GREEN DOT MEANS, GO AHEAD:

City of Choice: School reform and parent power come to Tinseltown. (RiShawn Biddle, 11/30/09, National Review)

Last week, LAUSD finished soliciting bids to hand over control of twelve of its schools to private managers. Among the bidders is Green Dot Schools, one of the nation’s most successful charter-school operators and a longtime foe of the district; two years ago, it managed the spectacular feat of forcing the district to hand over control of one of its high schools. Another 186 of LAUSD’s schools will be placed into private hands within the next three years.

LAUSD is also reversing its longstanding opposition to charter schools — the publicly funded but privately run entities that are part of Pres. Barack Obama’s own school-reform agenda. The district authorized 30 new charters last year and will approve the startup of 50 more by the 2011–2012 school year. This means some 200 charters will eventually operate in the district, making the City of Angels as much a bastion of school choice as Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or New Orleans.

An even more important win for choice advocates came earlier this month, when LAUSD enacted rules allowing parents to remove principals and teaching staffs in the district’s worst-performing schools.