The Los Angeles school district is making short-term and long-term decisions that are fiscally and educationally irresponsible. Having committed to spend $1 billion to give an iPad for Common Core testing to every student and staff member, the district is short changing or eliminating essential programs.
The money for the iPads is mostly from a bond issue intended for construction and facilities. Consequently, there is not enough money for necessary repairs.
As the previous post showed, the libraries in half the district’s elementary and middle schools are closed due to budget cuts.
A reader comments about the failure to plan ahead:
“The closure of libraries comes on the heels of the “Repairs not iPads” facebook page detailing the fiscal priorities of LAUSD.
“There are 55,000 outstanding repair orders at present, school libraries are shut down all over the city, and the district’s proposed arts plan suggests increasing “arts integration” as a cost savings measure instead of bringing back the hundreds of arts specialists let go over the last few years.
“All this while, Deasy still maintains that all students will receive their own device.
“While we now know that superintendents like Deasy believe in the “corporate-style” of education, the one gaping hole in this plan is that corporations want to stay solvent and make decisions that will ensure present and future financial viability. This is the one missing element in Deasy’s iPad project……no plan to pay for it beyond the first few years.
“When asked, district officials provide answers like “we just can’t not do this”(Bernadette Lucas), “this is the cost of doing business in the 21st century” (Board member Tamar Galatzan) and “I can’t speak to that”(project leader Ron Chandler).
“Any business considers what it will take to stay in business, but not LAUSD. The bond funds will be gone, so the only other source of income is the general fund.
“Is the State of California going to bail out LAUSD? They have already demonstrated that they can’t or won’t even provide the basic needed services, like nurses, counselors, libraries, working bathrooms and water fountains, siesmic safety, etc., etc.????
“The problem is that Deasy won’t be around to be held accountable.
“But, we, the citizens of Los Angeles will be left with a totally bankrupt school system and no way to put the pieces back together.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
LAUSDeasy what have you done to our children and our tax money?
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausdeasy-what-have-you-done-to-our-children-and-our-tax-money
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This is the operant question to ask, Stuart.
Once the district goes bankrupt, it will be a field day for the billionaires, starting with Eli Broad, to leap in a get all the school sites at a pittance of their true land and building worth. Charters will be imbedded for profit, and LA will have lost public education.
And we taxpayers will foot the bill as we have done with the iPads and the Construction Bond used to pay for them.
This is major malreasance.
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malfeasance (and collusion)…I need spell check.
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They always had an agenda: location, location, location.
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What’s going on is so obvious, it’s as clear as the words that are appearing in this reply box as I write them.
The intent of the Robber Barrons and the Wolves of Sesame Street is to bankrupt LAUSD—the second largest public school district in the country.
Then who rides to the rescue? Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock, the Walton family foundation, the Koch Brother, and hedge fund billionaires.
Surely, what’s going on is illegal in some way and the leaders of LAUSD all should have their day in court and then be shipped off to prison for fraud or whatever crime they are committing. That is unless the law was rewritten to make sure they could get away with this rob from the working class and give to the wealthy. Who is the opposite or Robbin Hood?
And when the Robber Barons and wolves ride to the rescue, who will they demonize for the problems? The teachers and the teachers’ union. This pattern has already been established. I’m sure the ad and PR campaign has already been planned and is sitting in the can ready to release.
The propaganda will pour out of the traditional media that is almost totally controlled by six corporations and it will come like a hundred foot high Tsunami to drowned any voices feebly attempting to shout the truth.
This is like the Nazi’s attempt at the Battle of the Bulge to defeat the Allies in World War II.
The only way to counter this is to leverage Internet Social Media to the max using the best known methods to reach the widest possible audience. If done properly and swiftly, the results would be similar to General George S. Patton’s army smashing the Nazis stopping their advance cold leading to their defeat.
Make no mistake, this is a war.
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“Who is the opposite or Robbin Hood?”
You already mentioned a view of the avaricious bastards in your post!
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Yea, but can’t we coin one name for all of them that’s synonyms but the opposite of Robin Hood? Someone infamous and well known from history who robbed from the masses and gave to the rich.
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The opposite of Robin Hood is King John – an appropriate nick name for John Deasy.
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New York State has a King John also – Commissioner John King.
Short may they both reign.
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Also:
Teachers: LA schools’ arts education budget ‘a step in the wrong direction’
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The word “sustainable” is not in the Reformish Dictionary.
