Hump Day Hotsheet
Business as usual in Sacramento. Another mad taxer is sworn in as Assembly Speaker. Governor Schwarzenegger wants more borrowing to band-aid his bloody budget—and if he doesn’t get his way, a sales tax increase.
LAUSD is not “in the 21st century,” whines Superintendent David Brewer, and therefore needs another multi-billion dollar bond measure. What is this guy talking about? Substandard public education is so 21st century—and besides, who needs new computers when you’ve got a $95 million launch pad to nowhere?But enough. Ron Kaye says pull the plug:
The issue for many years was the Valley's demand for breakup of the district into several more manageable districts. That's not good enough anymore. LAUSD must be dismantled and completely reorganized.
Congratulations are in order to John Tyler Hammons, 19, who will be sworn in next week as mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma. Hammons—who won a landslide victory over incumbent Mayor Hershel Ray McBride—intends to continue his college education while governing the town of 38,000.
And finally, look out for a high wind advisory tomorrow afternoon. That’s right—Hillary Clinton is coming to town. Probably best to keep the kiddies indoors.
Labels: arnold schwarzenegger, david brewer, hillary clinton, lausd
Posted by solomon @ 5/14/2008 06:55:00 AM
15 Comments:
AntonioWatch said: Substandard public education is so 21st century—and besides, who needs new computers when you’ve got a $95 million launch pad to nowhere?
Oh... my... freakin'... gawd. Everytime I see a picture of that launch pad to nowhere, it makes me want to vomit; and then cry; and then vomit some more; and then it makes me really really want to punch the guy who ok'd it right in the face.
Hard.
xoxo
That rendering reminds me SO much of the Star Trek Academy from Star Trek The Next Generation.
In the show, the Academy was supposed to be in Golden Gate Park in San Franciscol; in reality it was shot at the Tillman Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.
And by the way - thank you AW for filling for me on the Hotsheet. The blog is so much better when people other than I write for it!
95 million would buy more than 50,000 computers
It's official, MSSS has the best coverage of local news in the region. LA Times ain't in it.
Aahhnold? LOL, hahahahahaha. Or cry.
Next time the good citizens of CA get the notion to vote for a steroid deranged "action hero" for political office, I hope they remember this one.
LAUSD is going to sell naming rights to Knott's Berry Farm which will be installing a parachute ride from the tower.
High wind advisory? Is Stuart Waldman giving a speech somewhere? Is the "educator" going to claim (again) that he "fought in the Cold War"?
My bad. $49 million is what the launch pad to nowhere cost us. I guess that's only 27,000 computers we could've bought the kiddies.
AW - did you know that most classrooms are dealing with such old-ass computers that they still use ONLY floppy discs? The ones at our school are ancient relics donated from teh kindness of CSUN, giving us their old ones whenever they get new ones on campus.
Floppy discs -- that's it. On the realest, dough.
LAUSD IN THE 21ST CENTURY! wOOt!
xoxo
LAUSD paid $90 mil just for the land for that stupid slide school, buying it from a group of 5 investors, one of which was -- Eli Broad.
There are kids in third world countries going to school in one room, dirt floor school houses - with nothing more than one pencil per student, a chalkboard and a teacher - and, yet, some of those kids can speak their own language AND English.
Meanwhile, LAUSD saps us taxpayers constantly and pours it into architecture that looks a lot like a hunk of scrapmetal accidentally fused together from LA's heat... and, yet, our students are barely literate in English.
When will LAUSD and our city govt. learn money is not the magical elixir? All the money in the world can't fix LAUSD's problems. New creative ideas, less bureaucracy, parental involvement, discipline, the ability to oust out incompetent staff - are just a few things that need to change. None of these things require more money.
Hey! I have an idea, tear down that heap for scrap metal and pay the taxpayers back so we can educate the kids ourselves.
LAUSD paid $90 mil just for the land for that stupid slide school, buying it from a group of 5 investors, one of which was -- Eli Broad.
Who then turned around and convinced them to build this space station boondoggle which is coming in 10 times overbudget. LAUSD = FOOLS
VD, please tell me you're not referring to the black 5¼-inch floppies that actually flop when you wave them around!
Seems in L.A. you have to start saving for private school ten years before you conceive.
Do I think LAUSD can continue to exist? Not in it's present form. The district should exist to support the classroom. Right now, it's the other way around, the proverbial tail wagging the dog.
LAUSD should be reconstituted to be a business services enterprise, their job exclusively would be to give the schools the physical support they need to exist.
All academic decisions, ALL ACADEMIC DECISIONS, should be made by those closest to the kids. Parents, teachers, and administrators should make academic decisions as to how best to serve the students at their individual schools.
For miliniums, parents and teachers were able to educate children and the human race has done just fine. How we have gotten so far away from that basic premise is beyond me.
Today, the district controls not only the subject matter, but often the lesson plans, and the method and style of delivery.
The one size fits all methodology is so wrong.
At my school, we are meeting to create fundemental changes designed to address the individual needs of our students. We are doing this because the district gave us an opening. I have no doubt that the district will reject our plan as they have so many others.
There are literally over a thousand people employed by the district whose sole job is to tell teachers how to teach.
I kid you not, I was ORDERED to report to report to District 1 offices three times this year so they could teach me how to teach a lesson.
Not to blow my own horn, but I am an NBC teacher who has been teaching American History for 20 years, I think I can handle a lesson.
Multiply my story by every American History teacher in the district. Multiply again by every Math, Science, and English teacher in the district.
For every meeting, there are 1-2 district personell. Take a look sometime at the phone directory for LAUSD. It is over 600 pages long.
This has to stop. This blog used to be a great forum for educational issues here in LA, recently it seems obsessed with funny ha ha's and the like.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
I know Brent and with all due respect Mr. Smiley, you are a much better-than-average teacher.
Valley Doll - you should see my school. We have so much porn in our district that one of the producers who is also a school dad bought each classroom an IMAC the year they came out! Now they're getting pretty old too, but no floppy discs.
The lesson here? Learn how to outreach. That's what we did!
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