Family members of three slain men gathered at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting on Tuesday, September 23, 2009 to call for an investigation into a string of deadly shootings by Sheriff Deputies. Timothy Beck Werth of Annenberg Radio News was there. Listen to his report.
Read the full story on the South L.A. Road to College blog…
LOS ANGELES – The first day of high school is an exciting and terrifying experience for any teenager. The agonizing decision of what to wear, what friends will be there, what teachers will be like – it is a day for the memory books.
Now imagine entering a high school where there are 4,800 students, a size that’s larger than many college campuses. That is the reality for students at Garfield High School in Los Angeles. This school on East Sixth Street is the home of the "Big Bad Bulldogs," and on a beautiful September day in Southern California, it is pulsing with youthful activity. Garfield’s principal, Michael Summe, says it is a "formidable challenge" for the faculty of such a large high school to get to know the students within.
One answer to trying to reduce the enormity of such a large school is the creation of small learning communities [watch video] . Like many schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District, Garfield High School uses the small learning community model. The concept is to concentrate on a population of a few hundred students, and allow the teachers in each small learning community to focus on those same students year after year. It empowers teachers to work together as a team, so they can employ strategies for instruction, and concentrate on individual student needs.
Embracing change
The idea of shrinking large high schools has been part of the U.S. school reform landscape since the 1990s. High schools across the nation and Los Angeles, including Crenshaw High School in South Los Angeles, have embraced the change in an effort to make the high school experience – particularly on campuses with large enrollments – more personal for students.
The approach varies across the country, but at Garfield High School, the small learning community model employed is "wall to wall." That means all students are placed in small learning communities from the moment they start high school, and will likely remain in the same small learning community for all four years. That "wall to wall" approach can be a negative. Garfield’s principal says he believes that "volunteerism is the soul of the whole thing," and that forcing small learning communities on teachers or students who are not willing volunteers is a concern.
The Los Angeles Education Partnership is an independent, non-profit organization that has been focusing on public schools in the Los Angeles area for 25 years. One of the programs that LAEP has championed is called Humanitas. Right now there are 48 small learning communities that incorporate the Humanitas program, within 28 Los Angeles area high schools. The idea is that if a student is studying Greek literature, they would also be studying Greek history, and incorporating the same theme in Math and Science as well. It provides an in-depth exploration of the arts and humanities. It also encourages various ways of learning, bringing visual art and media literacy into the classroom.
A haven for students and teachers alike
Humanitas’ Director Jane Patterson says that while small learning communities can be unsuccessful when forced on large schools as a comprehensive solution, she considers Humanitas a model for a thriving small learning community. Humanitas focuses on integrated curriculum, where teams of teachers from different disciplines work together to create dynamic instruction based on themes. LAEP’s data on Humanitas programs is positive, according to Patterson, in terms of measuring Humanitas student performance compared to peers on the same class schedule. LAEP’s website reports "significant student outcomes as measured on the Degrees of Reading Power Test," and also on high school exit exams.
At Garfield High School, the students in the Humanitas program are openly enthusiastic about their classes and teachers. They claim it is empowering to enter a classroom where teachers know their names, and their learning needs. Winifred Jones is a senior focusing on Arts in the Humanitas program, who claims that being in the program has given her teachers a better idea of her personality and the way she learns best.
The Humanitas program has been motivational for many of the teachers at Garfield High School as well. History teacher Griselda Solis claims that she has done some of her "best, most professional work" since she’s been involved in the Humanitas small learning community. She says it is important to know in depth what is going on with her students, socially as well as educationally. Solis says the kids know she lives in their neighborhood, and cares about whose dog is sick or whose mom isn’t doing well. Because she understands their personal concerns, she says it creates a more trusting atmosphere in the classroom.
Not a ‘one size fits all’ approach
Michael Leavy teaches humanities at Garfield. He says he enjoys the team aspect of the Humanitas program, which has given him a chance to confer with other teachers about individual students. However, he hopes that the school’s goal of integrating more of the curriculum will take place. He says small learning communities are not a "one size fits all approach."
Patterson, LAEP’s director, is well aware of that and is working closely with the school administrators to focus more on the team-teaching and team-learning approach of the program. Jane Patterson says it is "instruction that drives everything, requiring communication among teachers" that proves to be so valuable in improving student performance.
When you imagine a high school student’s entry into a world as large as Garfield High, you can understand the need to reduce the enormity. Familiar faces matter when you are trying to adapt socially and educationally. For teachers and students willing to participate in small learning communities, especially involving interdisciplinary studies like the Humanitas program, you can’t help but notice the excitement.
LOS ANGELES – On a brisk Friday night in South Los Angeles, the high school football season began. But the Dons of Dorsey High kicked off more than their first game of the fall against Hamilton. They played their inaugural game in the newly renovated Jackie Robinson Stadium.
"This is the state of the art community that deserves a state of the art facility," said Los Angeles city councilman Herb Wesson, who represents the 10th district where the park resides.
Wesson said the city was able to put together $2 million dollar in bonds and other funds to refurbish the stadium with a new artificial turf football field surround an upgraded track.
The renovation struck a personal tone for Wesson who often frequents the park.
"In my many attempts to lose weight, I come up here and I walk, and for many years I noticed the conditions," said Wesson. "And it’s just the beginning of many improvements that are going to go on at this site."
Wesson said plans are in the works to renovate the park’s soccer field, add a synthetic skateboard park, renovate the tennis court, add new locker and bathrooms in the swimming pool area. "And Lord willing, we will redo the gymnasium before I leave office," said Wesson who was first elected to city council in 2005.
LA notables help rededicate stadium
"It’s about time," said Keyshawn Johnson, a Dorsey alumni and NFL pro-bowl receiver . "It is long overdue."
