This comment was posted by Karin Klein, who writes editorials for the Los Angeles Times:
“As a member of the Times editorial board, I continue to try to correct the inaccurate information that is continually put out in public about the Times’ position on education issues. The editorial board is generally a supporter of keeping Deasy, that is true. But it does not stand behind him “no matter what.” In fact, the Times editorial board has been questioning and criticizing the iPad purchase since 2012.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/16/opinion/la-ed-tablets-lausd-deasy-20121116
“I blogged last month about the importance of keeping Magruder on the bond oversight committee.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-school-ipad-bond-20140523-story.html
“And the editorial board followed that up with an editorial Tuesday that called for him to be reinstated.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-magruder-20140617-story.html
“Debate about the education issues of the day is constructive, but the spreading of mistruths and the carelessness about accurate information does not serve that purpose.”
Karin Klein
Editorial Writer
Los Angeles Times
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Okay, so you don’t stand behind him “no matter what”. What then would it take for you to call for his ouster? Does he have to kill someone or what?
Right on Dienne…the editorial board at the LA Times is taking heavy heat for their pre-election suggestions, and Karin of course, is always suspect since she is a strong supporter of Deasy.
Must say that her recent, few, education editorials present a far more open minded view that I hope will continue.
The golden iPads, and Vergara, and Magruder, and the huge increase in teachers in ‘teacher jail’ with no due process, created a flood of (unpublished) letters pouring in to her.
However, I firmly believe as a lifetime Los Angelino and reader of the LA Times since was 10 (in the Dark Ages), that it was Steve Lopez who turned the tide. Steve is one the top opinion journalists in the nation. His column today speaks to the LAUSD BoE reinstatement, done quietly yesterday, and out of the public eye, when the Board Prez, Vladovic, voted with the other teacher members in favor of this much needed muckraker.
LAUSD needs loud and vociferous muckrakers, for they produce more muck than most other districts.
Dienne: as Ionesco pointed out—
“It is not the answer that enlightens but the question.”
One thing does come through loud and clear: even with the backing of the BBC and their malanthropies; political enablers at the highest levels of local, state, and federal government; and an easily manipulated MSM, the self-proclaimed leaders of the alleged “new civil rights movement of our time” are feeling the heat.
Karen Klein is merely expressing her discomfort with the fact that people are asking her and her employer to be consistent, ethical and fair. Good. It shows that the movement for a “better education for all” is making itself felt.
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” [Sojourner Truth]
😎
Ah so…once again TA, you quote two of my favs. I often think about Ionesco’s play Rhinocerus in light of how things function in our society. Love your erudition. We have some amazing intellectuals here…and must again mention Bob Shepherd when speaking of erudition.
He has twice called abused veteran teachers “80% prostitutes and traffickers,”(sic). I think that’s enough to oust him but the Times doesn’t even question him on this.
Yes, Michael…no one seems to report on Deasy’s huge rants and lost temper tantrums. He really does seem to hate and disrespect teachers.
LAUSD: The district of no consequences http://www.examiner.com/article/lausd-the-district-of-no-consequences
So it’s not so much no matter what as no matter this and no matter that. Thanks for clearing that up.
It’s unfortunate that the only major newspaper in Los Angeles is so wrongfully aligned. If anyone on the paper knows about education at all, they would know that Deasy has not been good for public education. Maybe the la times does not believe in public education. That being the case, I find it hard to support most of its positions. It’s coverage of education issues are bases on what it is given by the school district. It never ever, does any independent investigation. This paper is a product of its financial supporters, not the public good. Wouldn’t it. Be great if both of these were the same but in Los Angeles, at this time, nothing could be farther from the truth.
It’s the same here in Chicago.
Yes, but she said they have only one major paper there and we have two. Plus, the Trib has always leaned to the right. At least we are still seeing some real investigative journalism into ed “reform” in the Sun-Times, which outted the shenanigans of the clout-heavy charter school CEO Juan Rengal. We also have some great reporting in the Reader.
Yes, the Reader is great. But I’m afraid the only people reading the Reader are people who are already opposed to “reform” (and those who read it for opposition research so they can tear it down and innoculate their own followers against anything it says – notice the number of trolls who routinely show up in the comments on Joravsky articles). And yes, the Sun-Times has had some very good reporting, but their editorial positions tend to line up very closely with the Tribune.
Yes, the press is far from ideal, but we still have two more widely read publications than LA, and both have questioned current policies and corporate talking points.
