Up until now, Eli Broad and his minions have dominated education discussion in Los Angeles. But something pretty terrific happened over the last few days. New voices are being heard. The public is getting the word that “corporate reform” is not working and will not improve their children’s education.
As educators, our job is to educate the public. We don’t have access to the mainstream media, but bit by bit the story is getting out. Americans have heard the negative propaganda for many years, yet they think their own public school is terrific.
The Los Angeles Times is taking a more critical look at the problems created by corporate reform as well as the lack of any results. The corporate reformers are on the defensive.
Let’s keep up our job: Organize, inform, educate, build coalitions with parents and educators. We don’t need more testing. We don’t need more merit pay. We don’t need more test-based evaluations. We need to make sure all kids get a high-quality education with the resources they need. All schools should have arts education and daily physical education. Children should have health clinics and after-school programs. Children who are struggling to learn need smaller classes. The children of Los Angeles need what the children in affluent districts have, only more of it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hopefully this will help the new majority on our board of education to make the right decisions — stop the tablet roll out, and get rid of John Deasy.
Wouldn’t that be refreshing. Hopefully the next one won’t just a “mouthpiece” for the corporate agenda.
it started by electing a teacher on the the school board. Monica Ratliff has changed the debate.
Great! Let’s see what happens. Been burnt too many times.
I’m thrill
Sent from my iPad
I hope momentum is gained and that Los Angeles citizens stand up to the privatization movement and to the CC and that it spreads rapidly across the nation.
Coffee Party activists are being made aware of this blog and of the behavior of ALEC and the Koch Brothers and that Goldman Sachs is bank-rolling TFA.
Thank you, Diane!
Can we convince the LATimes to stop publishing their ridiculous teacher ratings based on test scores?
I will work on that.
A number of positive things happened in California in the past few weeks. Our Governor Jerry Brown raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour. This will help our inner city families a bit.
And this week he signed a bill to allow the DMV to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented residents, which will also help inner city families.
He also ruled on no more old standardized tests, but from now on only Common Core testing. This made many LA educators quake.
In addition, he vetoed a bill that had a rider for the State to oversee the windfall taxpayer money directed to LAUSD, and other areas. This means no one is looking while Broad’s boy, John Deasy, is making horrendous decisions to buy overpriced iPads which everyone now knows about. So far, the waste is purported to be $350 million, and when he buys the forgotten keyboards it is estimated to be another $38 million, and then connecting all the schools, and all the students homes, to the internet….is monumental in cost. And this is only for a few schools out of the 650,000 students in LAUSD.
Who at LAUSD is doing the math? And Deasy and the LA Times only two weeks ago blamed it all on the politics of the Board.
And at the last Board meeting Deasy was angry that our new Board did not accept his manipulated budget showing the district to be in deeply in debt and not able to afford teachers.
It is all obscene smoke and mirrors. Sleight of hand, at LAUSD. Sadly we do not read about this in the Times, but a few weeks ago they had a three page article on the successful start up of Ben Austin’s ‘parent trigger’ charter school, with so many great TFA kids as teachers…and the locals who rely on our only valid print media in LA have little idea of what is going on.
Last week, the Times published Deasy’s glowing words about himself, that he is delighted at how wonderfully the iPad situation is working…probably the most misleading since “mission accomplished”. They did not deeply press for answers to the waste of vast sums of public money in seemingly sweetheart deals with Apple and Pearson. Deasy was the face of iPad in ads, and his underling Aquino worked for Pearson. Such a deal!
Many of us in LA feel it is Eli Broad’s PR firm that is frantically working to keep Deasy a somewhat viable Supt., but most of us want him to go away.
Howard Blume, I guess, is be commended for reporting on the Reclaiming the Process meeting, and certainly it was his job to report on the two meetings where Diane spoke. But I am not holding my breathe that it means there is some major turn around at the LA Times which is desperate to sell the paper now that the parent company, Chicago Tribune, has come out of bankruptcy. But, too often the Times relegates Blume’s articles to the obituary page…a low blow for readers, and for Howard. Lately things have been a bit better as to page placement.
Wish I could feel elated, but somehow I feel betrayed. Why throw endless tax dollars into the garbage? Stop now with this waste, and instead start hiring back the trained teachers, nurses, counselors, etc. with our tax money. Divide all the current classrooms of 47 students, into two classes, each with a real teacher, not a TFA kid.
As I have said many times, we now have 5 smart teachers on the LAUSD School Board, and this teacher majority should now stand up to Deasy, and Eli Broad, and make deep and positive change….starting with a search for a new Supt.
