Reform the LA Way

I am deeply proud to begin a fourth year as President of the Board of Education of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and to work alongside a committed Board as we strive together to realize our students’ highest potential.   

 

As we begin this new school year, we face extraordinary challenges for public education and for this District.  We have absorbed the body blow of over a billion and a half dollars in budget cuts. Our communities, meanwhile, continue to demand equity and quality in our schools now.   

 

In order to survive, this District has had to change.   

 

We owned the fact that we were spending billions of dollars a year, but fundamentally failing in our core mission of teaching our kids to read and getting them across the finish line to graduation, college-ready and career prepared. We cast off this district's stubborn defense of the status quo and we shed old practices that just didn’t work.   LAUSD has redefined the scope of our work.   

 

We no longer argue about whether there is a crisis in our educational system.  We recognize that there is a crisis, and that the crisis is ours to address.   

 

And we have also changed the way we go about doing our work.  Guided by our wise Superintendent, we have defined a shared theory of change.  I like to call it, Reform the LA Way.   

 

Reform the LA Way isn't a cookie cutter, top down approach.  It is a portfolio of school models, created on the ground by innovators in the community and at our school sites, and always accountable to our parents.

 

Reform the LA Way means empowered school communities, freed from bureaucratic red tape, making their own decisions about how to budget appropriately, what work rules to adopt, and how best to meet the unique instructional needs of all their students.

 

And finally, Reform the LA Way is a recognition that the smartest answers do not come from district headquarters at Beaudry. They can come from anywhere-- from a group of teachers or classified staff, from a community partner or a charter school, or from a parent or a student.

 

In Reform the LA Way, lots of ideas merit experimentation and support. It isn't tidy or easily packaged.  But Reform the LA Way is courageous, it's innovative, and it's owned by all of us.

 

Our brand of reform means that Network Partners like MLA Partner Schools, the Urban League, and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools bring new resources and new solutions to schools across this District. Our brand of reform way also means the explosion of Pilot schools, our teacher-driven small schools with additional autonomies and a thin UTLA contract. And Reform the LA Way means that charter schools share space with regular schools, or even--as with Camino Nuevo, Para Los Niños, and ASPIRE-- operate brand new schools through the Public School Choice initiative.

    

On the ground, innovative new practice and exciting results are emerging almost everywhere you look.

 

At Manual Arts, MLA is developing a groundbreaking teacher evaluation system that is paving the way for the rest of the District.

 

At West Adams, thanks to a new counseling approach, the number of seniors accepted to a four-year college has tripled from 9% to 24%--in just one year.

 

At Roosevelt High School the campus is converting into seven small schools with more personalized attention for students and greater opportunity to accelerate achievement.  This is the largest small schools conversion ever undertaken in the State of California;

 

At Crenshaw, since becoming part of the Greater Crenshaw Educational Partnership, the school’s graduation rate has increased by 11 percentage points.

 

At the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, one of our Pilot Schools in the Belmont Zone of Choice, 89 students out of 100 seniors are graduating from high school and going on to postsecondary education.

 

At another Pilot School, Academic Leadership Community, the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) passage rate for 10th graders jumped this year by 14 percentage points.

 

And this month, we welcomed the new Fremont High School--the first school to be formally restructured in our District’s history.  For the first time, the District is accepting our responsibility to this neighborhood and these families, and we will start anew.

 

Of course, the proof is in the pudding.  As we proudly watched our students cross the stage this year to take their diplomas, and as we wait for this year's test scores, we are confident that we are laying the preconditions for success that will lead to more graduation.

   

We applaud the courage it took for our communities and employees to get us this far.   But we also know that it isn't nearly enough.

 

We won't rest until we reach 100% graduation.   And so I'd like to close with a challenge to each of us.

   

 Even as we struggle to balance our budget and keep this District afloat, we must also strive to be braver, to move faster, and to think bigger.  

   

President Obama and Secretary Duncan, we call on you invest in California and in the LAUSD;  

   

Governor Schwarzenegger, we call on you to prioritize the educational system, not the prison system;  

   

Members of the California Legislature, we call on to support the California Jobs Budget, repaying billions of dollars owed to public education, and to reform teacher work rules;  

   

California Department of Education, we call on you to change old, faulty rules for teaching English to our English Learners--move the English language assessment to the Spring, when kids are prepared to take it, and create clear guidelines for English Language Development programs;  

   

Mayor Villaraigosa, we call on you to continue to advocate for deep and meaningful school reform, and to make the Partnership Schools into shining beacons of all that is possible in public education;  

   

Collective Bargaining Units, we call on you to lead our reform efforts, from teacher evaluation to more efficient operations;  

   

Charter Schools, Higher Education Community, and our many partners, we call on you to bring your resources, your new ideas, and your commitment to the students of our focus schools, where the paint may not be new but the students have tremendous potential;  

   

Superintendent, we call on you to keep building your team and mentor other leaders in our District.  Build the capacity to take on many more Fremont High Schools.   Students, we call on you to come to school every day ready to do your best;  

   

Parents, we call on you to prioritize your children’s attendance and your own active engagement in our schools;  

   

And finally, I call on all of us, the members of the Board of Education of the Los Angeles Unified School District, to stay clear and focused on our shared work and remain unified in our efforts.  

   

When we do this, our students will win.   Because this is Reform the LA Way.  It is here to stay.  It is our turn to lead, and our kids are counting on us.      

 

In the spirit of hope,

Mónica García
Board President