1 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES 2 ...boe.lausd.net/sites/default/files/04-29-14CIAMeetingTranscript.pdfApr 29, 2014 · UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT. 2 1 representative standing

1

1 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES

2 CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE

3 TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014

4

5

6 MR. CRAIN: Ms. Ratliff, we're ready.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Great.

8 All right. We're going to go ahead and get --

9 MR. CRAIN: It's (unintelligible) p.m.

10 MS. RATLIFF: -- get started, and I want to

11 welcome everybody to the Curriculum, Instruction &

12 Assessment Committee. We're going to go -- we are

13 expecting a few more committee members to show up, but

14 I'm just going to start making this push for starting

15 on time, so we are starting on time, but they will

16 probably show up because I've just seen them, and they

17 said they were coming.

18 We'll go ahead and real briefly go around,

19 just introduce yourself and who you're representing

20 please.

21 Will Scott -- start with you please, Scott.

22 MR. FOLSOM: My name is Scott Folsom, and I'm

23 here today representing both 10th and 31st Districts'

24 P.T.A.

25 DR. MULLER: Brian Muller. I'm a UTLA

CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT COMMITTIEE

UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

2

1 representative standing in for secondary V.P.

2 Greg Silkowitz.

3 MR. SUNDEEN: Tim Sundeen. I'm a parent rep.

4 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. I'm Monica Ratliff. I'm

5 the chairperson of the committee.

6 MR. LOPEZ: I'm Luis Lopez, principal at

7 Wilson High School representing AALA.

8 MS. NGUYEN: Quynh Nguyen from Bond Oversite

9 Committee and LAUSD parent.

10 MS. RATLIFF: And we have a couple of our

11 Board members and our district representatives here, so

12 we'll go ahead and start over here.

13 DR. ROUSSEAU: Sylvia Rousseau.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, you have to push the little

15 button.

16 DR. ROUSSEAU: Sylvia Rousseau, liaison to the

17 Board for District 1.

18 MS. RATLIFF: And we'll go to the back.

19 Juan, if you could push the button.

20 MR. RAMIREZ: Juan Ramirez, UTLA Elementary

21 Vice President.

22 MS. PAPPAS: Diane Pappas, Office of General

23 Counsel.

24 MR. KAYSER: Kenneth Kayser, Board member for

25 Board District 5.



3

1 MS. RATLIFF: Great. All right. So we're

2 going to go ahead and get started. We have a very

3 special presentation, not that they aren't all special

4 actually. Okay?

5 But I saw Dr. William Yu at another event and

6 saw his presentation, and I thought it was really

7 important to make sure that this information is spread

8 as widely as possible, and so we're going to have

9 Dr. Yu come up. He's an economist with the UCLA

10 Anderson Forecast, and he's going to be dealing with

11 agenda item No. 2, Human Capital and Public Education.

12 So come on up.

13 And if you need any help, just let us know.

14 Are you okay with using the center mikes at

15 the little stand?

16 DR. YU: Sure. (Inaudible.)

17 MS. RATLIFF: Do you have a clicker, Dr. Yu?

18 DR. YU: Yeah.

19 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. All right.

20 DR. YU: Thank you so much for inviting me.

21 My name is William Yu. So today I'm very pleased to

22 talk about this topic, City Human Capital Index and

23 Public Education in Los Angeles.

24 Okay. So first of all, let me introduce to

25 you this so-called First 5 at UCLA, City Human Capital



4

1 Index, CHCI. So the goal of this index is to be a

2 parameter to major and compare the city human capital

3 level across the country and within the city over time.

4 So the way we calculate is very easy. So basically we

5 calculate the average education attainment by large for

6 a dow resident in the city in the region.

7 All right. So based on that, here I would

8 like to show the CHCI for the 30 largest cities in the

9 United States Metropolitan area. So No. 1 is

10 Washington, D.C., so the index is 160. So the

11 interpretation of this index, index is 1/10th of the

12 index number is about like an average schooling year

13 of dow resident, so it's like 16 years for

14 Washington D.C., so it's about a college degree and

15 followed by the City of Boston, San Francisco,

16 Minneapolis. And this is New York in the middle,

17 Chicago, and this is Los Angeles, Los Angeles

18 Metropolitan area including Orange County.

19 So if we just look at the Los Angeles County,

20 you will be here, 137 by large. It means Los Angeles'

21 Human Capital level is on the bottom only followed by

22 Las Vegas and Inland Empire.

23 Okay. And --

24 MS. RATLIFF: May I interrupt you, Dr. Yu?

25 DR. YU: Sure.



5

1 MS. RATLIFF: So then you're saying that

2 L.A. County -- if 160 translates to roughly 16 years of

3 education --

4 DR. YU: That's right.

5 MS. RATLIFF: -- then L.A. County, the average

6 is 14 years of education?


8 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you.

9 DR. YU: Yeah, Los Angeles Metropolitan area,

10 so including Orange County. So for Los Angeles County

11 should be just only 13.7 years. Yeah.

12 So we found out the Human Capital Index is

13 highly correlated with other economic performance

14 variable.

15 For example, let me show you this one.

16 This is the correlation between CHCI and the

17 median household income for the counties across the

18 country.

19 So in this chart, you can see the horizontal

20 axis is the CHCI, and the vertical axis is median

21 household income for L.A. County, so you can see a

22 positive correlation. It's a red line.

23 And not just correlation. Actually, we

24 economists have found -- actually, this is a causality,

25 so when we had -- if we had additional schooling year,



6

1 you know, we boost the human capital of the city, we

2 would find the individual's wage would be increased by

3 one -- by one additional schooling year will boost the

4 wage -- individual's wage by 10 percent because of the

5 higher productivity.

6 So you can see, this is Los Angeles median

7 household income, $56,000. Okay. It's just around the

8 middle in the nation. So based on this model

9 estimation, if we can improve Los Angeles' CHCI just by

10 one schooling year for the dow residents from 137 to

11 147, we will see our median household income increase

12 by $56,000 -- from $56,000 to $66,000, and for the

13 whole county, that would be $30 billion income

14 increase, so this is huge. So my point is the

15 investment in education, human capital is very, very

16 important.

17 All right. So here I would like to show you

18 the CHCI using Los Angeles based on the Zip Codes, and

19 you can see the wide disparity of the human capital

20 level from 92 to 192. It's wide. Very wide.

21 And in this chart, you can see the red color

22 represents the area with higher human capital, the

23 Zip Codes. And blue color represents the area for

24 lower human capital. The darker the color, the more

25 extreme it is.



7

1 So we can see this is basically bifurcated

2 Los Angeles in terms of human capital. Actually, I

3 also had this kind of made for whole California. You

4 can see exactly the same pattern. California -- inland

5 California has a blue color and the coastal California

6 has a red color.

7 All right. So, again, as I said, the human

8 capital level is highly related to other economic

9 performance. So here I would like to show you this.

10 This is the payroll employment change since 2005 for

11 San Francisco, so over this period, we can see the

12 payroll employment increased by 5 percent. And this is

13 the Silicon Valley. San Jose Metro increased by

14 4 percent.

15 Okay. So basically we know they -- they

16 didn't get affected by great recession too much, so we

17 still had a job growth for this high technology area.

18 And this is West Los Angeles, and you can see from the

19 left chart, that is the area represents the geographic

20 area for West Los Angeles. You can see it's a high

21 human capital area as I showed you in the previous

22 slides including the Silicon beach.

23 So over this period, the payroll employment

24 increased by 3 percent. Okay. So it's very similar to

25 this Bay Area. I would like to show you this. This is



8

1 non-West Los Angeles. So during the same period, the

2 payroll employment didn't increase. It decreased by

3 5 percent.

4 So why?

5 MS. RATLIFF: I think we have a quick

6 question.

7 DR. YU: Sure.

8 MS. RATLIFF: Do you want to ask him?

9 MR. ZIMMER: When you say "West L.A.," what do

10 you mean?

11 DR. YU: Yeah. There's the area. You can

12 see --

13 MS. RATLIFF: Is that the red area?

14 DR. YU: The green. Green area.

15 MS. RATLIFF: On the map?

16 DR. YU: Yeah, on the map.

17 MS. RATLIFF: Our map on the thing doesn't

18 have --

19 MR. ZIMMER: Yeah. Our map's not color-coded.

20 Oh, okay.

21 MS. RATLIFF: But we can get you a color copy.

22 MR. ZIMMER: That's okay.

23 So -- but -- but so you -- so -- but I just

24 want to be clear that when you say West L.A., you're

25 also going right down the beach communities down to --



9

1 DR. YU: That's right, South Bay.

2 MR. ZIMMER: -- down to Rancho Palos Verdes?

3 DR. YU: Yes.

4 MR. ZIMMER: Okay. So really the -- I mean

5 the high -- what we all know to be kind of the high

6 income areas of L.A. County?

7 DR. YU: That's right. That's right.

8 MR. ZIMMER: Okay. Thank you.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Do you want to ask a question

10 too?

11 DR. ROUSSEAU: (Inaudible.)

12 MS. RATLIFF: We have another question.

13 DR. YU: Sure.

14 DR. ROUSSEAU: I was just curious when you say

15 that one year of education converts to so many dollars

16 increase.

17 DR. YU: Yes. That's right.

18 DR. ROUSSEAU: But what are the variables?

19 What are the conditions that cause it?

20 What would have to be the conditions that

21 would cause it?

22 What is it about that one year, and what is it

23 about the conditions of employment in the city that

24 converts to that?

25 DR. YU: Okay. When we do this economic



10

1 research, we don't really specific focusing on specific

2 city, you know. We collect the whole data for whole

3 country, so --

4 DR. ROUSSEAU: So what's behind that that it

5 converts to that amount of income?

6 DR. YU: Because the increased productivity.

7 DR. ROUSSEAU: Okay. And the conditions are

8 such that it would lead to -- it's assuming it would

9 lead to employment?

10 DR. YU: Of course.

11 DR. ROUSSEAU: The conditions in that area?

12 DR. YU: Higher employment, of course. Yes.

13 Absolutely. Yeah.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Other questions before we move

15 on past this slide?

16 DR. MULLER: Yeah. Basically what -- what

17 I'm -- what I'm hearing is a lot of averages, and, as

18 you know, averages can sometimes not tell the whole

19 story.

20 DR. YU: Yes.

21 DR. MULLER: So what I'm thinking of, I think

22 what may be related to your question is that it seems

23 that certain years of education would have greater

24 impact.




11

1 DR. MULLER: So, for example, going from a

2 9th to a 10th grade education as being your final year

3 probably wouldn't be as significant as going from

4 11th to 12th when you actually obtain a high school

5 diploma and become a lot more employable. And then

6 ultimately, the year before you finish your Bachelor's

7 degree probably won't be as important as the year you

8 do finish your Bachelor's degree.


10 DR. MULLER: So ultimately what you're saying

11 is, on average, it turns out to $10,000, but there

12 are -- there are variabilities between those different

13 years in terms of the impact; is that correct?

14 DR. YU: Yeah. Actually, in my index, I

15 consider about that. We (unintelligible) college

16 (unintelligible), so I totally agree with you.

17 So for those students who earn the Bachelor's

18 degree, you know, even if it's one year higher,

19 actually their productivity in terms of wage in the

20 future will be much higher. So it's not just daily

21 10 percent. That is just average. But actually we

22 already consider about that. For those who earn the

23 Bachelor's degree, we give them a higher wage. For

24 those who earn their Master's degree, we give them an

25 even higher wage. So this is a little bit more



12

1 detailed technology, but we consider about those kind

2 of linear things of return of education, indeed. Yeah.

3 DR. MULLER: Okay. And the other question I

4 had was that the -- the -- the maps that were laid out

5 showed, it seems like, average again?

6 So the red ones are higher average, and the

7 blue ones are lower average?

8 DR. YU: For each Zip Code.

9 DR. MULLER: For each Zip Code. Okay.

10 So -- but ultimately was there any -- any

11 indication about the strength of bifurcation for each

12 those Zip Codes?

13 For example, were there some Zip Codes where

14 the average was fairly constant and some Zip Codes

15 where you had really high and really low and so that

16 there was a greater divergence which led to the same

17 average, but you had different situations?

18 DR. YU: Yeah.

19 DR. MULLER: Was there any indication or any

20 study of that?

21 DR. YU: No. We don't know that. I don't

22 know that. So basically I think the Zip Code is the

23 smallest --

24 DR. MULLER: That's the smallest unit is the

25 ZIP Code?



13

1 DR. YU: Yeah.

2 DR. MULLER: Okay. Thank you.

3 MS. RATLIFF: All right. Let's go ahead and

4 keep going. Thank you so much, Doctor.

5 DR. YU: So right now I would like to show you

6 another way to measure this City Human Capital level.

7 So here I would like to show you this -- the

8 light color bar and the orange color bar. So the light

9 color bar is the way I just showed you, you know,

10 City Human Capital Index based on census data, and the

11 and the orange dark color bar is the data based on

12 California Department of Education's data. They

13 collect -- they ask the student, "What is your parents'

14 education level," so led to this kind of data, so I

15 calculate that.

16 So for whole California, I can see is about

17 140, very similar. And for Los Angeles County, it's

18 also very similar. However, you can see it's

19 astoundingly huge difference for City of Los Angeles,

20 and the orange color is LAUSD. So I know geographical

21 a little difference between City of Los Angeles and

22 LAUSD, but still it's very astounding difference. Much

23 lower.

24 So here -- so if we look at the component of

25 this education attainment, so the blue color is for



14

1 those who earn less than high school degree, and the

2 green color is for those who had a high school degree

3 or above, and the red color bar is for those who had a

4 degree of -- for college degree or above. So this is

5 the data from census data, and this one is from

6 California Department of Education's data based on the

7 student's self-report.

8 So you can see for LAUSD, it's a huge

9 difference, so students report their parents' education

10 level. For those who had less than a high school

11 degree is much larger, and for those who had a college

12 degree is much smaller.

13 So why is that? Why is that?

14 I think you guys probably know something about

15 it, but I think, you know, No. 1 is there's a

16 geographical difference between LAUSD and City of

17 Los Angeles. No. 2 is City of Los Angeles has much

18 more students who enter the private school which is not

19 going to LAUSD. Based on my data, indeed, it is

20 13 percent who go to private school compared to

21 California is only 9 percent.

22 So, No. 3 reason, I think maybe they might

23 have some kind of unusual larger undocumented

24 immigrants starting LAUSD, the census data cannot catch

25 that. I don't know. Yeah. Just some kind of idea.



15

1 Okay. Here is the important thing I want to

2 show you.

3 So how -- how does this city- -- CHCI based on

4 this parents' education level tell us about their --

5 their children's academic performance?

6 So in this chart, the horizontal axis is

7 this -- what do you call? -- public school parents'

8 CHCI, and the vertical axis is the 2013 API score. So

9 you can see there's a positive correlation.

10 So it means what?

11 It means if you are coming -- so each star

12 represents each school district, so it means if the

13 children are coming from low school districts who has a

14 lower parents' education level, their performance will

15 be lower, vice-versa.

16 DR. MULLER: Okay.

17 DR. YU: But that is not quite good; right?

18 We know that because it means if the children

19 were born into a low income neighborhood, were born

20 into these low educated parents, their performance was

21 predicted to be lower. So it means we -- we did not

22 really achieve this so-called opportunity -- equality

23 of opportunity.

24 However, there's another thing I want to show

25 you is this. We also see some kind of dispersion. So



16

1 it means same dot. You look at the same dot. They

2 are -- so this red line represents the average

3 regression line, so this is our predicted line, and

4 it's our sloping.

5 But you see some school districts, they are

6 doing better than their predicted line. They're

7 higher, so I think that is good. I think we need to

8 find out why they are doing better. Why they can beat

9 us, you know. Why they can raise through this kind of

10 constraint of the parents' education level.

11 However, also, some schools, they're not

12 doing -- they're underperforming. They are not even

13 reach their predicted line. So here comes two

14 questions. So based on this data, you know, we think

15 California -- we're not compared to other states. Just

16 we think California -- is LAUSD underperforming or not

17 compared to other California school districts?

18 And the answer is, "No."

19 Okay. Here, let me show you because this dot

20 represents LAUSD. It's just right on this predict

21 line. It's right on it, so it's -- yeah.

22 MS. RATLIFF: So this is why I asked him to

23 come specifically related to the slide to learn more

24 about the districts that are performing above the

25 predicted line.



17

1 So now we'll take questions about this.

2 Dr. Muller?

3 DR. MULLER: Okay. So one of the things that

4 you have to be careful about is when you do a

5 regression line, that ultimately that's a statistical

6 manipulation. It's useful, but it's a statistical

7 manipulation.

8 Has your research indicated any trends or

9 reasons for why some school districts are above the

10 line and some are below the line, or is that where your

11 research stopped, and you say, "We need to explore

12 that?"

13 DR. YU: Actually, yeah.

14 Okay. So this is just two variables, you

15 know, API and parents' education level because I found

16 out -- actually, I did a lot of investigation.

17 Consider about multi-variables, and parents' education

18 level is the most important one. It's most significant

19 one; economically significant, statistically

20 significant, so that's why I show you here, but there

21 are other things.

22 So, for example, there's the income level.

23 It's the same kind of -- there -- there are several

24 other additional variables, so, of course, there are

25 variables I cannot catch, you know, in terms of



18

1 administrative quality, whatever, and those kinds, I

2 don't have it, you know.

3 In my report, in my research, I count data, I

4 think, five or six variables, but this is the most

5 important one.

6 DR. MULLER: Okay. Yeah. I get that, and I

7 appreciate that. I just want that to be part of the

8 discussion is that there -- that beyond this, these two

9 variables and their interaction, there are other

10 variables that influence it as well.

11 So, for example, you might find one of the

12 dots that's above the line --

13 DR. YU: Yes.

14 DR. MULLER: -- that it might -- there might

15 be a strong administrative program that accounts for

16 some of that growth, or there might be a higher wage in

17 that community in comparison to the income level that

18 might --

19 DR. YU: Income. Lower income.

20 DR. MULLER: -- so there's any number of

21 elements --


23 DR. MULLER: -- that may inform and sway some

24 of this, so some of these items may be things that we

25 could look at for possible replication, but there are a



19

1 lot of areas that we may not have any control over as a

2 school district.

3 Is that fair to say?

4 DR. YU: Yeah.

5 DR. MULLER: Okay. Thank you.

6 MS. RATLIFF: All right.

7 MR. KAYSER: I just wanted to know -- first of

8 all, thank you very much for being here.

9 DR. YU: Thank you.

10 MR. KAYSER: It's really interesting.

11 Does your data here include Charter schools

12 like the LAUSD?

13 DR. YU: Yes. It could. Actually, you know,

14 very good you asked that.

15 Actually, originally -- originally, you know,

16 I tried to consider about Charter schools as a

17 variable, but I find some kind of contradictory result,

18 so I didn't put it, you know. It still needs more

19 research to do that.

20 So Charter school is -- is all in there, is

21 all in there, but I cannot find is Charter school on

22 the average better -- doing better than, you know, not

23 Charter school. I cannot --

24 MR. KAYSER: You can't find that the Charter

25 schools are doing better?



20

1 DR. YU: No, I cannot because it is a lot of

2 more in-depth, you know, situation, you know, because,

3 you know, a Charter school might get the cream of the

4 crop, you know, from traditional school in Los Angeles.

5 I need to consider about that.

6 MR. KAYSER: Thank you. I need to come take

7 your class. Thank you.

8 MR. FOLSOM: So I want to thank you for this

9 research. It's very important, and I'm looking forward

10 to the rest of conversation, but at the same time, I'm

11 looking at this -- the variable that we look at in this

12 school district with the parents -- I mean we can't

13 change the educational level of our parents --

14 DR. YU: Yeah.

15 MR. FOLSOM: -- so how do we take this

16 information and drive ourselves forward to improve our

17 performance other than to educate the children better?

18 I mean I think that -- but that seems almost

19 so obvious that --

20 DR. YU: Yeah. I'm going to provide some of

21 my suggestions later on. Yeah.

22 MS. RATLIFF: A couple more, and then we're

23 going to try to move through some of the other slides.

24 So Dr. Rousseau and then Quynh.

25 DR. ROUSSEAU: So I'm sure some of this will



21

1 come up in the rest of it, but the question that

2 resonates with me right now is "now, therefore,"

3 because behind -- so that's one variable, parent

4 education, but there are many variables contributing to

5 parent education in one area versus another, so is that

6 something of what you're planning to do?

7 So, in other words, if you have a

8 concentration of parents with a certain level of

9 education, there are multiple variables that contribute

10 to that.


12 DR. ROUSSEAU: And so you're picking out one

13 thing, but underneath it are many other considerations

14 that have to be made, so you have such huge

15 concentrations of parents with a certain level of

16 education in one part of the city, so obviously that

17 leads us to things about segregation. It leads us to

18 things about why are certain people clustered in

19 certain communities and the implications for that.

20 And then also looking at -- what I don't see

21 necessarily here is this is average again of where

22 LAUSD schools are related to parent income, but what is

23 the distribution of that within a certain community?

24 DR. YU: Okay. I'm going to show you the next

25 slide. You will see. This is school district, so this



22

1 is the same idea, but it's for each individual school;

2 elementary school, middle school, high school. So we

3 got 9,000 school samples in this chart.

4 So, again, we get a same -- same message, you

5 know. We still see this kind of positive correlation

6 between parents' education and children's learning

7 outcome. And also we see again this kind of

8 dispersion, especially for lower part -- low part of

9 human capital schools. They had a huge dispersion.

10 MS. RATLIFF: Dr. Yu, I'm going to go ahead

11 and take --

12 DR. YU: Sure.

13 MS. NGUYEN: Actually, I'm going to hold my

14 question until I hear the rest of the presentation.

15 Thank you.

16 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, sure. Okay. Thanks.

17 DR. YU: So here, based on my estimation, so

18 if the parents' CHCI is larger by ten points which is

19 one school year, we predict the API will be larger by

20 20 points. So the message I want to say is that

21 parents matter. Parents matter.

22 So whatever we are doing, we should think

23 about the engagement of parents. This is one of my

24 messages here. And dispersion, you know,

25 underperforms -- underperforms. And Los Angeles County



23

1 as a whole actually is outperformed -- a little bit

2 outperformed based on my estimation.

3 So, remember, this chart only shows you one

4 variable. It's (unintelligible), but actually in my

5 research, I consider about four or five the most

6 significant one, so it's more comprehensive.

7 Yeah. So here -- so -- so this is the way I

8 want to explain. So how to improve City Human Capital

9 because we know human capital level is very important.

