When I first learned that Superintendent John Deasy planned to spend as much as $1billion to equip everyone in theLos Angeles school district with iPads for Common Core testing, I was amazed that the district could afford such a large expenditure. Then I learned from reading Howard Blume in the Los Angeles Times that TE district would pay for the iPads from a 25-year construction bond fund approved by the voters who thought they were paying for the construction and repair of public schools. I was shocked. I wondered if anyone cared. The useful life of the iPad was probably 3-4 years. How could the money come from the construction bond, and would there be money to build nd repair schools if it was used for short-term technology purchases.? Would voters support future bonds if their purpose was so easily ignored?
It turns out that one member (perhaps not the only one) did care, and that was Stuart Magruder. He is an architect, and he was a member of the district’s Bond Oversight Committee. he was doing his job. For daring to ask questions and be a critic, the LAUSD board failed to renew his appointment. He was ousted.
For his courage and integrity on behalf of the public interest, he is a hero of American education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It was clearly some oversight in putting an architect on the oversight of construction bonds.
Please…everyone…sign this petition in support of keeping Magruder on the Bond Oversight Committee.
https://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/reappoint-lausd-bond-oversight-committee-citizen-member-stewart-magruder-as-a-watchdog
It is only with vast national attention that we in LA have any chance of overcoming this inept and seemingly complicit BoE, and the ruling hand of Eli Broad and his puppet, Supt. Deasy.
I signed.
I signed! Please share with your friends! We need to send the message that Stuart Magruder was speaking ON OUR BEHALF, and by ousting him, they are telling us they don’t want to hear OUR voice!!
signed
Me too. We love Stu Magroo!
The real reasons LAUSD will let their jailed teachers stay home
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-real-reasons-lausd-will-let-their-jailed-teachers-stay-home
Sadly, the whole LAUSD Board is being lambasted for this decision. However, there was mass confusion about if and how that decision should be made. As Magruder confirmed on KABC radio this morning, no one has ever been ousted in the history of the Bond Oversight Committee. During the meeting, Board President, Richard Vladovic, cut off the discussion while questions were being asked and called for a vote. He’s the one who, minutes before, admitted not knowing anything about Magruder but would go along with Ms. Galatzan who he claimed had “done her homework”. Well, apparently that was not the case, but there was no opportunity allowed for any board member to either ask about or demand evidence.
This is a story that is unfolding and will be well covered by the media. This is exactly the kind of publicity Superintendent Deasy must be in great fear of. It’s reminding the public and I hope the country that his pet project, the rollout of iPads for all, was deeply flawed, misguided and completely unsupported by the voting public.
John Deasy wants the “bad” educators out. Well, I agree and hope he’ll be out soon.
Linda Johnson: TAGO!
😎
Pass this petition to keep Magruder on the Bond Oversight Committee to all your lists and all your blog sites. Sign it right now, so LAUSD can see the world is watching and they can no longer operate in secrecy.
https://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/reappoint-lausd-bond-oversight-committee-citizen-member-stewart-magruder-as-a-watchdog
It is only with vast national attention that we in LA have any chance of overcoming this inept and seemingly complicit BoE, and the ruling hand of Eli Broad and his puppet, Supt. Deasy.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Repairs-Not-IPads/228827333958584 For sure the teachers and the union cared. This website above was started by Matt, union rep, and got tv time. LAUSD responded that they want to do repairs but there isn’t any money. Really LAUSD, could it be because you spent the money on ipads. Holes in ceiling leaking in the rain, floors with hole, rats everywhere chewing the covers on the chairs, ate my pumpkin right up. It’s hard working for a district that is al PR and no substance that’s for sure.
Here, here Stuart and thanks to Diane for noticing what the community, the students and the teachers see as yet another decision by our sorry Mr. Deasy.
He arbitrarily signed LAUSD up for a Breakfast in the Classroom program (BIC) which is not only unhealthy and wasteful (kids won’t eat the stuff), but has caused an infestation problem in our classrooms. This in schools sorely in need of repairs, upgrades and even a simple paint job. Mr. D. has truly shown his stripes as anyone who disagrees with him is sent packing. No independent thinking is allowed in LAUSD.
Yes, Jennie…he wanted that photo op of him eating with the children to support his new contract. He does not think further than the next way he can attract the media.
