“Carve deeper next time.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, that’s precisely what Los Angeles Unified School District teacher said to his student standing before class to explain why he’d been absent, and why he had scars on his wrists. “Carve deeper next time.”
What do you think happened to that teacher?
You guessed it: He wasn’t fired. He wasn’t prosecuted. He wasn’t even disciplined. The LAUSD commission charged with firing teachers concluded that Polanco was trying “to defuse the awkward situation.” He was sent to teach at East Valley High School in North Hollywood. And that’s what he’s doing today. Teaching our kids. Nobody seems to know what happened to the child.
That’s why we need a revolution at the LAUSD.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the LAUSD — which has about 30,000 tenured teachers — fired 21 last year. Yes, you heard right: twenty-one out of thirty thousand! The Times ran a front-page investigation about the difficulty – almost the impossibility – of firing teachers who should not be in the classroom. Read the Times story here.
Last week, Marlene Canter introduced a motion to make it easier to fire bad teachers. After much debate, the LAUSD school board voted to form a task force to study the issue. As Parents Union member Mary Najera said to a Senator advocating for the task force: “With all due respect to the Senator, this should have been done yesterday.”
A teacher mocks a student who attempt suicide, and the LAUSD is forming task forces. Half our students aren’t graduating, 90 percent aren’t going to college: maybe they’ll form another task force.
The parents of Los Angeles are done making polite statements at school board meetings. We are done with bake sales. We are done playing by their rules.
It’s time for a Revolution. A Parent Revolution.
With one simple promise, we are organizing parents everywhere into a parents union in Los Angeles: if you are not satisfied with your child’s education, organize half the parents at your school to be a part of the Parent Revolution, and the Parents Union—working with Green Dot Public Schools, Alliance, Bright Star and other high quality charter school operators—will guarantee you a great school for your child.
The same kind of school where I’d send my own daughter, Fiona.
Parents all over Los Angeles, Eastside, Southside, Westside, the Valley, are joining the Revolution. Our membership has doubled in the last two months. And it will keep doubling because parents are fed up. We are fed up with failure; we are fed up with policies designed by grown-ups, for grown-ups about grown-up; and we are fed up with task forces.
From this day forward, the parents of Los Angeles will set the agenda: Every decision will be about kids. Our kids. Not as a slogan. Not as a tool. Not as a backdrop for a press conference. But for real. Every decision must be filtered through the lens of whether we’d make that same decision if it affected our own child.
The parents of Los Angeles are no longer asking for power. We are taking it. Because if we stand up, stand together and speak with one voice, parents have the moral authority – as well as the legal and political power – to take back our schools and give our kids the future they deserve.
And, what starts in Los Angeles could spread around the state. Learn more or sign up for the Parent’s Union at www.parentrevolution.org.