Living Life Abundantly

It’s been seven months since the brave parents at McKinley Elementary School approached Compton Unified and handed in the petitions that sounded off a revolution that has the entire country talking. Today, they know that, starting this fall, they will get the quality education they fought so hard to get for their children and only a couple of blocks from McKinley Elementary and that this movement is growing rapidly.

Since that historic day, the world has watched the story unfold as Compton Unified employed an endless series of illegal and unconstitutional maneuvers to fight their own parents — mounting an illegal “rescission” campaign, harassing and lying to parents, and engaging in a signature “verification” process that was so unconstitutional that L.A. Superior Court judges had to issue both a Temporary Restraining Order and a Preliminary Injunction against Compton Unified. The entire country has watched for the last seven months as Compton Unified used every ounce of their energy to put the interests of adults before that of the children they are supposed to serve.

While McKinley parents wait for the judge’s decision, they gathered May 25 to celebrate an important victory: as they wait for the final decision by the judge, Celerity Educational Group will be opening a school two blocks from McKinley Elementary at Church of the Redeemer, where so much of this movement began. Now, because of an independent petition that was approved by the L.A. County Office of Education, parents that signed the petition will be able to send their children to the great school that they have been fighting for all along. And while they are not done fighting to transform McKinley Elementary school for all kids in their neighborhood, at least now, parents don’t have to wait yet another year for grown-ups to put kids first.

As parents in California were celebrating their new school, parents across the country, inspired by McKinley parents, are taking action. In Texas, parents and legislators stood together and demanded change, and were able to become the third state in the country to empower parents with a Parent Trigger law. Their purpose was clear as Democratic Representative Mike Villarreal, the bill’s sponsor in the state’s House of Representatives said, “My goal is to empower parents to turn unacceptable campuses or schools located in an unacceptable district into high-performing, innovative and creative learning environments for our children.” Despite the best efforts of defenders of the status quo to block this bipartisan legislation through dishonest attacks, parents at failing schools throughout Texas will now finally have the right to transform their child’s school through community organizing. Parents wasted no time forming their very own Texas Parents Union, and will now have the power to work together towards making public education in their state focus on the needs of children, not adults. With education on the forefront of Texans’ minds, Texas legislators took a bold step to empowering parents and are only waiting on their governor to sign the final bill.

And out in Buffalo, N.Y., where only 25 percent of black male students successfully graduate from high school, a grassroots parent empowerment movement has taken their city and their state by storm. Just last month, the parents of Buffalo organized a massive boycott, holding their children out of school for a day, to demand the power to fix their broken schools with the Parent Trigger. Their work has persuaded representatives in both houses of the state legislature to introduce Parent Trigger legislation and Wednesday, parents and their allies marched to Albany to demand that all state legislators pass this law. Parents, clergy, and community leaders are standing together and speaking with one voice to demand change for the children of New York.

It is hard to imagine three more different places than California, Texas, and upstate New York, across our country, parents everywhere are finding out that they have more in common with each other than they do with the defenders of the status quo. As Time magazine reported, parents in every community and corner of the country are waking up to the fact that our schools are failing because they simply weren’t designed to succeed, and that the only way to truly fix them, is to give parents power over the education of their own children, because parents are the only stakeholders who care only about children. As Rep. George Miller, one of Congress’s leading progressives and top Democrats in the House Education and Workforce Committee, said, “The fact of the matter is, when we look at developing a model for real change and improvement in public education, it’s pretty hard to do without parents.”

Now, the third Parent Trigger law is in place, parents across the country are demanding Parent Trigger laws for their own communities, and progressive education leaders, like Miller, are standing for Parent Trigger as part of “real, systemic change” that recognizes the urgent “needs of our children, our communities, and our nation,” we are witnessing a true grassroots revolution. Parents in every community are done waiting for change, and are organizing to obtain great schools for their children by any means necessary. Whether they live in California or Texas, in Buffalo or Mississippi, parents only have one chance to give their children the education they need for the future they deserve.

As one brave father said: “Our goal isn’t to fight. It is to work together to improve education for our kids.”

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Three decades after leaving her native Panama, Vielka McFarlane hasn’t forgotten how a first-class education can transform a poor kid with a hard-knocks life.

The Los Angeles charter school operator remembers leaner days and long hours helping her struggling family sell empanadas from a street cart. Her eyes mist when she speaks of her hardworking parents, who sacrificed to send her to the best schools in Panama, despite discrimination from that society’s upper-class, and then to Los Angeles in 1982.

So when the Compton school board rejected her petition this year to start a charter school in a city with some of the state’s worst standardized test scores, McFarlane got fired up. Determined to fight for Compton parents the way her mother and father fought for her, McFarlane appealed the board ruling to Los Angeles County education officials — and last week announced that she had won.

She will open her new school this fall — Celerity Sirius, named after the brightest star in the night sky.