10 So -- so for those schools who are

11 underperforming, so they are at point A, so there's no

12 excuse. They have to -- right? -- they have to improve

13 their students' education outcome to go to point B.

14 Yeah. But for those schools, even they are at point B,

15 I think they should not be complacent, you know.

16 For example, LAUSD, we are at point B, you

17 know. We are doing -- we are doing the best we can

18 based on our demographics, but I think because as

19 you -- as you remember, I showed you the first slide,

20 Los Angeles, the human capital level is very low

21 compared to other major cities in the United States.

22 It's not comparative, you know, in the 21st century, so

23 we need to do better. We need to improve. We need to

24 outperform to see. Yeah.

25 So over time, when those kids -- students grow



24

1 up, you know, let's see if the human capital will go

2 to D, so we will improve from low human capital level

3 city to a high human capital city. If not, we will,

4 you know, downgrade to even lower, yeah, because as I

5 say, you know, City of Los Angeles, LAUSD human capital

6 level remember is 126. Actually, less. Even lower

7 than Inland Empire average. Yeah. Is even lower.

8 So -- so you asked me about how to, you

9 know -- you know, outperform, so one of the most

10 efficient ways, I think, is Early Childhood Education

11 because as we say, parents matter; right?

12 Whatever you guys are working hard, but the

13 kids go home, you know. They got a lot of influence by

14 their parents, so we say Early Childhood Education is

15 very important before they enter Kindergarten, or even,

16 you know, when they are in public school, we should try

17 to find a way to engage, you know, to even, you know,

18 educate those parents.

19 So here I want to show so why is

20 21st century very different from the 20th century in

21 terms of economy, in terms of a job, in terms of a

22 labor market?

23 So here the left picture is Industrial Age, so

24 it's early 20th century. We've got capital. We've got

25 machinery, but they need labor. So (unintelligible)



25

1 labor some kind of complimentary things to capitalism.

2 Okay. And they don't need a lot of skill -- education

3 as long as they can make good cars, assembling cars;

4 right? This is the old times.

5 But right now, we are in this so-called

6 post-Industrial Age. We use robots to replace labor,

7 to replace low-skill or middle-skill labor, so we don't

8 need those kind of low-skill labor anymore.

9 So my point is, right now, the value of

10 education is even much more important than before. In

11 the past, a high-school graduate or a high-school

12 dropout, they -- they -- they -- go to work. They can

13 find a job, easily find a job and very good decent job

14 in manufacturing factory, you know, under the

15 protection of a union, but right now they're gone.

16 They're either replaced by robots or replaced by

17 foreign, cheap labor. They're (unintelligible). They

18 don't complain.

19 So -- so the message is we have to let our

20 students know right now it's very different from their

21 parents age, the grandparents age because they might

22 think, "My parents and my grandparents, they don't have

23 education. They're still doing fine, so I might be,"

24 but the economists say it's not. It's not.

25 Yeah. And we are talking about this kind of



26

1 rising income inequality. A lot of things coming from

2 this, so if you have high skill, high human capital,

3 high education, you know how to design a robot, how to

4 control a robot, how to work with a robot. You make a

5 fortune. You are -- you are rich. You can get a high

6 paying job in Bay Area, but if you are not, it's very

7 difficult for you to get a job.

8 So here I wanted to show you my two cents, you

9 know: "What kind of skills or human capital should

10 students learn in the 21st century?"

11 So it's a basic skill. I think it's a

12 so-called cognitive skill; self-esteem, capacity of

13 focus, discipline, work ethic. I think especially for

14 those kind of at-risk children, these are very

15 important.

16 And middle-skill, I think, is analytical,

17 communication and problem-solving mathematics because

18 right now in the post-Industrial Age, you need to know

19 how to deal with different kind of situations.

20 And finally it is creativity, so you not only

21 need to learn the skill and knowledge inside the box,

22 you might need to know the way outside the box.

23 And also we -- we -- I think we need to

24 provide the students a sense of purpose, a sense of

25 opportunity, you know, in the community and give them



27

1 the motivation to learn. I think that -- that is very

2 important.

3 Okay. Conclusion. So, No. 1, it's very, very

4 important for Los Angeles to enhance its human capital

5 level by improving its public education. So given its

6 demographic, LAUSD is neither outperforming, nor

7 underperforming, but it could do better, as I said

8 before, by actively reaching out and engaging parents,

9 communities, business, seniors.

10 You know, right now we are entering kind of

11 retire and baby-boomer retire. There are a lot of

12 good, educated retirees. They are waiting to, you

13 know, give back to the community, so I think L.A.

14 should use this kind of resources without costing you

15 any penny, you know. Give them -- be kind of like a

16 mentor, you know, to help those kind of at-risk

17 children, you know. Show them their expertise, you

18 know, experience.

19 Okay. And even religious groups, you know, if

20 you reach out to them, let -- let help you to -- to,

21 you know, help those kind of low-income neighborhood.

22 I think will also not cost you any penny.

23 But -- so my point is that LAUSD could be a

24 very important, like, a hub to try to combine all the

25 resources, private, public, not for profit to better



28

1 to help our children.

2 Okay. This is another thing I want to say.

3 It's my personal opinion. We should focus affirmative

4 action on ECE and K-12 because recently -- I'm from

5 UCLA, so we are talking about this affirmative action,

6 you know, college admission, you know for those

7 minority, for those special demographics, but I would

8 say -- I need to say that is a little bit

9 irresponsible. That's lazy because we just -- it's too

10 late actually. We should help them much earlier so

11 that later on, they can -- they have this kind of skill

12 to compete fairly with other demographics, so that is

13 my take on it for that.

14 Okay. And the value of education and skill is

15 much larger, higher in the post-Industrial Age than in

16 the Industrial Age.

17 Okay. So LAUSD should help students to

18 develop the skills and human capital to compete and

19 succeed in the 21st century in this globalized highly

20 competitive world.

21 Thank you.

22 MS. RATLIFF: We're going to start in the back

23 with Quynh, and then we'll move along.

24 MS. NGUYEN: So thank you very much. This is

25 very eye opening, not in a sense that's it's terribly



29

1 surprising, but to see it on a macro level like this

2 kind of nails it home.

3 And my question is, you know, keeping in mind

4 all the factors that are mentioned -- right? -- they

5 could both be controlling factors when you're counting

6 the data, but they could also be, you know, prevailing

7 theories about best practices.

8 And so I guess my question is do you know

9 if -- do you have any plans of conducting follow-up

10 research, or do you know of any current research about

11 the prevailing theory -- possible prevailing theory

12 such as, you know, effective administrative programs or

13 segregation or, you know, my favorite theory which

14 is -- oh, and certainly wages or effective rates of

15 immigration in different communities.

16 So I guess my question is, is there a macro

17 study of which of these things, you know, most affect

18 where we stand on that graph?

19 And the second question is then, you know,

20 will -- will you continue to research sort of the best

21 practices of -- I guess ultimately, some of the things

22 can be changed, and some of these things can't; right?

23 And so are there studies that can be useful to

24 policy makers, particularly in this case, at the school

25 district level of best practices?



30

1 DR. YU: Yeah. So, for example, yeah. I try,

2 you know, because, as I say, I spent a lot of time on

3 Charter school, just Charter school alone. I spent a

4 lot of time on it, and eventually I cannot find a very

5 conclusive answer for that.

6 The thing is the data on the variable I have

7 is from Department of Education, you know, of

8 California, so they don't give me like 100 variables so

9 I can play with data, I said. The only, I think, at

10 most 20 or 30, so -- so I'm very happy to continue this

11 research in order to get a better policy suggestion

12 implication, but I don't know.

13 If you guys can give me some kind of guidance

14 about -- for example, you guys think administrative,

15 you know, things, my (unintelligible), so do you have

16 those kind of data, quantity data for each school

17 represent this kind of difference, so then -- then

18 if -- if so, I can definitely play, you know, with the

19 data and give you the result, empirical result, yeah.

20 So this -- this -- another thing, you know, I

21 want to say, you know, because this is very

22 controversial, but since you guys are -- because of the

23 data, you know, from California Department of Educa- --

24 they always had this kind of ra- -- racial, you know,

25 things, demographics. So there's a Asians. There's



31

1 African-Americans, Latinos, white.

2 So, actually, it's very convenient, so I use

3 that. I run the regression, and guess what?

4 I find some kind of result, which means after

5 controlling other variable -- okay, I found the White,

6 the Latino are okay, you know, just the -- the race,

7 but that's it. It doesn't really tell us anything

8 else, you know, after controlling this kind of income

9 level, parents' education level.

10 But Asian group, they had a positive

11 prediction, and African-American group, they had a

12 negative prediction. I don't know why. There's some

13 kind of things going on there, you know, just addition,

14 you know. I'm talking about -- you know, we are not

15 talking about this kind of very simple averaging or --

16 we all know African-American/Latino had a low score in

17 terms of API compared to Asian or White, but here my

18 regression is I control all kinds of variable. I still

19 can find this kind of additional predictor.

20 So I don't know. This is something we might

21 think about -- okay? -- because I'm Asian-American, so

22 I can say on behalf of this Asian factor, maybe that is

23 because, as I say in my presentation, the value of

24 education -- because Asian parents know the value of

25 education is very important, so they might push their



32

1 kids, you know, like a tiger mom, you know. Those kind

2 of things might increase the API, so that is my

3 explanation for that. But for African-Americans, I'm

4 not quite sure yet. Yeah.

5 MS. RATLIFF: We're going to go from Mr. Lopez

6 to Dr. Rousseau, but I have to say before we go any

7 farther, I appreciate you coming today, absolutely, and

8 I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to just

9 put it on the line. I would be concerned though that

10 you -- I doubt your ability to speak for the entire

11 Asian population, and I think that when you start

12 moving forward with this, like, I would like to say as

13 an Asian, that maybe it's this parent focus on

14 education, but I don't know what's going on with the

15 African-American population. I think that that's -- I

16 think that's not an appropriate discussion for us to

17 have.

18 DR. YU: No, no, no, I'm not saying that. I'm

19 only saying why Asian --

20 MS. RATLIFF: But we don't know why is what

21 I'm saying. We don't know why, and whether -- and we

22 could have you stand up here and like other people

23 stand up here, and we're not going to really know why.

24 There may be other variables there, so I don't want us

25 to go in that direction because I don't think it's an



33

1 appropriate direction for us to go into, and I don't

2 think it's going to help us, whereas, I think that a

3 lot of your data is very useful for us, and so I want

4 us to not get lost in a discussion that would be

5 unproductive.

6 DR. YU: Yeah.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Mr. Lopez?

8 MR. LOPEZ: So as a school site administrator,

9 one of the things that we do at the beginning of the

10 year or even before the beginning of the year is look

11 at all the variables, all the goals, all the areas of

12 need for our school and prioritize, and we look at

13 variables that affect those goals, whether they're --

14 you know, how achievable they are and so on and so

15 forth.

16 Some things we know we can have a direct

17 effect on and need to make sure we work on them. Some

18 things we just influence -- we can influence. Some

19 things we don't have control over.

20 So this idea -- and this goes back to a couple

21 of questions that were asked -- this idea of parent

22 education levels, I'm wondering if there are specific

23 strategies.

24 So what are those schools that have maybe the

25 similar parent education levels that my school have



34

1 that are being -- that are successful?

2 What are they doing to undo -- to directly

3 undo some of the negative effects of the low parent

4 levels?

5 That's what I would be interested in is what

6 are some schools doing to -- to reverse that negative

7 effect?

8 Because I would be very interested in using

9 those, say -- I happen to be at a school where the

10 parent education levels are extremely low, but -- so

11 that's not an excuse to not continue to do work, but

12 I'm interested in learning more about exactly what it

13 is that those other schools are doing.

14 DR. YU: So, for example, reasons -- you

15 probably know governor -- you know, they had this kind

16 of policy for those low-income neighborhood schools

17 they got -- they move on. I think that is the right

18 direction, you know, so -- because low-income

19 neighborhoods usually let parents -- low-educated

20 parents, so I think that is right.

21 So that's why I say affirmative action should

22 happen, you know, in the early ages, not like at

23 college-admissions level. You know, should put more

24 resources, but as an economist, I -- I need to tell you

25 guys, you know, we had budget deficit problems, serious



35

1 problems. We've got all kinds of problems, pension,

2 you know, health care, so the -- the -- the idea is

3 this. The resources is very limited, yeah, but even

4 there, I think the first priority is the public

5 education. It's the most important thing, so I

6 definitely advocate we should put more resources from,

7 for example, public safety section to public education.

8 We didn't do that. Yeah. That's something we should

9 do. Yeah.

10 But more importantly, so I think, there are a

11 lot of resources we can use without causing public

12 funds or -- I don't know the details, you know, because

13 I'm not an educator, you know. I'm just economist. I

14 don't exactly know how -- how to run a school much

15 better to beat those kind of odds.

16 DR. ROUSSEAU: So I appreciate your concern

17 for equity and for equitable opportunities for all

18 children, so I appreciate that. There are a couple of

19 things that we might introduce in your presentation

20 that might be helpful and just things that I noted.

21 The first is your definition of capital

22 because if we look at the term capital from a

23 sociological view, characteristics are attributes

24 convert to capital based on the social, political and

25 economic circumstances, so I think that's really



36

1 important.

2 So when you choose this variable, know that

3 it's a variable that's been constructed by the social,

4 economic and political context, so that's a huge thing.

5 So when you start unpacking parent human capital,

6 that's what I meant. There's so many variables under

7 that that have to be examined that you may not come up

8 with that as a single variable that's a value to you in

9 analyzing that, so that would be one suggestion that I

10 would make.

11 DR. YU: I agree. Thank you.

12 DR. ROUSSEAU: Okay. And the second is, so

13 once you choose that one variable, you're kind of

14 locked into it. So the premise -- I would question the

15 premise. You might want to look at another premise,

16 another definition of capital because I think one thing

17 schools face -- and I appreciate that you're saying

18 that --

19 DR. YU: For example, what kind of variables?

20 DR. ROUSSEAU: I'm going to say.

21 DR. YU: Yeah.

22 DR. ROUSSEAU: So one thing I think schools

23 face is that some capital -- if you go too far with

24 this, you would say the only parents who have capital

25 and positive influence on their children's education



37

1 would be parents who have a lot of education or a lot

2 of money, and I think that's a negative assumption, but

3 if you carry this analogy too far, that's what you're

4 going to come up with.

5 So I would recommend that you look at other

6 forms of capital that all parents can provide and that

7 perhaps become more admissible in the way schools

8 structure themselves. So that would be one

9 recommendation that I would make.

10 And the second is I think we have to be

11 careful when we compare performance of students on

12 certain assumptions because you also have to look at

13 how people are positioned within a society in order to

14 understand the differences in their experiences and the

15 differences in way institutions respond to them.

16 So I would suggest that there may be some

17 different responses to certain ethnic groups than

18 responses to other ethnic groups so that the schooling

19 experience is very different for them. The capital

20 they bring has differentiated value, and the school

21 experience, therefore, becomes a different experience.

22 So I think that those are things and so -- and

23 then my final point is, again, going down this line, I

24 think it's indicative and it makes us look at things,

25 and I appreciate that very much, but that we have to



38

1 look at a wider spectrum because there are many

2 variables that go into learning and that learning

3 experience varies for students based upon how their

4 viewed and how the capital they and their parents bring

5 to the learning situation.

6 So -- and institutions are structured around

7 certain capital -- certain attributes that convert to

8 capital, and institutions are not organized around

9 characteristics or attributes that they don't view as

10 capital.

11 So when we talk about their social capital, we

12 should be looking at cultural capital as well as levels

13 of education and as well as income.

14 DR. YU: I agree. Point taken.

15 MR. ZIMMER: Thank you. I -- I want to

16 associate myself completely with what Dr. Rousseau said

17 and just add a couple of things. The role of the

18 institutions identifying assets plays a very, very

19 important role in your slide on page 11, and I want to

20 underscore a little bit about our approach because your

21 first non-cognitive skill that you -- that you list is

22 self-esteem, and when we talk about assets and deficits

23 in relation to human capital, the knowledge of the

24 individuals who run the institution in the community,

25 their knowledge of the community and with the community



39

1 and their correlating ability to elevate assets within

2 the community as opposed to highlighting deficits, I

3 would predict would have a correlation to their ability

4 to foster the most -- the first non-cognitive skill

5 that you -- that you list here.

6 The second point that I wanted to highlight

7 has to do with page 5, your slide on page 5. And I

8 think that we often assume that the economic crisis had

9 an equal distribution of pain, and it seems to me that

10 your research suggests that it didn't.

11 That, in fact, in certain parts of the city,

12 the fact, while not maybe having the trajectory of gain

13 that people are used to, was not particularly negative

14 in raw income terms, whereas, in other parts of the

15 city, it was very negative. And if we started from an

16 unequal basis, meaning that -- I'm sure that if we

17 started in 2005, that -- that we would see that

18 non-West L.A. areas already had disparate income rates

19 that places where we have concentrations of both

20 service industry employees or blue "collar", as you

21 referred to them, and folks living in extreme poverty,

22 it might have been even worse.

23 So as we look to remedy the effects of the

24 fiscal crisis, certainly an equal distribution of

25 remedy shouldn't be applied where we had an unequal



40

1 distribution of pain.

2 Would you agree with that as an economist?

3 DR. YU: Yes. That's right.

4 MR. ZIMMER: Okay. And then I -- I -- I think

5 my last point is or question for you as we -- as we

6 move forward is you talked about creativity as the

7 highest skill.


9 MR. ZIMMER: Could you talk about that for --

10 for a minute?

11 As an economist, why do you list creativity

12 as the highest skill?

13 DR. YU: Okay. Great. Yeah. That's a great

14 question.

15 Because in the 21st century, as I say, you

16 know, right now we had this tremendous productivity

17 growth. We had a computer. We had robots. Basically

18 they can produce -- you know, they don't complain.

19 They don't ask for break. They don't ask for raise, so

20 they can produce a lot of things, so -- but -- but we

21 still had a lot of problems in our society, and I think

22 this creativity is the most important thing, you know,

23 most comparative for country should process and that is

24 what United States, you know, is good at.

25 MR. ZIMMER: So we would then extrapolate from



41

1 that that public schools have a role in fostering

2 creativity amongst their students.

3 DR. YU: Yeah. Sure.

4 MR. ZIMMER: The last thing I would like to

5 add in terms of -- I know that you understand this, but

6 I want to just get it out there.

7 Your -- you used the term "affirmative

8 action," but I'm going to interpret that to mean that

9 we would need to make increased investment --


11 MR. ZIMMER: -- at the early points of a

12 child's education --

13 DR. YU: Yeah.

14 MR. ZIMMER: -- and we would need to make them

15 proportional to where the need is the greatest.


17 MR. ZIMMER: And I -- you gave me another

18 tool, and I appreciate that. I would just like to say

19 that, you know, in response to your comment, I've come

20 to believe that when you have a quote, unquote, "equal

21 opportunity," and then you have unequal outcomes based

22 on that opportunity, the unequal outcomes call into

23 question the equal opportunity that you started with.


25 MR. ZIMMER: And until we have equal outcomes



42

1 from our K through 12 public system, I am in the

2 position of being very supportive of affirmative action

3 at the higher education level because the law of equal

4 opportunity proven by the unequal outcome creates a

5 situation where, at least in my opinion, we still have

6 to take affirmative actions to remedy a problem that

7 has yet to be solved.

8 So I appreciate your --


10 MS. RATLIFF: You want to say something too?

11 MR. SUNDEEN: I want to thank you for the

12 presentation as well, and -- and I appreciate the

13 comments on thinking more broadly about capital and the

14 kinds of things that parents do bring to education.

15 Having interacted and worked with these

16 parents, I certainly know from firsthand experience

17 they're very interested in their children's education,

18 and they have a lot to contribute, just often not in

19 the very narrow way that capital is defined.

20 I want to talk about testing because I'm

21 thinking about API. In this presentation, it is being

22 primarily a measure of parents, not children and that's

23 a problem because API and other high-stakes tests are

24 used to evaluate school environments and children, and

25 we see that if it's, you know, if it's a function of



43

1 parent education levels, there's very little that

2 schools can, as we said, do about parent education

3 levels, yet schools are held accountable when API

4 scores are low or when they drop.

5 So can we think about different ways that

6 students can be tested if we have to test that weeds

7 out this as a variable that is more of a measure of

8 students rather than their parents?

9 Because if we're continuing to measure

10 parents, that seems like a problem, an issue that will

11 be replicated in the future. And I also want to

12 think -- thinking about affirmative action because it's

13 not just more investment. It's also recognizing

14 achievement when it happens, and so, you know, a school

15 that comes from a very low Human Capital Index and

16 performs well is much more impressive in a sense than a

17 school that does the same, but from a very high Human

18 Capital Index.

19 So part of that is it's recognizing the

20 extraordinary achievement of those students and the

21 extraordinary work that they've done, and it's not just

22 investing more. It's also that we recognize that that

23 is somehow more of an accomplishment and, you know,

24 part of the -- part of the theory of affirmative action

25 in higher education is recognizing that students may



44

1 not have the measurables, but they have intangibles

2 that are, in a sense, substitutable for those tangible

3 measures.

4 So can we think about affirmative action in

5 that sense, not just increased investment, but somehow

6 recognizing the achievement in assets and then also

7 thinking about testing as a way to not just be

8 measuring parents?

9 DR. YU: Yeah. Thank you. I agree.

10 In terms of a better measurement of, you know,

11 regular API, I don't know, you know, because in my

12 research I also use SAT. Probably SAT is evan -- not

13 better than, you know, so -- so I don't know. You guys

14 tell me, you know, if you have a better measurement,

15 you know, because API only for California.

16 So, actually, as a researcher, I'm interested

17 in like a country-wide, you know, measurement for

18 students' learning outcome, you know, not tangible, you

19 know -- a lot of -- I will -- I will be happy to see

20 that and do -- do the analysis about that. Yeah.

21 MS. RATLIFF: (Inaudible) and then Scott so we

22 can get on to the next presentation.

23 MR. KAYSER: Thank you.

24 You mentioned the Early Childhood Education.

25 DR. YU: Yes.



45

1 MR. KAYSER: We have two programs at least

2 within the District. One of them is the School Ready

3 Language Development Program, SRLDP, and the other is

4 the Family Literacy Program, and in both of those, the

5 children are being taught to read at a very early age,

6 reading by third grade or reading by third -- three

7 years old.

