A 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles public school district, who is also NBCT, explains the Rafe Esquith situation here. The writer has the nom de plume of Geronimo. I know who he is; I have met him. But I am not telling.
ON RAFE ESQUITH’S SUIT AGAINST LAUSD
Education has been on trial for a long time in Los Angeles.
We have seen it in many forms, most notably in how business interests in education trump pedagogical interests on many fronts…corporate technology, standardized testing, Charter Schools and billionaire influence on public policy.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is misnamed. It is not a “unified” entity. It can be divided in two using hoary Edu-Marxism (apologies, but I beg your indulgence!). There is the 1% at the top of the District apparatus (or apparatchiks) who control and set policy and then there are the actual educators who are supposed to be the reason for the season–but have been demonized by the structure that ostensibly is supposed to support their efforts.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Wednesday denied LAUSD request to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by the internationally renowned fifth-grade teacher Rafe Esquith, whom they fired last October.
A veteran of the district for over 30 years, Esquith filed the defamation lawsuit against the district in August after he was placed on paid leave and assigned to “teacher jail” pending an internal investigation after a fellow teacher complained that Esquith made a joke about nudity in front of his students in regards to the production of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” the students were performing.
Huck Finn began the entire sorry process that led to Esquith’s dismissal and the current class action suit against LAUSD; it is a top level farce that Twain would have ridiculed in his day but would not have been the least surprised about.
It is most helpful to think about the people who actually run LAUSD as proprietors of a brand that should be called LAUSD, Inc.
LAUSD, Inc. is not interested in good teaching. It is not interested in good pedagogy. It is not interested in what inspires students to want to learn.
LAUSD, Inc. is interested only in LAUSD, Inc. itself.
LAUSD Inc’s greatest concern is for its brand. The apparatus set up in LAUSD headquarters functions only to propagate a self-serving system. In Ken Kesey’s famous “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Chief, the deaf-mute Indian narrator, calls this system “The Combine.” Not that many of the people who run LAUSD have actually read that novel, but their day-to-day priorities are very different from what Education SHOULD and COULD be; it is much more mundane–the business of Education is the Business of education.
Alas, I also can not say with any confidence that many of the District’s top brass have actually read America’s most famous novel, Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”–the literature that got him into trouble in the first place. They would insist that it wasn’t part of their job description and irrelevant to their duties.
Without going down the rabbit hole of all the anti-education, anti-teacher, anti-student policies that LAUSD, Inc. has championed over the years, let us examine this one emblematic case that sort of sums up all that is wrong with how education is viewed by the LAUSD Corporation.
Rafe Esquith’s case should give people who are interested AND vested in true, meaningful education great pause.
Depressing as this telling fact is, I will not go into how completely unsurprising that not any single District Big Shot ever could make it down to Hobart Elementary School to watch Esquith’s magic in action. The author of many acclaimed bestselling books on teaching and an instructor responsible for changing hundred of young lives, his Room 56 had international guests and world class educators parade through marveling at his unconventional teaching methods–but nobody of any authority–not an LAUSD Superintendent nor even one solitary School Board member could be bothered to visit.
They were not interested in anything Hobart Shakespearean related.
Beaudry HQ gave it a big yawn.
The reality for LAUSD, Inc is, they couldn’t really care less what happens in a classroom–just don’t cause it any grief.
The LAUSD, Inc. brain trust in Beaudry is not made up of a bunch of smartypants.
This is not a group known for its inspired, intellectual curiosity.
This group who runs LAUSD, Inc. adhere to the same dynamic, corporate thinking that you would find populating the board rooms of Mobil Oil or Ralston-Purina.
Education–how you and I might think of it–does not disturb their machinations.
So much about Esquith’s case is troubling and indicative of a school district that has zero concern for the intellectual well-being of the students. If it did, LAUSD, Inc. would be championing a pedagogy VERY DIFFERENT from the one that they foist on LAUSD’s children. The leaderships view of what good education is in Rafe Esquith’s individual case is a personal tragedy for him; the leadership’s view of what “good education” is for the 600,000 students in their charge is a tragedy of grand proportions.
