Zuma Dogg's Overview of LAUSD "Annual Order of Business"

First of all, again, congratulations to LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer for delivering the finest, world-class speech I have seen delivered publicly at this year's LAUSD Annual Meeting. See story here Whether of not the goal of transforming LAUSD is an accomplishable goal will remain to be seen. But I don't think you are going to be able to find anyone who is able to articulate what it will take to get the job done. Brewer convinced Dogg that he knows what to do, has a plan and method to achieve the goal. Let's hope it's the goal is achieveable in the first place. And if it is, at least I believe we have the best possible leader for this most important challenge.

ZUMA DOGG'S OVERVIEW OF LAUSD ANNUAL ORDER OF BUSINESS/STATE OF THE DISTRICT

As mentioned in my previous articles on Deming (as published in ‘94’s "Quality Digest"), recent LA Weekly article on "SCAG" (Southern California Association of Governments) and blogging, most of the high-quality jobs the previously available to college graduates have left the region and the manufacturing industry has slipped overseas to Asia and China. (Did you see recent news reports that China is now #3 economic superpower, surpassing Germany?)

That leaves the U.S. and especially Southern California in a strategy position it hasn’t been in for quite some time, if ever in the industrial era: The under dog position. The U.S. and as I will refer to for purposes of this audience, California, must look around and say, " How do we rebound, now that we allowed it to get away from us, and we are left with the low-quality, low-income angle.

In other words, how do we regain the ground we lost to oversea economies that took Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Point plan, implemented it, and now has the U.S. scrambling to keep its society above water.

It starts at the top. It’s a prevailing philosophy. Successful management, like the type responsible for turning the manufacturing tables on the U.S. by implementing "quality and productivity" on the job (like Japanese automobiles and electronics manufacturing) would never front-end load management contracts that end up putting inappropriately excessive amounts of project money into salaries of managers and their perks and not enough into the public project, itself, to get the job done. Then the politicians come back and ask for more money though bonds and taxes.

So if you are operating from the premise of, "Well gee, all the high-end, college type jobs have gone overseas along with the manufacturing that left a long time ago, how do we make due with what’s left? The lower-paying, "lower-quality" jobs. (That term is not an insult. That’s how government and economic types categorize it. "high-income", "low-income", "high-quality jobs" (higher education, higher skilled, higher paying, higher status), "low quality jobs" (lower education, lower skilled lower payer, lower status).

However, given California’s position in this new global economy, the lines are beign blurred between what constitutes "high skill"/"low skill"; and what level of education you need to make what is considered to be "higher paying" money. (Shortage of vocation workers like electrical workers at DWP has raised the pay.)

COLLEGE READY KIDS?

So just as LAUSD has a 50% dropout rate as it is, with more and more English learners coming into the system that before, there is a lot of LAUSD "order of business" relating to preparing kids to be college ready.

Although this is an ambitious and admirable goal, and of course we need a certain percentage of LAUSD students to continue on to college (the career of further education to fill the jobs requiring that added level of skill and knowledge), it should not be the goal of LAUSD to prepare all kids for college.

The goal should be to prepare all kids for graduation and if you have to prepare them for college, the added raising of the bar will actually increase the drop out rate as a whole new level of students are not able to rise to the higher level of achievement, because you have not yet fixed the system for them.

The current Villaraigosa-backed majority school board, under Monica Garcia, has an overly ambitious agenda for a board that just got started and doesn’t have the answers to the questions that will allow them to provide the actual solutions that will actually improve the district.

However, although they are biting off more than they should regarding the policy (a full streamroll ahead approach)/already raising the bar and making it more challenging and demanding for students) – you should be doing EVERYTHING to improve/fix the system for the students and parents! Make no demand until you have provided the environment and system (method) to achieve such goal.

Some basic examples:

Monica Garcia should let Superintendent David Brewer make a new public announcement, (under this new annual "order of business") to all parents, students and teachers that transformation is on the way. One leader is now in charge of this transformation and will be working with the school board to achieve new levels of heightened student achievement and increased graduation rates. And request input from all interested parties, from wherever it may come from.

Empower everyone on the job in the district from tree trimmer to school board president to use common sense and life-experience to do their best job, and let management know how they can help you do a better job/improve.

For example, maybe the gym teacher suggests moving classes to after lunch, when the kids have more energy to burn, rather than right before lunch when they are ready to drop because no one eats a good breakfast. Maybe a principal that tells teachers, "Hey no mid-term exams the day after American Idol finals. Kids won't study, and overall test scores will drop." (Based on what the teacher learned last year.)