8 As part of those programs, the parents are

9 given -- are required to take classes in parenting

10 through our Adult School Program, and in the case of

11 Family Literacy, the parents are also given English

12 Language Education as part of the requirement.

13 So that seems that it would do both. It would

14 raise the -- raise the learning of the child and raise

15 the learning of the parent at the same time, so that

16 would be on your -- on your charts here, it seems that

17 that would be a double move --


19 MR. KAYSER: -- rather than just --


21 MR. KAYSER: -- looking at one -- at one

22 point.

23 DR. YU: No. Yeah. We economists say -- some

24 economists say the Early Childhood Education is the

25 best, most efficient, most effective investment the



46

1 government can make. High -- huge return. Long-term

2 return.

3 MR. KAYSER: At this point, we're not seeing

4 the money being allocated there. It's something that

5 this committee, I hope, will ultimately make a

6 recommendation.

7 Thank you.


9 DR. MULLER: So regarding the policy stuff,

10 that's what I enjoy. Definitely the idea of -- of

11 keeping an eye on how API reflects -- it reflects the

12 parent education, that that's a -- a highly aligned

13 correlation. That when people looking at issues of

14 teacher evaluation, that ultimately the testing on how

15 much the parents at my school make seems like that's

16 not really a good indicator of whether I'm any good at

17 what I do.

18 Second question I have is when you talk about

19 creativity, would you find that Arts Education would be

20 a significant part of that creativity model?

21 We're getting into that later on, so that's

22 good. And then I have a question about Adult

23 Education.

24 That, ultimately, would you find that

25 decreasing Adult Education would be productive or



47

1 counterproductive in terms of the goals of the city?

2 If someone were to cut Adult Education, would

3 that be good or bad?

4 DR. YU: For your creativity things, I think

5 definitely, you know, Arts and Music, this kind of

6 thing -- because for the second part, you know,

7 cognitive skill, we talk about staying or less very

8 important, Science and Mathematics, you know, but I

9 think creativity is even more important, equally

10 important. It depends, you know. It depends on what

11 kind of level you are, but I think Arts and Music is

12 very related to this creativity, so I totally suggest,

13 you know, we should also focus on that part. Yeah.

14 DR. MULLER: And for the Adult Education

15 component, do you see Adult Education being an

16 important part of improving the human capital, or is

17 that negligible?

18 DR. YU: I think it's very important because,

19 as I say, parents' education is very important,

20 especially for those kind of low income, low educated

21 parents.

22 DR. MULLER: Okay.

23 DR. YU: So I don't know about Adult Education

24 is -- is -- is focusing on what kind of demographic or

25 what kind of special group, but if that is for



48

1 low-income parents, you know, I think it's very good.

2 DR. MULLER: Well, it seems like Adult

3 Education would be serving parents that have lower

4 educational levels so that ultimately applying Adult

5 Education universally across the District may not be

6 the best solution, but focusing the resources based on

7 where they would be most likely to help the community

8 build that capital, that that would be the way to go,

9 and increasing the offerings everywhere, but

10 specifically focusing, it would be useful.

11 DR. YU: Yeah.

12 DR. MULLER: Okay. Now, my last question more

13 broadly beyond the scope of the school board generally,

14 if -- if -- speculate for a moment.

15 If we were to increase the minimum wage to a

16 living wage, say $12 an hour, $13 an hour, something

17 like that, what would you think would be the outcome on

18 the human capital, and also just going forward in the

19 city, would that be a productive thing?

20 What would you think would be the result?

21 DR. YU: Okay. Minimum wage, yeah.

22 Personally, I think, you know, of course, you

23 know, I agree to raise the minimum wage because it

24 definitely will help those kind of low-income parents,

25 but all economists -- the -- all economists actually,



49

1 they're against raising the minimum wage because the

2 slide I showed you, robots, we had sent evidence, a lot

3 of evidence, you know, showing if you raise the minimum

4 wage too much for those kind of fast-food things, they

5 will use more robot and computer, so it will reduce the

6 low employment.

7 So this whole thing's about this kind of

8 social, you know, security waiver, you know, those

9 kinds of Welfare programs to how to support those kind

10 of forgotten, you know, employments. That's another

11 thing we need to consider about.

12 If, you know, nobody will lose -- nobody will

13 lose their jobs, I think that is great. Of course that

14 is great, but the thing is -- I don't know. I don't

15 know the answer, you know. If -- it depends on how

16 much -- how much, you know, jobs will be lost. If the

17 job will be lost, say, by 5 percent, 10 percent, maybe

18 it's okay, you know, but if it's by large -- by a

19 larger number, I think that would be a much larger -- I

20 intended --

21 MS. RATLIFF: All right. We gotta start

22 wrapping this up. Thank you very much. We're going to

23 take two more comments.

24 In the future, while I appreciate what you're

25 trying to do, and I think everybody here supports



50

1 increasing the minimum wage, I don't know that this is

2 the appropriate place to bring that discussion.

3 All right. So we're going to go Scott and

4 then Dr. Rousseau and then Ms. Jeffrey, and then we

5 really have to stop.

6 Scott, please try to make it quick.

7 MR. FOLSOM: It's not in my nature to make it

8 quick, but I will try anyway.

9 On page 8, bullet 2, you wrote "Parents

10 Matter," and I think that's the message that we take

11 away from here. I echo the thoughts of my colleagues

12 here who talk about the fact that we're using testing

13 to measure how parents are doing. That wasn't what the

14 test should be doing, and I go to that.

15 And then just to come back to, I appreciate

16 the fact that you as an economist are coming to us and

17 saying that creativity is probably the most important

18 thing. This is a -- we are a creative community. This

19 is a town known for its creativity, so I would think

20 that in Los Angeles, with its -- that this becomes even

21 more important -- even more important on your -- on the

22 pyramid you've created here. So -- and now you've

23 created it, so you get to join the club too.

24 Thank you very much for this presentation.




51


2 Dr. Rousseau?

3 DR. ROUSSEAU: Okay. So I just would suggest

4 in looking at this that you also look at the capital

5 that schools invest, that the districts or state invest

6 in schools in those communities that you described

7 because that's an important variable. The parents',

8 certainly, income is separate, but a key variable is

9 what are -- what capital does the District invest in

10 those schools as opposed to places where students --

11 are there some correlations between district investment

12 and level of income and education for students?

13 I think that's an important variable.

14 DR. YU: Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Let's

15 (unintelligible). I can considerable, yeah.

16 MS. RATLIFF: Ms. Jeffrey?

17 MS. JEFFREY: I just have a clarifying

18 question.

19 For your chart on page 11, your pyramid, is it

20 hierarchical?

21 Like -- are you -- or you just put it in any

22 order, or do you need certain things before you get to

23 creativity?

24 DR. YU: Oh, yeah. This kind of pyramid is

25 like a -- the basic one should be --



52

1 MS. JEFFREY: Foundational?

2 DR. YU: -- what's great for everybody. Yeah,

3 foundation. And the middle skill is also needed, you

4 know. But the higher one, you know, is not really easy

5 to, you know -- even some people will say, "How can you

6 teach creativity," you know. Some people will say

7 that, you know, it's more live, you know, whatever,

8 things, so I would put it on the top, you know.

9 So basically I believe everybody should reach

10 at least a basic skills level, and then it's better to

11 have the middle skill, but if they have a higher skill

12 level, that is even better.

13 MS. JEFFREY: Okay. And then I just want to

14 make a comment about the Family Literacy. We had that

15 at my school through a Toyota grant, Family Literacy

16 Toyota grant, and when we looked just at our little

17 small segment of parents who participated, the focus

18 was K1, but by the end of second grade, those students,

19 every single one of those students where the parent

20 participated for the full three years, their -- their

21 achievement was outstanding. They were high proficient

22 on the CST. Some were advanced. They all met or

23 exceeded grade level skills.

24 However, the program was designed -- the

25 parenting classes and the English classes, if you were



53

1 a native English speaker, you -- there was no place for

2 you in the Family Literacy Program the way it was

3 designed. So it is a good program, but if you're

4 talking about how to serve African-American parents, it

5 would need to be modified so that they could actually

6 participate.

7 DR. YU: Agree.

8 MS. RATLIFF: All right. So thank you so

9 much, Dr. Yu. I really appreciate it. And I was

10 looking at my calendar, so we actually -- so I heard

11 your presentation originally at the "What's next in

12 Education, Politics, Policy and Funding" that was given

13 by the L.A. Area Chamber, and I really appreciate the

14 opportunity to have you come and speak with us, and I

15 look forward to hearing more in terms of your research,

16 and I would love to do something in the future about

17 the schools that are outperforming LAUSD. That, I

18 think, would be very interesting to me.

19 So thank you so much.


21 MS. RATLIFF: All right. We are going to turn

22 to our next presentation, and we're going to go into

23 the Arts Education Update unless we have public

24 speakers specifically related to No. 2.

25 So if you are a public speaker, specifically



54

1 related to Human Capital and Public Education, we'll

2 take you.

3 Anyone? Anyone?

4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)

5 MS. RATLIFF: Related to No. 2, Human Capital

6 and Public Education.

7 Do you want to speak on --

8 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)

9 MS. RATLIFF: Well, but I take it you were not

10 jumping up and down for Human Capital and Public

11 Education, so I'm going to go on to the next one.

12 So we're going to go into our next

13 presentation, Arts Education Update with

14 Mr. Steven McCarthy who is the coordinator of our K-12

15 Arts Program here in LAUSD.

16 So welcome.

17 MR. MCCARTHY: Hello, everybody. Again, I'm

18 Steven McCarthy. I'm the K-12 Arts' Coordinator for

19 Los Angeles Unified School District. I've served as a

20 secondary coordinator. Prior to that, I've been the

21 Elementary Theater Specialist, and I was a Theater

22 teacher for many years.

23 Judy is setting up my PowerPoint for me here.

24 She's got it on the thumb drive.

25 Also in the audience, I have Jack Mitchell



55

1 from the CDE who will -- at the end of my presentation

2 will just do a short follow-up on some of the research

3 on Arts Integration that Ms. Ratliff had asked for.

4 Okay?

5 He flew all the way here from Sacramento to be

6 with us.

7 Are you ready?

8 MS. RATLIFF: While we're waiting, let's go

9 ahead -- we had some late arrivals, and so I just want

10 to make sure we introduce them, especially to help the

11 transcriber in the end.

12 So we'll go ahead and start back there.

13 Just announce who you are and what you're

14 doing here.

15 MS. CHAVEZ: (Unintelligible) Chavez, Parent

16 Representative. Thank you.

17 MS. RATLIFF: Did you say yourself?

18 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.

19 MS. RATLIFF: Did you say -- Ms. Jeffrey?

20 MS. JEFFREY: No.

21 MS. RATLIFF: You want to introduce yourself,

22 please?

23 MS. JEFFREY: Lisa Jeffrey, AALA

24 Representative.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Great. All right.



56

1 (Unintelligible.) All right.

2 And, Steve. Oh, yeah. Steve.

3 MR. ZIMMER: It would be great if they didn't

4 know me. Steve Zimmer for District 4.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So I guess if we're waiting,

6 Mr. McCarthy, why don't you go ahead and let us know a

7 little bit about your history here with LAUSD.

8 MR. MCCARTHY: Okay. As I started, I started

9 out as an English and Math teacher at San Fernando

10 Middle School, and I started in those areas because I

11 was very interested in English and Math. I took over

12 for the Theater teacher -- I was a Theater major --

13 because the Theater had fallen off a ladder and broke

14 both ankles. I had nothing to do with that really.

15 The theater job is very hard job. Okay?

16 So -- but when I became a Theater teacher, I

17 automatically taught it by teaching Math and English in

18 the classroom too, so integration was always very

19 important to me. We didn't design a set without the

20 students going and measuring the stage for me. I

21 pretended like I didn't know how tall the set was.

22 "Can we find out the perimeter?" "Can we find

23 out this," so they came with that information. So it

24 was always fun doing projects with other departments.

25 When the Biology Department was doing



57

1 photosynthesis, I had students growing plants under

2 lighting gels of different colors, so we made it very

3 relevant, and it was always fun. We created a real

4 community.

5 I guess my PowerPoint is ready here, so let's

6 begin.

7 MS. RATLIFF: So when did you move from a

8 theater to --

9 MR. MCCARTHY: Okay.

10 MS. RATLIFF: They hate dead air. That's what

11 they tell me, "No dead air."

12 So when did you move out of being a Theater

13 teacher?

14 MR. MCCARTHY: You know, I had the -- I had

15 the auditorium completely renovated out in

16 San Fernando. It was beautiful. And the last year it

17 was finally being done, there was an opportunity for me

18 to come downtown to help as a Theater expert, and I

19 really wanted to do that. I found that I could do so

20 much more for a larger group of students, and so I did

21 that.

22 But just as an aside here, on the last day

23 that I was there, they were finishing closing off the

24 stage, and we grabbed pictures and photos of everything

25 from my long career at San Fernando Middle School, we



58

1 put it in a treasure box, and we put it in the stage,

2 and we covered it up. So on the occasion of my

3 89th birthday, I invite all of you to show up there

4 with a crowbar because we're going get that time

5 capsule out of the stage.

6 MS. RATLIFF: Okay.

7 MR. MCCARTHY: We're ready?

8 Thank you.

9 Okay. Board Resolution October 9th, 2012:

10 "supporting educational equity,

11 student achievement and mastery of

12 21st century skills through Arts at

13 the Core."

14 Having a little technical problem.

15 There we go. Okay.

16 That summarizes what that measure -- what that

17 Board Resolution actually summarized. Quotes from the

18 resolution:

19 "Whereas, committed with providing

20 all students with equitable and

21 rigorous opportunities, including

22 instruction in the subjects of

23 Dance, Music, Theater and Visual

24 Arts. Whereas, rigorous sequential

25 standards-based arts education in



59

1 schools increases test scores.

2 High quality arts education and

3 integrated arts instruction

4 increases average daily attendance

5 and student enrollment. Resolved,

6 the Governing Board of the

7 Los Angeles Unified School District

8 will establish Arts Education as a

9 core subject."

10 And that was a truly happy day. We were the

11 first in the nation to have done that. I have a brief

12 statement on Arts Integration which I will talk more

13 about later.

14 "Many brain research experts agree

15 that in addition to helping develop

16 brain functions, arts woven

17 throughout education can offer

18 teachers ways to reach all types of

19 students."

20 This comes from the Getty Education Institute,

21 2006. In that resolution, the Board resolves that:

22 "Equity and Achievement as a Core

23 subject; Increased funding -- Arts

24 Education and Arts Integration;

25 Adequate Central Administrative



60

1 support in Dance, Music, Theater

2 Visual and Media Arts; Systematic

3 data collection; Oversight and

4 annual benchmarks for success;

5 Increased numbers of elementary

6 Arts teachers; Middle School

7 bridging teachers; Policy

8 guidelines for use of categorical

9 funds; Supplemental funds for

10 schools -- supplies, off-norm

11 positions, productions and arts

12 partners; Provisions for

13 recruiting, training, evaluating

14 and retaining Arts teachers."

15 That's a very healthy list, and we are working

16 diligently to chip off on this list. We've been

17 operating under the Guiding Pract- -- the following

18 Guiding Practices, No. 1 being Equity. That is a --

19 that is a word that I hear from our Board members very

20 often.

21 "Equity - to ensure student

22 learning through the equitable

23 distribution of standards-based

24 arts instruction in Dance, Music,

25 Theater and Visual Arts by highly



61

1 qualified credentialed teachers as

2 called for in the Boards Arts at

3 the Core Resolution and the Board

4 Adopted Arts Plan."

5 "Collaboration - create and implement a

6 structure of collaboration and

7 accountability between Arts

8 teachers (Dance, Music, Theater and

9 Visual Arts), generalist teachers

10 and both central and school-based

11 administration," and

12 "Autonomy - Honor school requests

13 to the extent possible given the

14 above guidelines through additional

15 school purchases, professional

16 development and support."

17 The next slide is ED Code.

18 "Since 1995, the teaching of the

19 arts has been mandatory in

20 California for grades 1 to 12.

21 Section 51210(e) mandates the

22 Visual and Performing Arts" known

23 as "VAPA" which includes Music,

24 Dance, Visual Art and Theater be

25 included in the school curriculum



62

1 for all students in grades 1 to 6.

2 Section 51220(g) mandates, that the

3 Visual and Performing Arts be

4 offered to all students in grades

5 7 through 12. Arts is a course of

6 study, and Section 51050 states,

7 'The governing board of every

8 school district shall enforce in

9 its schools the courses of study.'"

10 I want to begin with "Discrete Arts

11 Instruction." The last time we had a presentation,

12 we -- at the budget meeting, we talked about Arts

13 Integration, and it seemed to maybe overshadow the

14 importance of Discrete Arts Instruction, so let me set

15 the record straight.

16 We firmly believe that Discrete Arts

17 Instruction must be taught. If we get into Arts

18 Integration, that is supplemental. That's after.

19 Okay?

20 Again, I put there:

21 "Supporting educational equity,

22 student achievement and mastery of

23 21st century skills through Arts at

24 the Core."

25 And I think Dr. Yu really did a good opener



63

1 for me in putting creativity at the top of that pyramid

2 because I see it so often, our jobs are going to other

3 countries. We're bringing in robots. We deal with so

4 many companies such as Mattel and Boeing that come to

5 us offering to have their student -- their employees

6 work with our students in our schools because they

7 cannot find people from our country to hire when

8 they're looking for jobs.

9 So that's why the arts are so important, so we

10 have Mattel employees working with our students

11 one-on-one designing the next big toy. It's pretty

12 impressive.

13 The plan that I'm -- actually, the proposed

14 plan that I'm about to present is based on our current

15 resources that we know right now. Currently, I have

16 180 -- 168 itinerant elementary teachers. That's in

17 Dance, Choral Music, Theater and Visual Arts.

18 In addition, I have 32 itinerant elementary

19 Instrumental Music teachers. These are all

20 credentialed, all highly qualified. I have

21 four teacher advisors in my office, one in Dance,

22 Theater, Visual Arts and Music, and I have

23 518 elementary schools to serve with this number of

24 schools.

25 Four examples of what has been happening over



64

1 the last few years, and bear with me with this.

2 Central office will make an allocation based

3 on the norm numbers of two days in a school. The first

4 school selects one day of Visual Arts and one day of

5 Instrumental Music. The same five classes get Visual

6 Arts for the entire year. The grade levels are mixed

7 and selected by the former Arts Cadre Chair.

8 Her class receives services as one of the

9 five. There is no opportunity for other teachers to

10 get Visual Arts instruction for their classes.

11 Approximately 120 students are served with only one art

12 form out of that 480 students.

13 Instrumental Music is a pull-out program.

14 They have a day of Instrumental Music, so 40 students

15 approximately get Instrumental Music. Some of those

16 students will be part of the same 120 that got Visual

17 Arts.

18 It doesn't look like every student is being

19 served. We have the Arts there, but they're not all

20 being served.

21 A second example. A school selects their

22 smaller school, approximately 210 students. They get

23 one day of Art, and they select to have Instrumental

24 Music. Instrumental Music again currently services

25 about 40 students. In this particular school, 34



65

1 students in a pull-out program attend Instrumental

2 Music. So 34 students out of 210 students are actually

3 receiving Arts Instruction at this school.

4 Now, you all know I've been very honest with

5 you all the time, and so you expected to hear honesty

6 today.

7 Third school. The school selects two days of

8 Choral Music. In this case, 300 students are served.

9 They get it all year long, but only one art form.

10 Remember, ED Code that I read earlier said

11 that all four art forms must be offered to every

12 school, every student.

13 And the fourth -- this is interesting -- two

14 days of Arts. They select one day of Choral Music and

15 one day of Theater. The same students receive both

16 Choral Music and Theater because at this school, the

17 principal decides that it's better to let the

18 Kindergarten and first graders have the Arts because if

19 she gives it to the students who are in grades 2

20 through 6, it will disrupt the rest of their education.

21 120 students are receiving the Arts at that

22 school, but yet I can stand here and probably say that

23 I managed to offer Arts Education to every elementary

24 school in this district, but the reality is what I just

25 presented to you.



66

1 The Goal, and this is a proposal:

2 "To provide all students in grades

3 3 through 5/6" -- if there is a 6th

4 grade at the school -- "with

5 equitable opportunities to receive

6 Discrete Arts Instruction in Dance,

7 Music, Theater and Visual Arts."

8 That is with the current resources that I have

9 available. It would be a concept I'd like to begin

10 this year by piloting, what I would call, Creative

11 Networks, where groups of schools would work together,

12 and each network would include a Dance teacher, a

13 Choral Music teacher, a Theater teacher, a Visual Arts

14 teacher and an Arts Integration teacher. They'd be

15 assigned -- each one of those would be assigned to a

16 geographic area.

17 The students would receive equitable services

18 rotating every nine weeks, so they would have nine

19 weeks of Dance, they would have nine weeks of Choral

20 Music, nine weeks of Theater, nine weeks of Visual

21 Arts.

22 The Arts Integration teacher on the team would

23 assist all generalist teachers in planning so that they

24 could actually integrate the Arts into the school into

25 the rest of the subject area. And, again, I'm going to



67

1 get a little more into the Arts Integration in a few

2 minutes. I haven't forgotten about Instrumental Music.

3 I know some of you are concerned about that. I will

4 get to that.

5 So with that in mind, if we are able to do

6 this proposal would be during this pilot year if we did

7 this rotation. In 2015/16, we would start serving all

8 of our elementary schools in the same fashion.

9 We would have, based on the allocation, the

10 spring e-cast, we would allocate either one or two days

11 of Arts Education at the school. These figures will

12 change, of course, based on the numbers when we get to

13 that year, but the students would have nine-week

14 rotations of Dance, Choral Music, Theater and Visual

15 Arts by fully credentialed teachers using the

16 Arts Instructional Guide.

17 This brings us back to our -- go ahead.

18 MS. RATLIFF: So I have a quick question.

19 My question is, so at first when I looked at

20 the creative network slide -- right? -- that shows the

21 four boxes: Dance, nine weeks; Choral Music,

22 nine weeks; Theater, nine weeks; Visual arts,

23 nine weeks, I'm thinking -- and I see the words "all

24 students." I'm thinking that what this means is if

25 you're a third grader, you're going to get nine weeks



68

1 of Dance, then nine weeks of Choral Music, then

2 nine weeks of Visual Arts, then nine weeks of Theater

3 or some variation of that.

