Los Angeles parent activist Karen Wolfe went to a meeting of the Associsted Administrators of Los Angeles, which was held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels. As she listened to LAUSD members speak, she thought she heard a faint rumble, growing louder by the minute. She wondered if she really was hearing them speak truth to power, unafraid of the biggest bully in the city.
Is it possible?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I watched a couple of Ken Robinson TED talk videos, and note that he lives in L.A. Has anyone engaged him in this battle for education? I would think he would be an influential voice…
LikeLike
BELOW is some coverage of UTLA’s protest at the recent opening of Eli Broad’s downtown Los Angeles museum.
The speeches are great, including one from a parent in New Orleans on what a fiasco an all-charter or most-charter district will be.
These speeches kick in about 12:14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkC-SuE2dd
LikeLike
“Of Boards and Broads”
The dog and pony show
Is quite a thing today
The boards will come and go
But Broads are here to stay
LikeLike
I seriously love your poems.
LikeLike
All I can say is that we need a constant vigilance of this process. There seems to be a majority but in the past I have seen only Bennett Kayser (who was defeated by Mr. Charter himself Ref Rodriguez) vote appropriately to reign in the excesses of charters.
LikeLike
Agree Joan…often Ratliff voted with Kayser, and now Schmerelson seems to be completely on board, but we never know what Zimmer and Vladovic will do. McKenna is too new to have a nandle on this voting. But we do know that Rodriguez and Garcia will ALWAYS vote for charters and any other Eli Broad edicts.
LikeLike
Ratliff, Kayser, Zimmer, and Vladovic are all supported by UTLA and all vote to fire every teacher accused by any body of anything. The important word here is accused, not proven. UTLA has helped fire 5,000 senior teachers many of which are disabled. I don’t expect much to come of this meeting; administrators in LAUSD are very well paid and won’t do anything to jeopardize that. The members of the Board of Ed want to move onward and upward and they need the oligarchs’ money to make this happen.
LikeLike
I think you can definitely trust Zimmer to do the right thing.
LikeLike
“New way of evaluating schools: Charter schools have proposed adding a new way of grading schools, the so-called “Similar Students Measure” used in California.
By adjusting ratings based on the socioeconomic challenges a school faces, the measure would make many charter schools look stronger than they do in state report cards.”
Ohio charter lobbyists are asking for a special rating system in Ohio. Is this special charter rating system used in California and if so, are public schools given the same “adjusted ratings”?
LikeLike
Thank you, Karen and Diane. It was pleasant to read about the majority board opinions, whether meant or empty rhetoric. I’m sure they mean some if not most of it. If Broad can raise the money to pay for the latest charter takeover plan — thank you, Howard Blume, for informing — the board will vote on the charter schools one by one. For years. Without much of an audience. (The last board meeting was on KCLS how many months ago!?). So. Right now, what matters is that they have just a couple months to show they mean what they say in selecting a new superintendent. Thank you, Ellen and all others for the work you’re putting in on that front. You’ve got my student’s and my backs.
LikeLike
In the following video, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl revealed a stunner….
John Deasy is the secret architect / author of the Broad plan.
The plan was recently leaked and posted. It has since been condemned, analyzed, and protested by countless people, including LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer. Blogger Peter Greene does so here:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/09/la-plan-to-crush-public-education.html
Here’s the video where Alex lets the cat out of the bag about Deasy being the plan’s author.
( 06:44 – 07:16 )
( 06:44 – 07:16 )
ALEX CAPUTO-PEARL: “Eli Broad, who is one of the richest people on the Planet Earth announced about a month ago that he was going to put somewhere between half-a-billion and a billion dollars into taking 50% of LAUSD students, and and putting them in unregulated, non-union charter schools. Okay? It was revealed—and we’ve gotten it confirmed from various sources—that John Deasy is the main architect of this plan… ”
Here’s the story:
http://laschoolreport.com/the-reanimation-of-john-deasy-will-the-next-superintendent-be-a-native/
LA SCHOOL REPORT: “The video also includes a humorous reference to former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy, who resigned a year ago. Deasy and Caputo-Pearl locked horns frequently, but now Deasy is working at the Broad Center, and its affiliated Broad Foundation is currently developing a plan to expand charter schools in the district to include half of all students.
Caputo-Pearl claims in the video that UTLA has confirmed that Deasy is, in fact, the architect of the plan, which was outlined in a 48-page draft report. Caputo-Pearl calls this the “reanimation” of Deasy. Reanimation? Is that a reference to the 80s cult classic film, “Re-Animator“?
The film is about a doctor who discovers how to bring corpses back from the dead. Using the film as a metaphor, it certainly shows the ironic position Caputo-Pearl finds himself in. He helped chase Deasy out of the district, which he hailed as a “victory” for UTLA. But now Deasy is arguably in a much more powerful position as he allegedly orchestrates a plan that would wipe out half of the jobs of UTLA members.
As the trailer for the film says, “Once you wake up the dead, you’ve got a real mess on your hands.”
————————-
What’s galling about this is that Deasy will tell whatever story he wants to tell whenever he wants to tell it — depending on what will promote his own self-interest and the interests of his corporate masters.
———————————–
JOHN DEASY — LAUSD Superintendent version
— gives speeches to the administrators and countless TV and radio interviews where he brags about how wonderful both sectors of LAUSD are — traditional schools and charter schools — and how both are blowing it out. Graduation rates in both are soaring. Dropout rates in both are dropping like a rock. Test scores and all other metrics in both are on the rise, with the implied message, of course, that it’s due to him.
God’s in Heaven, and all’s right with LAUSD—both charter and traditional.
RATIONALE: he’s angling to be named U.S. Secretary of Education, or brought to Washington for some position within the U.S. Department of Education, and a midway step to being named U..S Secretary of Education (like John King, who moved there into a high position, then after serving for a year, is named Secretary of Ed.)
——————————
JOHN DEASY — ex-LAUSD Superintedent & Broad Foundation employees version (just one year after leaving)
— he secretly writes a report that only the charter sector is doing well… it’s kicking ass and taking names left, right, and center… graduation rates, dropout rates, test scores…Charters rule!!!!..
The same report says that LAUSD’s traditional school sector—the one that was kicking ass just a year ago when Deasy was in charge—are now failing miserably by every possible metric, and have been for years… and these unionized publicly-managed schools need to be replaced by privately managed, non-union schools..
Pursuant to that end, wealthy billionaires and other corporate reformers need to spend $500 million-to-$1 billion dollars to expand charter schools, and poach 50% of the students from those schools.
RATIONALE: Eli Broad paid him.
LikeLike
Of course Jack, it is not a surprise that Deasy wrote this report. He was assigned by Eli to be the lead in imposing these charters on LAUSD. I wrote about this weeks ago, saying it was Eli’s way of thumbing his nose at all of us.
LikeLike
I am not stunned. This was understood.
LikeLike
Michael Alex Caputo-Pearl is actually working for the same goal. He has put money and energy into ‘organizing’ 1,000 charter school scab teachers while presiding over the dismissal of 5,000 veteran teachers. Do the math, 1 charter school scab is worth 5 veteran teachers in Los Angeles. He loudly opposed the proposition to remove $5 billion yearly in state funding from charter school companies declaring it ‘doomed to failure.’ Teaching in L.A. is doomed to failure under M.A. C-P.
LikeLike