First in a series
[img]1456|right|Dave LaRose||no_popup[/img]Rolling out a new school term, his third already in Culver City, Dave LaRose truly is tailored to the nationwide enviable image of a Southern California administrator.
Tall, strapping, handsome and roughly 10 years younger than when he arrived from Washington state, goateed Mr. LaRose was resplendent this morning in a brilliant purple polo shirt. Not that polo garb is unusual for him. He was flashing the foundational hue of younger daughter Maddie’s school colors at Grand Canyon University in Arizona.
Just as the session was concluding, David Mielke, by now the nearly legendary president of the Teachers Union, garbed in shining yellow and freshly tanned from the upstate New York sun, walked in. Mr. Mielke handed Mr. LaRose a tee-shirt from his sailing camp in yet another thundering hue, glaring green.
For at least a few days, Mr. LaRose will be visible from a serious distance.
Meanwhile, the subject was the new school term, and how it is going to be different with the nationally mandated addition of Common Core curricula to the standard agenda.
If the School District, on 24-hour alert under Mr. LaRose’s smartly styled administration, invested all of last year training Mr. Mielke’s 350 teachers in the unique instructional methods of Common Core, how long will it take students to adjust to the new system whose objective, arguably, appears to be uniformity more than achievement.
Question: What distinguishes the new year from those past, Common Core or other elements?
Mr. LaRose’s response was typically intriguing.
“The message we are emphasizing is less about what is different and more about what is right.”
When was the last time you heard an educator combine those terms and convictions in a single sentence?
(To be continued)