The investigators asked Esquith who he dated in college and who at the school disliked him. They asked for all his financial records since 2000. The “incriminating” evidence they used as the backbone from their case, the district searched his personal emails to obtain. According to the LA TIMES article http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-rafe-esquith-lawsuit-20160713-snap-story.html, Esquith’s attorney, Ben Meiselas claimed that the emails were taken out of context. Elsa Cruz, one of Esquith’s former student whose email had been singled has denied that he ever sent her anything inappropriate as alleged in LAUSD’s charges. “The communications described in the statement of charges between Mr. Esquith and myself are small pieces of much larger conversations that are taken wholly out of context.” She claims that the district.”cherry-picked points “to depict our conversations as having an inappropriate or sexual nature that is completely inaccurate.”
This is the modus operendi of LAUSD. A little history lesson is in order before going back to Esquith:
In the dark days of Supt. John Deasy, the entire elected School Board was mum on his pedagogy and methodology. The Board gave him tacit cover to do whatever he wanted. It is not an exaggeration to say that Deasy went after teachers with a Dick Cheney zeal using David Holmquist, the District’s General Counsel, as his John Yoo to give him the legal cover.
This is a school system that offers cover to those at the very top. David Holmquist, whose base salary is $260,552, has fought vigorously to protect the District from any bad publicity and loyally served John Deasy’s call to purge hundreds–maybe thousands–of teachers from the ranks and vigorously prosecuted LAUSD’s Teacher Jail program. A different set of priorities and standards were devised by Holmquist for the those who screwed up and abused their positions if they were in District power offices.
Some in Los Angeles Unified were definitely more equal than others.
“I will never apologize for putting students’ interests ahead of teachers,” was Deasy’s righteous mantra during his tenure where this man arrogantly placed business and corporate interests ahead of both students and teachers time and time again. His moral courage was how much he could bully teachers such as Patrena Shankling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIuF1em_Y0 and never to any person of power above him who was politically connected with money and influence.
If you are not sickened by what happened in Shankling’s classroom and believe that John Deasy should ever be allowed to be near educators OR children again, then you and I have very different standards of classroom behavior and decorum.
Like all of his patrons, Deasy was a man who never apologized and took great pride in his use of executive and autonomous power and privilege. This was encouraged by many of the management team whom he worked with at District Headquarters and rewarded.
Deasy enjoyed and served a life of patronage from powerful men who paid for his entire, hopscotch career through the moneyed power corridors of education. Even when he left LAUSD in abject disgrace where the toady LA TIMES editorial board could only manage to bluster about the tragedy of his downfall, he could count on the largess of the corporate benefactors who puffed up his churlish bravado. Currently, Deasy remains obscenely well-paid in the Fortress of Solitude of Eli Broad’s empire, an opulent private world where he answers to no one except the rich and powerful, re-emerging only as a paper phantom, issuing friend of the court briefs to Vergara and offering his insights to Edu Reform Managers-to-be.
One day there will be a full accounting for what happened to all those teachers and their “rights” and “due process” that LAUSD assured the public they received.
Sadly, if Rafe Esquith’s and the other hundreds of teachers in similar situations were just the work of John Deasy and David Holmquist, that would be bad enough.
The current LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, with chest thumping vigor, thundered in a campaign speech that he has proudly voted to fire EVERY SINGLE teacher who came before him for justice. Zimmer put on his most concerned, self-righteous face channeling some Texas Governor on steroids, stating that in his eyes, those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teachers were guilty and should not be teaching in his system.
There was zero doubt in his blankly, incurious mind.
Were the students of LA protected from a thousand dreadful teachers?
No.
LAUSD, Inc was protected.
LAUSD claims Esquith’s emails weren’t hacked, so one supposes they got them off his school computer when they sealed his classroom and his personal account was open on it. Under the pretense of an investigation, LAUSD went through thousands upon thousands of personal emails to find evidence against him. It is a chilling abuse of employee privilege that claims that right. Obviously if they were a law enforcement agency, they couldn’t do that, but LAUSD doesn’t believe it is bound by the same rules of engagement.
It begs the question if any employee is safe from their employer going through every personal detail of their lives to render judgment on that individual.
Could anybody withstand someone going through twenty years worth of emails to figure their moral worth? Would something invariably crop up?
The emails of John Deasy and David Holmquist are scrupulously under lock and key.
Reading the entire 32 page document of LAUSD’s “case” against Esquith–and please do!– http://laschoolreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Responsive-Documents-Esquith-SOC_redacted-final.pdf it clearly shows that they threw in EVERYTHING they had into their “findings”.
