The Los Angeles Times has a love affair with the privatization of public schools; it is wild about the idea of outsourcing control of students and funding to private management. Just a few days ago, the LAUSD surprised everyone by voting 7-0 to reject billionaire Eli Broad’s plan to take control of half the students in the district by putting them in charters. It sounded a little fishy because even the board’s charter faction voted against Eli’s power grab.
Now we see the game is still on. Eli’s front-group called Great Schools Now is staffing up.
Today the Los Angeles Times published an editorial in support of the Broad plan that was breathtaking for its audacity. It echoed the charter lobby’s contention that any resistance to their drive for power was divisive. The editorial proposed that the district’s new superintendent should ask for a place at the charter lobby’s table so she could help shape their plans for a takeover. Say what?
What arrogance! What happened to the democratic process? Has Eli already purchased the district? Is Superintendent Michelle King his employee?
Here are some good comments by public school activists in LA.
Karen Wolfe warns King to stay away and reminds Eli that he is a citizen with one vote only. He should go to board meetings like everyone else with an idea.
She writes:
“In its ongoing effort to convince the city that a huge public entity should be handed over to a private group of titans, the LA Times now suggests inviting the public official to the table to give the effort some credibility. This is the superintendent, who was appointed by the democratically elected board, to lead the public entity the titans seek to control.
“As Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis has said, “You can’t have a seat at the table when you’re on the menu.”
Ellen Lubic wrote the following article:
Another Coffin Nail in Public Education…if Eli Broad Can Get Away With It
As we continue to see, the highly biased LA Times is under the thrall of Eli Broad and his cohorts to take over public education in Los Angeles and convert it to free market profiteering. Almost daily, the Times runs what is loosely called journalism, lauding charter schools, and defaming public schools, They add a disclosure announcement at the end of these articles admitting they are paid for by Broad and the non profits like United Way where he calls all the shots.
Here is the operant paragraph of Sunday’s editorial from the LA Times, which is paid for by Eli Broad and his claque of pretenders (see their full disclosure which appears repeatedly with most of the education issues on which they report). It is all about the new Broad-concieved 501c3 Great Public Schools Now, a permutation of Eli’s leaked plan to take over all of LAUSD.
“A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process. If the new nonprofit organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion — after all, whether charter schools or not, these are all public schools.”
“The Times receives funding for its digital initiative, Education Matters, from the California Endowment, the Wasserman Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, The Times retains complete control over editorial content.”
What a pile of manure…the only way these charter schools are public, is that We the People, we the public, we the taxpayers, are forced to pay for them…with NO oversight by the public, the government, or the school system. This is an amazing scam concocted by the Bonfire of the Vanities guys to use public funding for public schools while transferring students to privatized charter schools, all for their own profit. Rupert Murdoch and Eli Broad have openly written about this, and they and their billionaire buddies are gathered in their kingdoms, cackling at their success in fooling the public.
Now we read in their controlled corporate media, the LA Times, that Broad and Company wants the new Superintendent of LAUSD, Michelle King, to sit at their golden table as a participant with his hit squad, to charterize and privatize the rest of LAUSD…or at least for now, up to 50% more charters which take away from public education. Their fantasy seems to be that Michelle King will now work for them and be a subject to Myrna Castrejon…and of course Eli Broad.
It is shocking to see that Broad lawyers and PR firms now use as their mouthpiece, this hard core, non educator, lobbyist for CCSA who spent her time twisting arms in Sacramento who now thinks she is on the same level as the new Superintendent of LAUSD.
As to Myrna Castrejon, a political hit woman who works for charter schools, here is her Times dossier.
“The organization driving a controversial effort to vastly expand charter schools in Los Angeles has selected one of the state’s most visible charter school advocates as its first executive director.
Myrna Castrejon, 50, is leaving her position as a lobbyist and strategist for the California Charter Schools Association to lead Great Public Schools Now, a nonprofit organization established to carry out the charter expansion strategy, which was first developed by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and his foundation.
In her new position, Castrejon will become the face of an initiative that is stoking tumult among educators and push-back from the Los Angeles Unified School District. An early proposal called for raising $490 million to enroll half of the district’s students in charter schools over the next eight years.
Castrejon, senior vice president of government affairs for the charter association, begins her new role Feb. 22. She said a key priority will be reaching out to leaders of the nation’s second largest school district who, just two days ago, publicly opposed the plan developed by the Broad Foundation.
L.A. Unified Supt. Michelle King on Thursday echoed concerns raised by the school board, saying she does not support any initiatives that propose to “take over” the district by encouraging students to enroll in charters.”
How many of the California legislators are under the influence of Broad and his endless cash? We know for a fact that the former mayor of LA, Anthony Villaraigosa, who is now preparing to run for Governor, is prime among these sellouts to the big money. He is so close to Eli and John Deasy, he can taste them.
Have we lost all control of American society and democracy to Broad his band of oligarchs? How can they form a new 501c3 and think it will be the vehicle to infiltrate the school district and usurp it totally, from Superintendent to BoE to every classroom and every piece of LAUSD real estate?
The arrogance and sheer chutzpah of this power grab is mind boggling.
The real public living in the community better wake up to this irreversible loss of public schools and must take to the streets to preserve what is left. California already has more charter schools than any other state in the Union, and Los Angeles has the most of any city in the nation. Yet university reports show that the preponderance of these charters do no better than public schools in educating students, and a large group does far worse…all the while making big bucks using ill prepared teachers who flee their charges quickly.
Thank you for posting, Diane. It just never ends. It seems the LA Times needs a civics lesson.
The things they think would make this process go better are the very things that define democratic process—the things inherent in a public school system: Public hearings. Involvement of experts. Inclusion of all stakeholders. Service to all not some.
The LA Times has backed itself into a corner in advocating for the private takeover of the public school system. Now calling for a *public* process into a private takeover does not fix that.
The LA Times’ conflict of interest in promoting Eli Broad’s plan remains a problem. Just as every LA Times article about education now comes with an asterisk, so does this version of a public process.
Here’s the op-ed being referred to here:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-broad-charter-schools-20160117-story.html
LOS ANGELES’ TIMES’ EDUCATION MATTERS says…
“A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process.”
BACKGROUND:
Great Public Schools Now (GPSN) is a private sector school governance entity totally separate from the actual LAUSD governance that has been in place for over a century. Unlike the LAUSD Board of Ed, none of those in charge or working at GPSN have ever been elected by the taxpaying citizens within LAUSD, or the parents of LAUSD students. Nor have any of their own children attended LAUSD schools. GPSN is an entity whose ultimate goal it is to execute a hostile takeover of the entirety of LAUSD, and which is run privately by billionaires totally unaccountable and non-transparent to the public or to the LAUSD Board of Ed.
