The Los Angeles Times reports that the school board of Los Angeles is split over Eli Broad’s ambitious and undemocratic plan to create privately managed charters for half the students in the city’s schools at a cost of $490 million.
Newly elected board member Scott Schmerelson expressed his revulsion for the Broad plan:
“The concept amazes and angers me,” said board member Scott Schmerelson. “Far from being in the best interest of children, it is an insult to teaching and administrative professionals, an attack on democratic, transparent and inclusive public school governance and negates accountability to taxpayers.”
Other board members were equally disturbed by Broad’s proposed takeover:
Board President Steve Zimmer also had a strongly negative response, saying that the financial impact would be devastating for the students who remain in traditional schools.
“Everyone understands 250,000 kids will not be part of this,” said Zimmer, who has criticized the rapid growth of charters. “There is collateral damage: We won’t be able to lower class size or provide comprehensive support our kids need.”
The private money, he said, “could ensure every child living in poverty in L.A. County … could have access to high-quality early education.”
Board member George McKenna, along with Monica Ratliff, said he wanted foundation money “directed toward the public schools that are already established and need all the private support that we can get.”
Ratliff also said that the charter plan underscores the need to hire a new superintendent who will promote L.A. Unified’s own successes. The district has launched a search to replace schools Supt. Ramon Cortines who has said he wants to leave by year’s end.
“It’s important that a superintendent publicizes that LAUSD schools are extremely competitive” with the best charter schools, Ratliff said.
It is almost unimaginable that people elected to oversee the public schools would support a call to privatize them, but charter founder Ref Rodriguez and charter cheerleader Monica Garcia applauded the Broad plan for privatization. Do they think they were elected to destroy public education? Weren’t they elected to improve public schools? Were they honest with voters when they campaigned? Would they have been elected if they had been honest in saying they wanted to join the board to hand their children over to Eli Broad and strip resources from the ones Eli doesn’t want?
Is Los Angeles prepared to abandon public education? Do the people of the city really want their children to be a “proof point” for privatization of public education? Do half the children serve the will of an egotistical billionaire?
Eli Broad was educated in the public schools of Michigan. Why doesn’t he work to improve the public schools of Los Angeles so that children in his adopted city have the same opportunity he had? Please, Eli, take the eighth grade Common Core tests and publish your scores so we can compare them to the children in the public schools that you treat with such contempt.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The privatizers were initially content to fly under the radar. Get a nice little bill, fund cherry-picked research, make ideological argument designed to increase appeal.
But it just isn’t moving fast enough so they’re simply trying to buy education resources in huge quantities now. It’s just so profitable and tempting. Get free (public) money. Dump it into a private management firm. Keep information as opaque as possible for as long as possible. It’s all set up for these people.
And notice how one charter chain just doesn’t take on an entire system. It’s multiple chains so they can deflect the failures and hold up the exemplars. And guess who is really suited for this? Not the independent charter schools. But the chains with endless money reserves and philanthropic donations.
Schools will open and close with so much frequency. This will de-stabilize things in urban communities more and more. But, hey: free money!
It isn’t that it isn’t moving fast enough. The train has completed changed directions! We have a mayor who refuses to champion Broad’s plan, a promising departure from the former mayor (Villaraigosa) who thought the school board should report to him (he was overruled by the courts, which pointed out the clear delineation of power in the LA City Charter). We beat Broad’s puppet for State Superintendent, we beat Broad’s lackeys in every recent election except the disgustingly deceptive tactics employed by Rodriguez. We have a majority on the school board who–brace yourself–are professional educators! With that, Steve Zimmer has found his backbone.
But they better do more than just fight Broad. They need to make sure everyone in that giant headquarters building they bought from the billionaire himself is PROMOTING our true public schools.
LAUSD School Board Members Ref Rodriguez’ and Monica Garcia’s backers DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF DEMOCRATIC SCHOOL BOARDS LIKE THE ONE FOR WHICH THEY ARE NOW SERVING. The California Charter School Association’s true and openly-expressed (BELOW) end game is to abolish the LAUSD Board that meets down at 3rd and Beaudry (and abolish all school boards everywhere, by the way), and convert all current public schools into privatized charter schools, which will be profit centers for Eli Broad and their other wealthy backers.
