Pro-public school demonstrators marched in Los Angeles as part of the national “walk-in” for public schools.
The 20th Street Elementary School was one center for the protest because it has been targeted for privatization by the billionaire-funded “Parent Revolution.”
“Parents at 20th Street filed a petition earlier this month to convert the school into a charter school. To make the change, they’re using the state’s “parent trigger law” that allows parents to decide who will take control of a low-performing campus once the school district confirms that a majority of parents had signed a petition.
“The parent group hasn’t yet chosen an organization that would run the charter school. Under state law, only parents who signed the petition will have a vote. The advocacy group helping them, Parent Revolution, is backed by nonprofit organizations that support the growth of charter schools, including the Walton Family Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, the Arnold Foundation and the Broad Foundation.
“The petition drive has divided the campus, with supporters accusing teachers of misconduct and retaliation. The union, in turn, has accused Parent Revolution of using deceptive tactics to gather signatures. Both sides have denied any wrongdoing.
“The signs and posters at 20th Street focused on what students loved about their school — the teachers, the music — scrawled in colorful, children’s handwriting.
“Some rallygoers at Hamilton High School in Palms were more direct in their attack on the charter school expansion plan, which was originally spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. That proposal laid out a plan to spend $490 million to double the number of charters in L.A. over eight years.
“Protesters held white posters that proclaimed in black block letters: “Billionaires, have a heart. Your plan will tear our schools apart!” and “Billionaires: Pay your taxes so we can get smaller classes!”
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The Center for Media and Democracy reported that “School Choice Week” was promoted by ALEC and State Policy Network, which are funded by David and Charles Koch.
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The Billionaires don’t have hearts. Instead of a heart, their chest is filled with gold and greenbacks.
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I wholeheartedly support AROS and their principles… but… I fear that the groups who are underwriting this movement will be made to appear self-interested. To those on the right, anything sponsored by any union is viewed the way progressives view anything sponsored by the Koch brothers… and the conservatives who control the legislatures and state houses in most of the states in the country will dismiss AROS as a union operation and diminish the force of their principled positions. The power of the opt out movement was that contrary to what politicians claimed parents and rank and file educators— not unions— were the driving force. From what I know of the Moral Monday movement in NC it, too, came from the grassroots. Grassroots movements can capture the imagination of people a lot more than endorsements and money from organized labor… I offer a Senator from VT as evidence in support of that notion. Here’s hoping AROS can ignite the same fire in public school parents and voters as Mr. Sanders has!
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For too long, Americans have allowed the false equivalency of billionaire political spending with that of the collective working people.
Billionaires live in wealthy enclaves far removed from the effects of their political spending. They represent 0.1% of the population. And, their clout is a function of profits from the consumer products that we buy. They spend our money against us. They are autocratic, unlike the democratic framework underpinning unions. Every time a reporter draws a comparison between unions and oligarchs, they should be called out, about it…by us.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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BELOW is the biggest lie told by Megan Baaske, a Broad-Walmart plan spokesperson. While attending yesterday’s “walk-in’s” as an ‘”observer”, she was spewing disinformation to the L.A. School Report for the Broad-Walmart “Great Public Schools Now” group that out to privatize L.A.’s schools.
http://laschoolreport.com/students-educators-rally-before-a-school-walk-in-across-district/
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“ ‘I just got off the phone with the people in Chicago and this is happening all over the country where we are highlighting great programs in sustainable neighborhood community schools,’ (UTLA President Alex) Caputo-Pearl said. ‘If billionaires want to be involved, they should not undermine programs, they should contribute their fair share in taxes.’
“Caputo-Pearl was talking about the non-profit Great Public Schools Now program, which was started by the Broad Foundation and has announced a plan to expand the number of charter schools at LA Unified. Megan Baaske, representing Great Public Schools Now, was at Hamilton observing the event and handing media a statement saying,
“ ‘Great Public Schools Now is an effort dedicated to expanding high-quality public schools, not privatizing them. (LIE… Jack) We hope to work constructively with any group that shares our deep desire to improve education in Los Angeles, and we support all communities who are rallying for better schools.
(Baaske’s) statement added,
“ ‘While we know that creating meaningful change for kids can be difficult, even controversial, we feel the urgency of bringing successful schools to neighborhoods still in need of better options. To accomplish that, we are looking forward to funding teachers and leaders to replicate what works and to support communities to demand that all schools move towards excellence. We are eager to have a thoughtful discussion about the future of education in Los Angeles without impugning the motives of those who disagree with us or resorting to ad hominem attacks. ‘ ”
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LIE, LIE, LIE .. LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE…
Don’t you see? Baaske argues, We’re all about “meaningful change”, that can be “difficult, even controversial,” . All we want to do is “bring successful schools to neighborhoods still in need of better options.”