It’s another scam. Walmart writes it all off and dumps expired junk food on schools. I have seen photos of moldy muffins and curdked milk. Teachers are being forced to accept kp duty and oarents have no clue what their kids are ingesting. Not long ago sugary junk foods and soda were banned, but its dufferent when wally world donates cereal, granola bars, and more crap kids need to consume less of. In order to inflict this demeaning and despicable imposition on teachers and exploit students,mDeasy astroturfed the meeting that teachers scheduled to confront the matter. The time wasted on BiC costs studenst 12 days of instruction every year. Can you say sabotage?
I am certain schools serve a better breakfast of fruit, oatmeal, juice , coffee cake and milk. They still do, right? Or do the tax payers pay for nothing ? The fact that $ 100 grand is wasted daily because kids toss out their lunches is outrageous. The first lady has imposed a policy that forces every kid to take a fruit and veggie. The stuff is tossed because kids do niot learn to eat these thngs early in life. Also, tthe quality is poor unless you are looking for ammunition to use in a food fight. Since Mexican teachers are burning evaluations and public protest needs political theater what about pelting the Beaudry building with all that discarded produce? The least they could do is sell it to pig farmers in the IE. sheesh. All this money is being pissed away on purpose.
It seems that this is the modus operandi of the power structure which employs the King Midas mind set. As with King Midas, our children will suffer the same fate when money is more important than people. Insanity!
Another example of what I call the “cult of the golden hammer” (aka: the idolizing of “cutting-edge” ed-technology). The issue is content, not the delivery-system. Teaching a class using old acetates on an overhead is not inferior to powerpoints via a proxima, and I don’t believe students inherently learn better with the proxima.
If more ed-tech means higher costs of purchasing and maintenance, then is this really sustainable? Sure, the companies want us to believe, as see the “need” for, “golden hammers”. Yet if older, less expensive (but more durable) technologies (aka “iron hammers”) do just as good, if not a better, job at teaching, then why bother with golden hammers?
Only those that make and market golden hammers want to persuade others of their supposed superiority, of which there is little, to no, data to support their claims.
What? No data! But data are sacred…
Out of curiosity, who chose Deasy?
Here is another Hero, IN LA who has been fighting Deasy for a decade.
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/11/lausd-gives-me-a-chance-to-be-a-hero-for-student-teachers-and-families.html
For those of you who follow my posts on THE WAR ON TEACHERS that has left public education in a shambles, the shenanigans and lawlessness in LAUSD is a lesson in how it was done in NYC and across the nation when the UNIONS LOOKED THE OTHER WAY, and did not pursue the grievance process.
Simply put, you and I and anyone who are falsely accused have protection from Article 5 & 6 in the Constitution to confront accusers, and to see evidence in a speedy manner. But in the education workplace slander is the modus operandi, because teachers depend on the union as their legal rep, and the unions allow the principals to lie with impunity, with hearing that are kangaroo courts far in the future.
No American ethic minority would stand for such lawlessness, but the media had hidden this debacle from the people, branding teachers as dead wood and perverts.
Go to Perdaily.com and get a front row seat for the way it works in America if you are a teacher.
Or got to Betsy Combier’s site, and see why NYC schools tanked. http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
Go to http://www.perdaily.com, put in Deasy in the search field and be prepared for a shock.. He even lied about his credentials!
Susan..this is no new news. But thanks anyway.
Many of us on this site have been writing about Deasy and his phony PhD, and his many lies and terrible decisions, for almost as long as Diane has had her blog site. Some of us have fought to stop his contract renewal (we lost), and also to open the eyes of the greater community to the issues surrounding his charter support, CC support, and his trickery in using inner city people as show folks in his political theater photo ops.
I felt it got boring too many readers, but if there are so many new people, we can educate everyone about this Broad Academy Supt. of LAUSD. Yes, Lenny writes truth about it all, but if you want to learn even more, dig into Diane’s archives, particularly since last Spring when the iPad fiasco defecation first hit the fan.
No one would believe all of this if we weren’t here in LA living it. Also you can google my articles for the last 1 1/2 years when I started publishing in earnest material about our dysfunctional school system. Aslo read Robert Skeels and Schools Matter, and Cyntia Liu at K12 News Network (where redqueenia, Karen Wolfe, and I, also publish). So many good reports on so much mayhem.