Let common sense prevail, wherever legally possible. Knowledge comes from everyone within the system (it is called a school "system"), and if your ship is sinking, don’t ask what kind of life jacket they are throwing you.

For example, maybe the janitor can tell cafeteria not to serve a certain item anymore, because most of it is ending up in the trash. (The meal planner would never know, because all of it was served. Or the parking lot attendant who notifies the principal that the lights need to be replaced in the staff parking lot because kids shot them with a BB gun. (And the principal would never know because he leaves work before dark.) Kids know the problems; parents know the problems; teachers know the problems. Many of them have the solutions. Embrace your biggest asset, community input. (And I see Brewer doing that.)

Now, let’s look at some bigger picture solutions outside LAUSD’s job description that can help "fix" LAUSD.

So, a more immediate first thing that can be done to fix the school system starts at home. Parents need to accept responsibility and become active participants in their children’s lives. You can judge what a young kid says, and how they behave by the standards imposed on them by the parents. It’s tough to say "no" to your kids, when other parents say, "yes", or don’t say anything at all, because the kids are left un-attended.

Too many parents think it is the schools and teachers job to instill dignity, respect and discipline into their kids. BUT IT IS NOT. That is the parents’ job. The schools job is to educate kids. Help fix LAUSD by fixing your kids, so the school can do its job. (Teach them how to read, write, add, etc.) Asking your kid, "How was school today? Did you do your homework?", is not taking responsibility for your child’s education.

I know it’s tough to be a parent to your kid, these days. The high cost of housing, taxes and gas makes it hard to make ends meet, and both parents (if there are even both parents at home) have to work long hours, and travel through long traffic-jammed commutes, for not enough pay, at the end of the day.

And at the end of that day, It’s much easier to say, "yes", than argue a long protracted battle over how late a kid can stay out, or how many hours they can use myspace, youtube, ipod, xbox, or even regular old TV. And it doesn’t help when other parents refuse to do a thing to help instill discipline, morals or standards in their kids.

But you must rise to the challenge and be the leaders and role models in your kids’ lives. Parents, don't rely on the City to be your kids’ babysitters after school. Rely on each other. Spend more time talking to each other about after school activities. Do more for each other. Talk about what your kids are and are not allowed to say and do. Try and convince other parents to go along with the higher standard, so all the kids that play together lift each other up, instead of drag each other down.

So that's ONE thing the community can do to fix the schools (besides reducing classroom size, paying teachers more so we can recruit new ones, after school programs, safer streets and other things that are out of your control):

Take on more responsibility to do the job you asked for when you had a kid. Be a mentor -- to your own kids. You cannot leave the job of raising your kids and teaching them responsibility and values needed to keep them in school, graduating and productive members of society we need them to be to a school system. That’s not THEIR job, it’s YOURS. Take on the challenge. It will be almost as enriching and rewarding of an experience as myspace or YouTube.

There IS much for LAUSD to do as well, especially in the areas of management of quality and productivity as it related to operations and the administrative system itself. But the parents and kids have a long way to go before they can start pointing too many fingers at the system itself.

HOW ABOUT "JOB READY" KIDS?

How about vocations to prepare kids for today’s U.S. job market? Do you know how much carpenters, plumbers, sales people, electricians, AC/Heating, tile person, car mechanic or truck drivers make these days? ($90,000 plus.)

If high-end college type jobs have left the region and are now overseas in Asia and China, how about the vocations mentioned above, and others are jobs that you cannot export; and you cannot import. (You don’t fly in a construction contractor when you build a new condo. And you can’t import the electricians DWP is short on.)

Not everyone is meant to go to college. It is the school systems job to provide students with the basic, necessary skills to either enter the job market, go on to further vocational training, or college and more interpersonal skill training.

But to say it is the government’s job to prepare all kids for college, means that a diploma has no value as its own entity. A diploma is supposed to be the piece of paper you need to be prepared to enter the job market, not an expected requirement to enter another four-year round of expensive education to prepare you for jobs that are not available, because they have been outsourced and downsized in a new electronic era. Do all kids need to be prepared to learn Shakespeare and calculus?

Today’s school system was created in 50s era to prepare kids to conform for the manufacturing jobs that drove the U.S. economy. Everyone had to conform to the same factory jobs, along the assembly line. No uniqueness required.

