Edreformz Meme

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Using Hitler in satire is going out of style hence Napolean.

Entering the Lotto Business

With the downturn in the economy so is income from the state lottery.  notyetLAUSD will be starting a new lottery ticket SCHOOL2JAIL.  The entry level prizes are $1, $2, $5, $10, $6,200 (or what the district spends on each student).  The grand prize is $35,000 plus health benefits (or what the State spends on each inmate).


-apologies if the math isn't right 

WTFUTLA

Taking a break from trying to cast a bold vision for LAUSD, we need to address another part of the LAUSD equation, UTLA.  UTLA has turned over a new leaf,  UTLA will now bend over and do whatever LAUSD says, maybe UTLA will now do what notyetLAUSD says.

On July 5th all UTLA teachers will find their paychecks 20% smaller. Why are teacher paychecks 20% smaller?

LAUSD took advantage of a loophole in the UTLA contract passed last spring 2011 in a 3 day rushed vote by outgoing UTLA president A.J. Duffy.  UTLA rank and file never got a pro/con sheet for the contract, a first for anyone working here.  At this point it should not be a surprise that LAUSD would have a back door to more furlough days.

In January of 2012 LAUSD declares its intent to take more furlough days in this school year even though this years budget income exceeded the magic trigger number when furloughs would have kicked in.  Basically UTLA agreed to furlough days if the district received less than $4,500 from the state, the district in fact received $4,700.  At this point LAUSD proposed taking out one furlough day a month to soften the blow on teachers.

 UTLA decided to go to arbitration to fight LAUSD on the furloughs and perform an act of "fighting for teacher pay".  I'm not sure what takes three months?  The 3 months delay caused by arbitration means that all furlough days fall on one check.  The lack of communication from UTLA to suggest that arbitration might fall in LAUSD's favor screws over every teacher who now has a 20% cut in their July pay check.   The lack of communication from UTLA to suggest that arbitration might fall in LAUSD's favor is a sign the UTLA members will not want to participate in the union.  Why did UTLA think arbitration would start ruling in their favor?

At what point does an LAUSD teacher find Beaudry to have their back before their union?

Sexual reassignment to solve graduation crisis

If you haven't heard, we need 100% college or career ready.  We know that on average a high school degree is worth $1.2 million over a lifetime while a bachelor's degree is worth $2.1 million (according to these people). That is roughly $0.57 on the dollar that the high school grad makes on the bachelor's degree's dollar.

Depending on what facts you believe, women make $0.77 on the dollar of men.

One solution that notyetAUSD school board should study is the effect of reassigning our female population to male.  This will not fix the gap our students currently face completely, but it might very well be the most cost-effective solution.  Based on a single Google search the cost of a reassignment can run around $50,000 or about 10 years of education.  As wise stewards of tax payer resources and our scale as the second largest school district there is enough reason to think we could get a group discount on reassignment.  Our Board needs to pass a resolution and tie up our district staff with countless hours of research into effects of reassigning our females to male.

WTFLAUSD

Same meeting, Same topic, two Different headlines

LAUSD considers lowering the bar for graduation

LAUSD plan calls for raising graduation standards

We will reach 100% graduation in LAUSD, no matter how low we have to tunnel.  We will slap the finest labels on our curriculum.

PS. Harvard's graduation rate is 98%.  Most elite private colleges average a 90% graduation rate.

Student Performance Incentive Program

notyetLAUSD is pleased to announce a new incentive program to get students to take ownership and improve their CST scores.  notyetLAUSD is modeling this new program based on LAUSD’s current system to promote excellence among its teaching and administrative staff.  LAUSD has seen a steady growth in student test scores as a whole for several years.  Steady growth year over year is not easily achieved and if district policies for increasing test score achievement are good enough for the teachers and administrators, lets apply the same zero-tolerance/market driven policies to students to accelerate their test score achievement. 

Better than an oak tree, here is an example of how this will work.

Imagine you are a student in classroom where you see a kid cheat on a test.  Your teacher has shown that when one kid cheats, the whole class will get an ‘F,’ what would you do? 

And by the way at this school a single test counts for 75-88% the whole class’s eligibility to stay in the school, if the whole class fails this single test your whole class is kicked out of school and have to find a new school.

Through a combination of zero-tolerance policies and market competition we have created a perfect environment for students to achieve high scores on the CST.  We can ensure test scores soar by applying and relieving pressure on key parts of the market. 

1.    We can further accelerate this growth by publicly releasing the student growth scores that LAUSD currently calculates on every student to make the teacher VAM scores.  Consider students public employees consuming vital public money to build their capacity, why shouldn't we know their scores?

2.    We can keep low achieving students from reentering the district by ensuring that investigations of cheating are processed over the summer when the student will be least likely to find another school within notyetLAUSD.

3.    We will write glowing letters to students who exceed the upper ranges of growth on their tests.  In VAM terms where the scale is from 0 to 5, we celebrate those that score 6 and 7 for great learning.

4.    We will never initiate investigations of cheating on our own unless we want that particular student out because they consume too many resources.  Overall schools will be encouraged not to investigate cheating because losing a class of students looks bad for the whole school and results in a loss of funding.  When national news reports come outfinding evidence of cheating we will pose for another installation to the museum of deafening silence.

for more see notyetLAUSD's Acceptable Cheating Policy

LAUSD gets a Social Media Director

Here at notyetLAUSD we've been doing our own social media longer than the actual LAUSD, the difference is that LAUSD's social media is good.  That's right LAUSD is doing something better than notyetLAUSD.  I'm waiving the white flag and since I can't beat you, maybe you'll adopt me and spread the good word through the social webs on my behalf.

For those of you outraged over the $7,000 taxpayer bill for this position, get over it. The $86K in grant money would never go to a classroom teacher and does not need to be wasted on another iPad cart.

Read the LAUSD facebook page

• Positive stories about events in the district
• There are stories about LAUSD students and their schools, its great to spark confidence and desire in both students and teachers to see what their respective peers are doing
• I ignore the posts on Monica Garcia and the LA Times, you can do that on facebook

On the other hand the UTLA homepage had no direct link to the email they sent out today complaining about an out of classroom position for Social Media director being announced the same week as the sent out 11,000 RIF notices.  Yes the timing sucks, but John Deasy is a master Donkey Puncher he's never had good timing.  Maybe the social media director could do a better job with the announcements.

If UTLA's staff of 4 people in their communications division have no bigger issue than a $7,000 gambit on promoting its district and the timing, there is a $700 million surplus at LAUSD that could use some fresh eyes.  Also UTLA you forgot to note that LAUSD Facebook page has only 872 likes and hasn't updated their time line to even include when it was founded, you get what you pay for.

I agree with Magnet Angel that college interns and staff at Beuadry should be doing this already, but college interns are flakey and Beaudry staff are there because they didn't want to be in a school.  Give Stephanie Abrams a chance. 2 weeks in and I'm enjoying a bit of sunshine.


Now go like LAUSD's $93,000 facebook page, I bet you will find at least one story a week you'll want to share with your students.

for comparison here is the UTLA facebook page


I would tell you to go to the LAUSD homepage for the facebook, twitter, and YouTube links, but they are not there.