Alex Caputo-Pearl, the head of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, announced that teachers would fight Eli Broad’s plan to expand the number of privately managed charter schools to include half the children in the city. The plan was announced recently and has the support of the rightwing Walton Family Foundation and the Keck Foundation.
The first point to be made about the Broad plan is that it is a direct affront to democracy. Who elected Eli Broad to decide what the shape of the LAUSD should be? Who gave him the power to redirect public funds to private entrepreneurs?
The second is that the union is a natural antagonist to the charter expansion because charters are almost always non-union schools. Their teachers have no job protections, work long hours, and can be fired at will. Of course, this is not an incidental feature of charter schools; it is central to their purpose to disempower teachers. That is why the charter movement is supported by the staunchly anti-union Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville, Arkansas.
The third is that the expansion will cripple public education, leaving the public schools with the students unwanted by the charters and removing resources and the best students.
““We’re going to make every effort that we can to organize against the expansion of what are essentially unregulated non-union schools that don’t play by the rules as everybody else,” Caputo-Pearl told LA School Report. “So we’re going to take that on in the public, take that on in the media, engage the school board on it. We’re going to try to engage Eli Broad. We’re going to try to engage John Deasy because we understand he’s the architect of it. It will be a major effort. It is a major concern.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I know it doesn’t fit here, but Christie says teachers should be paid minimum wage, and bonuses for kids who pass standardized tests. Perhaps he can next suggest they go to McDonald’s or Walmart Greeter college for their degrees: http://bizstandardnews.com/2015/08/23/chris-christie-suggests-teachers-get-minimum-wage-plus-bonuses/
Donna, The whole website is filled with these absurd claims, just look at the words put into the mouths of politicians. The problem is that almost all poiicians are following Trunp’s lead into absurdities. Even so, I like your extension of the logic on McDonald’s U. or Walmart greeter college as a source of qualifications.
Laura,
If you didn’t realize it there actually is a Hamburger University run by McDonalds. All owners and I believe managers must graduate from it. See: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/careers/training_education.html
Yes, I see it may be like the Onion. My apologies…though him saying it is plausible.
Another Christie recent “brilliant” comment stated that we “should treat illegals like FedEx packages.” I think Christie is trying to be provocative so the press will veer off Trump.
Christie is nuts.
“A direct affront to democracy.”
Yes. A case of voter suppression that should be a major concern to civil rights groups. Unfortunately a good many of these have sold out to big money interests.
I would like to see almost any group or constellation of groups come together to oppose this takeover with the teacher union not the exclusive source of objections. That exclusivity makes it too easy for the billionaires and conservative politicians to “dismiss” their objections.
Parents that understand the value of a democratic public school must stand against the dismantling of public education. They should lead the charge or the protests will fall flat as the pro charter forces will blame teachers for promoting self interest. The parents need to organize, and they need big numbers of supporters.
They need to start by joining the California opt out movement. If they refuse to allow their kids to be subjected to so many useless tests and decide to control their own child’s data, that would be an effective start.
Irony lives in Los Angelel.
Alex Caputo-Pearl’s regime at UTLA has told teachers falsely accused and sent to Teacher Jail, not to seek help from our union through the normal democratic channels described in our union constitution. 5,000 have been fired without due process. Another “direct affront to democracy,” but one that seems not to have been noticed.
Ah, finally a true voice from LAUSD.
Hi Mike…yes, the union seems not to support the jailed teachers, and you have dealt with this first hand……. but also too many teachers want to be UN-involved. I talk with them often and am saddened by not only their fear at speaking out, but many just do not even keep up with the entire Eli Broad privatizing battle. They drift along thinking it will not affect them.
How can the education activists here in LA wake up the large group of working teachers who are not fighting back, and are not even interested in being informed of the reality of their personal jeopardy if 50% of the public schools are charterized?
How can the informed group (you know most of us since we comment here) fight billionaire Broad who figuratively owns the position of the LA Times through his close friendship with the CEO billionaire Austin Beutner?
Today, Diane’s post focuses on LAUSD, not on NJ and Christie…so please smart and dedicated colleagues, we need your voices to address actual methods for we who are the boots on the ground in LA, and not on philosophical hyperbole from other areas of the country. We are drowning here with no mass media to turn to.
The major print media, the LA Times, will not print anything that does NOT support charter schools. If any strong ‘opt out to CC testing’ leadership does emerge, there is little way to publicize it with this single media outlet.
The only teachers that I know who have been successful when falsely accused or otherwise in conflict with the board have used their free consultations with UTLA attorneys and then hired a private attorney.
I used to interact with a group of California school activists, as well as a large national group of activists. They were against HST/CCSS – but were charter appeasers. “My son attends a charter and it’s great!” So incredibly frustrating. My hope is that people are finally seeing the long game. Finally. Maybe. Even if a charter is a “good” charter (whatever that means) they are all weaponized now. They takeover the urban schools first, leaving just enough public schools for the charters to dump their “waste product” and then who knows? Chicago, New York, Florida, Indiana etc etc, we’ve seen this coming for several years now. Hopefully we get real national union leadership that will take a unified stand against privatization. We have anything but that now.
I often sit in meetings with our local LA legislators (Dems who claim to be liberal) and hear them laud charters. When I try to talk about the demographics, and that Pali HS charter in the midst of the greatest wealth in the state and in the nation, is far different than the inner city (South Central and Boyle Heights, etc.) profiteering charters run by big business, not educators, and initiated by those like Parent Revolution instigators paid for by Broad and the Waltons.
I am often told to quiet down, and that I am a “conspiracy theorist.” And my qualifications are as a university public policy educator whose field of study encompasses these issues. So what chance does anyone have for these legislators to hear them? They laugh at the real positions we who speak out daily try educate. The accurate essays by such informed writers as Robert Skeels, at Soledad and at Schools Matter and Chalk Face, NEVER get published by the LA Times.
This is reality.
Addendum…and this is a fascistic situation. It is clear that big business and government have joined forces to squelch all real information.
This is entirely true. We are limited in educating the public about these issues by the deformed controlled media but we must also make our internal communications take up this call. UTLA for one does not advocate or attempt to organize anything around saving our public schools. They have a newspaper that could be effective in this fight. Many other unions across the stAte need to support and inform their membership and make all teachers activist to save public schools. I guess what I’m saying is that we have to get our teachers on board in a big way to fight this. Now, our unions are not involved or even pointing the way. This must change for us to succeed.
I don’t know much about UTLA but I do know that the UFT in NYC did nothing to stem the civil rights abuse of teachers.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
What I do know is that Lenny Isenberg began his site and often wrote about what UTLA did or did not do, so I wonder how much it has changed.
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/10/why-does-utla-continue-to-support-lausds-violation-of-california-teacher-dismissal-process.html
I will never forget when my union rep used that phrase to “quiet down.”
I had just been read a letter in which I had been told that the reason I had been removed from my celebrated practice was because I had been found guilty of ‘corporal punishment’ .
I had never heard of the allegation, seen charges, or had a hearing or even a meeting to discuss the idiotic idea that I ‘cursed” at a child in front o fan entire class and this made her ‘fearful.’.
The HEAD of the Manhattan chapter of the uFT ,I van Tiger, told me to sit down and be quiet, and then to ‘quiet down,’ when I challenged the testimony of ‘students A,B,c,d, and e,” and asked for the names of B & D.
Conspiracy to end the voices, salaries and benefits of veteran teachers so the schools would lose the professionals and thus fail?
YOU bet, Ellen! Keep up the noise!
Susan…when Jaime Aquino , the former LAUSD Asst. Supt, and close pal of John Deasy, was being questioned by Monica Ratliff, as head of the Finance group of the BoE, regarding his role in the bidding process of Pearson (whom he had worked for) and Apple (who Deasy had worked for) during the iPad $ 1.3 Billion fiasco….he was enraged and demanded she and her committee stop listening to THE NOISE. He meant by that, the voices of the public, parents, and teachers raised against Deasy/Aquino/Broad as this whole FIX in spending the public’s money emerged. As the world now knows, these two men are being investigated by the FBI and the SEC and may be indicted for rigging the bids.
When a school district employee such as Aquino, denounces and disrespects the NOISE made by his bosses, the LA County public taxpayers, then it time to clean house.
Eli Broad trains his puppets like Deasy who graduate from the Broad Academy, to overrule the voices of the those who pay them, the American public. Why should Broad have so much power? Read SharonHiggins.com on the Broad Academy, and also on how Eli Broad made his billions. It is an eye opening education on how an aggressive, self aggrandizing, immoral, Robber Baron, moved forward by bullying and beating down everyone in his path.
Have been watching the swamp that Broad created for a decade, with Lenny Isenberg.
It is all part of the plan… we never stood a chance….and won’t unless the UNIONS DO THIER JOB and SUE!!!
“A direct affront to democracy.”
Yes. A case of voter suppression that should be a major concern to civil rights groups. Unfortunately a good many of these have sold out to big money interests.
I would like to see almost any group or constellation of groups come together to oppose this takeover with the teacher union not the exclusive source of objections. That exclusivity makes it too easy for the billionaires and conservative politicians to dismiss their objections.
I agree Laura Chapman. I’m aware of two efforts so far that reach out to community: TEAch – Transparency Equity and Accountability in Charters http://www.teach4equity.org And the other is the effort to repeal the charter law that literally was passed without anyone realizing what it meant (as well as Prop 39) https://www.facebook.com/CitizensForEducationRestoration as well as the petition link: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/repeal-charter-school-act-of-1992-in-ca-ballot I hope we can join all these efforts together and make it a community effort. We are aware of many communities affected by co-locations and need to unite with them.
of course, Laura.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/03/lausd-and-utla–connecting-the-dots-of-blattant-corruption.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
This ties in to what is happening in Chicago.
At a City Club of Chicago forum, the former CEO (Superintendent) of Chicago Public Schools (and current CPS Board member) Jesse Ruiz defended the fact that Chicago has an un-elected board appointed by the mayor. He tries to compare this to Los Angeles’ system of having 15 million voters weigh in by electing the 7-member LAUSD board… a system that he trashes.
Ruiz’s reply to future Dyett hunger striker Jitu Brown defies belief. He promulgates the whole idea that, with an appointed school board, you can save money—i.e. money incurred from the expenses that go with having elections.
(If you go back and watch this video in context, notice how Jesse doesn’t address a single one of the facts or points that Brown makes… presumably conceding them.)