Engineers make a lot of money, sales people make a lot of money, real estate agents make a lot of money. Train people for the types of jobs the big corporations need: Sales, administration; and construction of facilities, among others.

LAUSD CHARTER REFORM

Charter schools can be valuable tools to allow the community to partner with the government to help improve the quality of education for the student and be an overall asset toward improving the overall result of the State education system.

However, as in any system, there is concern for flaws that allow for the exact type of fraud, waste and abuse that ends up producing the exact opposite results that are promised (higher student achievement provided more efficiently) and ends up leaving the public system weaker than before (cream of the crop students taken by charters leaving higher percentage of "special needs" and "low-achievers" at LAUSD non-charters, which also means less number of students, then they cut the money to those schools who need the money the most).

So as LAUSD starts to approve more and more charters to help the state better educate the kids, and increase all the right numbers in all the right places…let’s make sure there is enough openness and transparency in the process so as to prevent the types of conflicts of interest and fraud, waste and abuse that intentionally, or unintentionally continues to shoot the system in its own foot, causing it to stumble out of the starting block, time and time again.

THE COMPASSION PRINCIPAL

Since ’94, LAUSD has authorized charters: To this date, there is no accountability standard according to the district. I have also heard that there is an intensive application process. Some people view charter schools as a back door policy to break up the LAUSD district.

And breaking up the district in a meaningful and efficient way would be the right step to take. It’s way too big and way to bureaucratic to operate efficiently. Besides being too big geographically, it’s too wide socio-economically. The higher performing schools in the more affluent areas seem to get the "house advantage" over the lower performers in lower economic areas. (Different needs and attentions.) But even socio-economic inequalities aside, it’s just too big a system to operate as an efficient system. But, we are stuck with this monstrosity of a system, for now.

At Green Dot Charter, applicants are required to include parent income; previous student grades; and require additional parental involvement. And some say the application process is more like a screener, skimming the cream of the crop students from the non-charter, public schools; leaving LAUSD with the special needs, and low-achieving students.

Charter schools are run by a lottery to pick students. But the application process to get into the lottery is more difficult than and Ivy League Law School (12 pages long).

What are bright kids from low-income, less-attentive/non-attentive parents to do? They are being punished because charters won’t take them, because parents won’t commit to the added time, or don’t make enough money. Why are we blaming these kids for who they are born to?

As in "special education" students, "highly gifted" students (150 and above I.Q.) is an equally distributed number across all income, social and cultural levels.

So this means there are a minimum of 5000 "highly gifted" kids in the 73% Hispanic and 11% black LAUSD district which reflects the demographic makeup of the district (including 9% white).

So what do we do about these low-income, neglected geniuses not having their uniqueness being catered to?

You have to prove that you care about kids in the way THEY want you to care about them, instead of disenfranchising them; having them drop out, and fall prey to gangs, and we lose out on qualified workers to help keep society not only competitive in a global economy, but simply ticking and functioning on a day to day basis.

If you get them interested in these vocational skills, then they will be interested enough to want to learn the basic and more advanced math that is needed for shop, or garage class. And then, that just might provide the jumpstart that will allow them to be able to go on to college, if they choose; or to directly enter the local job market with a higher level of achievement, and there for higher level of skill and value to the job market and therefore, society. DWP can’t find qualified people to do the electrical work.

This is how you reduce the dropout rate as well. Get them interested in a vocation or interpersonal skill that will create the interest to get them involved in the math, science and English skills required to pursue their dream, and you will reduce the dropout rate; reduce the crime rate; reduce the gang rate; reduce the prison population and increase the pool of qualified applicants for jobs we need like teachers, police, fire, sales, administration, and all of today’s highly-demanded jobs.

A charter lottery is supposed to be an open application process of anyone who wants to "go charter", and then the lottery is based on all applications.

According to one LAUSD "reformer/charter supporter", all the "involved parents" already pulled their kids out of LAUSD and are in private/charter schools.

So now, LAUSD will start to jump into the privatized Charter game, using public money and handing the management over to private entities. So we have to admit, we now have a two-tier education system, like cable TV. You have basic LAUSD (non-charter public school catering to special needs and English learners) and premium LAUSD (charter public school with "cream of the crop" skimmed off the district).

Instead of preparing for two school systems, all teachers, resources and efforts should go to ONE education system for all.