Comments sections are very misleading. Many haters troll them to complain about “big gubment” and taxes paying for public workers, but since the Reader is free, a lot of people have traditionally just picked up the weekly hard copy and don’t read it online anyways. According to their website, just 25% of their readership is online. If you tried to gauge the pulse of Chicago and the readership of the Sun-Times by their comments sections, you’d probably think we have a lot of Libertarians here, but we don’t, except in the collar counties.
Ed reform is a very complicated matter, as I believe corporate reformers have intentionally co-opted language to make it difficult for common people to discern their self-serving practices and distinguish the good guys from the bad, so any media source that untangles that deceptive web for the masses can be helpful. WBEZ has been outspoken and critical of ed reform policies, too. Considering this is the home of Obama & Duncan, having any journalists here willing to question the party line is pretty remarkable in this era, because many people will support Obama and his policies no matter what, just because…
Glen Ford does a terrific job of explaining the dynamic of this in the second youtube video posted by CT below, which I highly recommend watching, “The Black Mis-Leadership Class”.
Sam Zell is anxious to sell the Tribune Co, after coming out of bankruptcy, and the main suitors are Eli Broad and the Kochs, but both want only to own the LA Times. Of course Zell curries their favor and their points of view. I predict at some point Murdoch will zoom in and undercut these quietly warring bidders and take over the Trib as he did with the WSJ etc.
Zell said a few months back he would not sell to a bidder who only wanted ownership of the LA Times. When the market tanks again, as predicted by many credibile economists like “Dr. Doom” at NYU, etc., he may change his mind.
For those who want to know who Dr. Doom is…Nouriel Roubini who is often interviewed by Charlie Rose and others and it was he who predicted that the huge crash of 2007 -8 would be a W, meaning the market would go up, and then take a worse drop, before working it’s way up again…and that this would take about 15 years.
He is generally prescient.
A W recovery, down/up, down/up again.
Dubya will Drubya
And Drubya again.
You are behind in your facts, Ellen. Oaktree Capital Management bought the Tribune Co. distressed debt from Sam Zell two years ago. Last year I led a successful protest outside the home of Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree, asking him not to sell the LA Times to the Koch Brothers. They are out of contention. http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/kochs-no-longer-interested-tribune-still-interested-media-business-112766/
You are so right Lauren…you are the third friend who pointed this out to me. I apologize for dozing. I did forget that Karsh is in control of the Times. I will be more careful in the future.
Lauren, we should talk about the Parent Rev meeting later this month, and how to address it. Please get in touch with me by email.
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Same for Michael Dominguez please.
In addition Ms Klein from the editorial staff, how about some real reporting at the LA Times. Instead of only reporting what the school district gives you, how about reporting real news like what is the bond oversight committee, who authorized it, how long has the school district had bond oversight committees, do their suggestions ever get implemented, who is on the bond oversight committee etc, etc,. One of the sorry board members at LAUSD called for an audit of the committee, I want to go farther, how about an audit of LAUSD. There’s nothing but fraud, nepotism, cronyism and outright malfeasance at this district, when was the last time the state did a real audit of this district?Does your misunderstood editorial staff ever yearn for real reporting at this paper.
Yes, Paula, some of the beleaugered writers would love to report truth, but they would be summarliy fired if they did not follow the party line.
My response to Karin Klein:
The point is that the LA Times should be helping stakeholders of the second largest school district in the country have a public debate about reform proposals, some of which have merit, some of which do not. But for some crazy reason, support for the personality (Deasy) has become the price of admission for participation in that debate.
The Los Angeles Times should be elevating the level of discourse while making the policy debate more accessible. Instead, its editorials perpetuate the unproductive dynamic that screams support for the personality above all, but occasionally criticizes specific policies. It’s as if the editorial board wants Deasy to stay, but wants him to change his policies.
I understand the argument coming from reformers in cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Newark to New York to Washington DC that there are too many entrenched interests invested in the status quo (see Dale Russakoff article below) to resist forcing these reforms on us. But, as the saying goes, democracy is messy. As Mayor Villaraigosa found out, Angelenos favor democracy over tidy efficiency. Importantly, too, the agents of reform are in danger of becoming just as entrenched as those they claim obstruct progress.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/19/140519fa_fact_russakoff?currentPage=all
I beg to differ. Monied interests are already entrenched and they are very committed to the business plan to privatize public education across this country, for financial gain and ideological purposes. And, education “reform” has been around for so long that it is the status quo.
