Howard Blume writes in the LA Times that the LAUSD school board will make a decision on billionaire Eli Broad’s plan to put half the district’s children into privately managed charter schools, including national chains. You might say it is the Walmartization of public education in Los Angeles.
This is is not an easy decision because the state law was written when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger controlled the state board, filling it with charter advocates. The law gives a blank check to anyone who wants to open a charter.
“Until now, school board members have not been forced to take a position on the Broad proposal, though some have expressed concerns about charters draining money and higher-performing students from traditional schools. The union is hoping to lock in school board opposition early as it campaigns against the charter expansion.
“But officially joining the opposition also poses risks for school board members and the district. State law requires school systems to approve new charters regardless of the financial impact on the district. The Los Angeles Unified School District faces lawsuits if it rejects charters without cause. Moreover, a vote would force board members to take sides — and face the political consequences.
“At one level, the debate is a continuation of the last school board election, in which charters and unions, the major funders, battled to a split outcome. The result was not just about the candidates but about which approach to improving schools would lead the way in the nation’s second-largest system.
“Supporters see independently operated, publicly funded charters, most of which are nonunion, as a better alternative to regular schools. Unions and other charter critics would prefer to see more investment in existing campuses. L.A. has the most charter schools of any city.”
Would it it be just cause to say that the Broad plan is not in the public interest and that it would deny resources and equal opportunity to the other 50% in the public schools?
Can the school board approve a plan to destroy the system they were elected to support and improve? Should they neglect the needs of the other 50%? Isn’t it undemocratic on its face to allow a billionaire to buy as much as he wants of the public school system? Once it’s gone, it will be difficult if not impossible to restore.
Who who will hold Eli Broad accountable for his theft of a public institution?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please everyone in LA, call each member of the BoE, and send them emails, and let them know that you are a constituent and that you direct them to vote AGAINST Eli Broad charterizing LAUSD. You can find each members email address and phone number by googling LAUSD Board of Education.
And to answer your question, Diane, NO ONE can hold Eli accountable for much of anything. His billions of dollars rule his bad and self serving decisions. If ‘money talks,’ Eli’s shouts.
He hires the worst, most devious and greedy, people who are committed to do his bidding (see Deasy, Austin, Pastorek, and more) and his Broad Academy trains those who have no scruples as to milking public education for profit. They become CEOs of districts such as Chicago where Supt. Byrd-Bennett has finally been indicted for her multiple felonies. Who is next? Deasy?
Even if Deasy is indicted, I wouldn’t expect much deceleration or caution on the part of so-called reformers, unless a RICO indictment is brought against this Overclass cabal, or at least some of their more prominent go-fers.
Oh, and when that happens, I’ll travel to the courthouse on my flying pig.
If Eli’s plan is approved, then enrollments in charters will exceed enrollments in traditional public schools because 23% of students in LA are already enrolled in charters. The only metro districts with a higher percentage of “market share” in 2014-2015 would be New Orleans Parish School District, currently at 93%. Even with out Eli, LA charter schools enrolled about 12,000 students more this year than last, for a growth rate of about 9%.
The charter industry is targeting the 100 largest school districts in the United States and pushing for a 50% market share of “public school students” sufficient for a tipping point into a charter-majority delivery system, public in name only (PINO), with opportunities for exploiting students, teachers, and taxpayers with minimal oversight.
Here are a few of the other districts with a high proportion of charters:
Detroit City School District (82010) MI 53%
Flint, School District MI 47%
District Of Columbia Public Schools DC 44%
Kansas City, Missouri School District MO 41%
Gary Community School Corporation IN 40%
The School District of Philadelphia PA 33%
Hall County Schools GA 32%
Victor Valley Union High School District CA 32%
Indianapolis Public Schools IN 31%
Grand Rapids Public Schools 31%
Dayton City School District OH 30%
San Antonio Independent School District TX 30%
More from this “embargoed” November 16, 2015 report at http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/enrollmentshare_2015_v7_embargo.pdf
Exactly Laura…they feel they have already won this battle. And Eli recently donated more cash to the push for Louisiana’s takeover. His bank statements surely show money given to every charter onslaught and to most legislators. Until we can abandon Citizen’s United, this will continue with the oligarchs buying up the all aspects of life in the US.