Is the newly elected LAUSD school board members like the zero experience as an educator, Tamar Galatzan, or even "now veteran" Monica Garcia knowledgeable on the type of school reform they are taking on?

I heard that at Green Dot, only 40%=50% of teachers are fully credentialed. In one school, only 3 out of 22 teachers are credentialed. By state law, this number must be equal to LAUSD, which is 90% credentialed across the general district.

IF THIS IS TRUE, THESE SCHOOLS SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN BY LAW!

Do these charters have the 12%-13% Special Education Classes like LAUSD? Are Charter schools skimming the cream of the crop students leaving LAUSD with the lower performers, then get to say, "LAUSD failed", while making it easier to charters to show improvement with the cream of the crop highest achievers?

And the system is set up to keep the school in constant, "need for reform" mode.

The State Lottery placed steady funding for books and supplies. So, you must wonder why you hear so many cries from students that they don’t have enough text books. Somehow, the State Lottery money is now being used for wage and benefits.

Now I support as much money for teachers as possible, and they have one of society’s most important jobs (next to the police), but I don’t think there is a need to take the kid’s book and supplies money to achieve the goal.

With a $61,000 average LAUSD salary; plus those who chose to earn more money as mentors; summer school gigs; mentoring new teachers; or simply choose to work at Radio Shack during the three month vacation you are talking $85,000 a year, plus National Board certified teachers make upwards of $100,000. (And who else making this much also gets three months off?) But they had to dip into the kids’ books and supply money because teachers were too uncomfortable at this type of salary level, for nine months work. And teachers don’t generally work as many hours as other executives and workers in this salary range, and don’t have the long "after hours", at home computer work many executives at this salary level are forced to take home everyday and over the weekend.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

People have given up on our public schools, now they want to pass the buck to charter schools. (I mean pass the buck literally and figuratively.) Although charter schools can be a welcomed blessing to the community and state (society), it is up to the community to insure that the system is providing that service in the best interest of the public, since the state, through LAUSD approval, is handing over public money to be managed and operated by private corporations (non-profit and for-profit organizations), and history has shown that in many cases, conflict of interest, fraud, waste and abuse ends up producing the exact opposite results as required by law.

More to come.

Contact: zumadogg@gmail.com
ZumaTimes.com

Annual Speech by LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer

Zuma Dogg was thrilled to catch LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer's (first) Annual Speech yesterday.

Although many people reading this know one of my top two concerns in the City is the new mayoral-majority school board and the future of LAUSD (which, I believe, is a major predictor for the future of our society), the only thing I can say about his speech is that it was truly inspirational, re-assuring; and every word of it passed the "Deming" filter that I ran it through. So if you can base things as they appear from speeches like these, then it's good news in the LAUSD Superintendent department, because ZD just witnessed a world-class, top-notch leadership speech that I hope everyone has a chance to see on the internet. (See link below.) If for no other reason, to see what ZD feels constitutes the best leadership speech in the spirit of Dr. Deming that he has seen in a "real-world" scenario, not just the seminar room.

Video of Meeting (Try and scroll to Brewer's speech.)

Brewer's "Power Point" Presentation

SPEECH BY LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT DAVID BREWER, III

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
ANNUAL MEETING
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2007

Thank you fellow superintendent board members, my teammates. Thank you, Jack, for coming. And thank you all for being here.

You know, I always say that you all save more lives than any professional in the world. More than doctors, and I talked to some nurses here a few minutes ago. Because you're all educators, I'm going to put you in this mix. More than nurses, more than anyone. You all are the reason we have a democracy.

And I want you to hold that thought because it's extremely important that you hold that thought because what I want to talk about today is reality.

Our reality.

We have some of the best in the world right here in LA Unified School District. Ten times the cap amount, skills champions, all of those things that we have here in LA Unified. Yet, we have some problems and some challenges. We cannot ignore those
challenges at all. We have to confront those challenges and confront the (inaudible).

Now, we've come up with five guided principles. I mean, most of you are familiar with that, but I'm going to rehash those for you. We're going to be research and data driven.

You know, I was sitting back in my home in Virginia in July of 2006, relaxing, just got back from Europe, was having a cool one, just built my new basement. Man, I've got a hundred and three inch screen, you know, I like King Kong, I like Dream Girls. I'm just relaxing, having a good ol' time. And then I get this phone call. Says somebody has submitted your name to be a candidate for the superintendent of schools for LA Unified School District. And I said to myself, now wait a minute, 700,000 students, hard work, difficult challenges or this cold beer and this reclining seat.


