Last night I blogged about the recent meeting of the LAUSD school board and pointed out Steve Zimmer’s eloquent defense of class size limits. The high point of his six-minute statement was when he compared the class sizes in L.A. public schools–40 or more–with the class sizes in local charter schools, which boast of 20 or so. He did it dramatically, reading out the names of each charter and their class sizes, then tossing the piece of paper over his shoulder.
A reader who attended the meeting added the context of Zimmer’s comments and the reaction of some fellow board members:
Zimmer’s real Al Pacino-esque moment—I’m thinking of Pacino in SCENT OF A WOMAN and AND JUSTICE FOR ALL and other movies where he cuts loose with an monologue of outrage—is when he starts quoting the student-to-teacher ratios at the local charter schools… and one private school (“the elite of the elite… has a 12-to-1 ration. 12-to-1!”
Go to the video:
http://lausd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=58
Then jog to:
05:39:10
and watch until Zimmer hits his stride and lets it rip at:
05:40:10
With mounting irritation, Zimmer starts shouting—quoting and throwing the paper printouts from the charters websites wildly over his shoulder (where the charters’ websites’ main page touts and specifically cites their exact student-to-teacher ratios.)
This was breathtaking.
You can’t see this because of the camera angle, but Board Member Galatzan was visibly angry at this point.
A little subtext here.
Both Galatzan and Monica Garcia have strongly backed the private charters in general—and the ones mentioned by Zimmer in particular, while at the same time, lambasting teachers in the traditional public schools and those teachers’ union, UTLA for doing a lousy job, and “obstructing reform” and being “defenders of a failed status quo,” and on and on… (In the process, Galatzan and Garcia are parroting the talking points of the “reform” organizations who pumped millions into their campaigns… but that’s another story).
In 2009, Galatzan and Garcia also voted to raise class size in the traditional public schools—and saying nothing about the ratios at their beloved charter schools. While the state budget was a contributing factor to the vote, Galatzan and Garcia also cited in part the following reasons for raising the class size in the traditional public schools:
1) “Lowering class size is just about teachers
unions wanting more members and more dues,
and more power… with no proof that it helps kids.”
2) “Lowering class size is about advancing adult interests
at the expense of children’s interests.”
3) “Lowering class size is just so teachers, who have
it easy enough already, will have it even easier, with less
work required from less students.”
Zimmer makes brief reference to these objections…
” to those who think that (lowering) class size is solely
about jobs.. ”
For Galatzan and Garcia, they take a seemingly contradictory (hypocritical?) stance on this, as again, they bend over backwards supporting and praising the charter schools whose success is in part due to their low class size—the low class size the charters tout on their websites.
Anyway, back to the video.
Galatzan starts picking up the papers that Zimmer flings indiscriminately over his head and slapping them down angrily on the counter, and says to him, “Are you gonna clean this up?”
Not flinching a bit, Zimmer continues his laser-like focus, not even looking sideways at Galatzan as he snaps, “I’ll clean it up!” as if to say, “Don’t butt in.. I’m on a roll here.”
Again… a breathtaking performance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I watched the video of Mr. Zimmer and heard the thundering applause of the people in the audience. I am a N.J. public school teacher of 30+ years and still in the classroom! Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. We need more push back against the atrocities that have befallen our children. Thank you, Mr. Zimmer. Thank you, Diane.
The simple truth breaks free, and we see a man of real character standing up for millions of children. Thank goodness.
So you don’t have to hunt through the 9 hour video,
here’s a YOUTUBE someone did of Zimmer’s speech:
I think parents and teachers need to stop kidding themselves. It is pretty plain that there will be no such thing as free public education of any meaningful quality in the U.S. by this time next year without a full-blown nationwide strike and protest joined by overwhelming masses of parents and students when school starts this year.
It will be fascinating, Jon, to see what impact Diane’s new book will have. Perhaps it will be the necessary catalyst to make this happen.
Robert D. Shepherd: it will be another powerful light shining on publicly available facts.