If anyone knows of some other amazing things happening, please post them so we can all cheer. But meanwhile, please come to the next Board meeting with signs stating how you feel about Deasy and the Billion dollars spent on iPads for Common Core testing. And come early so that you can be in line to register to present your allotted two minutes of testimony to the Board.
Ellen, I share your frustrations. I am standing by to see where this goes too.
Thank you Martha. It takes us all working in unison, to make change. And yes, it is so frustrating.
“He also ruled on no more old standardized tests, but from now on only Common Core testing. This made many LA educators quake.”
old standardized tests = new standardized Common Crap tests = IQ testing = phrenology = eugenics = blood letting = dunking = Inquisition torture.
First, Blume was not at Occidental College, at least I did not see him. Second, it is a small group here in L.A. who have made this happen. Aquino is gone through the work of at most 3-4 and that is it. You have not seen hardly a thing which I have not released to the press and the board lately. In the next three days the “Bomb” on iPads is going to drop with full documentation going back a long time with pattern and practice since 1997 on blowing bond money away and this is just the latest instance. We have the insurance and all other internal documents. Why do you think they are running? Because some people who do not know the inside story and have never been down there say something? That is not how it happens anywhere and certainly not here. You must have credibility to those who matter. Ratliff has not done anything yet. She has not come out against the iPads even though I have sent deadly to them documented information with their John Henry’s on them. only this matters “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.” Ask all who talk if they have the goods. Even high level administrators and former high level people at LAUSD had not seen these documents until I showed them. Soon, at Hemlock on the Rocks you will be able to see it all. At that time it will be going out to the world wide press. This will stop and it does not happen by just talking or writing. It happens by the hard work of investigation and the credibility so that people will give you documents that would cost their jobs to stop these things. And in the beginning it was the nice lady commenter who posted the Aquino power point which led to the end of this with a lot of hours. Apple is going to have a bad time with this one. Did you know that a school in England bought iPads a year ago for almost the same price for 1,200 devices as LAUSD is going to pay for 700,000 units. Not only that almost 1/2 of them did not work anymore. So let us go out and buy something that will take all school districts broke. Here are the basic financials. If they buy the $200 dollar device @ $40/year/student LAUSD saves $40/student or $26 million/year. If they continue with the iPad they lose $139 million/year. So do you want to save $78 million over 3 years to use for arts and exercise to cut down child diabetes or lose $417 million and go into bankruptcy as bonds are both illegal for this use and unsustainable with the iPads as they break down and have to be replaced as they are only good for 3 years with the guarantee and they signed this last deal with no terms and conditions. Good business and buying I say. Have a good day for the next two and then it is run for the hills.
I’m helping with a school bond campaign here, we’re canvassing door to door, and I have to say ed reformers have done a real number on the public. I knew the absolute droning chant of “failed and failing schools” from politicians and media was damaging to public schools, but I didn’t know how damaging.
This district isn’t “failing” using the reformers own metric (test scores) but people who don’t have children in the schools or don’t work there all believe our schools are failing. Our public schools were built in 1916 (renovated after that, and a high school was built in 1956) and we may not be able to raise public money to replace them.
It’s so tragically short-sighted, the campaign to discredit public schools. Even if one doesn’t believe public schools should exist, even if one wants to go completely to a publicly-funded (rather than public) system don’t they realize it will be AS difficult to get the public to support charter schools and publicly-funded private schools as it currently is to get taxpayer support of public schools if they continue this? It will probably be MORE difficult to get sufficient taxpayer support of a 100% charter and private school system than our current system, because the support will be fragmented-there won’t be one single parent/teacher group supporting schools in a community but instead a bunch of single schools competing for state (rather than local) funding.
They’re headed for a real disaster as far as funding. Public schools are in it now, but their preferred schools are next.
Is there anyone at the Gates Foundation who thinks past the next quarter? Did they give any thought to how difficult it will be to sustain public financial support for a fragmented “portfolio” system of charter and private schools?
If they are able to convince the public that all public schools were failing and all public school teachers are lazy and stupid and unworthy of taxpayer support, they know the same low-tax fanatics in the “reform” movement will simply come after funding for charters and publicly-funded private schools next, right?
It’s already happening. The reformers in Michigan state government who came up with the voucher program (until it was exposed and they had to drop it) had drastically lower levels of per-pupil funding for the 100% voucher system than there is for the current public school system in Michigan. Did they not notice that?
Public schools are now being systematically defunded under “reform”, but their schools are next.
As. First grade teacher in jersey City, N.J., I too am suffering along with the corporate reformers rules, tests and lack of funding. My six and seven year olds DO NOT get physical education, because they will not hire another gym teacher.