But you know what, I don't know how many of you all have read the book Halftime by Bob Buford, and it says, basically, that the first half of your life you learn and you earn and then the second half of your life you serve.

And I had to think about that. I met Bob Buford many, many years ago. He made millions of dollars and realized that he had done all of those first two things, and it was time to serve.

Now, I served my country for 36 years, and let me tell you, that's a lot of sacrifice when you're at sea for six and seven months at a time, and you're leaving your wife and your daughter at home, and your wife has a baby on her own. That's tough stuff.

And so I said to myself, do I really, really want to do this? And of course, I looked at LA, and I realized that 78.6 percent of the children here that you serve every day are disadvantaged at or below the federal poverty line. And I made a commitment to my family and to everyone else that the latter part of my life I was going to help at-risk children. So I decided to come to LA.

When I got here, I said, Oh, my God. We had 1381; we had, you know, we had closed sessions with the board; we had demonstrations with red shirts. We had -- we had BTS. We need to take the "T" out of that, by the way.

And I said, you know, I started to look back at that airplane and go back to my chair. But I made a commitment to be here, and I said, man, I tell you, what am I going to do? What am I going to do to change this system -- to help you change this system because, you know what, the 21st century demand says there's no such thing as a (inaudible) leader coming over the hill to save the day. That's over. That doesn't happen anymore.

So if you're looking to me to come over and save the day, forget it; that's not happening. We have to have guided principles. We have to have collaboration. We have to have partnership. We have to have a lot of things before this is going to change.

But what I'm going to talk about today is not a bunch of numbers. I'm going to give you some numbers because we have to describe a sense – we have to really create a sense of urgency, and we'll talk about that.

But what I want to talk about today is a cultural revolution at LA Unified. What I'm going to talk about today is the fact that it's going to take courage to do what we need to do in order to make this a world class education system.

In LA one of the reasons we came up with guided principle No. 1 about research and data and you're gonna get a full dose of this over the next year. And that is because we want to take the emotion and anecdotalness out of our decision making.

We want to take politics out of our decision making.

You know, politics in LA is not that --

So we're going to be research and data driven. We're going to let -- as I always say -- the numbers will set you free. And we're going to talk about that. The next guided principle is I don't care how good we are as individuals, we can only be as good as you are in terms of your knowledge, skills, and ability.

This organization is going -- we're going to create a world class leadership and management training system for you. Every person in this district, 77,000 of full-time and another 20,000 part-time workers are going to get the best leadership and management training that we can provide.

Because you're going to need it. You're going to need it because you're going to need those tools in order to transform this district. I was on TV last night with Tanya talking about this organization. Bus driver, bus driver Tanya is changing lives at LA Unified School District. Why?

Because she cares. I want to make sure that she continues to be empowered. Because we are all a part of the same team. Guided principle No. 3 is we cannot continue
to operate in a 20th century mode.


This young lady right here, Adrian? Abigail. I'm sorry. Abigail. Abigail, do you know what Google is? She's shaking her head. I guarantee you in the 21st century, Abigail can out Google anyone in this room. Okay.

The 21st century demands that we change a lot of our system. Right now we operate in silos.

Okay. We operate in silos. Several of you have solved problems on this side of the room that several of you on this side of the room know nothing about.

We're going to break those silos. We're going to cut and pop those silos. I'm pushing more resources down to the local district sups, and I'm gonna be coming to see you, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute about my visits to see you.

Number 4, parents and community. Education in LA or any school district is a shared
responsibility. Parents are a key component today.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Our lowest performing schools -- one of our lowest performing schools, 73 percent of the parents are non high school graduates.

Many of our schools have 50, 40, 60 percent of the parents are non high school graduates. Thank God for Allen and Vince out there because we have one of the best adult education programs in the country.

A lot of people are focused on the fact that we have 708,000 students in our school system, but they forget that we also have -- thanks to Jack O'Connell and many others -- we actually educate and train 400,000 adults every year in this school system.

So I said this, here's the analogy: If we really want to have high performing students, then we have got to help some of these parents. Okay. We have got to help these parents. You know, it's an old airline analogy. Okay.

When that oxygen mask comes down and you've lost pressure and you're sitting next to your child, who do you put that oxygen mask on first? Yourself.