Has any one held Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld (or Paul Brenner) accountable for Iraq?
(Paul Bremer)
This shouldn’t even require deliberation, either you’re a public school board or you’re not. To willingly give our public schools to privately controlled interest with no accountability or disclosure should be illegal. If these idiots do this, the taxpayers need to eliminate their jobs and the LAUSD as a special district. I don’t want my tax monies supporting the enrichment of Eli Broad period.
Paula…please remind the BoE of what you said here. They need to hear from all of us in an avalanche of protest. And please urge all your fellow teachers to do the same. I have already sent this info to all my lists and hope everyone who is incensed by this Broad takeover will do the same. If the BoE gets thousands of emails from all over the US, and particularly from the millions of public school supporters in LA, it will be an eye opener.
LAUSD BoE members (and the news media) read this site and they can take note of the rising fury of the public at the Broad (plus Walton et al) scheme to destroy public education and turn it into a free market investment opportunity, all at the expense of We the People who are the taxpayers they are financially raping to line their own pockets.
It might be nice if there was equal indignation over the absurd and corrupt sway that the unions have held for many decades over a crappy school system that is graduating kids every year who can’t even read or write. It’s too easy to dump efforts like Broad’s into the same slot marked “Capitalism runs roughshod over public education”. I lived in an urban district for 15 years (Mount Vernon, New York, just north of the Bronx) and there’s no fooling this gal about the real state of affairs in Urbania.
If it is the unions who are the culprits, e58, then why is it that teachers pay averages only about $40K a year? And where are your stats to show that “crappy school systems” are graduating only “kids every year who can’t even read or write”? Your sloppy and shallow analysis would improve it you broaden your own reading and learn how many graduating seniors get into colleges including MIT, Cal Tech, Yale, Harvard, U of Chicago, U of California, NYU, Brown, Princeton, Rutgers, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, USC, SUNY, and on and on. I am talking about 100s of thousands of students who graduate from public schools every single year who matriculate to the best colleges in the world. Check the list of recent US Nobel Prize Winners and you will see how many went to public schools.
And while you attempt to read, maybe you will review the stats on how poverty affects learning. When kids have little food, little parental care, little to no health care, and often live in cars and on Skid Row, while trying not to get shot as in Chicago and LA gang areas, it does affect their education results.
eiffel58,
During your 15 years in Mount Vernon did you ever wonder how Ardsley or Briarcliff Manor districts managed to educate their youngsters while also having those pernicious unions??
There’s no fooling you, because you are obviously adverse to facts.
“Broad’s McGinity: “Unfortunate” that charter plan “leaked.” Foundation wanted to have “quiet conversations” about what to do in L.A.”
Such a shame that the rabble got involved on decisions about their public schools. Better to keep it under wraps and hold one of those ed reform fake debates, where the public are invited to testify after the plan is in place and and then completely ignored.
https://twitter.com/howardblume
Have any state or federal politicians gathered their courage and contradicted or questioned Eli Broad yet? He’s buying half a school district and our political leaders are too cowed to even weigh in?
Is there a recorded instance where any higher-level political leader has ever questioned Broad’s actions publicly?
“McGinity: Broad Foundation willing to talk to district about plan; would like to explore unified enrollment system for all schools.”
The spokesperson for the billionaire is “willing” to talk to the district about the billionaires plans for both the public and charter schools.
That’s generous of Mr. Broad. Who knows? Maybe he’ll allow the district to retain some public schools.
When they write the history of how political leaders lost all credibility, public trust and relevance in this country I hope they include the story of how the billionaire bought a public school district.
“I hope they include the story of how the billionaire bought a public school district.” and everything else in America, including the politicians.
“Sarah Angel of charter assn says that it could possibly accept school board resolution for more charter transparency”
A concession from the billionaire! He will reluctantly consider “more transparency” in his governance plan. Can any random person draft laws in LA, or is that privilege limited to billionaires?
1/2 the district, 1/2 the money, 1/2 the special ed, 1/2 the ELL?
