If you can make sense of this editorial in the Los Angeles Times, you are a whole lot smarter than me. It speaks disparagingly of the board president, then endorses her.
It chastises the school board for failing to exercise oversight of the city’s booming charter sector, but then rejects Steve Zimmer, the only school board member who had the courage to propose responsible supervision of the charter sector. The Times is flabbergasted that Zimmer called for a moratorium on new charters until the board developed a policy for determining whether they were meeting their obligations to students and the public. L.A. already has more charters than any other city in the nation, so it would hardly have been a burden to delay adding more until the board figured out how to manage its portfolio.
The Times cares not a whit that Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and their allies came up with $2.5 million to choose the next board. In their eyes, it’s okay for big money to overwhelm the political process. They worry not at all about the corruption of democracy.
They pay lip service to “reform.” But what do they mean by “reform.” More private entrepreneurs taking public dollars without supervision? More deregulation of the monied interests? More teachers fired because they teach students with disabilities or English language learners? More destabilization?
In 2010, the L.A. Times covered itself with shame when it concocted its own value-added methodology, rated thousands of teachers, and then published their names. The president of Math for America,, John Ewing, described this farce as “mathematical intimidation,” in an article in the journal of the American Mathematical Society.
The paper’s present indifference to the corporate purchase of the local school board multiplies its shame.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Who owns the LA Times?
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The Tribune Company – also owns the Chicago Trib & KTLA. Just read that there’s malware on the LA Times website – so says avast!
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On July 13, 2012, Tribune Company received approval of a reorganization plan to allow the company to emerge from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Delaware bankruptcy court. Oaktree Capital Management, JPMorgan Chase and Angelo, Gordon & Co., which are the company’s senior debt holders, will assume control of Tribune’s properties. The company is in the process of transferring ownership of the Tribune Broadcasting broadcast television and radio station licenses to the investment groups that now operate the company, pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission.[17] Tribune emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership on December 31, 2012.[18]
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The First Amendment calls for freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, so it’s sadly to be expected that money speech from the Billionaire Boys Club will continue to buy education policy and try to drown out all other voices.
As for the LA Times, despite a flirtation with political liberalism in the 80’s and 90’s, it has historically been a virulent loudspeaker for anti-unionism, real estate speculation – a big part of the Chandler family fortune derived from the water and land grabs upon which the classic film “Chinatown” was based – and oligarchy.
In 2007, the Chandler’s sold the Times to the real estate parasite Sam Zell, who promptly looted the company – using the company’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan, no less – into bankruptcy.
As Schoolgal has pointed out, the paper is now partially owned by Oaktree Capital Management, a private equity firm that specializes in taking over distressed businesses. One of the partners in Oaktree is Bruce Karsh, who according to Forbes is a big funder of TFA and KIPP.
Expect the LA Times to continue to attack the public schools, teachers and their unions, in service of the financial and ideological interests of its owners.
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This is indeed the most incoherent and ambivalent endorsements I’ve ever seen; probably the result of a split board. If Zimmer& the other non-corp reform candidates were smart they’d run with quotes from the negative critiques of the candidates the LAT claims to support.
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Thanks for that idea, Leonie.
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“Multiplies their shame”…..!
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This editorial tells you what the LA Times really thinks but then tells you what Eli Broad tells them to think. That explains the confusion.
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It’s infuriating. Absurd, ridiculous and infuriating.
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In all sincerity, I value the information presented under this blog posting, but after such recent catastrophic “misses” as Iraq 2003 and financial meltdown 2008, describing the LATimes as “incoherent” is a rather restrained and almost kind description of one of our country’s mass print dailies.
On the other hand, their education coverage is often adequate, occasionally approaching very good.
IMHO.
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This is pretty much what the Seattle Times is doing as well. They have blurred the line between editorial and reporting to the point where you never quite sure what is happening. They recently did such a whiplash job on two school levies that it looked like, despite their endorsement, they seemed to then print stories to make one of them lose. (They also paid for ads – out their own pocket – to support candidates THEY wanted elected including an ed reform governor. He lost.)
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We need to start mailing out this photo to the editors and/or the “journalists”:
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_cartoons.php?id=856
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