Recognizing All Those Super Teachers : Los Angeles Educational Partnership passes the million-dollar mark

Author Tracy Kidder in 1989 wrote about the nine months during which he followed a fifth-grade public school teacher, watching how a good teacher drew students out, how she challenged them, how closely she listened. “Decades of research and reform have not altered the fundamental facts of teaching,” he concluded. “The task of universal, public, elementary education is still usually being conducted by a woman alone in a little room.”

In the Los Angeles Unified School District there are thousands of such women, and men, alone in little rooms that often are crowded and stuffy. Frequently they dig into their own pockets to pay not only for materials but for the little extras; teachers know that with children, it’s the little things that count.

The Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a consortium of business groups that raises corporate dollars to help bring about reforms in the public schools, knows that too. In its Small Grants for Teachers program more than 5,000 teachers at more than 500 L.A. Unified schools have received checks of up to $800.

Teachers can use the money as they see fit, be it for paint and supplies for a mural or, as one team of teachers did last year, to supplement fund raising to send urban high school students to Yosemite. As one teacher said, “You can’t ask urban kids to care about the forests unless they’ve been there.”

Today the LAEP is scheduled to give its 1 millionth dollar to two second-grade teachers, who will guide students in planning and problem-solving within a miniature community that the youngsters built with recyclable materials.

In giving teachers direct cash grants, said one LAEP official, “We have in effect said, ‘We believe in you, we respect you, we trust you.’ ”

Applying for LAEP money is direct and easy, unlike the complex procedures and tremendous paperwork of some other grants.

Teachers write descriptions of their projects and what they hope to accomplish. Then each proposal is evaluated by a business representative, an educator and a community leader.

Checks go directly to the teachers, who often express astonishment at the simplicity of the program.

The Educational Partnership reports that one budget-conscious teacher even returned 11 unspent dollars from her $800 check.

The small-grants program provides just that, small grants. But what large rewards . . . and, of course, what bighearted people teachers can be.