“For me, it’s personal,” says McFarlane, 48, whose African roots and fluent Spanish reflect Compton’s racial and ethnic demographics. “I see my parents in those Compton parents. Now I can do something about the injustice, the denial of opportunity, the idea that it’s OK for some kids not to read.”

McFarlane’s Celerity Educational Group has been at the center of the state’s first test of a landmark law allowing parents to petition for major changes at low-performing schools. In December, parents at McKinley Elementary in Compton submitted petitions to convert their campus to a Celerity charter operation under the new “parent trigger” law. Those petitions are tied up in court.

But armed with county approval of her separate charter petition, McFarlane is moving forward with plans for her new school for 220 students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Church of the Redeemer in Compton. She has already hired a principal, plans a facelift for the space and expects to open her doors for applications beginning Wednesday.

Celerity Sirius will be one of three new campuses the group plans to open this fall, bringing its total to seven schools. Three of the schools have standardized test score data, and all three rank in California’s top 10% of schools with similar populations of mostly low-income Latino and African American students.

Through a quality education, McFarlane says, she aims to give children broader choices in life — to attend college, to start a business — instead of dropping out of school, an all-too-prevalent path in places like Compton.

“We want to prove we can take the bottom kids and move them as high as they can go and get them through college,” says Grace Canada, Celerity’s school services director.

McFarlane’s venture as an educational entrepreneur started in 2004 the same way many of her other abrupt life changes began: with an epiphany. By then, more than two decades had passed since her father mortgaged their Panama home to give McFarlane a plane ticket to Los Angeles and $1,000 in cash.

“I have nothing left,” McFarlane says her father told her. “You’re going to have to make it with this.”

Her cash was stolen shortly after her arrival here in 1982, and she was penniless when she fast-talked her way into a job with a California milling company by touting her bilingual skills. After an assortment of jobs, including pitching tourism for the Egyptian government, McFarlane says, she decided she was a “loser with no purpose in my life.”

She walked into Los Angeles Unified School District offices in 1991 and asked to teach. Pressed by a teacher shortage at the time, the district gave her an emergency credential and sent her to Holmes Elementary School in South Los Angeles, which McFarlane says was caught in the crossfire of a gang war.

On her first day there, McFarlane says, she saw a fourth-grader chasing a teacher with a knife. But she loved the experience of seeing the light of learning in children others considered lost causes.

“I found there is no kid who doesn’t want to learn and not one parent who doesn’t want her kid to be a success,” she says.

She moved into administration four years later as a bilingual coordinator, then assistant principal, then principal at Overland Avenue Elementary School near Westwood. Ever the serious student, she improved her English at night school, earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Cal State Los Angeles, acquired her master’s degree in education administration at National University and is working on a doctorate in organizational leadership at Pepperdine University.

In 2004, she was working as a coordinator for the district’s charter schools office when, she says, she realized she was “bored out of my mind.” That’s when she took the plunge, mortgaged her home and launched plans for her own charter school.

At Celerity schools, McFarlane demands a “no-excuses” regimen of discipline and accountability. Children are assessed every week to monitor their progress, with individual test results publicly posted. Teachers are evaluated and paid in part by how successful they are in helping raise student test scores. Most students stay for after-school tutoring sessions, McFarlane says, adding 10 hours or more of weekly study.

But the school also offers yoga and performing arts, computer education and field trips to such far-flung places as Honduras.

In 2007, McFarlane fired two teachers. She says the firings were related to job performance, not the teachers’ desire to have students present a poem about Emmett Till during a Black History Month celebration. Public education advocate Robert D. Skeels says McFarlane was “covering for institutional racism” in objecting to the poem being read, which, McFarlane said at the time, wasn’t appropriate for the celebration’s young audience. Emmett, an African American 14-year-old, was killed by white men in Mississippi in 1955.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an African American writer and political analyst, looked into the issue and said he accepted the school’s explanation that the firings were performance-related. He spent a semester teaching writing at Celerity and said he was “very impressed” by the curriculum and staff dedication.

“They do seem to be performing and delivering,” he said.

Kailyin Perry, whose 6-year-old niece attends Celerity Nascent in Jefferson Park, McFarlane’s first campus, says she is pleased by the charter school’s results. Her niece, Kristiona Brown, reads, spells and writes better than her nephew did at the same age attending public school, she said.

“In public schools, they don’t enforce learning — it’s more, ‘Do what you want to do,’ ” Perry said. “At Celerity Nascent, you have to learn. They enforce it. They contact parents to tell them how they’re doing.”

McFarlane says some parents have left because they find the school too regimented. But she says she refuses to expect less from her children in South Los Angeles or Compton than parents expect from theirs in West Los Angeles or Beverly Hills.