Instead, Jesse then counters Brown by saying that he doesn’t want Chiago’s CPS to be like (Los Angeles’) LAUSD, where it is expensive to run a board that manages lots of schools, and has a messy, expensive election process, with money outside the city coming in from New York billionaires. (Hey, I don’t like that either, but the fact remains that the pro-public education forces still beat the privatizers, despite all their spending… Mike Bloomberg alone wrote Steve Zimmer’s opponent a $1 million check.)
(31:42 – )
(31:42 – )
JESSE RUIZ: “If we want to be like Los Angeles (i.e. have an elected school board… Ruiz cites the negatives of money impacting elections)…I’d rather not see that happen for my city and our schools.”
(Jesse, a messy democracy is better than no democracy, which is what you have in Chicago. When the people in Los Angeles had a choice, the corporate privatization candidates lost, even though they outspent to pro-traditional schools candidates 3-to-1, or 5-to-1, or in one case 42-to-1.
Brief recap of LAUSD elections:
In 2011, 30-year teacher Bennett Kayser won, despite being outspent 5-to-1 by the corporate privatizers.
In 2013, 17-year teacher Steve Zimmer won, despite being outspent 5-to-1 by the corporate privatizers.
In 2013, 13-year teacher Monica Ratliff won, despite being outspent 42-to-1 by the corporate privatizers.
In 2014, teacher & principal George McKenna won, despite being outspent 5-to-1 by the corporate privatizers.
In 2015, teacher & principal Scott Schmerelson won, despite being outspent 5-to-1 by the corporate privatizers.
Jesse knows that, just as they did in Los Angeles, that his side—the corporate privatizers’ backed by money-motivated, predatory billionaires like Eli Broad and others—would lose at the polls if the public had the opportunity to choose a school board.
Undaunted at all his candidates losing, Billionaire Eli Broad others announced that he was pumping $1 billion dollars into charter expansion in Los Angeles… even though the voters have vehemently rejected this:
Just like in Chicago, the arrogant attitude of Broad, Gates, the Waltons, etc. is…
ELI BROAD’s ATTITUDE: “We don’t give a sh#% what the citizens, the parents, and the taxpayers want. Since we couldn’t buy control of the the board via the election process, we’re still gonna shove money-motivated privatization and charterization down the public’s throats whether they want it or not. So those unwashed masses should just shut up and accept it!”)
Back to Jesse Ruiz….
Corporate stooge Jesse Ruiz makes the laughable argument that an electoral system “costs millions” of dollars that “could be used to educate kids.” You could say the same exact thing about the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Reps, State Senates, State Assemblies… and multi-million-dollar elections for who would serve on them:
“Hey, think of the money that we could save if the President / Governor appointed the members of the Senate, or appointed the House of Reps, or the State Senate, or the State Assemblies. We could then use that money saved to go towards public works that benefit citizens.”
Asinine!!! Boy that argument really “un-pleases” me!!! (O.K., that was the last “un-pleases” joke)
Brown, no-dummy-he, fires back a Ruiz.
While noting the messiness of democracy, with unions and special interests participating, Brown cites LAUSD’s accomplishments:
(32:20 – 32-45)
(32:20 – 32-45)
JITU BROWN: “But what you CAN say is that Los Angeles (LAUSD’s school board) has passed some of the most progressive (school board) legislation in this country. Their ‘A-thru-G’ legislation that says that where that child goes to school, they have to have curriculum that prepares them for college…. They (LAUSD officials) have it, and are addressing it (college requirements). But (in Chicago), we (instead) are addressing it by closing schools, and by displacing families.”
Here’s a repeat of an earlier post from another thread:
HOW PUBLIC SCHOOL GOVERNANCE WORKS IN CHICAGO:
Jesse Ruiz, a current appointee to Chicago’s unelected School Board, appeared at a forum held at the City Club of Chicago last February 2, 2015. It was a discussion about whether Chicago should keep its appointed (by the mayor) school board, or return to the old system of having citizens elect a board. The return to an elected board was overwhelmingly endorsed by Chicago’s citizens in a non-binding vote last spring.
In defending the unelected Chicago School Board upon which he sits, Jesse opened his mouth and made some “WTF-did-he-just-say?!” statements that were, thankfully, captured for posterity on video.
NOTE: Earlier this summer, Jesse was also briefly the interim Chicago Schools CEO (not Superintendent… schools are a business in Chi-town) when the then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett had to resign after prosecutors announced an investigation of her conflict-of-interests in spearheading a multi-million-dollar contract to a principals’ training organization that she had ties to… but that’s another story.
Anyway, back to Jesse Ruiz, who, years ago, was also appointed to the Illinois’ State Board of Ed, where he served for several years. At Ruiz’ aforementioned appearance at a City Club of Chicago forum, Jesse started talking about how hundreds of school districts in Illinois had elected boards, and while serving on the Illinois board, he got along well with the members of those elected boards—he calls them his “colleagues”.
However, Ruiz nevertheless argues that Chicago must not have an elected school board, and made the following justification: (here’s the video.. go to about 06:58 – 07:35)
(06:59 – 07:35)
JESSE RUIZ, Chicago Board of Ed.: “But for our city, I honestly do believe that it would be best left as it is, as an appointed school board, because it’s an incredibly complicated and diverse district. There are very difficult decisions to be made, and sometimes they’re not very popular decisions, and I would have to—I WOULD HATE to have to worry about my next election when making a vote.
“I NEVER worry about that. I’ve NEVER HAD TO worry about that, or worry about WHO, WHO… uhhh… I am pleasing, or un-pleasing with my vote. All I worry about is what’s best for the students in the city of Chicago. And so therefore, that’s the system that I prefer.”
—————————
I don’t know about all of you but Jesse’s really “un-pleasing” me with his justification for the 20-years-and-counting cancellation of popular democracy in the governance of Chicago’s public schools, and where the corporate reformers and profiteers that bankrolled Rahm Emanuel’s election now drive the policy… and not Chicago’s citizens.
How about you? Are you as “un-pleased” with then-CEO and Board Member Ruiz’s comments as I?
But seriously, isn’t that how democracy works?
When some policy implementation is unpopular and “un-pleasing” with the citizen-taxpayers—no matter how much Board Member Ruiz, or any elected official is desirous of such implementation—that fear of being removed from office in an upcoming election is a necessary check-and-balance, one that reins in Ruiz and his fellow Board members from doing something that the voters—his ultimate “bosses” in a democracy—do not want to happen. The will of the people will prevail in this scenario… theoretically, at least.
This was particularly relevant when Ruiz and his unelected Board closed 50 traditional public schools—with them replaced by privately-run charters—despite overwhelming polling saying that the tax-paying citizens of Chicago would be very “un-pleased” by this. (I know, I’m beating the “un-pleased” joke to death… that was the last one.)
At the very least, these schools being closed had elected Local Schoolsite Councils (LSC’s) made up of parents and community members, with albeit minimal decision-making power. The privately-managed charters that are currently in the process of replacing them, however, have no such LSC’s, and thus, the parents have ZERO input. Parents are barred from the meetings of that board, which are held in secret, and chaired by businessmen who have ZERO experience as teachers and/or administrators.
Who gave him the power to redirect public funds to private entrepreneurs?
The answer is Eli Broad did. He doesn’t respect democracy or what the public thinks, and he isn’t alone. For instance, the Walton family, Bill Gates and the Koch brothers think the same way.
If you can’t fool the public with propaganda and lies, find other methods to get what Eli Broad and the others want and use those fraudulent methods and beat them into the public against their will.
This is taking place all across American in state after state and city after city.
This is the key, Lloyd, but see this Los Angeles post today. It is filled with information about New Jersey and Chicago, and you, Mike, and I, and maybe a few other California educators we don’t recognize, are talking about Eli Broad and LAUSD.
Where is the flood of conversation from and about LA from our own teachers and community? How can we battle these LA billionaires if even our own teachers do not show up?
“How can we battle these LA billionaires if even our own teachers do not show up?”
————————–
Ellen, some teachers would claim that we’re too busy… you know… teaching.
That’s not an excuse I totally buy into, but I understand it… especially regarding those teachers with children of their own to take care of.
I read about the New York charter expansion, and public school teachers complain about the muliti-million-dollar marketing campaigns that Eva Moskowitz and others engage in to poach away the students attending traditional public schools… with public school teachers frustrated that they have neither the time nor the financial wherewithal to run an opposing campaign.
from Norm Scott’s ED NOTES:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/10/exposing-success-academy-marketing.html
—————
Sarah Butler Jessen & Catherine DiMartino:
“The underlying concern, however, for many is that Success’ intensely focused financial investment in marketing is reflective of their priorities lying with private goals rather than public aims. After all, it can be argued that the money spent by Success on marketing could, alternatively, have been devoted to educational objectives or support. In fact, on the donation section of the Success Charter Network website, the organization opens by stating, ‘You can tell a lot about an organization’s priorities by how they spend their money’ (Success Charter Network, 2011b). This may likely be very true.
“Success Charter Networks spent $1.6 million dollars on marketing efforts alone in 2009-2010, amounting to $1,300 per incoming student.
“According to Annual Reports available on through Success Charter Networks, each of the seven Success charter schools in New York City spent, on average, $13,727 per pupil in 2010-2011 (Success Charter Network, 2011a). That means that, if the marketing budget remained roughly the same, 9.5% of the per pupil budget went to marketing and recruiting efforts—a number which is on par with spending of big CPG companies nationally.”
———————-
Here’s more from Jessen’s and Martino’s article:
————
Corporate Style Schooling: Marketing
for Private Gain Rather than the
Public Good
by Sarah Butler Jessen & Catherine DiMartino — October 04, 2011
In response to a recent article in the New York Daily News regarding the marketing expenditures of the Success Charter Network, this commentary discusses the growing push for public schools (particularly charters) to engage in marketing. The authors argue that this trend is a result of the new educational policy context of merged private- and public-sector worlds. Concerns are raised about the effects of embracing corporate models for educational reform.
In recent years, there has been a push to implement private sector strategies in the public education system. Some have argued to treat education “like a business,” and discussions of “return on investment” in education have become more common (Boser, 2011; Colvin & Snider, 2010).
School systems throughout the country have implemented market-based reforms, and private companies have begun not only to invest in, but also to partner with (and even create) schools in the name of generating systemic change. This trend receives ample support from the federal government through its Investing in Innovation Fund and, more recently, though the federal “re-start” intervention model.
Many schools in New York City, New Orleans and Philadelphia have corporate partners—EMOs, CMOs, and intermediary organizations — that shape the daily practices of public educational institutions. These partners’ influence ranges from providing technical support to the wholesale management of schools.