EVERYTHING.
They didn’t leave anything out. What is also indicative of LAUSD’s mindset is the fact they STILL used the initial Huck Finn joke as part of their indictment against Esquith despite the ludicrous nature of that comment.
This is not the work of intelligent scholars in an academic institution.
This is the work of lawyers who want to get rid of an employee that has proven troublesome to the corporation.
David Holmquist is planning to appeal this latest ruling hoping to stem Esquith’s suit. Hopefully he will fail and the dark files will be open on what LAUSD, Inc has perpetrated over the years. The East German Stassi nature of those cases highlight the brute force and cruelty that LAUSD, Inc. perpetrated on so many teachers who thought they were working for an organization called Los Angeles “Unified” because it worked for the betterment of all–not just those on the corporate end.
I have no special insight to Esquith’s particular case, although the fairness and justice LAUSD, Inc. administers to its employees is eerily similar to the justice cops administer to poor neighborhoods compared to the inhabitants of rich ones.
You may be predisposed to place your faith in the justice and righteousness of LAUSD Inc.’s wisdom and sense of proper pedagogy.
So much of the intellectual evidence is contrary to granting that good will, however. In the cases of many teachers in the system, Deasy, Holmquist and the School Board have a finger on the scale that instinctively forces teachers to prove themselves worthy of their bankrupt leadership.
I’m as anxious as you are to see this Shakespearean play’s ending. Misuse of power, according to Shakespeare, never ends well.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
tl;dr: it doesn’t matter that Esquith wrote (and does not contest writing) sickeningly inappropriate emails to minor children (that hint of much worse) because there is a war on the profession, LAUSD is bad, and Esquith is such a great teacher that it excuses some collateral damage.
We don’t have the full extent of those so-called “sickening e-mails”. I find it ironic that you are demanding his head for something that no parent or child has complained about, while we have an e-mail from charter school administrators approving the targeting of children on “got to go” lists where an administrator actually replies “don’t put that in writing!!!!” instead of what they should have said which is “how dare you even think of the idea of targeting 5 year olds for removal because you despise them”.
That is why I know you don’t care about children – you only care about promoting people who REALLY exploit children for their own financial gain and power. Have you no shame? Where is your disgust when an administrator responds to a got to go list with “don’t put that in writing” instead of “you are fired”? Where is your disgust when the principal is given a quiet reprimand not because he targeted those kids (which he continued to do after he was “reprimanded”) but because he was stupid enough to put it in an e-mail?
If a teacher makes a nakedness joke referencing Huckleberry Finn, you want them fired. If a principal targets 5 year olds for punishment because he wants them out of their school, you are fine with it. If an administrator responds to that targeting with ‘don’t put that in writing” instead of “don’t do that”, you are fine with it. But if in dozens of e-mails to a FORMER student no longer under the power of the teacher, the worst that can be found is a single spanking reference, you think that teacher needs to be fired immediately? Are you kidding me, Tim?
I want the full investigation of Rath Esquith. I find it hard to believe that if he is doing inappropriate things, the massive investigation we just saw didn’t come up with hundreds of cases of children and parents complaining.
Just like a simple article about Success Academy’s got to go list revealed dozens of children who were abused (not sexually, just academically) in order to get them out of their school. Why did one article lead to dozens of parents of mistreated children coming forward at Success Academy to document their abuse (even before an investigation!) and months and months of investigation and interviews iin LA isn’t coming up with dozens of complaining families?
Can you imagine what would happen if Success Academy Bed Stuy 1’s students were all interviewed to find out why 40% of the low-income students in 2nd grade disappeared before 3rd grade testing?
Why did so many leave? Were their kids being abused? And did so many abused kids leave Rafe Esquith’s class?
What I find most disgusting is people who think that 5th graders hearing a joke about being naked like the characters in Huckleberry Finn is far more damaging than 1st graders witnessing the targeting of a low-income at-risk child who doesn’t know the answer and being taught that the child being punished is less than nothing. Children being taught to despise low-performing at-risk kids is okay. Making a joke about nakedness is not.
“Ms. Fleischman, the education manager, warned her colleagues in a follow-up email that THE GOAL SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN PUT IN AN E-MAIL and that, in any case, a 12:1:1 classification “does not guarantee a withdrawal.”