Their goal is to eliminate any voting or input from the public, and have unelected charter school boards—made up of businessmen, profiteers, and non-educators—who meet in secret, and are free to whatever they want, whenever they want to maximize profits, and with no one to stop them.
In short, LAUSD School Board Members Rodriguez and Garcia cynically ran and were elected for an elected position, and to serve on an elected body—per their masters’ marching orders—whose functioning they will endeavor to undermine and hopefully eliminate… or, failing to do that while in office, Garcia and Rodriguez will do his corporate masters’ bidding and do as much damage to the board’s functioning, and lessen the number schools under its oversight, and make as much progress towards the board’s elimination as Garcia and Rodriguez can while serving on it.
Garcia’s and Rodriguez’ whole campaigns were an affront to the citizens and taxpayers in his district. STRATEGY: Tell the public a bunch of lies to trick them into voting for two people—funded by out-of-state billionaires—who will endeavor to… END THOSE SAME CITIZENS’ POWER TO VOTE FOR, AND ULTIMATELY TO CONTROL PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The mind boggles.
Netflix CEO and billionaire school privatization proponent Reed Hastings recently dumped $1.2 million dollars into the PAC that is backing the slate of Rodriguez, Lydia Guttierez, and Tamar Galatzan (with only Rodriguez getting elected).
In his keynote address at the California Charter School Association’s annual dinner last year, Netflix CEO and corporate ed. reformer Reed Hastings stated the CCSA’s goal should be to abolish all democratically elected school boards, and end any input and participation of citizen-taxpayers in how their tax money in spent in education, and in which people are chosen to decide how money is spent. (CCSA IS Rodriguez primary financial backer… at one point, Rodriguez even served on CCSA’s board)
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REED HASTINGS (March 3, 2004): “The importance of the charter school movement is to evolve America from a system where governance is constantly changing… (i.e. democratically elected school boards, where the citizen-taxpayers have decision-making power.) to an all-charter school system, with no traditional public schools under the governance of an elected school board.
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Hastings further says charter school chains are superior because “they don’t have an elected school board.” He celebrates New Orleans system where every school is a privately-run charter with ZERO accountability to the public, and where the public has ZERO power to influence their governance.
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REED HASTINGS (March 3, 2004):
“Now if we go to the general public and we say, ‘Here’s an argument for why we should get rid of school boards,’ of course, no one’s going to go for that. School boards have been and iconic part of America for 200 years.”
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We’re still going to do it to those citizens. We’re just not going to tell them, and by the time they wise up, it will be too late.
Since in most cities, corporate reformers cannot do a New Orleans-style wiping out of democratically controlled school boards—as there’s no Katrina-like catastrophe to exploit—Hastings instead recommends a slow, deceptive, stealth strategy. He instructs the charter schools and their advocates to “work with districts” quietly and “grow steadily”. This means that the charter industry will falsely profess that they wish to co-exist with the traditional public schools, and complement the public school system, while the truth is that they are merely putting on that façade with the ultimate goal being the total elimination of public schools via this “slow growth” strategy.
The other prong of this strategy—one that Garcia and Rodriguez will be engaging in—is to sabotage the traditional public schools through starving of them of funds, jacking up class size, cutting the arts, libraries, etc. … all to trigger low performance… and use that low performance that they initially and actually caused, as justification for closing public schools and replacing them with private charter management.
Eventually, as the percentage of traditional LAUSD public schools shrinks, and the percentage of charter schools within LAUSD grows, they cost of maintaining the salary, health benefits, retirement, for those staffing traditional public schools, etc. will cause the district to collapse from within. The end game is a small pseudo-“board” whose sole function is to rubber stamp charter school authorizing… and no control actual over charter schools’ functions after doing so… no transparency to the public, no accountability to the public, and that can and will refuse to educate all of the public—i.,e. those who are expensive to educate, and who will not produce high scores on tests… special ed., English language learners, recent immigrants, homeless, foster care.