4 MR. MCCARTHY: That's exactly right.

5 MS. RATLIFF: So then when we turn the page,

6 and we see one to two days of Discrete Standards-Based

7 Arts Instruction, how does -- tell me how one to two

8 days works in terms of nine weeks, nine weeks, nine

9 weeks, nine weeks for every single third grade student.

10 MR. MCCARTHY: We would actually have -- it's

11 one to two days, but they'd have that the whole year.

12 So every Monday, say, Mulholland Elementary School --

13 there is no Mulholland Elementary School -- would

14 receive their Arts Instruction. They would get Dance

15 for the first nine weeks. If they were a larger

16 school, they might get Monday and Wednesday they'd have

17 Dance. In the next nine weeks, they would get Theater

18 and then Visual Arts and then Music. We would make

19 sure.

20 Of course, there would be some -- we'd have to

21 adjust. There'd be some schools that were a little

22 larger that we might have to give more than one day, a

23 day-and-a-half. We'd have to play with those numbers,

24 but we would ensure. We'd be guaranteeing that every

25 student would have it as I'm about to explain that with



69

1 those examples that I brought earlier.

2 The school that had one day of Visual Arts and

3 one day of Instrumental Music, now, under this new

4 model, they would -- all grades -- also students grades

5 3 through 5 would receive nine weeks of Dance, Choral

6 Music, Theater and Visual Arts. That would service

7 about 250 students.

8 Additionally, we have worked diligently this

9 year to repair the musical instruments that are

10 downtown, and, Mr. Kayser, I still invite you to come

11 down and see that -- the instrumental repair shop and

12 the difference from the last time you saw it. I will

13 be able to issue approximately 60 instruments to every

14 school this year, so that's an increase of 20, and so

15 we're going to have 60 students playing instruments at

16 every school.

17 We will make sure that there are 160 schools

18 that have that. So in addition to the four art forms,

19 students would still have an opportunity to take

20 Instrumental Music. We are not looking at cutting that

21 at all. We have that under control.

22 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Let me do -- let me do

23 this real quick, Dr. Muller. Let's finish these.

24 You've got Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4,

25 Instrumental Music. Let's get to the Instrumental



70

1 Music slide.


3 MS. RATLIFF: You can take your time, and then

4 we'll take questions before we move into Arts

5 Integration.

6 MR. MCCARTHY: Do you want me to just go to

7 the Instrumental Music?

8 MS. RATLIFF: It's up to you. I mean you made

9 the slides though, if you want to cover them, I'm happy

10 to --

11 MR. MCCARTHY: No. It's all right. You all

12 have copies of them, so that's fine.

13 Instrumental Music is very important, and as

14 you know this year -- and I'll address it -- we had a

15 concern because we were trying to go along with norming

16 like everyone else. Mid-year we had to move two

17 schools that have grown in population, two instrumental

18 schools. We moved Instrumental Music to that school.

19 That was not effective. We don't believe that we can

20 do that in the future, so once a school gets

21 Instrumental Music, we need to have it for the full

22 year.

23 This year we have 160 instrumental programs to

24 offer. That means I have enough teachers and enough

25 instruments to send out for 160 programs. We sent --



71

1 in order to be equitable, we sent out a form to every

2 school element- -- every elementary school, and we

3 said, "If you would like to have Instrumental Music,

4 just check this box. Please put your name of the

5 school so I know who you are, and send it back to me."

6 We received 175 back somewhere after the

7 deadline -- you have to look at that -- so we should be

8 able to accommodate everyone that met the deadline.

9 I'm hoping that we can meet everyone, so -- which tells

10 me not every school wants Instrumental Music.

11 Again, it is a pull-out program which is a

12 concern to some schools, so we should be able to

13 accommodate every school that has requested

14 Instrumental Music, but the nice thing about it this

15 year is we are not counting that as part of the

16 allocation the school gets. Because of the small

17 number of students that actually benefit from

18 Instrumental Music, it's unfair if a school is

19 allocated one day of Art to receive and to choose

20 Instrumental Music and 34 to 40 or 50 children actually

21 get the Art form. That breaks my heart.

22 Okay? So that's in addition, and I'm really

23 exciting that -- that senior management has agreed to

24 that.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Great. We're going to go ahead



72

1 and take a couple questions then.

2 Dr. Muller?

3 DR. MULLER: So because my background is

4 secondary, I didn't see in here a lot of description

5 about what was happening with the secondary arts, so

6 I'm assuming that's going to be a subsequent

7 discussion?

8 MR. MCCARTHY: Yes.

9 DR. MULLER: Okay. Thank you for that.

10 Now, when I realize that I don't know about a

11 subject area and I don't know about a grade level

12 specifically, I always go to my people and ask them,

13 "So does this ring true?"

14 And they looked at the examples, and they told

15 me that these are not really representative of what's

16 going on. They very much -- the numbers -- they were

17 looking at the numbers and said, "These numbers aren't

18 right. These numbers are too low." That ultimately

19 you wound having a lot more students being served than

20 are provided for in these examples.

21 Now, also, when you look at the, I guess it

22 would be the slide with the four squares and the

23 diamond that show the rotation, I showed that to a

24 couple of elementary people, and they said, "Well, wait

25 a minute. How is someone supposed to actually get into



73

1 and develop the skills for these areas in nine weeks?"

2 It doesn't -- they're like, "I don't know how

3 you would build a curriculum where someone would become

4 competent in Visual Arts in nine weeks of instruction."

5 And then beyond -- they said what they had

6 seen typically was that several grade levels would have

7 full years of Choral Music where they were able to

8 actually build towards a presentation. And, I'm sure,

9 your background in Theater, that's a big part of what

10 you do in the Arts is that delivery of the performance

11 at the end. It's not simply knowing how to play, but

12 being able to display for other people that you know

13 how to play.

14 And so when you have students who are gifted

15 in music and are looking to build up a portfolio to

16 apply to conservatory schools within L.A. Unified and

17 without, that ultimately I'm looking at this -- I've

18 seen this model. They say this model exists at some

19 schools, but they say this model exists at schools that

20 are under-resourced. They didn't find that this --

21 that making everybody down to this level was going to

22 promote the actual equity for individual students.

23 They said that this is not a good -- this

24 isn't the direction to go. We should go in the other

25 direction which is providing full years, and they said



74

1 also that their Dance Theater and Visual Arts tended to

2 be 12 weeks each as opposed to 9, so that would be

3 diminishing each of these by 25 percent and Choral

4 Music by 75 percent based on what the people were

5 telling me.

6 That doesn't sound like that's strengthening

7 the Arts. That sounds like it's actually providing

8 less of the Arts. Less of a robust, less of an

9 intensive, high quality instructional situation. I

10 know that's a lot of information.

11 MR. MCCARTHY: No, no, no.

12 DR. MULLER: If you could address that, I

13 would appreciate that.

14 MR. MCCARTHY: Happily. I do believe that we

15 are -- this is pruning, and this is going backwards a

16 bit, but we're looking at equity. We're looking at

17 making sure every child does get it, and this would be

18 the beginning. My anticipation, my hope would be that

19 we would build from these nine weeks to a semester to

20 then a year instruction.

21 This is not the end-all here. I don't believe

22 that our students would become proficient, but I'm

23 looking at the reality of an elementary school day and

24 how many courses need to be taught, and with our

25 interventions, et. cetera, I can't let our students not



75

1 have it, and right now we have too many students who

2 are not getting instruction.

3 MR. SUNDEEN: Well, first of all, I don't know

4 too much about the formalities of art instruction

5 except that I know my kids would like more of it in

6 elementary school, so it has not felt like a Core

7 subject to me.

8 I guess I was -- I was just kind of looking up

9 the standards because I wasn't sure what an Art

10 standard even looked like that, but, you know, just

11 for -- the Theater one, for example, it looks like

12 these standards are ones that -- that really do

13 resonate at a higher level. Right? That you start to

14 talk about seeing kids in, you know, in high school,

15 these are the kinds of things that they have.

16 So it suggests to me that the Arts curriculum

17 is something that doesn't just build up during the

18 year, but it has to resonate through levels; right?

19 That they build foundations, and it .

20 MR. MCCARTHY: Absolutely.

21 MR. SUNDEEN: -- so in that sense, I like --

22 like the broad-based approach because, you know, I want

23 my kids to be able to do an element of that every year

24 and build on what they were able to do the previous

25 year and have their skills match their development and



76

1 stuff like that. I don't want them to spend one year

2 intensively on one thing, and then another year

3 intensively on something else. It seems to me that's

4 not as productive.

5 And so, you know, if we can imagine that in

6 addition to growing through the years that they're

7 eventually able to take more time in things that really

8 interest them and actually have more time in subjects

9 as they get older, I think that would be -- that would

10 be a great development.

11 MR. MCCARTHY: And that is what has been asked

12 of me with our secondary teachers. That by the time

13 they reach middle school and senior high, they should

14 have had an opportunity to explore all four of the art

15 forms to determine what they -- they're best equipped

16 to do or what their interests are and so that when they

17 go on to middle school, they can get that knowledge.

18 And I agree with you, Dr. Muller, nine weeks

19 is not enough. I would love to see a full year of

20 every -- I mean if you were to go out and I really

21 encourage you to go out and see some of our teachers,

22 our elementary teachers especially, they're brilliant.

23 The creativity that they show and the diligence and the

24 hard work that they -- that they produce every day is

25 amazing, so, you know, it's important.



77

1 MR. ZIMMER: So I want to very, I hope

2 importantly distinguish, Steven McCarthy, your

3 leadership, your career, your advocacy and your life

4 work here that I think every one of us appreciates and

5 the board appreciates. I want to really differentiate

6 that from the message and the challenge that you have

7 to deliver to this committee.

8 MR. MCCARTHY: Uh-huh.

9 MR. ZIMMER: And I know firsthand through our

10 partnership and working relationship and through my

11 conversations with not only our elementary arts

12 teachers, but their students and their families that

13 these cuts -- now we may be pruning, but over the last

14 five years, we've cut to the core --

15 MR. MCCARTHY: Right.

16 MR. ZIMMER: -- of what we -- we have been

17 doing, and so I understand that the charge to

18 distribute less calls for a type of creativity that you

19 never wanted to implement.

20 MR. MCCARTHY: No.

21 MR. ZIMMER: Now, having said that, I do think

22 that there are a couple of things to note on a -- on a

23 couple of different levels.

24 First, if we are not going to have the

25 investment, and I'm not -- that's capital "I," capital



78

1 "F", "IF" we are not going to have the investment

2 either from this -- the administration that sits up

3 here in the Board meetings or the Board that sits up

4 here in the Board meetings -- to get to the place that

5 I think we would all agree that we need to get to, then

6 when we look at both questions of equity and delivery,

7 I think that we have to -- I mean we're really -- I

8 mean the whole purpose of us having committees is to do

9 the deep dive and to raise the questions and that's

10 what we're doing today.

11 So in terms of equity and access, do we know,

12 have we surveyed whom amongst our students have access

13 to arts instruction that is either outside of the

14 school entirely or outside of the tradition school day?

15 Certainly those who do not or cannot have that

16 access, should -- it's an open -- I would suggest it's

17 a question for us to look at in terms of directing

18 resources. And that's not easy, but when we talk about

19 equity of distribution, ensuring that those who have

20 the least access have the first access this districts

21 provides, that's -- that's one thing, I think, that we

22 should be looking at.

23 And then in terms of the -- and I'm going to

24 raise this question again as we talk about arts --

25 about arts integration, it seems that if we were able



79

1 to identify a trajectory of growth of the arts

2 instructors, the credentialed arts instructors, then

3 there would be less resistence or there would be --

4 there would be more trust in the notion that arts

5 integration is supplemental to arts instruction, and I

6 think I want to encourage you or encourage this board

7 to set that trajectory.

8 Even if we don't have the funding -- the

9 funding line in place yet, my fear here is that we will

10 lose our as aspiration, and when we lose aspirations,

11 it's the first step towards kind of -- kind of losing

12 joy. And -- and if I've learned anything in the past

13 five years, I've learned that I rarely see as much joy

14 as I do when I am in a classroom where the arts are

15 being instructed and where the arts are -- are --

16 are -- are -- where children have access and are

17 celebrating their creativity, and I just worry that --

18 that if we become marred in the debate about either/or,

19 we lose the possibility of being aspirational towards

20 all and more.

21 MR. MCCARTHY: That's right.

22 MR. ZIMMER: And so I just encourage you in

23 terms of the framing and appreciating and understanding

24 the position that you're in, when we raise these

25 questions, it's because -- or when I raise these



80

1 questions, it's because not just because of what's

2 present, but because of what's absent, so --

3 MR. MCCARTHY: Uh-huh. I appreciate that.

4 MS. RATLIFF: (Inaudible.)

5 MS. JEFFREY: I want to wait until the end,

6 and then we're going to be able to ask questions after?

7 MS. RATLIFF: Sure. (Inaudible.)

8 MS. NGUYEN: So thank you. And I know that,

9 you know, you as much or more than anybody, you know,

10 would love to see the pool expand and --


12 MS. NGUYEN: -- and continue to advocate for

13 that.

14 I remember being in a discussion with the

15 principal at a high Title I school who had to just make

16 the tough call of should we ask for an orchestra

17 considering that it would be -- you know, means that we

18 have to give something else up, so thank you for

19 changing the allocation question.

20 Theoretic -- conceivably, once word gets out

21 to principals that they can request an orchestra and

22 not affect their other allocations, that you -- you

23 might get more than 175 schools requesting. So two

24 questions for that.

25 One is, what traditionally has been your



81

1 method for choosing which schools, you know, get an

2 orchestra?

3 Is it that if you already have one, you can

4 continue to get one and (unintelligible)?

5 MR. MCCARTHY: That's what we have -- that's

6 what we have tried, but because the Board has asked us

7 to look at equity, we have put it out to all schools.

8 So we said we have 160, but who wants it?

9 So we wanted to survey again, and most of the

10 schools that had want -- that had it before were the

11 ones that said they still want it.

12 MS. NGUYEN: That makes sense.

13 MR. MCCARTHY: And we are working now with

14 different foundations to actually bring in the capacity

15 to have more instruments coming in and then, of course,

16 as staffing is permitted, ideally I would love to see

17 an orchestra in every single one of our schools.

18 MS. NGUYEN: All right.

19 MR. MCCARTHY: I would really love to see

20 that.

21 MS. NGUYEN: Looking forward then as you say,

22 you're trying to expand the pod, and conceivably as

23 more and more schools, I hope, request and make room

24 for an orchestra then, you know, with local control, we

25 are supposed to be coming up with a three-year plan;



82

1 right?


3 MS. NGUYEN: And hopefully this is sort of

4 like just the first salvo for the first year, and so,

5 you know, along with what Board Member Zimmer said,

6 that that -- you know, you can come back with the

7 demonstrated interest to say, "Well, this is how much

8 we should fund because this is how many schools, you

9 know, would want the program," I guess. Maybe that's

10 obvious to you already.

11 Thanks.

12 MR. LOPEZ: Yes. I just wanted to comment on

13 the issue of equity, and staffing is definitely a big

14 variable, an important variable in the equity

15 discussion, but there are more variables just as in the

16 other topic about what's equitable -- right? -- in arts

17 education.

18 For example, I'm thinking about facilities, so

19 having an auditorium as compared to an MPR. Having

20 appropriate lighting systems or equipment. Having

21 working instrument for a music class, for a guitar

22 class, for a piano class, all those kinds of things,

23 and how easily is it to access resources and support

24 from the District.

25 And I know that you're very familiar and very



83

1 connected to our programs, and you know our teachers on

2 I first-name basis, so it is definitely important to --

3 to think about staffing issues, but also maybe in terms

4 of, you know, the facilities and the equipment and all

5 those other areas, all the variables.

6 And then the other thing is, having had the

7 experience, the opportunity of being a teach in an art

8 school and a comprehensive school, it is absolutely

9 important, I think, that we offer access to all forms

10 of art at all levels because I've seen more students

11 bloom and expand and excel in arts education than --

12 than, you know, than as easily in the other subject

13 areas or the other content areas.

14 So, you know, a student in the tenth grade

15 who's first exposed to Theater or to even Dance can

16 excel and be incredible in that art form even if he or

17 she did not know or was exposed at an earlier age.

18 And I've seen that too many times, so I think

19 it's important to definitely offer all forms of art as

20 much as possible at all levels.

21 MR. MCCARTHY: I totally agree.

22 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So we still have a

23 section on the Arts Integration --

24 MR. MCCARTHY: And this was mainly just to

25 give you a little bit of information in Arts



84

1 Integration.

2 MS. RATLIFF: All right. So I have a couple

3 comments. I'm going to hold them until we go through

4 that slide.

5 MR. MCCARTHY: Okay. The definition of Arts

6 Integration that we're -- we are working with here in

7 the District is that:

8 "Arts Integration is instruction

9 combining two or more content areas

10 wherein the arts constitute one or

11 more of the integrated areas. Each

12 content area supports learning in

13 the other, and both are assessed."

14 Currently in Arts Integration, we have been

15 offering the 4-day salary point class. We have reached

16 approximately 500 or our generalist teachers with an

17 additional 400 to 800 teachers that we will -- we'll be

18 reaching in 2014 and '15.

19 We are piloting two Arts Integration teachers

20 that are actually working with our elementary schools

21 and actually working with our arts teachers to combine

22 the instruction.

23 Through the Common Core funds, we have hired

24 5 ESC Arts Integration specialists that are located in

25 the different ESCs. We are hoping to add one central



85

1 Arts integration Advisor to our District downtown

2 staff. The L.A. fund is piloting programs with

3 Urban Arts, Music center, CAL Arts and the Getty.

4 We are co-hosting the statewide CORE Arts

5 Instruction Symposium on June 19th and 20th at the

6 Omni Hotel. And Urban Arts EASE West funded by the

7 Kennedy Center continues to collaborate with our

8 Division of Special Education to integrate all students

9 through the arts.

10 A couple quotes from our teachers who took our

11 class. This is from a secondary Science teacher.

12 "At first I was a bit skeptical

13 about finding authentic connections

14 between my Science content and that

15 of the Arts, but after attending

16 all sessions, I have come to learn

17 that integration of the Arts does

18 not necessarily mean a replacement

19 and loss of content instruction.

20 Instead it actually offers a means

21 to make the content accessible to

22 all students as we are aiming for

23 currently in education."

24 And from an elementary teacher:

25 "It has only strengthened my belief



86

1 that the arts are an important part

2 of learning. During this time in

3 education when we want students

4 learning to go deeper, integrating

5 the arts would help do that."

6 We talked -- when Dr. Yu was talking about

7 testing -- you now, this is -- I get very passionate

8 about this. We sometimes will teach a piece of

9 literature to a child, and we will give them a written

10 test, and they -- and the results we get back appears

11 that the child has a comprehension problem, and so we

12 label that child.

13 But then I get the child to come up on stage

14 with me, and I ask them to do a tableau, which is a

15 frozen statue, which just tells me what the theme of

16 the story is, and this child does that for me. Or I

17 ask a little girl to draw a picture to explain the

18 story to me, and she does that, and now I've seen it's

19 not a comprehension problem at all.

20 I've done sort of my own little IEP for this

21 child, so that my own individual educational plan, I

22 know how to better teach this child. It might be just

23 a test-taking problem. It's not a comprehension

24 problem, so that's why Arts Integration is also

25 important.



87

1 Arts Integration for grades K through 2, if we

2 go with the plan such as that, we won't have the

3 funding initially to offer Discrete Instruction in

4 the earlier grades. So we have research by

5 Liane Brouillett.

6 (Unintelligible) we will be offering

7 Professional Development for the generalist teachers

8 and proposal to pilot the Arts integration teachers in

9 the two creative networks with the eventual goal to

10 have one assigned to every creative network.

11 I provided some research on Arts integration,

12 as to not hold everyone back, but this is research from

13 across the country that actually does specify how we

14 have shown that Arts integration is working.

15 In Chicago, CAPE, the Chicago Arts Partnership

16 in Education was a school-wide model for Arts

17 Integration. The 19 Chicago elementary schools

18 operating the CAPE model showed consistently higher

19 average scores on the District's reading and

20 mathematics assessments over a six-year period when

21 compared to all district elementary schools.

22 Montgomery County, Maryland, compared three

23 Arts Integrated -- Integration focus schools to

24 three controlled schools over a three-year period.

25 They found that the aim schools with the



88

1 highest percentage of minority and low income students

2 reduced the reading gap by 14 percentage points and the

3 math gap by 26 percentage points over a three-year

4 period. In the controlled schools, the number of

5 proficient students actually went down 4.5 percent.

6 The Montgomery County evaluation also closely

7 tracked the experiences of classroom teachers as they

8 learned how to integrate the arts. Almost all

9 teachers, 79 percent, agreed that they had totally

10 changed their teaching, and 94 percent, that they had

11 gained additional ways of teaching critical thinking

12 skills.

13 North Carolina's and Oklahoma's network of

14 A+ schools is a whole school reform model. Everybody

15 participates in Professional Development and Arts

16 Integration, from the principal to the cafeteria lady.

17 It incorporates Gardner's theory of multiple

18 intelligences, recent brain research findings in Dance,

19 Drama, Music, Visual Art and Creative Writing.

20 These schools tracked consistent gains in

21 student achievement as compared to state and District

22 averages.

23 "Importantly, years of research in

24 both North Carolina and Oklahoma,

25 A+ students consistently score as



89

1 well or higher on statewide reading

2 and mathematics assessments as

3 students from more advantaged

4 schools."

5 And if I can just introduce Jack Mitchell from

6 the CDE, would just like to tell you just a little more

7 about Arts Integration, and thank you for putting up

8 with my cold today.

9 MS. RATLIFF: No problem, and you're actually

10 going to come back up in a little bit, but --

11 MR. MCCARTHY: I'm not going anywhere.

12 MR. MITCHELL: I have some material.

13 MS. RATLIFF: But feel free to -- feel free to

14 have a seat.

15 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. First of all, it's an

16 Honor to be asked to come down here and speak to you

17 today. I'm a former LAUSD teacher. I taught for 22

18 years in L.A. Unified District.

19 I started in 1985 at Manuel Arts High School

20 and taught theater; was a Dropout Prevention counselor

21 there; and coached girls' basketball. And went to

22 University High School and taught theater and

23 stagecraft there for 11 years.

24 Eight years ago, I moved to the Department of

25 education, and my job there is the -- I'm the arts



90

1 median entertainment consultant. Then that's Career

2 Technical Education Arts. Those arts programs that are

3 for students who plan to pursue a career in the Arts.