So, only part of our small building…of 400 or so students get to run, play and exercise. Unfortunately the children in my charge get none of that , isn”t gym a requirement ? A law ? We are not servicing our children and this is sad.
Karen Carinha
Sent from my iPad
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“We are not servicing our children. . .”
Man, I hope not!
Perhaps you meant “We are not SERVING our children”.
One of the best comments to come out
of Los Angeles recently was
Hannah Nguyen’s impropmtu speech at
the Michelle Rhee / STUDENTS FIRST
“Teacher Town Hall” event on Thursday,
September 5, 2013.
This was a highly-orchestrated,
controlled propaganda event—
a teacher-union-bashing infomercial,
if you will. Thankfully, Hannah was
allowed to add her point of view,
and someone captured it on video.
Without further ado, here’s
a link to Hannah’s speech
at the Students First event
(which has gone viral,
approaching 18,000 hits!):
Here’s the transcript:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
HANNAH NGUYEN:
“Hi, everyone. My name is Hannah, I’m
a student… Just a few things though, I
felt like this whole event was very much
looking at these educational policy
issues as a reformers versus teacher
unions kind of issue, and as a student
standing here and watching this battle
it is really disheartening, because it’s
a lot deeper than that, and these are
everyday realities.
“And this is more than a reformers
versus teachers union battle, this is
a social justice issue.
“And there’s a lot of things brought
up — going back to poverty —
reformers say that poverty isn’t
destiny, and that sounds great, and
I believe in that, and that’s
awesome.
“But you know what, if you really
care about students, you should say
that poverty shouldn’t be.
“Yes, we need to work on in-school
factors, and simultaneously we need
to work on out-of-school factors and
caring about the whole child.
“Back to high stakes testing. I don’t
know a single student — I’m sorry, I
have a lot of friends, and I have
friends at other schools too — I don’t
know a single student who says that
they learned something from a
high-stakes test, and the way that
their school is structured. They
should be given the freedom to
learn what they want to learn, open
curriculum, well-rounded, arts, music,
humanities….
“I used to stand by reformers, I will
admit it, I did. But after seeing the
facts, and the data and everything,
and my own lived experience. I
cannot – I’m sorry — stand by what
you preach if it has to do with
high-stakes accountability, this
“school choice,” which sounds great,
you know, choice — who can argue a
gainst that?
“But, I don’t agree with the fact that
charter schools, and how they push
our certain students, and I’ve seen it
happen.
“My main point is, listen to the
students. Listen to the students.”
I’m not sure what to make of what is happening in LA because of what is going on in Southern Florida with the new charter schools being funded by CACSFF — a joint venture between Canyon Capital Realty Advisors (CCRA) and Agassi Ventures (AV) — yes, Andre Agassi. The head of Canyon Capital lives in Los Angeles and obviously is a huge supporter of charter schools. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/01/v-fullstory/3662552/canyon-agassi-charter-school-facilities.html
Deborah,
Read my book. It explains what you need to know about the Aggassi charter schools. He should be running tennis caps. He is not qualified to run schools.
Thanks, Diane. I happen to know Bobby Turner, Chairman and CEO of Canyon; we attended PUBLIC school together! Thanks for all you do. Don’t you ever rest?
Can you imagine wanting to send your kid to school where someone who lives far, far, away is allowed to make a profit off of the school. The greed is unreal.
Opposition to the deceptive “reform” programs of the wealthy elites couldn’t make me happier. I retired rather than be forced to heel to a “big data” superintendent phony (Lynn Kennedy, to be specific, fired for her mishandling of Banning’s special ed but hired as a consultant to fix San Bernardino’s special ed. Go figure!). What SoCal organizations are mobilizing the masses, because this individual is eager to fight!
I was delighted to hear of the LA IPad fiasco on NY radio:)
Today, the LA Times paid deference to Eli Broad by giving him, and his charter school developer pal, former mayor, Richard Reardon, a large op ed full of self praise on their generosity to our community as philanthropists. In a article by Howard Blume, he also mentioned Broad in similar terms. So much for any turnaround at the Times…it was PR pay up for telling a bit of truth about the iPad fiasco made by Broad’s boy, Deasy.
Keep up the good work in LA! May it spread across the nation!
Now that the anti-public education forces have just about everything they want (school closings, budget cutbacks, frightened unions, 24/7 testing, etc.) they can wait to start the next offensive (de-certifying unions, drastic wage cuts, more closings, administrative supremacy). The teachers unions have caved and are no longer good for the struggles to come.