That’s why out-of-state billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund charter proponents, etc. pumped millions into the school board campaigns of Garcia and Rodriguez.
And right after Hastings’ speech at the same CCSA celebration, guess who gets an award from the CCSA—the “2014 Hart Vision Elected Official of the Year”?
Why it’s the privatizers’ and corporate reform’s bought-and-paid-for LAUSD School Board Member Monica Garcia: (and look who introduced her, and who is standing next to her while she gives this speech… it’s Ref Rodriguez)
The best part of her speech is when Garcia courageously uses this opportunity of her acceptance speech to respectfully contradict Hastings’ fervent dream—expressed moments earlier to a rapturous standing ovation—that school boards like the one on which she serves should not be wiped off the face of the earth, as Hastings so desires… as, you know, Hastings’ goal would end two centuries of democratic control of schools in the United States… and how not responding and contradicting Hastings would be a total betrayal of the voters who voted for her to serve on the LAUSD Board, not destroy it through a Smarick-ian, Hastings-ish slow stealth charterization / privatization.
Just kidding 😉 she never says anything of the kind.
It’s like two members of the U.S. Senate attending an annual convention for a group that wants to wipe out democratic institutions such as… oh… the U.S. Senate, then getting on stage and getting awards from this group… and this award and acceptance speech all happens… right after one of the group’s main leaders just gave a speech about their goal to eliminate the U.S. Senate.
WTF???!!!
Seriously, when Garcia asks the charter honchos in the audience, “Do you believe that all kids can learn?” and they chant “Yes”, keep in mind that included in those charter leaders who are chanting along are folks who have unashamedly kicked out… errr… counseled out up to 70% of their students before graduation. (see Caroline Grannan’s investigation on charter school attrition)
One more tidbit—(from one Allie Wall)—regarding Monica Garcia’s ties to billionaire privatizers: (it’s a hoot!)
Back when she was running for re-election in 2012, Garcia gave an interview on that very topic a reporter from L.A. School Report (LASR).
Check out these interesting (to say the least!) answers to these two conflict of interest questions:
(KEEP IN MIND… these are YES or NO questions, so the first word out of Garcia’s mouth should be “Yes” or “No”, and then a further clarification and explanation behind the “yes” or the “no.” That’s not what happened here.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/monica-garcia-lausd-board_n_2347337.html
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LASR: “You’ve raised a lot of money from charter schools. Isn’t that a conflict of interest since it’s the school boards job to approve or disapprove of charters?”
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MONICA GARCIA: “I’ve raised money from a very diverse set of folks. Charters are one of them. That’s a separate conversation than the way I do my job.
“I need people to invest in the campaign. Whether it’s the largest public works program that built 129 new schools, 160,000 new seats, and the equivalent of 8 acres of parkland, or the people that, everyday we buy paper and pencils and toilet paper and napkins from — those people care about who’s here.
“Like I said, there are people who contribute to a campaign and want to support my reelection. I welcome that.”
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LASR: “If a Congressman was on the Energy committee and was taking money from the coal industry, I think people would look at that as a story. Isn’t this the same thing?”
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MONICA GARCIA: “The effort to raise money for my campaign reelection is not about the influence in how I do my job. Or the decisions. I’ve done my job, I have a record, it’s been very clear, it’s about kids. I’m inviting whoever wants to invest. They can do their $1,000.”
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Great questions… ridiculous answers….
Let me see, Monica… you get millions from privatizers, yet you tell LASR with a straight face that there are no strings attached or expectations from the privatizers for donating those millions to your campaign?
And yet you want the public to believe it’s just pure coincidence that—before and since—you’ve said and done everything that that your privatizer backers wanted you to?
Whatever you say, Ms. Garcia.
Well, I may have finally hit the point where I can say I’m “anti-charter school.”
May I ask why?
I think the answer may help others to perhaps see the inherent problems of the bastardized charter school concept as it is used by those who seek other than the best teaching and learning process* for each and every child.
