I met a Los Angeles named Geronimo at the Network for Public Education meeting in Austin. Of course, that is a pseudonym. Geronimo, who often comments here, met Joanne Barkan, who wrote a post about philanthropy here.
Here are Geronimo’s reflections:
One of the great pleasures of my NPE experience in Austin was getting to talk to Joanne Barkan at length.
In Los Angeles, we have felt the full brunt of “philanthropy”. It has been used as the cudgel to infiltrate the entire operating status of LAUSD by dictating the terms of the pedagogy our kids receive and the orders we teachers are expected to follow. The fact that Gates and Broad have placed not only “their man” John Deasy in the top position, but they have funded other positions in District Headquarters.
Worse, we have no idea how much money they give to Deasy personally nor others in Deasy because they are “private” donations.
It is easy to call yourself a “philanthropist” but often times, philanthropy is politically motivated. I guess this can be good or bad depending on whose side of the “giving” you are on and if this sort of barter is good for your cause.
In an article in THE LA TIMES by Howard Blume on September 15, 2011
(http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/15/local/la-me-schools-fund-20110915), we read about how the drive to “philanthropize” LAUSD became public:
“Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy and Hollywood philanthropist Megan Chernin have launched an effort to raise $200 million over five years to benefit local public schools.
“The collaboration, in the works for several months, was announced in a letter signed by Deasy, Chernin and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
“The letter strikingly lists failures of the Los Angeles Unified School District but also asserts that “for the first time in the District’s history, the conditions for bold change are present…. The time is now to harness this potential and it is our responsibility to do so.
“Besides Chernin, the nascent board of the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education includes education philanthropist Casey Wasserman — who has given directly to L.A. Unified in the past — as well as former educator and artist Nancy Marks and Jamie Alter Lynton, a former journalist who is married to the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
“‘Donations could support districtwide initiatives, such as a new training program for principals, among other things. They could also bring to the district effective approaches used at charter schools,’ said spokeswoman Amanda Crumley.
And here is the unquestioned-Philanthropic-philosophy-in-a-nutshell kicker of the LA TIMES article:
“One selling point for participants is that the elected L A. Board of Education would have no direct control over the money.
“‘As you know, the innovation Los Angeles’ students need cannot start within a rule-bound bureaucracy,’” the letter states.
“Key education donors have refused to give much, if anything, to L.A. Unified because they question how well the nation’s second-largest school system would use the money.
HOW WOULD THEY USE THE MONEY? At least the decisions would have been democratic and transparent.
HOW HAS DEASY USED THE MONEY? I’ll let history judge.
During the Great Recession, LA. Unified, like other urban districts, had been hard hit by state funding shortfalls, resulting in thousands of layoffs, larger class sizes and a shorter school year. It was the perfect opportunity for “philanthropists” to come in and work their magic under the pretext of providing schools with much needed assistance.
The unions were at their weakest point (and currently, in LA, the union is on life-support).
Deasy, who became superintendent in April, 2011, has made pursuing outside philanthropic financial support a high priority. But this financial support brought political support with all the quid pro quos that have made LAUSD more of a corporation than a democracy. The Big Money is steep inside LASUD and has definite favorites as to who gets to define what “good education” is. Just look at all the money that now gets poured into the School Board races and who “philanthropy” backs. Look at how philanthropists treat teacher unions and the quality-of-life issues they raise.
If this was the NRA who had this sort of inside influence to organizations, people would be outraged. These Philanthropists and our Superintendent uses kids as human shields. They say they will withdraw their money if their policies are not implemented. This sort of hostage taking is obscene and Deasy stays in power because of this implicit threat.
Philanthropy where these multi-billion dollar decisions truly affect the profits of the ones giving the “donations” taints the whole process. Gates and Broad put their money and their “charity” to the very areas that they profit from.
Education is political BECAUSE it is Big Business. To ignore that reality is to be willfully ignorant.
And the Philanthropists have tried very hard to turn Education into Big Business behind the scenes while maintaining their pretense of Switzerland-like neutrality in their public persona claiming to the public: “We just want to help education be better.”
Kind-hearted souls indeed as they write their pro-Reform Op-eds in The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, on the micro-scale of my individual classroom, my kids have to hoe a vastly different path that the Reforms now prescribe their net worth. The billionaires say this is what you get.
Kids. Your education is NOT a Democracy.
