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Thursday, Sep 02,2010




   

Los Angeles Schools Open Schools to Competition – Part One

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Does ‘free market’ work in education The Los Angeles Unified School District is testing the idea that competition among a group of people for running schools will yield better ones


By : Patricia Hawke    9 or more times read
Submitted 2010-02-06 12:38:36

Does ‘free market’ work in education? The Los Angeles Unified School District is testing the idea that competition among a group of people for running schools will yield better ones. It s a radically different approach than the traditional civil service model and probably the boldest experiment taking place in public education in America. So, is it working?

In a contest to run public schools, lots of teams will show up. Result: it depends. The public school choice resolution passed by the school board last summer, created two different contests. The first was for the operation of 18 newly constructed schools, built with bonds approved by voters several years ago. One would think that occupying a sparkling new school would be incentive enough to bring forward great numbers of charter school and other potential providers.

Is there competition? Not as much as one might think. For profit providers that operate multiple charters across the country are forbidden by law from applying. Very few management companies not already operating schools in the area jumped into the game. The out of area charter provider to submit a proposal was Aspire, which runs schools in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay area..


The Sansei Foundation, a non profit arm of a school consulting firm in Chicago that has ties to Paul Vallas, that city s peripatetic former superintendent who now heads schools in New Orleans, filed an intent to participate for all the schools, but was a dropout. The American Charter Schools Foundation that operates charters in Arizona also failed to submit any proposals.

In most new school competitions, existing charter operators squared off against proposals from teams of administrators and teachers from LAUSD. The Julie Korenstein Elementary school in the San Fernando Valley has five competitors, for example, as does a new elementary school in South LA Four competitors vie to run the new Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy in South LA. There, the Inner City Education Foundation, which operates 10 schools in South Los Angeles, and sees its mission as drastically increasing the number of college graduates from the area, is competing with a District team and two other charters.

KIPP, whose charters have garnered media attention for their success among African American students, did not submit a proposal. Green Dot submitted only one proposal. It is in competition with the Alliance for College Ready Schools and others for one of the components of the newly constructed Esteban Torres high schools on the Eastside.

In other Los Angeles Public Schools, a second contest involves plans to run one of the 12 chronically underperforming schools, dubbed Focus Schools by LAUSD. These campuses have failed to meet their federal performance targets for more than three years, have proficiency rates of less than 21 percent in either math or English, and had no growth in state s Academic Performance Index last year. The chosen high schools also had greater than 10 percent dropout rates. The challenge of running these schools offers only an invitation to run some of the toughest schools in America. As one might expect, not much interest from competitors.

Proposals to run Burbank Middle, Gardena High, Maywood High, and San Pedro High were quite innovative in prospected approaches to tackling lagging achievement. The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, begun by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, was the most vigorous competitor. It submitted proposals for three Focus schools including Jefferson High School on the near Southside.

Competition is fierce for the opportunity to Hillcrest Elementary School where the Inner City Education Foundation, is competing with the existing school and another charter, Be the Change in Education Foundation. That proposal, co sponsored by 100 Black Men of Los Angeles, anticipates separating students by gender, a practice used in the 100 Black Men charter school in New York.

Another potentially interesting contest may develop on the Eastside, where the Montebello Unified School District, which operates the schools just outside of LAUSD, has submitted a proposal to operate Garfield High School.
Author Resource:- Patricia Hawke is a researcher and writing for education topics including public schools K-12. For more information please visit http://www.schoolsk-12.com/California/Los-Angeles/index.html
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