The New Yorker article is a disgraceful whitewashing of Booker and his stance on charter schools. He is not a champion of civil rights. Booker’s political career was bankrolled by the right-wing Bradley Foundation, as described by Newark native and journalist Glen Ford from the Black Agenda Report, “The Corporate Assault on Public Education”
Well worth the hour+ to listen to Mr. Ford’s analysis. It certainly let me know why I can no longer assume that a Black person in politics is a Liberal at heart, and it sends a particular warning to those of us who typically vote for the Democratic candidate assuming they lean more toward populism than the Republican (particularly if the Democratic candidate is Black).
Right, John, and the second video of Glen Ford below enlightens even further about this uncanny dynamic.
For more about Booker, see also “The Black Mis-Leadership Class”
Which reform proposals have merit? I haven’t found any yet.
I have yet to find any either.
The train left the station of fake education reform in the 1980s during the “evil” (my emphasis) Reagan era, and it hasn’t stopped yet. I taught form 1975-2005, and the reformist ideas forced on teachers never stopped coming and most of them failed miserably, and the teachers always got the blame even when we protested that they were bad ideas when administration forced us to implement them.
For instance, closing down basic reading and English classes for at risk, low performing kids and cramming kids reading as low as second grade level in to college prep grade level English classes in the secondary schools all the way to 12th grade, and then there was the Whole Language approach to teaching reading and writing where teachers were “FORCED” to throw out the grammar books and “FORCED”—and then spied on—to make sure we stopped teaching grammar and mechanics.
For the life of me, I can’t come up with one!
Great article Karen…thanks for posting it. Let’s talk about Parent Rev and plan a course for protecting parents from more petition attacks.
Very well stated, Karen…you speak for me, and for all of us. Thanks.
I have lived in the LA area for almost my entire life. The LA Times, our one remaining newspaper, has been reflexively critical of the LAUSD for a long time. I taught in a district just east of Los Angeles. I cancelled my subscription to the LA Times, in part, because of their editorial attitude toward LAUSD and public schools. I try to listen to local news channels instead!
Understand Cheri…and now that it is about 90 percent ads printed on what seems to be Russian toilet paper, and the news is days old, it seems not worth the money…but I still read it every day for local news and mainly for education articles.
It would be interesting for Karin Klein to tell LA why she is so enamored of Deasy. But I am delighted that she reads this blog so that she can see what so many of us think of him.
The media bias against public schools is absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s an unbiased NPR report on public school teachers.
The title of the program is “Do Public School Teachers Deserve Failing Grades?”
Yet another former Obama DOE employee is on promoting the California trial court decision. So great that we paid all these former federal employees to create lucrative careers out of bashing public schools when they leave the Obama Administration.
http://ht.ly/ycm0X
Dear Ms. Klein:
In my posting I did make a mistake. I wrote “the Times editorial board stands behind Deasy no matter what foolishness he espouses.”. I should have written “stands behind Deasy’s TENURE no matter what…”
You are right that you have criticized Deasy on the iPads a number of times but in so mild and tsk tsk-ing a way, it feels more like the criticism some errant precocious child would receive. The ideology of Deasy and his supporters is the real troublesome issue that you haven’t shied away from backing.
This is really a matter of whose kids get what kind of education. If Laguna Beach children had to live under a John Deasy with his priorities, I suspect the parents there would be up in arms. You can say that comparing that district to LAUSD is like comparing apples to oranges, but WHY?
John Deasy enjoys the tremendous backing of political and economic players whose kids live in a separate reality. In LA that includes not only The Times but Eli Broad, the Gates Foundation, the recent mayors, LA School Report and all those politically monied education front groups.
The pedagogy of Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Eli Broad and John Deasy has hurt my students. It has wrecked communities and altered the landscape of the schools. It has diminished instruction and curtailed creativity. Curriculum has worsened and the types of administrators these folk favor are better suited for a dreary corporate system that should be antithetical to good teaching.
It all depends on where YOUR kids go to school and what TYPE of education THEY get. Sorry to be so personal Ms. Klein but your personal choices affect my kids and protect yours. You may say you want all good things for ALL kids but by how far and often you have gone in supporting John Deasy, from my perspective as a humble teacher, you want something vastly different for my kids,
You want your kids to have small classes, lots of electives and field trips and enrichment opportunities. You want the same things my kids’ parents want for their kids. Where is jon Deasy’s or The Times’ outrage that those opportunities are so obscenely lacking in LAUSD? You already opted your own kid out of yet one more standardized test. John Deasy cant test our kuds enough. He believes in those metrics to an absurdly laughable degree.