LIE, LIE, LIE .. LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE…
“MEGAN BAASKE: “We support all communities who are rallying for better schools.”
LIE, LIE, LIE .. LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE… those same communities have voiced over and over and over t heir desire to keep LAUSD’s public schools public, and out of the hands of Baaske’s billionaire bosses. Those citizens have done so at countless school board elections — where pro-privatization candidates lost, even though they outspent their opponents 5-to-1, 10-to-1, or in Monica Ratliff’s case, 50-to-1 — and they’ve expressed this in every poll taken on the matter, and they did so at yesterday’s “walk-in’s”.
Baaske and her bosses don’t give a sh*# about what those communities think. Their goals is to shove school privatization down the public throats whether they like or not. They did this in New Orleans, and they want to do it here in Los Angeles.
“MEGAN BAASKE: “To accomplish that, we are looking forward to funding teachers and leaders to replicate what works and to support communities to demand that all schools move towards excellence.”
TRANSLATION: “We’re looking for ‘teachers” who can be duped and/or bribed into collaborating in the destruction of traditional public schools — those that are transparent to the public, accountable to the public via democratically-elected school boards, and who educate all the public … by supporting or working with “leaders” — billionaire privatizers, and their functionaries… and/or other teachers who be duped into working at, and promoting the expansion of these privately-managed charter schools.”
Seriously folks, these Broad-Walmart Great Public Schools Now people are not to be trusted. They will lie, lie, lie … all the ding-dong day to trick people into putting their guard down, and acting against their own best interests … with the end game being a disastrous free-market free-for-all like they have in New Orleans and elsewhere.
The goal of Megan Baaske’s billionaire bosses is school privatization, or a “hostile takeover” of traditional public schools by private interests.
To truly grasp this, let’s hear from another Great Public Schools Now spokesperson, one more refreshingly forthright than Ms. Baaske
Another of the supporters of this Broad-Walmart plan was his refreshingly honest thoughts in an article, admitting that the Broad-Walmart plan is, in fact, “a hostile takeover” of LAUSD public schools by private interests, and damn it, so what if it is?
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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Read BELOW to see who Melvoin really is, but before you do that, consider this line of his:
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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?
*** MORE DECEPTION FROM CAMPBELL BROWN ***
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.
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 other than 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—both now, and also 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 Melvoin’s law school alma mater …
” … 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 —- Reed lawsuit meant to eviscerate seniority protections under the 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 really are — i.e. 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, that’s supposed to pass for public policy? Who elected him or Broad to impose this stuff, anyway?
Here’s a comment responding to this on this blog:
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Pauline P.
December 15, 2015 at 5:07 pm
I just read the Melvoin article.
This piece has every corporate reform cliche:
1) use of the phrase “status quo” – CHECK
2) false claim unregulated charters are accountable because they can be closed (it’s almost impossible in most places) – CHECK
3) turning schools over to private management = “innovation” – CHECK
5) use of term “college ready” and bogus “college ready” stats – CHECK
6) analogizes privatized charters with FEDERAL EXPRESS – CHECK
7) (debunked) claim that competition from charters forces public schools to improve – CHECK
8) written by a two year TFA wonder boy now making a six-figure
salary to promote privatization — CHECK
… and on it goes…
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For a great breakdown of what the Broad-Walmart “Great Public Schools Now” privatizers are all about, read Peter “CURMUDGUATION” Greene’s article, discussed here:
DIANE RAVITCH: Peter Greene is a master of close reading. In this post, he deconstructs Eli Broad’s audacious plan to take over half the students in Los Angeles and put them in charter schools.
Peter read the 44-page report, which reads like an investors’prospectus. It turns the stomach to see these very rich men destroying a democratic institution.
Here are a few wonderful excerpts:
“But the dream is not just to tap into the huge market of students trapped in failing blah blah blah waiting for their chance for high-quality seats (and, man, I would love to see one of these seats, sit in one of these seats, visit the High Quality Seat Factory and see how these seats are made) blah blah blah.”