Therefore, the Los Angeles Times’ EDUCATION MATTERS op ed says that…
TRANSLATION
“GPSN should invite the actual LAUSD leader, Superintendent King, elected by the people (via the 7 Board of Ed Members) to take ‘seat at the table’ over at GPSN to participate in a hostile takeover process of LAUSD, a process that will ultimately destroy democratic control of LAUSD schools, and cause the extinction of the very governance body that King is in charge of, a body that has been running L.A.’s schools for over a century, and during that time, has been elected by the citizens of L.A. and responsible to those voters.
“The endgame for GPSN is for all public schools — or almost all, as they may need a rump remnant of public schools in which to dump the kids who are more expensive and more difficult to educate — to be turned over to this same private group run by unelected billionaires out to profit from the privatization of education. In the process, they wish to wipe out all labor unions working in Los Angeles school, and wipe out the democratically elected school board that has been running L.A. schools for over a century.”
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I mean, seriously. Should Superintendent King accept such an invitation to “sit at (THAT) table”? That she should knowingly and willingly participate in destruction of LAUSD as we know it????!!!
Do the folks and EDUCATION MATTERS seriously think that King is that stupid, or so corrupt that she would betray her sworn duty to the parents and citizens in Los Angeles?
GPSN is not exactly hiding their “hostile takeover” intentions, either. Read the very words of Nicholas Melvoin, the ”the director of policy, communications, and legal counsel of Great Public Schools: Los Angeles”
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs
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NICHOLAS MELVOIN:
“School Board President Steve Zimmer denounced the effort — which would create 260 new public schools over the next eight years—and even went so far as to decry it ‘an outline for ‘a hostile takeover.’ But if I were a shareholder of LAUSD — and as a taxpayer, I guess we all are — I might welcome a hostile takeover.
“In fact, a hostile takeover might be precisely what our district needs.”
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My favorite line:
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NICHOLAS MELVOIN: “Is the charter plan guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. And if it fails, we’ll try something new.”
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And what if, in the process, and in the course to that failure, you end up making things worse — far, far worse… irreversibly worse?
Oh that’s right. You and your fellow private sector vultures will “just try something new.”
The article I cited was from Campbell Brown’s “THE 74” website, and describes the writer, Nicholas Melvoin, as “a teacher in Watts”. Melvoin gives the impression that he was just a teacher who chanced upon the leaked document of the Broad-Walmart plan … The Great Public Schools Now Initiative… and wanted to add a “teacher’s” perspective of support for school privatization.
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs
The article misleads folks into thinking that Nicholas Melvoin is merely a teacher unconnected to the Broad-Walmart Plan — though in obvious sympathy with it — who just happened to read the plan, and was chiming in on Campbell’s website:
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NICHOLAS MELVOIN:
“When I read the recently released memo outlining a plan to create more high-quality public charter schools in LA … ”
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Since there’s no mini-bio anywhere on this page nor any mention of anything but Melvoin’s teaching — a deliberate choice by Melvoin and Campbell Brown — and the only thing Melvoin will tell us is that he was “a teacher in Watts,” he’s misleading anyone reading this.
Indeed, what Melvoin fails to admit was that—at the time he “read the recently released memo”—he was a paid employee of the very same Great Public Schools Now Initiative.
To be precise, he is, according to a website of his law school alma mater …
http://www.law.nyu.edu/news/nicholas-melvoin-vergara-v-california
” … the director of policy, communications, and legal counsel of Great Public Schools: Los Angeles. A new education start-up, GPS:LA is working to put together a coalition to elect reform-minded candidates to the Los Angeles school board—the governing body of the second-largest school district in the country.”
Melvoin was and currently is being paid not just to read the Broad-Walmart Plan (the Great Public Schools Initiative), but also promote it in articles like the one on THE 74, as part of his job … a six-figure job in the neighborhood of $100,000 – to – 300,000, if the pattern in salary of others similarly involved holds … especially for an employee with an NYU law degree.
Go here:
http://www.law.nyu.edu/news/nicholas-melvoin-vergara-v-california
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NYU Law School website:
“Following his graduation from NYU Law, Melvoin will continue in the field of education rights as director of policy, communications, and legal counsel of Great Public Schools: Los Angeles. A new education start-up, GPS:LA is working to put together a coalition to elect reform-minded candidates to the Los Angeles school board—the governing body of the second-largest school district in the country.”
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A TFA temp, Melvoin taught for two — count ’em — two years in LAUSD, where, concurrent with his teaching, he promoted the specious — and later reversed-in-the-courts —- Reed lawsuit meant to eviscerate seniority protections under the false guise of caring about the education of poor and minority children.
Now, he’s getting rich while working to privatize the public schools in Los Angeles.
Just as with Campbell’s refusal to admit and hide who her billionaire backers are — profiteers out to get rich privatizing public schools — and her falsely claiming that it’s “the parents” are driving both the Vergara lawsuit in California, and the similar lawsuit in New York, it appears that sleazy deception is also part of Melvoin’s modus operandi as well.
If not, Melvoin should go back and re-write the article with the truth, or include it in a mini-bio somewhere.
Also, if I’m wrong about the salary, feel free to correct me.
One more thing, his quote …
“Is the charter plan guaranteed to succeed? Of course not. And if it fails, we’ll try something new.”
Seriously, “if it fails, we’ll try something new”?
THAT is supposed to pass for public policy in the corporate reform world? Who elected him or Broad or any of these school privatizing billionaires to impose this stuff, anyway?
The LA Times editors stated it correctly: California charter school laws are outdated and rigged to allow under-regulated charter schools to spread virulently. Implicit is that those laws must change, though the editors deny that the people have enough democratic control over its laws to influence them. Note the sham.
… their laws… Sorry. Typed my address wrong again, too.
“The goal of enrolling half of the district’s students in charter schools within eight years has been dropped. Now, those involved in the planning say, no specific enrollment goal will be included in the eventual plan. Seed money would be disbursed not just to open more charter schools, as originally intended, but to help fund new high-performing district schools of all types — including magnets, pilot schools and neighborhood schools — using successful existing schools as models.”
Why would anyone believe this? The charter school billionaires are accountable to no one. What possible recourse or remedy could the public have if they break any and all promises?
The amount of deference they’re shown is just incredible. NO ONE gets the benefit of the doubt like these billionaires get, not a governor or a US President or a Senator.
Boy, I sure hope Eli Broad does a good job privatizing that public entity he bought and keeps all these promises. If he doesn’t there isn’t a thing anyone can do about it.