If you don’t like it, your solution is very simple. You can always leave the public system to where Gates, Broad, Alter-Lynton, Duncan or Obama send their kids to school.
And finally you will get the education these philanthropists truly believe in.
Thanks again, Joanne for your insight and commentary and commitment to the cause. You continue to be inspiring.
“‘Donations could support districtwide initiatives, such as a new training program for principals, among other things. They could also bring to the district effective approaches used at charter schools,’ said spokeswoman Amanda Crumley.
I’m dreading when all local public schools turn into chain charters.
What an absolute crock this whole thing is. It was sold as “experimental!” and “creative!” and it’s all standardized and designed according to a rigid formula.
Who are we kidding with this? It’s NATIONAL. How was it ever going to turn into anything other than a set of formulas to apply to every school? This also blows the whole “choice” nonsense out of the water. I don’t remember choosing a “no excuses” charter school.
So to get the money public schools have to adopt a charter chain model?
Why, that’s just like Race to the Top!
No thanks, celebrities. You hang onto it.
Having taught for 36 years, I can not remember a time in the history of education in Los Angeles when there was essentially no dialogue about education policy. Sure there are blogs, and postings that criticize the direction in which LAUSD policy is going. But, there is not a single elected or appointed official who will speak out against the shameful behavior of the Superintendent and the Board.
Why are the voices of reason silent as the District takes money clearly ear marked by the voters for school construction and repair and spends it on iPads? The teacher who started the website “Repairs Not iPads” has courageously documented the repairs that are not being done. I taught US Government for most of my career. I always told my students that voting is important. I don’t know what I would say today. The will of the people who voted for the school bond has been ignored. When a watch dog committee tried to prevent the District from buying more iPads, the LAUSD disbanded the watch dog committee. Is this democracy?
Does no one care that most of the adult schools have been closed, leaving tens of thousands of working people with no way to improve their English or prepare for the citizenship test?
Does the public know that the decision about how to spend certain funds is left to each school, and that some high schools with over 2,000 students only have a nurse ONCE a week.? Other schools have no librarians.
Is anyone concerned about the fact the District is about to administer an assessment tool that is mostly untested, and where it has been tested, the vast majority of students have failed.? The new Core Curriculum test requires students to interpret non-fiction text without being given any context or scaffolding.
How is it possible that the groups that fought for multi-cultural education are silent as the District has almost eliminated all the advisors who were hired to help schools infuse multiculturalism into the curriculum?
I can not remember a time when politicians on both side of the spectrum have supported policies that are clearly detrimental to staff and students. The progressive politicians whose voices I expect to hear when public officials block all forms of transparency, or abuse teachers’ rights to due process, are silent.
I am waiting for someone to speak out.
First, the teachers’ union has not had a dynamic leader since Helen Bernstein died so tragically.
Second, Deasy, like Putin, has created a climate of fear throughout the district. He has the full backing of the corporatists, and he’s a bully. No one wants to cross him. I’m retired, so I can speak out, but it’s dangerous for those currently employed.
Third, the Daily News has always been against the unions, and the record of the LA Times is spotty at best. Forget TV.
Deasy should have been fired and prosecuted for that iPad boondoggle.
Meanwhile, teachers have suffered years of furloughs and no raise for seven years. Current offer on the table? Zero raise. Zero class size reduction, despite the millions in new revenue pouring in.
Where’s it going? Pearson, consultants, etc. it’s nauseating.
As I mentioned last week, I was at a Dem Club meeting recently where Henry Waxman was being honored for his 40 years of public service, most as a Congressman. He spoke, and then took questions from the floor. I made a brief statement about California and LA having the most charters in the nation, and gave the latest CREDO stats. Then I asked him about RttT and how he felt about this as a way to fund public ed, and if he could get the ear of Obama/Duncan. He was timorous in his answer that he did not know much about their position or on edcuation issues all told….and then he finished (me) off by saying “I like charters.”
So if our most liberal Congressperson likes charters, where are we to turn? Some of our inner city public is bought and paid for by Broad and his cohorts and they are bussed around to do their orchestrated number when needed to influence the media and the BoE.
Right now, horrifyingly egregious behavior by our main teacher training university, CSUN, is touting a “parents forum” on April 10 to ostensibly allow/inform the community about how parents can be involved within LAUSD. Sounds like a good plan until you read their flyer advertising their main panelist to be Gabe Rose of the infamous Parent Revolution group, the main charlatans and manipulators in the local charter movement, and run by the notorious Ben Austin who Diane Ravitch reports on regularly.
