger-flippers as those jobs are being taken my middle-aged immigrants and their families. Been in a McDonald’s lately? No more high school kids on the counter. Now it grandma or uncle from Mexico or the Philippines, at least here in California. I work for a Big City Welfare Department. We have “job training” programs coming out of our ears but we CANNOT get young people to get and keep jobs. They show up for three days, then disappear. They have horrible attitude and sense that they are somehow “entitled” to everything (after all, they’ve grown up in public housing, on welfare, food stamps, subsidized transportation and all the rest. No on in their families works). We have city contracts that require contractors to hire local “youth”, which they do….for three days, and then they go out and hire immigrants, legal or not, to actually get the job done. What I’m saying here with all this is that the country is looking at a demographic timebomb, especially in our big cities. We could very likely see a future of incessant “racial tensions” and increased crime and disorder as millions of essentially throw-away people come of age. Those kids failing today will be on a corner selling drugs in your future. Getting CHOICE into our schools could be what we need to avoid this future. If it’s not too late already.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Scott: Many share your concerns. In this essay, I draw parallels between what Democrats did to slaves 150 years ago, and what they are doing to our public school children today. Democrats outlawed education for blacks and imposed segregation because they feared that educated blacks would no longer serve them. Today, they’re crippling our children so that they’ll grow up to depend upon democrats to survive. Without an educated middle class, the Democrat aristocracy, controlled by a union politboro and ivy league lawyers, will rule the sweaty, ignorant masses. Like America’s former slaves, we’ll learn to appreciate the handouts of our masters. We’ll learn obedience, and we’ll learn to be grateful for public healthcare and union wages.
Democrats may deny this, but the evidence is undeniable. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it - and for the past 30 years, public schools haven’t taught much history.
Thanks for writing,
Clark
May 11th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Link didn’t work, Clark. Oh, and I really enjoyed the voucher piece by the Ex-Lib in Hollywood guy. Thanks.
May 13th, 2006 at 8:46 am
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May 17th, 2006 at 4:28 am
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