4 And I'm also the secondary Visual and

5 Performing Arts Consultant at the department. I was

6 trilled and very proud in 2012 to read the Board

7 Resolution where Los Angeles Unified identified Arts as

8 a Core content.

9 Arts Education is included as Core content in

10 the Federal, Elementary and Secondary Schools Act.

11 It's required by content by California Ed Code

12 Sections 50210 and 50220 is also considered content

13 here in Los Angeles Unified School District Arts of the

14 Core Initiative. It's no longer considered optional

15 content or an educational frill.

16 State Superintendent Tom Torlakson has called

17 it essential to a well-rounded 21st century education.

18 To those of us who have worked in Arts

19 education all of our lives, this is welcome news. The

20 foundation of a robust Arts Instructional Program is

21 direct arts instruction in each of the four or perhaps

22 five Arts disciplines.

23 In addition to the value of direct arts

24 instruction to deliver 21st century skills and career

25 readiness skills of collaboration, creativity, critical



91

1 thinking and communication, the Arts can also serve to

2 personalize and engage students in other content areas.

3 The Arts can provide an entryway to Common Core

4 instruction in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and

5 Social Studies.

6 That arts are a natural bridge to integrated

7 instruction because they require the implementation of

8 multiple literacies and are naturally project based.

9 In Music, students learn the dynamics of pitch

10 and volume, the intricacies in precision of rhythm and

11 meter, the social and cultural connections of musical

12 genre, the complex relationships and interconnections

13 of harmony.

14 In Visual Arts, they learn the relationship

15 between line, shape, mass and form, color and value, as

16 well as the social context that inspired Medieval

17 religious iconography, impressionism, expressionism and

18 modern realism.

19 In Dance, they experience the relationship

20 between form and movement; the geography of the body;

21 the foundation of biomechanics; the physics of movement

22 through space.

23 In Theater there can be no character without a

24 social context. No dialogue without understanding the

25 power and complexity of language. No sets or lighting



92

1 without the mention -- without Mathematics and Science

2 necessary to construct an illuminate, and I've not even

3 mentioned the emerging possibility of the most

4 collaborative media, Media Arts.

5 In short, the Arts integrate. So while it's

6 essential to focus on the value and content of each

7 artistic discipline, we would be foolish to ignore the

8 power of the arts to engage students and integrate

9 content.

10 Integration does not replace direct arts

11 instruction in any Core content area, including the

12 Arts disciplines. You can't integrate what you haven't

13 learned, but knowledge craves purpose. The "what for"

14 that students are ready to -- so ready to ask for, and

15 the arts like Science and other technical subjects,

16 Career Tech, provide that answer.

17 Los Angeles is not the only -- are not the

18 only ones focusing on Arts Integration. The California

19 Arts Council recently awarded $350,000 to Success of

20 Arts Initiative to create professional development

21 modules supporting Arts Integration and the areas --

22 and the arts as an entryway to the Common Core.

23 The California Alliance for Arts Education has

24 been asked -- has been asked by the Department of

25 Education and the U.S. Department of Education to



93

1 present strategies for using the arts to help students

2 achieve Title I goals in literacy, numeracy, student

3 engagement and parent involvement.

4 This is the first time that's happened in all

5 of the years that I've been teaching that the Title I

6 Office of the Department of Education actually asked

7 the Arts community to come in and talk about how the

8 arts supports student achievement in Title I goals.

9 All of this underscores conversation taking

10 place here in LAUSD.

11 "How can we maximum the power of

12 the arts to engage students,

13 especially those underserved

14 students for whom the research

15 indicates the Arts have the most

16 significant impact in personal

17 exploration and acquisition of all

18 Core content?"

19 "The actions being proposed by

20 LAUSD Arts Branch are a powerful

21 first step in that process. There

22 are hurdles to be negotiated. A

23 generation or more of teachers who

24 have matriculated through a system

25 that did not include or value Arts



94

1 education. The new pedagogical

2 demands of linked learning and

3 project-based instruction, the

4 sheer size of the Los Angeles

5 Unified workforce and the

6 fundamental paradigm shift of

7 moving from a siloed, isolated

8 instructional model to

9 collaborative, integrated project

10 based-instruction. The Martinez

11 Board Resolution and the Arts

12 Branch proposal are designed to

13 support this shift. It will not

14 happen in one year or one budget

15 cycle. It will require diligent

16 focus of both resources for direct

17 arts instruction and all arts -- in

18 all Arts disciplines, as well as

19 training new" -- "new strategies

20 for arts" -- "instruction" --

21 "integrating instruction.

22 Fortunately, resourcing these

23 instructional shifts will support

24 the transition to Common Core

25 instruction and new comprehensive



95

1 models of assessments. They will

2 support Link Learning Initiatives

3 by adopt" -- "adopted by many of

4 the District's secondary schools,

5 and they will support the goals of

6 both college and career readiness

7 and the acquisition of 21st century

8 skills. Arts Integration will

9 increase collaboration, foster

10 critical thinking, nurture

11 creativity and will prepare LAUSD

12 students to be both contributors

13 and leaders in the global economy."

14 So we're talking here, in my opinion, as

15 Mr. Zimmer mentioned about a both-end situation. It's

16 not about either direct arts instruction or arts

17 integration. It's essential that we look at these two

18 together. That direct arts instruction is necessary

19 for all students. It supports the creativity that we

20 saw earlier at the top of that pyramid, but it's a

21 no-brainer to not use art to engage students in other

22 Core content as well.

23 One of the things that the

24 Superintendent Torlakson has initiated during his term

25 is a part of the Distinguished Schools Program that



96

1 identifies exemplary programs in Arts education, and I

2 have had the opportunity to visit the schools who have

3 applied for that. And in almost every instance --

4 well, in every instance, the schools that are exemplary

5 programs who are distinguished schools first, that

6 means that they are high achieving schools, all of them

7 have not only provided direct instruction in the

8 Arts disciplines, but also integrated arts into awful

9 classroom work.

10 And so to me it's essential that the classroom

11 teacher be provided with information so that they can

12 provide direct arts instruction and that it be

13 supported by Arts specialists that provide direct

14 Arts instruction as -- as Dr. McCarthy's outlined for

15 you.

16 Thank you.


18 MR. MCCARTHY: I'm back.


20 So I had a couple questions before I open it

21 up to more people's questions and comments.

22 So it looks to me -- so then when we look at

23 the ED Code and it talks about grades 1 and 2 receiving

24 Arts Instruction, then it appears that the current

25 District plan is to use Arts Integration to meet that



97

1 ED Code requirement.

2 MR. MCCARTHY: And we would also do -- we

3 would be analyzing that to see if it does meet that,

4 and if it doesn't, then we'd have to look at making the

5 shift to two Discrete Arts Instruction.

6 MS. RATLIFF: When you say you would be

7 analyzing to see if it does meet the ED Code

8 requirement or it does not, how will you be analyzing

9 that?

10 MR. MCCARTHY: We are actually working with

11 the Gates Foundation right now to come up with some

12 formal assessments, measurable assessments in the Arts.

13 We, for years, struggled with how do we assess the

14 Arts, and so now we are finally doing that. We've

15 taken this on, this challenge on. We're starting with

16 elementary Theater and happened to be -- tenth grade

17 biology. Those two, the District is taking on, and

18 we're going to be working on that to develop

19 assessments, and we hope to do that in all of the Art

20 forms, but we need to able to assess to see if we're

21 really learning -- if we're really teaching our

22 children. I'm sorry.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Now, I guess my question is, are

24 we -- is the Gates Foundation funding the assessment

25 creation, or is the District paying to create the --



98

1 MR. MCCARTHY: The Gates foundation is funding

2 that.

3 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. And so we're going to

4 create ideally an assessment of 1st and 2nd graders in

5 Theater Arts?

6 MR. MCCARTHY: We are actually looking at

7 creating Elementary Theater Assessments, so we'll be

8 creating K through 5.

9 MS. RATLIFF: And once these assessments are

10 created, are we going to have to pay for them, or --

11 MR. MCCARTHY: No, no. They belong to us.

12 They belong to us because our teachers are actually

13 creating them. They belong to us. They're doing

14 research and that's what they're getting out of it.

15 MS. RATLIFF: And are the assessments going to

16 be like paper/pencil assessments?

17 MR. MCCARTHY: No. I made it very clear that

18 they're going to have to be a combination of

19 performance-based which will need rubrics because,

20 again, I don't want our children to be stuck with

21 having to take a one test fits all. I definitely don't

22 want to do that in the Arts because I'm against that

23 with everything else, so I'm not going to do it in the

24 Arts.

25 MS. RATLIFF: So but if we -- if we -- if we



99

1 find -- so I guess my question is this.

2 So the way we're going to analyze whether or

3 not our 1st and 2nd graders are receiving appropriate

4 Arts instruction is to create an assessment and then

5 assess, and then we'll know whether or not it was

6 appropriate.

7 MR. MCCARTHY: Well, pretty much that. We

8 have created nine week -- nine-week modules that

9 will -- we will be doing Professional Development for

10 our generalist teachers on what the students should be

11 learning.

12 MS. RATLIFF: I have a problem with this --


14 MS. RATLIFF: -- and my problem with this is

15 it appears that now we're saying we're not going to

16 offer our 1st and 2nd graders Arts instruction as

17 required by the ED Code because you 1st and 2nd grade

18 generalist teachers are going to be responsible for

19 teaching Theater to the students. We're going to

20 assess to see whether you taught Theater appropriately,

21 and then we'll go from there. I mean I as a teacher --

22 I never actually taught 1st or 2nd grade -- but I would

23 be very upset if the District turned around and told me

24 I was now going to be teacher Theater Arts and there

25 was going to be ann assessment to determine whether or



100

1 not I'd done a good job at teaching Theater Arts when I

2 was never stating that I was a Theater Arts teacher to

3 begin with?

4 MR. MCCARTHY: Doesn't a multiple subject

5 credential also include the Arts?

6 MS. RATLIFF: Well, it may. I -- you know, to

7 be honest, I don't remember being asked when I was

8 hired to be able to teach Theater Arts or also Visual

9 Arts or any of --

10 MR. MCCARTHY: Because I also have a multiple

11 subject credential, and my tests included that I had to

12 show proficiency and knowledge of Dance, Theater,

13 Visual Arts and Music.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Really?


16 MS. RATLIFF: I did not know General ED

17 teachers were expected to know all of this.

18 MR. MCCARTHY: Yes, they are.

19 MS. RATLIFF: UTLA Reps, did you know this?

20 DR. MULLER: The idea of having a multiple

21 subject credential, it's really a generalist at that

22 level. The idea of relying on 1st and 2nd grade

23 instruction, saying that we're going to not provide the

24 direct instruction from the specialists who are

25 dedicating their lives to it, basically our Arts



101

1 people, to say, "Well, you know what? We're" --

2 "That's not necessary. Those kids don't need that kind

3 of intensive support," is totally the opposite of what

4 I understood.

5 When I read through the Board's Resolution

6 regarding the Arts, my understanding was we have to do

7 more Arts more intensely for more students, and it

8 doesn't sound like that's the direction of this at all.

9 This is let's have some Arts for all the kids

10 and then dry up the rest and sprinkle it, and we'll

11 call that a test, and I'm just not seeing how this

12 walks through in a way that's in alignment with the

13 Board's resolution.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Steve?

15 MR. ZIMMER: You'll forgive me that I have to

16 step out after this, but I -- I again want to highlight

17 kind of the stakes aspect of the question that you

18 are -- that -- that I think that you're driving at

19 here. That when Arts Integration supplants instead of

20 supplements Arts instruction, then these questions take

21 on a much higher stakes.

22 MR. MCCARTHY: Of course, they do. Yes.

23 MR. ZIMMER: And so I -- I just want to

24 reiterate my -- my first comment, then I have a funding

25 question for Dr. McCarthy.



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1 I want to reiterate the -- what -- what we

2 thought when we -- when we wrote this resolution is

3 that we would create a pathway for expanding Arts

4 instruction, and our primary driver would be what the

5 driver has always been, which is -- which is the

6 credentialed art teacher and what we called in the

7 street, Arts instruction. Then we would supplement

8 that with Arts Integration because I don't think anyone

9 would -- I'm going to make the suggestion that the more

10 teachers that we train and train well and offer high

11 quality professional development in the arts, are going

12 to become better teachers in all subjects, and so I

13 don't oppose that.

14 Where I think the balance is off is that the

15 cuts have really devastated our primary driver, and so

16 we -- the -- the elevation of the secondary drivers --

17 and I think we could have had the same discussion today

18 if we were talking about our partnerships --

19 MS. RATLIFF: Right.

20 MR. ZIMMER: -- because the partnerships were

21 also meant to be supplemental in terms of -- and

22 sometimes great things happen. Amazing things happen

23 when we have visiting artist in the classroom.

24 MR. MCCARTHY: Oh, yes.

25 MR. ZIMMER: And so I think that, again, the



103

1 more this is rebalanced, and even if we don't have the

2 funding line in place, if we knew that the vision that

3 was coming not from the messenger today necessarily,

4 but from the District as a whole was supporting -- more

5 supportive of the primary driver, I think it would be a

6 different conversation.

7 My second question is this. Schools, as we

8 move forward, will have more autonomy as -- if we

9 approve this element of the superintendent's budget

10 design -- will have more autonomy on the way that they

11 spend all of the funds that are available to them.


13 MR. ZIMMER: And I guess the question is, if

14 Arts is going to truly be at the core, how do we

15 provide some -- some guardrails -- maybe guardrails is

16 the wrong term, but some -- let's say some hardwood

17 flooring, if you will, on making sure that when -- when

18 we are having budget autonomy, there is, on the one

19 hand, the flexibility for -- for schools to really

20 invest.

21 I mean if a -- if a school decides that one of

22 the their methods for raising student achievement is,

23 you know, is a robust multi-dimensional Arts program

24 that they want to invest in, hey, that's what budget

25 autonomy is all about. But what I think the other



104

1 thing the Board is seeking, or at least as one of the

2 co-authors of this is seeking is we want to make sure

3 that there is a firm and stable floor under which no

4 school will fall beneath.

5 And that is right now, I think, what -- as we

6 debate this as a Board -- not today. Obviously we

7 don't vote on it, but that's what we're going to really

8 be trying to insert here so --

9 MR. MCCARTHY: Again, I said none of this is

10 set in stone. I would love to be able to offer

11 Discrete Arts to teachers to 1st and 2nd grade as well.

12 I'm just talking about the current resources I have

13 available to me.

14 MS. RATLIFF: So -- okay. Let me ask -- let

15 me say a couple things and then -- all right.

16 So I wanted to return to -- I'll come back to

17 the ED Code eventually, but I wanted to return to the

18 Instrumental Music Program.

19 So you said you received 175 applications.


21 MS. RATLIFF: And then all they had to do is

22 put their name -- like kind of check a box.

23 MR. MCCARTHY: Just let me know they were

24 interested, yes.

25 MS. RATLIFF: At the time that they were



105

1 submitted, did they know that they would be getting the

2 Instrumental Music Program on top of the Arts?

3 MR. MCCARTHY: Yes. It was -- it was on the

4 fiscal -- in the fiscal sheet that was sent to them,

5 and their fiscal officer explained that to them.

6 MS. RATLIFF: So, theoretically, the fiscal

7 officer told each of the principals that they would be

8 getting -- if they signed up for Instrumental -- the

9 Instrumental Music Program, they would be getting that

10 on top of any Arts allocation provided by the District.

11 MR. MCCARTHY: That's what they were

12 instructed to do, yes.

13 MS. RATLIFF: That's what the fiscal

14 specialists were instructed to do?



17 MR. MCCARTHY: They're the ones that sat with

18 the budget.

19 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. And did that go out in a

20 memo, or how did that get directed to them?

21 MR. MCCARTHY: That was actually in a memo

22 that was -- or to the fiscal specialists?

23 In their training.

24 MS. RATLIFF: So in some sort of -- they

25 received a training that said, "Make sure that you let



106

1 the principals know that they can receive an

2 Instrumental Arts" -- an "Instrumental Music Program on

3 top of any Arts allocation that they receive"?

4 MR. MCCARTHY: I don't think that many schools

5 beyond our 175 honestly really wanted it this time

6 because they've got so many things going. I don't

7 think that's a problem.

8 MS. RATLIFF: Right. I hear you.


10 MS. RATLIFF: My concern is I would love to

11 see a distribution of where these 175 schools are.

12 Right?

13 So I'm curious, how many Board District 6

14 schools are taking advantage of this opportunity, and

15 perhaps how many Board District 1 schools, or how many

16 Board District 2 schools?

17 Because I am concerned that there is not an

18 equitable distribution of this music program and that

19 you're going to see certain -- but maybe we won't, but

20 we haven't seen it yet.

21 So is there some way you can provide us --

22 MR. MCCARTHY: Of course, I can.

23 MS. RATLIFF: -- a list of the schools and the

24 Board District 6 -- Board District numbers of the

25 various locations -- I'll take you in a second, but



107

1 we've got all kinds of people here.

2 And -- and so that was something I'm

3 interested in finding out about because I am very

4 concerned about that.

5 And then in the future year, how will you be

6 distributing the Instrumental Music Program as it's

7 currently conceived?

8 MR. MCCARTHY: As it's currently conceived,

9 ideally it would be -- they would say whether they want

10 it or not. We would do it the same way. I would like

11 to leave the instrumental programs where they are and

12 build upon that, but that requires more financing, more

13 money.

14 MS. RATLIFF: All right. And so since we

15 haven't seen -- I think I would love is either at our

16 next meeting, or you can provide this to us before the

17 next meeting, and we can distribute it to everybody in

18 terms of what the distribution is because I'm -- I'm

19 really curious about that. I don't think it makes

20 any -- makes sense to continue to discuss like "what

21 if" until we see where they're actually at.

22 MR. MCCARTHY: And the reason why we don't

23 have that today is we just got that fiscal information

24 in. Actually, we're just getting it in today.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Right. And so then I have a



108

1 couple more, but I'm going to take a couple comments.

2 We've got Dr. Rousseau, Ms. Jeffrey, Ms. Chavez and

3 then over here.

4 DR. ROUSSEAU: So one of my questions is --

5 it's probably here. I'm just not looking at it.

6 I'm wanting more clarity about what the goals

7 are and what we're attempting.

8 What are we assessing?

9 So are we assessing, and how do we assess?

10 And I know you say you've hired, but are we

11 assessing students' knowledge or skills or appreciation

12 or what in relation to the arts --

13 MR. MCCARTHY: It's all of those. It's based

14 on the state standards, so it will be being able to

15 critically analyze --

16 DR. ROUSSEAU: There's a second part of my

17 question.

18 MR. MCCARTHY: I'm sorry.

19 DR. ROUSSEAU: And how are you looking at the

20 relationship between that and specific Common Core

21 Standards like Literacy and Mathematics?

22 Are we -- are we assessing that at all, or is

23 there some way of seeing how these converge or -- and

24 are we seeing what the long lasting, not just at

25 grades 1 and 2, but able to track further down whether



109

1 the development in children continues, et cetera.

2 So I'm just concerned about what we're

3 measuring and how we can clarify that and find some way

4 to quantify that.

5 MR. MCCARTHY: We are actually -- that's what

6 we're working on now with the Gates; however, it should

7 be known that when the Common Core first start --

8 started being talked about in this district, the Arts

9 were at the table from day 1 which was rare. Most

10 districts did not do that.

11 So we were at the table and give credit to

12 Susan Tandberg for that. Bringing this at the table

13 with Social Studies illiteracy, Math and Science and

14 talking about how the arts can contribute to the

15 Common Core and visual thinking strategies, et cetera.

16 And every one of my Arts teachers, if I go

17 out -- and when we start doing art training for art

18 teachers -- I see a few of them are in the audience

19 today -- they smile, beam from ear to ear because

20 they're already doing it, and now we're just pulling it

21 out and counting it and saying it's important.

22 So we're giving students a chance and seeking

23 evidence and finding that -- that evidence within the

24 painting; "Why is it that you feel this way," and

25 bringing our children to a much higher level.



110

1 DR. ROUSSEAU: So I think being able to name

2 it and to say what kinds of -- what are we looking for

3 to achieve and being able to name it helps everybody

4 instruct around it and also something to measure.

5 And then I was just going to say, are there --

6 because I -- I compliment this. I think the Arts are

7 huge. I would also add that one of the things you may

8 want to assess is its impact on language development.


10 DR. ROUSSEAU: And then, finally, I had a

11 question about are there models of this at all --

12 because it's a wonderful concept, but we know the

13 implementation -- so do we have any models of ways

14 districts or schools have implemented it that led to

15 successful implementation which is only way you can

16 measure impact.

17 MR. MCCARTHY: We have, as I -- I did mention

18 some of the -- some of the research that we had done in

19 here, but when the elementary program did start, it

20 started -- there was -- the Music program was already

21 in existence, and we added Theater, Dance and Visual

22 Arts. I say "we." It was way before me, but they did

23 it as a rotation, and it became very fluid.

24 What was really nice was that the teachers

25 served as teams, so they serviced the same schools.



111

1 They knew concerns, problems, et cetera and were able

2 to help each other get through that, and so that's what

3 brought us to this -- to this model. Bringing it back

4 to that and saying, "Okay. Now, that we've gone

5 through some hard financial times. Let's bring it back

6 to those teams. Let's see what we can do to grow it

7 again because fortunately we still have many of those

8 original teachers with us. They are the experts. They

9 knew how it worked. I wasn't here when that happened.

10 I was at the secondary school, so I need to depend on

11 them for leadership and seeing how this can really work

12 together.

13 DR. ROUSSEAU: Right. And site

14 administrators.

15 MR. MCCARTHY: Absolutely. We have a few

16 still left that work --


18 MR. MITCHELL: Could I just add that one of

19 the purposes of the exemplary Arts programs is not just

20 to give students another award, but to identify models

21 statewide of how Arts instruction can work to support

22 student achievement.

23 And so this year we have 13 schools statewide

24 that will be identified as exemplary programs. There

25 are a number of them in Southern California. There



112

1 were 13 schools identified last year of secondary

2 exemplary Arts programs, and all of those principals

3 are willing to talk about how they got to where they

4 are and still maintain that high level of academic

5 achievement.

6 DR. ROUSSEAU: And that they have conducted

7 some kinds of assessments that would indicate the

8 impact.

9 MR. MITCHELL: Correct.

10 MS. RATLIFF: All right. We're going to go to

11 Ms. Jeffrey and then Ms. Chavez and then come over

12 here.

