Los Angeles
Times
Takeover Plan Sparks New Debate
After a charter operator makes a bid for control of Jefferson
High, the district and the union outline their own ideas for the troubled
school.
By Jean Merl
Times Staff Writer
August 12, 2005
Debate over how to fix struggling Jefferson High School escalated Thursday
after a charter operator's call for a takeover of the South Los Angeles school
sparked organizing by teachers and anxious district officials.
Drawing parents, students and community leaders to the first news conference of
the day, charter schools operator Steve Barr and the Small Schools Alliance he
founded launched a campaign to build support for their plans to restructure the
3,000-student school.
They want to divide Jefferson into as many as
eight autonomous charter campuses, each with a rigorous curriculum, involved
parents and higher-paid teachers.
But district officials, at an impromptu news conference on the campus'
tree-shaded front lawn, touted their own plans for transforming Jefferson and the district's other struggling high
schools.
And inside the school's historic Streamline Moderne
main building, union leaders lobbied Jefferson's
teachers to oppose Barr's charter plan.
In many ways, the debate over Jefferson
reflects the broader questions of how to improve public schools, how they
should be run and even who should run them.
Los Angeles JeffersonHigh School students jointogether in prayer vigil duringheight of rioting at that troubled campus during the spring of 2005 with similar incidents happening at various high schools in Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area pointing out serious issues that need to be resolved before eny real semblance of education can occur as schools became armed camps.
Jefferson has struggled for years with low
test scores and graduation rates. Its troubles burst into public a few months
ago, when at least three melees broke out between groups of black and Latino
students.
Barr, whose Green Dot Public Schools operates five small charter high schools
in neighborhoods similar to Jefferson's, believes parents and community leaders
will support revamping the school. "We'll sign up as many families as
there are kids at
Jefferson," Barr said.
Charters are independently operated public schools that are allowed greater
flexibility in exchange for a pledge to improve student achievement.
They are popular with some parents, but critics say they drain money and good
teachers from traditionally run schools and cannot offer solutions for all
students.
District officials said they have made progress at
Jefferson
and have more improvements in the pipeline, which they want to work on with
teachers and parents. Starting last month, students began wearing uniforms —
green polo shirts — and teachers say that has improved decorum. The school's
new principal, Juan
Flecha, said adding a second
lunch period has helped ease the crowding and tensions that led to the first
melee, which began at lunchtime.
Additionally, the district has begun dividing Jefferson and several
other of its large high school campuses into what it calls
"small learning communities": semi-self-contained academies aimed at
making school more personal and relevant to students.
Jefferson
has six such academies and by next school year expects to have 450 students
grouped with 16 teachers in each,
Flecha said.
"We have lots of work to do,"
Flecha acknowledged.
"It's a difficult transition."
District officials said they would be interested in having Barr's organization
operate one or more charters at
Jefferson but
were cool to the idea of turning over the whole school to a charter operator.
A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, a vociferous critic of
charter schools, urged
Jefferson teachers not
to sign Barr's petitions. And he told reporters after the union's lunchtime
faculty meetings that several teachers are starting their own petition drive to
oppose Barr's proposal.
"The really sad thing," Duffy said, "is [Barr] coming into a
school that looks like it's finally beginning to fix some of its
problems."
But Barr said Thursday at his press conference, at a church across the street from
the school, that, although he is disappointed with the district's reaction, he
still hopes to "work collaboratively" on a solution for the school.
He did not repeat his earlier statement that he would seek a charter from the
state Board of Education if the
Los Angeles
school board denies his charter conversion plan for
Jefferson.
Thursday's Small Schools Alliance rally also urged support for a bill by state
Sen. Gloria Romero (D-
Los Angeles) that would
give the
Los Angeles
mayor control over the school district, largely through replacing elected board
members with mayoral appointees.
By linking the controversial issues of
Jefferson
and mayoral control of the school district, some said, Barr is taking a
political gamble.
Barr said, however, that he believes having the mayor in charge would provide
an important guarantee that the district would follow through on its reform
promises. "It's an insurance policy," he said.