Watts Riot

A great article in Forbes today about Steve Barr and Green  Dot:

Barr's formula--small schools, good teachers  and efficient use of  money--has produced results: Green Dot spends  $8,000 per pupil in public funds  and graduates more than 90% of its  students. Two-thirds go on to four-year  colleges. In contrast, the Los  Angeles Unified School District, with 700,000  kids, spends $12,000 per  student but graduates fewer than 50%, according to  state data. (The  district says it graduates 65% and attributes the difference  to  transfers). While the district doesn't know how many go to college, only   20% of graduates are eligible to apply to state  universities.
 
Green Dot's schools all have at most 525  students, vs. an average of 3,600  in L.A.'s public high schools.  Teachers can keep track of their kids. Everyone  gets college  preparatory courses and wears uniforms of collared shirts tucked  into  khaki pants. Parent involvement is mandatory. A student who fails to show   up more than once can expect a call at home from the principal or a  visit from  staff.
 
Green Dot sends 94 cents of each  dollar of public funds to its schools to  be spent at the principal's  discretion. The other six cents are kicked back to  Green Dot  headquarters for administration. From his downtown office Barr looks   directly at the LAUSD's headquarters, home to 4,500  workers.
 
"What the $#%@ are people doing in there?" he  asks, pointing at the black  glass tower that looms over his  balcony.

Poor Duffy (the old-guard head of the LA teachers  union) still doesn't know  what's hitting him.  First he says this nonsense:

"What we have is as good as what Steve   Barr has," says UTLA President A.J. Duffy of the union's own reform  proposals.  

And then this truth:

"Steve's on fire," concedes UTLA's Duffy.   "He does have a model that appears to  work."

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Education
Watts  Riot
Peter C. Beller 07.30.07, 5:07 PM ET
http://www.forbes.com/business/2007/07/30/barr-education-schools-biz-cz_pb_0730greendot.html

Los Angeles -
On a sunny Los Angeles  afternoon in early May, Steve Barr gathered with parents, teachers and other  supporters across the street from Alain Locke Senior High School in the Watts  neighborhood. He proudly declared to the news media that the 2,800-student  school, one of the state's worst, was seceding from the Los Angeles Unified  School District.