Sunday, April 22, 2012

LAUSD weighs lowering (Already Low) graduate requirements


As if the standards were not low enough already!

Students are not proficient in the courses that they take --  230 credits is required to graduate in LAUSD. In Centinela Valley, the number has dropped to 220 – in Compton, 200.

Yet the scholastic achievement has gotten worse, not better. Lowering standards has not improved the education of our youth. Where have these administrators gotten these outrageous and unsupportable notions from? This is insanity, pure and simple.
The solution is to change a system which accommodates failure and folly in such large numbers. How many of us have forgotten the site of Mayor Villaraigosa’s first victory speech? At Jefferson High School, student riots broke out – and the mayor castigated the teachers for letting deviant behavior slip by. After an attempt to take over the school board, Villaraigosa was left with taking charge of a handful of troubled schools. The reform idea was headed in the right direction – with more diligent leadership. More choice would have been better – but at least the mayor was willing to take on the strong, vocal, and powerful teachers’ union UTLA.
What has the world come to? Wag the dog has now become Wag the House. Students are taking over in our schools, and they are suffering for it, as are the parents, the school staff, and the state. Students passing with a D – there goes motivation to do anything, This is nonsense at its worse. We need leadership in our schools that will parent, not pander, to our students. This is insanity!

More parenting, less pandering: this is what the taxpayers and students need to see in our public schools. Higher standards and more people standing up for the best interests of the student: these are the reforms which need to be enacted in our schools.

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