“We know we can make a difference,” McFarlane says. “If I can stop 100 kids from going on welfare five years from now or stop kids from getting into a gang, then everything will be worth it.”

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Compton parents, stymied in their efforts to petition for sweeping changes at their low-performing elementary school, now have another choice: They can send their children to a newly approved charter campus instead.

Celerity Educational Group announced Wednesday that its petition to start a school in Compton, which was rejected by the city school board, has been approved on appeal by Los Angeles County education officials. The group, which operates four schools throughout the area, plans to open the Compton program this fall for 220 children in kindergarten through fifth grade at a neighborhood church.

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Parents said they were jubilant to finally have another choice for their children besides McKinley Elementary School, where standardized test scores are rising but still rank in the bottom 10% of elementary schools statewide.

“This just shows when parents join together, we can win,” said Raquel Benitez, a McKinley mother of four.

The announcement marks the latest twist in the long battle over McKinley. The school has become a closely watched test case for the state’s new Parent Trigger law, which allows parents at low-performing schools to force staff and curriculum changes, school closure or conversion to a charter school. Charters are publicly financed, independently run schools.

Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles educational advocacy group, helped organize McKinley parents to submit the state’s first Parent Trigger petition last December, asking that school management be turned over to Celerity. But the Compton school board rejected the petitions, saying that they were not properly drawn up. The group sued and a Los Angeles judge tentatively agreed, in part, with the board. Further arguments are scheduled for next month.

As the parent group faltered on the legal front, Celerity moved forward with a separate and ultimately successful charter petition. Celerity founder and chief Vielka McFarlane said the new school will be named Celerity Sirius — after the brightest star in the night sky.

“We want to be a beacon for the community,” said McFarlane, an English-Spanish bilingual immigrant from Panama who was a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District before opening her first charter school six years ago.

“You have a human right to have your kids aspire to something more than high school dropout,” she told parents at a news conference at Church of the Redeemer, the site of the new school.

Among Celerity’s three schools with standardized test score data, all rank in the top 10% of schools with similar populations — largely low-income Latino and African American students. Its highest-performing school, Celerity Troika, scored 932 on a scale of 1,000 last year and its lowest-performing school, Celerity Nascent, improved its test scores by more than 100 points in the last three years, reaching 782 last year.

McKinley, by contrast, scored 684 last year and ranks in the bottom 20% of schools with similar populations.

McFarlane credited Celerity student gains in part to a “labor-intensive” system of individualized instruction guided by data on student weakness and extra support through after-school programs and specialized staff.

Mass transfers from McKinley could reduce its student population by half, raising questions about the school’s future. Citing budget cuts, the Compton school board considered closing McKinley this year but selected other schools instead.

Parents said they still hoped for a court victory affirming their petition to bring Celerity to McKinley. But if they fail, they said, they intend to be first in line to enroll their children in the charter.

“I’m excited because I know my daughter is going to get the education she needs and deserves,” said Shemika Murphy, whose child is in second grade.

[email protected]

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Monday, June 20, 2011

A partnership proposed between the City of Kuttawa and a Paducah technology firm could lead to increased broadband Internet service for the citys residents.

Kuttawa Fire Chief Bill Compton presented city council members with details of the proposal this week.

At issue is a request to the city to allow Systems Solution of Paducah, a wireless Internet provider, to install a transmitter on the citys communications tower atop Kuttawa Mountain and other equipment in a control building nearby.

The companys equipment is currently located on a lower-elevation tower elsewhere in the city, Compton said.

The partnership would benefit the city by allowing City Hall and city buildings, including the fire station, water and sewer plants, to have Internet access free of charge.

Along with that, he said, emergency officials would be able to utilize the connection and on-site cameras to monitor conditions at the mountaintop communications site and the status of equipment there.

The site is hard to access quickly in the event of an emergency, so having the cameras and other monitoring capabilities would be an asset, the chief said.

A fixed camera is also planned, according to the proposal, to provide the public with a live view of Lake Barkley from the mountaintop.

By locating its equipment on the citys communications tower, Systems Solutions would be able to have access to a larger customer base, Compton added, but said that his primary concern was the security and monitoring improvement for the fire department and other emergency agencies.

Council members voiced some concern with the agreement as presented, including language requiring the city to cover utility fees associated with the private equipment.

Other council members questioned a clause prohibiting any other Internet service provider from locating equipment on the mountain for the five-year term of the contract.

Mayor Butch McCollum said that situation was similar to the citys cable TV franchise with Galaxy Cablevision.

The Internet agreement will likely require a similar advertising and bid procurement process as the cable agreement did.

Council members directed City Attorney Bill Young to review the agreement and report back.

In other business:

The council heard first reading of a city budget ordinance for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

The budget includes revenues and expenditures of $2,864,900, allocated as follows:

General fund, $341,900; gas fund, $1,425,300; water and sewer fund, $686,600; fire fund, $84,400; street fund, $121,200; municipal road aid, $13,000; park fund, $191,000; local government economic assistance (LGEA) fund, $1,500.

