John Deasy liked to dine in the best restaurants.
True, he didn’t bill for dinners at Per Se in Manhattan, where the average meal may cost $600 or more. (However, the list is just a small sampling of three years of expenses.)
Fortunately, Eli Broad and Casey Wasserman picked up many of these bills as a public service. Or maybe it was the taxpayers of Los Angeles.
It may be just a small sampling, but take a look at these swell meals.
Zahira Torres and Howard Blume wrote a blockbuster assessment of John Deasy’s tumultuous tenure as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School
District. Being good reporters, they bent over backwards to tell this sordid tale without rendering judgment. But the facts they present are damning. They were largely gathered from Deasy’s travel and expense records, which the reporters obtained by a Freedom of Information request.
1. He had a heavy travel schedule, which took him away from the district for 200 days. His travels interfered with his responsibilities.
“At key moments of tumult in the district, the records show, Deasy was simply not in town….
“The beginning of the end came a year ago, just before the school year started. Deasy was in New York to discuss challenges threatening education reform.
“Back at home, the city’s public schools were in disarray. By the time Deasy returned for the first day of classes, a malfunctioning scheduling system had forced students into gyms and auditoriums to await assignments. Some of them ended up in the wrong courses, putting their path to graduation in jeopardy.
“Two months later, in October, a Superior Court judge ordered state education officials to meet with Deasy to fix the scheduling problems that he said deprived students of their right to an education. But Deasy flew to South Korea the next morning to visit schools and meet government officials. A week later, he resigned, under pressure, as head of the nation’s second-largest school system.”
2. He spent lavishly on travel and meals; foundations with their own agenda subsidized his expenses.
“Deasy, who was paid $350,000 a year as superintendent, took more than 100 trips, spent generously on meals as he lobbied state and national lawmakers and wooed unions, foundations and educational leaders, according to credit card receipts, calendars and emails obtained under the California Public Records Act.
“Deasy spent about $167,000 on airfare, hotels, meals and entertainment during his tenure; half paid by philanthropists and foundations, and the other half by the district. Private foundations often make contributions to school districts, and the LAUSD’s position is that those funds can be used for the superintendent’s expenses.
“Among the philanthropists who subsidized his expenses, according to district records, were entertainment executive Casey Wasserman and Eli Broad, both of whom support education causes through their foundations.
“Deasy attended conferences and held meetings in cities including Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. The tab for an evening with teachers union officers at Drago Centro in Los Angeles ran to more than $1,000. During a one-night stay at the Four Seasons hotel in New York, for which he spent $900, he met, among others, Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and president of the Emerson Collective, which awards grants and invests in education initiatives.”
3. Deasy was hired without a national search. “Influential philanthropists” and then-Mayor Villaraigosa selected Deasy. We may safely assume that Eli Broadwas one of those influential philanthropists.
4. Deasy’s pals in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and those “influential philanthropists” poured millions into school board elections to defeat Deasy critics and elect Deasy allies.
“Groups with ties to Silicon Valley and Wall Street have played growing roles in the education reform movement by donating to school board candidates. The Emerson Collective, along with Broad and others, put hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns for board members who supported Deasy’s goals.”
5. Despite his large salary, Deasy asked his powerful friends to pay for some of his expenses. Here is one example, that a tuay sounds humiliating to Deasy, who extends a begging bowl to Eli Broad.
“Some board members said they also worried that by requesting and accepting reimbursement for travel from Wasserman, Broad and others who supported his reform efforts, Deasy was creating the perception that he might give a special hearing to those donors.
“In an email, for example, Deasy sought a “scholarship” from Broad to attend a dinner in New York honoring two education leaders who shared his vision for turning around troubled school districts.
“Would Eli support my attendance at an event?” Deasy wrote in October 2011 to Gregory McGinity, a senior official with the Broad Foundation. “I do not have such means to buy the ticket myself…. Do you think he would ‘scholarship’ me?”
“The Broad Foundation reimbursed the district $1,400 for Deasy’s airfare and hotel. A board member of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank hosting the event, covered the superintendent’s $1,500 ticket for the dinner, according to the email.”