Empower yourself, empower your child. So we want to create parent empowerment
programs and parent engagement programs. The reason we're going to create parent engagement programs is we serve the parents, a lot of these parents, especially the non-educated parents, are intimidate by your front office. They're scared to come see you.

And we're going to find out why. In many cases we already know why. It's because sometimes we don't have very friendly people in some of our front offices. No offense. Because some of the parents -- not -- you gotta work this both ways -- some of the parents are OGs. What's that? Original gangsters.

And so they're bringing their experience into your front office. Okay. So I'm not laying this on the front office only. I'm just telling it like it is. But what we're going to do, we've already created an office of parent and civic engagement. And we're now going to the chamber of commerce, and we're going to talk to -- how many of ya'll shop at Nordstroms? Okay.

Mike, you shop at Nordstroms? I'm not trying to give them a plug, but how is the customer service at Nordstroms? How is the customer service at the Ritz? Okay. My point is, do you think that everybody that walks into that door is friendly to
those people. No. I have seen some people in the Ritz and Nordstroms be kind of very unkind to the customer service person behind the desk. And that person is
just as calm and just as peaceful and will work --and they will work their way through it.

So we're going to create a directive of first impressions in those schools to help them manage that.

But more importantly to help those parents come -- to learn how to engage the system. We're going to have to train them how to engage the system because if they're empowered, their children will be empowered. The other half of that piece is the
community itself.

Now, I took physics a lot when I was growing up. It's called a vacuum theory, and we're
experiencing that right now. I'm getting a little bit ahead here, but I got to hone in right now. We're getting a lot of community pressure right now to come inside. Okay. To come inside. We need to be able to manage that. And one of the reasons that we have this pressure to come inside is because -- and I'll talk a little bit more about this later -- is because we have this vacuum inside of the system.

We have some low performing schools, and we know that the system is trying to come in. So we're going to try to manage that a little bit better, and I'm going to tell you how I'm going to manage that in a few minutes.

Now, the last guided principal is safety. I was at a community coalition meeting. I don't know if y'all heard about that, but that was a very interesting meeting with parents. They were frustrated. But the main thing that was on their minds was the safety of their children. You know, the middle class has abandoned this school district.

And one of the reasons it has abandoned this school district is because of safety.

So safety is going to be of paramount importance, and we've come up with several programs for you. One of which is we're partnering right now -- this is guided principle No. 4 -- with the boys and girls club and YMCA. We're actually gonna bring some of them on campus to give our children alternatives to the streets. We've already signed
one agreement with the YMCA, and we're going to do more than that.

Now, how are we going to do this? We're going to teach you how to change. Remember what I said, this is a cultural revolution. I am going to equip you with what you need to change. And I'm going to tell you why we've got to change. Because we have, unfortunately, some of the lowest numbers in the state of California. We have 60 schools, 60 schools at 600 API or less, affecting 87,000 students.

We have only six percent in terms of proficiency with some of our special-ed children, nine percent in some cases. We have only 50 percent of our English language learners can get reclassified between K and five. CAHSEE pass rate for our English language learners is 66 percent; well below state average, well below our average.

And of the 500 and some thousand students that we test in language arts, 190,000 are below basic and far below basic, 40 percent. Of the 491,000 that we test in math, 222,000 are far below basic and below basic, over 40 percent.

The real tragedy in all of that is some of that is based on the fact that we hold low
expectations for brown and black children. I'm going to say it again: Because we hold low expectations for brown and black children. Jack O'Connell, God bless you for raising that issue because it is a pernicious issue and has been persistent for decades.

Persistent for decades.

So when I was growing up in Florida, we had a physics teacher by the name of Freeman Connolly. Freeman Connolly believed that black children could learn physics. So Freeman Connolly had high expectations. This student of Freeman Connolly aced physics twice in college, but I wasn't -- I wasn't the baddest student he had.
Freeman Connolly had another student by the name of Sylvester Gates that took the national high school physics exam and made 93. Now, you have to understand where I came from. I came out of a high school in the segregated south, Jones High School
where we had to share books, and nobody knew who the hell we were.

And then what happened was MIT got word that Gates made 93, there's no way a poor black boy out of the south could make 93 on the national physics exam, sent two professors down there. We want to see if they're lying. So they retested him. He made 95. Dr. Sylvester Gates now holds the chair at the University of Maryland. You have your own story here. I'm not going to get too deep into the politics of this story, but you have your own story here.