Tim is proud to be associated with people who mistreat children but know better than “to put it in an e-mail”. That is the kind of teacher training that is worth spending money on! Make sure they know not to put it in an email! Humiliate a child, make him feel misery, have all the got to go lists you want, but do NOT put it in an e-mail!!
Which people shouldn’t be anywhere near children? The ones who make a joke about nakedness to 5rth graders? Or the ones who target the 5 year olds and their superiors tell then to go right ahead but please don’t do it in an e-mail because we don’t want to get caught!!
Thank you NY parent for your info filled and rational reply to Troll Tim.
Adding to your comments are these facts.
There was a great deal of jealousy by some others who helped to bring Esquith down. Rafe had visiting teachers observing in his classroom (a daily occurrence) as he spoke with his students and quoted Mark Twain re nudity. He is both intelligent and worldly so that he would never have brought down the wrath of the district with his words, with so many witnesses, had he been guilty of these manufactured charges (and also would never have written offending emails on the school’s computer which he knew could be read by them).
The point he was making was that the district had denied any monetary help to buy the famous Hobart Shakespearians some costumes. So, he joked that like Twain’s story (which his students read and comprehended), they might have to act “nude.”
The seemingly deranged reporting teacher/observer/maybe district spy, ran to tell the principal who REALLY did not want to report this nonsense to the district but was under mandate to do so. The principal who had known Rafe for many years, had great respect for him and had the ability and the duty to view his classroom demeanor often. He never gave Rafe a bad report in all those decades of observation. Also the many parents of his many students of over thirty years of teaching, were unanimous in their respect and affection for Esquith.
Rafe was honored at the White House as Teacher of the Year, with his Hobart Shakespearian students performing for the Prez and First Lady and their guests. He was also honored by the Queen of England and his troupe of elementary school, true Shakespeare scholars, also performed at Buckingham Palace for the Queen and her guests. Various world famous British Shakespearian actors were on the Board of, and supported, the Hobart student 501c3 acting troupe.
You can only imagine the ire that was roused at LAUSD and the well paid (often twice as much as teachers) Beaudry ignoramuses of middle management with their online/and or other minimal academic creds, at this qualified and gifted teacher getting all this world wide attention. There are also suggested racism elements that I cannot attest to here but which have been reported even by the LA Times.
It is well known that LAUSD stops at nothing to defame those they want gone. In this case, they took out-of-context words from emails and carefully constructed a case to rid them of a teacher pest who would not do their bidding.
Concurrently with this witch hunt of Rafe Esquith, the powers that be at LAUSD also put Mrs. Robertson, famed choir teacher at Crenshaw High School, also like Hobart, in the inner city, into teacher jail…. but with no excuse other than she again took her choir to Europe to also perform. This was during summer vacation, at their own expense, with proper parental releases, and not in any way under the aegis of LAUSD. They finally were advised by their host of high power expensive lawyers that they could not make a case against her, so they let her come back into the classroom.
These are thugs, not educators, and they keep bringing into Beaudry more of their own…at public expense…but they do not use our tax money to bring back vitally needed teachers, nurses, librarians. The Barbarians are not at the Gate…they are inside the kingdom in LA.
Please be sure to read Geronimo’s report today on how this deadly group of non-intellectuals who run LAUSD truly function. These know-nothings, often with degrees from online and minimalist, often unaccredited or barely accredited, for-profit schools, swim in the muck of nepotism at Beaudry, and are dazzled by Broad’s cash and power.
And this has been the way of it for many decades at LAUSD.
Remember it was Cortines, the lech Supt. who colluded with Broad and Villaraigosa to hire Deasy. The filing for the lawsuit brought against Cortines, concurrent with the two exemplary teachers he put in teacher jail as told above, was 14 counts of the most disgusting sexual harassment of an employee for whom he created a high pay job at LAUSD so he could continue to pursue him sexually. It is all online. Read it all for yourselves.
We have a real SNAKE PIT here.
No matter what anyone says, those who always believe even the smallest hint of sexual misconduct are going to hang Esquith in their kangaroo court. We will always have our Puritans amongst us.
I await the predictable accusations that I’m a child molester or apologist for same. Allow me to make clear in advance that I’ve been through it all before, and I could not care less about such ignorant comments. When someone has been convicted of child molesting, etc., after a fair trial, let me know. Until then, this is a railroad job by LAUSD
“When someone has been convicted of child molesting, etc., after a fair trial, let me know. Until then, this is a railroad job by LAUSD”—
Yes, let the chips fall where they may AFTER full disclosure and all the pertinent facts are known and the appropriate actions have been taken. I write that without mental reservations of any kind.