The park fund includes a $148,000 federal grant for the completion of the second phase of a city walking trail.

COMPTON, Calif. — Two residents of the Compton Community College District sued the district Friday over its voting areas, charging the boundaries are preventing Latinos from fairly participating in governing board elections.

Alex and Luis Landeros, who are brothers and active in local Latino political affairs, filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on grounds that the district is violating the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, and the California Education Code.

Genethia Hudley-Hayes, special trustee who is overseeing the district, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Attorney Joaquin Avila said the lawsuit seeks to change the way the college district’s four voting areas are drawn because the current apportionment dilutes the Latino vote.

One voting area, which includes the city of Compton, elects two trustees on an at-large basis. Three other trustees are elected from single-member areas.

The suit seeks to have five, single-member areas, each representing a similar population based on the 2010 census, said Avila, a law professor at Seattle University who specializes in voting rights law.

Compton Community College lost state accreditation in 2005 and is now operated by El Camino Community College District, but retains its own board of trustees as it works to regain accreditation.

The Compton district comprises seven cities with sizeable Hispanic populations located southwest of downtown Los Angeles. One of the district’s five trustees is Hispanic.

The lawsuit is similar to one Avila filed in December against the city of Compton on behalf of three Hispanic residents. The suit seeks to overturn Compton’s system of at-large City Council elections in favor of a district election system that would more easily enable a Hispanic resident to win office.

Although the city is nearly 70 percent Latino, no Hispanic resident has been elected to the City Council or other offices.

A judge denied a request to delay the council elections to be held this month. A full trial is scheduled on the case next year, Avila said.

Avila said he is preparing a lawsuit against the Compton Unified School District board on similar grounds.

COMPTON, Calif. /California Newswire/ — California State Assemblymember Isadore Hall announced his campaign for Congress today. Hall intends to run in a new Congressional District, which according to the first draft of maps released by the California Citizens Redistricting Committee on June 10th, might include the cities of Compton, Carson, Lynwood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Lawndale, portions of the City of Los Angeles and Unincorporated Los Angeles County.

“As a local School Board Member, Councilmember and Assemblymember, I have worked tirelessly to make a difference in this community,” said Hall. “Our district needs a representative that will fight cuts to education and gang prevention programs, protect critical frontline services, and partner with President Obama to create family wage jobs.”

“I have spent the past few days talking with friends and community leaders about running for this new seat,” Hall added. “The response has been overwhelming and I am energized by the grassroots support we have already received.”

Hall is a former two term President of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees. He was elected to the Compton City Council in 2003 where he served in various leadership positions including Mayor pro Tempore. Hall was elected to the California State Assembly in 2008 and served as Assistant Speaker pro Tempore during his first term. He currently serves as a member of the Appropriations, Elections and Redistricting and Human Services Committees. He chairs the Assembly Committee on Government Organization.

The youngest of six children, Hall was born and raised in the City of Compton. Hall holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration, a Masters Degree in Management and Leadership from the University of Southern California, a Masters Degree in Public Administration from National University and will be conveyed his Ph.D. from Next Dimension Bible College later this summer.

No incumbent member of Congress currently lives in the proposed Congressional District; however, Hall will not seek election to Congress in the event that Congresswoman Maxine Waters seeks to represent the new district.

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Valerie Gotten (aka Valerie G) is an abstract painter, former movie stand-in, and volunteers for “green events” to help raise awareness about global warming, and help preserve California’s wilderness and natural beauty.

Urban Youth Academy coming to New Orleans

Crescent City becomes the first non-MLB city to host UYA

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Major League Baseball and the city of New Orleans, La., have reached a preliminary agreement to construct a new MLB Urban Youth Academy in Southern Louisiana.

That agreement — reached by the MLB Urban Youth Foundation, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and members of the City Council — still needs to be voted on by City Council on July 7 to become official.

MLB already has fully functional UYAs in Compton, Calif., and Houston, operates another in Puerto Rico, and has others in the works for Philadelphia and South Florida. The New Orleans UYA would follow the same model as all of those — providing free year-round youth baseball and softball, as well as educational programs, to underserved kids — and would operate at Wesley Barrow Stadium in Pontchartrain Park.

The New Orleans UYA, according to a release sent out by the city, would impact more than 1,500 kids.

“We are pleased to be at this phase of the planning process for the future New Orleans MLB Urban Youth Academy,” MLB executive vice president of baseball development Jimmie Lee Solomon said. “We look forward to the City Council’s decision, and are hopeful for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people of New Orleans.”

The UYA would work in conjunction with the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission.