If an elected official had proposed such a radical plan, a mayor or a governor, there would be scrutiny and questions and demands for guarantees. Because it’s a billionaire it’s just assumed to be acceptable and a great idea and they’ll just take his word on it?
Wow.
Chiara, yes, why would anyone believe it? We know from experience that philanthropy is a thing of the past. Broad, Gates, et al–their money comes with big strings. Unimaginable strings.
“Boy, I sure hope Eli Broad does a good job privatizing that public entity he bought and keeps all these promises. If he doesn’t there isn’t a thing anyone can do about it.” – what happens when Eli drops dead? He is an old fart, can’t live forever.
Gates? Koch? Any one of the Waltons? Murdoch? Zuckerberg? The netflix guy? Any other small men with large bank accounts? What happens to their plans to privately own education when they die?
Thank you Diane, Karen, and Ellen. I would like to invite you to this:
SAVE THE DATE
When: Thursday, March 3, 2016 6:00-8:00 pm
Where: Clergy and Laity For Economic Justice
464 Lucas, Los Angeles 90017
2016 promises to be a critical year for those of us committed to public education generally and LAUSD in particular. If the plan presented by Eli Broad becomes reality, we will be looking at a fundamental challenge to the schools within our district. The goal of the plan is to add 260 charter schools in eight years, doubling the number that currently exist.
We cannot allow this to happen.
Please join us for a discussion of the policy and strategic recommendations that our TEAch Steering Committee has developed over the past year as well as how you can become involved in our efforts to save our schools.”
http://www.teach4equity.org
Thanks Joan….I have it on my calendar and will see you there in March. You, and all others, can always reach me at
Joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Since posting my opinion article earlier today, that Diane printed here, I have heard from teachers all over the US…and this is only in the past few hours. Hopefully, the audacity of the megalomaniac, Eli Broad, and his followers and employees of his law and PR firms, will bring so many to a boil that we will hear a huge public voices raised in fury.
Every time I think this is the ‘last straw’ this self appointed
Emperor and his buddies (who have most of the wealth of what used to be OUR nation) find a new twist to steal from us all.
Now he hires a well known political hack and NON EDUCATOR, Myrna Castrejon, to lead the new 501c3 group which they laughingly call ‘Great PUBLIC Schools Now’ (as if the real public is do dumb they will buy that as TRUTH) This new group formed rapidly after the teachers marched in protest at the opening of the Broad Museum.
Their idea was that if Broad’s name was not on the letterhead, all the rest of us would jump on board. I know this for a fact since it was told to me in December by another billionaire charter maven who said that “Eli is so hated that they found a way to use his plan without using his name.”
So Eli now pits this Latina lobbyist against a Black woman who she wants to dominate, Michelle King, who is a public servant, and Eli suggests that these two women be colleagues in destroying LAUSD by privatizing it….with the political hack in charge of course. Castrejon is the female version of John Deasy and Ben Austin who both also work for Broad as his hatchet people.
You may remember last Fall when the Lyntons hacked-Sony-emails hit the public media, and in which they spoke with each other about their secret meetings with these ‘beyond comprehension’ wealthy greedy pigs, to take over the LAUSD district and eventually the public school system en toto. These included Carrie Walton Penner who seems to be Eli Broad in drag. At that time I posted names of these greed meisters so it should all appear in Diane’s archives.
Now, the public, which only gets their news from the yellow local paper, the LA Times, is bombarded with info on law suits these shady characters have rapidly filed, and other things to keep readers utterly misinformed…every day. The Times, being paid by Eli for their articles and editorials, is pushing misinformation on a daily basis and letting the public think Eli and his henchmen and women are the only good choice for poverty stricken students who they say, malinger (as do their inept teachers as the party line goes) in public schools.
While these charterizers goose step all the way to the bank, depositing our tax money, the children in many of their charters get a sketchy education taught by TFA incompetents who never had more that 5 weeks of minimalist training. We all know the drill.
These kids will truly be the Lost Generation. They are merely pawns to be used to satisfy Broad, Tilson, Murdoch, Anshutz, Waltons, Wassrmans, Bloomberg, et al, in their eternal theft of the Golden Fleece. We must use our Sirens voices to drown them.
I will be there Joan! I hope Ellen will too.
“it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion — after all, whether charter schools or not, these are all public schooL”
A gentle and respectful request to the billionaire to pretty please allow a representative of the public sit at the table, but only if he wants to.
Incredible. They’re begging that this group allow the public some role, no matter how small, in “public schools”. Gosh, I hope they let her sit in on planning meetings. I’m sure she’d be both honored and humbled to rub elbows with the The Best and the Brightest.
One of the commenters to this L.A. Times called “says-it-all” said something important.
The new L.A. Times’ corporate-ed-funded education coverage — i.e. EDUCATION MATTERS — reports only negative stories about traditional public schools, nothing positive … while simultaneously reporting only positive, and no negative stories about charter schools and the Broad plan, and Great Public Schools Now.
The commenter points out a story that even the ed.-reform-friendly L.A. School Report found newsworthy — LAUSD teacher Daniel Jocz, from Downtown Magnet High School, was named California Teacher of the year, and is one of just FOUR finalists remaining for national Teachers of the Year:
http://laschoolreport.com/38186-2/
In any other town in this nation, this positive news would merit coverage a story.
From EDUCATION MATTERS … not a peep.
You see, here’s the problem with L.A. Times EDUCATION MATTERS covering this story.
This acclaimed teacher came from a TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL … you know… those hopeless failure factories that need to be replaced by privately-managed charters ASAP! Jocz’ outstanding accomplishment doesn’t fit the party line, or the prescribed and enforced narrative that their corporate masters ordered the L.A. Times to follow:
RULE 1: Anything that is favorable to the traditional public schools — i.e. anything which would slow the privatization of L.A’s traditional public schools thru converting them to charter schools — must be ignored at all costs, LIKE IT NEVER FREAKIN’ HAPPENED.
Let me tell you: if Jocz worked as a teacher at a charter chain such as Green Dot, KIPP, Aspire, PUC, Alliance, Celerity, ICEF, Goethe International, etc…. you know, and I know that those same public-school-success-ignoring L.A. Times EDUCATION MATTERS’ reporters would be salivating on their keyboards as they typed up this latest “proof” of charter charter school superiority, and posted the accompanying article proving charter schools and their teachers were superior to horrible traditional public schools, and thus, the entire district should go charter, a la New Orleans.
It reminds me of the story — from Edushyster’s website — where a prominent reporter was applying to work at Campbell Brown’s ‘THE 74″ website, one that favors school privatization thru charter school expansion, along with the accompanying teacher-union-busting.