That process contains the physical plants/structure needed for do so.
It’s just too much. There is no point of equilibrium. It’s a market that can’t exist in stasis. It grows to its limits, which are defined through constant strife.
Not sure I completely understand. Is it because of the inherent instability of the agents/actors/businesses in any market whereby one has many startups and many concurring shutdowns which result in unnecessary chaos/disorder/disruption for children, many of whom already have enough of that in their lives with the schools being perhaps the only source of stability?
I second the request.
I never know whether I am going to find myself in agreement or disagreement with you when I began a length comment by you, but when you are serious (IMHO, sometimes your attempts at humor discredit you) you bring some serious light to bear on a variety of topics.
I await your response.
😎
I third the request. Like you, Krazy, I must read all of FLERP’s comments with a discerning eye, as I am never certain in advance of what direction they may take.
Thank you Zimmer, Ratliff, Schmerelson, and McKenna, for protecting our LAUSD public schools from Eli Broad’s plan to take them over. And hoping Vladovic will join you and strongly support your lead instead of folding to Eil once again, claiming to be a mediator.
We must have the five of you, all former teachers and administrators, stand against the Wall Street privatizer brigade in support of Broad and CCSA…Garcia and Rodriguez. And we must all fight for honest elections in the future, based on truth, not rigged elections based on bribery.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
Following is a letter I wrote to one of our local politicians, a Republican, Indiana, who has pushed for most of the things we abhor. I believe that it is better to ASSUME they are honest even if we disbelieve it. This is written here so that any of you who choose to write MIGHT wish to emulate some of the points herein.
Please note that I have focused on the basic philosophies and written in a Socratic methodology which I believe makes them answer and attacks their weakest points.
Again, if you so choose you may find things here in which to write to your political leaders, media etc.
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, You are an intelligent man and you seem genuinely interested in obtaining feedback in the education debate. You will certainly understand that the basic axioms and postulates upon which any philosophy are based is crucial, the very foundation, the building blocks upon which all further developments, good or bad are based.
The educational debates now are based almost entirely on the nuts and bolts of what should be done while these most basic, most essential issues are not discussed nor even considered.
Please consider;
1. Define education: [something not being done. Everyone believes they know what it is but do not define their terms which is crucial to knowing where you are going and knowing when you arrive].
2. Absolutely basic! Upon what do we base the worth of a person to society? [The answer to that determines our educational goals.] Can any written test scores truly indicate that?
3. Should we focus on positives: what can people, children, schools do or on the negatives, what they cannot do? On encouraging their successes or focusing entirely on their failures? Which do you find more effective in your dealings with people? [Your answer will tell you a lot about yourself.]
4. How are people, children to be perceived; as widgets into which we thrust government approved “facts” or human beings to be raised to their highest potential as HUMAN beings? [I truly hope you read the TIMES Forum today, Sunday the 20th on liberal arts. I LOVED the sentence “Beware of critics of education who cloak their desire to protect privilege [and inequality] in the garb of educational reform.”] [The TIMES is our local newspaper of course.]
5. Are people truly different today, their problems et al different from those of past generations? If we are to prepare students for the next century what ARE the most important strengths to be sought in preparation for that? Do businesses want educated, thinking, inquisitive people or only widgets, human robots prepared to work on their production lines? Is preparation for citizenry in all its aspects as important as preparation for the work force?
6. Which is more efficacious: democratic or autocratic principles, building from the bottom up or impositions from above? What is the present modus operandi? Do you work better with a gun to your head?
7. Is competition really a better methodology than working together to build a desired outcome? Indeed, are charters, competing with public schools succeeding any better than public schools over all even on the stated objectives of the school reform movement? In some schools test scores may be rising but at what cost? Are even test scores rising In most charters?
8. Are test scores really valid indicators of real education, even scholastic success? [Something taken for granted by some.] Because students can regurgitate “facts” on tests, does that necessarily mean that they understand, will even remember those “facts”? Do we wish instructors who boost test scores or educators who truly educate?