13 MS. JEFFREY: Well, I believe in the Arts

14 tremendously. I got a little nervous with hearing

15 "assessment" because this was the year of no testing,

16 but we're doing SBAC with grades 3 through 6. We're

17 doing CST Science with 5th grade. Our subgroups are

18 doing last year's Period Assessment, not to mention the

19 regular P.E. testing that happens, and this was a year

20 of no testing, so --

21 DR. ROUSSEAU: It doesn't have to be tests.

22 MS. JEFFREY: Yeah.

23 But on another note, I want to thank you for

24 signing David Howells to 66th Street Elementary. He's

25 fabulous. We love him. He is just an exemplary



113

1 teacher. With him there was a waiting list for

2 instrumental music because of his enthusiasm. So

3 knowledgeable about music. He is absolutely fabulous.

4 We've had -- since Mrs. Zarity retired, we've had

5 different instrumental music teachers, so the

6 continuity is important because our Instrumental Music

7 Program with different people every year has suffered.

8 In terms of the integration, I have a

9 question. If those -- how that is supposed to work

10 because we do unit planning using Understanding by

11 Design. Some people call it backwards planning.

12 Is there a way that those people could be part

13 of that unit planning.

14 MR. MCCARTHY: Absolutely. As a matter of

15 fact, our teachers also went through the same training,

16 so we're very familiar with it.

17 MS. JEFFREY: Okay. Then we as administrators

18 would need to know how to contact that person.

19 MR. MCCARTHY: When we get to that point, you

20 will have that information, and we'll make the teachers

21 available because they'll want to be part of that

22 planning.

23 MS. JEFFREY: Okay. Just another kudos for

24 you. One of my teachers, Mr. Chang, has -- took the

25 class, and he now has a ukulele. He's doing the



114

1 ukulele with his kids.

2 MR. MCCARTHY: He took an integration class.

3 MS. JEFFREY: Yes. Yes. So that's already

4 off and running and impacting my school in a really

5 positive way.

6 My other question for you with K2 with the

7 integration, I -- I can see that, you know, that folk

8 songs would be good, teaching, reading music.

9 Is there anything that you will do to

10 incorporate Orff, Kodaly --

11 MR. MCCARTHY: We certainly could and that

12 will be based on the availability of equipment.

13 MS. JEFFREY: Well, I have Orff instruments,

14 but I don't have anybody to teach it.

15 MR. MCCARTHY: (Unintelligible) the problem.

16 You have no one to teach it?

17 MS. JEFFREY: No, uh-uh, so -- but I'm just

18 thinking, the Orff instruments, Kodaly, all that gives

19 a really good foundation in terms of teaching folk

20 songs, how to read just basic music so that you can

21 have that foundation K-2 so that then they can do

22 something 3 through 6 and then on into secondary. So I

23 think hopefully you could incorporate that in your

24 plan.

25 MR. MCCARTHY: I love the fact that you were



115

1 able to use that language.

2 MS. JEFFREY: I was a Music major.

3 And then, also, if there's a way that you

4 could have the teachers learning recorders and even --

5 like when I was an L.A. Unified student, and I remember

6 in elementary school, the music teacher brought in the

7 autoharp, and she would, you know, it's kind of low

8 tech, but --

9 MR. MCCARTHY: That used to be a requirement

10 for all elementary teachers. They had to be able to

11 play the piano, the guitar or the autoharp.

12 MS. JEFFREY: Well, as part of your

13 integration, if you could consider -- have you

14 considered including the autoharp or teaching the

15 recorders?

16 MR. MCCARTHY: We're open to anything.

17 MS. JEFFREY: Okay.

18 MR. MCCARTHY: Autoharp. Put that down, Judy.

19 MS. JEFFREY: And I just -- this is on an

20 aside. I looked forward to more fiscal autonomy. I

21 haven't seen it yet, but I do look forward to it.

22 Right now as an administrator, it's good to

23 have autonomy. Like in the olden days, there was lots

24 of money, so you could have something to be automic

25 about, but when the budget is so small, we're in the



116

1 position of choosing between health concerns, nursing,

2 psychologist, attendance counselor or the Arts, and

3 it's -- it's a sad choice that we're force to -- to

4 make.

5 And then lastly with the assessments, there's

6 already been studies about how music improves student

7 performance in Math and Science, and I'm just

8 wondering, is your assessment going to address that

9 or --

10 MR. MCCARTHY: Honestly, we don't know yet.

11 We're just starting the process. And since we are

12 collaborating and Susan Tandberg paired me off with a

13 wonderful secondary Science teacher, a coordinator,

14 we've been exploring things out of the ordinary, so

15 it's going to be fun.

16 MS. JEFFREY: Okay. And just on a final note,

17 if you have any more partnerships and you need another

18 elementary school, include 66th Street.


20 MS. JEFFREY: I had to put that in.

21 Thank you.

22 MR. MCCARTHY: You know we would.

23 MS. RATLIFF: Ms. Chavez?

24 MS. CHAVEZ: I feel the need to also express

25 my gratitude as a parent to my personal art teachers



117

1 and art teachers of my children. A shout out to

2 Mr. Larsen, my orchestra teacher in elementary school

3 and middle school who he made an amazing impact on my

4 life.

5 And so I want talk about educational equity

6 which is stated in the Board Resolution. As a middle

7 class -- self-described middle class parent, I think I

8 spent -- I would hate to really analyze it. I try to

9 not think about it fully, but I spent a lot of money on

10 my own children's Art instruction -- right? -- from

11 music classes, private school teachers, the Colburn

12 Suzuki programs. I explored theater programs. The

13 Lee Strasberg, for instance, has a summer camp for

14 students in second and third grade that costs a

15 thousand dollars a week.

16 That's theater; right?


18 MS. CHAVEZ: Art is expensive -- right? -- for

19 parents to provide to their students -- to their

20 children. So it really is an equity issue and that's

21 why I like that Ms. Ratliff is asking you to go ahead

22 and try to report to the Board exactly which schools

23 and what areas are receiving their lyons' share of the

24 art provided, whether it's orchestra or theater or

25 dance because not every school is fortunate to have a



118

1 principal as a music major, and I would dare say that

2 in a lot of out Title I schools, the parents might --

3 might not be putting as much pressure on the principal

4 to incorporate Arts as, you know, as schools where

5 middle class parents such as myself know the value of

6 getting that Arts instruction in schools -- in the

7 public schools.

8 So I really, really want to just, you know,

9 advocate for the schools in -- in low economic areas to

10 receive as much art as possible. And when you're

11 talking about the -- those assessments for the Kinder

12 and for elementary school students, I also am a little

13 weary as a parent of more assessments on top of other

14 assessments except if the purpose is to -- well, that

15 being said, I know that the teacher can provide Arts

16 instruction, especially if they participate in these

17 wonderful professional development trainings, or they

18 really took that part of their credential process

19 seriously, and they came with a background.

20 However, I do feel like some students at that

21 age, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd would benefit from seeing

22 professional Art teachers.

23 MR. MCCARTHY: Well, I do too.

24 MS. CHAVEZ: I know you're not saying that

25 they wouldn't. Just because -- sometimes I think that



119

1 we have all this -- all these talented kids, and nobody

2 has really identified that talent or seen that talent.

3 And as a multiple-subject teacher, you know, I think

4 those teachers can find --

5 MS. RATLIFF: (Inaudible).

6 MS. CHAVEZ: Oh, that mike is not good?

7 I think those teachers can find -- are really

8 good at finding the students that are gifted in

9 traditional ways, like early readers, high math scores,

10 that kind of thing, but in order for a multiple subject

11 teacher or an elementary school teacher to see real

12 talent in jazz or theater or music, that would require,

13 I think, a different level of expertise.

14 So if those assessments that you're proposing

15 really identify more talented children from Title I

16 schools --

17 MR. MCCARTHY: That's actually very valuable.

18 Thank you.

19 MS. CHAVEZ: You know, what I mean?

20 And then we can get them identified, and then

21 channel them into some of those community programs that

22 I was mentioning, like at the Colburn or Plaza de

23 La Raza. I mean they're all out there -- right? -- but

24 they cost money, but we need to make those

25 connections -- right? -- for those kids. So I just



120

1 want you to really keep in mind as the -- as the

2 coordinator of the Arts program, an unbelievably

3 important job to -- to really keep that educational

4 equity in mind for those kids that my might not have

5 that chance, although this gentleman right here did say

6 that our kids that get to high school and have that

7 first jazz or that first theater experience and then

8 they're like unbelievable, and they have this God-given

9 talent.

10 However, just like anything else, I think if

11 you don't expose kids at an early age, that's very,

12 very few and far between to find -- right? -- and we're

13 wasting all kinds of talent, I think, in our children

14 that never have that opportunity to see the

15 professionals that your program provides, so thank you.

16 MR. MCCARTHY: His son is very talented too.

17 MS. CHAVEZ: There you go.

18 Thank you.

19 MS. RATLIFF: All right. We -- we need to

20 kind of move relatively quickly, so I'm going to

21 actually give you and potentially our public commenters

22 alone, I'm going to give you two minutes each to make

23 your comments, if possible.

24 Betty, you get more because you're a Board

25 member, no offense. But this way we'll see -- and I



121

1 don't even think you're going to use it, but we do need

2 to try to like move -- move quickly.


4 I have a few -- first of all, I'd like to say

5 that I'm really glad you're here, and I have -- I feel

6 like I have art as part of my DNA. My mother was an

7 artist. My grandmother was an artist.

8 MS. RATLIFF: And your wife.

9 MR. KAYSER: Well, I was going to say that's

10 not my DNA, that's my love, but it goes back in my

11 family, and so I have a great appreciation for the art,

12 and I'm glad that we are focusing on it now. I have

13 some kind of technical things that are kind of

14 tangential to this, but important.

15 When I was in college, I decided as a Science

16 major, I should take at least one art class, so I

17 decided to take a class in two-dimensional design. And

18 the first meeting of the class, the teacher gave an

19 assignment. We were supposed to find a 30-inch by

20 30-inch square of something like cardboard or wood or

21 something and draw a shape in black and white. And I

22 thought I drew a pretty good shape, and my

23 30-by-30-inch square came back with a D+ on it, so I

24 used it for a table, and I didn't go back to a

25 Practical Arts class after that.



122

1 So when I hear about assessments of art, are

2 these assessments to assess whether the teacher is

3 teaching the art, is it an assessments to see whether

4 the student is a blooming artist, or does the student

5 need more assistance, does the student have some sort

6 of disability that hasn't been apparent, but is

7 showing -- showing it now?

8 I don't exactly see what the purpose is,

9 especially thinking about my D+, I don't know exactly

10 what the purpose is --

11 MR. MCCARTHY: Well --

12 MR. KAYSER: -- doing an assessment in our --

13 MR. MCCARTHY: -- unfortunately, that which is

14 not tested is usually the first to be cut. Okay.

15 MR. KAYSER: I'm sorry. Say that again?

16 MR. MCCARTHY: That which is not tested is

17 usually the first to be cut.

18 MR. KAYSER: Well, we can have a long

19 discussion about that on a different day.

20 MR. MCCARTHY: But it does -- assessment, if

21 it's done correctly, should be there to guide my

22 practice as a teacher, also to encourage a student and

23 just help me identify how I should help that child

24 grow.

25 I personally would never just put a D+ on a



123

1 black box that you drew and leave it at that. I

2 wouldn't do that.

3 MR. KAYSER: Okay. Thank you.

4 Pilot schools and local autonomy with money.

5 Now, I have two examples I want to give. I'm

6 not going to mention the names of the schools, but one

7 of them spent a lot of money on different things and

8 wound up in Science classes not having test tubes and

9 flasks and things for Science equipment to carry out

10 the lab requirements for the Science classes.

11 In another case, I have a Learning Center that

12 is made up of multiple pilot schools and Charter

13 schools, and as a consequence, there isn't -- there

14 hasn't been the cooperation necessary between or among

15 the schools to have an Art teacher or a Music teacher

16 in this case, so we have a multipurpose room with a

17 locker for orchestra equipment and all these

18 instruments that don't have students' fingerprints on

19 them yet because there hasn't been an Art teacher to

20 make use of them or a Music teacher to make use of

21 them.

22 So is there a plan, or as the plan develops, I

23 hope there will be a basic amount of material,

24 supplies, tools, equipment, instruments and all the

25 rest of the paraphernalia that are necessary to give



124

1 the students the experience they should have in an Art

2 class. There needs to be minimum, the floor -- I think

3 Board Member Zimmer mentioned, and I haven't -- I

4 didn't see that as part of the proposal here, so I hope

5 there'll be another page for that.


7 MR. KAYSER: And two more questions.

8 Does a -- does a component of the Arts, as we

9 see it for L.A. Unified, a class that includes

10 Art History?

11 MR. MCCARTHY: We do offer Art History, yes.

12 It's part of the -- and that's actually part of the

13 standards, one of the strands of the Arts standards in

14 every one of the art forms.

15 MR. KAYSER: Okay. That's good to hear.

16 And lastly -- and here's the $64,000 question,

17 although it probably should have a few more zeros after

18 it -- how much money should be put into the budget for

19 the Arts?

20 MR. MCCARTHY: Well, that's a loaded question.

21 Answer it?

22 MR. KAYSER: I won't give you a D+ on it.

23 MR. MCCARTHY: You won't give me a D+?

24 MR. KAYSER: I would like to know kind of like

25 what order of magnitude are we talking about?



125

1 $50 million dollars?

2 MR. MCCARTHY: Well, if we said -- Mr. Kayser,

3 if we said that we were going to go back to the funding

4 of 2008/2009, that's what was in the Resolution, we

5 should be looking at moving towards almost doubling

6 what the current budget is for the upcoming fiscal

7 year.

8 MR. KAYSER: Thank you very much. I'm glad

9 you're where you are.

10 MR. MCCARTHY: We're standing right here.

11 Thank you.

12 MS. RATLIFF: All right.

13 Brian?

14 DR. MULLER: Yeah. Like you said, that was --

15 it doesn't get tested, it doesn't -- it's the first

16 thing to be cut and that would mean also that anything

17 that isn't covered by the Gates based assessments would

18 be lost from the Arts going by that particular

19 proposition.

20 In regards to your question, it is in -- it's

21 the third section of the third subtest for the

22 multi-subject that deals with Visual and Performing

23 Arts. There are like five questions that are sampled,

24 so obviously this is something that the state, in its

25 assessment, didn't really place a lot of emphasis on.



126

1 And, ultimately, the way I look at it is there

2 are lots of people at my school that know a little bit

3 about physics, but none of them would necessarily feel

4 comfortable teaching physics explicitly and assessing

5 every element of students' understanding of it.

6 And same thing applies to Arts. Arts are

7 core, so the greater the strength and background and

8 specificity of the person's training, the stronger they

9 are going to be in delivering that instruction.

10 The idea of taking away primary direct Arts

11 instruction from any grade, regardless of what

12 Bill Gates wants is wrong. Losing it in the first

13 grade and second grade, how do you -- you just don't

14 get to magically make it up in third grade. It's not

15 good enough.

16 So what I want to see in a plan like this is

17 not how are we going to wind up scattering the crumbs?

18 What I want to see is what do we need to bake

19 the right size piece of cake for everybody?

20 How are we going to make sure every kid gets

21 all of the instruction they're supposed to get?

22 So going back to Mr. Kayser's question, we

23 need some particulars. We need some numbers.

24 How many more people do you need?

25 I mean I'm looking at -- there's a Mary who's



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1 out in the audience. I'm looking at her article, and

2 basically it shows an allocation of Arts people that's

3 not necessarily balanced in a way that it's going to be

4 nine weeks, nine weeks, nine weeks. It -- ultimately

5 it says here that you have a lot more Art and Music

6 people than you do Drama and Dance.

7 So the idea of providing that kind of support

8 for all of those people, that doesn't seem like that's

9 a possibility even if you wanted it to be.

10 So I need to understand, so if you were going

11 to say they were going to do nine weeks and everybody's

12 going to have the equal amount of time, you would need

13 an equal amount of teachers to pull it off.

14 MR. MCCARTHY: But we're not looking at

15 rolling it out this year in full. We would obviously

16 need to hire additional Dance teachers and Theater

17 teachers --

18 DR. MULLER: And if you hired all of the Dance

19 and Drama teachers and balanced it out, you wouldn't

20 have to do that, and you shouldn't do that. You would

21 be looking at having a lot more people to provide a lot

22 more instruction.

23 So we need to know what's the cost going to

24 look like to make that happen, I would believe, and the

25 Board's going to have to look at those numbers to make



128

1 sure they have the money to back it up. They made

2 Resolution. I would expect that they have the -- the

3 wherewithal to be able to make the money happen as

4 well.

5 MR. MCCARTHY: Thank you.

6 MR. FOLSOM: So the first thing is, I liked

7 Brian's metaphor about the cake much better than I like

8 your metaphor about pruning because pruning is cutting

9 back. I mean I realize it makes it grow later, but

10 we're beyond -- this is later, and we need to be

11 growing this program now.

12 You can't imagine -- or you probably can

13 imagine how warm and fuzzy the Gates Foundation doing

14 an Arts assessment made me feel.

15 I was -- my daughter went to elementary school

16 at Mount Washington Elementary, the little school that

17 can and could. We did do the nine-week VAPA rotations,

18 and it was a very powerful program, but it supported

19 the orchestra that we had at the school and also the

20 the chorus that was self-generated. It wasn't -- you

21 know, we did that ourselves with, you know, crazy

22 people who live in Mount Washington and want to lead

23 little kids in a chorus and that's good work.

24 And then we had after-school Arts programs

25 that we did there were funded by the PTA and by parents



129

1 being involved and that's also critical, especially at

2 a school like Mount Washington which has a certain

3 amount of, but no where near as much as everybody else

4 thinks of community wealth to invest in this project.

5 I mean the reality is we're running bake sales and

6 that's no way to do public education.

7 This is Curriculum and Instruction Committee.

8 It isn't the Budget Committee, but at the same time we

9 really need to know -- and I think you were frank. You

10 need twice as much money as there is -- that you've got

11 now, and certainly much more than's been put in the

12 superintendent's budget.

13 And then the last thing I'm going to say is I

14 am not convinced that the current leadership of this

15 district -- and I'm not talking about you. I'm talking

16 about the current leadership of this district believes

17 that Arts Integration is a way of supplementing the

18 Discrete program. I think it started out being a way

19 to reduce investment.

20 And I think -- I don't think there's anybody

21 at this table, at this horseshoe or out in the

22 audience who are watching on television that don't

23 believe that we need to be increasing. And I'm going

24 to suggest to my colleagues here on the Board and the

25 rest of them that we really need to take a look at that



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1 number that you gave us of doubling your budget.

2 This is a three-year budget cycle that we're

3 talking about. The local control funding formula which

4 is supposed to be led by community voices is a

5 three-year process. Let's see if we can't double the

6 budget in three years, which still brings you back to

7 2008, and in three years, we're a long way from 2008.


9 MR. FOLSOM: In a district that had for a long

10 while, about eight-and-a-half years, of a fabulous

11 ten-year Arts plan that, at the end, kind of started

12 being nibbled away at and then just went away. We were

13 doing good work. You were instrumental in leading it.

14 I understand that. I told you I'd give you a hard time

15 when you were down there eating at lunch, and I don't

16 think I've been as mean and cruel as I promised I would

17 be, but that's because you're sitting up here, and, you

18 know, you've gotten -- your cold has gotten worse while

19 I've watched you.

20 So I want you to sit down and take care of

21 yourself. Drink plenty of water because we need you

22 going forward to lead this charge.

23 MR. MCCARTHY: Thank you.

24 MR. FOLSOM: Thank you.

25 MS. RATLIFF: So I have been keeping track of



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1 people's time, and everybody went over, but I thought

2 it seemed rude to say anything, so -- but I do want to

3 say that, you know, in some ways I think that Board

4 Member Zimmer's comment very much was that you're the

5 messenger, and so I think that people are very

6 frustrated about the situation and it's -- but it's not

7 appropriate to shoot the messenger.

8 MR. MCCARTHY: Don't worry about it.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Good. And so I -- I

10 wanted to say I do think, you know, as one of the

11 things that I wanted -- my No. 3 on my list that I

12 never got to because I was trying to go around was

13 budget. I think that if you could come back and tell

14 us what is a budget that would be appropriate at

15 various levels -- right?

16 So you mentioned you don't agree that nine

17 weeks is the best thing. You would like to see a

18 semester and then ideally a year.

19 What would it cost to see that semester?

20 What would it cost to see that year?

21 I think that would be really useful. The

22 other thing I was thinking, it's not that I'm opposed

23 to assessments. Actually, I want to be very clear.

24 The assessments that guide instruction, I'm all for.

25 I think that the problem is that when you were



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1 phrasing it in the beginning, the way I heard it was

2 first and second grade teachers are going to teach

3 Theater Arts, and then --

4 MR. MCCARTHY: Oh, no. I'm sorry.

5 MS. RATLIFF: -- there's going to be an

6 assessment, and so that's what led me to be so adverse.

7 But these assessments that we've been talking about,

8 particularly identification of students and their

9 talents, I think, I would completely support that.

10 MR. MCCARTHY: Of course.

11 MS. RATLIFF: So if that would be something

12 that the Gates Foundation would be interested in, like,

13 supporting, I would love it. Also, if you could

14 squeeze a few positions out of them, that would be

15 great. Right?


17 MS. RATLIFF: So I think ultimately we do need

18 to see a budget. I think we need to look at the

19 equitable distribution of the Music program and various

20 other Arts as well, and I would like to learn more

21 about how Title I funds can be used for the Arts. You

22 mentioned that. I think it would be great to actually

23 see that publicly how they can be used for the Arts and

24 what would that mean.

25 And then finally I do want to go back to I



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1 think we do need Discrete Arts Instruction in the first

2 and second grade, and I would actually focus on music

3 because of the fact that there's so much -- there's so

4 much literature backing up the benefits of music.

5 So it's not to say that there aren't -- I'm

6 sure there's literature out there backing up the

7 benefits of the other arts as well in terms of the

8 students, but it seems like Music, particularly the

9 notes and so forth and scale and fractions and how it

10 interrelates, I think it would be great to be able to

11 see that in our youngest children.

12 And I know that some of them -- you

13 mentioned -- what is called? -- Orff?


15 MS. RATLIFF: Right. And I know that a

16 teacher at San Pedro actually purchased or did one of

17 those "Donors Choose," to get a bunch of instruments

18 and then be able to teach her students. She also was a

19 Music major though, used to teach piano, and so she was

20 quite skilled at it, but you could see -- I could see

21 that her students were getting a tremendous benefit

22 that was coming from her ability.