From the so-called “business-minded” educrats and edufrauds who decry waste and inefficiency in public schools—a “Thelma & Louise” right off the fiscal cliff.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” [Albert Einstein]
Time for a new approach, say, a “better education for all.”
Although perhaps it is unfair to apply the word “thinking” to the mental processes of the “education reformers”—maybe all that occupies their grey matter is a single hard data point:
$tudent $ucce$$.
Now that makes ₵ent¢…
Rheeally!
But when it comes to genuine learning and teaching—
It doesn’t make any sense at all.
Really.
😎
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In the corporate world, the small stockholder has a vehicle to address allegations of fiducuiary malfeasance by corporate officers: the ‘minority stock holder lawsuit’ . What we see occurring in the LAUSD is the public school school analog to corporate malfeasance. Is there not a group of parents, who have the financial means to hire a law firm that is willing to file suh a class action law suit? Certainly taxpayers have a right to expect that the LAUSD act in a financially responsible manner and note to harm taxpayers. There are two questions: first is there a group of parents wiling to invest time and money for the sake of their children; and even if there is a right an expectation that school officers will act in a financially responsible manner and not misspend taxpayer funds, is there legal recourse, a legal remedy, for harmed taxpayers?
All LAUSD students comprise a ‘class’ who are being harmed by the policies and practices of the Deasy gang. It is hard to believe that the only opponents to the pillaging of the LAUSD coffers are low income people, who lack the means to take on the Deadyites. Is the LAUSD bereft of progressive parents?
Unions are currently engaged in fighting off a spurious law suit, but the concurrent impending financial crisis must also be confronted.
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John, you pose the correct legal assessment. Yes, all students would be considered a “class” as in a “class action lawsuit” but Deasy and the BoE seem to be driving a wedge and dividing the overall community into diverse and opposing groups. Thus, in the Vergara suit, it is inner city families that they manipulated to be the plaintiffs, calling it a civil rights issue, when it is clear that the bottom line of Welsh and Broad, and their cohorts, the Waltons, Murdoch, Gates, Petersen, Anshutz, etc. is to kill the union movement once and for all.
Wish we could get John Edwards to take this case pro bono and fight for the side which does not see public schools as investment opportunities, but rather as the bulwark of our former democracy.
On Oct. 29, 2013, at the BoE meeting to renew, or not, Deasy’s contract, the mass of inner city people bussed in to the LAUSD education building to put on a carefully orchestrated show for the media in support of Deasy, did their paid job and then went home, all paid for by Parent Revolution and United Way, costing tens of thousands of the billionaires dollars….and then the BoE retired to give Deasy the gift of a new 3 year contract despite that only days before he spread the word that he was resigning due to an intrasigent Board he could not work with, and despite the 91% NO CONFIDENCE vote of LAUSD teachers. Such fraud!.
Where were the defamed teachers? I met only one that day. Where were all the middle class complaining parents? Again, I met only two that day. In this city of over 9 million people almost no one showed up to protest against Deasy, and the few of us who did were not permitted by the BoE to speak. Democracy is dead in our community. Deasy now in the catbird seat, chooses for ‘parent committees’, those who agree with him…those who lick his boots. It is a scandal.
The more priviliged parents, many of whom send their children to private schools, or charters, are not involved. Somewhere in the middle are many parents who are staying out of the fray even though they are taxpayers being defrauded in situations like the IPad fiasco.
It seems virtually impossible in this city with 650,000 LAUSD students to get parents organized into a real power base. Only those inner city parents who can afford the time, or who are manipulated to play at being activists, seem to show up.
As with this blog site where a few activists have been trying to get folks to protest in great numbers, that is not 3 or 4 with a bullhorn playing at protest, NO ONE steps forward and joins in unity to protest. It is like spitting in the wind for those of us dedicated to making a change.
Even the many wounded teachers do not show up at meetings where their voices are vital…and we have little left of a ‘free press/media’ to educate the populace. These uninformed do not want to be disturbed.
What good does it do anyone if people on blog sites piss and moan and say “somebody should do something,” and when a few try, the complainers only hide in their living rooms? This is what we are up against…the most powerful billionaires law firms and PR firms against a few “upstarts” who want to preserve public education and not let it all be privatized at the expense of the public.
LA parents and taxpayers are not like the NY parents and vocal community, led by the Naisons, who opt out and shout out. Here too many complain when it is convenient and/or when it is chic.