Jaime Escalante at Garfield High School. 400 -- he went from 12, 13, 20, 100, 200, 300, 400 --400 -- over 400 students taking (inaudible) and got through high school. What do we do to him? What did we do to him? We killed him. We threw him out.

Some people said, well, he was a savant. What the hell is that?

I don't know what it was. All I know is if he was a little difficult to get along with, I don't know, (inaudible), et cetera. I don't know what happened there. All I know is that we have not recovered from that at Garfield. I know that. And I know one thing, in this culture we kill our savants.

We have to stop that. That is a part of the cultural revolution that is going to happen today.

We will not kill our savants. We will model them and benchmark with them and replicate what they're doing.

Now, I may have touched a nerve with Escalante because I know there's a lot of history
there, but that's not the point because that is --results now. He talked about that. He talked bout -- how many of you principals right now if I asked you right now because you're gonna get this question right -- who are your best teachers and how o you know that?

Is it the one who comes up to you and smoozes you, tells you how good you look every day.Or is it the one who gives you hell, but when you look at their test scores, they are moving through the achievement better than anybody in your school.

How many of you know that? How many of you know that? Guess who knows that? I do. I do.

I've had the numbers run. So when I come to talk to you, I'm going to know something about your school under guided principal No. 1. Now, how do you get there? How do we get there? There are eight principles of change that you're going to have to understand, and you will be taught these eight principles.

We're going to create for you an executive leadership development course that each and every one of you will go through. We're going to show you how to change. And the first thing you have to do is create a sense of urgency.

Look at your data. Look at the number of 9th graders going to 10th grade. If it's not as good as Jan Freeman at Polytech, where she's taking 90 percent of her 9th graders going to 10th grade, then you're not up to standard. Okay.

If you're not like Principal Mark and Principal Harlow and setting goals in your schools,
then you have a problem. I can go to Conroy Elementary right now, ask a first grader, what's the goal, she'll tell me 823 or higher. She don't know what the hell that is. She has no clue, but I know one thing, they have translated it into something in that classroom.


Now, I know that you all -- I talk to about 20 principals, three from each district, about 24
principals about every two or three months. And we have had some really powerful conversations. You know what to do. You know what the answer is. Part of your problem is you have to build teams in your faculties.

When I ask how did it come out on your vote for block schedule, got shot down again,
Mr. Superintendent, got shot down again. What happened? Change principle No. 2, will
help. How to build teams, how to take a faculty and move that faculty to where you want it to go.

Southgate High School, Mary Johnson, her principal at Southgate took the faculty and the parents on a retreat, and they talked about the block scheduling.

They were able to move that team to something that's going to work for them. Perhaps that's something that you need to consider. I guarantee you within the context of your executive leadership development, you're going to see that.

Create a vision. When you come into your school, you have to have a vision. You have to have something that everybody can relate to. Whether it's five guided principles, whether it's 823 or higher, whatever that is. If you're at Hollywood school at
(inaudible), it's 350. I want you in my 350 school -- club. What is 350? Okay.

Then you have to communicate that vision. You have to be able to stand up and communicate that vision to your team. You're going to have some rabble rousers in your team. That's natural. In 36 years I had serious rabble rousers, but I was able to

communicate with them and work with them and we're going to teach you how to do that.

But here's the real key: You have to find that core group of people inside of your faculty who will follow you over the hill and you have to empower them. You have to empower them. Now, they need to be good. They can't be principal's pets. They've got to be people who have the ability. So you have to empower them, and then you watch that critical mass roll within your school.

Then talk is cheap. You need to have some quick wins. Whether there's a bump in SAT scores, or whether there's an increase of 9th graders going to 10th grade, whether there's an increase in the number of students who are now taking AP courses, whatever that is, you've got to have it. You have to work your way through that. And it's going to be hard.

It's going to be difficult. You're going to have some tough days. But you can't give up. You can't give up.

I've been told, Brewer, the last superintendent lasted about 3.1 years. I said, that's interesting. I said, I've got to create a culture of change. If you've read Jim Collins' book,

Good To Great, he talks about the level five leader. I'm working my way towards that.

As a level five leader, that means that you could leave tomorrow -- if you have created that critical mass of people, then you will have a culture of change because you have created a culture for the pursuit of excellence. And we're going to help you.

Now, here comes the tough part. What I have found in this district is that we do not have any accountability. I will come see you. The local district superintendents are going to come and see you. The directors are going to come and see you.

