Here's an LA Times article about Cortines's move:

Los Angeles school district leaders announced Wednesday that they will split low-performing Jordan High School into three small schools that will be run by outside groups. All current employees will have to reapply for their jobs or work elsewhere.

…In a recent interview, outgoing Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said Jordan was among the worst campuses in the district. Jordan did not qualify for a key state academic rating last year because too few of the students took standardized tests. Cortines said that misstep, in particular, drew his attention to Jordan.

Jordan's poor performance — just 2% of the students were considered at grade level in math last year — also put it at risk of losing state funding.

"This school makes some of the others I've dealt with look better," Cortines said in a November interview. "The problem in that school is the lack of instruction in the classroom.... Fifteen minutes before the end of the period teachers are finished for the day. And this is not just one or two classrooms."

Jordan's faculty submitted a turnaround plan to Cortines in December. But Cortines said that it was inadequate and that it blamed students at times for their poor performance.

"I am extremely disappointed ... you begin to set up the straw man of blame and excuses," he wrote in a letter to Jordan's staff.

Cortines will appoint a trustee to oversee the nearly 1,600-student campus next month.

The superintendent said that several partners will run the new campuses, but he did not specify who they are. Jordan Principal Evelyn Mahmud told her staff that the campus would be split into thirds and run by two charter groups: Green Dot Public Schools and Alliance For College Ready Public Schools and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's nonprofit, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

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