LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles teachers union is promising to challenge a proposed agreement that would change how teachers are laid off in the nation’s second-largest school district, while education experts hail it as a landmark that could pave the way for changes in urban districts across the nation. The settlement, which must be approved by a judge, would shield up to 45 underperforming schools from teacher layoffs for budget reasons. It also stipulates that vacancies be filled as quickly as possible, and contains a commitment to explore incentives, such as bonuses, to recruit and retain teachers and principals at poorly performing schools, with additional incentives if the school’s academic performance improves. The agreement stems from a lawsuit by American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California over teacher layoffs at three inner-city schools. The group had filed a class-action suit against the Los Angeles Unified School District in February, saying that mandated seniority-driven layoffs led to the three schools shedding some two-thirds of their teachers, which left students largely in the hands of substitutes. The ACLU said students were being denied their state constitutional right to a fair and adequate education. It won a temporary injunction in May that prevented more layoffs of first- and second-year teachers who form the bulk of faculties at these schools in improverished areas, which more experienced teachers tend to avoid. “Any principal wants a mix of new and experienced teachers, you don’t want any schools skewed,” said John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access and the University of California, Los Angeles . “You need a set of measures to keep teachers at a school. If they had done this, seniority-based layoffs wouldn’t have been an issue.” With the recession spurring teacher reductions across the nation, the issue of how layoffs are determined has become especially contentious. Teachers’ unions have fiercely opposed most moves to change seniority policies to a system based on performance and other factors. Some education reformers lauded the proposed settlement because it seeks to correct the root problem: a lack of ways to keep more experienced teachers at schools, which leads to high turnover and thus staffs largely new to the profession. “The reform train is moving,” said Emily Cohen, district policy director of National Council of Teacher Quality. “Districts aren’t as afraid of unions anymore.” But the city’s teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, said it would be meeting with the school board and the ACLU to review the terms of the proposed settlement and to voice its objections. “When the district makes a long-term policy that’s detrimental to students, we are obligated to challenge it,” it said. The settlement shields teachers from layoffs at the city’s 25 lowest ranking schools according to the Academic Performance Index, a state score based on standardized tests, and another 20 chronically underperforming schools showing improvement, with the idea being that layoffs would set back advancement at these schools instead of boosting them, said LAUSD Deputy Superintendent John Deasy. Other schools would not be disproportionately affected because layoffs will be capped at the district average for each school. The union said it was concerned that the agreement would leave low-performing schools with a higher concentration of less experienced teachers. It also said “state law already gives schools districts flexibility in layoff procedures to best meet the needs of students” and “the settlement does nothing to solve ongoing staffing problems at hard-to-staff schools.” California is one of a handful of states where seniority-based teacher layoffs are mandated by law. LAUSD’s settlement takes advantage of a loophole that allows seniority to be circumvented to meet special staffing needs and to meet the state constitutional right to a fair and adequate education. Seniority-based layoffs are especially thorny in urban districts, where teachers often burn out early at tough, inner-city schools. In Connecticut, the Hartford Public School System has asked the state board of education to change the seniority-driven layoff mandate because the young teaching staffs at its schools in high-povery areas are being decimated. The teachers union has accused the district of “union-busting.” The issue “focuses the question on whether these students are less deserving of a stable set of teachers than students in a more affluent school,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU. “It’s about fairness and equality.” The “last hired, first fired” layoff model has long been a sacred cow for the vast majority of teachers’ unions. In a study earlier this year, the National Council on Teacher Quality found that of 100 large school districts, only 25 considered factors other than seniority in teacher layoffs. In 16 districts, performance carries more weight than seniority. Two bills to eliminate seniority-based layoffs in California died in the past year. Moves in other states have succeeded: Arizona approved a law prohibiting seniority-based layoffs, while Rhode Island said layoffs at low-performing schools must be determined by school need, not seniority. Analysts said LAUSD’s settlement is important because it will give other districts a model to follow. “It’s a good compromise,” said Cohen, of the National Council on Teacher Quality in Washington, D.C. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Next month’s opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation’s most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of ” Taj Mahal ” schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities. “There’s no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail,’” said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University , a school construction journal. “Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning.” Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic. “New buildings are nice, but when they’re run by the same people who’ve given us a 50% dropout rate, they’re a big waste of taxpayer money,” said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. “Parents aren’t fooled.” At RFK, the features include fine art murals and a marble memorial depicting the complex’s namesake, a manicured public park, a state-of-the-art swimming pool and preservation of pieces of the original hotel. Partly by circumstance and partly by design, the Los Angeles Unified School District has emerged as the mogul of Taj Mahals. The RFK complex follows on the heels of two other L.A. schools among the nation’s costliest — the $377 million Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which opened in 2008, and the $232 million Visual and Performing Arts High School that debuted in 2009. The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation’s second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation’s lowest performing. Los Angeles is not alone, however, in building big. Some of the most expensive schools are found in low-performing districts — New York City has a $235 million campus; New Brunswick, N.J., opened a $185 million high school in January. Nationwide, dozens of schools have surpassed $100 million with amenities including atriums, orchestra-pit auditoriums, food courts, even bamboo nooks. The extravagance has led some to wonder where the line should be drawn and whether more money should be spent on teachers. “Architects and builders love this stuff, but there’s a little bit of a lack of discipline here,” said Mary Filardo, executive director of 21st Century School