9. Is not the goal of education to instill a love of learning? Is the focus on the paper chase, passing tests enhancing or inhibiting that goal?
10. What do humankind’s best minds over the centuries list as their goals for education? Are these ever taken into account in the education debate? Is it worthwhile to analyze what they say?
11. Is the morale of teachers, the people on the firing lines upon whom we are dependent for the success we all wish for better now than before “A Nation at Risk” and all subsequent “reforms”? How crucial to success even by the reformers goals is this? Could this be a vital issue on why enrollment in teacher preparation college courses have plummeted? Granted, money is an issue but most of us knew when we entered the “profession” we would never get rich. We wished to make society better, a calling even, for most of us. When what is happening TO children, not FOR children under the reform banner, how does this affect those on the firing line who see first hand what is happening to those under their care?
12. When only the nuts and bolts of “education” are debated but not these basic premises, upon what are we building?
13. Yet again, most important – Is the most basic premise: “our nations public schools are failing” true or untrue? If untrue, are we not trying to fix a non existent problem and if a non existent problem, what happens when attempting to fix something that is not broken? [Too, you believed that Munster, Highland and other schools are good. If so, why impose strictures, straight jackets on them and their teachers?]
14. Last question. Why are the public schools always the whipping boys for political ineptitude? Why expect them to solve the problems which politicians cannot or do not solve?
These are but the beginnings of the basic premises, the axioms and postulates upon which to build educational schools but are absolutely essential IF the goal is to improve education. Please re-read my other letters to you in view of these absolutely basic fundamental questions and evaluate the things stated therein.
Somebody emailed me and asked what “Smarick-ian” mean? That’s a reference to corporate ed. reform theorist and strategist Andy Smarick, who has let the cat out of the bag as to their secret game plan… still available on-line. (link BELOW) In districts where there is still an elected school board, people like Reed Hastings, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc. finance the campaigns of corporate puppets like Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez to carry it out.
BELOW Smarick details this plan of using a slow, stealth charterization to cause the collapse of public school districts and public education overall:
http://educationnext.org/wave-of-the-future/
(If any privatization ever tries to claim that they want charter schools to complement the public school system, or co-exist with public schools to provide parents with “a family of different school options—public, charter private”… RE-READ THIS BELOW. The privatizers don’t want co-existence; they want to conquer and devour all… and don’t you forget it—check out New Orleans… THE WALL STREET PRIVATIZERS / CHARTERIZERS WANT IT ALL).
(CAPS MINE and parentheticals () mine, Jack)
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ANDY SMARICK:
“Clearly we can’t expect the political process to swiftly bring about charter districts in all of America’s big cities. However, if charter advocates carefully target specific systems with an exacting strategy, the current policy environment will allow them to create examples of a new, high-performing system of public education in urban America.
“Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering’s way forward:
“FIRST, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to a secondary provider. The target should be 75 percent.
“SECOND, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter base (at least 5 percent market share), a policy environment that will enable growth (fair funding, nondistrict authorizers, and no legislated caps), and a favorable political environment (friendly elected officials and editorial boards, a positive experience with charters to date, and unorganized opposition).
“For example, in New York a concerted effort could be made to site in Albany or Buffalo a large percentage of the 100 new charters allowed under the raised cap. Other potentially fertile districts include Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.
“THIRD, secure proven operators to open new schools. To the greatest extent possible, growth should be driven by replicating successful local charters and recruiting high-performing operators from other areas (see Figure 2).
“FOURTH, engage key allies like Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, and national and local foundations to ensure the effort has the human and financial capital needed.
“LAST, commit to rigorously assessing charter performance in each community and working with authorizers to close the charters that fail to significantly improve student achievement.
“In total, these strategies should lead to rapid, high-quality charter growth and the development of a public school marketplace marked by parental choice, the regular start-up of new schools, the improvement of middling schools, the replication of high-performing schools, and the shuttering of low-performing schools.