During the job interview, the reporter was told that s/he would be barred from writing anything negative about charter schools. Even if there was a major corruption scandal involving charters, one that was being heavily covered by the mainstream media, reporters working at “THE 74” were expressly forbidden from covering it.
Ignore it or be fired, the would-be “THE 74” reporter was told during his/her job interview.
Here’s that story:
http://edushyster.com/will-the-74-investigate-charter-scandals/
Read that story, as Edushyster details how the organization running ‘THE 74’s’ media demanded that she give up the name of the person who told her this. That same organization was and is running the campaign to suppress the efforts of teachers to unionize the Alliance chain of charter schools in Los Angeles.
In her own mission statement for her “THE 74” site, Brown even stated that she doesn’t believe that there are “two sides” to the story of corporate education reform. Corporate ed reformers were and are always THE GOOD GUYS, and anyone critical of them were and are always THE BAD GUYS. She wrapped this bizarre editorial policy in the justification that doing so would be the only way that “children would be put first.”
You can read this deranged nonsense here:
https://www.the74million.org/article/campbell-brown-journalism-advocacy-and-why-not-every-story-has-two-sides
The fact that Brown’s organization Coalition for Educational Justice, and its on-line propaganda org “THE 74” is funded entirely by money-motivated hedge-funders and billionaire school privatizers…. well that’s just a coincidence.
Isn’t Mercury also the firm that Villaraigosa consulted for after he left the Mayor’s office? I think so.
Karen Lewis explains everything, “You can’t have a seat at the table if you’re on the menu.” Our children, teachers, parents and public education are on the menu!
American Greed has not had enough & the public is not waking up, or speaking up.
Soon, it may be too late.
Get up!
Speak out!
I agree that Karen Lewis offered a great summary. The investigative detail on this issue and in this post is truly outstanding.
It is noteworthy that not many leaders in higher education seem to give a damn about this corruption. I conclude that Eli has bought their silence or that they are cheerleading, like the scholars at Stanford associated with CREDO, who seek proofs of charter superiority by creating statistical fictions.
Laura, the scholars at Stanford are part of The Hoover Institution and funded by Walton
I see this as analogous to the NYTimes support for Christine Quinn for NYC mayor. Bill de Blasio won with 81% and Quinn was virtually ignored by the electorate. The NYTimes was doing Bloomberg’s bidding. LATimes is doing Broad’s bidding. The plutocrats are simply supporting each other.
Good comparison. By sharing these stories we can learn from each other, which is what this page has been about for me. I’m very grateful.
In Mexico, the new shadow government is the narco-traffickers. In the USA, the new shadow government is the Billionaire Boys’ Club. In both places, the citizens are losing control of their country.
If I were in LA, I would compare what Broad is trying to do to the Flint water disaster. Both involve greed at the expense of children and communities.
Warn Angelenos that they’re going to get to the Flint equivalent of schools if they don’t stop Broad.
I thought of that too!
The Broad reach is getting deeper. A so-called graduate of the Broad process is now the President of Bank Street College. For those who do not know about early childhood education, the leaders of Bank Street College from the 1920’s on basically wrote the book on the progressive theories and practices of the field. I find this an interesting development.
The president of Bank Street used to be progressive but then worked for Joel Klein and became the leader of testing regime
“Here’s another change in the plan: Although it is still well-funded, it apparently won’t be quite the half-a-billion-dollar effort originally envisioned. Donations haven’t been coming in at that level. Though fundraising will continue, the numbers being talked about now are more like two-thirds that amount.
That could be part of the reason for the avowed change of mission. The original draft was widely criticized after The Times reported on it, and the backlash didn’t come solely from the teachers unions and other typical charter-school opponents”
Let’s all sit around and guess what the billionaire plans for public schools.
Shouldn’t a newspaper believe people have a RIGHT to know what the plans are?
He (supposedly) changed his mind on the plan one time. What’s to stop him from changing his mind again once it’s in place? What if they don’t raise enough money from whomever is bankrolling this? What then? The public picks up the tab for Eli Broad’s vision?
Are they afraid to ask Broad directly? I guess they’ll find out when the lobbying group chooses to release selected details.
Craig Clough, at the usually pro-charter L.A. School Report wrote an interesting article in the aftermath of the leaked Broad Plan. In it, he wrote that the data and claims of charter school success expressed in the report — cited in the Broad-Walmart Plan memo as justification for opening more charter schools, and converting public schools to charter schools — were at best, highly exaggerated and twisted out of context, and at worst, utterly false and misleading.
Here it is:
http://laschoolreport.com/charters-with-broad-support-show-only-a-mixed-return-on-investment/
CRAIG CLOUGH: “In building a case for creating 260 charter schools within in LA Unified eight years at a cost of $490 million, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has cited “significant” gains by three charter organizations that have received $75 million from the foundation.
“But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive evidence in the report outlining the expansion plans that shows big investments in charters always — or evenly routinely — achieve consistent academic improvements, raising an important question: Just what can Broad and other foundations promise for an investment of nearly half a billion dollars in an expansion effort that would dramatically change the nation’s second-largest school district?”
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In that same article, the school administrators union, AALA, was equally outraged, both at the bogus facts the leaked Broad-Walmart Plan memo used to justify charter expansion and conversion, and some other facts put out by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA):
“Jumping into the mix is the Associated Administrators of the Los Angeles (AALA), which in its recent newsletter criticized the CCSA analysis, saying the ‘wins’ of charters on the tests are diminished ‘when one considers that the enrollment of traditional schools includes 6% more English learners, who presumably would be at a disadvantage on the SBAC English language arts assessment (though they were apparently not at the same disadvantage on the SBAC math assessment).
” ‘In addition, the traditional schools have a slightly higher percentage of students who qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.’
“AALA also said that…
” ‘ the analysis presented in the CCSA press release is sophomoric advocacy at the expense of rigor. Serious comparisons may only be made between schools with similar socio-economic status.’ ”
Below is an old half-hour TV interview with Eli Broad pontificating on LAUSD, moderated by veteran L.A. television newsman Conan Nolan.
To start with, the premise of this is ridiculous. Broad gets an entire show to discuss LAUSD, as if he were on a par with, or possessing power equivalent to the actual LAUSD Superintendent.
He was never elected to any position that governs LAUSD schools.
He has ZERO background in education — as a teacher or administrator, or anything.