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John A, you may be on to something there and I work with a lawyer named Richard Knickerbocker who tried to intervene in the last Broad Bond Boondoggle. One thing that is problematic is how many lawyers LAUSD has hired to effectively leave teachers and parents with few options. As Lloyd L notes, they are doing this on purpose. Eli Broad has all but stolen the RFK site which is the forme Ambassador Hotel and now a museum inside a school. The kids must be miserable because a great deal is done to keep the opulent place immaculate. They are children not extras in some crazy man’s propaganda flick!
The city is already in dire straights, and while yes, Deasy will leave the district in bankruptcy so Broad and Gates can swoop in like some malignant super men and save the day, it seems like Detroit and Philly went belly up as the schools were being closed and choices were taken away. This is what we may see in LA but it will be far worse because of the city’s scattered sprawl and diverse demographic.
If you are reading this , Mr. Deasy, Mr.Broad, or Mr.Gates, know your God does not approve unless you paid Him off too. I assure you , there is not a rationalization you can purchase or peice together for what you have done and plan to do. Nothing about it is humane or prudent or even clever. All of you are so delusional , so drunk on your power and greed that you do not understand what you are stirring up . You will hop a private plane when the fires and looting starts. But every loss, any death, and all the devastation will be on your heads. You will not pay for that. Our children will. You are beneath contempt. Less than common criminals. There may not be justice in this life. There may not be an afterlife like Dante’s vision, but if there is, you will be in the darkest circles of Hell. You think you’re getting away with something but all you’ve done is reserve a place in infamy where your faces will hang beside Hitler and Stalin. Destructive stupid and vile, I hope you fall into the masses desperate grasp and they tear your worthless flesh to shreds. You are despicable.
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I agree with Rene. What comes around will go around. It is difficult to be patient and observe how many teachers, students, families and communities have been destroyed. Destroying public education is not a solution, destroying democracy is un-American and looking to the bottom line will give you just that– the bottom.
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What Rene writes is the truth. THE MOST HORRIBLE PART OF IT IS THAT OUR UNION UTLA IS IN ON IT. WE ARE WATCHING A SLOW MOVING TRAIN WRECK AND THE LEADERSHIP OF OUR UNION DOES NOTHING. THE QUESTION TO ASK IS HOW DO THEY EXPECT TO PROFIT FROM THIS? WILL THEY GO TO WORK FOR RHEE AS GEORGE PARKER DID?
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Michael makes an excellent point. Where is UTLA and the many candidates running for their leadership?
Turncoat Parker preferred to earn big money from millionaire Rhee to carry her baggage. Shameful!
Michael, please read my note further down on the page about the Portola Middle School meeting on Monday, March 3 at 6 PM. Deasy will be there to answer questions of teachers and parents. Let’s all attend and ask those questions.
That is, if he does not cancel out again.
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I’ll take the first crack at giving a name to our opponents. Others will improve on the name I’m sure, but I refer to them as the Snidely Whiplash brigade. All apologies to the cartoon Dudley Doright, but these people are an overblown cartoon, except for the real effects of their money. Their intent is clear. Their thought process has the same vacuous thinking and selfishness as Snidely’s. Hopefully there will be other submissions, but here is a start.
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Just because you ask a question doesn’t mean it gets answered; diverted is more like it.
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There is no precedent in the law at this time in terms of buying iPads and also curriculum using bond funds. So, all we have is a “legal” opinion. As we all know, even the Supreme Court rarely comes up with unanimous decisions. If these issues were to be dealt with in a court of law, who knows what the final outcome would be. With Assemblyman Curt Hagman introducing AB 1754, there may well be a clarification in state law governing use of bond funds as LAUSD has.
It’s an important issue because I doubt that the state would want to have to bail out a district the size of LAUSD. There are many reasons to prevent this from spreading to other districts.
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School libraries offer students a range of resources well beyond narrow, scripted products aligned with CC$$. In the library, students can pursue individual interests, explore ideas, and read what they choose from a collection curated by certified school librarians. Aides are not an acceptable alternative; that is the beginning of the slippery slope that ends with closing the library. Shame on those deciders whose own children have endless access to literature but who provide a lesser – much, much lesser – school environment to public school students.
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And if you think iPads are expensive, just look at the cost of individual ebooks for each student.
The only way to provide enough electronic books for the district is via a library of ebooks and a librarian to select and monitor their usage.
Borrowing books is like borrowing a hard copy. One person at a time. When the eBook is returned, the next user on the list can then read the book.
