School struggle on the east side

Maria Brenes, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, stopped by the editorial offices recently to discuss the crisis in Los Angeles schools. InnerCity Struggle, which advocates on behalf of students and communities in Boyle Heights, East L.A., El Sereno and Lincoln Heights, was part of the coalition that worked for inclusion of A-through-G curricula in L.A. schools. Brenes was joine by two of her group’s youth organizers: Nancy Meza, a 2005 graduate of Roosevelt High School, and Jonathan Perez, a 2005 graduate of Garfield High School.

Getting an F in A through G

Lisa Richardson: How do you hold the district accountable for having a mandate that says the number of A-through-G classes has to go up, and the number has been falling?

Maria: Well there isn’t a mandate for that per se. There’s a mandate to get, require all students to take classes, and graduate. But to us, it, well if you require more...

Lisa: You necessarily have to increase the...

Maria: Right, you have to increase it. That would be the common sense kind of thing, or that should be the result of the mandate. So that, if that was the mandate, that we should ensure that the classes are available for all students to be placed on that track...

Lisa: And how does the district see it? That they have a class there and that should be sufficient, or...?

Maria: That’s what we’re going to be doing to hold them accountable to. And one of our, as we continue this advocacy, advocacy’s really about making sure that these SB 1133 funds that were just granted to, or awarded to all of our four high schools, that they’re in line with the A-to-G resolution. So these funds should be specifically utilized to increase the availability. Hire more teachers so that more of these courses are available to students. And that’s going to be one of our main messages to the district.

Middle school is the middle ground

Tim Cavanaugh: Is middle school sort of the crucial um, because what you hear is that by the time a kid gets to high school the die has already been cast. So I mean is this where you need to do the most work?

Maria Brenes: I think it’s critical for preparing the students for math in particular, the math proficiency. I think middle school is the critical bridge between what’s happening in elementary school and what’s expected of students in high school. So I think at middle school there needs to be more, more needs to be done to prepare students for algebra and passing algebra. So it shouldn’t be a goal to be done in ninth grade; we think it needs to be done earlier so that in, you know, in high school students are oriented into a higher level math that gets them ready for the college track.

Hey, LAUSD, leave those kids alone

Robert Greene: So what do you need with the district? Why do you have to be part of the school district? I don’t really see a lot of good that the school district is doing for your schools. And if they’re there to be able, to be available for you to contract with, that’s great, but what do you need with them? Why don’t you just form your own district?

Maria: I think that schools, and as a community we feel the district can play a more effective role in supporting our local schools. And right now you know many of the teachers we work with feel that the professional development that is happening isn’t relevant, that the periodic assessments that are being mandated by the district are not helping teachers reach their instructional goals. That it’s in conflict with their instructional programs. So if, but, you know, there’s a structure that the district provides from transportation services to food services to...

Lisa: Contract, contract, go ahead...

Maria: ...to, to other types of expertise, but that schools should have the autonomy to choose what best meets the needs of their schools, so...

Lisa: Do you ever see the district giving up that kind of authority? Or that kind of money?

Maria: I think communities and teachers have to demand it. That’s, they have to demand it, and I think with the innovation division and the superintendent really doing that, I think there is an opportunity there. I don’t know how the entire district staff feels, but I know from what the superintendent laid out in his address, his state of the schools address, that there is a commitment there to be more innovative and try something different because we know what’s been happening for the last decade at a minimum isn’t working. You know, we see it in our graduation rates. So this is an opportunity, this is an idea that we believe can have a lot of promise for our schools.

Lisa: Autonomy?

Maria: Right. And all of this is based on best practices. You know, best practices. There’s a case study in Boston, the Boston pilot schools. They’re trying it here with Belmont. And in the Boston pilot schools there’s been a lot of success in terms of, you know, increasing graduation rates, increasing academic achievements. So we think it’s something that LAUSD should definitely try.

Robert: You can’t really expect to get your full per-student state money and have the district still supporting you, can you? I mean it’s either one or the other.

Maria: You know we haven’t figured out all those details. But we think that from what we understand about autonomy, it’s supposed to have all the money go directly to the school site. When we see how under-resourced our schools are we think this is the perfect solution.

No to charter schools

Lisa: What about turning them into charter schools? Is that a discussion?

Maria: No, no. We think, you know, it’s important to be part of the school district. And we think, you know, ensuring the bargaining rights of teachers is also important. And as we start to promote this more the community actually, last Wednesday at Roosevelt High School, and we had a town hall meeting with 200 parents, students and teachers. And there was a presentation by the innovation division, and presentation by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which is a fellowship that the mayor just launched. And so there were small breakout groups. They were discussing what they liked about the proposals,. But what we

Passing them along

Lisa: Is there any discussion about ending social promotion for real? I know the district did it as a policy. But in speaking with some of the other superintendents around the country, people mentioned that one reason they would never ever be superintendents here is that Los Angeles has never committed to it. I mean you have students who say 80% of students who get to high school don’t have basic skills. They’ve been passed along from class to class to class. Is there any discussion in the community that this practice really needs to cease?

Maria: I think that the discussion is really connected to the overcrowded conditions because if you kept students behind there are so many other students waiting in the back to take that seat. So I think the conflict with, or one of the barriers to really addressing social promotion is the overcrowded conditions.