All he has is a lot of money. (For more on this, SEE Peter Greene’s essay on the “Betterocracy”… the notion that control of public schools by un-elected, preening, self-appointed wealthy elites should replace actual democracy of all citizens when it comes to public schools’ governance:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/06/betterocracy.html
PETER GREENE: “Betterocracy rests on one simple fundamental belief– some people really are better than others. It’s not necessarily the possession of a particular quality, though ‘Betters’ are usually smarter, wiser, and possessed of superior character. It’s that ‘Betters’ are made of the right stuff. They come from good stock. They are just better than others.”
” … ”
” ‘Bettercrats’ know that not everybody should have a say. ‘Betters’ should be in charge. ‘Lessers’ should not. Letting just anybody have a vote, even if he’s a Lesser, leads to bad, messy, stupid decisions. Preferable to sweep away voting rights (from electing Presidents to choosing school boards) in predominantly ‘Lesser’ communities. Dump the school board, and install leadership by a ‘Better.’ Do not engage or discuss with the members of the ‘Lesser” community; if ‘Lessers’ deserved to have money, power, or a say, they would already have it.”
The whole essay is worth worth the read.)
Yet here is Broad — one of those unelected, preening, self-appointed wealthy ‘Betters’ — being interviewed on L.A. television, as if his word on LAUSD schools is more important than anyone else’s … including teachers, administrators, and other LAUSD officials who’ve been on the job for decades.
Would Conan Nolan be interviewing some other billionaire about how the police and fire departments should be run — or turned over to private management (“Acme Charter Police Services”) — or on exactly which individuals should be placed in charge of the LAPD / LAFD, or remain in charge, etc? Why is it this way with public schools?
Three years prior to this interview, Broad almost single-handedly chose LAUSD’s superintendent. Via his puppets, then-Board Member Yolie Flores and current Board Member Monica Garcia, Eli Broad had rammed through John Deasy’s hiring as LAUSD Superintendent in a secret closed door meeting… after ZERO public input or discussion, no other multiple candidates were even considered.
In the interview, Broad is demanding that the LAUSD Board keep Deasy — this is in the aftermath of both Deasy’s involvement with both I-pad and MISIS scandals, and dwindling public support for Deasy remaining on the job. The notion, then and now, was that Deasy’s ascension to Superintendent was a collosal mistake, but Eli won’t back down from his support of Deasy.
Again, why is Eli Broad given this half-hour TV show forum, with the implied respect that comes from such an appearance? Why is he treated as if he has any real expertise or authority when it comes to LAUSD schools? He never taught a day in his life. He never worked as a principal or school administrator one day is his life. He has zero credentials when it comes to education.
All he has is a lot of money.
But what really gets me is when Broad talks about Teach for America teachers. He claims that, with only 5 weeks of reportedly dubious training, TFA Corps Members are superior to veteran LAUSD teachers who have a Bachelor’s & Master’s in Education, a full credential, and decades of experience. He just states this demonstrably false claim as if it were a self-evident fact … water is wet … sugar is sweet … TFA temps are better teachers than credentialed veterans.
Go to:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/#!/on-air/as-seen-on/NewsConference-EXTRA–Eli-Broad–We-Should-Have-Done-More/274187301
Here’s the interchange: (approx. times… 02:30 – 03:36 underline mine)
——————————————————–
CONAN NOLAN: “- Have you lost your enthusiasm
for the Teach for America program? I know your
foundation has provided money for this effort
to take college kids- ”
ELI BROAD: “-mm-hmm-”
CONAN NOLAN: “- and have them commit two years,
frequently to a low income school … uhhh… is that… ?
Is that good for education?”
ELI BROAD: “I think it’s great for education.
We’ve been involved with Teach for America
for fourteen years. They get the best
students out of liberal arts colleges to go
into teaching for at least two years, and
then most of them stay on in education
in one way or another.”
CONAN NOLAN: “Some have suggested
that the… the period for training prior to going
into a classroom isn’t extensive enough
for those young students or young
graduates who end up in… the…
Members of various teachers
unions call it “Teach for Awhile”, not
“Teach for America”.
ELI BROAD: “Well, you know these Teach
for America teachers do better—especially
in teaching Math and other subjects—than
veteran teachers, and yes, they can
improve the way they train their teachers,
and they’re doing that.”
———————————————
This is such a blatant falsehood.
It’s the “big lie”… if you repeat it often
enough, and for a long enough period
of time, people figure, “Well, it MUST
be true.”
That link to the Broad interview may not work.
Try this one:
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/as-seen-on/NewsConference_-Eli-Broad_-_We-Should-Have-Done-More__Los-Angeles-274187301.html
By the way, the show that Eli is on — NBC’s News Conference — is a show that goes back 50 years … to 1966… and has a very prominent place in Los Angeles.
I just caught something else from this interview with Broad … a contradiction, if you will.
On the subject of experience, Eli Broad tells Conan Nolan that he believes that experience matters greatly in certain areas, but in others (i.e. with schools)… ehhh … not so much.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/as-seen-on/NewsConference_-Eli-Broad_-_We-Should-Have-Done-More__Los-Angeles-274187301.html
(1:50 – 2:25)
———————————
CONAN NOLAN: “When you look at the City Council of Los Angeles, in the city of L.A., not many business people on that. In fact, I don’t know of ANY. Would you like to see a few more people who had experience with a payroll in leadership positions?:
ELI BROAD: “I sure would.”
CONAN NOLAN: “Uhh … Why is that important?”
ELI BROAD: “It’s important because they know the … they know they have to meet a payroll. They know what, what has to be done. They know what customers need. They know what costs are.”
——————————–
Interesting.
Eli says that you’re not qualified to sit on the L.A. City Council unless you have a background in business, and all that experience in all the in’s and out’s of running a business. and all the details that go with that.
Experience matters, after all.
However, IT’S PERFECTLY OKAY FOR SOMEONE WITH -ZERO- EXPERIENCE IN EDUCATION LIKE HIMSELF, SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER WORKED A DAY AS A TEACHER, NEVER WORKED A DAY AS AN ADMINISTRATOR, NEVER WORKED A DAY IN ANY SCHOOL IN ANY CAPACITY ….
… to appoint himself the de facto Superintendent of a sort of “shadow” School Board that he runs and that no citizen ever elected him to, and then RE-ENGINEER THE SECOND LARGEST SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES TO HIS LIKING.
Huh???!!!
Here’s what Broad might have said when asked the same questions about education and the experience necessary:
————————
CONAN NOLAN: “When you look at your Great Public Schools Now (GPSN) organization — your group that’s out to convert LAUSD existing public schools to privately-run charters — there are not many teachers, school administrators, or many people with any experience whatsoever in education in your group. In fact, I don’t know of ANY. Would you like to see a few more people who had experience in education in leadership positions at GPSN?”
