Sara Roos is a biostatistician and the parents of two children in the public schools of Los Angeles.
In this post, she explains the difference between George McKenna and Alex Johnson, who are running against one another for the LAUSD seat in District 1.
Read the post for her numerous links to support her statements.
This is what Sara Roos says about Johnson, who works for County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas:
“At the age of 33, Mr Johnson has accrued basically zero track record in issues educational, either politically or pedagogically or theoretically or practically. He does, however, nicely reflect his bosses’ readiness to assert opinions educational a propos of no experience or background in the matter at all, as this account of County Supervisor Ridley-Thomas, his aide Alex Johnson and chief-of staff, attests. All three politicos cheerfully admit to having never read the thoughtfully crafted 29-page opinion regarding a Culver City charter school – before rejecting outright the school board’s denial of this petition. Without permitting the deliberations of local elected political leaders or education experts to derail their well-buttressed pre-conceived convictions, nary a whiff of public education advocacy was permitted sway. These three officials asserted their right to an unreflective, uninformed support for the rejected petition because of “a philosophical difference [with the Culver City Unified School District board president] about charter schools”.
“Just so, this episode accurately encapsulates the arcane board race in LAUSD1 too. It’s about charter schools.”
This is a race that has been recapitulated with its underlying distinction over and over and over again all across this nation of ours. In our local school board elections, the body politic has weighed in cumulatively not once, not twice but in the three successive school board elections against the candidates allied with the political – that is not pedagogical but political – ideology of privatizing public education.
The first of these recent elections was won by Bennett Kayser over Luis Sanchez, candidate of privatizing champion, former-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of the moribund Coalition For School Reform. The second of these wins pitted LAUSD board incumbent Steve Zimmer against millions of dollars corralled from across this nation, foremost among them from Mike Bloomberg, school privatizing, billionaire mayor of New York City. And most recent in the LAUSD series was Mónica Ratliff vanquishing challenger Antonio Sanchez, backed by a breathtaking constellation of corporate reformers.
Now we meet yet the latest iteration of this Borg-like incursion of corporatizers intent on subsuming our children’s schooling. Alex Johnson, having shallow education bona fides but deep political patronage roots, must be understood in that context so charmingly articulated by his padrone, as The Candidate From Charter Land. Alex Johnson may not be an educator or parent or theoretician, but his political placement enables those who seek public monies to underwrite essentially private schooling enterprises. That is, Alex Johnson derives utility by enabling charter schools and those who would champion them.
So, if you think LAUSD needs more charters, Johnson is your guy.
What does Sara Roos say about McKenna? He is a professional educator.
Sara Roos concludes:
Vote for George McKenna on the first day back at school:
Tuesday, August 12, 2014.
What do the voters want? We will find out on August 22.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From the LATIMES 8-3-14 online, 8-4-14 print edition.
An article entitled “L.A. Unified school board race turns negative, focuses on reputation” by Howard Blume.
The last two paragraphs re Alex Johnson:
[start quote]
A product of L.A. schools, Johnson graduated from Morehouse College and law school at American University.
He then worked for three years as an entry-level prosecutor in the Bronx, generally working on domestic violence cases that did not go to trial. From 2008 to 2010, he was an attorney with the Teacher Performance Unit in New York City whose central role is to pursue dismissal cases against teachers accused of misconduct or ineffectiveness.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-school-board-race-20140804-story.html
He is used to looking at others as criminals needing to be prosecuted and punished. Is that what public schools need?
😎
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This just appeared in my mailbox from the usually anti teacher, pro charter, LA School Report. Once more the big money goes to the unqualified candidate…and yes Krazy, the one who sees teachers and public schools as the enemy.
———————————————————————————–
Ridley-Thomas voter group going all out for Johnson
Posted on August 4, 2014 9:53 am by Michael Janofsky
Mark Ridley-Thomas LAUSD
Mark Ridley-Thomas
Alex Johnson has no greater supporter in his bid for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat than Mark Ridley-Thomas, the LA County Supervisor he has served as an education aide.
But it’s more than Ridley-Thomas’s vocal support that’s helping Johnson in his quest to beat George McKenna in the Aug. 12 runoff after McKenna outpolled him in the June primary, 44 percent to 24 percent.
