Politics in Los Angeles

By Kyle, April 14, 2009 4:55 pm

Arcade Fire – Neighborhood 1 – Tunnels

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Today the most powerful elected (consistently by 5-10% of registered voters) board in Los Angeles, our board of education, voted on a set of proposals that will most likely layoff close to 5000 teachers.

I sat at home after school today watching the board meeting unfold live on television. After the proposal was given by the CFO, each board member had the opportunity to pontificate for upwards of 5 – 10 minutes, during which they largely plumed their feathers, feigned outrage, and politicized while simultaneously trying to vote their conscience (yes, highly admirable) and retain constituency support (however unlikely that now may be).

And when it all came down to it, they voted.

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Done. 6,500 teachers. Read the story here first. I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon in your local news outlet.

For those of my readers out of the TFA loop, a former TFA teacher, Steve Zimmer, will be replacing a retiring member (Canter) in July! Hopefully, this will present a step in the right direction from someone who definitely knows the internal ropes of classroom experience and what actually goes down in classrooms on a daily basis here in Los Angeles!

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