UCLA’s Tyrone Howard addresses board members on ways to avoid racism and stereotypes.

Racism and stereotypes continue to plague LA Unified, and it’s up to leaders to change that, according to a UCLA professor who is holding seminars at some schools.

Tyrone C. Howard, associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLA’s graduate school of education and information studies, spoke to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee on Tuesday about how he is helping principals and teachers understand how to identify underlying racism and avoid enforcing stereotypes on their students. He said that initiating this difficult dialogue is among the steps needed to help persistently low-performing students, particularly African-American and poor children.

“Bias is real and discrimination is rampant,” Howard told the committee, made up of four school board members, administrators and representatives of some of the major school unions. “People don’t want to talk about race because it is not the politically correct thing to do. If we don’t talk about race, then we ignore one aspect of who they are as young people.”

He added, “Even teachers of color have biases against students of color. Lots of students feel like they have two strikes against them when they walk into a classroom because they are black or brown and poor and the teacher feels they can’t succeed.”

Every administrator and school board member will receive a copy of Howard’s book “Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms,” and some schools will get personal training by Howard, said Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson.

“We have a bold mission, and Tyrone Howard is an esteemed educator,” Gipson said, noting that some of his philosophies about understanding racial complexity “will intimidate some educators.”

Howard held a two-hour session last week with teachers at Cleveland High School in Reseda to discuss stereotypes and where those ideas come from in people’s lives. “It is going through a process of recognizing implicit bias and how we are all affected by it in one shape or form,” Howard said.

He suggested that requiring ethnic studies classes and emphasizing early literacy are also important steps to helping black and Latino students.

Frances Gipson

“We are one of the most racially diverse cities in the world, and we have the momentum and will and need to start having those conversations,” Howard said.

Howard, who grew up in poverty in Compton, said he would not have succeeded unless teachers put aside racial biases and saw his potential.

Howard said the district is moving in the right direction. He pointed out that 42 percent of students are now making a C or better in the A-G classes, twice what it was a decade ago. But he also noted African-American and Latino students make up more than 60 percent of California’s population but less than 25 percent of the UC system. And under-represented minority groups have not experienced substantial increases in college-going rates.

“We have to tell the narratives and promote things that are moving in the right direction on an ongoing basis,” he said. “We have to be frank and honest that African-American students lag seriously behind others and that it continues to happen. We also have to dismantle the belief that poor kids cannot succeed.”

School board President Steve Zimmer praised Howard for his books and as well as for his seminars at Cleveland High. Zimmer recalled a mentor explaining how a school with 98 percent Latino and African-American enrollment and with 90 percent minority teachers can still be considered a “white supremacist school,” and that changed his mindset about “deep and intentional deficit mindset and how pervasive it is.”

Zimmer asked for suggestions of what they could do, saying, “We don’t legislate hearts and minds, but we do set the direction.”

From Tyrone Howard’s presentation.

Howard said, “The issues about race are the big pink elephant in the room.” He said that educators need to understand the trauma that some students face outside the classroom.

“There is an impact of poverty, bullying, displacement, and many do not have the psychological support services they need,” Howard said. “Leadership is key here.” He said some principals don’t know how to deal with the issue with certain teachers.

Howard also said that support workers such as secretaries, nurses and janitors must all be on board to understand racism. “If we could cultivate that approach into the entire school culture there’s a lot of promise in the communities, but there are a lot who have written them off and that has to stop.”

Howard added, “The political craziness that’s going on doesn’t help. But I want to believe that most folks want to see what’s right for our children.”

Board member Richard Vladovic, who chairs the committee, said, “This has been really invigorating and good food for thought. We will move on it.”

Assistant principal Yolanda Campos and student Justin Hang talk about their summer school bridge program.

Summer school is expanding, plus it’s going to be fun again.

That’s the message Janet Kiddoo, LA Unified’s intervention administrator for Beyond the Bell, brought Tuesday in a report to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee.

“Whoever thought people would get excited about summer school?” Kiddoo said. “People are very excited, and there are such passionate and very bright people involved this year.”

For the first time since 2009 when the district cut all summer school because of budget constraints, there will be a robust summer program again at LA Unified schools. Not only will students be able to fulfill their credit recovery requirements in order to graduate, but they can take classes such as physical education and drama as well as get ahead in their studies.

Janet Kiddoo, of Beyond the Bell, explains expanded summer schools.

Last year there were 42,000 seats available for summer school; this year 68,725 seats are available, a 64 percent hike. In the past, students were limited in where they could attend summer school, but now they will be able to attend any of the 71 high schools offering summer classes, Kiddoo said. Core subject courses will be offered at all sites.