ELI BROAD: “No.”
CONAN NOLAN: “Uhh … Why is that NOT important?”
ELI BROAD: “It’s NOT important because billionaires like me — even though my fellow wealthy elite GPSN reformers and I have ZERO educational experience — actually know MORE about how to improve education, and actually have GREATER EXPERTISE on how to run a school district than those others that you mentioned… you know, those low quality members of a corrupt, failed status quo that put adult interests ahead of children’s interests.
“We wealthy elites actually care MORE about the education of poor and middle class children, and have MORE expertise in educating them than the people who work in those schools ever day.”
“Didn’t you get that memo, Conan?”
—————————-
The same goes for Broad’s support for TFA in the quote from the earlier post. People who’ve never set foot in a classroom and with only five weeks of training, are somehow better teachers than veterans with two degrees, a credential, and decades of experience.
This is about taking the career of teaching from
… a REPSECTED PROFESSION on a par with doctors, lawyer, engineers, etc. … with intensive, long-term education, training, apprenticeship with student teaching… with job protections, respect, and decent pay commensurate with that respect,… and one that is done for decades
and drag it down to that of …
… a LOW-LEVEL SERVICE JOB such as fast food, office temping, retail, etc. … with minimal training, no apprenticeship, no job protections, little respect, lousy pay … and one that is done 2-5 years tops, then OUT and onto your real career.
I actually had that debate with an actual TFA teachers. “Would you hire or go to a doctor or lawyer who’s never been to medical school or law school?”
Her response, “Yeah, but those aren’t like teaching. Those are REAL professions.” And she was saying that to a career teacher.
Here’s a great MSNBC interview with Joanne Barkan on the influence of Broad, Gates, Walton, etc.
What Peter Greene calls “Betterocracy”, she calls “a democracy deficit.”
Her first answer is at about 00:47
00:47
JOANNE BARKAN: “Well, I think there are two problems: the first is what I call a ‘democracy deficit’ that (Bill & Melinda Gates) have a tremendous amount of influence — not just them but also the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. They have a tremendous amount of influence in shaping the public debate, in terms of designing and even implementing government policy…
” … but they’re accountable to NO ONE, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, and the public schools belong to the people, to the parents, and the teachers, and they’re paid for by the voters. And so that ‘democracy deficit’ is extremely important.
“And the other is what I would call a ‘quality deficit.’ The Gates Foundation very consistently has been experimenting, but (what they’re doing in the experimenting) is not based on really solid research. ”
The interviewer is incredulous that Barkan or anyone could ever doubt Gates’ altruistic influence.
Yeah, right.
Because this interview is so short — and the interviewer sort of sucks — I recommend reading the entirety of Barkan’s article here:
Here’s the opening paragraphs, and the concluding paragraphs:
(CAPS are mine, JACK)
—————————–
JOANNE BARKAN:
“The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out.
“A FEW BILLION DOLLARS IN PRIVATE FOUNDATION MONEY, STRATEGICALLY INVESTED EVERY YEAR FOR A DECADE, HAS SUFFICED TO DEFINE THE NATIONAL DEBATE ON EDUCATION; SUSTAIN A CRUSADE FOR A SET OF MOSTLY ILL-CONCEIVED REFORMS, AND DETERMINE PUBLICV POLICY AT THE LOCAL, STATE, AND NATIONAL LEVELS. .
“In the domain of venture philanthropy—where DONORS DECIDE WHAT KIND OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION THEY WANT TO ENGINEER AND THEN DESIGN AND FUND PROJECTS TO IMPLEMENT THAT VISION — investing in education yields great bang for the buck.
“… ”
“The report intrigued me because it shows another aspect of how Gates operates on the ground. More important, it HELPS EXPLAIN WHY THE BIG THREE (Broad, Walton, Gates) CAN KEEP MARKETING AND SELLING REFORMS THAT DON’T WORK.
“Certainly ideology—in this case, FAITH IN THE SUPERIORITY OF THE PRIVATE BUSINESS MODEL — DRIVES THEM. BUT SO DOES THE BLINDING HUBRIS THAT COMES WITH POWER.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN OR SEE BECAUSE YOU KNOW THAT YOUR ARE RIGHT. ONE STUDY AFTER ANOTHER SENDS UP A RED FLAG (that the policies are failing), BUT NO ONE IN THE ED REFORM MOVEMENT BLINKS. Insanity, defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, applies here.
“Can anything stop the foundation enablers?
“AFTER FIVE OR TEN MORE YEARS, THE MESS THEY’RE MAKING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLING MIGHT BE SO UNDENIABLE THAT THEY’LL SAY, ‘Oops! That didn’t work,” then step aside.
“BUT THE DAMAGE MIGHT BE IRREPARABLE:
— thousands of closed schools’ worse conditions in those left open;
— an extreme degree of ‘teaching to the test;’
— demoralized teachers’ rampant corruption by private management companies;
— thousands of failed charter schools;
and
— more low-income kids without a good education.
“Who could possibly clean up the mess?
“All children should have access to a good public school. AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS SHOULD BE RUN BY OFFICIALS WHO ARE ANSWERABLE TO THE VOTERS.
“”GATES, BROAD, AND WALTON ARE ANSWERABLE TO NO ONE. Tax payers still fund more than 99 percent of the cost of K–12 education. Private foundations should not be setting public policy for them. PRIVATE MONEY SHOULD NOT BE PRODUCING WHAT AMOUNTS TO FALSE ADVERTISING FOR A FAULTY PRODUCT.
“THE IMPERIOUS OVERREACHING OF THE BIG THREE UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY JUST AS SURELY AS IT DAMAGES PUBLIC EDUCATION.”
– – – – – – – – – –
Joanne Barkan, who graduated from public schools in Chicago, lives and writes in Manhattan and on Cape Cod. Her next article on education will focus on teachers and their unions.
Ooops, forgot to add the link to Joanne Barkan’s essay.
Here it is:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billionaires-rule-our-schools
Back east, on the other coast, we handle things with more yankee reserve than you radicals on the west coast. Our newspaper of record, The Boston Globe, has been much more discrete and genteel in its advocacy for the destruction of our public schools, but continually cheerleads for charter takeovers within the city. Currently, the school budget calls for a $50 million reduction in funding for next year (on top of $140 million in the past two years), but the Globe calls the lastest assault a “re-allocation” of funds. That BPS has been named the “best” public school system in the nation does not deter these intrepid souls from their mission. We are a target of the Waltons’ latest billion dollar spending to establish charters and the mayor has signed off on the Gates’ sponsored Compact with its unified enrollment, allowing charter schools to appear on the same forms as public schools.