No to mobility

Tim: Do you guys look at all at student mobility, and where, if you happen to be in a region, or whatever you call the sub-district, and the school is no good, you want to be able to take your kid...

Maria: Well through No Child Left Behind, No Child Left Behind gives you that right.

Tim: I know you have the right, but I mean there aren’t that many schools that do open enrollment, or actually there are, but they may be a long way away...

Maria: Roosevelt does open enrollment.

Tim: Yeah, well would you want your kid to go to Roosevelt?

Maria: We think that we need to improve the schools in our community. That’s how I would answer that.

Tim: Don’t you think that giving people the ability to leave a bad situation helps with improving the schools, first of all by reducing overcrowding, for example.

Maria: Well that’s happening. The children from the Belmont community for such a long time have been bussed out. To other um, to the Valley, to the west side. And that doesn’t really help their school experience. I think part of the school experience is having the community school, because it allows your parent to be more engaged in the school. You’re not going to be as engaged in the school as a parent if the school is, is far away. Also extracurricular activities: You’re more likely to be involved in those if the school is nearby. And you know, we think that in our community, Roosevelt and Garfield, for example, are the center of East L.A. and Boyle Heights. We don’t have, only have one YMCA in the entire east side. We have like two boys and girls clubs. I mean it’s just very under-resourced when it comes to the youth development piece of, of, of our community. So I mean Roosevelt and Garfield are really the center of our community. I mean you saw when Garfield auditorium burned down, I mean it was a traumatic experience for everyone. And you know, you have families whose great grandparents went to that same high school, and they are the first to graduate. So it’s really that center of pride, of the center of, this is where you go for the hope of being able to have upward mobility. And we think that, even if that were um, a choice, and it is, but...

Lisa: Logistically for the people who are there...

Maria: Well you have a choice but the other schools aren’t doing...

Lisa: Better.

Maria: ...much better, the schools you have a choice to go to if you go to Garfield or Roosevelt. It’s not going to serve everyone.

Tim: Well technically if you’re in the LAUSD you can go to any school that offers open enrollment, right?

Maria: Mm-hmm. Well like, not all schools, for example, our magnet in Boyle Heights, which is Bravo...

Tim: Not magnets, just regular schools that, you know, happen to be in areas where there are not as many — there are schools in this situation. We’re in a period of overbuilding of schools, so you know, the next few years we’re probably going to see a lot of schools that don’t have full classrooms around town.

Maria: Because of the changing demographics that we referred to...

Lisa: I wouldn’t bank on that. I mean, enrollment’s going down but it’s, I mean the schools are so overcrowded that it’s not really going to solve the problem.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Nancy Meza: And also what happens is when you send the student to another school it doesn’t really solve the problem in the education system that is connected to that school. So it’s sort of like it’s easier to send the student to another school that’s doing great, but then all these other students are still going to this community school which is, their school and their neighborhood and their community still have to face overcrowding under-resourced. And to really fix the problems that have been institutionally there for years and years and years. And also students want to go to a school in their community, and they should have the right to go there and be prepared to go on to college and not have to resort to going somewhere else because their schools are not preparing them. It doesn’t really solve the problem.

Maria: Go ahead?

Tim: My feeling is if it’s your own kid, it’s, you know, you don’t care whether the problem gets solved. You want your kid to be getting the best experience your kid can get, and if it means taking him or her to another school that’s the way it has to be. It interests me that nobody seems to be really that committed to greasing the grooves for that, to making that a little easier to happen. There’s nothing you can get, like public transportation vouchers, for example, or any sort of financial assistance for transporting your kid, none of that. You have a right, but the right doesn’t really exist if you’re incapable of exercising it.

Maria: Well it’s not, that, I don’t think that solution’s going to accommodate the majority of the students that are in their community. Roosevelt has 5,000, but if everyone stayed there would be 8,000 students at Roosevelt. So that means there’d be...

Tim: You mean if they stayed instead of dropping out or instead of going to other schools?

Maria: Instead of dropping out. Uh, everyone that came in as a ninth grader, if they stayed four years later there’d be about 8,000 students. Garfield would be about the same. So that’s 16,000 students just in two high schools approximately. And if you count Wilson and Lincoln, each of them are about three, so we’re talking about 20,000 young people that are being left behind. And I don’t think that solution would accommodate the majority of those students. So when we think about education reform, we’re thinking about everyone that comes in as a ninth grader. You know it’s not just the students that are enrolled right now in high school, because we know that doesn’t account for everyone. You know, even our building program, you know, doesn’t account for the students that would stay if they didn’t drop out.

The power of InnerCity Struggle

Tim: What kind of leverage do you guys to do anything?

Maria: We have our student and parent voices...We don’t have millions of dollars to influence anybody, but we do have the voices of young people, parents who are just frustrated and tired of being neglected for so long.

Lisa: About how many students would you say are involved at Garfield and Roosevelt?

Maria: Garfield and Roosevelt we have 50 at each school, 50 leaders, but we have um, we also work in two middle schools, and in Wilson and Lincoln. So we have 400 members total, and then we have 100 parent members.

Lisa: But your turnout — I remember the march for the school board. It was quite a bit more than that.

Maria: It was 1,000. These are just our leaders. We organize people and educate more people.