It should come as little surprise, then, when schools respond to operating within this new policy context of a “business-like” environment with “business-like” strategies aimed at helping them succeed in the marketplace. For example, the expansion of market-based reforms into public education has introduced the world of marketing to a new arena. A recent article published in the New York Daily News revealed that the Success Charter Networks spent $1.6 million dollars on marketing efforts alone in 2009-2010, amounting to $1,300 per incoming student (Gonzalez, 2011). This report incensed many public school advocates, and received targeted criticism at the recent “Save Our Schools” march in Washington, D.C. (Decker, 2011). But how unexpected or outlandish is this financial investment given this current policy context modeled after the private sector?
Marketing, of course, is a central component of private industry. The average retail company spends 4 to 6% of their sales revenue on marketing, while consumer package goods (CPG) companies spend 8 to 10% annually (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2011; Moorman, 2011). In the “brand-building” stage of product development, companies spend a great deal more on marketing efforts (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2011; Moorman, 2011). Think: the original rolling out of the Apple iPhone or the latest McDonalds’ 99 cent offering.
According to Annual Reports available on through Success Charter Networks, each of the seven Success charter schools in New York City spent, on average, $13,727 per pupil in 2010-2011 (Success Charter Network, 2011a). That means that, if the marketing budget remained roughly the same, 9.5% of the per pupil budget went to marketing and recruiting efforts—a number which is on par with spending of big CPG companies nationally.
Although charter schools are public institutions, many have embraced (and been embraced by) the private sector. Commonly viewed by the corporate world as “innovative” or “entrepreneurial” educational agents that break free of traditional bureaucracies found in public school systems, many charter schools have particularly drawn on financial and organizational support of private industries. Success Charter Network, for example, draws heavily on investments from large corporations, and their Board of Directors is largely made up of representatives from private corporations or investment firms (Success Charter Network, 2011b).
In the world of charter school marketing, Success Charter Network, of course, is not alone in drawing on the private sector. KIPP schools founders partnered with the founders of Gap, Inc. after Gap’s $15 million gift to launch the KIPP Foundation, which “was established help set up KIPP-style schools” (Kennedy School of Government, 2011, p. 2). Among other things, the KIPP Foundation spearheaded the trademark licensing of the KIPP name—a branding technique.
Marketing efforts employed by others include sending monthly mailings of full color brochures to perspective students and their families, hiring part-time workers to target specific pools of applicants, transmitting personalized text messages to parents and advertising on bus stops (CellsTrust, 2010; Gonzalez, 2011; Medina, 2010).
Despite the recent merging of the education and business worlds, there are significant differences between the marketing of a CPG company and a public school. First, private companies have oversight systems in place to prevent the spread of misinformation or deception through their marketing materials. The Federal Trade Commission has governmental jurisdiction over advertising. Legal teams at major CPG companies work to ensure that wording of each marketing publication is not inaccurate or overstated. Companies can challenge claims made by competitors through the Better Business Bureau. Ads run on major television networks are additionally run through the network’s legal reviews.
At the present time, no such oversight exists for public schools. Principals, who are often charged with marketing and recruiting, are given little training on how to effectively, or accurately, portray their school in informational literature. Some research has shown that, in fact, schools have “glossified” their marketing literature to portray an image of the school (which may or may not be accurate) in order to attract certain populations )). Little research has examined the accuracy of the claims made in school marketing literature or the impact of such claims on the consumer – student and parent – experience, especially if hyperbole trumps precision.
Secondly, marketing practices from the private sector do not convert fluidly into the public arena of the educational system. At a very basic level, the purpose of a public school is to contribute to a public good whereas the purpose of private company is to build revenue. In the private sector demand can be met by increasing product and industries can expand by enlarging the consumer base. In public schools, the market is simply restricted. There are a set number of school-age children, all of whom are going to school, and each school only has a given number of seats. This creates incrementally increasing competition for specific schools, resulting in unintended complications.
Competition spurs innovation and improves practice, so school choice advocates claim. In the private sector, investing in marketing provides returns on investment through increases in sales and revenue. Research has shown that schools often begin to invest in marketing strategies, as school choice competition increases ).
However, unlike in private industries, transferring portions of an institution’s educational budget to marketing can, in fact, detract from academic programming. Because public schools do not generally increase their income through marketing techniques, they do not see the same financial return on investment.
Where schools stand to profit from intensive marketing campaigns is through student enrollment. While distributing information about schools in a choice system is intended to contribute to creating a cohesive school community through student buy-in, or simply maintaining enrollment, research has shown that parents and students respond to marketing cues from schools, which can result in sorting by a variety of factors, such as socioeconomic status, race, or educational background ). Particularly with the intense pressure to meet accountability standards, there is an underlying danger that instead of focusing on improving educational practice, schools will compete for the most “desirable” applicants through increased marketing campaigns ).
… the marketing expenditures of Success Charter Network come as local public schools are facing extensive budget cuts. Extra ability to invest in marketing puts them at an advantage, whatever the quality of their product, raising questions not only about this inequitable distribution of funds, but also about the potential negative impact on neighboring public schools.
The underlying concern, however, for many is that Success’ intensely focused financial investment in marketing is reflective of their priorities lying with private goals rather than public aims. After all, it can be argued that the money spent by Success on marketing could, alternatively, have been devoted to educational objectives or support. In fact, on the donation section of the Success Charter Network website, the organization opens by stating, “You can tell a lot about an organization’s priorities by how they spend their money” (Success Charter Network, 2011b). This may likely be very true.
Jack..you are always a wealth of information which I appreciate. But even though our choir here knows much of this, it does not answer how we few get the vast numbers of LAUSD teachers to become activists in their own behalf.
I am sure UTLA and Alex are contacting them through the union site and with other mail….but I am not seeing any mass movement. Union membership and confidence have dropped in recent years.
When you follow the donations of the Broad Foundation, you can see that even public TV and Radio are under Eli’s economic spell. He even pays off his enemies.
Eli has written, and many have read his diatribes, that “he always wins.” (see the 2010 New Yorker article on how he does this in the art world and the business world)
When you have the support of the only major newspaper in Southern California and of the local talking heads who quote only the Times, and when the second largest public school attendance in the nation with tens of thousands of teachers, fut see only a handful who are not bullied into submission, he feels empowered to continue and take it all. It is an extreme ego driven affront that he now uses Deasy, the ultimate toad with compromised moral values, to do his bidding even with all the legal and professional stigma directed at Deasy.
The teachers and the parents in the district must join in huge numbers to fight back on this new Broad 50% charter edict. How do can this happen? Excuses of doing other things is what I have heard now for years, as we lose the charter takeover fight.
Maybe if Diane would move to LA for a few months and could hold public meetings, as she did with her book tour where the auditoriums were filled to capacity with teachers, and education students, and professors, and school board members, and community members, we could create an army that might make an impact on Eli and his hoard.
Jimmy Carter is teaching Sunday school today so I’ll just turn it over to him:
“Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.”
It’s an extraordinary thing for a former President to say. True, too. He wasn’t a real popular President but he was never a liar.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
Los Angeles has been a thorn in the side of the Reformers, particularly Broad because they figured that they would have turned LAUSD into Los Angeles or Chicago by now. The departure of Deasy has Broad double downing on his plans for LAUSD. They see it as the big prize, the second largest district in the country cannot be ignored by them. LAUSD already has the largest number of charters of any district but that is not enough for these guys. This is going to take an all out war against the reformers, something I have yet to see UTLA have the guts to take on. Could it be that they finally recognize the dire threat to public education and are ready for a real fight?
Sorry, meant Lousiana or Chicago (or NY or Pittsburgh or Detroit, the list goes on).
No, what UTLA sees is a rebellion among it’s membership that views a lot of its actions as supporting the district while hurting the membership. If you as a union can’t or refuse to protect your membership, what good are you. The problems unions are facing are a direct result of their refusal to act for their membership. UTLA can run and sign millions of MOU’s with union seeking charters but if they refuse to support that MOU just like they refuse to support the CBA, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.
“Engage John Deasy”? Perhaps he meant fight him. The wording is a little strange though, as if a dialogue with JD would help anything.
Eli immediately hired Deasy when he had to flee from LAUSD as his mismanagement (now being investigated by the FBI and the SEC) became clear to the world, and now Eli has put him in charge of continuing their plan to charterize all of LAUSD (plus killing the unions by fostering Vergara-like lawsuits everywhere, with 11 new ones filed in Ca.).
Villaraigosa, who needs Broad’s cash to run for Ca. Governor next year, has a very ‘brown nose’ and is closely working with Broad and Deasy as he has always done (I have been in the room with them many times hearing their tag team on killing off Ca. public schools in favor of charters), is in on this privtatizing as well. His cousin Perez, former House Speaker, and his close pal Nunez, also a former House Speaker, are under Eli’s cash driven spell. as are other past. current, and future legislators who are friends of Broad and his money. Sadly even a fave of mine Kevin de Leon who is now head of the State Senate, for whom I had high hopes, agrees with them.
it is a mess…and it is all about money. Money to finance legislative runs for office, endless payoffs called donations, and huge profits to be made off free market charter schools.
Yes, Mike, those of us who spent the past 4 years “engaging” John Deasy have repeatedly told our stories on this site. They all end the same way. Deasy LIES…he whores for Broad….and Gates…and the Waltons…and Pearson…but mainly for Broad. .
Many locals surmise that it was Eli who paid for Deasy’s Beverly Hills, hugely expensive, fraud specialist attorney, who cut his final deal with the BoE not to ever sue him if he left quietly.
I drive by a number of charter schools on the way to and from work at a beautiful LAUSD campus with open spaces and the shade of many trees. The charter schools are windowless office buildings within smelling distance of an odiferous city waste removal center. Two are right across the street. They just slapped cute Art Deco signs on the front and called them schools. I never see anyone entering or exiting the buildings. I always wonder who would send their kids there. It would seem inhumane. And their repeated attempts to take over all or part of our public campus have fallen short for many years. Parents and homeowners won’t have it.
My point is this: What gives Broad-Deasy such hubris as to think they can sell a product like charter schools to a larger than small, almost fringe, percent of the population? Or were they planning on building a ghost town on top of our city? If you build it, they will not come.
Earlier this summer, Diane Ravitch wrote a column about choosing the next LAUSD superintendent that included an implied critique of charter expansion:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-ravitch-what-la-needs-in-a-new-school-superintendent-20150723-story.html
In response, Sarah Angel of the California Charter Schools Association, wrote a column totaly distorting what Dr. Ravitch said:
https://laschoolreport.com/commentary-ravitchs-view-on-charters-polarize-rather-than-help/
Well, the question was asked:
Who is Sarah Angel?