6. Deasy’s iPad fiasco was a disaster that is now being investigated by the FBI.
“Deasy’s signature effort to provide iPads to all students failed, and the cost of untangling the troubled student records system has now topped $200 million.”
7. Deasy had to go not only because of the iPad mess and the disaster with the district’s computer programming, but because he testified for the plaintiffs when LAUSD was sued in the Vergara case, instead of testifying for the district he led.
“Board President Steve Zimmer said Deasy’s confrontational approach reached a breaking point for him when the superintendent became a star witness for the plaintiffs in Vergara vs. California.
“That case, now on appeal, was heralded by national school reformers for making it easier to fire teachers and ending the current practice of layoffs based on seniority. It angered teachers who believed that they were under constant attack from the superintendent, who did not consult the board about the litigation.
“Once he chose to do what he did in the way that he did it, I knew I could no longer support his superintendency,” Zimmer said. “There was no reason he had to be on that stand.”
And where does Deasy work now? For Eli Broad, training school district leaders based on his own experience as a leader of the reform movement.
The Denver Public Schools awarded a large contract to “Relay Graduate School of Education” to train principals and other staff in the public schools. This year, 70 Denver administrative personnel attended Relay training.
The first thing you need to know about Relay is that it is not really a “graduate school of education.” It just calls itself one. It has no scholars, no researchers, no Ph.D. holders on its “faculty.” It is an organization created by three “no excuses” charter chains to train teachers for charter schools.
The second thing you need to know is that this ersatz “graduate school” is landing contracts in many place: “In addition to its initial location in New York City, Relay now has campuses in Chicago, Delaware, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, Newark, NJ, and Philadelphia and Camden. Whitehead-Bust said a Denver campus is planned in the coming year.”
Read the article. If you think of teachers as professionals, you may find it mind-boggling.
For example:
The philosophy of Relay
The educational philosophy behind the program is that with increased and purposeful observation and practice in certain teaching and management techniques, teachers and principals can help their students’ focus, learn better, and subsequently perform better on tests. The data, as measured by test scores, are then analyzed to determine a student’s, a teacher’s and a school’s success.
The program promotes tightly controlled school environments where students follow strict routines.
For example, the Relay 2014 curriculum proposed a 13-step process to describe how students should walk inside their schools, including the following:
• “Scholars enter the building and walk down the steps (holding on to the railing) with lips zipped
• Scholars then walk in HALL [Hands by your side; All eyes forward; Lips zipped; Legs walking safely] position to their table and greet the lead teacher
• Scholars sits (sic) down and begin to eat their breakfast with lips zipped
• After eating breakfast the scholar gives the non-verbal signal (hand on top of head) to signal he/she is finished eating and ready for clean up.”
Terms such as “grit,” “no-nonsense nurturing,” “sweat the small stuff,” and “no excuses” are often used to qualify this type of approach…..
The Critics
Although no one can learn in a chaotic, disorderly environment, the approach has its critics. Some educational activists note that a punitive environment and the push for increased test scores diminish students’ love of learning. In the same way, the pressure for teachers to constantly “perform” and outperform themselves strains their enthusiasm for teaching to the point where some leave the profession.
Others push the criticism further, declaring that such an approach endangers the fabric of our democracy, quashing creativity, innovation, critical voices and public engagement.
“Relay is dehumanizing schools,” says Peggy Robertson, teacher and co-founder of United Opt-Out National. “It creates compliance via punitive behavior and teaching models. It places an intense focus on data collection techniques that dumb down learning. It creates an environment void of thinking – for teachers and for students.”
The program recommends that principals or school leaders greet every student in the morning. Although this seems to function as a friendly gesture, it is also a control method to check uniforms, check who is walking according to HALL position, etc.
Such a greeting, repeated day after day, eventually loses its authenticity and becomes robotic.
