History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Mayor, LAUSD hailing union - Partnership seen as start of reform
The Los Angeles Daily News - August 29, 2007
By Naush Boghossian
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. Unified leaders Wednesday touted their "historic" partnership as the key to transform the city's most-challenged schools and the catalyst to reform the entire beleaguered school district.
The product of months of negotiations between the mayor's education team and the school district, the plan calls for Villaraigosa to manage two families of schools under a five-year contract.
If the schools don't meet goals for test scores, graduation and dropout rates, they'll be forced out of the partnership.
The plan is the most visible product of a political strategy devised behind the scenes to weave together all the district's stakeholders, leaving little or no room for real opposition.
For the first time in years, the political will to dramatically change schools exists. New Superintendent David Brewer III is in place, vowing to oversee a "cultural revolution" at the LAUSD. A new school board with a majority of the mayor's supporters has been elected. And the mayor has salvaged a failed attempt at getting a bigger role in the district by becoming part of the partnership.
"This has to be a mission where all of us come together ... in support of our schools, setting the highest standards of expectations and results for our kids," Villaraigosa said. "This historic partnership will connect our city services and community organizations tour schools like we never have before."
The LAUSD intends to contract with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools - the nonprofit Villaraigosa created - to support and manage two families of schools. The mayor will "drive these reforms in this partnership," he said, with the ultimate goal of dramatically raising achievement, reducing dropout rates and increasing safety for about 30,000 students of the district's 708,000.
The two high schools - which will be chosen from a list of the 20 lowest-performing campuses in the district - and their feeder elementary and middle schools will have greater control over budget, hiring and curriculum to give them freedom to exercise innovative reforms.
Brewer is expected to announce in October a short list of schools that could be included in the partnership, and the chosen schools will be named in September.
The theme of partnership resonated in all the speeches by city and LAUSD officials at the press conference held at the new Leichty Middle School in Los Angeles.
Brewer's mission since taking the helm of the nation's second-largest school district has been to change through innovation.
"This is just the beginning of a revolution in education in Los Angeles," he said. "It's going to take everyone in the city of Los Angeles to transform our schools ... Today we're planting that first stake in the ground of Los Angeles to say ... we're going to transform the schools and this system."
School board President Monica Garcia, elected earlier this year, said Wednesday that changing the district's "service model" is the only way it will change the outcomes for students who can't read or write or will not graduate this year.
Garcia has become a voice for the mayor in the school district. On July 10, her first day as board president, she laid out the policy groundwork for the partnership's reform efforts by introducing and getting passed a broad package of initiatives.
The eight resolutions, directed by the Mayor's Office, focused on committing to 100 percent graduation by 2015, supporting principals through professional development programs, attracting more teachers to the LAUSD and increasing parent involvement.
"It takes guts, it takes courage, it takes political will, the mayor and the superintendent together with the board of educators and all of our partners present," Garcia said.
The structure of the agreement allows the mayor to use his significant influence to engage in "active and vigorous" fundraising for his schools - he expects the figure to be in the tens of millions by reaching out to organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and private philanthropists.
And the partnership will give them the freedom to implement ideas such as school uniforms, student and parent compacts, an extended-day schedule and more pay for teachers.
The goal is to use and share proven strategies while collaborating with the city and the county. The partnership will also be able to spend more money per student than at a traditional LAUSD school because the agreement removes layers of bureaucracy.
The Mayor's Office expects to see dramatic improvements within the first year, pointing to the success that charter operators Green Dot Public Schools and KIPP have had on the same underserved populations.
The mayor's role in the partnership will draw attention to the struggling schools, which they need, said John Rogers, co-director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. But with so many partners, it could create a complicated environment for educators without a coherent strategy, Rogers said.
While there's no silver bullet that can dramatically change the outcomes of L.A.'s schools, Brewer, Garcia and the mayor working together adds value to the reform effort.
"Political will is critically important, but it's there to start a campaign; whether it's there to push forward over a long period of time is another question," Rogers said.
Print this