See more, including a petition to stop the underfunding of our schools:
http://publicschoolmama.com/2016/01/12/austerity-measures-in-a-time-of-plenty/
Christine…how is it going with your new Broad Academy-trained, and ex-LAUSD employee, Superintendent of Schools? Did the Boston Globe ever print their interview with me re his LA behavior?
Well, Mayor Walsh just stated that he was “recommitting” himself to the traditional public schools in Boston … by cutting $50 million of those schools’ funding … all the while promoting charter school expansion.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/17/mayor-will-recommit-boosting-schools-his-state-city-address/gRHQjymBARH2oBfMsn3VUO/story.html
This was all at the behest of the pro-school privatization, and anti-teachers union McKinsey & Co. foundation that’s guiding Walsh’s ed policy.
As you know, Mayor Marty Walsh is doing all this in tandem with new Boston Schools Supe Tommy Chang, recently of LAUSD.
Parents are not pleased, as, among other things, these cuts will cause traditional public schools to lose accreditation — due to no more librarians, no more foreign language classes, no more credentialed math teachers, etc. It will also leave schools unable to fund legally mandated services and accommodations for Special Ed. students.
But he’s still expanding those charter schools, doncha know?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/17/mayor-will-recommit-boosting-schools-his-state-city-address/gRHQjymBARH2oBfMsn3VUO/story.html
NOTEL Boston Schools Supe Tommy Chang is a former Green Dot executive and Broad Academy Grad. who was hired to work at LAUSD by John Deasy, and later promoted at LAUSD by Deasy.
Nice pick for your new Schools supe!!!
Also, I’m warning you.
You and the parents in Boston need to know and realise this fact:
the so-called “unified enrollment” plan means THE DEATH OF NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS as Boston parents now know, understand, and utilize them.
It means that parents are not allowed to attend the zoned school that is within walking distance or those parents’ homes (or across the street even), and where their child is then forced to endure an hour-or-two-or-more-away commute to attend the new school that is assigned to them, whether the parents want their child attending that school or or not.
(Big surprise: ALL parents do not want such a hideous commute for their children, but in districts with corporate reform has expanded — Wash, D.C., New Orleans, Chicago, Newark, etc. … those parents have no goddamn choice in the mater.
Google it.
There are endless horror stories of this ilk from New Orleans and Newark and elsewhere. Families with five kids … and all five siblings being sent to five different schools in five disparate parts of the city. Good luck getting your kids to-and-from school every day.
Or siblings where the special ed male sibling is barred from attending one school, while the regular ed female sibling with high test scores is met with open arms.
“Your daughter’s O.K. to come here. Your son? Ehhh … not so much.”
Here… I just found that last one.
It’s about a Newark mom who can’t enroll her son in school next to the family’s home, the one her daughter currently attends… Prior to Cami Anderson’s “corporate reform” makeover of Newark schools, this was once her family’s “neighborhood school.”
Not anymore.
That’s “school choice” all right. The school “chooses” which kids can attend, and which kids can’t… even when this process splits up siblings, much of it based on siblings’ individual status as special ed, or regular ed…
“Your daughter’s acceptable. But your son…? Meh… not so much…”
http://www.bobbraunsledger.com/julian-cant-go-to-the-school-next-to-his-house-one-newark-and-chris-cerf-wont-allow-it/
The billionaires and other corporate reformers who sit in their ivory tower promoting
To the billionaires and other corporate reformers who sit in their ivory tower promoting these policies such as “unified enrollment”, the resulting and devastating Special Ed. and Regular Ed. casualties like the ones described above matter not, To them, those children are abstractions, statistics … cold numbers on a page, totally disconnected from the human beings that they actually represent.
Unconscionably horrible unfairness gets meted out to low-income parents and students as a result of the latest experimental “reform”?
Well, that’s just too bad. It’s no skin off our noses, after all. Our kids or grandkids will never have to be subjected to Cami Anderson’s or New Orleans’ or someone elses’ Brave New Corporate Ed Reform World, as their own kids/grandkids go to $40,000/year private schools (i.e. Campbell Brown’s kids.)
And I need to the be a little more precise. In the story above, the “school” doesn’t “choose” to turn away the special ed sibling, while keeping the regular ed sibling. The market-driven charter honcho “chooses” this, as he or she knows that the special ed kid’s education costs … a lot… and we can’t have that cutting into on our profits… errr… our non-profit surplus … and thus inhibit our ability to implement the market-demanded expansion of the number of charters in our chain (Eva, I’m talking about you, dear.)
The traditional public school administrator doesn’t have some godawful market-based mission to maximize the non-profit surplus that would, in turn, enable it to engage in the required or heavily-pushed-for “expansion”.
On the contrary, the mission of a truly public school is to educate every child in the attendance area that shows up in that school’s front offices (with proof of living in that school’s attendance area). That means you SPEND whatever you have to, you DO whatever you have to, in order do educate and meet all the needs of that special ed child because… because .. because, damn it, that’s the moral thing to do, the thing you’re supposed to do when you live in a humanitarian democracy, not a cold-blooded market based schooling system.
Louisiana teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider recently highlighted an important aspect of this the recent “Got-to-Go” list controversy at Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy last month (Dec. 2015) — where children, almost off of the Special Ed. — were put on a Got-to-Go list and pressured to leave the school.
It’s an aspect that others, including myself until recently, have thus far missed.
http://lctabus.com/new.asp?mercedes-schneider/moskowitzs-letter-to-merr_b_8385992.html
( an excerpt from Schneider’s article appears at the end of this post)
But first, let me say this.
The behaviors of this Special Ed. Success Academy child in question — referenced BELOW in Schneider’s article — indicate that the child suffers from some disabling condition or learning disability—ADD, ADHD, oppositional defiance disorder, etc. As such, the child needs specialized care and attention. A specialist has to be brought in to identify the innate problem. Based on that and other input, a program, including an I.E.P. mandating an on-going plan of intervention, must then be implemented.
None of that goes on at Success Academy.
Eva’s only brilliant response to the child’s disability is for her and her staff to suspend, suspend, suspend. She and the others in charge at SUCCESS ACADEMY apparently believe that doing so will just magically “suspend” the child’s innate disability out of existence, as in days of yore, when witches would be hired to cast spells to drive out the demons that caused a child’s troubling mental condition… many of those conditions are what we in the modern world now identify as autism, ADD, etc.
On the other hand, based on prior comments to the press, the folks at SUCCESS ACADEMY don’t even believe in the concept of “disability,” or that there is such a category known as “special ed,”. Nor do the believe in bringing in specialists, or in implementing IEP’s.