The two schools of thought have been part of a national conversation that will be repeated in the upcoming DPS school board elections. They are at odds with each other in what seems to be irreconcilable differences between the corporate reform movement of which Relay is an active part, and more grassroots actors who demand that educators be recognized as trained professionals and not under constant fire from administrators.
The latter feel their voices have been eradicated from the larger political conversation about education….
Would Denver classrooms benefits more from smaller class sizes and having more paraprofessionals in each classrooms, especially in the early years when literary is fundamental to future success? How do we find the right balance?
Perhaps we need a test to answer that question!
Lynn Kalinauskas is chair of the education committee for Greater Park Hill Community, Inc.
Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about the ruinous, failed policy of closing schools because of their test scores.
This odious, undemocratic practice started with No Child Left Behind, where it was adopted as a sanction for “failing schools.” Any school that couldn’t raise test scores for five years in a row was labeled a failing school, without regard to its needs and struggles. No matter how loudly the community protested, the school was closed.
Race to the Top continued this practice, even though there was no record of success. Frequently, the school closures cleared the way for charters, which didn’t enroll the children with disabilities and the English language learners. Those children were shunted off to another “failing school.”
Nothing so fully epitomizes the failure of corporate reform as closing schools instead of helping them improve.
Carmen Farina, Chancellor of the New York City public schools, here describes her plans to improve the public schools in a district with 1.1 million students. She wrote this post in response to my request to outline her priorities. The last three Chancellors in Néw York City were non-educators. Many educators were delighted when Mayor Bill de Blasio selected an experienced educator to run the system. It is also welcome to hear the chancellor talk of collaboration, not competition.
“Toward a More Perfect School System
“September has always been my favorite month. I love it because it’s a time of possibilities, when every child can be reached and every parent can be engaged in their child’s education. This September has added meaning for me: it’s my 50th as a New York City public school educator. I’ve seen many changes over the past five decades and I am pleased that one thing hasn’t changed: our most important work still happens in the classroom, with teachers and administrators who are committed to doing whatever it takes to help all our of students realize their dreams.
“I am proud of the strides we have made over the past 20 months, restoring dignity and respect to the craft of teaching and school leadership. We continue to focus our attention on teacher recruitment and retention, providing mentoring and other supports so that our teachers feel valued and continue to grow professionally; every student deserves to learn from an excellent, engaged teacher. We have successfully moved from a system of competition to one of collaboration. Our educators have embraced the new spirit of cooperation that informs all of our work. This summer alone, thousands of teachers, principals, and superintendents attended professional development sessions on topics ranging from STEM and information technology to building a leadership pipeline and creating a college-going culture in schools. This year, we also created a new, streamlined school support structure under the direction of strong, experienced superintendents. The approach, which marries accountability and support with innovation, aims to provide all of our schools with the tools help they need to improve instruction, operations, and student services.
“Now, we are building on that progress. This fall, every four-year-old in the City will have access to free, full-day, high-quality pre-kindergarten. It’s extremely satisfying to know that our youngest learners will have an additional year of rich academic experiences. We are targeting extra supports to our Renewal Schools and we will have 130 new Community Schools, with wrap-around services that meet the whole needs of all of our students. As a former English Language Learner, I am also proud of the 40 new Dual Language Programs we are opening. A multi-lingual, multi-cultural education is crucial for our students, and our nation, to compete in the global economy.
“Finally, we have renewed our commitment to parent engagement, which we know plays a critical role in student achievement. With a new, strong leader overseeing family and community engagement, we will deepen the connection between schools and communities. The 40 minutes schools set aside each week to involve families in their schools will ensure that the entire community puts the interests of students front and center.
“We realize that challenges remain and we won’t rest until all of our students graduate from high school fully prepared to pursue the future they imagine for themselves. This September, I am excited to take up that challenge once more, and I am optimistic because I know that all of our brilliant educators share my mission to create a more perfect school system.”
Fariña is New York City Schools Chancellor.
Historian and teacher John Thompson reminds us of why unions are necessary: to protect workers against predatory, greedy, heedless bosses.
He tells about the jobs where workers risk their lives and where more would die without the protections that unions insist upon.