And when we come see you, we're going to have a score card. You're going to develop -- you're going to help us develop the score card from all of the data. That data book is probably going to be fairly thick.

We're going to look at all of your data and work with you. We're going to find out whether or not you need some moral support from the local district sup; whether you need moral support from central; whether we need to move you out to look at a
different program somewhere else and have it resolved. We're going to do that. And at the end of this year, we've already worked this out with Michael

Sullivan and Alla, you will have a different evaluation form.

And we're going to build that evaluation form based on the input from you over the next year.


I'm going to be accountable to the local district sups who will be accountable to the directors who will be accountable to you. And we're going to set targets and goals based on that score card, based on that evaluation.

The cultural revolution that is going to occur in LAUSD is the following sentence: Failure will no longer be an option in LAUSD.

I was just looking at some data, like I told you, I've got the data, we've got the data. We're looking at the data on one of the schools and we almost fell out of our chairs. There are great teachers in this system who are working their butts off who are willing to go to hell and back.

You know, whenever I talk about people that had the greatest influence on me, I don't talk about people in the Navy. I talk about my teachers. And that's why I say you've got to create that critical mass of great teachers in your system, but you also have to work on those who are not quite there.

We saw some the other day that are not quite there. We saw teachers flunking 73, 74 percent of their students. They are not there. We have to work with them.

We have teachers on the other hand who are staying until eight, nine o'clock at night working with their students. That's your critical mass.

Those are the teachers who believe that failure is not an option because that reminds me of my teachers when I was growing up.

If I submitted a paper and it was a bad paper, I got it back. And she said, do it again.

And if it came back inadequate a second time, do it again. And if it came back a third time, I'm calling your mama.

So we are going to create a culture inside the LAUSD and I talked to the 24 principals about this. I said, we're going to create a culture at LAUSD where you will do it until you get it right.

Do it until you get it right. And I will give you a homework assignment.

Here's your homework assignment. In my discussions with those principals we said, what about establishing a floor for an F. What about saying F equals 60 or F equals 50. F is still 50 or 60, it's still an F. And saying to those students, you work until you get it right because a couple of principals told me this. I like that idea because it does two
things.

First of all, it's going to force our teachers to work harder on their instruction; to

figure out ways to get it right to that student. The second part of it is it gives that child -- and we've all been there -- who all of a sudden halfway through the semester who was at a zero average, who has an epiphany and decides that he or she wants to now do all of the make-up work -- because you got to do it all -- do all the make-up work and then come forward.

That's your homework assignment. I want you all to think through that. Think through that. Because I'm going to tell you something, when we start to change this system, when we start doing things like F equals 50 or F equals 60 or when we start saying, wait a minute, these schools are no longer gonna look like --

Those 60 schools that I'm talking about right there, they're no longer going to look like
that next year. They're going to be fundamentally changed, and I've been assured by this board that we will have the courage to stand in front of anybody that gets in our way about changing those schools and doing what you said you want to do.

Because we're going to do what you said is right. Because you have told me what works. We already know what works in this district. There's nothing to reinvent here. All we have to do is have the moral honor and the fortitude to do it.

And that's why I am going to stand up here as your superintendent and your board is going to stand behind you and local district sups are going to stand behind you when you say, superintendent, this is the right thing to do with this school and sir, I need your backing. That's what's going to change in LA Unified School District.

And let me tell you, it's going to be hard. It's going to be extremely hard. It's going to be

tough. There are going to be days when you will say, why in the world should I even get out of bed. But I want you to think way back to the -- one of the greatest speeches ever given was given by Winston Churchill. And it has all kinds of versus in it, so I'm going to give you the Brewer version. In their darkest hour in Britain, bombs falling, B2 rockets falling, Churchill told British troops, "Never give up."

When you feel like you want to give up, you look at a young child like Abigail to give yourself inspiration. You go out and look at some of these young people who are struggling every day, walking through gang gauntlets to get to school to get an
education, and then you say to yourself, I will never give up.

When I have a bad day, I go visit a school. Because I have to be reminded viscerally what I'm all about, why I left my comfort zone to come here. So when you feel that pain and know you're going to feel that pain, I want you to remember Churchill. Never
give up. Because if you give up, this country as we know it will not exist.

So never, never give up.

[end]

More on Deming's 14 Points that ZD says Brewer's speech relates to (Scroll through entire blog for related articles)

zumadogg@gmail.com
Back to Mayor Sam's Blog