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)

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