Indeed Eva has even said as much, expressing her belief that such innate deficiencies may exist, but doesn’t deign to take those unfortunates on … dumping them back into the public schools for those folks to handle. This, in turn, places heavy financial and manpower demand on those public schools, as special ed. kids require highly-trained, highly paid special ed. teacher, a small class size or student-to-teacher ratio, etc. … and of course, lower test scores that prompts Eva to blather, “We’re putting the public schools to shame with our scores.” … because all the low scorers from Eva’s schools have been systematically purged..
Essentially, Eva views children in general as commodities… valued on two criteria:
1) cheapest to educate — no expensive special ed kids draining your budget
AND
2) potential for high test scores — again, the special ed kids are unable to deliver those.
According to one staffer, she responds to kids in any low-test-score-causing hardship, including those based on disability with the following comment:
“SUCCESS ACADEMY is not a Social Services agency.”
Eva Moskowitz is on the same page with recently-departed Secretary of Ed. Arne Duncan. To both of them, there’s no such thing as “special ed.” In her opinion — as expressed by one of her top administrators (JUST BELOW) — is that what the traditional school approach categorizes as “special ed,” is nothing more than a lack of “maturity” as a result of “mama” failing to her her job. Those whose fail to “mature” — or have the effects of poor parenting reversed — under Eva’s system are kicked out… err… “counseled out.”
This is from PAGE 5 of the 2010 NEW YORK MAGAZINE story on Eva and her schools:
http://nymag.com/news/features/65614/index4.html
————————————————-
“At Harlem Success, disability is a dirty word.
” ‘I’m not a big believer in special ed,’ (SUCCESS ACADEMY’s instructional leader) Fucaloro says. For children who arrive with individualized education programs, or IEPs, he goes on, the real issues are ‘maturity and undoing what the parents allow the kids to do in the house—usually mama—and I reverse that right away.’
“When remediation falls short, according to sources in and around the network, families are counseled out. ‘Eva told us that “the school is not a social-service agency,” ‘ says the Harlem Success teacher. ‘That was an actual quote.’
“In one case, says a teacher at P.S. 241, a set of twins started kindergarten at the co-located HSA 4 last fall. One of them proved difficult and was placed on a part-time schedule, ‘so the mom took both of them out and put them in our school. She has since put the calm sister twin back in Harlem Success, but they wouldn’t take the boy back. We have the harder, troubled one; they have the easier one.’
“Such triage is business as usual, says the former network staffer, when the schools are vexed by behavioral problems:
” ‘They don’t provide the counseling these kids need.’ If students are deemed bad ‘fits’ and their parents refuse to move them, the staffer says, the administration ‘makes it a nightmare’ with repeated suspensions and midday summonses.
“After a 5-year-old was suspended for two days for allegedly running out of the building, the child’s mother says the school began calling her every day ‘saying he’s doing this, he’s doing that. Maybe they’re just trying to get rid of me and my child, but I’m not going to give them that satisfaction.’ ”
“At her school alone, the Harlem Success teacher says, at least half a dozen lower-grade children who were eligible for IEPs have been withdrawn this school year. If this account were to reflect a pattern, Moskowitz’s network would be effectively winnowing students before third grade, the year state testing begins.
” ‘The easiest and fastest way to improve your test scores,’ observes a DoE principal in Brooklyn, ‘is to get higher-performing students into your school.’ And to get the lower-performing students out.”
———————————————
Teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider further underscores this in her analysis of the PBS piece on Eva and her Success Academies. Schneider is referencing a particular child who was acting out during an out-of-school field trip — the report of which Eva illegally publicized in a press release, as part of her defense in the “Got-to-Go” list fiasco … violating the child’s legally protected privacy rights, and publicly humiliating the child / parent / family in the process:
http://lctabus.com/new.asp?mercedes-schneider/moskowitzs-letter-to-merr_b_8385992.html
————————————————–
MERCEDES SCHNEIDER:
“Here is my question for Moskowitz:
“If the student had a history of (as his mother describes) ‘outbursts” and meltdowns’ and he had already displayed such behavior at school, then why would Success Academies allow this student to participate in an off-campus excursion?
“Such seems to be a poor choice given that the SA teachers/administrators appear to have no specific plan in place for (note the pun) successfully diffusing the student’s outbursts. Thus, the faculty/administrative decision to take the student into an unfamiliar setting (a field trip) without a proven behavior plan was foolish.
“Third (and related to the second observation), in all of her efforts to publicize the student’s behavior file, in an effort to exonerate her schools, Moskowitz includes absolutely no evidence that Success Academies ever, at any time, attempted to discover what might trigger the student’s outbursts/meltdowns in order to formulate a plan of action to help the child learn to manage his own behavior, thereby promoting his own social health (and, by extension, the social health of his classmates and teachers).
“In short, Moskowitz’s point in her letter to Merrow was to defend her schools, not to actually help the child.
“Following her offering details from two incidents, Moskowitz places blame back on student and his mother, even as she offers nothing by way of trying to help student and mother to understand and manage the student’s behavior:
– – – – – – – – – –
EVA MOSKOWITZ: “Incidents like this occurred on a regular basis. Frankly, it was only by applying a very lenient standard that this student was only suspended eight times over nearly three years in our schools. …
“As you can see, the situation here was challenging not only because of the child, but because of his mother as well. We often find that in the end, while we can succeed with almost any student, if the parent is not willing to work with us, that makes things much harder.”
– – – – – – – – – –
“Again, Moskowitz offers no evidence of ever, at any point, having tried to understand what might have prompted the student’s outbursts/meltdowns.
“It could well be that ‘the very structured environment’ and ‘very high academic and behavioral expectations’ of which Success Academy Prospect Heights principal Monica Komery speaks might be too much for some students.
“The farthest that Moskowitz will go is to ‘put up with’ students like Jamir Geidi, even for years. Beyond repeated suspensions, Success Academies has nothing to offer the Jamir Geidis who enter SA’s ‘very structured’ halls.
“The ‘success’ only comes if those pesky suspended-and-suspended-again students are molded into a Moskowitz-forged image.
“If not, they must go.”
Speaking of a lack of yankee reserve, a journalism ethics expert from San Francisco has unequivocally weighed in on the LA Times coverage, saying it is a massive conflict of interest. http://www.psconnectnow.org/blog/2016/1/18/journalism-ethics-expert-says-la-times-is-trapped-in-a-massive-conflict-of-interest
Here’s another video protesting the Broad attempted hostile takeover of LAUSD … and the same issues of charters not taking Special Ed. kids and kicking them out: