Veteran Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board members Julie Korenstein and Marlene Canter, both of whom are Jewish, announced in late October that they would not seek re-election for their terms, which expire in June.
I write about education a lot because it\’s important for the Jewish community to have a strong public school system. Education is part of the Jewish culture. Many Jews can\’t afford private schools, and their kids deserve an education good enough to send them to college. Moreover, strong public schools are good for everybody, Jews and non-Jews.
When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a news conference on Friday, May 18, to announce his decision to end a yearlong legal battle to take control of Los Angeles schools, Board of Education President Marlene Canter was standing by his side.
Why is the Louisville case so important? Why should we, as Jews, care about its outcome, especially if our children may not even attend public schools? Is affirmative action even relevant in 2006, in our schools, in our world? What are the benefits of diversity in education anyway?
A new law that bans that use of experimental pesticides in schools is the latest achievement of Robina Suwol, a Jewish anti-pesticide activist.
I support Rabbi David Wolpe\’s position entirely (\”We Must Condemn Heartless Bilge,\” Sept. 16). Rav Ovadiah Yosef has made Israel look very bad.
Racially motivated brawls at Jefferson High School this spring made the school appear, at times, like a miniwar zone. Which makes it especially interesting that L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD) officials are learning lessons from Israeli and West Bank schools, where violence, even terrorism, is an ever-present undercurrent.
The person bringing those lessons to Los Angeles is USC professor Ron Avi Astor, who has spent his career studying school violence in Israel and the United States. His newest book, co-written with Israeli professor Rami Benbenishty of Jerusalem\’s Hebrew University, is titled, \”School Violence in Contest: Culture, Neighborhood, Family, School, and Gender.\” The two scholars conducted studies encompassing 30,000 Israeli students at a time.
What a difference a day makes.
In 24 little hours, the L.A. school board journeyed last week from chaos to harmony; from nothing to a November ballot measure; from no new taxes to a bond measure that will ask voters to raise their property taxes for schools \”one last time.\”
If voters go for it, these local school bonds would be the fourth in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) since 1997, and would raise $3.985 billion to pay for new and repaired schools. Part of the money is needed to make up for the feverishly rising cost of school construction; the rest would fund a program that has expanded to some $15.2 billion, perhaps the nation\’s largest ongoing public works project outside of Iraq.
You don\’t have to go far to hear complaints about the L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD), the city\’s beleaguered public school system, nor very far to catch grumbling about Mayor James K. Hahn. But linking the two is a stretch for many, because Los Angeles\’ mayor has no authority over the city\’s schools — none at all.
Yet one challenger in particular, Bob Hertzberg, has made LAUSD the centerpiece of his campaign by pledging, somehow, to break up the nation\’s second-largest school system. Politically, the strategy isn\’t off the wall.
An announcement last week by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that it will not renew leases for its West San Fernando Valley properties will have an impact on two Jewish institutions: Kadima Hebrew Academy and the Rabbi Max D. Raiskin West Valley Hebrew Academy.
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