Your family lives in an educational and political reality than my classroom.
Why?
Because you can.
I thank you very much for responding to the post and truly hope it facilitates more dialogue. I love teaching and have fought fiercely for the rights and opportunities of my students. When I see the huge monied forces of the Ed Reform movement use their horrible corporate tactics to FURTHER disenfranchise my students, I want to scream bloody murder at the injustice and hypocrisy.
I am hoping you consider these words and what other academics, intellectuals and ground troop teachers ate saying on this site and the hundreds of others that have sprung up. They speak for not only THEIR kids, but EVERYONE’s.
Sincerely,
Geronimo
“Debate about the education issues of the day is constructive, but the spreading of mistruths and the carelessness about accurate information does not serve that purpose.”
I wonder what she thinks the truth is, and if she ever questions what happens when she writes an Op-Ed piece and later her truth was really a mistruth.
I’d like to know what the mistruth is for “keeping Deasy”.
This is good news. I hope the Los Angeles Times does an article on “the truly bad teacher” in LAUSD and how administrators hired a child molester (with a questionable background), did not supervise him even a little bit, ignored complaints by parents, teachers, and students, and failed to notify police when suspicions were aroused. I hope they write about the cover-up, and find out why charges were never filed against Deasy and his cohorts. This is the real story the public needs to hear about the “ineffective teacher.” Who placed him in the classroom and kept him there for years when a quick phone call to the police would have led to an immediate leave from the classroom?
Also, why would the Los Angeles Times want Deasy to remain as superintendent? Can the district be in any worse shape than it is at the present time? Will it be able to attract qualified teachers now that the effects of the recession are wearing off? Most important, what has he done for the children?
The LA Times murdered Rigoberto Ruelas the same as if they pulled the trigger and shot him.
The paper will ALWAYS have blood on its hands.
I think that’s a bit hyperbolic, Susan. But the LA times is definitely a catalyst and major factor that contributed to his death, and for that, they will have blood stained pages for a long time.
Shame on the LA Times. Has Klein ever commented on this?
One person’s hyperbole is another person’s reporting of fact.
It isn’t hyperbolic, it is fact. Until you have had your career destroyed, you have NO concept of how easily the media can ruin you as a teacher.
The editors of the Times should have been arrested and jailed for this.
Klein: “You said we back Deasy 100%, but in actuality it is only 99.95%, so we want to clarify that. By the way, we still hate teachers and the public commons, but that’s a different issue altogether.”
Karin Klein doesn’t want to quibble over who killed who, because not only are the “truths” she is peddling op-eds and blog posts, the timing is bad, real bad. Who is to say the reinstatement plans were known ahead of time by the paper, just doing the School Board’s bidding by “supporting” their latest and greatest scheme??
Even the 2012 article praised Deasy’s supposed decision to back away from his ipad proposal and promise to never bring the matter up again (until he could get more votes) after the advisory committee declined to approve the expenditure. The LA Times job isn’t half as much reporting as it is patting Deasy on the head when he does good and turning their backs when, well…
I find the last comment in the letter from the Times’ Editorial Board particularly ironic. The material printed by the Education beat reporters, particularly Teresa Watanabe and with the exception of Howard Blume, consistently fails to present a complete and accurate representation of the situation in Los Angeles. I find particularly galling the description of Deasey and his followers as the educational “reformers” Since when is the destruction of quality public education considered a “reform” ? The description of UTLA (the local teacher’s union) as obstructionist is in my opinion libelous. Since when is the promotion of cutting class sizes obsructionist? I suggest that Ms.Watanabe and her ilk visit some of the classrooms at schools where the class count is at 58 and where students have to sit on dirty floors due to the absence of enough chairs. As a Social Studies Coach at one of Mr.Deasy’s “reconstituted” schools in South Central Los Angeles this is what I observed. Deasey and his ilk provide us with a whole new definition of the term child abuse.
Good points May…and Watanabe seems openly in favor of charters and Parent Rev…she never seems to miss and opportunity to laud Ben Austin. She contacted me last year for an interview on the parent trigger law and Austin…and then she stood me up. That memory will linger.