Why is this important? Why is this blog important? Look what happened when Parent Revolution actually had to defend themselves in public against parents who were sick of their bullying and lies [i.e., at the LAUSD board meeting]. And look at another example of how the edubullies expose themselves. The sad Raspberry Blog on the Parent Revolution website that promised a daily takedown of lies and myths, starting with 10 alleged misdeeds by the owner of this blog—”daily” evidently means something different to edufrauds because it stopped on June 17 [as of the last time I looked, moments ago] with only four entries—no explanation of why it’s been halted in midstream.
While it’s true that an informed defense against the charterites/privatizers is necessary—coupled with efforts to improve public schools—you first need the “informed” in order to get the “motivated” that moves on to “Don’t agonize, organize.”
I repeat my suggest from earlier: when Diane’s new book is published, consider my 1 plus 2 plan. Buy one copy for yourself, and two for other people you hope to inform. Then let the discussion begin!
With all apologies to Phil Ochs [“I’m Going to Say It Now”]:
“I’ve heard of other countries where the people take a stand,
They’ve even helped to overthrow the Rhees and Austins of their own lands.
I’d even go so far to say we’re also learnin’ how,
‘Cause when we’ve got something to do, sir, we’re gonna do it now.”
🙂
So glad you are reporting this. I only wish that Zimmer had gone ever further on the class size issue and had reminded everyone that LAUSD has the largest numbers of charter schools. Every time a start up charter or independent conversion charter gets approved, money gets taken out of LAUSD’s budget. This has been brought up time after time, and even the budget director mentioned it at a recent meeting. So, it begs the question as to who Galatzan and Garcia are really supporting? Who is more important to them, charter schools or the vast majority of students in traditional schools?
I think the answer is obvious. After all, where does the big money come from when it comes time to collect campaign funds? The list of funders from Garcia’s recent board race reads like a who’s-who list of charter friendly corporations and charter operators.
Below is a paragraph from a recent IG report on how special education funding is negatively impacting LAUSD and thus contributing to class size increases. This happens because charter schools have a much lower percentage of special ed students and for those they do enroll, most have the least severe disabilities.
Click to access 13497FUNDINGSPECIAL%20EDUCATION%20PROGRAM.PDF
“An increasing number of charter schools is eroding the District’s ADA base for special education funding. The California funding system for special education is based on Census-Based funding model that funds special education programs based on school’s Average Daily Attendance (ADA) numbers. The establishment of charter schools takes away ADA numbers from the District resulting in less funding for the District’s special education program.”
Another item not discussed anywhere was the denial of a charter school.
From the LA Times:
“The board also voted to reject a bid from an independently operated charter school to remain open. Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory High School had sought a second, five-year charter, as well as permission to expand to offer a kindergarten-through-12th-grade program.”
This charter has two schools. The last time one of their schools came up for renewal, denial was also recommended. But, Garcia convinced her buddies on the board to overturn the charter division’s recommendation. After the vote, she got out of her chair and went into the street to celebrate with the head of the school, leaving behind her duties and missing out on voting on other issues.
This time, things were different. While the school was allowed to present their reasons for overturning the denial, when the board was asked to vote, NONE of the board members said a word. There was NO discussion…..ZERO!!! The vote was taken immediately and it was 6-1 in support of the denial. Of course, Garcia voted to overturn.
I suspect that this silence was pre-determined decision by the board. Perhaps it was because of the horrific report from the Inspector General’s office:
Click to access 12492ACADEMIA%20SEMILLAS%20CHARTER%20SCHOOL.PDF
The report above clearly states that, when an audit was requested, the school repeatedly refused to turnover any records. Perhaps the head of the school felt he had Garcia’s back and that, like before, the board’s charter friendly majority would ignore this “minor” problem. But not this time. Perhaps the board did not want an open discussion during which it may have been revealed that the board has been complicit in rubber stamping a charter that so blatantly disregards the rules.