Thank you. I know Diane is the source for everything, but sometimes teachers who write here seem to think that they are alone. In fact, when I write about education at Oped News, or link to ed news, I title everything 52/15,880: Divide and conquer.
52 states, 15,880 districts and teachers, parents and readers everywhere think that what is happening in their local district is local… it isn’t. It is a vast conspiracy. BTW don’t forget Rene Diedrich’s blog. She wrote recently
An American Teacher Mourning the Dream of Truth, Justice and Liberty
Today I am in mourning after writing a letter to Governor Brown about how my teaching career was destroyed by unscrupulous lying superintendents, general counsels, school boards, and administrators.
I realized that inside I am crying for the loss of much more than just my career.
I am also crying for the loss of . . .
a dream that this was a democratic country based on principles of truth and honor.
a dream that the Constitution mattered to elected officials.
a dream that civil liberties mattered to the government servants.
a dream that a good teacher could make a difference in the world.
a dream that this land was a land of liberty for all.
a dream that citizens could make a difference for the good of this country.
a dream that right was always stronger than might or deceit.
a dream that all that was needed was for good people to hear the truth and change would come.
a dream that people did really want what was right and truthful.
Now I believe that the terror of job loss and suffering of those who dared to speak up and speak truth to power in whatever situation has silenced the rest of the populace because they are afraid that the same fate will befall them.
(Look at John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, William Cooper, Bret Breitbart, Michael Hastings, and many others and what happened to them. )
My dreams have been seriously shattered. Like Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s soldiers and all the king’s men could never put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Neither can Mr. Obama and the politicians put this country together again.
At this point, I believe that this nation may need a revolution and a new birth.
I am in mourning for us all today as we have lost much in this country in the last fifty years.
We are a nation in mourning for our founding principles.
Broadie and plutocrat errand boy wit dodgy credenttial and perplexing bio. Hates teachers who are being purged by the thousands with bogus evaluations, false allegations , permanent lay offs, early retirement and escalating attrition as the admin focus on ridding LAUSD of all senior teachers and vouces of reason. Every teacher driven out saves them about a million dollars in vested pensions abd healthcare.
Deasy is constantly working scans that deprive schools pf funding. He recently opened clinics in a couple schools but has laid of most of the nurses. There is one on campus once or twice a week. He has also squandered funds on more unnecessary tests than there is time to take much less preo for, the district is notorious for its taj mahal schools, ed tech excess, and real estatecoups. They just built the first of three apartment complexes that were supposed to be housing for teachers and staff. But they used a tax law that essentially forbids discrimination and sets the income bracket far beneath that of most employees who would be fooolish to live beside one of the most violent high schools in the city. I dunno where the others are yet, but while these massive complexes are going up, arts , music, a literacy program parents love, libraries, adult education,counselors, college centers, remediation, summer school, GED exams ( the only one! ) are banned, and classroom size is insanel. After 7 years without a raise ,most of them subjected to furloughs, teachers who are working harder than ever for less than ever were offered an insulting 2% bump in pay which will not even offset the contribution they are now expected to add to their pensions because the state is looking at shortages there. Mr. Deasy is. Enigmatic and evil . Like an awol villian from a Dickens novel.imagine Fagen if he had a stylist and minions that are far more criminally inclined than Oliver Twist’s peers.
It mat sound like I hate Deasy. I really dont. As a writer, I know I coukd never conjure a more compkex antagonist . But what he us doing is deplorable. But its not just him. Its the bloated district , indifferent parents and teachers,plutocrats and politicians. Anyway Deasy is Gates, Broad and Walton ‘s glorified thug . The BOE defers to him, and with LAUSD ‘s fortune 500 stature , he has too much power and too many children caught in the crossfire to continue without dire consequences. Googoe him of visit http://www.hemlockontherocks.com. Deasy is eyeing Arne’s position and its likely Broad will install him in that too.
Signed
Thanks for all the signatures! Repeat petition link: http://bit.ly/1r1xgHf
Deasy was chosen by former LA mayor Villaraigosa, and ongoing shadow-plutocrat, Eli Broad. The pockets cushioning Deasy are essentially infinite.
Here’s a brief explanation intended for parents in LAUSD, it’s more “backgroundish”, with media links: http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/?p=2168
Mr Lapworth: Interesting piece on NPR’s Marketplace about this issue today: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/education/learning-curve/learning-curve-story
http://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/marketplace-wednesday-may-28-2014 (at 9:57)