This week, the district is starting the training for 1,374 teachers to handle 2,749 courses scheduled to be available this summer, and they have added a full-time counselor for direct services for students. Summer principals start training at their Local Districts this month.

Summer classes will run 24 days with two periods of 2.5 hours each, rather than for six weeks. The classes will start at 9 a.m. rather than 8, as they do during the year.

“We had a survey of more than 3,000 students who attended summer programs last year, and we found that they would have better attendance if we started the classes a little later, so we will try it and check the data,” Kiddoo said.

Also, 43 CORE-waiver schools will try a two-week summer bridge program to welcome incoming ninth-graders to high school. Committee chairman Scott Schmerelson said that when he was a principal he found it very helpful for students to prepare themselves “and they did fantastically well in the new school.”

Yolanda Campos, assistant principal of the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities, brought two students to the committee meeting who were part of an extensive ninth-grade summer bridge program.

Justin Hang is a 10th-grade student leader who was paid to help the students who were coming to the program. A total of 15 students offered to help incoming ninth-graders at the school.

Alexis Martinez, with Justin Hang behind her, talks about her Summer Bridge experience.

“We wanted to show them what it was like to come to our school, and we took an active role, I wasn’t just printing papers,” Hang said. “Some of the students were not like my personality, but I learned from it. I was a student leader and a role model and someone who would provide support so that their first day of high school was not going to be the worst day of their life.”

Ninth-grader Alexis Martinez talked about how she had regular break-downs of anxiety about coming to high school. “The anxiety would bring me to tears, but they supported me, and now I am able to stand here and talk about it.”

Kiddoo, who has been with the district for 36 years, said, “We are trying new and innovative things, and I am so hopeful because we have a new superintendent, new board members and so many opportunities to do things for the first time.”

Brendan Finch (courtesy photo)

It was a devastating time for the young teachers who worked at John H. Liechty Middle School near downtown Los Angeles. It was 2009, and 72 percent of the school’s teachers were handed pink slips, casualties of America’s crumbling economy.

Brendan Finch, working there through Teach For America, was among those let go, though he did return for a second year as a permanent substitute in the same classroom. It was the experience of working in a cash-strapped school that led Finch to launch BirdBrain Science, an adaptive online education platform that produces science articles that match students’ independent reading levels. In December, the Los Angeles-based company launched a second platform: BirdBrain History.

“The rationale here is that in any subject area, science for example, concepts and ideas that are being taught are the same across the class. The thing that changes is the student’s ability to comprehend advanced language,” Finch said. “All articles contain the same essential concepts, just at different reading levels.”

During his year-long assignment as a permanent substitute, Finch taught math and science while his partner teacher covered English and history. Two weeks into the school year, however, the partner took maternity leave and never came back. Over the course of the year, Finch said 11 new teachers filled the role, “as these kids became further disillusioned every single month.”

“We’d been watching Bill Nye and acting out the process of photosynthesis, I had alternative assessments out the wazoo, my kids knew their science,” he said. “But they failed their standardized tests because they couldn’t read and they couldn’t explain what they knew in writing.”

So the “teacherpreneur,” who is now 31, recruited “Jedi master” web developer Grenard Madrigal, a friend from their time as students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and created BirdBrain Science.

Here’s how it works: When students log onto the platform, they take a quiz to diagnose their reading level. When a teacher selects a classroom topic, each student is given the same science article — though the language in the text is adjusted to coincide with each student’s reading ability.

Geared toward mid-elementary and middle school science standards, BirdBrain currently offers seven different reading levels beginning with third grade through high school.

At the end of the article, students take another quiz, which is aligned with the Common Core State Standards to gauge understanding and to adjust the reading level for the next assignment. Teachers can then see a dashboard of data about students’ comprehension of vocabulary words and reading growth.

At first BirdBrain was a side project while Finch worked at several Los Angeles charter schools. He quickly realized he’d have to quit his day job. Following beta testing in 2013, more than 100,000 students and teachers now use BirdBrain Science. So far, the BirdBrain team has written more than 200 science articles.

Backed by a grant from NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit education reform philanthropy, the group has accumulated about 60 articles for its history platform on topics ranging from ancient China to the American Revolution.

“If we can get students that are behind in reading, to read independently in both ELA and also science and social studies, there will be no achievement gap,” he said. “Those students will have such high confidence by the time they reach high school that they won’t be five grade levels behind, and they’ll have been reading successfully for years before that.”

This idea isn’t new — all kinds of companies are dishing up education material based on students’ reading levels. But BirdBrain Science costs teachers $4 per student per year, well below the competition. A similar company, Books that Grow, for example, costs $9 per month.