So this is what we have come to. Billionairs can purchase an entire branch of the govt. ( Sect. of Ed. Gates) and/ or the school system of an entire city. Imagine the cash they can make selling goods, services and real estate to each other.
They already control the media, now its time for the children and the minds of the public.
America is no more.
November 12, 2015 at 6:41 pm
JUST IN: Ratliff exploring LAUSD conversion to a charter district
Posted on November 12, 2015 3:02 pm by Mike Szymansk
Board member Mónica Ratliff
Board member Mónica Ratliff
In what appears to be a strategy to undermine the Broad Foundation’s proposal to move half of district students into charter schools, LA Unified board member Mónica Ratliff is exploring the possibility of turning the entire district into a charter organization.
Part of the agenda of the Nov. 17 meeting of the district’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee, which she chairs, is a discussion of a report from district lawyers about the possibility of converting all of LA Unified schools into charters. The report was made public today.
Such a move would immediately address the school board’s chief criticism of the Broad plan, that it’s a “some kids, not all kid’s” approach for improving academic achievement in the district. Ratliff was not available today to discuss the issue, but board president Steve Zimmer suggested that a wholesale charter conversion might not be ideal, given the multitude of challenges currently facing the district. They include finding a new superintendent by the end of the year and resolving mounting financial challenges threatening district insolvency.
“Exploring all options for involving all children is appropriate in this moment,” Zimmer told LA School Report. “However, the complications of chartering an entire district are so immense that I think it is wiser to keep our eyes on the transformative initiatives whose implementation truly needs our attention.”
In the nine-page report — “Establishment of All Charter School District” — district lawyers outlined how an entire school district could convert all of its schools to charters. The process includes approval from at least half the teachers who would be affected, alignment with all state regulations that apply to charter schools and assurance that the petitioner can “successfully implement the program.”
Converting LA Unified into all-charter status would also make the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education the overseers of the district, serving in the same capacity as a Charter Management Organization. In effect, the state would have final authority over board decisions.
According to the legal department’s analysis, “The (state board) would have oversight responsibilities over the All Charter Districts” and “oversite fees” of 1 percent of revenues from the all-charter district would be paid to the state.
Included in the legal department’s material is a slightly-out-of-date list of all-charter districts that currently exist in California. At the moment, there are seven, four of them with only one school in the district. The other, Kingsburg Elementary Charter School District, south of Fresno, is the oldest of the group and the largest, now operating with seven schools serving 2,400 students.
By comparison, LA Unified has 1,274 schools.
“We’ve been at it like this for 20 years in all,” said Wesley Sever, superintendent of the Kingsbury district. He said his schools are funded by Fresno County; they receive no private financial support, and the district’s teachers are non-union.
The inquiry by Ratliff, which her office said came from a query from board member Richard Vladovic, seems part of the escalating charter wars that have taken on a new urgency with the Broad proposal, which has been roundly attacked by the teachers union and LA Unified board members opposed to further and rapid charter creation. At the next board meeting, in December, the board will vote on a measure to condemn the Broad plan or any other plan that doesn’t include all students.
Further, Ratliff this week introduced a proposal that would ask for a greater degree of transparency from charter schools, including requirements to comply with state guidelines for open meetings and inform parents about school-related items like traditional school do.
Representatives from the California Charter School Association said they were planning to meet with Ratliff to soften the language of her proposal, but they weren’t aware of this latest query about district conversion.
“There are many ways to break up a school district,” Zimmer said. “This idea is not new. People have talked about this for years, but it has not seemed that it would be particularly realistic.”
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Ellen Lubic
November 12, 2015 at 6:42 pm
The article above just came to me from LASR. This should curl everyone’s hair.
Is the California G.A. considering bills to overturn the Arnold Schwarzenegger-era law, which sounds like it requires school districts to sow the seeds for self-destruction by being forced to approve charters. This is ugly.
Eleanor…there is a small but growing movement to repeal the 1994 law that allows charters.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The only effective way to kill the charter school scam is through the ballot. SUPPORT THE INITIATIVE TO REPEAL THE CHARTER SCHOOL ACT OF 1992. HALF MEASURES ARE LIPSTICK ON A VERY AVARICIOUS PIG. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/repeal-charter-school-act-of-1992-in-ca-ballot