He chides the so-called “reformers” who pal around with anti-union goons like Scott Walker and John Kasich and who help them bust unions.
He reminds us that neither Arne Duncan nor Barack Obama lifted a finger to help the unions in Wisconsin when Scott Walker began attacking them.
In union there is strength. That was why it is so sad that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, i.e. Scott Walker lite, and the Obama administration help pave the way for his union-bashing and did little to help working people in the Wisconsin recall campaigns.
That is also why Walker pretended to not be an existential threat to private sector unions and claimed that his fight to the death with public sector unions did not foreshadow an all-out assault on public and higher education. Only after he had picked off one opponent after another did Walker cut education spending by $2 billion and ram through Right to Work. When pushing a $300 million cut to higher education, he promised universities freedom from “shared governance,” which “kept the university from directly running things” and told professors to work harder.
Unions have always been some of the most loyal members of the civil rights coalition, as well as crusaders for economic justice. And, we have usually had the same opponents. As Kaufman recalls, a founder of the Right to Work movement, Vance Muse, explained the need for its banning of otherwise legal, negotiated agreements, “White women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes, whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.”
Kaufman also notes that roads in the Right to Work state of Texas don’t cost half as much to build, even though workers get paid that much less. “So,” as a union leader says, “it is only a question of who makes the money — the workers or the owners.”
It is one thing for a right-winger to oppose the rights of working people, but there is no intellectually honest way for a liberal to be an ally of Right to Work and to still pose as pro-civil rights. On the other hand, the neo-liberal corporate reformers who opened the door for Walker are nothing if they aren’t inconsistent. They will say anything, do almost anything, and ally themselves with virtually any true believer in uncontrolled competition to clear the way for top-down, market-driven school reforms.
Sadly, one reason why elite education reformers don’t understand the essential role of labor in working for justice is that too many of them have no experience in the blue collar working world. If the rank-in-file of the corporate reform movement had more experience in the industrial world, they would have seen how little the lives of workers are worth. Kaufman explains, for instance, that the fatality rate for construction workers is 40% higher in Right to Work states.
Virtually every remnant of the social safety net is now at risk. Middle and working class families are just one medical crisis away from poverty. Now more than ever, test-driven, competition-driven reformers should reconsider their neo-liberalism and rethink their contempt for organized labor. They should face up to the single biggest question. Even if they can’t get over their distaste for teachers and unions, and even if they don’t have any personal contact with blue collar workers, how can they continue to sow discord among the ranks of progressives? If they help destroy organized labor, who will replace us in the fight for civil rights and economic justice?
Recently an old friend who has long been active in Democratic party politics asked me why everyone he knew in the business world hates unions, especially the teachers unions. I said business hated unions in the 1930s. The same people hate them now. The only difference is now they have the tacit support of the Obama administration. I sent him a copy today of John Thompson’s post.
Parents in Laguna Niguel, California, need your help to save their school.
They are asking people to sign their petition against the closure of their school, Crown Valley Elementary, and replacement with a charter school (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-crown-valley-elementary), to Like their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/savecrownvalley), and to provide other support to stop the closure of their school, which may be voted on as soon as Sept 9. Proposition 39 is the charter school law in California, passed during the administration of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Proposition 39 is being abused in Orange County
Crown Valley Elementary in Laguna Niguel, CA is being targeted for closure to house a Community Roots Academy, a charter school currently sharing a campus in Aliso Viejo, CA.
Crown Valley is a unique and special school environment with a general enrollment of 385 students, including a large DHH and special education population of over 160. The integration of students, in addition to the wonderful and caring staff help make Crown Valley an ideal learning environment. Relocation will be very stressful for all students and families of Crown Valley, even more so for those that benefit from the DHH and special education programs.