Wesley Barrow Stadium, one of Landrieu’s “100 Committed Projects,” is expected to receive more than $5.3 million in renovations. That money would go towards the construction of three fields — for baseball, softball and tee ball — complete with scoreboards, seating, dugouts and lights. There will also be a complex that will feature four batting cages, an indoor facility, pitching mounds and other training outlets.

“Our best tool in improving our economy and reducing crime is by investing in meaningful activities for our youth,” Landrieu said. “I am pleased to have worked with Councilman [Arnie] Fielkow and Major League Baseball to bring this invaluable program to the kids of New Orleans. It will provide them with valuable life skills and offers yet another alternative to the temptation of the streets.”

The New Orleans UYA is also expected to work in cooperation with Southern University at New Orleans, the local school districts and various chapters of the Boys Girls Club of America. The Academy, according to the release, will select recommended participants throughout Southern Louisiana, primarily involving youth from any underserved community.

“The Major League Baseball Urban Youth Academy will be a great addition to the entire City of New Orleans,” Fielkow said. “This state-of-the-art youth sports facility is a transformational project for the City of New Orleans. The fact that Major League Baseball selected New Orleans to be its first non-MLB city to host an Academy is a testament to the resiliency of our citizens and the bright future which lies ahead. I thank Major League Baseball for having the confidence to bring this tremendous asset to the youth of the Crescent City.”

“It’s just all about being yourself,’’ said Lamar, who doesn’t drink or smoke, nor make headlines for beefing with fellow rappers. “I always put on the record that people that really live that life — the things that rappers are talking about — if you’re constantly talking about it, then you ain’t really livin’ it. A person that doesn’t [talk about it] wants to get away from it, because it’s something that they’ve seen their whole life, and they’re tired of talking about it and seeing the same thing. I put that in my music and people respect that. It’s not really me straying away from the typical sound that everybody’s hearing. I still got that in me, of course, because that’s the sound we were raised up on: gangsta music. It’s not just one-sided, though. I put those elements into my music.’’

She is the daughter of Scottish immigrants, tough people whose travels across the Atlantic first took them to the austere East Coast whaling and fishing hamlets. There is a shipwreck in her family history. A relative was lost at sea.

But it was on the dry land of Southern California that Roxanna Ross’ life took root. Not long after arriving as a teenager, she enrolled at a high school built on a drained swamp to serve a community then known as “the celery capital of the world.”

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Most of the old farms in Lomita and Harbor City are gone. But Narbonne High is still there. “The trees are bigger,” Ross told me, but much of the campus looks the same.

Ross graduated from Narbonne in 1963. Next week she’ll retire from Narbonne, stepping down as the school’s librarian after a 40-year career as an educator with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

From the relative abundance and optimism of the early 1960s to the austerity and layoffs of today, Ross has been on a sometimes bumpy, often wonderful ride through California’s public education system.

She began her studies at what was then Long Beach State College three years after the California Legislature adopted a master plan to open up higher education to working families. Ross, the daughter of a Navy butcher, eventually got a graduate degree at the university.

“If we hadn’t moved to California, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today,” she told me as we sat in the Narbonne school library, surrounded by books, many of which she purchased in more abundant times.

Ross made a career trying to give other sons and daughters of the working class the same sort of opportunities she had. First she worked in the classroom, then in the library.

When I asked her how the schools have changed in 40 years, budget cuts weren’t her starting point.

“Parents are incredibly stressed out,” Ross said. “Everything is so expensive. They struggle just to keep up, let alone get ahead.”

Over the years, Narbonne High offered many different people an avenue to social mobility. But the rollbacks of the last few years are yet another blow, she says, in a generalized assault on middle-class life.

When Ross started teaching, most of her students still had stay-at-home moms. These days, it’s usually two parents working long hours to pay car and health insurance bills that are bigger than mortgages used to be.

“I feel great despair when I think of what my money can do today and what it used to be able to do,” Ross told me.

Harbor City is one of those places that’s not in the news much but is, in its own way, at the center of things. It sits, both geographically and metaphorically, roughly halfway between the heights of Palos Verdes and the flatlands of Compton.

“This campus has always been very diverse,” Ross said. Back in the early ’60s, it had white, black, Asian and Latino students. Over the years, it’s stayed diverse. “I’ve had students who lived in their cars and students who lived in Rancho Palos Verdes,” Ross told me.

Ross has lived much of her life in the Harbor City-Lomita area.

Back when she started, working people there paid their taxes and in return they got a school system that offered their kids a world of learning — French, Latin, art, drivers ed.

More parents could afford to donate either time or money to the school. For those kids not destined to go on in academia, there were excellent classes in such practical subjects as culinary education. Over the years, Ross said, Narbonne sent many graduates to the nation’s best culinary schools.

That was then.

By the end of last year, 1,300 public schools in California were failing. Hundreds of thousands of children were being denied a decent education, and desperate parents saw no way out.