Let me add re the HS I worked at…
As I have written before on this blog, I know from firsthand experience what happens when a rheephorm-minded admin pairs with a teacher who was an actual (and later convicted) child molester. Simply going by what is now available, if Rafe Esquith was the danger LAUSD has painted him out to be, then he was a reckless fool begging to be caught, tried and hung from the highest tree. Actual predators don’t draw attention to themselves by continually bucking admins and their higher-ups or by making all sorts of suggestive jokes and lewd comments (many of them in writing) to a wide audience.
Quite the opposite. Like so many rheephormsters, as much as possible they do their dirty work in the shadows and suck up to the sorts of admin superiors that can offer protection and cover.
And as I’ve written before, I saw firsthand what happens when a male teacher was falsely accused of misconduct with a female student. Temporarily (and for a very short period of time) I was assigned to his classroom [after the accusation was made] so as to provide another adult [aka witness] in the room. My first day (last period) I fell into a conversation with two young women that knew the accuser. In response to their asking me why I was helping out so-and-so, I made a very soft oblique reference to the accusation against him. Quite casually they both informed me that the accuser was furious with him because he had given her a bad grade and might end up flunking her, so she decided to go to the same admin (then BFF with the above mentioned later-convicted child molester!) and punish him by claiming he had made suggestive remarks and perhaps more. They both said this in the most casual “who doesn’t know this is going on?” kind of way. After all, they added, she was going around saying this to everyone—friend and foe alike! I responded that what they were telling me was serious stuff, so I asked them the obvious question: did the admin in question talk to them or any of their other classmates to see if there was any truth to the accusation, or if perhaps there was a pattern of misconduct by the teacher in question? Again, in the most endearingly unaffected way they told me that, of course, no one had talked to them or any of their friends or any of the other students who had heard the girl openly brag about causing trouble for the teacher by making up lies [quite by accident, I heard the same story from a couple of other students some time later].
Of course, knowing that a mind is a terrible thing to waste—especially a mind in the behind—EduGeniuses like Non Sequitur will furiously retort that I should have gone to someone in a position of authority and reported it. Immediately! Post haste! Don’t waste a moment!
Er, problem was, the only person I could go to (as strictly mandated by LAUSD practice and regs) was—drum roll please—the very admin that was the BFF of the to-be-exposed-later actual child molester! The very one hounding this teacher with a patently false accusation! Who refused to pursue even the most minimal due diligence!
Upon further inquiry with some of the teachers with whom I worked and others knowledgeable about the rules and regulations of LAUSD, I regretfully discovered that any attempt to bypass that admin—regardless of the merits of my actions—would have resulted in severe disciplinary action, from suspension to termination of employment.
And when all was said and done—it came to nought. Except for the damage to students and a teacher and the moral atmosphere of the school…
Rheephorm! Ya gotta love it!
And I got some trials in old Salem you might like too…
Thank you for your comments.
😎
It is a giant cesspool at LAUSD with many of our local, state and federal politicians swimming along. To allow this school district to illegally accuse and deny teachers due process in defending themselves against defamation is conspiratorial. Why this district can’t be tried under RICO is a mystery to me. There’s so much corruption going on, no one in authority even wants to tackle it so the go on, illegally, until some judge finally acknowledges that accused people deserve their day in court with a jury of their peers. Isn’t this the American way? Why is LAUSD working so hard, with taxpayer money, to deny us that right? Think about it.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
A rare look inside the underbelly of autocratic, often fraudulent, child abusing corporate public education reform.
Geronimo, you nailed it. Insightful writing. Figuratively speaking, the administration here in LA is an oppressive regime with ties to cartels. If you’re not flipping your class to use the test prep materials some assistant director of edu-gadgets bought from his cousin, you need an attorney to justify your existence.
Tim, you did not read the e-mails. You read the propaganda of a smear campaign. So, it’s become a familiar story here. Once again, thanks to Broad and his Deasy, we’re off to court for justice. Again.