Crown Valley Elementary was built in 1966, and was the first elementary school in Laguna Niguel; CA. Our school is worn, but is beautiful and well loved. Community Roots Academy would not only potentially take over our school site, but also demand improvements. If Capistrano Unified provides CRA with our facility AND improvement it will hit our community especially hard. Capistrano Unified has a school of choice policy and the age of our facilities have been a potential factor in enrollment. Some are not able to look past chipped paint and carpet wear and choose to go to elsewhere. Others realize that appearances are not important. What IS important are excellent teachers, compassionate students, caring staff, and families. THIS is what makes us special, and where we excel.
Community Roots serves students outside of the Capistrano Unified district. It is not ethical that students from outside of the district could potentially displace children within the district.
We do not want our community, or any other with our district to be torn apart. Capistrano Unified schools approved the charter and its expansion without a site. The district must find a solution that does not harm our children.
Access to education should not be dependent on a lottery!
Charter schools were designed to fill an educational gap in underserved areas and provide equal educational opportunities for all Californians
•Charter schools should not have the ability to create elite publically funded private schools in well-served suburban areas.
•Charter schools should NOT have the ability to take over a neighborhood school and deny local children access.
•Charter schools should NOT have the ability to pick and choose a site AND demand that the district make improvements on the site.
•Charter schools should NOT demand facilities that exceed what is provided to other students in the district citing “reasonably equivalent facilities” under prop 39.
•Charter schools should NOT screen or ask questions about special needs and IEP’s as part of their application process.
Yes, we do need a rebirth of labor unions.
A new study shows that the workers who make the least money have experienced the biggest decline in their take-home pay since the recession of 2008.
Despite steady gains in hiring, a falling unemployment rate and other signs of an improving economy, take-home pay for many American workers has effectively fallen since the economic recovery began in 2009, according to a new study by an advocacy group that is to be released on Thursday.
The declines were greatest for the lowest-paid workers in sectors where hiring has been strong — home health care, food preparation and retailing — even though wages were already below average to begin with in those service industries.
“Stagnant wages are a problem for everyone at this point, but the imbalance in the economy has become more pronounced since the recession,” said Irene Tung, a senior policy researcher at the National Employment Law Project and co-author of the study.
The economy is recovering, but not everyone is benefitting.
One explanation may lie in the findings of another study released on Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute, also a liberal research group. Its report showed that even as labor productivity has improved steadily since 2000, the benefits from improved efficiency have nearly all gone to companies, shareholders and top executives, rather than rank-and-file employees.
A good society provides opportunity for all, not luxury for the few and misery for the bottom quarter.
Businesses and their allies in politics have done a successful job of whittling away the power of unions and nearly strangling them. Big-business is now trying to decimate public sector unions. But there are still millions of low-wage workers who suffer from long hours, low wages, and poor working conditions.
This article describes efforts by workers in New Mexico and elsewhere to gain some protection from abusive conditions by forming “committees.” Businesses don’t like this either but it is still not a labor union, with the power to bargain collectively and gain victories for workers.
SANTA FE, N.M. — Jorge Porras used to report to his carwash job here most mornings at 8:15 a.m., but he said that his boss often did not let him clock in until 11, when customers frequently began streaming in. Many days he was paid for just six hours, he said, even though he worked nine and a half hours.
One day, when the heavy chain that pulled cars forward got stuck, Mr. Porras tried to fix it, but it suddenly lurched forward and cut off the top of his right ring finger. The injury caused him to miss work for the next two weeks, he said, but he received no pay or workers’ compensation for the forced time off.
Mr. Porras and nine co-workers became so fed up that they took an unusual step. They formed a workers committee (not a labor union) and sent a certified letter to the owner of the carwash. In it, they complained about being “insulted and humiliated” in “front of our co-workers and customers” and protested being required to work off the clock and not being given goggles or gloves even though they worked with toxic chemicals.
An advocacy group for immigrant workers, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, advised Squeaky Clean’s workers to set up such a committee because the National Labor Relations Act — enacted under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935 — prohibits employers from retaliating against workers for engaging in “concerted” activity to improve their wages and conditions, even when they are not trying to unionize.
In an era when the traditional labor unions envisioned by Depression-era supporters of that law have weakened steadily, many advocates now see work site committees as an alternative way to strengthen workers’ clout and protections.