I have repeatedly protested this choice to the CSUN professor who put this together and requested that a truly knowledgable responder like Robert Skeels be put on this seemingly rigged panel to counter Gabe Rose as a presenter. This is to no avail. She has flat out refused me, twice.
I hope LAUSD teachers, and other supporters of public schools, show up at this forum and voice their protest at this so-called parents forum.
Anyone wanting further info, please contact me at
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Geronimo, I don’t know what grade level you teach, but back in the late 80s a number of high schools benefitted from philanthropy done right, in the Rockefeller funded, LAEP administered Humanitas Program, which consisted of grade-level interdisciplinary teams of teachers who wrote their own curriculum, which stressed critical thinking, during summer planning days funded by Rockefeller. The only requirement for students to enter the program was a pulse. Humanitas still exists in a few schools, but was largely killed off in the late 90s by typical LAUSD top-down dictates and ineptitude.
I’ve got a superior idea to relying on the “largess” of robber barons and plutocrats. Let’s tax at an equitable rate, like say 95%, and then decide collectively how to use those funds in our schools.
Robert and Geronimo…please try to join me and some of my colleagues at the CSUN forum on April 10 so that we can ask the most cogent questions of the panel, including Gabe Rose. The professor in charge has written me that there will be two mics on either side of the room, and that we can make brief comments and ask our questions.
The last parents forum that Deasy put on did not allow questions from the floor. They notified attendees by email only a couple of hours before that meeting that there would only be written questions. The analogy someone made above, that Deasy is similar to Putin, is so true, and so many feed at the spigot of the Broad cash which is spread around like fertilizer on ALL plants, ever candidate, every university gobbles up the grant funding and does his bidding.
As we have seen tine and again, those who fund and support ‘reform’ would not deign to send their own children to public schools The consequence of the seemingly endless philanthropic donations to LAUSD will, over time, strangle the public schools, making them unfit for student learning and ever so ripe for a massive charter model takeover.
Is there any countervailing pressure that can be exerted. Or, must we watch in horror as a public school system is strangled? What is occurring in LAUSD can occur in any school district in the absence of parent, community and educator opposition.
‘Reform’ has many tentacles: the Common Core Curriculum/Standardized testing/\\\\VAM and privatization. All are fed from the same source Businesses and foundations.
We know that parents groups are mobilizing. They do not have the resources to fight alone. Which leads us, once again, to the moral of the story: Where are the AFT and NEA in this struggle? Which side are they on? Whose interests do they represent?
For any movement to be successful against the larger, tyrannical forces at work it must connect with the numerous other movements that are battling against those same forces.
If that solidarity does not occur it becomes a situation where small fires are desperately trying to be put out in the house as several other fires are being ignited right next door.
Michael, I do want to talk about “the larger, tyrannical forces at work” and how to “connect with the numerous other movements that are battling against those same forces.”
I profoundly disagree with one of Joanne Barkan’s rules for “effectively criticizing Big Philanthropy”. She throws Africa’s urgent health needs to the dogs with this buy-off:
“Actually, the Gates Foundation’s work in Africa has serious critics, but suppose, for the sake of argument, that the foundation does much good there…”
Suppose instead that it’s our right and our duty to stand up to Gates profiteering campaigns in the Third World, just as we do here. If I can only post one link, it will be this 2011 call from Humanosphere.
http://www.humanosphere.org/2011/06/is-the-gates-foundations-plan-for-global-vaccinations-too-friendly-to-the-drug-industry/
Does this pattern sound familiar?
“Some would argue that the GAVI Alliance is one of the best marketing machines ever devised by industry and partners, stimulating demand and shaping pricing mechanisms…. Challenging the industry publicly or privately seems off limits for discussion, adding to the ‘smoke and mirrors’ perceived relationship that GAVI has with pharma.”
And, does this?
“We are concerned that proposals in the current debate over WHO reform, … do not adequately address the management of conflicts of interest, and present an unrealistic and empirically unsupported assumption that all stakeholders will collaborate to advance the public interest.”
Doctors Without Borders walked out of the GAVI alliance in 2012, and refuses Gates money at this time. They’re “constructively engaging” now to put childrens’ health needs above industry profits, but how can they do that if we write Gates a free pass while his claws close around Third World health care delivery as one more profit center?