Bottom line….the charter friendly board members took a major hit on Tuesday. Actions and statements by Garcia and Galatzan received numerous negative responses from the audience. Most certainly, this was only a precursor of what is to come.
There is a simple way to solve the class size issue. Require that all elected public officials enroll their children and grandchildren who live in their state be enrolled in and attend regular, board run public schools. If they remove them, they have to resign the Board. Waivers could be allowed for extenuating circumstances, particularly, a “special school” setting required on a disabled child’s IEP. Wham! no more large classes. No more funding cuts. No more Teach for America. No more charters! Immediate parental involvement.
One of our worst enemies, Chas Roemer, President of BESE in Louisiana has his kids in parochial schools.
I like this proposal. Can we make it law?
“Wham! no more large classes. No more funding cuts. No more Teach for America. No more charters!”
Or maybe just no more wealthy local public officials.
I teach kindergarten — 26 kids four, five and six year olds in one classroom all day, with one teacher. I repeated raise this concern: Our classroom sizes are too large, and too many of the children are not socially and/or emotionally ready for the rigors and expectations of kindergarten. The teachers spend a majority of their time behavior managing, instead of teaching academics. I am repeatedly told: There is no data to support that class size has any affect on academic outcome. Mr. Zimmer’s points about charter schools highlighting small class size/student to teacher ratio begs to differ . . .
A new study needs to be conducted and published!
Add to this what LAUSD is doing to the special ed program. In trying to provide for the least restrictive environment, some schools are placing special ed students in general ed classes without consultation with parents, the student’s teachers or the IEP team. The district has green lighted this but its had horrible effects at our school. Suddenly, students used to 10-12 student classes are thrown into 40-50 student classes and are expected to perform well. This is ridiculous and by the way illegal. Does California Dept of Ed care, no, because I informed them of such and nothing. Does the school district care that it is violating parental rights and the legally mandated IEP, no.
It’s far past the time to look carefully at Galatzan and Garcia to see how they are being compensated for this skulduggery. The common denominator in most of these characters is the payoff. It would be interesting to see what type of currency is being used, and if that leads to a convictable conflict of interest.
The big pay-off comes after the lose an election, or otherwise leave office.
Yolie Flores, the LAUSD Board Member Bennett Kayser thankfully replaced, was the architect of Public School Choice… which was actually Public School “Give-away”, as it gave away hundreds of millions of dollars of land and annual school budgets to the private charter school organization that were either controlled by or allied with Bill Gates.
She also engineered the secret closed-door meeting in which John Deasy, of the Gates organization was chosen as the next LAUSD School Superintendent… again with no other candidates considered, and all done behind closed doors and with no public input.
Her constituents were so disgusted by this and other things that polling showed she had no chance of winning re-election.
So what did Gates do? As compensation for handing over hundreds of millions of dollars of public ed to Gates-run or Gates affiliated organizaitons, and for installing a Gates puppet to run the school board, GATES CREATED AN ENTIRELY NEW EDUCATIONAL THINK TANK THAT YOLIE FLORES WOULD LEAD (and now leads) with a hefty six-figure compensation. An after-the-fact bribe for doing Gates’ bidding.
If that wasn’t a conflict of interest, what is?
Also, Gates folks supported privatization queen, and teacher-union-busting Gloria Romero in her run for State Superintendent of Education—a state-wide elected office. Romero lost—and lost badly, not even making the run-off. Her pouting press release after the loss was startling for its bitterness and pettiness.
So what did the future hold? The day after her loss, education writer Caroline Grannan predicted that Romero would soon land in a cushy, well-paid position in the school privatization movement.
And what do you think happened? The Gates-funded Democrats For Education Reform (DFER) started a California affiliate, and selected Romero as its leader, at again, a hefty six-figure sum.
So the “payoff” for Galatzan and Garcia will probably come after have left the LAUSD School Board.
Steve Zimmer nailed it with an eloquent and factual argument, one that would be hard to refute. He’s right.