Visit to Locke HS

Soon after reading an advance copy of Russo's book, I was in LA and went to visit Locke.  Greet Dot's President and CEO, Marco Petruzzi (shown in the first picture), was kind enough to show me around.  I was REALLY impressed – it is now a safe, well-functioning school.  While student achievement levels are still very low, they're MASSIVELY better than they were and trending strongly in the right direction.  Huge kudos to Green Dot for being willing to tackle the single most difficult task in education: taking over and trying to turn around an existing, failing, inner-city high school.  And extra kudos for applying to do the same thing for LA's Jordan High School, which now has the dubious honor of worst high school in LA now that Locke has been improved so dramatically (see my earlier emails on this at: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2011/03/jordan-high-school.html, http://edreform.blogspot.com/2011/03/officials-plan-to-split-low-performing.html and http://edreform.blogspot.com/2011/03/rescuing-jordan-high.html).