“Tim, you did not read the e-mails. ”
But I did. They were included in the comprehensive summary of the investigation. It can’t be stressed enough: Esquith and his attorney have admitted that he wrote the emails. Their contention is either that A. the emails were obtained illegally or in a way that violated due process or B. that the emails were taken out of context (an argument that is almost as abhorrent as the emails themselves).
Once again, the fact that LAUSD set out to do a hatchet job on Esquith and the fact that Esquith showed abysmal judgment and should not be in the company of minor children are not mutually exclusive conditions.
When I see all of the facts, I’ll believe my own eyes. When I read the emails in full, I’ll make my own opinion. Until then, what they have trumped up on Esquith is just that. Your bias, Tim, shows. You do NOT have all of the facts, nor do I – when we do, we can come to our own conclusions. People are calling Victoria Beckham an incestuous child molester for posting a photo of her and her 5 y.o. daughter kissing on the lips in a pool. If your mind is made up that Rafe is guilty, nothing is going to change your mind, not even the truth, not even the facts, when the truth and the facts are made public, fully, will full email trails, not just snippets, and disgusting innuendo of the notorious LA school district. If they knew Esquith was doing something wrong, what took them 30 years????????
Tim, first of all, children are minors. Minors are children. Calling them minor children is redundant, like calling them mammalian mammals. It’s getting annoying.
Second, the young people who corresponded with Rafe are the ones who are upset about the comments being taken out of context by the Tiger Team, which surprisingly is not the name of a cartoon show on the Disney Channel. Get that? The victims do not consider themselves victims. He was helping some of them pay for college. So, as they say, see you in court.
I don’t understand why there hasn’t been dozens of “victims” of Rafe coming forward. Why? You had a team of investigators with all sorts of power to talk to those kids and they didn’t? Why?
Meanwhile, a single NY Times article about “got to go” lists brings out dozens of parents whose kids were abused by Success Academy in order to make them miserable enough to leave their school, and the oversight agency in charge doesn’t care?
Tim is very quick to condemn Rafe Esquith, who may or may not be guilty of something. And he is very quick to defend a principal who actually targeted 5 year old children and was rewarded by his superiors for his great job getting them out of his school.
Wow, just wow. Making a joke about nakedness to 5th graders — get rid of the teacher, says Tim, he is guilty! Targeting 5 year olds for humiliation and punishment so they can leave your school? Hooray! Give that man a reward, and if he is caught, make sure he continues to teach as long as he pretends it is all his idea.
Left Coast Teacher wrote: “The victims do not consider themselves victims.”
Our legal system takes great pains to protect the interests of minor children (or child minors, if you prefer) via things like age of consent laws. The LAUSD Code of Conduct with Students is even more prescriptive and protective of children’s rights than that: http://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib08/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/317/Code%20of%20Conduct%20with%20Students.pdf
Hopefully Esquith’s clearly and wildly inappropriate conduct was limited to emails, but it has to be said: the showering of gifts, the cash payments, the idea that the minor children weren’t victims? It’s textbook “grooming” behavior at worst; at best, it represents almost inconceivably poor judgment. Removing him from the classroom was a no-brainer.
AND YOU should know about a lack of brian power, based on your total lack of comprehension that tens of thousands of WONDERFUL teachers like Rafe, were sent out on fabricated charges. A real union might have helped this terrific teacher to do th e’right thing’ but the only thing that uTLA did was show teachers to the door.
No, Tim, you did not read the emails, but rather the edited extracts presented by LAUSD in their brief against Esquith, something very different.
I read them, too, and while many appear creepy and damning, many of them can also be easily construed as innocuous and even generous on his part.
Whatever their character, they should above all be seen in the context of a carefully edited accusatory legal document, presented/framed in such a way as to show Esquith at his worst.
And while the email extracts often are/appear creepy, that must also be weighed against the fact that Esquith has never been accused of abuse or harassment in a long teaching career. This case (disgusting forty year-old hearsay/slander by LAUSD aside) is based on a fishing expedition into the emails Esquith was foolish enough to write on a district computer.
Much of what Esquith wrote to those girls, under different editing or complete transcripts (and why isn’t LAUSD supplying them if it’s so damning?) can be construed as the misguided and stupidly-expressed and perhaps borderline creepy efforts of a concerned teacher to reinforce his pubescent former students’ self-esteem.
Absent previous complaints about Esquith, or more serious charges that are entirely absent, the political character of this case becomes increasingly clear.