First of all, here’s what she’s not:
ell, for starters… while claiming expertise in education…
She has ZERO background or experience in education.
She has NEVER worked as a teacher.
She has NEVER worked as an administrator.
She has NEVER worked in any capacity at any school.
A mother of two children, the eldest a four-year-old daughter, she has ZERO experience with education from the point of view of a parent.
She’s paid a six-figure salary—originating from money the CCSSA receives from California taxpayers and citizens—and is being paid to execute a slow, stealth privatization of schools… whether those same taxpayers want their schools privatized or not.
So, again, who is Sarah Angel, and what is her background?
Here she is leading a CCSA conference module:
http://www.charterconference.org/2015/7892870
At this module, Ms. Angel detailed how “charter school leaders joined forces to turn the tide of a high-stakes school board meeting in their favor despite challenging school board dynamics and a tumultuous political environment. Attendees will also have the opportunity to discuss potential region-specific collective action strategies with peers.”
By the way, this victorious (for privatization/charters) board meeting to which Ms. Angel is referring? It’s the 2013 LAUSD Board meeting where the board voted to retain John Deasy… and the CCSA was part of an astroturf circus with whom the CCSA “joined forces” and successfully pushed to retain Deasy.
For another point of view of this event—somewhat counter to Ms. Angel’s—go here:
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ELLEN LUBIC: “Austin’s claim of an ‘outpouring of public support’ is the biggest lie of all…there was NO ‘outpouring of public support,’ but rather it was a pay day and party day for all the hired actors, the scammed inner city attendees, and all the support staff from the law and PR offices and non profits which were active in the charade (including the CCSA and Ms. Angel) . I researched some of these non profits, and their Boards are filled with lawyers from the same powerful firms who represent the tycoons behind it all.
“These purveyors of planned disruption, all paid by a hidden community of vast wealth and power, created a totally dishonest scenario. They manipulated uninformed inner city people of color once again.
“This sham was put in place not by the public, but by the power players who forced their voices to be the only ones heard.”
Ms. Sarah Beth Angel is a liar!!! Liar, liar, pants on fire!!!
During a contentious school board elections, Sarah Beth Angel sent this letter to voters:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/laschoolreport/charter_group_says_kayser_policies_8216by_no_means_race_neutral8217/
——————–
(FORM LETTER)
Dear__________:
Did you know that there is a critical LAUSD school board election taking place in Northeast Los Angeles and the Southeastern cities of Vernon, South Gate and Huntington Park on March 3? As a registered voter, you could make a big difference in the outcome of this race.
Parent Teacher Alliance is a group of public school parents, teachers and community members who are dedicated to improving education for all children in the LAUSD. We would like to send you email you about the candidates and issues in this campaign.
Sarah Angel
Parent-Teacher Alliance
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Well, as we all now know, thanks to Julie…
Ms. Sarah Angel is neither a “Parent”… of a school-aged child, her eldest being four years old…
Nor is Ms. Angel a “Teacher”… as she has never worked in that capacity.
However, in order to influence voters, Ms. Angel fraudulently posed as such…. as that could be the only inference in the way she billed herself in that letter.
I mean, why didn’t Ms. Angel identify herself by her true title, and instead say that she was at the time…
“Los Angeles Managing Director of Advocacy of the California Charter Schools Association”?
Because that wouldn’t have gotten votes. That’s why!
Liar!!! You are a liar, Ms Angel!!!”
Geronimo caught onto this scam and sent this letter in response:
————-
——————-
Dear Sarah-
First off, let me first express my complete revulsion with your group.
As a National Board Teacher, I find your exploitative use of minority children grotesque and this lame, rah-rah letter you have sent out completely fraudulent in its intent and purpose.
I despise your pedagogy.
Truly, absolutely sickened by it.
I would love an honest debate with your organization to expose your own racism and class-ism. These are not terms I throw about lightly but I honestly believe you have earned them. The recent District 5 campaign flyer you sent out completely epitomizes your organization and the intellectual, behind-the-scene, strategy session that must have gone in to devising it.
You can keep Ref Rodriguez. You can also keep Ms. Galatzan and Dr. Vladovic too. I’m embarrassed by their “commitment” to LAUSD’s children as well. I have no use for what they feel our children need and deserve and their continual service on the Board depresses me no end that they have been in positions of power over LA’s education for so long.
For too long, money has spoken in education and our children are not getting what they truly need.
Alas, my education utopia and yours differs vastly. By re-emailing your solicitation letter to other teachers and educators, I hope others recognize your organization despite the flower power vague wording of your “outreach”. You should know that true Progressive activism in education is explosive and pervasive, despite the removed financial and political powers-that-be that support and endorse YOUR vision of education, not only in LA, but nationwide.
My students desperately need a Parent-Teacher Alliance–
–But certainly not yours.
Sincerely,
Geronimo, NBCT
(that’s National Board Certified Teacher… a prestigious honor)
———————-
————————-
Indeed, this so-called “Parent-Teacher Alliance” was and is nothing more than a bogus astroturf group created by those forces out to privatize public education via the slow expansion of charter schools.
Ms. Angel made even more lies during the recent school board election!!!!
For a measure of how utterly dishonest and sleazy Ms. Angel and her misnamed “Parent-Teacher Alliance” group was, check out this:
http://laschoolreport.com/campaign-against-kayser-turns-negative-with-charter-funded-flyer-lausd/
BACKGROUND: LAUSD Board Member George McKenna was supporting incumbent Board Member Bennett Kayser, and not.. NOT! NOT! NOT!!! … his corporate reform opponent (and eventual winner) Ref Rodriguez, who was supported by the privatization/charter industry.
Well, what did Ms. Angel and “Parent-Teacher Alliance” do? They paid for and sent out millions of fliers knowingly lying, and falsely claiming that …
George McKenna ENDORSED RODRIGUEZ, AND NOT KAYSER???!!!
McKenna was incensed.
http://laschoolreport.com/campaign-against-kayser-turns-negative-with-charter-funded-flyer-lausd/
L.A. SCHOOL REPORT: (who got it right this time at least)
“In a news release this morning, McKenna expressed outrage that his name appears on the flyer, saying the ‘literature is misleading and racially inflammatory in nature.’ McKenna also makes clear he has not sought the group’s endorsement.
GEORGE MCKENNA: “ ‘I reject the statements, accusations and positions promoted by this group as it relates to Board Member Kayser, whom I strongly support for re-election,’ he said.
“He continues: ‘I was not consulted prior to the release of this literature, nor did I give Parent Teacher Alliance permission to use my name. I request that their endorsement of me be withdrawn, and that my name and/or title not be used by them in any of their literature.’ ”
Ellen,
There is a TEACH FOR AMERICA connection to Sarah Angel… via marriage, that is…
Ms. Angel’s husband Dan Nieman is “the Managing Director of Field Engagement at TEACH FOR AMERICA and (TFA’s) ‘Leadership For Educational Equity.’ “. This most likely nets him a six-figure salary.
http://vator.tv/person/dan-nieman
“Dan Nieman is the Managing Director of Field Engagement at LEE. Dan is the liaison between Teach For America and (TFA’s) ‘Leadership For Educational Equity,’ managing the partnership and ensuring that our members are on track to succeed in the fields of politics, policy, and advocacy.”
—————–
Hmmm… both halves of this household are pulling down six-figure salaries in the privatization / charter school indistry.
Alas, this is not uncommon.
Michelle Rhee was formerly married to TEACH FOR AMERICA Executives Kevin Huffman.
TFA Founder Wendy Kopp is currently married to KIPP Charter School CEO Richard Barth (a KIPP/Kopp union, so to speak).
But none of them are in it for the money, of course. They’re in it to help the education of low-income, minority children. Don’t ever forget that.
For those not yet acquainted, Ms. Angel’s husband’s organization—TEACH FOR AMERICA’s “Leadership For Educational Equity”—is a non-transparent and mysterious arm of TEACH FOR AMERICA, one that seeks to place TEACH FOR AMERICA alumni in positions of power, getting them elected or appointed to influential positions to promote privatization of schools and the expansion of charter schools… while not violating the rules governing its non-profit status.
For more on TEACH FOR AMERICA’s “Leadership For Educational Equity,”—where Ms. Angel’s husband is a managing directer— and its lack of cooperation to journalists who want to know its workings, read this piece RETHINKING SCHOOLS’ writer Barbara Miner’s:
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/24_03/24_03_TFA.shtml
(WARNING: it’s long, but well worth reading)
——————————–
BARBARA MINER: “Leadership for Educational Equity, meanwhile, has been less than cooperative in providing IRS documents that, by law, are to be made publicly available within 30 days of a request. In mid-January, after more than two months of LEE’s refusal to provide these documents, Rethinking Schools filed a formal complaint against LEE with the IRS; as of press-time in mid-March, LEE had still not responded.
” … ”
“St. Louis provided a window on many of the complexities of TEACH FOR AMERICA at the local level, but didn’t answer the question of TFA’s national role. So I interviewed others across the country, and also Googled, phoned, and emailed, acquiring reams of studies, reports, and articles on TEACH FOR AMERICA.
“Which is how I came to find out about two of TFA’s newest initiatives: ‘TEACH FOR ALL’ and ‘Leadership for Education Equity.’
” ‘TEACH FOR ALL’ is a global network of like-minded organizations, launched in 2007 to replicate TFA in countries ranging from Argentina to Estonia, from Australia to Germany. ‘Leadership for Education Equity’ (LEE) was founded in 2008 to provide a vehicle for political work and campaigning.
“LEE appears to be crucial to another aspect of TEACH FOR AMERICA’s strategy: TFA’s ambitions in shaping the country’s education policy agenda and encouraging alumni to run for office. My surprise at the media silence around LEE was outdone only by my amazement at LEE’s lack of public transparency.
“The Mysterious ‘Leadership for Education Equity’ (LEE)
“TFA spends significant organizational time, energy, and money on its alumni, who are arguably the source of the organization’s true political power. (The most famous alumni are Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools, and Mike Feinberg and David Levin, founders of the KIPP Schools.)
“LEE is an outgrowth of TFA’s Political Leadership Initiative, which the TFA website says is designed to provide ‘tools, resources, and opportunities to help alumni influence the policies and priorities of local, state, and national government. It also helps prepare them to pursue elected positions.’
