Rafe Esquith, the celebrated Los Angeles public school teacher and founder of the Hobart Shakespeareans, won an important legal victory. He is suing LAUSD, which fired him, as a class action on behalf of all teachers in the district who have been removed from their jobs and placed in limbo awaiting due process. LAUSD moved to dismiss his lawsuit, but the judge denied the district’s request. This brings the fifth-grade teacher to a trial of his claims.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-rafe-esquith-lawsuit-20160713-snap-story.html
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That’s great, I don’t know where that leaves the class action suit.
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I believe the next step is to get the class certified. A long and grueling process.
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Mark Geragos is the lead attorney in the this suit which is a class action involving now about 2,000 LAUSD teachers. It is in process.
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Good analysis of the situation in Nashville:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/news/features/article/20827848/board-games-charter-backers-gear-up-with-major-funding-to-get-their-loudest-critics-off-the-school-board
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Mark Geragos knows very well about the corruption in LAUSD and knows very much about the Gulen Movement. He went up against them in an elections fraud case in Ohio with their then puppet Congresswoman Jean Schmidt. He then had Sibel Edmonds the ex FBI Turkish translator do a 3 hour deposition in his Washington offices. But here is the portion about the Gulen Movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB8QbD-6Wjw
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I am always happy to see a teacher win.
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Go get um Rafe!
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I don’t think this decision relates to the class action. I think it relates to the earlier lawsuit Esquith filed in his own capacity.
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The article is confusing…it first speaks of Rafe’s lawsuit for defamation….and then ends the article with info on the class action. Some of us wrote a great deal about Rafe Esquith last year and all of it is Diane’s archives.
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I am delighted with this excellent news. It has shown that human conscience is alive in certain judge in today’s privatization madness.
As the old saying says that everything under the sun happens for a reason, but the goodness shall prevail. Back2basic
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Ellen, can you find out if this is the class action filed in conjunction with Esquth’s suit. It’s about time that the chickens come home to roost on this corrupt district. The amount of damage they have done to veteran teaching staff will probably never allow recovery. I hope the district crashes and burns so that this illegal, corrupt enterprise can not continue.
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Agree Paula….highly paid officials at LAUSD have done endless damage to many good and innocent teachers….some who lost their homes, their careers, their health, and even their lives. The past 3 – 5 years at LAUSD have been a horror. Deasy made a bad situation so much worse…and his melody lingers on. There should not be a single teacher sitting in teacher jail with no real charges leveled, only waiting until they break. This is like a gulag injustice.
With Great Public Schools Now, the goal is to do away with unions, lower salaries of trained teachers to match TFA kids, and do away with retirement and health plans altogether. This is the goal of the PRIVATEERS who live in the greatest excesses of luxury. I was personally told a few months ago by two separate Charter school founders/Board members, that this was to be the new face of LA schools…and schools all over the nation.
(BTW, yesterday Dianne took me to task for using the word “redistribution” as to wealth traveling only upward for the last few decades. She did not want me to use this term any more… but since it is an vital term of art used in economics, not to use it would be like saying we should get rid of the terms ‘algebra, geometry, calculus’ when discussing math. Sorry Dienne…not going to happen.)
We should do a field trip to see all their homes in Beverly Hills, and all over WLA and Malibu. Larry Ellison of Oracle, and Jerry Perrenchio, together own huge mansions (and even a private golf course) on the Malibu beach, and they each wield unique power over just about everything, but are names you hardly hear. Eli Broad does not hold a candle to their billions (e.g. Buffets Hathway partner, Charles Munger; or Charles Schwab: or Phil Anschutz; or Pete Petersen etc.) …but has driven fear into so many hearts of our leadership, and has greased so many palms, and is such an ego maniac, that we hear about him continually…but there are many others quietly feeding into this free market takeover of our democracy.
We have the worst of the Billioinaire Vulture Philanthropists controlling our schools, our hospitals, our medical systems, and our government, and of course, all the major law firms.
These are the greedy pigs who want teachers…all teachers K – university…to live in poverty. They speak with clear disdain about those who cannot produce huge bucks, but do the lowly work of teaching. And both Hillary and Trump crave their cash and their approbation. Whores and whore mongers…all.
Ya think I’m a little angry????