23 And so I think that the more we can look at

24 Discrete Arts Instruction with teachers, General

25 Education teachers, then going forward from there I



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1 think would be great because I've told this story

2 before, but I'm going to tell it until somebody

3 listens, and it was that, you know, I've taken years of

4 Visual Arts classes. I've taking figure drawing,

5 painting, ceramics, sculpture, years of it.

6 Every time I tried to teach my own students,

7 it was a failure, and I don't really know why that is,

8 but I was not successful. But then when someone came

9 in who was actually a trained Visual Arts Instructor of

10 children. They were able to do amazing things in like

11 a lesson. And then I could build on that, but I just

12 didn't have the skills. Even though theoretically I

13 might have technical skills, I didn't have the skills

14 at instructing that particular area, and so I think the

15 more we could have the Discrete Arts Instruction and

16 then the General ED teachers build on it, I think the

17 better.

18 MR. MCCARTHY: I agree.

19 MS. RATLIFF: So thank you so much. I

20 appreciate you coming, and hopefully you'll come back.

21 MR. MCCARTHY: I will.

22 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Good. We got that. We

23 got that on the record. He'll be back. Very nice.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. MCCARTHY: Thank you, everybody.



135

1 MS. RATLIFF: So we're going to go ahead, and

2 we went ahead and pushed No. 5, the Smarter Balanced

3 Assessment Update with Dr. Lim, we went ahead and

4 pushed that because I could see from the time that we

5 were not going to get to her in a timely fashion, and

6 I'm sorry I hadn't thought of it earlier.

7 So we're just going to focus on the Overview

8 of Summer School and Credit Recovery Options. We're

9 going to do that. Then we will go to our public

10 speakers. I haven't forgotten about you, but -- I

11 haven't forgotten, but I do want Mr. Cortez to be able

12 to speak. So this is going to be the Overview of

13 Summer School and Credit Recovery Options with

14 Mr. Cortez, the Executive Director of Beyond the Bell.

15 MR. SANDOVAL: Mr. Cortez was not able to be

16 here to make the presentation. He is at a conference,

17 but my name is Javier Sandoval. I'm an administrator

18 with the Beyond the Bell Branch, and I'm here with

19 Nancy Robinson, the other administrator of Beyond the

20 Bell Branch, and we will give you a very quick summary

21 of where we are with summer school.

22 We have a PowerPoint, there we go, and we're

23 going to talk about the academic summer school

24 programs. We have two programs going on that we're

25 preparing for summer of 2014.



136

1 The first one is a District Based Program. We

2 call the District Based Program because that is a

3 program that basically is open to all the students in

4 the district. We differentiate that program from the

5 Core Waiver Program because funding for that program

6 comes to the schools that have been identified in the

7 district's Core Waiver of the No Child Left Behind Act.

8 So in the District Based Program, we have a

9 high school program. We don't have a middle school,

10 and we don't have an elementary program, but in the

11 Core Waiver we do. We have a high school program, a

12 middle school program and an elementary.

13 So let me touch upon first the summer school

14 program. In the summer school program, we see we have

15 the District Based Program and the Core Waiver Program.

16 We call it the Core Waiver ELOS. Some major

17 differences this year from last year, and this is a

18 high school.

19 First of all, last year students could only

20 take one class to make up. And this is Credit Recovery

21 this year, with the additional funds, students will be

22 able to take two classes. Last year we had 16 sites in

23 the summer for high school. This year we will have

24 75 sites which means that almost every physical site n

25 the District will be engaged in summer school for



137

1 students.

2 Because of the multiple sources of funding --

3 we have General Fund. We have Common Core State

4 Standards Fund. We have the Core Waiver Fund. We're

5 going to be able to provide summer school opportunities

6 at the high school level to a far number -- a greater

7 number of students.

8 We have an opportunity now to try to get back

9 to the possibility of offering two classes per student,

10 but that means that in the time span that we have, we

11 had to look at providing summer school across two

12 school years. This is the first time we've ever had

13 summer school start in June and end in July. We are

14 moving towards MISIS, the My Integrated Student

15 Informational System, and we will be the pilot for that

16 system which is going to go full bore in August when

17 schools open up.

18 The magnet students, the ones that get

19 transported at the Core Waiver schools, they will

20 continue to be transported during the summer. They no

21 longer will have to stop where they are at their school

22 and then attend another school that is not their

23 regular school in the school year.

24 So now some of the differences between the

25 District Based Program and Core Waiver Program. First



138

1 of all, it's the funding source that's a major

2 difference. In the District Based Program, we have

3 two funding sources, the Common Core State Standards

4 and the Beyond the Bell Credit Recovery which is the

5 general fund. That's the name of the general fund that

6 we have.

7 We also have Common Core State Standards

8 funding. They will cover the four main core areas,

9 English, Math, Science and Social Studies. For

10 students in 9th grade that have gotten "D's" and "F's,"

11 and we know that the current 9th grade student, a "D"

12 is not a passing grade, so we are inviting them back to

13 summer stool to make up those grades. And then

14 students in 10th and 11th, if they have failed, of

15 course.

16 General funds, that's the Beyond the Bell

17 Credit Recovery, those are geared specifically for the

18 12th grade students. You'll notice that the Common

19 Core State Standards funds do not cover the 12th grade

20 students, so for the 12th grade students, we have

21 general funds for them.

22 As I said, the District Based Program is the

23 general program for the District. It's district wide

24 enrollment. We are also going to be hosting the

25 Special ED Program at nine of those schools.



139

1 If we look over at the Core Waiver ELOS, that

2 is for a limited number of schools. Those are the Core

3 Waiver schools identified as priority, focus, support,

4 collaborative partner and rewards schools. Those were

5 all the -- these schools that were identified in the

6 District's request of that waiver that was granted.

7 These schools will only offer in four subject

8 areas for all grades for all students that got -- that

9 received "D's" and "F's." Enrollment in those schools

10 will only be for those students. Think of it as

11 Title I funds being generated by the students at that

12 school. It's for the students at that school.

13 As I skipped over, we have funds for about

14 26,500 students coming out of the Core Waiver and

15 that's students -- if each of those students took

16 two courses. If not and some of them take one, we'd

17 have more room for more students.

18 And I skipped over the District based. The

19 money that we have for the District Based covers about

20 10,500 students. Because -- I'll just briefly go over

21 this with you. The general fund, we have about a

22 million dollars in that funds. That's to cover the

23 12th grade students. Of course, 12th graders in

24 enrollment would have priority, and, of course, we want

25 to make sure that those that are closest to graduation



140

1 get served first, and those are the ones that have ten

2 or less units.

3 And the District-based priority for the Common

4 Core, the priority flips. We have $5 million to cover

5 9th, 10th and 11th grade students starting with the

6 9th graders because we know the 9th graders are going

7 to be the ones going through the Common Core

8 instruction as we move on in this year.

9 Finally, at the Core Waiver ELOS, we have a

10 robost -- a robust $15.5 million budget and that is to

11 cover the students where we had -- actually the schools

12 that are the Core Waiver high schools are basically

13 your biggest schools. They're the big, large, massive

14 schools, so that money is great to have there.

15 That basically covers a summary of where we

16 are with the high school. We have finished principals'

17 meetings -- summer school principals's meetings in a

18 couple of the ESC regions, and we are well underway in

19 selecting the teachers for summer school. We've

20 already selected the principals. We've selected the --

21 the teachers come next and other support staff.

22 To speak about the elementary and middle

23 school Core Waiver Program, I'm going to turn the

24 microphone over to Nancy Robinson.

25 MS. ROBINSON: I'm better looking than



141

1 Al Cortez. Even though he's my boss, he's the best

2 boss to work for.

3 Basically for elementary and middle schools,

4 this is the first time we've been able to offer a

5 district program in about seven years. This is a

6 program funded by Core Waiver which is Title I, so for

7 our schools that were priority, focus, support,

8 collaborative partner and rewards schools, they're all

9 being offered the opportunity to offer a summer

10 program.

11 There are 108 elementary, 36 middle and 6 span

12 schools that are included in this particular summer

13 offering, so we're very pleased that our awards schools

14 are actually getting some kind of a reward for their

15 wonderful work they've been doing.

16 The program itself is a four-week program

17 beginning on June 16th and running to July 11th. It's

18 a short half-day program for three hours, but we

19 anticipate in elementary that we should be able to

20 serve well over 13,000 students; 16,000 students in our

21 middle schools.

22 All together, we're looking at approximately a

23 $3.6 or a $3.7 million program for these schools and

24 that would cover many, many classrooms across the

25 district, so we're very proud of that.



142

1 To organize the program, schools will be given

2 an allocation of classes and that will be based upon a

3 funding formula from the number of far below basic and

4 below basic students per their CST scores of 2013.

5 We will be serving students in grades two

6 through five or six in elementary and then six through

7 eight in middle schools. The students will be selected

8 based on a priority in order to serve the students with

9 the greatest need.

10 We will have waiting lists so that if a

11 student drops out or is unable to complete their -- the

12 enrollment process, we'll be able to slip another child

13 in to participate. Our class size will be 1 to 25, and

14 for those rewards schools that are quite small and have

15 a lower number of students with great need, we have

16 decided there would be a minimum school size of

17 four classrooms. So our smallest program to be

18 cost-effective will have four teachers in them. No

19 less than four. Based on need, some schools will be

20 quite a bit larger.

21 The program itself will have a dedicated

22 direct instruction piece in elementary. Because our

23 students generally perform less well in English

24 Language Arts, that will be the instruction curriculum,

25 and in middle school, Mathematics is the focus.



143

1 However, we know in our largest middle

2 schools, they may not be able to only serve

3 Mathematics, so the first priority will be to enroll

4 students in mathematics and fill those classrooms with

5 math teachers, and then they'll move to English

6 Language Arts as the second priority.

7 In each day, we are going to provide time for

8 our teachers to have project based activities for

9 learning and that's going to be one of the hooks that

10 brings the child back every day. Because in

11 elementary/middle school there is no credit, the

12 students will be attending and showing their -- and

13 voting with their feet, so to speak. Hopefully this

14 will keep them in class instead of on vacation.

15 And we thank Dr. Donna Munsey because she was

16 a very big proponent of including an instructional

17 field trip for every class somewhere through the summer

18 program for elementary and middle School. They'll be

19 attending an instructional field trip.

20 So that's basically what elementary and middle

21 will look like this summer.

22 MR. SANDOVAL: Questions?

23 MS. RATLIFF: Let's take some questions.

24 MR. KAYSER: First of all, I want to say

25 thank you to Donna Munsey for giving us field trips.



144

1 It's been a goal of mine since coming on -- since

2 before coming on the Board, so that's great.

3 We were just talking a lot in the last part of

4 our meeting about the Arts being a Core subject.

5 Can any of these summer classes being be Arts

6 classes?

7 MR. SANDOVAL: Yes, they can. In the

8 District-based program, if schools would like to

9 have -- well, no. Let me take that back.

10 A through G and the courses, as I recall --

11 no. I'm sorry. It's Foreign Language is what I was

12 thinking of. Foreign language is what's on the list of

13 approved courses, and I don't recall that there are

14 Arts Instruction courses.

15 MS. ROBINSON: In the elementary and middle

16 school, in the portion of the day that will have

17 activity-based instruction, we are highly recommending

18 to integrate Arts into the -- the content so that that

19 teacher who is teaching English Language Arts directed

20 out of prescribed curriculum for two hours will then

21 have one hour to do the creativity thing like a

22 reader's theater or perhaps doing some rapping and

23 singing and creating music and writing plays and

24 performing, so that is a very flexible hour that our

25 principals will be working with their teachers in



145

1 Mathematics and in English Language Arts to give them

2 flexibility.



5 MS. JEFFREY: For -- usually summer is when we

6 do the deep cleaning at the school sites, so could you

7 talk to us about the plan or how you communicate M&O to

8 make sure the schools are clean for the first day of

9 school while summer school is going on?

10 MR. SANDOVAL: Absolutely. And, of course,

11 we leave that up to the experts, so we met with

12 Roger Finstad of M&O, and he is coordinating his staff

13 to make sure that the schools get clean while -- and

14 the summer school period, the schools are clean also.

15 So he -- we have set aside funds to make sure

16 that there is overtime, to make sure that the schools

17 get cleaned and also to make sure that there's clean-up

18 after our programs.

19 MR. KAYSER: Adding onto that comment, is

20 there going to be breakfast in the classroom during

21 the summer?

22 MR. SANDOVAL: That's a good question.

23 At the high school level, we will have a

24 brunch between periods, and they will be provided by

25 Food Services. I don't know where they will be having



146

1 their lunch.

2 MS. ROBINSON: The elementary and middle

3 schools will not be serving breakfast as part of their

4 academic program. If there is a -- John Han is here to

5 help us with additional questions.

6 If there's an after-school enrichment program

7 like and LA's Best or a YDP program, there will be a

8 lunch served right at the conclusion of the summer

9 school day so that the students in the community will

10 be able to participate in that -- that program.

11 If there is no after-school program, then a

12 brunch will be served at a recess time at those

13 elementary and middle schools, and it will also be open

14 for the community; however, it will be served between

15 10:00 and 11:00 so that every student will be provided

16 a meal.

17 And then my understanding is that for schools

18 that have an enrichment program, Beyond the Bell is

19 making arrangements so that they'll also have a snack

20 in the late afternoon because those programs run often

21 until 5:50 in the evening.

22 For morning programs, I believe that Beyond

23 the Bell is working to figure out a snack program.

24 You want to address that?

25 MR. HAN: Good afternoon. My name is John.



147

1 I'm with Beyond the Bell, and some of the summer stuff

2 can sound a little bit confusing even when you do work

3 for Beyond the Bell.

4 What Nancy and Javier represent is the Core

5 Waiver, the high school more. Beyond the Bell still

6 does the ASES-funded supplemental grant which run --

7 which this summer will be running at approximately

8 230-some-odd schools at the elementary and middle

9 school. And we are working with Food Services to make

10 sure that we have a community feed at each of the these

11 schools that will qualify for it.

12 So we open up the schools, advertise and we'll

13 have a snack as well, so the community can come in as

14 long as you're under the age of 18 to get a free meal

15 which has the components of, you know, the milk, the

16 dairy, the protein and everything.

17 So we're working in close collaboration with

18 Food Services to make sure that we offer these meals,

19 and it is part of our grant to offer a snack, but when

20 kids are them from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., a bag of

21 Goldfish really doesn't -- it's not adequate. So we're

22 fortunate to work with Food Services in getting all the

23 regulations, getting all the training down for our

24 staff members to be able to distribute and account for

25 all these meals.



148

1 The enrichment you talked about, Mr. Kayser,

2 it is something that's a part of our grant as well. We

3 do have Academics Enrichment and Physical Fitness, and

4 we'd love to get more Arts into this kind of -- our

5 summer programming; however, a lot of our staff members

6 are not certificated staff members. They are

7 classified employees, sometimes part-time employees

8 that are holding onto this job as something in between

9 as they want to become teachers.

10 So somehow integrating that would be a

11 wonderful way because we (unintelligible) already. It

12 would be great if we could incorporate a little bit

13 more, I guess, Discrete kind of Art instruction to our

14 students while we have them there.

15 DR. ROUSSEAU: So thank you. It is reassuring

16 to know that we'll be offering more for the summer for

17 our students.

18 I have two questions. One is, with the

19 summer school, I've always been interested how will the

20 curriculum and instruction differ from the school year

21 and particularly target -- I know we put them all in

22 the same classroom, but they -- they come with

23 different reasons they're needing to repeat, and so how

24 do we address that.

25 So instead of just a broad "everybody gets the



149

1 same thing" -- and I know how hard it is. I'm not

2 advocating for anything in particular, but I just

3 wonder if we're doing that because perhaps the summer

4 school becomes a more building experience for success

5 the next year.

6 MS. ROBINSON: For elementary and middle

7 school, you're right. It's difficult to put students

8 of all levels; however, that happens every day anyway,

9 so I think this extra hour of activity-based learning

10 within each day really provides that opportunity to

11 differentiate.

12 We are purchasing a curriculum, a packaged

13 product that is designed for intervention, so this is

14 remediation. It's a review of skills that they should

15 have met during the regular year, and then the teachers

16 will be going through a training to learn how to use a

17 pre-test as a formative assessment to select the

18 appropriate lessons for their class so that they won't

19 be acting as, you know, Sherman marching through

20 Georgia, but they'll be a little more specific on the

21 lessons that they're selecting and then the follow-up

22 activities to meet the individual needs.

23 MR. SANDOVAL: At the high school level, we

24 have very specific curriculum guides that the Office of

25 Instruction has provided us, and so with those guides,



150

1 they have targeted specific aspects of a course so that

2 the teachers can do more focused instruction in those

3 areas that the data shows that students are missing out

4 on the most.

5 DR. ROUSSEAU: So you're looking for patterns

6 or trends within them which would give more emphasis to

7 certain areas?

8 MR. SANDOVAL: Yes. That's what's been

9 provided by the Office of Instruction.

10 DR. ROUSSEAU: And then my other question,

11 where does Youth Opportunities fit in to the summer

12 school?

13 Are they on-site?

14 MR. HAN: Youth Opportunity or Youth Services?

15 MR. SANDOVAL: No. Youth -- I'm trying to

16 think. Youth Oppor- -- yes. They are -- they are not

17 a site. They, I believe, are a feeder site, and if I'm

18 not mistaken, Youth Opportunities has several sites,

19 and so those students would be going to the

20 District-based schools.

21 DR. ROUSSEAU: Okay. So they are not sites

22 within themselves?

23 MR. SANDOVAL: No.

24 DR. ROUSSEAU: Someone asked me a question

25 about that, and I didn't know the answer.



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1 MR. SANDOVAL: Yeah. No, they're not.

2 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Before I move it over

3 here -- before I move it here, I am going to ask

4 Steve Zimmer's questions. Okay?

5 So these are Board Member Zimmer's.

6 Questions for Beyond the Bell, No. 1:

7 "If we do not maintain the six

8 adult school credit recovery sites,

9 how can we make sure that we

10 maximize the number of students who

11 are in range for diplomas?"

12 MR. SANDOVAL: The question goes to the

13 continuation schools?

14 MS. RATLIFF: Yes. Well, no. Adult school --

15 I'll repeat the question. It's not my question, so I

16 can't really clarify much, but I will repeat it.

17 "If we do not maintain the six

18 adult school credit recovery sites,

19 how can we make sure that we

20 maximize the number of students who

21 are in range for diplomas?"

22 MR. SANDOVAL: I wish I could answer that

23 question, but it's not part of our department. That's

24 Adult ED that would have to answer that.

25 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. All right. Will let him



152

1 know that you punted that to Adult ED.

2 The next one is: "For students

3 in Options program, have we

4 maximized all options for safe,

5 productive sites to allow them to

6 remain in school over the summer?"

7 MR. SANDOVAL: If I interpret that question

8 correctly is -- are continuation school sites going to

9 be open?

10 Continuation school sites, as you know, are

11 very expensive to run, so we don't open with our high

12 school funds the continuation schools; however, I know

13 that Dr. Perkins is looking into that issue regarding

14 the continuation schools, especially the continuation

15 schools that may have continuous enrollment.

16 So he is, the last I talked to his staff, he

17 is in communication -- or he's working on that issue.

18 MS. RATLIFF: Thank you. We're going to move

19 in this direction. We'll go --

20 MR. KAYSER: That's the same question

21 regarding City of Angels as an Option school. It has

22 continuous enrollment, I believe.

23 MR. SANDOVAL: City of Angels is not a site,

24 you know. They have like 24 little sites all over the

25 District, so those students would be going to the



153

1 nearest district-based school for summer school.

2 DR. MULLER: I just wanted to say it's good to

3 hear that breakfast is in the cafeteria where it's

4 belonged all the time, and, secondarily, I just would

5 like your assurance that the contractual selection

6 process for instructors was followed.

7 MR. SANDOVAL: Yes. And it's reiterated in

8 all of our principals' meetings that they must follow

9 Article 22 of the UTLA contract which specifically

10 gives the priority for the selection of teachers.


12 MS. JEFFREY: I have another Operations

13 questions.

14 For the summer school program, is there

15 funding for supplies, copying, paper, pencil, crayons,

16 whatever?

17 MS. ROBINSON: Beyond the Bell, one stop

18 shopping. We do it all, big and small.

19 MS. JEFFREY: All right.

20 MS. ROBINSON: We will be sending each one of

21 our schools a limited amount of general supplies for

22 custodial, so our principal I needed trash bags, toilet

23 paper and paper towels, so they're on the top three

24 list for every school that will be receiving materials

25 for custodial. In addition we will be providing -- are



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1 you going to be doing funding or are you -- for

2 elementary and middle, I'm doing the ordering of

3 general supplies for instructional material to arrive

4 at the school before the school year ends. It should

5 come the first week of June which will provide paper,

6 pencils, crayons, glue stick, butcher paper, cases of

7 copy paper. Just about everything they'll need to

8 cover so school will not have to impact their fall

9 resources or try scrimp and save through spring.

10 We -- there are some things we just can't

11 purchase like toner because every school has different

12 printers and so forth, but we are trying to give them

13 the most basic materials that they need.

14 MS. JEFFREY: And does this include the

15 Special ED summer schools also?

16 MS. ROBINSON: I cannot speak for Special ED.

17 MS. JEFFREY: Oh, okay.

18 MR. HAN: We don't directly oversee that.

19 MS. JEFFREY: That's the Special ED

20 Department?

21 MR. SANDOVAL: Yeah. That would be a division

22 of Special Ed, but I know that they are providing

23 funding for their programs also.

24 MS. JEFFREY: Thank you.

25 MS. RATLIFF: So I just am so excited to be



155

1 able to talk with all of you today. I think that this

2 is amazing.

3 The 30 -- so if my estimation is correct,

4 we're talking about serving 37,000 students; is that

5 accurate?

6 MR. SANDOVAL: That's just in the high school.

7 MS. RATLIFF: Oh, okay.

8 So how many students are we talking about

9 serving in all this summer.

10 MS. ROBINSON: 37 plus another -- what'd I --

11 I'm talking another 23,000 perhaps, so we're looking at

12 a good 50,000 students.

13 MS. RATLIFF: 50,000 students are going to be

14 served by LAUSD for summer school this summer. That is

15 fantastic.

16 When I was out there, voters were constantly

17 telling me, bring back summer school, and I wish I

18 could take all the credit for this, but I can't, but at

19 least it's back, and I am so excited.