“AS CHARTERING INCREASES ITS MARKET SHARE IN A CITY, THE DISTRICT WILL COME UNDER GROWING FINANCIAL PRESSURE. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. WITH A LOPSIDED ADULT-TO-STUDENT RATIO, THE DISTRICT’S PER-PUPIL COSTS WILL SKYROCKET.
“At some point along the district’s path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city’s investors and stakeholders—taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards—are likely to demand fundamental change.
“That is, EVENTUALLY THE FINANCIAL CRISIS WILL BECOME A POLITICAL CRISIS.
“If the district has progressive leadership, ONE OF TWO BEST-CASE SCENARIOS WILL RESULT:
“THE DISTRICT COULD VOLUNTARILY BEGIN THE SHIFT TO AN AUTHORIZER, developing a new relationship with its schools and reworking its administrative structure to meet the new conditions.
“Or, believing the organization is unable to make this change, THE DISTRICT COULD GRADUALLY TRANSFER ITS SCHOOLS TO AN ESTABLISHED AUTHORIZER.
(In other words… Bye, bye, traditional public schools—the ones accountable and transparent to the citizen-taxpayers! Hello, total privatization of schools where the public loses all input and decision-making power to the private sector! Andy Smarick’s wet-dream-come-true!)
“A more probable district reaction to the mounting pressure would be an aggressive political response. Its leadership team might fight for a charter moratorium or seek protection from the courts. Failing that, they might lobby for additional funding so the district could maintain its administrative structure despite the vast loss of students. Reformers should expect and prepare for this phase of the transition process.
“In many ways, replacing the district system seems inconceivable, almost heretical. Districts have existed for generations, and in many minds, the traditional system is synonymous with public education.
“However, the history of urban districts’ inability to provide a high-quality education to their low-income students is nearly as long. It’s clear that we need a new type of system for urban public education, one that is able to respond nimbly to great school success, chronic school failure, and everything in between. A chartered system could do precisely that.”
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That’s the billionaire privatizers’ gameplan that, if elected, useful (and well-paid) privatization puppets like Garcia and Rodriguez will execute as they follow the orders of their corporate masters. In short, there’s no New Orleans’ Hurricaine Katrina to go all “Shock Doctrine” on the public school systems in other cities like Los Angeles, so what’s a privatizer to do?
Just induce a financial and political crisis that will eventually destroy the public schools (re-read Smarick’s plan above). Again, it’s straight out of The Shock Doctrine.
Eventually, as the percentage of traditional LAUSD public schools shrinks, and the percentage of charter schools within LAUSD grows, the cost of maintaining the district’s salary, health benefits, retirement, etc.will cause the district to collapse from within.The end game is then to replace our current board (and democratic system) with a small pseudo-“board” whose sole function is to rubber stamp charter school authorizing… and which has no control actual over charter schools’/charter chains’ functions after doing so… no transparency to the public, no accountability to the public, and that can and will refuse to educate all of the public—i.,e. those who are expensive to educate, and who will not produce high scores on tests… special ed., English language learners, recent immigrants, homeless, foster care.
That’s why out-of-state billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund charter proponents, etc. are pumped millions into the campaigns of LAUSD School Board Members Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez. Bennett’s first race for the board.)
Again, for a short video summary of Smarick’s plan, watch the Reed Hastings’ speech again:
It seems like such a profound betrayal to force public schools to adopt the Common Core and then the minute the tests are in start a big push to get rid of public schools.
It’s really appalling behavior. They’re setting them up to fail.
In the article, Rodriguez funded by the charter lobby calls the Broad plan, hatched & to be funded by billionaires, “grassroots.”
Leonie, when Ref sees a lot of green, it reminds him of grass.
Hhhmmmm, wonder what kind of grass?
Could it be the green, green grass of home?
Okay, had my coffe earlier in the day. Now I just blew some Chardonnay out my nose!
And the LA Times does not even press him on the issue.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?
This can not happen unless the BOE and new super buy into it. If Broad is allowed to enact this plan, the BOE and superintendent will sell the public schools out. It’s that simple but that devastAting for Los Angeles students.
One word: SICKENING!