Only fools think that ebooks are free and unlimited.
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If the schools have no librarians, who is using the state funding to purchase library books?
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We need to stop waiting for something to come around for these crimes of Deasy and most importantly, the board of Deasy who we elected. We need to do something now. Not only is the district under this devil gutting our community schools and programs, he’s pushing our veteran teachers out, our real wealth when we rebuild, and we will rebuild, without Deasy and without this rubber stamp board. If this board had any interest in the Los Angeles community, why would it go along with this widespread destruction of our schools. Money, the root of all Deasy evil. Hark, other school districts, after he bankrupts LAUSD, he’ll be coming for your school district. His masters, Broad, Gates, Bloomberg have the program in place. Supported by a sorrowful race to the bottom. Know your board member, fire your board member. Let’s rebuild without Deasy and without this board of Deasy.
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Not only do I agree completely with Paula, but I will be at a meeting at Portola Middle School in the SFV on Monday from 6 PM – 7:30 where Deasy has offered to meet with parents and teachers and answer questions.
How many on this site right now will pledge to meet me there?
I know a group of taxpayers who do not have assigned seats will be picketing with signs outside starting at 5:45. If you are not a teacher or a parent, here is a way to express your outrage at the way Deasy and the BoE are running LAUSD.
Please respond to me either here, or at
Joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Lots of folks understand our LA problem, so let’s see how many will walk the walk after talking the talk.
Howard Blume and others at the LA Times please take note of this and send someone to cover this meeting.
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I am with you in spirit here in Buffalo, NY.
The other Ellen
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Gov. Brown will not come to LAUSD’s rescue. He is intent on restoring a rainy day fund that was depleted years ago. There’s a story about it in Friday’s L.A. Times. School districts are still short of funds even though the state has gotten much more revenue than it had anticipated. Brown is a rich fiscal conservative with northern California roots. i doubt he’ll be riding to the rescue.
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Brown was hoodwinked by Obama/Duncan and CC, and then went on to do the right thing and put a major portion of the Prop. 30 funding into inner city schools…but why didn’t he, doesn’t he, step into this legal battleground of both Vergara, and of the $1 Billion iPads and provide state oversight?
Why? Because he just announced that he is running for a second term as Gov, and he wants/needs Eli Broad and Gates to support him with endless Citizen’s United incognito donations.
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Maybe this is being done on purpose to destabilize the district and bankrupt it so they can fire veteran teachers. It makes sense since every teacher I know over 40 who is being evaluated is being threatened with a below standard Stull.
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YES! But it is more than firing the highest paid teachers and supplanting them with TFA kids. It is the enormous land value of our taxpayer funded school sites which will be the best gift to the billionaires.
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What are your positions on a district using “teacher jail” as one attack method to elimunate senior people. LAUSD–UTLA,, 2nd in size nationally after NYC, has 10% of state teachers but grabs 40% of the total of state teachers fired! Even the state does not find evidence on most, so they keep their credentials. Welcome to the new Salem Witchhunts!!
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Laura…most people I talk with have never heard of teacher jail, nor of the mass firings on teachers. The media keeps this a tight little secret. It is vile that the BoE goes along with this method of getting rid of the older and highest paid teachers to replace many with TFA kids.
Although there are teachers who deserve to be removed, too many are dismissed by a frivelous principal to cut the bottom line for specious and false accusations. It is a horror in my opinion.
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Here is an article on teacher jails. LAUSD’s terrible, horrible secret: Teacher Jails
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausd-s-terrible-horrible-secret-teacher-jails-1
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Let’s discover the ratio:
There are about 32,000 teachers in LA Unified and the piece you provide a link for says there are maybe (at the most) 7 of these teacher jails (rubber rooms) with about 50 teachers probably in each one for a total of maybe 350 teachers who are there for whatever reason. From the piece it sounds like many of the reasons were political and had nothing to do with the quality of some teachers.
Anyway, 350 out of 32,000 is 1%, and if that number represents teachers who are incompetent, that means 99% are average or above average.
Let’s see, how much money was wasted to maintain these so-called rubber rooms. The average California public school teacher earns $52,480 annually. that means LA unified pays its teachers more than $1,6 Billion annually. The 350 teachers locked up in these so-called rubber rooms are then paid about $18.3 million or 1% of total salaries for one full school year.
Let’s compare that to the $1 billion LA Unified paid for iPads so kids could hack the software and access porno sites.