20 So I think this commitment on the part of the

21 District, on the part of our superintendent, on the

22 part of our instructional team, on the part of the

23 Board, everyone is fantastic because this is going to

24 give our students a real chance to have a leg up.

25 And as you mentioned, Dr. Rousseau, ultimately



156

1 there is going to have to be some discussion about how

2 do we really meet the needs of some of these students

3 who are ending up needing this?

4 Because the reality is, if they could have

5 gotten it in the first class, they would have; right?

6 So now they are taking sometimes the classes

7 again or whatever and if you just teach it the same old

8 way, I'm concerned you're going to have the same

9 result.

10 And then my last question -- because those are

11 more like accommodations -- my last question is you

12 mentioned the curriculum. That we're purchasing a

13 curriculum.

14 Have we purchased this curriculum?

15 MS. ROBINSON: We're in the process of that.

16 We've overviewed -- we reviewed several different

17 products that were out there. They were reviewed by

18 the Office of Instruction and Beyond the Bell, and we

19 feel that it's something that can be used through the

20 summer and then housed at that school and reused again.

21 There were consumable workbook and so forth, but it

22 would be a product that could be reused.

23 It is just an intervention program. It's

24 not -- it's Common Core aligned. These teaching

25 strategies are aligned to Common Core as well, but it



157

1 is intended to just be an intervention piece, not a

2 full curriculum.

3 MS. RATLIFF: And is this interventional

4 curriculum -- we'll call it that --

5 MS. ROBINSON: Yes.

6 MS. RATLIFF: Was there and RFP done for it,

7 or what was the process done for the selection of this

8 curriculum?

9 MS. ROBINSON: It's currently right now at

10 Procurement, and we're going through the process to

11 finish the purchase.

12 MS. RATLIFF: And do we have any estimation on

13 the cost?

14 MS. ROBINSON: My cost is -- the cost per

15 child for middle school is running somewhere around

16 $275, but that includes all overhead teacher expenses.

17 I'm allowing approximately $50 per child. I was

18 cutting it down to like a per-pupil cost, and my

19 estimate was on the high side, so I don't know exactly

20 what the cost will be, but we will be coming in under

21 budget because right now I know I have $300,000, but

22 that's just the first order and that's spread across

23 two curriculums in multiple grade levels.

24 Until we know exactly what courses or classes

25 each school will be offering, we won't know exactly



158

1 which materials to purchase, but --

2 MS. RATLIFF: So then if we were curious about

3 what was within the RFP process or something, what were

4 the specifications -- right? -- how was this curriculum

5 going to meet the needs of English Language Learners,

6 Standard English Learners, all of that, we should talk

7 to Procurement?

8 MS. ROBINSON: Well, you can speak to me, but

9 we're in conversations right now with Procurement, so

10 we can get back to you on that.

11 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. All right.

12 Well, do you want to come back then next time,

13 or what would be easiest for you in terms of getting

14 this information to the committee?

15 MS. ROBINSON: I can certainly email you

16 information if that would be easier for your committee.

17 MS. RATLIFF: That's fine with us. Okay.

18 Yeah. I think we'd love to hear about the

19 specifications because since we're purchasing this

20 curriculum for intervention, it's going to cost some

21 money, and so it would be interesting, I think, for all

22 of us to learn a little bit more about what were the

23 specifications for choosing that curriculum and

24 particularly in terms of the diverse student

25 populations that we serve and their needs.



159

1 Any other comments?

2 MR. KAYSER: Just I have just one more.

3 So how are we serving the 50,000 students for

4 summer school?

5 Is that -- do we expect to have a few extra

6 open at the end, or are we going to have kids that are

7 going to get turned away?

8 MS. ROBINSON: Students in middle school and

9 elementary school may be turned away at certain

10 schools. Some schools may not be funded for every

11 child who needs to attend. And at the high school's,

12 it's by student choice. They may need to come, and

13 they may choose not to come. So we offer what -- as

14 much as we can with our budget that's allowed, and

15 hopefully the students will maximize and --

16 MR. KAYSER: If an elementary student is

17 turned away, can they go to another elementary school

18 that has --

19 MS. ROBINSON: Elementary and middle school,

20 because Core Waiver is Title I, it's only for students

21 at that school because the money was generated by that

22 child. So I believe you received the list of all the

23 schools that are offering programs.

24 So at particularly, say, 109th Street School

25 Elementary, only students currently enrolled at



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1 109th Street would be -- who are eligible would be

2 invited to attend.

3 MR. KAYSER: If it becomes apparent, say, that

4 there would be another 30 students who -- over the

5 capacity, that another class could be added?

6 MS. ROBINSON: I would not have the authority

7 to do so, but I could certainly take that request above

8 to see if that is a possibility.


10 MR. SANDOVAL: Just to follow up on that

11 question. The enrollment patterns vary from school to

12 school.

13 MR. KAYSER: True.

14 MR. SANDOVAL: And so some schools may need

15 more classes. More students want to come because this

16 is a voluntary program. Other schools may not be able

17 to generate the number of students that we have

18 provided for, and so it would be a very simple thing to

19 move a class from one school to another school and stay

20 within the budget. That's what we do all the time at

21 high school.

22 MS. RATLIFF: That sounds fantastic.

23 MR. KAYSER: Yes.

24 MS. RATLIFF: So how can we make sure that

25 that is going to happen?



161

1 What do we need to -- what does the Board need

2 to say, or what do we need to do -- what does the --

3 people need to rise up and say -- to get that to happen

4 because I know that last year parents were calling up

5 trying to find a summer school location for their

6 children, so clearly if what you're saying is, if it's

7 not all being used, we can move some of the funding to

8 a location where it's needed --

9 MR. SANDOVAL: Yes.

10 MS. RATLIFF: -- what can we do to make sure

11 that happens?

12 MR. SANDOVAL: Well, what we have to do first

13 of all is wait to see what the enrollment looks like

14 because we don't know until the first or second day.

15 Then we get calls in from the different schools and,

16 say, you know, "I've got this waiting list." Who's --

17 and we ask them, "What is your enrollment like?"

18 As a matter of fact, we take some -- in

19 monitoring summer school, we take a couple of checks to

20 see how they're doing. The first check is May 16th

21 where we start to look at what the enrollment is going

22 to be like, and at that point, we can see how many

23 teachers have been hired, how many students have been

24 enrolled, and then we can see based on the allocation

25 of classes that we have given the school where they



162

1 are; Are they low? Are they high?

2 We have the counseling coordinators out there

3 helping in this process. Actually, they're are the

4 ones that are helping all their schools to make sure

5 that they serve all the students that they can given

6 the allocations that the schools have.

7 We did that -- now, Keep in mind, last year it

8 was only 16 high schools. There's no middle school.

9 No elementary school. This year we have 75 high

10 schools. Every single physical site is being opened,

11 so we have much more capacity, so we're hoping that you

12 will get less calls from parents asking "Where do I

13 go?"

14 You know, when you have a million dollar

15 budget, there's very little you can do, and so -- but

16 even with that, there were some schools that said,

17 "Okay," you know, "our kids aren't coming. We don't

18 need this class. We'll move it," and so that's what we

19 did. We moved it to another site.

20 So the counseling coordinators, I would say I

21 have confidence in, are on top of their schools. They

22 know what the enrollment patterns are going to be.

23 We've got the new MISIS System that will allow us to

24 see what the enrollment patterns are, and we can stay

25 on top of that.



163

1 MS. RATLIFF: Great.

2 Dr. Muller?

3 DR. MULLER: Just, I guess it's my

4 foundational mathematics credential that keeps coming

5 through, but I think 37,000 and 23,000 is actually

6 60,000, not 50,000 that's been cited several times, and

7 I wanted to make sure that all of you out in Tv land

8 didn't get the idea that we couldn't add.

9 MS. RATLIFF: Clearly, you earned your

10 doctorate there.

11 DR. MULLER: But my question was, what I would

12 like to see also for summer school is right now we seem

13 to have a program that's designed to fill in the gaps

14 for a lot of kids. And what I want to see is a summer

15 school program that doesn't just work to fill in gaps,

16 but one that actually, if you have a kid who's on task.

17 Has everything handled, that there are other expansive

18 options, other things that they can do where they can

19 get the enrichment, they can get the support, and they

20 may not be necessarily explicitly academic in the sense

21 of they have to be credit-bearing courses, but there

22 are other options where you have people in the

23 community who are able to work with student in that

24 kind of venue, and to go back to the first

25 presentation, tap into all of the different kinds of



164

1 contextual capital that exists in the communities to

2 strengthen the connections and help students in all of

3 the aspect of their development.

4 MR. HAN: So once again, going back to the

5 clarification between the summer programs that Nancy

6 and Javier are overseeing, and the ones that -- the

7 other portion that Beyond the Bell does.

8 The main differentiation between the two, I

9 would say, is one is taught by certificated staff

10 members with the principal onboard, the Core Waiver,

11 for example. The other ones are essentially managed by

12 Beyond the Bell central administration staff, these are

13 classified employees that are running programs.

14 And in those programs, the 230 I mentioned,

15 not at the high school, elementary and middle school,

16 kids can come as they go basically. We have a priority

17 for L.A. Unified students, so if a kid's brother goes

18 over and they want to go to the same school, we can

19 absolutely accept them, and we don't turn kids away.

20 That program is a little less academically

21 involved. We've worked with the County Office of ED

22 the past two years, so we've actually changed our

23 summer up now. It's more of a camp feel for kids, so

24 it's more like they're changing the environment of the

25 school to make it a space location or make it like, you



165

1 know, they'll completely transform the school to make

2 it more fun. They'll have more chance. They'll have

3 more team-building activities, so their academic --

4 there's is more of the academically involved for the

5 kids that don't make up -- or that need to make up

6 units. Ours are more for the kids that need that extra

7 opportunity to see something different, and so you'll

8 see a lot more of that happening with the programs that

9 we have.

10 So that's a little bit of the differentiation

11 between the two different programs.

12 MS. RATLIFF: Great. I think this has been a

13 fantastic presentation. Thank you so much.

14 So, Ms. Robinson, if you want to email us the

15 information, that would be great.

16 And then I don't know who will be running the

17 curriculum committee in the future, but I'm sure that

18 after the summer, whoever is running it, would probably

19 love to have you come back and talk about what did we

20 learn, what did we see, you know, what were the success

21 rates and so forth, so I think this is a wonderful

22 opportunity, so thank you so much.

23 All right. We're going to move into public

24 comment, so we're happy to begin with 1 or 2 if 1's

25 not -- oh, it looks like two hands went up, so I think



166

1 1 and 2 are here, so let's start with 1.

2 Okay. I think we need to restart her time.

3 MS. ARAN: Okay. My name is Barbara Aran,

4 and I'm a retired elementary school teacher in LAUSD.

5 I speak today for the students, parents and teachers of

6 LAUSD who deserve the very best arts instruction.

7 Quote: "Our lives begin to end

8 the day we become silent about

9 things that matter, "unquote,

10 Martin Luther King, Jr.

11 This (unintelligible) secret plan put forward

12 today is the Humpty Dumpty plan. Is this a

13 (unintelligible). Once it has been put into effect and

14 broken, the instructional continuity, it can't be put

15 back together again. Arts instruction requires

16 continuity, and this plan destroys it.

17 Sunlight is the best disinfectant. This plan

18 has been conceived in secrecy. No opportunity provided

19 for stakeholder input; students, teachers, principals

20 or parents even though it's obvious this has been

21 planned for months.

22 The numbers in this report are a fantasy made

23 up to support the fallacious conclusions. Many more

24 students are currently served in the Arts than stated.

25 Parents rent and buy so their children can participate



167

1 in instrumental music.

2 Examples: Two schools I know where just the

3 stringed instruments alone, just stringed instruments,

4 one has 50 students and the other 59 students. This

5 does not include the wind instruments.

6 Why bother sending emails to principals which

7 the District does not intend to honor. This goes to

8 the heart of whether the District has integrity.

9 Parents, teachers, students will have their

10 expectations destroyed.

11 As many of you are aware, instrumental music

12 instruction was abruptly cut at two LAUSD elementary

13 schools in December mid-year with no explanation or

14 apology ever provided to the children, to the parents,

15 to the staff or teachers. With a domino effect,

16 collateral damage shifts occurring to at least another

17 18 schools, a shameless and covert ambush never

18 explained or apologized for ever.

19 Some of you are aware that to learn the

20 Arts requires consecutive and sequential and consistent

21 practice for many years. Malcolm Gladwell makes

22 reference to this in his book "Outliers" as a $10,000

23 rule. Einstein played the violin. He stated that it

24 helped him to think.

25 In the name of equity, a perverse doublespeak



168

1 term as in George Orwell's 1984, teach the Arts to the

2 lowest common denominator by the nine-week plan which

3 cannot teach the most basic vocabulary understanding of

4 any of the Arts, specifically music, whether vocal or

5 instrumental. Nine hours at most, that is, twelve

6 45-minute group lessons cannot teach students to read

7 and respond to the language of music.

8 Even the Suzuki Method requires daily parent

9 supervision. As for the P.T.A. and outside providing

10 extracurricular Arts after the school day, it is

11 helpful only as a supplemental.

12 Non-credentialed teachers; what happens to the

13 highly qualified "No child left Behind," question mark?

14 Not sequential instruments and supplies paid

15 by, question mark. Number of hours of instruction much

16 less. Maybe two hours versus six hours in a full day

17 for a qualified teacher. Obviously fewer students have

18 access.

19 The priority here is to return the budget and

20 the number of teachers to 2008 levels.

21 MS. RATLIFF: I'm going to ask you to wrap it

22 up, please.

23 MS. ARAN: Okay.

24 The Arts Integration plan for General ED

25 teachers which can be found on the Web provide



169

1 illumination on the plan. Kinder level instructions;

2 all I have found are Kinder level lessons taught by

3 musical illiterates.

4 Don't know how to read music?

5 Okay. Take a tour to Greece with a guide

6 who's never been to Greece, doesn't speak Greek or read

7 Greek, never been to Greece, hasn't read Mythology,

8 et cetera. Let's pull back the curtain on this, on the

9 "Wizard of Oz," and let the stakeholder speak.

10 This plan should not be implemented without

11 the entire Arts community discussion.


13 MS. ARAN: Thank you.

14 MS. RATLIFF: Don't start speaking.

15 MR. ROSE: How many minutes?

16 MS. RATLIFF: You're going to get three

17 minutes.

18 MR. ROSE: Okay. Thank you.

19 MS. RATLIFF: Are you ready?

20 MR. ROSE: Yeah.

21 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. Go ahead and begin.

22 MR. ROSE: I -- just today, I went to the L.A.

23 Board supervisor, but they canceled the meeting, so I

24 came over here. And I'd like to talk about violent

25 cartoons, drugs and alcohol and bully.



170

1 On Fox Channel 11, there so -- lots of bad

2 cartoons like "Family Guy," "King of the Hill,"

3 "Simpsons," you know, assault and battery charge, you

4 know, and -- and -- and how kids walk over their

5 parents too much, you know. And call them -- like

6 "King of the Hill," they're drinking beer, you know,

7 and like cartoons, so, you know, kids can deal -- like

8 Jr. high, high school, they get into things and

9 stealing their family member's medication, and kids use

10 it for drugs, and family members use it for medication

11 for their health, you know.

12 And then there -- there are things going on

13 like the bath salt and salt, and it cause the hyper

14 dis -- disorder. Like, you buy -- go to the store,

15 7-Eleven, paint store, gas station, you know. It cause

16 the bath salt -- I know -- I know one kid

17 (unintelligible) had that problem. He get very hyper,

18 and after acting weird, you know. And I taste it, and

19 it tastes like horrible. And I was a Commander Royal

20 Ranger, 2002 and 2008, you know, and work with little

21 kids 1st to 6th grade and things that I did there, and

22 I got off Obama letter thinks that kids that watch the

23 video games, you know, and get idea with wrong friends,

24 and off Obama wrote me good letter there too about our

25 future generation, and thank you for showing us people



171

1 around the world helping people.

2 And so I just want to ask you to do something

3 to help these kids, like (unintelligible) outreach or

4 (unintelligible) or -- or LA Dream Center to help

5 educate these kids where their level is because on the

6 Help website, you know, like a Help website, is

7 (unintelligible) alcohol and cocaine and what does a

8 body do, and too much will kill your heart, kill your

9 liver, and people die easily. That's why we got so

10 many people dying every day with those things.

11 So when Paul (unintelligible) passed away this

12 last year ago and over stressed his heart out, and

13 heart can't take it so much, you know, and thinks that

14 we have to take (unintelligible).

15 And thank you for your time. I'd like to send

16 a DVD to MDS website, focus on the family dot com.

17 Thank you.


19 Speaker No. 3, please.

20 MS. FOX: Hello, my name is Ginger Rose Fox,

21 and I'm the Chair of the Arts Education Committee

22 within UTLA, and I first of all want to just thank all

23 of you for having such a wonderful in-depth discussion

24 about the proposed plan that we heard about today.

25 The Arts Education Committee is disturbed that



172

1 we only heard about the plan last name. It was only

2 posted online last night. Then we were not involved in

3 any of the planning of that plan whatsoever.

4 And so what we want you to understand, which a

5 few things that were not brought up today is that when

6 the Board Resolution said that we wanted to go back to

7 2007/08 levels to rest -- the restoration of funding

8 for elementary Arts Education at 2007/08 levels, then

9 that -- that included one day per every elementary

10 school of music instruction.

11 Every single elementary school received at

12 least one day of music instruction, and either vocal

13 general music or instrumental music. And at that time

14 also, we had a rotation -- a 12-week rotation of the

15 other three art forms; Dance, Theater and Visual Arts.

16 And each one of us -- I am a Dance teacher. I'm also a

17 Theater teacher. I've also taught in high school.

18 But at that time, we were all teaching at

19 seven different elementary schools. What this plan

20 proposes is that we would all jump from five schools to

21 five schools to five schools serving a total of

22 20 schools which is a giant increase in the number of

23 relationships that we'd -- that we would need to build

24 with our principals and our schools and our staffs and

25 create all those different kinds of schedules for our



173

1 schools. And it was brought up that some of the

2 numbers are not accurate of the numbers of students

3 that we serve and that's absolutely true. Those

4 numbers are not accurate.

5 Sometimes we teach -- we teach five classes

6 per day, the Dance, Theater and Visual Arts teachers.

7 The vocal music teachers teach seven to nine classes

8 per day and upwards of 24 to 32, 34 students per class,

9 and you times that by five times five, that's a lot

10 more than the numbers that you see here in this plan.

11 So when one plan is put next to the other

12 plan, in our view, that neither one creates equity for

13 students. Neither plan creates equity.

14 What we should be looking at is returning back

15 to what is in the Resolution, returning back to funding

16 in the 2007/08 level. And what the -- what UTLA is

17 proposing is that we start that now because that's what

18 the -- the Resolution says is to begin that now and to

19 start a -- a -- working with us, and the good thing is

20 that we are starting to work with both Ms. Etching's

21 office and Mr. Loera's office, so we're happy that

22 that's beginning, so thank you very much.


24 No. 4, please?

25 MS. VAN HOUTEN: Good afternoon. My name is



174

1 Paula Ludwig Van Houten. I've been a music teacher in

2 elementary school in L.A. Unified since 1998. Previous

3 to that, I taught general music and choral music in New

4 York State for 12 years. I'm completing my 28th year

5 as a music teach.

6 I studied at the Eastman School of Music. I

7 have a Master's degree in Music Education. My research

8 is in the sequence of teaching singing, specifically

9 part singing. I have Orff credential level three. I

10 studied at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, and then I

11 studied in Madrid so that I could experience the

12 process in Spanish to better serve my students.

13 This could not be accomplished in nine weeks.

14 As it stands, we are seeing our students for one year,

15 music students one year, a half hour a week giving us

16 approximately 20 -- 18 to 20 hours of music

17 instruction. This nine weeks would give us about

18 nine -- or if we saw them a half hour a week,

19 four-and-a-half hours of music instruction.

20 Music is a sequential developmental process.

21 To sing, to play instruments, to even listen takes more

22 than nine weeks. When I started in this district, I

23 was paid for out of Title I funds, and Title II funds,

24 I was full time in my school. We had music classes for

25 our Special Ed preschool three year olds up through



175

1 grade five. Every student received music instruction

2 at Esperanza Elementary School. For 13 years, I was

3 there full time.

4 When a three year old who supposedly is

5 non-verbal starts to sing and sing words and they're a

6 special-needs student, nobody's doing research on that

7 because they're not even counting that as part of our

8 music education.

9 Additionally, I do volunteer work as a choir

10 director at Central Juvenile Hall. I must tell you,

11 this is a matter of life and death for some of our

12 students. I had one student who told me he played in

13 the virtual orchestra at Disney Hall. Then he got to

14 high school, and there was no music. He didn't go back

15 to school. It was the only thing that was keeping him

16 in school because he got A's in music. That was his

17 strength. That was what he succeeded in. When that's

18 not offered, we're telling those kids we don't care.

19 Talk about equity. Giving everybody in the

20 district nine weeks of an Arts instruction is not

21 equity, and it's certainly not justice because I'm used

22 to teaching in this neighborhood right over here. I've

23 taught all these years near MacArthur Park. Those kids

24 are not getting music education anywhere else. They're

25 not getting it anywhere else. They're on the streets



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1 by the time they get to middle school.

2 This is not equity by giving everybody nine

3 weeks.

4 How about the child that asks me when I said,

5 "Sorry. You're not getting music next year," or what

6 about the child who asks me, "Oh, can't you work for

7 free, Mrs. Van Houten?"

8 "I'm sorry, Honey. I have to pay my rent

9 too."

10 Children don't understand, and we are the

11 teachers are the ones who have to tell them, "No.

12 Sorry. You don't get it." And what is the message

13 we're giving the youth of our city, "You're not worth

14 it."

15 Thank you.

16 MS. RATLIFF: Okay. So I believe somebody has

17 pulled No. 5.

18 Is there a No. 5 out there for public comment?

19 (No response from the public.)

20 MS. RATLIFF: No? Okay?

21 Well, in that case, Jefferson, I believe we

22 can adjourn the meeting; is that correct?

23 MR. CRAIN: That's fine. It's 4:49 p.m.

24 Thank you.

25



Documents

1 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES 2 ...boe.lausd.net/sites/default/files/04-29-14CIAMeetingTranscript.pdfApr 29, 2014 · UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT. 2 1 representative standing