Johnson attended the game and received a Dorsey football jersey from Principal George Bartleson with his No. 19 on it. He said he the improvements will help the area as well as the school.
"You add different facilities and make this a better place for kids and the area will feel safer and we won’t lose our kids to the Valley schools," said Johnson. "They will stick around here and our schools will get stronger."
The ceremony included many young Pop-Warner football players who made a tunnel onto the field and shook hands with former Dorsey athletes in attendance, and greeted the Dons football team as they entered the field for their first game.
The stadium is named after Jackie Robinson, famous for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball. Kathy Robinson Young, a niece of the late baseball player, lives in the area and has two daughters attending Dorsey.
"It is important for the community," said Robinson Young and told a story of the children in her neighborhood being excited about the new facility.
She also said that Jackie Robinson would be proud with the improvements. "Uncle Jackie would be very pleased," she said, "to see his name on it his name on it, but importantly, as his quote says, ‘life is just as important with the impact it has on other lives.’ This is an impact his legacy is showing by the impact it has on other lives. This is an impact that his legacy is showing by this wonderful stadium. I think he would be pleased."
As the season kicked off, it’s safe to assume the players were pleased as well. By the end of the night, Dorsey had defeated Hamilton, 28-18.
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Civil Rights Leader Reverend Jesse Jackson held a pep rally of sorts at Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles on Thursday, September 17. Lauren Whaley of Annenberg Radio News was there. Listen to her report.
Los Angeles is hardly known for its wet climate, but several of its streets have been flooded lately, thanks to a spate of broken water pipes.
A water main ruptured this morning under Exposition Boulevard near 11th Avenue, flooding Exposition between Western Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard and disrupting service to a handful of customers. The water break closed down Exposition between Degnan and Crenshaw. Department of Water and Power crews were on the scene this morning to fix the break and clean up the flooding.
This incident was the latest in a string of relatively high-profile breaks, starting September 5 when a large, 95-year-old water pipe ruptured, closing part of Coldwater Canyon Avenue for a week. Since then, more than six other water mains have ruptured, including pipes in the Vermont Knolls section of South Los Angeles, Valley Village, Melrose Avenue and Carthay Square.
A man in a cowboy hat sits alone on a bench beside Echo Park lake. The foreground is dark, and the man is shrouded in the shadow of a tree. He seems isolated, lonely. His face is lowered just slightly enough to suggest despair. His jacket and upturned collar are a strange juxtaposition against the sunshine of Los Angeles. Beyond the grassy verge lies infinite light – a world of burdening heat, to seek refuge from in the shade. Or perhaps a bright city, with new opportunities floating on the crest of every sparkling ripple and into the busy streets above.
Oscar Castillo’s photograph, aptly named "Solitude at Echo Park," is a familiar image. The inner-city parks of Los Angeles are still places of refuge and withdrawal for the heavy-hearted, even 30 years after Castillo captured the subtle dynamic through his lens. The man in the cowboy hat still sits by the lake, though his clothes and his name have changed.
Castillo has been documenting Chicano society since he moved to Los Angeles with his family from El Paso, Texas when he was 16 years old. It was tumultuous time. The city’s demographics were shifting rapidly, and the Chicano Civil Rights Movement was erupting in an energetic rush. Castillo witnessed the "High School Blowouts" in 1968, snapping the pictures "Down with Brutality" and "A Free School Not-A-Jail" during a student protest at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights.
A few years later, while studying at California State University, Northridge, Castillo was inspired by the struggle of farm workers in California’s Central Valley and began following the fledgling Farm Workers Union as it started to organize. His photographs of Cesar Chavez reveal personal admiration for the Chicano Civil Rights leader. The shots are reverent; Chavez is surrounded by inspired workers and awed children, or silhouetted against the darkness as he addresses a crowd.
The collection is now being exhibited at the Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture, housed downtown on Gallery Row at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. At an opening reception, Castillo said that he hoped his work would inspire people to "look at their own community and family, and the beauty around you." Castillo added that strong, positive images of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement are necessary to help purge negative stereotypes persistent in the city, from the past to the present day.
The images are naturally iconic, evocative of the sepia-toned sentiment that accompanies historical art work. But clustered together in the basement room of the Theatre Center building, Castillo’s work risks becoming reminiscent, rather than present. The exhibit is composed of faces and scenery now long familiar, and rests heavily on the symbolism of a revolutionary era, rather than seeking to break new ground. Among the powerful depictions, the simpler images stood out. The subtlely of a mother walking with a young child beside a graffited brick wall, or two young women, one holding a baby, waiting for a bus beside an extravagant mural, seemed more resonant than the rallies, speeches and politics.
And yet, the youthful crowd at the reception proved that these iconic photographs hadn’t lost their poignancy. A group of Latino teenagers mingled around the images of the 1968 Roosevelt High School protest, perhaps recalling some recent experience fighting the LAUSD’s budget cuts. A young woman stood beside Cesar Chavez, reading the history of the United Farm Workers Union on an accompanying placard. .jpg)
Later, an African-American man, dressed in multi-colored, tie-dye pants and a customized leather jacket, leaned in and adjusted his glasses to get a closer look at four similarly-clad Latino men inside one of the frames. "Los Four," taken in 1974, shows artist-friends of Castillo’s smiling happily beside their bright, spray-painted mural, designed to promote graffiti as art, not vandalism.
Castillo himself manned the sidelines with a camera around his neck, the shy and natural observer he claims to have always been. Meanwhile, his shared perspective took on new resonance for the viewers wandering the room. It may have been a different year and a different fight, said Castillo, but the social atmosphere remains the same. "From Vietnam to Iraq," he said, "history repeats itself."
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