In January 2010, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation empowering parents to drastically transform chronically under-performing schools. The law states that if at least half of the parents sign a petition, district officials must respond by either closing the school, overhauling the administration, faculty and staff, or turning the school into a charter.

Armed with the trigger, parents can close failing schools, in theory at least. (Photo: madame.furie/Creative Commons)

But pulling California’s trigger is not as simple as it sounds. Much to the dismay of its supporters, implementation of the new policy hasn’t gone smoothly.

Here are five catches to the parent trigger law:

1) Details, Details: Contrary to popular belief, California didn’t open the floodgates for parents in every under-performing school to jumpstart reform. The new law limits use of the procedure to no more than 75 schools. Only schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for four consecutive years, and have an Academic Performance Index score of less than 800 are eligible.

However, signing the petition isn’t limited to parents of pupils currently enrolled in a given school. Parents of students attending feeder elementary and middle schools can sign as well.

2) Easier Said Than Done: It may sound easy for parents to invoke the trigger law (just go door to door, get petitions signed, and presto: your kid’s school is transformed!), but local school boards won’t comply without a fight.

The trigger pulled so far was by parents who wanted to turn McKinley Elementary School in the Compton Unified School District into a charter. The district challenged the validity of the petition’s signatures, and tied up the case in court for six months. As of May 24, an L.A. Superior Court Judge tentatively ruled against parents and in favor of the district.

3) Critics Weigh In: The parent trigger has its share of conscientious objectors.

Justin C. Cohen, president of the School Turnaround Group, argues that the empowerment strategy guarantees change but not improvement. The old school may or may not be replaced by something better.

Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, calls the parent trigger a “misfire” that reduces parental involvement to a superficial yes-or-no decision and a signature.

Education historian and former Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch notes that public schools don’t just belong to families whose children are currently enrolled, but to the entire community and “to the generations of children yet to appear at their doors.” Further, Ravitch contends, the law undermines the authority of teachers and principals who may be more concerned with pandering to parents than educating students.

4. Follow the Leader: Though California pioneered the parent trigger law, other states are following its lead. New Jersey, West Virginia, Michigan, Georgia and Maine are considering similar legislation. Parent empowerment bills are pending in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, though all three bills recently experienced setbacks.

5. Surviving the Clean-Up: When Jerry Brown replaced Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor, Brown changed the composition of the State Board of Education.

The new Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, joined forces with Julia Brownley, chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee, to “clean-up” the parent trigger law, which they said was too vague for regulation.

Brownley tried adding several provisions to dilute the legislation, including restricting the number of feeder school parents who could sign petitions. The California State Assembly removed those new provisions, but the law is still being reviewed at both the executive and judicial levels. What form the parent trigger law will take in the future remains to be seen.

Photo: madame.furie/Creative Commons via Flickr.

Quick Study: Education Reform

Related Stories: Parent Trigger Jams: California School Reform Misfires? | California Educators Block Trigger on ‘Parent Revolution’

The balance of power may have shifted in Compton with the results of a City Council runoff in an election that spurred attacks on the conduct of both candidates.

Challenger Janna Zurita defeated incumbent Councilwoman Barbara Calhoun — who unseated Zurita’s mother from the council eight years ago.

The runoff election held Tuesday night was too close to call. Final results announced Thursday afternoon showed Zurita won by 109 votes, taking 51.7% of the vote.

Voter turnout, typically low in Compton, was no exception this time. Less than 8% of registered voters cast ballots.

Calhoun declined to comment on the election results. Zurita, reached en route to visit a family member in the hospital, said only, “I’m humbled and I have a lot of work to do.”

In the past, Calhoun and Councilwoman Lillie Dobson had formed a majority voting bloc with Mayor Eric Perrodin, although Calhoun has recently opposed the mayor on some major initiatives. In April, she cast the deciding vote to kill plans to create a Compton Police Department, and last month, she voted against authorizing the city manager to lay off employees. Nevertheless, Perrodin gave Calhoun his endorsement.

Zurita’s mother, Delores Zurita, was on the council during the days of former Mayor Omar Bradley, who is also Delores Zurita’s nephew. Bradley was convicted in 2004 of misappropriating city funds over his use of city credit cards. Delores Zurita was acquitted of charges in the same case, but not before losing her seat to Calhoun in 2003.

In the weeks before the runoff election, supporters of each candidate leveled charges of misconduct against the other. Zurita was the subject of a complaint to the district attorney’s office alleging that she does not live in the district she will represent, while a rumor that Calhoun received a $5,000 personal loan from Compton City Clerk Alita Godwin during the campaign led Godwin to post a written denial on the city’s website.

Dave Demerjian, head of the district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit, said the office has an inquiry open into the allegation regarding Zurita’s residency, but it has not progressed to a full-blown investigation. His office was not investigating the alleged loan, which Demerjian said would fall under the jurisdiction of the Fair Political Practices Commission.