And best of all:
“I am absolutely bowled over at the magnitude of this power grab. Imagine if Broad and his friends said, “We’re not happy with the LAPD, so we’re going to hire and train our own police force, answerable to nobody but us, to cover some parts of the city. Also, the taxpayers have to foot the bill.” Or if they decided to get their own army? Or their own mayor?
“Who does this? Who says, “We can’t get enough control over the elected officials in this branch of government, so we will just shove them out of the way and replace them with our own guys, who won’t bug us by answering to Those People.”
“This is not just about educational quality (or lack thereof), or just about how to turn education into a cash cow for a few high rollers– this is about a hamhanded effort to circumvent democracy in a major American city. There’s nothing in this plan about listening to the parents or community- only about what is going to be done to them by men with power and money. This just sucks a lot.”
It was said that Mussolini made the trains run on time. All the Italian people had to do was accept fascism. Are the people of Los Angeles prepared to hand their children over to autocrats and billionaires?
To read Greene’s article in its entirety, go here:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/09/la-plan-to-crush-public-education.html?m=1
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Susan Schwartz gives a good summary of the disastrous impact that school privatization has had on other cities such as New Orleans, Newark, and elsewhere… and should the Broad-Walmart “Great Public Schools Now’ privatizers succeed, will have in Los Angeles:
From the COMMENTS section here:
SUSAN SCHWARTZ:
A summary of what’s ongoing RIGHT NOW taken from Diane’s posts at this site:
FRAGMENTATION OF POLITICAL POWER — Local folks have no say in any aspect of the privatization. Charters answer to their own governing board, and as “recovery” and “achievement” districts spring up, even corporate control is unmanageable spread out.
In Detroit, there are at least 45 separate entities running schools;
In New Orleans there are 44, and THERE IS NOBODY WHO IS ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR KEEPING TRACK OF ALL NEW ORLEANS’ STUDENTS. The cracks through which one can fall are now huge, and the ability of local parents and voters to seek solutions from the People In Charge has been erased.
LOSS OF COMMUNITY-BASED INSTITUTIONS — In many poor communities, the school is one stable community center. But state takeover invariably involves “freeing” students from “the tyranny of geography.” Saying that students should not be trapped in a particular school because of their address sounds noble, but in practice it means that the neighborhood loses one more unifying, strengthening connection (I recommend Robert Putnam’s Our Children for a clear and thorough explanation of why that’s a very bad idea). But in Chicago, some neighborhoods have no schools at all.
INCREASED SEGREGATION — The numbers are in, and charter schools exacerbate segregation. Now, frankly, local control in the hands of racist jerks can not only support segregate, but can make the effects of it far worse. But even in those cases, there is an electoral remedy. In state-run charter systems, there is no remedy at all.
FINANCIAL INSTABILITY — Let me say it one more time– if you think you can run multiple parallel school systems and maintain a total system with far more capacity than you use and do it all for the same costs as a single public system, you are a dope. And of course by the time the state steps in, the school district has already been starved of resources and needs more than simply maintenance-level support. As we’ve also seen repeatedly, the charters who are hired to run these schools commit to doing the job only as long as it suits them financially.
LACK OF OVERSIGHT FROM GOVERNMENT — On top of all that, let’s consider a state like Ohio, which has exercised no educational or financial oversight over its charters, leading to a system that is laughably full of graft, corruption and incompetence. And yet, the state now wants to start taking over school districts and hiring a CEO to serve as conductor on the charter gravy train that will take the public school’s place.
It ain’t just LA.
Philly.com has a story this week that distills many of the troubling qualities of the charter school movement down to a disturbing essence.Yes, it’s that bad.
1. Charter school administrators and leaders are every bit as capable as school district officials of making boneheaded financial decisions that saddle their respective institutions with crippling debt.
2. Profit-minded businesses are destroying whatever moral authority the education reform movement had.
3. The charter movement is way too big and way too ambitious to operate on an ad hoc basis.
Patrick Kerkstra writes that he was always skeptical when anyone suggested that charters (at least some of them) were seeking profits. Now, having read about what is happening in Philadelphia, he is not so sure. I remember the early days of the charter movement. My colleague Checker Finn Jr. used to say, again and again, that there was a deal: if the state gives us (charters) autonomy, we will be accountable. The charters have autonomy but they no longer want accountability.
FINALLY I SAY;
THE LIARS AND CHARLATANS ARE WINNING, and they don’t have to win the election… when they OWNthe schools they own the knowledge of the citizens and that IS the end… and it has happened under the noses of our citizens.
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John Havlicek
Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Smartphone
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