Gates charitable agenda is to support the profits of big pharma corporations, in which he personally own stock. Monsanto and Cargill are his vehicles to address world hunger, Pearson and Microsoft are his gift to education. Under his humane guidance, the activities of his Foundation on behalf of these corporate giants have propelled his personal wealth ever upward, back to the top slot on the planet.
Do a google search for leveraged philanthropy, and my little 2012 blog will come out on top, but now there are others added, who dare to challenge the very ground of Gates’ profit-driven philanthropy.
Agreed, bring the pensioners in. Arnold and Gates have attacked them as well.
Of course there is a countervailing pressure that can be exerted…. people – US – in the streets, day and night…. strikes by teachers, boycotts by parents – teachers and parents working together on this…. They cant make this happen without our co-operation…. Stop the handwringing and the whining on blogs and FB and Twitter – get out into 3D – REFUSE to participate…. REFUSE to let our kids be used in this way…..
I agree with you. (1) Let’s add petitions to the arsenal? People can sign their names with ease. With the petition in hand or on FB, there is the opportunity to tell the story. Lots of people, out there, are uninformed but, would care deeply, if they knew.
(2) On unrelated websites that allow comments, let’s morph the conversations into opportunities to explain what Arnold, Gates, the CEO of Netflix, Broad, etc. have planned for future generations of Americans
A few months ago, I made a commitment, to do one thing each day for democracy, to honor the birth of my grandson. One day I write a letter and send it to a publication or member of congress. One day, I give a small donation to a vigilant group like the Center for Media and Democracy. One day I tell a friend or acquaintance about an issue. One day I joined a phone bank to defeat an anti-labor legislative bill in my state. One thing a day, is a manageable goal.
It doesn’t compare with Diane’s service, but it’s what I can do.
Sahila. Without a doubt, you have identified the types of direct action that are now required in these dire times.the teaching population is waiting around to be ‘eaten for lunch’ by the ‘reformers. Teachers remain a for any number of understandable reasons, including being sold out by their so called leadership, a passive group. I do believe that rank and file leadership may yet emerge. The opt-out movement is gaining mimentum and teachers could align themselves with activist parents and leaders of progressive unions. Every city is developing parent groups who are the natural allies of teachers. It time for parents, educators and progressive unions to join together to take action. What we now have is an ever quickening March to destroy the public schools and public worker unions. We finally have to grasp that the ‘reformers” are now at a point where they have no need or desire or need to engage their detractors. We are past the time when ‘speaking truth to power” has any effective meaning. For example m Diane could chase Rhee from here to kingdom come for all the good that will come of it. We can draw from the tactics of the Civil Rights and Anti War movements. We have a usable past. Let’s not engage in historical amnesia. In another war, from another time, the heroes of Madrid, proclaimed to the world, “No Paseron”. We are arriving at that time. Again,Sahila, you see the here and now quite clearly
Yep, philanthropy at the top, to fund whatever the hedge funders want, and Donors Choose for the bottom, so teachers have to beg for what used to be provided. Class sizes are enormous, clerical and custodial services are cut to the bone, support services for students are non-existent, and now we are expected to do “next-generation testing” on computers while our current computers are falling apart and we have no one at school sites to oversee the state of the network.
Until and unless we restore the status of public education as a public good, supported by public funds, we are doomed. It’s that simple.
It is not surprising to see Deasy take this kind of approach, given how his career has been advanced by the foundations of Eli Broad and Bill and Melinda Gates. Full disclosure: Deasy was my superintendent (although he had a slightly different title) in Prince George’s County MD for several years, and I have actually had several conversations with him. He actually did a couple of good things in his tenure there, but also many that were questionable. And it is very clear that he does not like having to be responsible to a democratically elected board or committee – I saw this up close on one occasion, and perhaps someday I will write about it.
That said – that we continue to think that having the very wealthy dictate educational policy for the children of others (never their own, who attend private schools not subject to the policies they are imposing) because of their money is fundamentally in contradiction to the notion of a democratic republic. I remind people that one of those most strongly opposed to the notion of such kinds of influences, who supported both income taxes and massive inheritance taxes, was himself the beneficiary of such inherited wealth, and was a REPUBLICAN – one President Theodore Roosevelt.
Unfortunately, the current experience of such an approach is in its effects not merely classist, but inherently racist as well.
Unless and until we can restrict the political influence of great wealth we will continue to see this country continue on a path where we are ever more plutocratic and less democratic, and our already extreme economic and social disparities and inequities will become ever worse.