Here's an LA Times editorial supporting Cortines:

Ordinarily, we'd rail against a decision by the Los Angeles Unified School District to hand over a school to outside operators without a vote of the teachers, without consulting parents, without an open discussion or an opportunity for existing staff to offer a competing proposal. But Jordan High School's record isn't ordinary. The school performs so poorly that only 2% of its students are proficient in math; the picture for English isn't much better.

According to school officials, Jordan will be split into three separate entities, each run by an outside group: Green Dot Public Schools, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. These are three well-run organizations that have demonstrated particular diligence in working with inner-city schools.

…Ultimately, it's the on-campus reality that matters. Jordan is not a good school. Not even mediocre. It's in the bottom 10% in the state. Its students have about a 1-in-3 chance of graduating at all, much less graduating ready for a job or college. It failed to test enough students this year to have the state take its full measure. The school was given the opportunity to turn itself around by joining the mayor's partnership in 2008, but both parents and teachers rejected that option, yet did little to improve the situation on their own.

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