I have one question:
Do these 350 teachers get to go home after the school day ends or are they locked up all the time including weekends as if these so-called rubber rooms are really concentration camps? If they get to go home and most of them like to read, they are going to get paid to read a lot of books. And if they don’t like to read but want to watch films instead, they’re getting paid to watch films on tablets or laptops. Why not require that to get paid, they have to write proper reviews (Scholastic has an easy to follow tutorial for this on-line) for books and films and post them on Amazon and/or Barnes & Noble.com?
That way they contribute something to society while they are serving time.
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The article explains a lot. One of our former, well regarded music teachers from the Buffalo Public Schools moved to LA and has been working there for many years. We heard that she was put in limbo – ie, not allowed to teach although she is getting paid. It didn’t make sense to us why a master teacher would be punished like this for no apparent reason.
In Buffalo, if a teacher breaks the rules, such as being accused of hitting a child, they are put on paid suspension leave while the incident is explored. This usually takes about six weeks and the teacher either returns to the classroom or is fired. If a teacher breaks a law, such as soliciting a prostitute or having porn on their computer, they are automatically suspended without pay and then fired. I have also heard of certain teachers who are “promoted” to meaningless administrative desk jobs in a separate building (rumored to keep them away from the students).I have never heard of a teacher assigned to “teacher jail” for no apparent reason and not being afforded due process.
It sounds like Gitanamo Bay.
It definitely is a type of purgatory for a teacher to be kept from their avocation purely in the name of politics. For some it would be like the fires of Hell.
Where are the unions on this issue?
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Thank you. I am in LAUSD and appreciate you bringing light to the issue.
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Oh, is 40 the tipping point? I guess the old adage needs to be tweaked – don’t trust anyone over 39 – they are too expensive to maintain.
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Listen to this: We just found out our school (and many others) have to “field test” the new Common Core Standards Test. Here’s the deal: Our school (approximately 730 students) will receive one (1) cart with 35 iPad Air devices, which must be kept in one secure location, locked up, of course. We are to test all 13 of our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes, amounting to approximately 300 students. It is a three-day test, each day taking approximately 2 hrs., but must continue until each student is finished (no time limit). There is no information yet as to when and how teachers and students will be trained to use the iPads. My principal has not come up with a schedule yet. The testing window is from April 1 to May 15, 2014, I believe.
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Eileen…have you been teaching the CC curriculum? If so, for how long? Do you feel the testing can actually reflect what students have learned?
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Ellen: Not knowing much about the field test, the answer is not simple. Fourth and fifth grades are just beginning to be exposed to the standards. We have been working with writing and math to get familiar with the standards before required implementation next school year. LAUSD started with K and 1st last year, and continued with 2nd and 3rd this year. My colleagues and I have implemented some of the strategies in language arts on our own. As far as the field test is concerned, I have only looked at a bit of it so far. The 4th grade passages are long and quite complicated, and the students have to scroll up and down to find the section the questions are referring to. Some things have changed. For example, 4th grade concentrated heavily on figurative language study. I now see that is a 5th grade concentration, and 4th grade is including myths. We don’t have materials for myths, per se. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to meet those standards and figure out how we will get the necessary materials. We have always concentrated on personal narratives, responses to literature, and summaries of expository articles in writing instruction. Toward the end of the year, we worked on persuasive writing. This year, the district had us start with “opinion” writing, and we have to go to training on “information text.” In my opinion, we have always had a balanced curriculum of fiction and nonfiction. The CC is heavily weighted with expository text. I am assuming the field test will weighted likewise. Of course, our students read a lot of expository material in history/social studies, health, and science. I am in the process of looking at sample passages and questions for the field test. I’ll update later.
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How much money are the suppliers of goods and services going to make off of these “sweet heart” deals. We are
mindlessly throwing money into a black
hole with unrealistic expectations. Corporate America control our educational system. The bottom line is profit!!!! $$$$$
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I read recently that the market for Common Core by itself is worth $20 billion and Bill Gates in partnership with Rupert Murdock launched InBloom to focus on that market.
Bill Gates’s investment—so far—to promote the end of public education as we know it, has been about $200 million or 1% of the potential market.
For Bill Gates, that was a no risk investment, because his fortune grew faster than he could spend it last year.
On November 19, 2012, it was reported that Bill Gates was worth $60.2 Billion
Then on January 2, 2014, Bloomberg reported that his net worth had reached $78.5 Billion
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