“Some 27 TFA alumni are currently in office, nine more are running for office, and more than 700 are interested in ‘pursuing political leadership.’ TFA has a goal of 100 elected officials in 2010.
“The elected officials, however, present a potential quandary, which is where LEE comes in. As a 501(c)4 nonprofit, LEE can engage in lobbying and political campaigning that is either off-limits or strictly curtailed for a 501(c)3 such as TEACH FOR AMERICA.
“Jen Bluestein Lamb, vice president of TFA’s Political Leadership Initiative, who spends part of her time overseeing LEE, agreed to talk about the new organization. At the same time, Bluestein Lamb refused to give me even temporary access to the members-only website that is at the heart of the organization’s work.
“I was hoping that LEE might unlock the door to TFA’s political agenda, so imagine my surprise when Bluestein Lamb said in no uncertain terms,
“JEN BLUESTEIN LAMB: ‘We have absolutely no agenda for LEE. We don’t have an agenda, we don’t have political goals, we don’t have an ideology.’
In fact, she added, ‘Our [501](c)4 does not lobby.’
“I found it hard to believe, but Bluestein Lamb patiently said the same thing in several ways. So then I asked whether there might be any positions deemed out of bounds—say a TEACH FOR AMERICA alumnus wanted to run for office on a platform ending taxpayer support of public education or a total conversion to vouchers.
“Would LEE have any problem with that?
“ ‘No,’ Bluestein Lam responded, although she hoped such a platform would spark ‘a pretty brisk dialogue’ among other alumni.
“Hoping there might be other information to help me understand LEE, I asked if there had been any media articles about the organization. ‘No, not to my knowledge,’ she responded.
” ‘Leadership for Education Equity’ (LEE) was far out of the realm of any 501(c)4 that I knew, especially one that says its mission involves ending the achievement gap and educational inequity. LEE may not lobby or advocate a political agenda but, I asked, has it ever taken a policy position of any sort?
“ ‘No, and we never would,’ she responded.
“ ‘But even the Boy Scouts take policy positions,’ I countered.
“Bluestein Lamb laughed and then repeated, ‘We have never, and never will, take a policy position ourselves.’
“We were at a standstill. I felt I had entered an alternate reality. All this passion, all this talk of social justice and ending educational inequity—but without any political content or ideology or platform of any sort?
“It didn’t make sense.
“If LEE and TEACH FOR AMERICA are as apolitical as they claim, why does the media constantly link TEACH FOR AMERICA with ‘reformers’ who attack the unions and schools of education, and reforms such as entrepreneurially motivated charter schools, even for-profit charters, as necessary alternatives to traditional public schools?
“And if the media is falsely linking TEACH FOR AMERICA to such pro-marketplace reforms, why doesn’t TEACH FOR AMERICA set the record straight?
” … ”
Thanks Julie for your comments on the Angel of public school death. And to Alli and Jack who follow up.
However, no one mentioned that Cortines recently hired the Angel’s backer, and backer of CCSA and also PUC charters owned by new millionaire BoE member Rodriguez (both of which groups Gutierrez worked for) to be overseer of LAUSD charters. Yes, add to this nefarious mix, Juan Cole-Gutierrez. What does this look like to all the readers here? Might you interpret it to be one more Broad FIX? Who got paid for this choice of the fox watching the hen house? Was it a quid pro quo between the accused gay sexual harasser Cortines, and Broad, and the LA Times which is run by gay activist billionaire Austin Beutner?
As most who read this blog know, I was in the midst of the Oct. 29, 2013 expensive charade that was put on by United Way and Parent Revolution as a media event to rationalize the LAUSD BoE decision to reinstate John Deasy despite his failures as the leader of LAUSD and despite a 91% NO CONFIDENCE by LAUSD teachers, the largest in the history of the district . Eli Broad imposed Deasy as Supt. with the insistence and support of then Mayor Villaraigosa, just after Gates got rid of him. This was done with NO national search of any other candidates being considered. It is all documented online.
Many now have great trepidation that this will happen again. The BoE is meeting in San Diego at a retreat this weekend to decide on a search firm to choose the new candidates….various of the writers here have asked for ‘a seat at the table’ to vet all candidates. The BoE has not responded to any who have made this request of them directly for over a year…yet these requests come from their constituents. How is this representative democracy?
Many do not think Broad should be able to pay, or increase, the salaries paid to LAUSD staff nor teachers which he had done for years in order to maintain unelected control of the district. Many do not think that his, and his fellow billionaires, law firm O’Melveny and Myers, one of the most prestigious and costly in the nation, should continue to be hired by the LAUSD district. Clearly there is a monumental conflict of interest here. With theie own legal counsel of Holmquist, why do they need to spend so much more of taxpayers money to hire ‘golden’ lawyers instead of using it to pay for teachers and teacher support staff as nurses and libarians?
With a perceived as questionable election process, using bribery to get uninformed inner city residents to vote for a new Latino BoE member who owns 16 charter schools (which are under suspicion due to two recent audits) and with our one major print media LA Times, downplaying it all and lauding charters on a daily basis, where can the public school education warriors turn for help?,
Ellen, that question about LAUSD’s need for expensive outside lawyering was rhetorical right? Any governmental unit that is as corrupt as this district, with this much conflict of interest and fraud better have good attorneys and let’s face it, if Holmquist is representative of LAUSD’s legal team, they do need outside help.
REED HASTINGS (March 3, 2004):“The importance of the charter school movement is to evolve America from a system where governance is constantly changing… (i.e. democratically elected school boards, where the citizen-taxpayers have decision-making power.) to an all-charter school system, with no traditional public schools under the governance of an elected school board.
Hastings further says charter school chains are superior because “they don’t have an elected school board.” He celebrates New Orleans system where every school is a privately-run charter with ZERO accountability to the public, and where the public has ZERO power to influence their governance.
(1:28 –
REED HASTINGS (March 3, 2004):“Now if we go to the general public and we say, ‘Here’s an argument for why we should get rid of school boards,’ of course, no one’s going to go for that.School boards have been and iconic part of America for 200 years.”
Since in most cities, corporate reformers cannot—in defiance of the public’s preference—do a New Orleans-style wiping out of democratically controlled school boards—as there’s no Katrina-like catastrophe to exploit—Hastings instead recommends a slow, deceptive, stealth strategy. He instructs the charter school backers and their advocates to “work with districts” quietly and “grow steadily”. This means that the charter industry will falsely profess that they wish to co-exist with the traditional public schools, and complement the public school system, while the truth is that they are merely putting on that façade with the ultimate goal being the total elimination of public schools via this “slow growth” strategy.
Make no mistake: the privatizers don’t want a piece, or even pieces of the pie; they want THE WHOLE PIE. They want it all. In any city that they can take it all—i.e. New Orleans—that’s exactly what they do.
The other prong of this strategy is to sabotage the traditional public schools through starving of them of funds, jacking up class size, cutting the arts, libraries, etc. … all to trigger low performance… and use that low performance that they initially and actually caused, as justification for closing public schools and replacing them with private charter management.
Eventually, as the percentage of traditional LAUSD public schools shrinks, and the percentage of charter schools within LAUSD grows, they cost of maintaining the salary, health benefits, retirement, etc.will cause the district to collapse from within.The end game is a small pseudo-“board” whose sole function is to rubber stamp charter school authorizing… and no control actual over charter schools’ functions after doing so… no transparency to the public, no accountability to the public, and that can and will refuse to educate all of the public—i.,e. those who are expensive to educate, and who will not produce high scores on tests… special ed., English language learners, recent immigrants, homeless, foster care.
That’s why out-of-state billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund charter proponents, etc. are pumping millions into charter expansion and school privatization in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Corporate ed. reform theorist and strategist Andy Smarick has let the cat out of the bag as to their secret game plan… still available on-line. (link BELOW) In districts where there is still an elected school board, people like Reed Hastings, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc. finance the campaigns of corporate puppets like Ref Rodriguez and Monica Garcia to carry it out.
BELOW Smarick details this plan of using a slow, stealth charterization to cause the collapse of public school districts and public education overall:
http://educationnext.org/wave-of-the-future/
(If any privatization ever tries to claim that they want charter schools to complement the public school system, or co-exist with public schools to provide parents with “a family of different school options—public, charter private”… RE-READ THIS BELOW. The privatizers don’t want co-existence; they want to conquer and devour all… and don’t you forget it—check out New Orleans… THE WALL STREET PRIVATIZERS / CHARTERIZERS WANT IT ALL).
(CAPS MINE and parentheticals () mine, Jack)
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——————–
ANDY SMARICK:
“Clearly we can’t expect the political process to swiftly bring about charter districts in all of America’s big cities. However, if charter advocates carefully target specific systems with an exacting strategy, the current policy environment will allow them to create examples of a new, high-performing system of public education in urban America.
“Here, in short, is one roadmap for chartering’s way forward:
“FIRST, commit to drastically increasing the charter market share in a few select communities until it is the dominant system and the district is reduced to a secondary provider. The target should be 75 percent.
“SECOND, choose the target communities wisely. Each should begin with a solid charter base (at least 5 percent market share), a policy environment that will enable growth (fair funding, nondistrict authorizers, and no legislated caps), and a favorable political environment (friendly elected officials and editorial boards, a positive experience with charters to date, and unorganized opposition).
“For example, in New York a concerted effort could be made to site in Albany or Buffalo a large percentage of the 100 new charters allowed under the raised cap. Other potentially fertile districts include Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.
“THIRD, secure proven operators to open new schools. To the greatest extent possible, growth should be driven by replicating successful local charters and recruiting high-performing operators from other areas (see Figure 2).
“FOURTH, engage key allies like Teach For America, New Leaders for New Schools, and national and local foundations to ensure the effort has the human and financial capital needed.
“LAST, commit to rigorously assessing charter performance in each community and working with authorizers to close the charters that fail to significantly improve student achievement.
“In total, these strategies should lead to rapid, high-quality charter growth and the development of a public school marketplace marked by parental choice, the regular start-up of new schools, the improvement of middling schools, the replication of high-performing schools, and the shuttering of low-performing schools.
“AS CHARTERING INCREASES ITS MARKET SHARE IN A CITY, THE DISTRICT WILL COME UNDER GROWING FINANCIAL PRESSURE. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. WITH A LOPSIDED ADULT-TO-STUDENT RATIO, THE DISTRICT’S PER-PUPIL COSTS WILL SKYROCKET.
“At some point along the district’s path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city’s investors and stakeholders—taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards—are likely to demand fundamental change.
“That is, EVENTUALLY THE FINANCIAL CRISIS WILL BECOME A POLITICAL CRISIS.