The commission had no complaint on file against either candidate.

–Abby Sewell

The Compton City Council voted Tuesday night to authorize worker layoffs as a way to address the city’s fiscal crisis.

The resolution did not specify how many jobs would be cut but gave the city manager authority to issue layoff notices without further council approval.

The city has no budget reserve and is facing a total general fund deficit of $25 million — $9 million of that from the current fiscal year. The city’s independent audit firm has questioned Compton’s ability to continue operating at all.

City Manager Willie Norfleet said the number of jobs to be cut has not been determined, but to make the cuts effective in the coming fiscal year, the layoff notices would need to be issued by June 1.

James Walker Jr., a city maintenance worker and chapter president of SEIU Local 721, said preliminary estimates showed the city cutting 97 to 120 jobs.

Management has been meeting with the unions representing city employees to explore alternatives to cutting jobs, but Norfleet said, with personnel costs making up 44% of the general fund budget, he saw no way to avoid layoffs.

Councilwoman Barbara Calhoun, who cast the sole dissenting vote, said she had not been given enough information about the proposals brought forward by the unions.

“I understand about the deficit, I understand that we need money, but I’m just saying, it bothers me about the layoffs when nothing has been given to me about what has been worked out with the unions,” she said.

Unions members showed up at the council meeting to object to the proposal. Workers expressed anger over the fact that they had been told until recently that the city was in good fiscal condition.

“It’s amazing to me what happened — what went wrong,” said Daniel Gomez, a fire captain with the Compton Fire Department and vice president of the International Assn. of Firefighters Local 2216.

Mayor Eric Perrodin declined to comment after the meeting. Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux was absent. 

RELATED:

Compton city workers face budget ax as council is poised to authorize layoffs

Compton Police Department to make a comeback?

Baca fights Compton’s bid to police itself

Compton owes $5.7 million to L.A. County Sheriff’s Department

– Abby Sewell at Compton City Hall

Photo: A Compton resident speaks to city officals at a council meeting in March. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

An independent auditing firm has concluded that Compton’s budget crisis is so dire that it’s an open question whether the city can remain solvent.

The auditor’s report was made public as the Compton City Council struggles to deal with a fiscal crisis, voting this week to lay off employees. Though city officials did not say how many layoffs would occur, union representatives said they had heard estimates of between 97 and 120. The city budgeted for 575 employees in the current year.

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In a strongly worded report accompanying the city’s newly released financial statements from last year, the auditing firm said there was “substantial doubt about the city’s ability to continue as a going concern” because of the swelling deficit.

The city’s surplus, which three years ago totaled $11.8 million, has been drained. And the city faces a total general fund deficit of $25 million — $9 million of that accrued in the current fiscal year — with no reserves.

Additionally, the city has run up a $19-million deficit in its liability fund, which has been borrowing from the general fund. The council voted Tuesday to use redevelopment funds to pay down 40% of the debt.

Outside experts said Compton’s situation appears grim.

“We’re not only underwater; we’re below the pool…. This is uncharted territory,” said Steve Erie, a UC San Diego political science professor with a specialty in local government.

But City Manager Willie Norfleet said it’s premature to believe the city will go bankrupt, adding that he hopes cutbacks can keep the city afloat.

“When one says, ‘We question if you’ll make it,’ that’s only if you don’t do anything,” Norfleet said.

The city plans to slash its budget to $44 million next year, from $58 million. At that level, Norfleet said, projected revenues will support expenditures. He also anticipated that revenues will pick up in June, the last month of the fiscal year.

Employees will probably be hit first. In a move to pave the way for the drastic cuts, the Compton City Council on Tuesday authorized the city manager to go forward with an unspecified number of job cuts, with layoff slips likely to be issued by June 1. Managers have been meeting with the unions representing city employees to explore alternatives to cutting jobs, but Norfleet said that with personnel costs making up 44% of the general fund budget, he saw no way to avoid layoffs.

Councilwoman Barbara Calhoun, who cast the sole dissenting vote, said she had not been given enough information about alternative cost-cutting measures brought forward by the unions.

“I understand about the deficit, I understand that we need money, but I’m just saying it bothers me about the layoffs when nothing has been given to me about what has been worked out with the unions,” she said during the council meeting.

Workers expressed a feeling of betrayal over the city’s slide into crisis. Just a couple of years ago, they said, city leaders were touting City Hall’s financial boom. Employees were called to mandatory meetings at which they were told how well the city was doing.

“It’s amazing to me what happened. What went wrong?” said Daniel Gomez, a captain with the Compton Fire Department and vice president of the International Assn. of Fire Fighters Local 2216.

The increasingly ominous financial situation went largely unnoticed until recent months.