Simon Brackley, president of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, said Somos had exaggerated the prevalence of wage violations and had been too quick to pounce on employers. But Somos is not backing down, and many worker groups are now copying its work site committee idea, which has been adopted at about 35 restaurants, hotels and other companies in Santa Fe….
Only days after the Squeaky Clean workers sent their letter in 2012, the owner fired Mr. Porras, Mr. Muñoz and four others. The fired workers and Somos complained to the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office in Phoenix. That office soon filed a civil complaint against Squeaky Clean, accusing it of unlawfully retaliating against the workers for engaging in what the courts call “protected, concerted” activities.
“We knew we’d have little protection if we acted alone,” Mr. Porras, an immigrant from Guatemala, said in Spanish. “But we knew that if we formed a committee, we’d be protected.”
Ultimately, the labor board ordered Squeaky Clean to reinstate the workers and pay $6,000 in back wages. The carwash agreed separately to pay $60,000 to settle claims for minimum wage and overtime violations.
The deterioration of working conditions in low-wage, non-unionized sectors like fast food and other services makes you wonder whether there might be a rebirth of unionism. When things get bad enough, collective action becomes necessary.
While there has been much talk about the racial achievement gap in test scores, there has not been sufficient attention paid to the racial gap in wages.
A new study by professors at the City University of New York finds that unionization is a successful strategy in reducing the racial wage gap.
This bears directly on educational outcomes, because children from economically secure families are likelier to be more successful in school than their peers who live in poverty.
A study released on Friday, noting the gains made by black union workers in New York City, said that raising the rate of unionization among black workers across the country would help narrow the racial pay gap.
The study, conducted by two professors affiliated with the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, which issued the report, described high unionization rates for black workers who live in the city compared with national rates.
Nearly 40 percent of black workers who are city residents are union members, compared with roughly 13 percent of black workers nationally.
The difference between the rates of black and nonblack unionization is also especially pronounced in New York City. The black unionization rate is nearly double that of nonblacks in the city, a difference that is much smaller nationally.
The authors, Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce, found that black union members enjoyed higher wages than black nonunion workers, and were also likely to have better access to employer-sponsored health care benefits and pensions.
The corporate education reform movement has tried diligently to decouple the relationship between education and the economy, but the relationship is there whether they admit it or not. Not admitting it is a way of obscuring the root causes of poor academic performance. Children who have medical care, good nutrition, and decent housing in a safe neighborhood are more successful than those who lack these advantages. This has been documented time and again; it is a correlation that shows up on every standardized test in the world. Economic security is good for children; economic insecurity is not.
When reformers say that “poverty doesn’t matter,” what they really mean is that it doesn’t matter to them. After all, almost every reformer lives in great comfort and ease; few attended public schools or send their own children to public schools. They like to declaim on what other people’s children should be doing and why they don’t need the same level of school resources as they expect for their own children.
But back to the study that shows the advantages of unionization:
“Unionism offers black workers a substantial economic advantage in regard to earnings — to a greater degree than is the case for nonblacks, reflecting the fact that larger numbers of blacks than nonblacks are employed in low-wage jobs,” the study said.
Unionization shrunk the racial wage gap by roughly half, reflecting the tendency of unions to fight for more equal wage distribution across the workplace. Black nonunion workers who live in the city made about $4 less in median hourly earnings than their nonblack counterparts. Among union members, that difference dropped to $2.
Dr. Milkman, a sociology professor, said in an interview that the findings suggested one path to addressing racial disparities in pay and broader income inequality that have come under increasing scrutiny across the country.
“When unions were more powerful in the United States, income inequality was also smaller,” she said. “One component of that is de-unionization.”
She added, referring to the black unionization rate in New York City, “We knew it was better here, but the extent of that is surprising to even us.”
Dr. Milkman said the findings could be explained in part by the fact that the health care and transit industries, which are major parts of the city’s work force and have high proportions of black workers, are heavily unionized.
Amazingly, one of every four workers in New York City belongs to a union.
Diane Ravitch's blog 