May 10 2012
Amelia Earhart Continuation School Faces Closure – Parents, Teachers, and Students Protest
Starting this fall incoming LAUSD High School Students will need to pass more college-prep classes with higher grades to earn a diploma in four years. On Tuesday the LAUSD board voted to raise the standards to graduate high school, while also lowering the total number of credits required. Among other changes, students will be required to take two years of a foreign language to graduate, up from one, and a third year of math. Graduates meeting the new requirements will be minimally eligible to attend California State Universities and schools in the University of California system. Superintendent John Deasy (Dee-See) proposed raising the standards while lowering the credits needed and a deal was struck among school board members to decrease total credits needed by twenty, from 230 to 210, acknowledging that many students will struggle with the tougher course load and may need to repeat courses before passing them. Some LAUSD board members questioned whether it was feasible to raise standards without increasing funding. Board member Steve Zimmer praised the decision saying, “We are today tearing down the wall of institutional racism.” However many worried that it will boost drop-out rates.
California’s drop-out rate statewide is high with just over 18% students failing to earn a diploma, but LAUSD’s drop-out rate is higher, with just over 20% of students dropping out. It is against this backdrop that parents and teachers at the Amelia Earhart Continuation High School in North Hollywood are fighting against a surprise announcement that the school will be shuttered in June. The school is an option of last resort for many teens who are behind in credits and are at high risk of not earning a diploma. Faculty, students, and parents of Amelia Earhart are fighting to keep it open.
GUEST: Lorraine Alexander, a resource specialist at Amelia Earhart Continuation High School where she has taught for 12 years
Demonstration:
Today in front of Amelia Earhart Continuation High School starting at 1:45pm held by parents, students, and faculty, the public is welcome to participate
Address: 5355 Colfax Avenue North Hollywood, CA 91601
One Response to “Amelia Earhart Continuation School Faces Closure – Parents, Teachers, and Students Protest”
Back in the early ’80s I endured two years of French*–not to graduate but to qualify for university admittance–and I never made use of it. Like math (beyond General Math), requiring a second language seems like just another hoop to jump through and a way to discourage graduation and higher education. Second languages and advanced math/science should be regarded as specialized. (I’ve never found practical use of Algebra and Geometry either.)
(But if students should be required to learn a second language, I think it should be the local indigenous language of the given area. After all, our society values assimilation into existing cultures rather than undermining them. For my part, I’ve been working on Tongva for the last few years. Wish I could’ve gotten credit for this instead of French or another European language.)
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*I learned more about French than I did English, the language I actually use.