For the rest of the school year, teachers and students can access BirdBrain History for free.

Although they have assembled a small team, BirdBrain doesn’t have an office. Too much overhead. Finch wants his product to stay affordable, a hat tip to his time working in the classroom.

“Our goal is to create sort of an adoptive curriculum that’s highly financially accessible, that teachers can purchase with their classroom budgets, and districts don’t have to get a grant to pay for,” Finch said. “Now with the proliferation of ed-tech tools, a teacher should be able to choose several of us. Everybody should be able to throw their secret teacher sauce on the different lessons and serve it to their students as the tastiest knowledge that they’ve ever had.”

This article was published in partnership with The74Million.org.

Bryan Cantero

Leon Popa always had a passion for medicine. Now every class he takes in high school is geared to something involving a medical career. He interns at Kaiser Permanente Hospital and is being mentored by a doctor. He is also the new student member of the LAUSD school board.

These two students said they thrived in school because of the Linked Learning program. LA Unified has 33 schools that have adopted the program; 11 more are conditionally approved for next year.

Linked Learning started at LAUSD in the 2009-2010 school year as one of nine districts in the state to try the integrated learning program through a grant by the Irvine Foundation. The program mixes rigorous academics, career and technical education, work-based learning and student support in a variety of special interests. It incorporates all the Common Core requirements and directs them toward the area of special interest.

Paul Hirsch, principal of the Hollywood STEM Academy at Bernstein High where Popa attends, said, “We had a tough start. Our graduation rate was in the 50 percent (range) and there were fights every day and the attendance was bad. We had to look for money to hire extra security guards.”

Principal Paul Hirsch of the Hollywood Academy of STEM at Bernstein High

After implementing the program, Hirsch said, “Our graduation rate is in the 80s, the attendance is at 97 percent and there hasn’t been a fight in three years. We are now using the money we raised for security guards for lab equipment.” All their grades are up, and the fail rate of 60 percent is now at 30 percent, he added.

Already enrolled in the program are the School of History & Dramatic Arts at the Sotomayor Learning Academies, the Business & Tourism Academy at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex and the Law Academy at Roosevelt High School, among others. Next year, the list will include the Design Tech, Manufacturing and Development school at Chatsworth Charter High School, Engineering and Design at Boyle Heights STEM High School and the Academy of Interdisciplinary Media Studies at Grover Cleveland High School.

“Linked Learning helps students get on the right path, and we are working with many community groups throughout the city to connect with the students,” said Esther Soliman, the Linked Learning administrator for LAUSD. “We are asking for more schools to get involved, but they have to volunteer to be a part of the program.”

“This is very different from a traditional classroom,” said Soliman, who taught three years in middle school and helped start the first program at LAUSD. She said Linked Learning started in California six years ago and is also being used in Texas and Michigan. “Boston is coming out to look at how we are doing it too,” she said.

Soliman and the students shared their thoughts in a report Tuesday to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee of the LAUSD school board. Some of the committee members were clearly impacted.

“I get choked up seeing this (picture of graduates on the Sixth Street Bridge) on your folder,” said board president Steve Zimmer. “I’m very confident about our Linked Learning pathways and high school programs.”

Scott Folsom, president of the 10th district of the Parent Teacher Students Association, said, “What I saw today made my heart sing, the work is coming together, the linkages are coming together. I am extremely impressed by these bright young people telling us what they learned and seeing this coming to fruition.”

Folsom, who often is a critic of the district, added, “We’ve been doing school reform (for a long time) and we will never be done with the challenges. I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy I feel.”

Cantero, who is a senior at the Critical Design and Gaming School at Hawkins High School, said, “I found out in school that I loved writing, but I didn’t know writing is an actual career.”

He talked about how proud his mother was when he got a paid internship. He said, “To wake up every day was fulfilling knowing that I was part of something bigger than me and my school. I love Linked Learning, and it created the thinking environment for me and taught me how to work with other people.”

During his internship he created public service announcements for a health center in their community in South Central. He said some of his undocumented family members found out they could go there and hadn’t realized it was in the neighborhood.

To get involved in Linked Learning, district schools have to submit a letter of intent and have enough professional development time set aside for the teachers, Soliman said. Teachers have to be trained for the program, which is free to the school.

The schools enrolled in the district’s program report that students are less likely to drop out of school, grade-point averages have increased slightly and students are graduating with more credits.

Popa pointed to how Bernstein High allowed him to take medical-related classes throughout high school.

“My core subjects are also linked to a medical pathway so I can see relevance of all my classes to becoming a health care professional,” Popa explained. “Elementary and middle school did not teach me what was important in my life.”