“If the district has progressive leadership, ONE OF TWO BEST-CASE SCENARIOS WILL RESULT:
“THE DISTRICT COULD VOLUNTARILY BEGIN THE SHIFT TO AN AUTHORIZER, developing a new relationship with its schools and reworking its administrative structure to meet the new conditions.
“Or, believing the organization is unable to make this change, THE DISTRICT COULD GRADUALLY TRANSFER ITS SCHOOLS TO AN ESTABLISHED AUTHORIZER.
(In other words… Bye, bye, traditional public schools—the ones accountable and transparent to the citizen-taxpayers! Hello, total privatization of schools where the public loses all input and decision-making power to the private sector! Andy Smarick’s wet-dream-come-true!)
ANDY SMARICK:
“A more probable district reaction to the mounting pressure would be an aggressive political response. Its leadership team might fight for a charter moratorium or seek protection from the courts. Failing that, they might lobby for additional funding so the district could maintain its administrative structure despite the vast loss of students. Reformers should expect and prepare for this phase of the transition process.
“In many ways, replacing the district system seems inconceivable, almost heretical. Districts have existed for generations, and in many minds, the traditional system is synonymous with public education.
“However, the history of urban districts’ inability to provide a high-quality education to their low-income students is nearly as long. It’s clear that we need a new type of system for urban public education, one that is able to respond nimbly to great school success, chronic school failure, and everything in between. A chartered system could do precisely that.”
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That’s the billionaire privatizers’ gameplan that, if elected, a useful (and well-paid) idiot like Ref will execute as he follows the orders of his corporate masters. In short, there’s no New Orleans’ Hurricaine Katrina to go all “Shock Doctrine” on the public school systems in other cities like Los Angeles, so what’s a privatizer to do?
Just induce a financial and political crisis that will eventrually destroy the public schools (re-read Smarick’s plan above). Again, it’s straight out of The Shock Doctrine.
Eventually, as the percentage of traditional LAUSD public schools shrinks, and the percentage of charter schools within LAUSD grows, the cost of maintaining the district’s salary, health benefits, retirement, etc.will cause the district to collapse from within.The end game is then to replace our current board (and democratic system) with a small pseudo-“board” whose sole function is to rubber stamp charter school authorizing… and which has no control actual over charter schools’/charter chains’ functions after doing so… no transparency to the public, no accountability to the public, and that can and will refuse to educate all of the public—i.,e. those who are expensive to educate, and who will not produce high scores on tests… special ed., English language learners, recent immigrants, homeless, foster care.
That’s why out-of-state billionaires, Wall Street hedge fund charter proponents, etc. are pumping millions into charter expansion and privatization.
Again, for a short video summary of Smarick’s plan, watch the Reed Hastings’ speech again:
(Each time I listen to this, I think, “Are these guys so clueless and arrogant to consider that someone in the room could videotape this?” Like when Mitt Romney told a business luncheon that more than 50% of Americans are moochers off the government…)
Implicit in the Smarick Master Plan is for the privatized charter school companies to totally avoid special ed. students (particularly those with the most severe disabilities), on account of the considerable expenses that go into educating them—I.E.P.s regularly done, with SST meetings, extremely low student-to-teacher ratios, highly-trained teachers, extra equipment, handicapped-accessible busing, etc. … and secondarily, to avoid the low test scores special ed kids will produce…
(as Secretary of Ed. Arne Duncan wants the federal government to mandate testing of all disabled students, even if that directly contradicts the recommendations of a child’s state-run I.E.P. to exclude certain special ed kids from such testing… even if the state claims that subjecting those vulnerable students to such testing would constitute child abuse.)
————————
ANDY SMARICK: “The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and OVERSEE SPECIAL EDUCATION.”
——————-
It’s better for the district schools—not charters—to take on the expensive and cumbersome burden of educating all these special ed. students, as these and other expenses will lead to the district collapse which the billionaires and Smarick so devoutly crave.
And of course, when the massive charter expansion causes the financial and political crisis to hit—again, the one deliberately caused by the billionaires in the first place—THEIR NEXT MOVE IS TO BLOCK ANY CHARTER MORATORIUM OR, ANY FINANCIAL RESCUE FROM OUTSIDE THE DISTRICT FOR WHICH THE DISTRICT MIGHT LOBBY THE STATE…
————————
ANDY SMARICK: “A more probable district reaction to the mounting pressure (caused by charter expansion and poaching of students… . … Jack) would be an aggressive political response. Its leadership team might fight for a charter moratorium or seek protection from the courts.
“Failing that, they might lobby for additional funding so the district could maintain its administrative structure despite the vast loss of students (that were poached through an aggressive multi-million-dollar charter marketing campaigns… Jack).
“Reformers should expect and prepare for this phase of the transition process..” (AND THEN BLOCK ANY SUCH RESCUE EFFORTS… Jack)
——————-
In other words, Eli Broad and his allies want to deliberately induce prolonged CHAOS for hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles students, a chaos triggered by massive layoffs, deep cuts in administration, huge class size increases, etc.. .
Again, this will be a premeditated CHAOS that will come as a result of the financial and political crisis that, again, those billionaires willfully, caused in the first place through massive charter expansion, and through poaching of students resulting from multi-million-dollar marketing efforts… (marketing campaigns that neither the traditional public schools nor teachers’ unions have the financial wherewithal to counter with an opposing campaign… since we teachers are too busy… you know… teaching… to also act as agents advertising and promoting our schools.)
The privatizers’ next move is to then BLOCK any effort to thwart or ameliorate this crisis / to save the remaining public schools—while showing an appalling disregard to the damage this will do to the education of hundreds of thousands of students currently enrolled in L.A.’s remaining traditional public schools.
The billionaires and privatizers view this short-term collateral damage visited on students—“breaking eggs to make omelets,” to quote Lenin—as a necessary MEANS to …
…. what they see as a greater END… a fully-privatized, totally unregulated school system,
— where all schools are run privately, and parents/citizens/taxpayers have ZERO decision-making power in how those schools are run …
Mean while, those private sector charter companies in control of schools
— will have ZERO public accountability to the parents/citizens/taxpayers,
— have ZERO public transparency to the parents/citizens/taxpayers, and
— those same private sector charter companies will not have to educate ALL the public—avoiding kids who are special ed., homeless, foster care, kids with disruptive behavior, etc…. and, for those privately-run charter companies, there will be absolutely no consequences—political or otherwise—for failing to educate those students.
Wow, there’s more on Ms. Angel’s husband Dan Nieman.
Again, he’s the Los Angeles Director TEACH FOR AMERICA’s “Leadership for Educational Equity” — a non-transparent and mysterious arm of TFA that seeks get TFA alumni elected or appointed to positions of power in education.
His group promotes infiltration of TFA alumni into government positions in charge of public education. That explains why both he and his wife, Ms. Angel, ran for seats on Studio City’s Neighborhood Council. (ABOVE somewhere)
Here’s more about Dan Nieman, Ms. Angel’s husband.
Sarah’s husband Dan Nieman is a Teach for America alumnus (2001 Corps Member)
Now here’s where it gets weird.
In addition to his being the local Los Angeles Manager of TFA’s “Leadership for Educational Equity”, Dan Nieman is also on the Board of Directors for the “CITIZENS OF THE WORLD” Charter Chain — whose New York City branch is run by SUCCESS ACADEMY’s Eva Moskowitz’ husband, Eric Grannis, if memory serves:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2013/10/citizens-of-world-charter-run-by-evas.html
Anyway, back to Dan Nieman, Sarah Angel’s husband.
Here’s CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s… well… “charter” (excuse the pun)
Click to access CWC_Charter.pdf
Now, go to page 129 (or page 109 of the pdf’s page counter)
–
“BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
“DAN NIEMAN — Mr. Nieman currently serves as Managing Director of the Political Leadership Initiative for ‘Teach For America,’ where he is responsible for managing relationships with a variety of partnerships to support Teach for America alumni in their pursuits of elected office.
“Mr. Nieman also coordinates Teach for America’s School Board Fellows Program and Emerging Political Leaders Fellowship for corps member alumni.
“Mr. Nieman began his career as an elementary school teacher, teaching at P.S. 153 in Harlem with TEACH FOR AMERICA, and then serving as a Founding Teacher of the Bronx Charter School for the Arts for two years.
“Mr. Nieman moved back to his hometown of Los Angeles and participated in the Coro Fellows Program of Public Affairs. Most recently, Mr. Nieman spent the last three years as Director of Community Affairs for LAUSD Board Member Marlene Canter…. ”
–
Now why, you may ask, is Ms. Angel’s husband’s being on the Board of Directors of the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD Charter Chain significant?
First off, because his wife Sarah Angel is the California Charter Schools Association’s point person in protecting and expanding charter schools in Los Angeles, especially in the divisive and controversial context of co-locations, as Julie Tran discovered.
Julie found a video where Sarah Angel sings the praises of co-location, and showcases the chummy relationship CCSA has the LAUSD and its charter executive Jose Cole-Guttierez:
——————-
00:54
00:54
SARAH ANGEL: “I want to to thank Jose for continuing to be a partner. We are texting and on the phone multiple times-a-week, and meeting face-to-face practically weekly now, and I think… ummm… that’s a testament to the strength of this partnership, and room for growth.”
—————–
Secondly… well while Ms. Angel, one half of the Neiman-Angel household was out promoting co-location, her husband’s charter chain, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, has been, without a doubt, the worst actor in the history of LAUSD charter co-locations, causing a disaster at almost every pre-existing school in which it co-locates.
Activist Robert Skeels covered their invasion of Micheltorena Elementary in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles:
http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2012/03/open-letter-to-silver-lake-nc-regarding.html
http://atthechalkface.com/2013/07/08/solidaridad-the-99-cents-store-school-brought-to-you-by-the-lucrative-charter-school-industry/
Parent activist Adam Benitez chronicled in detail CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s one-year invasion of Stoner Elementary in the Mar Vista Neighborhood in this highly entertaining blog here:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/
Note, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s co-location at Benitez’ kid’s public school Stoner lasted but one year—2013-2014—before its officials outrageous conduct and the parent activism opposing CITIZENS OF THE WORLD drove them out. Benitez is reportedly writing a book about this horrific year, adapting his blog entries.