As the city descended toward potential insolvency, a debate over plans to bring back the Compton Police Department drew most of the public’s attention over the past year. The City Council put a halt to the plan last month, but not before spending $1.7 million in bond proceeds on preparations, including buying communications equipment, hiring consultants and searching for a police chief.

Despite the council’s vote to shelve those plans, a group led by former city clerk Charles Davis, with financial backing from the deputies union, submitted a petition Wednesday that would put a measure on the ballot that would force the city to keep its contract with the Sheriff’s Department unless voters approve a change.

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COMPTON — Understanding that each student has different learning needs, the Compton Unified School District late last month approved two programs that officials hope will meet those needs.

Known as the Waterford Early Learning Program, it is a digital curriculum that customizes instruction to meet children’s individual learning needs. It also provides a web-enabled tracking and data management system to help teachers monitor student achievement at any time from any computer on their network.

Teachers and staff will receive training and ongoing support from NCS Pearson, Inc. specialists. Training for preschool teachers on Waterford Software Integration will take place July 1 through Sept. 30, at a cost of $39,400. The funds will be taken from the district’s Title 5 budget.

The program introduces critical concepts in reading, mathematics and science through full-motion video, animation, songs, audio, stories, artwork, biographies, games and interactive activities. Going beyond the computer, supplemental materials can be used both in the classroom and at home. Collaborative learning is completed through interactive whiteboard lessons where interactive instruction covers phonological awareness and reading comprehension.

In math and science — using daily activities, number concepts and abstract concepts — children are expected to apply higher order thinking skills. This can be achieved, said Pearson specialists, by emphasizing conceptual understanding and problem-solving, while reinforcing basic skills through engaging drills and practice. Graphics and music bring the challenging concepts to life.

All Waterford lessons include “systematic, explicit instruction,” according to a representative, and by the lessons assuming that students had no prior instruction they are easy to use and comprehend. Reading — built upon phonological awareness, comprehension and vocabulary, fluency and language concepts — is accomplished by building literacy from the pre-literacy stage to fluency.

Visual stimulators, said Pearson representatives, prompt responses, while motivating feedback encourages learning. Instructions, they added, can be started, stopped and repeated in order to make sure that the drills hit home for every student. Highlighted text allows students to follow along, and roll-over text helps learners with pronunciations and meanings.

Each program only requires three minutes to get started each day and provides more than 450 hours of instruction through 15,000 activities within 2,500 lessons.

“Waterford will allow students in Pre-K to develop the early literacy skills necessary for success in Kindergarten and help to start our students off on a level playing field with peers in surrounding school districts,” said board member Satra Zurita. “Quality pre-kindergarten and elementary programs will lay a strong foundation for learning.

“Research has shown Waterford to be especially helpful for students with limited English, and when used with fidelity, students accelerate their reading skills to become proficient readers and thinkers by third grade. I am especially delighted that we have chosen a program that is highly ranked by independent evaluators like Florida Center for Reading Research,” she added. “Teachers and administrators have access to real-time, diagnostic reports, making this an accountable and measurable program that can support all schools in achieving their educational goals.”

The second program is the Thinking Maps Leadership Team Training Program.

“Based on thorough and well-accepted academic study and brain research, the eight Thinking Map tools correspond with eight fundamental thinking processes,” said a district report. “More than simple task-specific graphic organizers, the maps can be utilized individually or in various combinations to form a common visual language for students and teachers at all grade levels, in all subjects.”

This program will be carried out at a cost not to exceed $100,000, and will come from the district’s Title II budget.

Thinking maps are a set of graphic organizer techniques or visual teaching tools that encourage lifelong learning. “The one common instructional thread that binds together all teachers, from pre-kindergarten through postgraduate, is that they all teach the same thought processes,” said a statement from Thinking Maps Inc., who will be carrying out the training and doing follow-ups.

Circle maps are used for defining in context, tree maps are for classifying and grouping, bubble maps are used for describing with adjectives, double bubble maps are used to compare and contrast, flow maps are used for sequencing and ordering, multi-flow maps are used for analyzing the causes and effects of certain actions, brace maps are used for identifying parts or ‘whole-part’ relationships — for example, the anatomy of a butterfly — and bridge maps are used for illustrating analogies.

The Thinking Maps Professional Development Plan consists of one full-day of staff development and two or more follow-up days throughout the school year.

“Early reading readiness and intervention initiatives are CUSD’s prescriptive plan to harvesting the minds of students. As a … champion of science, technology, engineer and mathematics (STEM), I enthusiastically embrace the Waterford Early Reading Program, as a technological tool, which will build the internal capacity within our elementary students and fortify their ability to learn reading, writing and computation,” said board member Micah Ali. “Within the same vein, the deployment of Thinking Maps will make certain our students learn to organize, categorize and process complex ideas and concepts. If our students are to become lifelong learners, we must support cognitive skills development, encourage critical reflection and liberate creativity.”