He and about 30 other students are in a Kaiser mentorship program where “we literally hang out with the interns and doctors and perform lab procedures.”

Popa said, “This changed my life for the better, and I can’t imagine how my pathway would have evolved had I not gone to STEM and met those incredible people.”

Members of the district’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee watched a video that featured students and staff at Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills, one of three schools allowing tablets to go home, gushing about how their educational experience had improved.

“The minute that you let students take the iPad home, all of the sudden more work gets turned in,” Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences teacher Judith Quinones said in the video.

Students in the video told stories of coordinating their homework better, hauling fewer books around and communicating easier with their teachers when outside of class. Teachers spoke of increased engagement with students and a higher level of homework assignments being completed.

The video was part of a report on the results of the phase 1 rollout of the take-home project that was presented to the committee by Gerardo Loera, executive director of Curriculum, Instruction & School Support at LA Unified. (See the video embedded below.)

The video was purely anecdotal, and the district has yet to produce hard data or reports on whether using the devices at home is increasing student achievement. But it did provide evidence of positive results.

“The full instructional value of these devices, in particular at the secondary level, can only be fully realized when they go home,” Loera said.

Loera said eight more schools are set to begin sending devices home through next month.

Loera said 90 percent of students at the three schools had opted to take the devices home, a process that requires each student and a legal guardian to sign papers taking responsibility for it. According to the video, only one device was damaged and two were misplaced — but later recovered.

While committee chair Monica Ratliff and some of her colleagues had once expressed concern about the devices leaving campuses, none voiced any further concern at the meeting, as questions and comments were focused simply on the details of the take-home project.

Board member Bennett Kayser did wonder if the video included only positive comments from students and staff.

“Were there any partcipants who didn’t want to be in the video because they didn’t like it? Is this representative of everybody?” he asked.

Loera didn’t directly answer but responded that overwhelmingly more students were choosing to opt into the program and few if any had opted out after taking the devices home.

It was initially part of the massive Common Core Technology Project — now rebranded the Instructional Technology Initiative — for students to take the devices home. But the option was cancelled in the fall of 2013 as some among the first students to get the devices figured out how to disable their content filters.

Requiring that the devices stay on campus “created logistical challenges for schools to distribute and collect devices on a regular basis,” a September independent report on the program from American Institutes for Research (AIR) stated. District materials on the take-home rollout state that they have made significant improvements to the filters, but that “no web-filtering solution is 100 percent foolproof.”

The filter disabling was among the first of many problems for the iPad program, which has included serious questions about the bidding process that are now being investigated by a grand jury, logistical problems with distribution, a low use of the device’s pre-programmed educational software and a federal report that cited a general lack of a grand vision and metrics to judge the program’s effectiveness.

Some committee members expressed concern about the 10 percent of students who declined to take the devices home. Loera explained that teachers are required to give paper assignments to students opting out, and that while every effort is made to ensure that the educational experience is equitable for them, it is “one of the challenges that we deal with.”

• Graham wants $10 Million From District: In addition to suing former superintendent Ramon Cortines for sexual harassment, LAUSD employee Scot Graham also wants $10 million from the school district for outing him, defaming him and placing him in a false light. Graham and LAUSD were on the verge of a settlement which would have given him $200,000 and lifetime benefits, but the deal fell apart when the district, according to Graham, prematurely announced it and the identity of Graham. Daily News

• AIG Will Pay LAUSD $79 Million In Settlement: AIG had refused to pay out insurance claims on LAUSD-owned properties with costly environmental hazards. LA Unified bought the insurance in 1999, as it was beginning a $20 billion constructions spree. LA Times

More reads after the jump.

• Lawsuit, Bill Aim to Keep K-12 Education Free in California: The ACLU suit is hitting out against fees for things like sports, field trips and textbooks, even the the California constitution guarantees every kid a free education. Some of these fees are legal, some aren’t, but many districts don’t seem to care. A bill in Sacramento, AB 1575, would create a formal complaint process for the illegal fees. LA Times

• Plan to Split Carson High Into Three Schools Riles Parents, Teachers: Many in the community are worried that the split will segregate the high achievers from the low ones. There is also a “general wariness, a concern that the Los Angeles Unified School District is tinkering with a local institution from afar.” The 2,800 will stay on the same campus, but 1,000 kids will join one of two pilots: the Academy of Medical Arts or the Academies of Education and Empowerment. Long Beach Press-Telegram

• Some Schools Adopting Longer Years to Improve Learning:  Increasing time in school is one of the best ways to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor students, education advocates say. NYT