An organization that Ridley-Thomas founded 12 years ago, the African American Voter Registration, Education & Participation Project (AAVREP), has spent more than $340,000 for campaign activities on Johnson’s behalf, a figure that represents more than two-thirds of the contributions AAVREP has received this year and more than two-thirds of all outside group spending on behalf of Johnson’s campaign, according to the latest state and city data.
“Alex was deemed to be very important in the larger scheme of things,” Norman Johnson, the Pastor of First New Christian Fellowship Baptist Church and controlling officer of AAVREP, said of the organization’s decision to spend so heavily. “Typically, a school board election isn’t high profile, but he is part of what we wanted to do, which was raise the profile of the election, itself, in terms of what’s at stake in south LA with educational issues.”
AAVREP’s raising the profile of the election has not been limited to saying nice things about Johnson. It also includes saying not-to-nice things about McKenna. In one $21,407 spend, AAVREP funded a mailer that says in a big headline: “We all had high hopes for George McKenna. But after his early fame, he let our children down.” In smaller print, it accuses him of much worse.
The McKenna campaign has called this and other negative campaign material from Johnson “shameful.”
Overall, six outside independent expenditure groups have spent more than $460,000 for Johnson, compared with $83,450 for McKenna. Only one group has spent on McKenna, the political action committee of UTLA, the teachers union. The LA Unified principals union, AALA, also supports McKenna but has not spent on his behalf.
On its website, AAVREP says it has the largest effort statewide to register African American and urban voters, having registered over 175,000 voters in the last 10 years.
In recent years, it has supported Jerry Brown for governor, Kamala Harris for attorney general and Wendy Greuel for LA mayor. Johnson is its first beneficiary at the school board level.
Ridley-Thomas has always had a close relationship with labor groups, and they have given more than $280,000 to AAVREP since the start of the year — electricians, food workers, long-term care workers, fire fighters, even life guards and deputy sheriffs.
Perhaps not surprisingly, individual labor groups have come out in force, endorsing Johnson.
Pastor Johnson said the decision to spend so much on Alex Johnson essentially came from the people and groups who contribute money to AAVREP. He said “certainly, the relationship is there” between the candidate and Ridley-Thomas, “but Alex was not recruited to run. He’s not someone who was hand-picked. He came along with his own concerns and his own interests. He pretty much had to demonstrate he was not only a viable candidate but he was a candidate people could get behind.”
One labor group, though, is conspicuous by its absence from the Johnson camp: teachers.
McKenna is their man, in part for the close alignment between Johnson and charter schools. One of Johnson’s other big supporters is the PAC affiliated with the California Charter Schools Association, which has spent $114,000.
None of the money spent for McKenna’s benefit has included anti-Johnson rhetoric.
“Educators have been the backbone of this campaign from day one,” McKenna’s campaign manager, Jewett Walker, said, referring to a race that began with seven candidates. “Educators know and trust Dr. McKenna and trust that he will be an informed and independent voice on the board. The $300,000 spent so far on Johnson by AAVREP, combined with the other expenditures supporting him from billionaires and outside special interests groups like Michelle Rhee‘s organization, have exceeded $1 million. That’s what happens when you try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Previous Posts: Galatzan endorses Johnson, leaving Vladovic as lone neutral; PAC spending for Johnson gives him $200,000 advantage; McKenna is the union candidate, but CTA gave to Johnson backers
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Thank you Howard Blume, for your fair and factual article on this race in today’s LA Times. Your last sentences re Johnson, in his brief tenure as a NY prosecutor, focusing on the dismissal of teachers, seems to show his long term opinion about teachers being ineffective and needing to be fired.
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Mc Kenna has not been asked if he will contine to take part in the pogrom against senior teachers. This board of education rubber stamps the dismissal of all teachers who have allegations against them without considering the evidence in the teacher’s favor. With the support of so many Black religious leaders one hope that he will take seriously the commandments against bearing false witness and in this case accepting false witness without question. Or has he decided that hypocracy is really okay.
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I think we need more empathy about his plight . As he is close to retiring, reform hit south LA hard and he could choose to defy the districtdirective to close up Fremont . But if he did where would it get him? The school would still ne reconstituted andbhe’d lose a lot of what he worked for , like healthcare.
McKenna defended Marimonte teachers HE chose the right battle this time and the Teacgers went back,,there was an attempt to diaplace many of them and somehow Theat was derailed. This is best for students, for teachers and the community.
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