LAUSD taps outsider Austin Beutner as superintendent, public health officials get creative, "Saved by the Bell" themed diner pops up in WeHo.
New LAUSD superintendent Austin Beutner isn't an educator. Here's what we know about how he thinks about schools.
Has an outsider in charge ever been a good thing in education?
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District appointed Austin Beutner as the district's new superintendent. Beutner, a former investment banker, has no history working as an educator.
It's not unusual for school systems to tap outsiders —non-educators—to run things. We've seen it in New York City and in Denver in recent years. But has it worked?
The answer is not so black and white.
It's nothing new
It started around 20 years ago when anxiety over the poor performance of students and districts began to grow. As a result, outsiders were brought in. They're called non-traditional superintendents. Sometimes they come from the military, the government and even the business sector.
What finally led to tapping these outsiders? Desperation. That's according to Larry Cuban, professor emeritus at Stanford's Graduate School of Education.
Usually, the measures used to judge a school system: student test scores, dropout rates, graduation rates, have either held steady or continued to go down...
So, they would look outside the district thinking that the outsider, whether from the business sector, from the government or the military, would shake up the school system sufficiently to perform better.
Some other examples of outsiders being brought in?
In New York there was a corporate executive named Harold Levy who came from the private sector.
Joel Klein came from the U.S. Department of Justice and he served under Mayor Bloomberg for eight years.
D.C. experimented with a military outsider, General Julius Becton.
But is it effective?
It's not a new trend that outsiders have been brought in to "fix" things, but some observers say it's a "failed experiment" to bring non-educators into a school system.
"I've looked at the comparisons between insiders and outsiders... and the record doesn't show that either outsiders or insiders correct all the deficits they were brought in to solve," Cuban said.
A favorite type of outsider to tap is the kind with the business background. It's what Beutner is bringing to his new post at LAUSD, as well. What do those with business backgrounds have to offer?
Usually it's the managerial side. And so the school board that picks a business person, male or female, usually says that the problem is managerial, and if we can improve that management, then the student measures and teaching and learning will all improve.
Like with anything, it's a roll of the dice. But there is a tried and true outsider formula that usually does lead to success. Cuban explains it's when "the outsider knew that the core of the mission is to help teachers do their job in classrooms and to be supportive of teachers. That's where it has worked."
Also...
Are you an LAUSD parent with questions or concerns? We want to hear from you. Weigh into our Facebook discussion below:
You can also tweet us your thoughts @taketwo.
Vintage safe sex ads might hold clues to solving today's STI uptick
A retrospective of jarring, creative and groundbreaking safer sex campaigns is now on display in the exhibition "Lost and Found" at the ONE Gallery in West Hollywood.
Most of what can be seen spans the 1980s and 1990s.
"They are powerful images and probably some of the most powerful media campaigns around public health," says USC professor Nayan Shah. "People today who are public health practitioners now look back and say, 'Wow, can we do a campaign that’s as impactful as those campaigns were?'"
The biggest concern surrounded the spread of HIV, of which little was known at first, so public health activists used methods that went beyond traditional PSAs to get people's attentions.
"This was about tactics that we’re presenting, whether it be through comics, posters, videos," says the exhibition's co-curator David Evans Frantz. "It was about raising awareness and telling the public that this is a crisis about all our lives."
Comic books were one method, as seen in "Chicos Modernos," created by artist Joey Terrill and commissioned by L.A. County health officials.
In Spanish, the main character mistakenly talks about how he can't contract HIV from another man who's straight. His friend then educates him on the realities of how the virus is transmitted.
Since it’s a comic and in Spanish, the message is more accessible to both younger people and to L.A.’s diverse community.
"A kind of history that we’re also really looking to chart in this show is how AIDS activists were looking to really broadly reach beyond the gay community or specifically the white gay community especially in Los Angeles," Frantz says.
Also on display at “Lost and Found” exhibit are several artifacts from the group Clean Needles Now, a volunteer organization that ran a needle exchange program throughout the streets of L.A. in the '90s.
Several photographs of them are on display, though few show people’s faces.
"There was anonymity involved," says co-curator Hannah Grossman. "There was sensitivity around people’s identity because of the illegal nature of what they were actually engaging with."
During this time, there was a lot of opposition to let intravenous drug users trade used needles for clean ones. Some public officials argued that it just encouraged drug use.
So CNN operated in secret, while also distributing things like comic books, calendars and pamphlets.
The exhibition “Lost and Found” also features objects like tarot cards redrawn to feature ways to have safer sex, and several ads of couples just kissing – some same-sex, others of different races.
Even that was bold for its time.
"People were hostile because it was showing these positive images of same-sex or opposite-sex multiracial couples," says USC professor Nayan Shah. "Couples showing care and tenderness – that was as challenging to some people as much more graphic imagery."
But it’s messaging like this that was revolutionary, and an important lesson for today.
In 2016, a quarter-million Californians were infected with either syphilis, chlamydia or gonorrhea. When it comes to HIV, there are more than 1,800 new cases of it each year in Los Angeles County alone.
So to bring down the rates of STIs that affect Southern Californians, today's public health activists might want to look at the creativity and bravery of the past.
Zack Morris is cash: 'Saved by the Bell' pop-up restaurant opens in WeHo
Hey, hey, hey, hey! What's going on here?
No, "Saved by the Bell" fans, you aren't dreaming. That restaurant does look exactly like The Max, the favorite cafe hangout of Bayside High's finest.
So if you ever wanted to feel like you'd been transported back 25 years into the show, you're in luck. West Hollywood is now home to the "Saved by the Bell"- inspired pop-up restaurant called Saved by The Max.
"I'm hoping that fans who come to Saved by The Max just forget about everything for the hour and a half that they're there and just have fun. From the music that's playing from the show to photo opportunities, I think it's just like a Saved by the Bell playground in there," said co-owner, Derek Berry.
He's a fan of the show too, and he hopes all the preppies will appreciate the attention to detail at Saved by the Max, which starts from the moment diners walk in.
"The first thing they're gonna get hit with is a big locker case, which has got a locker devoted to every member of the cast. With little tidbits and deep cuts from Zack's big cell phone to Slater's wrestling singlet and Lisa's crutches. And as you turn the corner and get the big reveal of the main room, I think your breath is kind of taken away," Berry said.
The accuracy of the decor even impressed Ed Alonzo, one of the show's cast members.
"We had Ed Alonzo, who played Max on the show, come in to do some stuff with us. And he walked in and I thought he was going to faint. He was like, 'Did you steal this from NBC? Is this the original set?' He couldn't believe we had replicated it," Berry said.
But this diner is not just about looks. The food got plenty of attention too. Berry said the owners turned to chef Brian Fisher to create a menu that would be both delicious and preppie-approved.
"[Fisher] came up with things that he felt made him think of his childhood and when he was watching Saved by the Bell and also things that when he comes to Los Angeles he enjoys. It's not your normal hotdog and chicken nuggets. We've got like Korean-fried chicken waffles and we've got a really good pastrami sandwich," Berry said.
Berry said the response to Saved by the Max went beyond what he and the other co-owners expected. Early reservation tickets where sold out when the pop-up opened Monday.
But fear not, the restaurant is going to extend its stay for a 'Second Semester' until September 2019. You can get your ticket for that next bunch of dates Friday, May 4, at the restaurant's website.