Ah, that’s a shame, Michael. I must have missed a development in this case during the past 7 months that would explain your having a complete about-face on this issue:
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/14/los-angeles-teacher-give-rafe-a-break/#comment-2386976
So now you’d be happy to have your daughters in Rafe’s class, and receiving his gifts and emails of this nature? You think that those emails don’t constitute a clear violation of LAUSD’s code of conduct because they were sent to children who were former students, not current ones?
Well said, Michael. And Tim, I will add that our laws are not constructed to prevent lionhearted kindness toward others, be they minor minors or child children. I love you, Tim. We’ll do the lunch thing sometime. Ciao!
Tim says:
“So now you’d be happy to have your daughters in Rafe’s class, and receiving his gifts and emails of this nature? ”
Tim, you have made it very clear that what is important to you is not how a few kids are mistreated and targeted for abuse – what is important is how the majority of kids are treated. Every time I see your posts here you seem to be implying that the 5 and 6 year children who are emotionally abused by teachers and principals are “asking for it” by their behavior. You defend classic abusers all the time by blaming the children who are abused — and not 14 year olds but 6 year olds who are to blame for their abuse!!
You defend abusers all the time by saying that OTHER children are treated very well by the abuser so if a child is complaining, it is obviously because the child deserved to be abused and is always in the wrong. You say it doesn’t matter if dozens of children step forward and accuse the teacher and system of abuse, because you are certain they were asking for it and they should be dismissed as asking for the abuse given to them.
The chutzpah you have to attack a teacher when the child hasn’t complained, while defending a school where dozens of children being emotionally abused have spoken out but you say they deserved it, is truly shocking. And sickening.
Somehow you are more up in arms about a teacher having an (inappropriate) spanking reference to a 14 year old who hasn’t been in his school for 2 or 3 years than you do a vulnerable 5 year old who is targeted for abuse day after day. Shame on you.
Sorry, I’m going to make myself unpopular (again). I sided with Tim before and I still do (strictly on this issue). As I said last time (over and over and over), the only justification for those emails is if they were in fact planted and Esquith didn’t write them, a contention that not even he makes. There is no “context” that makes those emails palatable. Aside from the sexual innuendos (bad enough), let’s not forget the exchange about the girl allegedly damaging property in the hotel and Esquith claiming that she owed him $400, when even the hotel said the damage was much less than that. Furthermore, Esquith openly tried to get her scholarship to her current private school revoked. As the mother of two daughter, no, I don’t want them in his class.
Incidentally, it doesn’t matter how the victims feel about the emails or about Esquith. Victims are often known to defend their perpetrators; that’s why we have laws.
LAUSD may very well be horrible and I feel for most of the teachers in “teacher jail”, most of whom may very well be wrongly accused for convenience. But if LAUSD erred in this case, it was by protecting Esquith earlier as long as he was making them look good, not by getting rid of him. Two wrongs do not make a right.
LeftCoastTeacher: “Tim, you did not read the e-mails. You read the propaganda of a smear campaign.”
Tim: “But I did.”
Michael Fiorillo: “No, Tim, you did not read the emails, but rather the edited extracts presented by LAUSD in their brief against Esquith, something very different.”
NYC public school parent: “The chutzpah you have to attack a teacher when the child hasn’t complained, while defending a school where dozens of children being emotionally abused have spoken out but you say they deserved it, is truly shocking. And sickening.”
Just this brief exchange is very revealing. Non Sequitur attempts to Dial up his Rheeality Distortion Field on others to no effect, except for exposing his own prejudgments. When all is said and down, let the chips fall where they may AFTER full disclosure, but his rheephorm advocacy in this case stands in stark contrast to his attempt to excuse Success Academy from the sort of scrutiny others have suggested it richly deserves when it comes to abusive treatment of very young children: “It doesn’t appear to me that Success is keeping anything hidden from those who approach them in good faith.” [Non Sequitur]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2016/05/10/bombshell-former-staff-member-at-success-academy-alleges-cheating-on-tests/
In other words, when it comes to Rafe Esquith, the most obviously slanted and viciously negative case must be correct and accepted at face value, unquestioningly. However, when it comes to $ucce$$ Academy, notorious public facts must be ignored while all deference and respect must be shown to the opinions of those “good faith” investigators that show the proper respect and deference to Eva M and those in pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$.