Here are some highlights from Benitez’ blog:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/05/cwc-parent-caught-vandalizing.html
“The Stolen Yard Signs” — A pro-CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parent grabbed all the anti-CITIZENS OF THE WORLD yard signs that neighbors had posted on their lawns. Benitez and his wife found the signs in the backseat of this parent’s car. When confronted, the vandalizing thief-of-a-parent claimed “that the wind blew them there.” He’s being prosecuted.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/04/flashback-cwc-admin-meets-with-stoner.html
“Combination Lock”—instead of hiring a security guard to sit and watch the fence entrance to the campus—that serves as entry to both CITIZENS OF THE WORLD and Stoner campuses—CITIZENS OF THE WORLD officials cheaped out, and gave out the combination to the lock to all of its parents…. thereby putting the safety of both school’s students at risk… as now hundreds of people now had the combo, and can get onto the campus whenever one of them felt like it.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/07/flashback-cwc-karma-tickets.html
“Karma Tickets”—the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD morning drop-off was a street-clogging disaster, greatly inconveniencing the neighbors (some Stoner parents, some not), who then called L.A. Parking Enforcement on CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parents’ illegally parking their cars while dropping their kids off, resulting in parking fines.
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD responded by handing the neighbors packets of newly-created “Karma Tickets” that the neighbors could put on the parents’ cars’ windshields instead. The design and font resembled actual L.A. parking tickets.
As Benitez said, that’s like having your dogs dump all over the neighborhood, then handing out plastic bags to the neighbors for THEM to all those dumps up.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2015/03/bombshell-cwc-docs-released-follow-up-4.html
“The Naked Student Hose Down”—after a CITIZENS OF THE WORLD student had a bathroom accident, the child’s (uncredentialed?) teacher took the child outside and, in plain view of those in school community, as well as those citizens in the neighborhood and… I’m not making this up… stripped the child naked, the proceeded to hose him down with a garden hose, like he was livestock on a farm. In addition to being child abuse and outrageous, it posed a health hazard to the kids at both schools.
When confronted, CITIZENS OF THE WORLD officials were like… “Yeah.. so what? It’s no big deal… Get over it… ” but then stonewalled the release of any of its internal documents, then redacted them when they were later forced by a Freedom of Information request.
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/06/flashback-cwc-protest-1-whats-in-gate.html
“The Strangler Vine Metaphor”—captured on video, one of the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD parents let the mask drop, and signaled CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s true intentions—not co-location, but conquest; he compared CITIZENS OF THE WORLD’s school to a young and healthy tree sending out “strangler vines” to strangle the older, rotting, dying tree standing next to it (Stoner Elementary):
Here’s that video:
(you can see Karen Wolfe, pro-public education parent activist and regular blogger here, frame right)
–
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: (at 03:23) “He’s saying that if this (the new CITIZENS OF THE WORLD school) ends up expanding to be a good school in the neighborhood –
KAREN WOLFE: “Oh, so that’s a good thing? So let me ask you a couple questions-”
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD PARENT: “I mean if you’ve got a tree that’s dying, and the strangler (vine from the young tree) that’s healthy grows around it, eventually the rotting tree goes away.”
–
Needless to say, rhetoric such as this—comparing a beloved neighborhood school that’s served students for generations to a rotting, near-dead tree that needs to die so the charter can take its place—did not sit well with Benitez and the other Stoner Parents, as Stoner has been educating those neighborhood students for generations.
After a year (2014-2015) of being free of charter co-location, Benitez is reporting that LAUSD’s Jose Cole-Guttierez, perhaps in retaliation, is foisting another Charter Chain, ICEF, on the Stoner campus this fall.
Benitez is finishing up his book about this unending charter school horror that CITIZENS OF THE WORLD brought to the Stoner community. He’s currently vetting it with lawyers. Once I buy it, it’s going up on my shelf with “Chronicle of Echoes” and “Reign of Error.”
Also CITIZENS OF THE WORLD has also gotten horrific press all the way over in New York City:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/04/exposing-segregation-tactics-of-eric.html
In part because of actions similar to those detailed by by Adam Benitez in Los Angeles,
parents in New York City are suing CITIZENS OF THE WORLD:
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130129/greenpoint/parents-sue-state-for-approving-citizens-of-world-charter-school
“WILLIAMSBURG — A local parent group is suing the state for approving a controversial charter school’s entrance in the neighborhood this fall without sufficient “support from the impacted community.”
“CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, a charter elementary slated to co-locate with two other schools across McCarren Park on Leonard Street, garnered support from only a “select, cultivated group of parents” and held “hidden meetings,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Kings County State Supreme Court last month.
“The members of WAGPOPS (Williamsburg and Greenpoint Parents for Our Public Schools), the parent group who filed the suit, claim that the state illegally ignored significant community opposition to the new charter.
” ‘We do not believe they abided by the law by accepting this school,’ said WAGPOPS member Brooke Parker. ‘It was done sneakily and they ignored the impact on our community, and they should be held accountable for this.’
“Citizens of the World, a Los Angeles-based network promoted by Eric Grannis — the husband of Success Academy’s director Eva Moskowitz — has received fierce criticism from WAGPOPS, Williamsburg Community Board One, local teachers and politicians over the past year… ”
and on it goes…
It’s interesting that Ms. Angel, whose job it is to promote and expand charter school growth LAUSD is married to someone whose charter chain has such a dismal record in LAUSD charter school locations .
Surely, when Ms. Angel ran the “co-locating-charters-are-wonderful-for-all” seminar in the video…
… she was well aware of the disasters that her husband’s Charter Chain was wreaking on various L.A. neighborhoods and pre-existing public schools.
Don’t Ms. Angel and her husband talk to each other? Oh that’s right, they’re married… maybe they don’t.
One more thing:
Ms. Angel—in her capacity as the California Charter Schools’ Association’s Los Angels Outreach Director—is paid to promote and expand charter schools in Los Angeles (and also trash the pre-existing traditional public schools as failure factories staffed by lazy LIFO unionized teachers… blah-blah-blah… )
At the same time—in the case of those same privately-run schools that Ms. Angel is paid to promote and expand—the private management at those schools hires a significant amount of its TEACH FOR AMERICA teachers to staff its schools—in some cases 100% of the faculty being TEACH FOR AMERICA Corps Member teachers.
So keep connecting the dots…
TEACH FOR AMERICA, you recall, is an organization that Ms. Angel’s husband Dan Nieman also promotes and of which he is part, as TEACH FOR AMERICA’s Los Angeles point person.
http://vator.tv/person/dan-nieman
—————–
“Dan Nieman is the Managing Director of Field Engagement at LEE. Dan is the liaison between Teach For America and (TFA’s) ‘Leadership For Educational Equity,’ managing the partnership and ensuring that our members are on track to succeed in the fields of politics, policy, and advocacy.”
—————–
So in essence… the more privately-managed charter schools that Ms. Angel can help add to LAUSD, the more her husband’s TEACH FOR AMERICA organization will likewise benefit and expand, and the more that she and her husband’s household will also financially benefit…
This, in turn, makes the supposed benefit that charters supposedly offer to poor kids allegedly seeking charters (as Ms. Angel claims in her op-ed)… making all that at best, a secondary concern for Ms. Angel and her husband, Mr. Nieman… if that. Their actual goal is personal profit, not improving educational opportunities for L.A.’s children.
This doesn’t seem right. Isn’t there a conflict of interest here somewhere? If not with Mr. Angel and Mr. Nieman, then with Jose Cole-Gutterez, or with new LAUSD Board Member (and former PUC Charter CEO) Ref Rodriguez—a dues-paying member of the California Charter Schools’ Association?
Just askin’…
One more thing about the Sarah Angel / Dan Nieman (CCSA / TFA) combined household income.
Each of them makes in the range of $150,000 – 250,000 — their individual salaries being paid for by the privatization / corporate reform world (with money that, in part, originates from taxpayers, whether or not those same taxpayers want their schools privatized).
That’s a combined household income of $300,000-500,000 for two people in their early 30’s.
However, from the perspective of Eli Broad and his billionaire privatization allies, this is money well spent if it leads to the destruction of public education in Los Angeles, and that system then being replaced by one of privatized charter schools—i.e. if Los Angeles’s school curretn system gets turned into a system like that in New Orleans.
That’s why Ms. Angel earns her pay by writing pro-privatization screeds like the one where she attacked Dr. Ravitch, when Dr. Ravitch objected to charter expansion in Los Angeles:
http://laschoolreport.com/commentary-ravitchs-view-on-charters-polarize-rather-than-help/
Keep earning your forty pieces of silver, Ms. Angel!
Alli…you mention Marlene Kanter who was on the LAUSD BoE. When she left, she opened charter schools. Look her up and see her Board of Directors. All her hugely wealthy and well known in our community.
Broad figures in here too. I tried to get Diane Ravitch a speaking engagement with Los Angeles World Affairs Council two years ago, but they would not let her speak, even when she volunteered to do so at no charge. Their Board members include members of Kanter’s Charter Schools Board and advisors. They had invited Michelle Rhee to speak only months before, and Eli introduced her as the greatest educator in the nation…and he doted on her.
These folks are all in on it and they meet in their wealthy enclaves in LA and decide the fate of our public schools. They are arrogant and overbearing and threatening.
Thanks to Diane for this post and UTLA for bringing John Deasy out into the open. It hurts the reformsters to have known (even while unconvicted) criminals like him and Michelle Rhee as their spokespeople. All we who care about democracy and education have to do is keep saying the name. Let’s keep talking about Deasy!
I bring up Deasy here almost daliy…but this is far from enough. Everyone who is incensed by this corporate shill owned by his master, Eli Broad, should be talking and writing about it continuously to the greater world, the greater audience. Each person here should send letters to the editors of their own papers, write about it on their own blogs and the many ed blogs, and should be writing and calling their own BoE members, and those at LAUSD. Plus writing and calling the FBI and SEC and demanding justice in the investigation of John Deasy. He should probably be indicted for his actions at LAUSD.
Martha Stewart spent jail time on a charge of insider trading for investing $250 K, of her own money, while John Deasy wasted close to $700 Million of the public’s taxpayer money, ostensibly in one case for colluding on insider iPad and Pearson bidding, and on others that cost the district endless lawsuit awards, plus vast misuse of funds making tech decisions he knew would fail. Broad was behind him all the way, for if he could have bankrupted the district, Broad and his cronies could have profited greatly.
Writing here is preaching to the choir. If you want to do real good, and be an true activist, please carry the LAUSD message you learn about here, to the outside world, all over the country. Some papers might even pick up on it and not be afraid of their owners and print the story, as the Washington Post did with Rafe Esquith, the spectacular teacher who is now in teacher jail as part of this vast scheme to destroy public ed.
if you have clout with mass media sources like 60 Minutes, help us out by contacting them.