Fund in Washington, D.C., which promotes urban school construction. Some experts say it’s not all flourish and that children learn better in more pleasant surroundings. Many schools incorporate large windows to let in natural light and install energy-saving equipment, spending more upfront for reduced bills later. Cafeterias are getting fancier, seeking to retain students who venture off campus. Wireless Internet and other high-tech installations have become standard. Some pricey projects have had political fallout. After a firestorm over the $197.5 million Newton North High School in Massachusetts , Mayor David Cohen chose not to seek re-election and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill reined in school construction spending. Now to get state funds for a new school, districts must choose among three designs costing $49 million to $64 million. “We had to bring some sense to this process,” Cahill said. In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget. Still, even LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines derided some of the extravagance, noting that donations should have been sought to fund the RFK project’s talking benches commemorating the site’s history. Connie Rice , member of the district’s School Bond Oversight Committee, noted the megaschools are only three of 131 that the district is building to alleviate overcrowding. RFK “is an amazing facility,” she said. “Is it a lot of money? Yes. We didn’t like it, but they got it done.” Construction costs at LA Unified are the second-highest in the nation — something the district blames on skyrocketing material and land prices, rigorous seismic codes and unionized labor. James Sohn, the district’s chief facilities executive, said the megaschools were built when global raw material shortages caused costs to skyrocket to an average of $600 per square foot in 2006 and 2007 — triple the price from 2002. Costs have since eased to $350 per square foot. On top of that, each project had its own cost drivers. After buildings were demolished at the site of the 2,400-student Roybal school, contaminated soil, a methane gas field and an earthquake fault were discovered. A gas mitigation system cost $17 million. Over 20 years, the project grew to encompass a dance studio with cushioned maple floors, a modern kitchen with a restaurant-quality pizza oven, a 10-acre park and teacher planning rooms between classrooms. The 1,700-student arts school was designed as a landmark, with a stainless steel, postmodernistic tower encircled by a rollercoaster-like swirl, while the RFK site involved 15 years of litigation with historic preservationists and Donald Trump , who wanted to build the world’s tallest building there. The wrangling cost $9 million. Methane mitigation cost $33 million and the district paid another $15 million preserving historic features, including a wall of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub and turning the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop into a faculty lounge. Sohn said LA Unified has reached the end of its Taj Mahal building spree. “These are definitely the exceptions,” he said. “We don’t anticipate schools costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A movement is underway to make it easier for entrepreneurs to navigate the lucrative and sometimes-tricky education market and introduce new technology and products into classrooms. An educator at the University of Pennsylvania wants to create one of the nation’s only business incubators dedicated to education entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of Education is also getting into the act with a $650 million fund to boost education innovation. “Here’s this (market) that is huge, that is really important, that needs innovation, and there’s just nothing out there to sort of foster it,” said Doug Lynch, vice dean of Penn’s Graduate School of Education. “Let’s create a Silicon Valley around education.” K-12 schools and degree-granting institutions spend more than $1 trillion on education annually, federal statistics show. That represents immense potential for entrepreneurs — if they can resist the lure of more established tech firms and trendier ventures like social networks. There are other roadblocks. Despite constant talk of making U.S. students more competitive, Lynch said it can be nearly impossible to introduce a new product in the fractured K-12 market because of frequent changes in superintendents, policy and curricula. Each of the nation’s 15,000 school districts has its own needs and often cumbersome purchasing process. “It’s worse than trying to sell to the U.S. Army, in terms of the hoops you have to jump through,” Lynch said. The incubator he envisions at Penn — called NEST, for Networking Ed entrepreneurs for Social Transformation — would identify promising businesses and give them financial and logistical support, such as access to capital, work space and university expertise. Linking educational researchers, who tend to be theoretical, with entrepreneurs, who are more practical and action-oriented, could help unlock the market, said Kim Smith, co-founder of the NewSchools Venture Fund, which invests in education businesses. “If they can figure out a way to bridge those two communities, it could be a real contribution,” said Smith, now CEO of Bellwether Education Partners. Penn, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, has already held two summits on education entrepreneurship and hosted its first business plan competition, sponsored by the school and the Milken Family Foundation. The top prize went to Digital Proctor, which creators say can identify typists through keystroke biometrics and thereby make it easier for teachers to root out test fraud. Digital Proctor beat out competitors from 27 states and three countries to win $25,000. In an interview, Digital Proctor CEO Shaun Sims said investors’ lack of familiarity with the education industry means entrepreneurs must make a double pitch: first on the market overall, then on the actual product they’ve developed. An incubator would “create an ecosystem for education” that attracts entrepreneurs who might otherwise venture into more investment-friendly efforts, he said. “You’re going to get the country’s best talent working in this market instead of going to Silicon Valley working on the next social network,” Sims said. The U.S. Department of Education hopes to bolster entrepreneurship with its Investing in Innovation fund. Jim Shelton, assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement, said it is easier than ever for schools to use new ideas and products because of increasing Internet connectivity, cheaper technology and the growing use of hard data to measure outcomes. “The shift toward evidence as the currency for education … will make it a much more rational market,” Shelton said. “It will be much easier for entrepreneurs to prove that what they have is what people should be spending time and money on.” Arizona State University is also embracing the emerging field. It held its first education entrepreneur summit last spring and has started discussions with Penn for some kind of partnership, said Julia Rosen, associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship. Arizona State’s business incubator, SkySong, has all types of companies but is intensifying its focus on education businesses because of the “incredible market potential,” Rosen said. “Individual consumers are increasingly willing to pay for education, whether it’s lifelong learning, private schools, tutoring (or) test prep,” she said. “We think education is going to be the next health care.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.