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Opinion: The conversation: Mixed messages for today’s schoolchildren

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From Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) crying for the incoming generation of kids to LAUSD’s decision to allow businesses to advertise on school property for supplemental income, we’ve had schoolchildren on our mind.

John Boehner cares about your future; or he just cries really easily.

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Incoming House Speaker John A. Boehner weeps for our schoolchildren even as he works to take away their dreams. Writes Tom Lutz in Wednesday’s Op-Ed:

‘He does, I believe, worry about the children, and yet his entire political philosophy is devoted to limiting the federal government’s ability to help them. He has voted against providing health insurance for children (many times), against student aid, against unemployment benefits, against equal pay, against food safety, against money for teachers, against raising the minimum wage, against tobacco education, mine safety, alternative energy, pollution control, whistle-blower protection, science and technology research. If he were making his decisions based on what government programs might help today’s schoolchildren reach their dreams, like the Kennedy- and Johnson-era programs that helped him, his voting record would be very different. It is a deep enough contradiction to make him weep for the future.’

Listen to your teachers, or don’t.

Parents want reform at Compton’s McKinley Elementary. That’s fine, but the process has flaws. From Sunday’s editorial:

‘If anyone has reason to overthrow the public school establishment, it’s parents in the Compton Unified School District. Five of the district’s 35 schools are listed among the worst 5% statewide. […] So it’s no great surprise that Compton Unified became the first school district targeted for the so-called parent trigger, which allows parents to force radical change at a particular school if 51% of them sign a petition. Among their options are replacing the school’s management or most of its staff, or turning it into a charter school. […] Of the various ingredients that went into California’s sloppily assembled school reform bill last year, the parent trigger was the most intriguing and potentially the most transformative. When schools stubbornly resist looking for new ways to help students, when the board of education won’t listen and when business-as-usual means students can pretty much count on not going to college, what are parents supposed to do, short of coming up with $28,000 a year for private school?’

See that billboard on the side of the third-grade classroom? Yeah, don’t pay any attention to it.

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LAUSD’s board may allow corporate sponsorship of some programs. Reluctantly, we approve… for now. From Tuesday’s editorial:

‘The district should end sponsorships as soon as its budget situation allows. A school system that was adequately funded should be expected to protect its students from marketing, not to encourage it. But right now, ‘adequately funded’ is not a term that describes L.A.’s schools. Students need nutritious food, engaging physical exercise and challenging extracurricular activities more than they need to be shielded from a handful of corporate logos.’

RELATED:

Pulling the parent trigger

Where are the ‘highly qualified’ teachers?

L.A. Unified schools: boosting parent involvement

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-- Alexandra Le Tellier

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