All very true. I have little clout with social and mass media , — always been nervous about being the next in a long line of Rafe Esquiths for activism in the open — but I’m working on it. It’s been so hot in Southern California lately, 451 degrees Fahrenheit. But I could talk to some people I know about proper law law enforcement, as you suggest. It’s a good idea. Thank you, Ellen.
I will also speak to my chapter chair about supporting the UTLA dues increase restructuring. And I will continue to post comments “anonymously” in latimes.com, as I have since the day I saw Michelle Rhee brandish her broom fire a principal on the PBS Newshour.
Ellen I know Dz was the implementation of the de formers illegal and harmful policies in LAUSD but it’s the money men who we need to get. Dz is like the small time drug dealer while we want the bosses behind the whole operation. Make no mistake, this was a planned, organized attack against public education in Los Angeles and other places, aided by the teachers union. Where is the Feds? Seems like a perfect case to use the RICO prosecution. The scope of this attack is wide and the prosecutions also need to be comprehensive.
LeftCoast…please contact me at
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
I can put you in touch with other teachers who are doing just this…and thank you for your comments and activism. As mainly retired educators, we formed the organization to help working teachers fight back and stay anonymous to avoid teacher jail.
Crossposted at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Los-Angeles-Teachers-Will-in-General_News-Children_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Fired-150830-880.html#comment561002
with this comment, which has embedded links if you go to the page.
Do you know how long this has been ongoing?
It creates an ignorant citizenry and makes the corporate entities and the hedge funds rich. It is a BRAVE NEW WORLD WITH NO PUBLIC EDUCATION and the end of democracy
Lenny Isenberg put up Perdaily.com years ago to show the assault on teachers and the dismantling of public education. He blew the whistle on social promotion and they but not the sleaze superintendent Deasy.
The corruption is astonishing…and this is the second largest school district of the 15,880 in this nation.
Lenny who also write at CityWatch
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
offers a look at the PROCESS that lets them do this…how the civil rights of teachers are non-existent. They fabricate charges and the union looked the other way for years. Read what Kathleen Carroll said years ago. She laid our the corruption
I wrote about this years ago, too, when at the top of my career they came after me.
Once the practitioners are gone, of course the school fails.
They build in failure and then replace a public school with a private school that does not educator everyone.
BTW California won’t release scores until around Sept 9!
Though articles are coming out about how they look overall. Low, but not as low as some feared/expected.
http://laschoolreport.com/california-sets-sept-9-for-release-of-common-core-test-results/
Because of the pressure we all put on the state, the LA Times today said they will be posting the scores. It is only by watching carefully and consistently and shouting out the facts, that all these folks will be forced into honest behavior.
Quoting a new report that just came out, CURMUDGUCATION’s Peter Green ticks off the different ways that Eli Broad’s desired endgame—a totally charter-ized, privatized schools system—would be a disaster for the communities in Los Angeles (or other cities):
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/08/report-on-systematic-crushing-of-non.html
——————
FRAGMENTATION OF POLITICAL POWER — Local folks have no say in any aspect of the privatization. Charters answer to their own governing board, and as “recovery” and “achievement” districts spring up, even corporate control is unmanageable spread out.
In Detroit, there are at least 45 separate entities running schools;
in New Orleans there are 44, and nobody who is actually responsible for keeping track of all New Orleans students. The cracks through which one can fall are now huge, and the ability of local parents and voters to seek solutions from the People In Charge has been erased.
LOSS OF COMMUNITY-BASED INSTITUTIONS — In many poor communities, the school is one stable community center. But state takeover invariably involves “freeing” students from “the tyranny of geography.” Saying that students should not be trapped in a particular school because of their address sounds noble, but in practice it means that the neighborhood loses one more unifying, strengthening connection (I recommend Robert Putnam’s Our Children for a clear and thorough explanation of why that’s a very bad idea). But in Chicago, some neighborhoods have no schools at all.
INCREASED SEGREGATION — The numbers are in, and charter schools exacerbate segregation. Now, frankly, local control in the hands of racist jerks can not only support segregate, but can make the effects of it far worse. But even in those cases, there is an electoral remedy. In state-run charter systems, there is no remedy at all.
FINANCIAL INSTABILITY — Let me say it one more time– if you think you can run multiple parallel school systems and maintain a total system with far more capacity than you use and do it all for the same costs as a single public system, you are a dope. And of course by the time the state steps in, the school district has already been starved of resources and needs more than simply maintenance-level support. As we’ve also seen repeatedly, the charters who are hired to run these schools commit to doing the job only as long as it suits them financially.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT FROM GOVERNMENT — On top of all that, let’s consider a state like Ohio, which has exercised no educational or financial oversight over its charters, leading to a system that is laughably full of graft, corruption and incompetence. And yet, the state now wants to start taking over school districts and hiring a CEO to serve as conductor on the charter gravy train that will take the public school’s place.
On top of this, it has to be said– and AROS says it– that this state-led destruction of democracy and school systems is happening almost exclusively in poor black and brown communities, communities that sometimes welcome the takeover because the neglect has previously been so bad, only to discover that state takeovers leave local citizens without a democratic voice or a community school for their children.
Read the whole report– it’s not too long and while it doesn’t really break any new ground, it puts many of the pieces of this mess in one clear and cohesive narrative that can help you wrap your head around this huge disenfranchisement of American citizens in our poorest communities.
I put up the Curmuducation link at Oped
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Report-on-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Citizens_Democracy_Destruction_Disaster-150831-808.html#comment561062
with links to this blog embedded in this comment:
“Go to the blog of Diane Ravitch and put privatization into the search field and learn how fast the road to opportunity is being co-opted. A good is A Slick Campaign for Privatization: “The forces advocating privatization of public schools are well-funded and relentless. They cloak their goals in high-flown rhetoric about “saving kids from failing schools.” Or they cynically claim the mantle of the civil rights movement as they seek to disrupt communities and replace public control with private ownership.”
Submitted on Monday, Aug 31, 2015 at 10:09:27 AM”
Who made Broad the determiner of how L A schools would be structured? Well, for one, the BOE did. Anytime you accept his money, place his people in your district and allow him to pay them, anytime you place his choice of superintendent at the head of your district and endorse all his deform policies, who wouldn’t think they ruled LAUSD world. The BOE did it to itself and the district. Are we to believe now that the failed teachers union just woke up to these facts. Please UTLA, until you obtain legal insurance for your membership, you’re just a shrill in a long line of do nothing teachers unions. I wish that were not true because I love the concept of teachers union but you have to convince thousands of abused teachers that you’re more than just a dues collection organization.
And yesterday, Paula, the BoE met out of town, in a retreat with ZERO transparency yet again. And tomorrow they are doing the same, a closed meeting at Beaudry….to decide in secret which search firm to use to find the new Supt. And Cortines will help with the selection. Cortines was Deasy’s original mentor when Broad and Villaraigosa told him to hire Deasy as his Assistant Supt.
It is a shell game. Literally, which nut has the pea (as in $) under it?
We need massive shout outs from the public to let trusted community members sit in and help choose candidates and then help vet them.
Though Ratliff and Schmerelson seem intent on doing it right, they have an uphill battle with the others. Rodriguez and Garcia are a lost cause, and are toadies to their big money charter/privatizer billionaire puppet masters, and Vlad and Zimmer have shown in the past how weak and devious they are. Only McKenna is a question mark right now.
I do NOT trust the BoE and Cortines to over rule Eli Broad and choose someone viable and with clean hands. Do you?
Heck no! It’s too much kickback money involved and the administrative leadership in LAUSD is easily bought. The only way I see to get these deformers out of our school district is a strong opt out movement and become investigators ourselves to discredit their interests in public education. Eventually, their arrogance and misuse and abuse of our student body will get them. As educators, we know why we do what we do for our students. We might not be successful all the time but we don’t do it for financial gain and enrichment. That has to mean something, I’m hoping it means everything good for public education.
When I think about how long Lenny Isenberg has been fighting the corruption in LAUSD, I begin to give up that we can ever win against the $$$ that pours in from the oligarchs who what to see public education GONE!
http://www.perdaily.com/2012/03/brave-new-world-no-public-education-no-democracy-by-simone-harris.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/10/post-4.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-teacher-kilroy-was-here-and-retribution-wasnt-far-behind.html
Love you Paula…we will hang in and keep fighting.
UTLA members should be prepared for when Broad Foundation “asset” Randi Weingarten (so described in the Foundation’s 2009 annual report) helicopters in at a critical moment to “assist” teachers in Los Angeles, and make sure to do everything possible to limit the harm her betrayals will cause…
This past weekend I attended a fund raiser. Steve Zimmer, a LAUSD school board member was there. I sent him this private message a day later.
{I was glad to see you supporting the PYFC last night. I was at Table 7 along with my husband.
I wanted to make you aware of an alert I shared with both Oscar and other SMMUSD school board members as well as with our City Manager, Rick Cole, regarding Cradle to Career. Rick is looking into all of this now as is the school board.
The issue is SAFETY.
The topic is Privacy – from the careful vetting of research collected, to acting in accordance with FERPA, to back door arrangements that put our children’s data in too many hands for many wrong reasons, to loopholes used to circumvent the law, etc.
For starters, I’d like to forward to you an iteration of the letter I sent to Rick on Wednesday, along with some supporting information. What LAAUSD is doing with it’s involvement with the Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood (LAPN) is something I believe you need to be taking a closer look at.
If following the law and kids safety matters to you, which I believe it does, then you’ll want to read my letter.
This is a good place to start the conversation – back at the beginning of it all:
Why was U.S. Dept Of Ed Analyst, Paul Gammill, fired? Because he voiced concerns over the FERPA law.
He was in charge of directing and advising on the proposed P-20 cradle to career operation.He was appointed the director of the newly formed USDE Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO).
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/01/ferpa
Clash Over Student Privacy | InsideHigherEd
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department has fired the top federal official charged with protecting student privacy, in what the dismissed official says was a conflict with the agency’s political leaders over their zeal to encourage the collection of data about students’ academic performance.
insidehighere}
Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education! This NEO LIB department of policy pimp profiteers does everything to data mine for profit, (think Chaney war mongering), eliminate REAL teachers, and privatize public schools. $$$$
Eliminate cradle to career – the format is all wrong. Do not allow your city to have access to your child’s information, thereby creating a de facto profile on each one.
I wonder how much money we’d save by eliminating the department? How much privacy kids would gain?
http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition/competititive-preference-priority