I will again research the Esquith case(s) and get back to you. Hang in Paula.
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They are evil. Again, they are evil. I mean the people who make up false accusations against teachers and other employees. Why do I say that they are evil? It is because they have found an easy way to fire educators and that is: the kid says that the teacher touched her/him. The student made up the story to impress her/his friend or for fun or any other reason. The police comes and investigates. It was false but the teacher still gets fired or suspended without due process of law. It seems to me that fair is foul and foul is fair as Shakespeare says. If anyone commits a crime, he or she should pay for it according to the law. But the evil idea probably was engineered at the very top and is applied all the way to the bottom against the veteran teachers because they make a decent salary and are close to retirement. Also, without the veteran teachers, there is more room for charter schools. And the billionaires come to take over public education like hyenas take a prey from the lions. Not because they want to teach but because they love the taxpayers’ money.
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Some of the information that came out about his inappropriate relationships give me pause. The fact that some really good people on the LA school board went after him so hard makes me think Rafe may be guilty of some seriously wrong behavior.
This may not be the person teachers in LA want for a lead plaintiff on their class action.
I hope I am wrong.
But, I believed Bill Clinton was innocent of an affair with Monica. Since then, I am more circumspect about championing people I want to be innocent.
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From the first article posted above:
“The emails were taken out of context, Meiselas said. In fighting the district’s motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit, Esquith’s attorneys included a statement from a former student who had received one of the emails singled out. The former student said portions of the email that the district points to are “‘cherry-picked’ to depict our conversations as having an inappropriate or sexual nature that is completely inaccurate.”
Esquith has not been charged with any crimes and his lawyers have denied any misconduct.”
I don’t trust LAUSD. Let’s wait for all the fact to come out before judging the man.
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No Tom…Rafe just was too lauded world wide, and he was at the top of the salary scale…and the crooked crew of petty officials at Beaudry got the law firms to find a way to exterminate him by parsing, and cutting and pasting emails, to manufacture a way to dump him.
He has been honored by several Presidents, by the Queen of England, and so many others, that they could not stand it. And Cortines, who was up on real sexual harassment and illegal retribution firing charges, wanted to redirect public attention away from himself. Geragos would not have taken this case if he thought Rafe could actually be guilty of the silliness with which he was charged.
And also Deasy had the FBI and the SEC investigating him…and Broad certainly wanted to deflect the attention from this as well.
This is far from a Miramonte case.
Please go the archives here and read about it.
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To tultican:
Are you an educator by any chance? Have you managed your time to excel your specific skill in teaching or in your career with passion?
I have striven to be well rounded in academics and in many extra-curriculum activities from my childhood until my golden age.
I affirmatively confirm that all conscientious people with talent and passion ONLY DEDICATE their precious time to alleviate the unfortunate besides writing their well-known books that help others to better adjust their thought and action to humanitarian belief.
Your expression reveals your gullibility which evils can manipulate your thought and lead you to the wrong path.
Here is Dr. Ravitch’s wisdom that is very affirmative and impartial. I hope that you can appreciate this
[start quote]
…
My views are the product of a lifetime of experience and study.
No one can buy me. I don’t want a job, a grant, or money.
The only good thing about growing old is that your ambitions are put into check.
…
[end quote]
In short, you should not have even a tiny doubt about the goodness in all conscientious educators who completely devote their lives to ameliorate poor students’ learning and to build their confidence up to be ready to be healthy and productive citizens in society. Back2basic
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I respectfully remind folks that the LAUSD does not have a good track record when it comes to policing their own top-level people and in fairly treating the vast majority of LAUSD employees.
I refer simply to one case in point. The immoral treatment of Ms. Patrena Shankling by then-newly minted Supt. John Deasy. Said behavior got even the normally rabid rheephormster and worshipful Deasy adulator, former LATIMES opinion writer Sandy Banks, a bit uneasy. [See also remarks by Ellen Lubic above.]
So until we have all the pertinent and important facts, let’s not rush to judgment about Rafe Esquith and so many others. I know that’s hard, but as an old dead French guy reminds us:
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” [Jean-Jacques Rousseau]
😎
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In a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff’s allegations must be taken as true. This is not surprising. Rafe has a difficult hurdle to overcome when it gets to a motion for summary judgment or an actual verdict. This result is not surprising.
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