Give Schools Real Choices

As the Los Angeles Unified school board considers tough decisions this
week, including cutting 8,400 jobs, increasing class size, and gutting offices
and well-regarded programs, there’s an uneasiness at the school sites.

Some schools are waiting hopefully for stimulus money from the federal
government bailout to stem the cuts. Of course, thanks to Congress, much of the
federal money is tied to schools that qualify for Title I funding, or special
funding that schools get if they have a large proportion of poor students. And
so some schools are expecting the worst — no help, or next-to no help.

Supt. Ramon Cortines’ budget plan is based on a bare-bones education
system where individual school sites can then take their categorical funds and
choose, say a math coach or extra teachers’ aides.

From my point of view, that is completely backwards. Instead of looking
at the struggling schools and encouraging them to spend even more money, the
district should be looking for those diamonds in the rough: schools that do well
academically, but get by on only the leanest budgets possible.

These are elementary schools where teachers, parents and administrators
do work together. They speak languages other than English at home, many spend
their afternoons in the free afterschool supervision program, or perhaps the
on-site YMCA.

These schools typically have about 500 students, and are found
all over L.A. — Overland, Ivanhoe, Castlebay, Woodland Hills Elementary, to name
a few. They all garner 9s or 10s on the infamous
GreatSchools<NO1>cq<NO> Ratings.

Yet they all have to fundraise inordinate amounts to pay for the most
basic necessities.

Sadly, these schools might not qualify for funds under Cortines’ plan
because their student bodies aren’t qualified as poor enough, or they don’t have
enough English language learners or they do have the utter audacity to make
their yearly No Child Left Behind progress numbers. Indeed, some of these
schools have APIs hovering around or surpassing the 900 mark.

As a result, schools that already can afford teachers’ aides and math
or reading coaches because they get special funds for poorer schools will get
even more money to spend as they see fit, perhaps choosing to hire an additional
teacher or supplementing the classroom with additional aides.

When there are so few funds that new library books are a thing of the
past and the school site council is in the unenviable position of choosing
between toner for the photocopier and toilet paper for its students, it’s
frustrating to hear about our new decision-making process and how many “choices”
we’ll have.

With the impending student-to-teacher ratio increases to 24:1 in the
K-3 classes, my daughter’s school would have three open classrooms. Why not
allow schools to increase enrollment at these schools and thereby share what
they’re doing right?

Each year these diamond-in-the rough schools turn away dozens of
families through the lottery process. Why not entrust schools to choose if they
want to bring back grades 6 through 8 in a smaller community and stem the
currently inevitable slide of API scores from elementary to middle school? Why
not give these schools a real taste of funding so that they can possibly have
toner <CF11>and</CF> toilet paper?

It’s supposed to be about the kids. Think of how much more time we
could donate to the schools if we didn’t have to scramble for operating money
and didn’t have to spend weeks planning carnivals, giftwrap sales, silent
auctions, and other money raising events.

I think about it every day,
actually. But I’m just a parent of a child who loves her school, and I only get
to help make the decisions once the money gets to the campus.