Here’s a bit of reality as opposed to his irrheeal defense of SA’s Code of Silence: Rafe Esquith, in his current activities, is opening himself up to innumerable opportunities of exposing all his [allegedly] horrible and creepy words and deeds. That is, he is vigorously attempting to expose himself in every way possible. Death Wish: The Movie.
Yeah, right, and Eva M makes over half a million dollars a year because she’s “all about the kids.”
Yet, one and all, credit where credit is due. Non Sequitur never loses a chance to show his love of this bit from John Steinbeck:
“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.”
😎
Notice how Tim, unable to come up with a reasoned rebuttal to my point, typically reverts to a logical fallacy, namely, “You, Too!”
If I changed my mind about Esquith, based on consideration of increased data and evidence, so what? What do you do when confronted by time and “evidence?”
It may be that his intentions and actions were as devious as the worst interpretations suggest, but edited email excerpts presented in the employer’s brief in a termination case are not irrefutable proof of anything. Let it all come out in court.
Trolls are impervious to evidence… ignore them and let them talk to your hand…they will go away.
What’s the new evidence, though, Michael? I’m not aware of any.
Dienne: speaking only for myself, I think false agreement is poisonous to a “better education for all.”
So when you and I disagree about how to approach the Rafe Esquith situation I expect nothing less than your honest opinion. Whatever it is. And it doesn’t make you “unpopular,” at least with me.
Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
😎
Michael, what increased data and evidence has emerged in this case?
A selection of Esquith’s emails to a 14-year-old girl:
— “You’re soooooooooooooooooo fine.”
— “Or you can go naked. Nothing to wash and many boyfriends!”
— “You are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, and [redacted] saw it right away. You are a Goddess.”
— “You got even prettier. And even more pretty. Beautiful. Elegant. Dazzling. Sexy. Gorgeous. You are all of that and much much more.”
A selection of Esquith’s emails to a 13-year-old girl:
–“[Redacted], you did not ‘screw up’ our relationship . . . in the Summer of 2011 [note: when the girl would have been 10 or 11], you and your friends told me the truth.”
–“Your [sic] brilliant, a total hottie, and have a great personality.”
–“It sounds like books/uniforms/class will run about 1800. I can do this, but not by Monday. I have money clearing my bank on Thursday and can get you more then. My guess is I have given you 600 so far and another 400 tomorrow. That’s 1000. I can do 500 more Thursday/Friday and the final 300 Saturday the 20th.”
A selection of Esquith’s emails to a different 14-year-old girl:
–“You, [redacted], are the fuel that lights my fire. Truth be told, you don’t really need me that much. But when you do, I will drop everything for you. Everything. Forever and always. I love and admire you . . . sorry, but Juliet has NOTHING on you!”
–“I spank really hard!!! Your bottom will hurt for months…”
–“I’d love to see you tomorrow, and maybe even try that spanking!”
–“You will do WELL wherever you go because you’re great, but I want you to be happy, and have lots of guys and beer and drugs and all the things that make high school great!”
Click to access Responsive-Documents-Esquith-SOC_redacted-final.pdf
What happened between December 2015 and the present to make you think there is a plausibly acceptable explanation for why Esquith wrote these things to 13- and 14-year-old children?
Here is your problem, Tim. First, you are relying on LA School Report, an online “publication” funded exclusively by Deasy’s corporate elite. It was Deasy’s personal propaganda perpetuator. More importantly, LAUSD administrators (and teachers) are “mandatory reporters” meaning they have a legal obligation to report ANY and ALL allegations of child abuse (which is what you are arguing here, that these are real and constitute child abuse) either to the the Los Angeles Police Department of Child Protective Services within 36 hours of receiving the allegations. Failure to report ANY information regarding ANY POSSIBLE child abuse within 36 hours is punishable by up to six months in jail and $1,000 in fines. Mandatory reporters must report even if they believe the allegations are probably not true or may not rise to the legal definition of abuse. LAPD or Child Protective Services investigates and makes that determination.
Failure to report ANY allegation of child abuse results in immediate termination, a “fact” all LAUSD teachers and administrators stipulate to EVERY YEAR after completing a child abuse allegation reporting training session AND signing a statement they recognize their obligations and the consequences of any failure to meet that obligation.
LAUSD NEVER reported ANY of these allegations to anyone.
Basically, Tim, even if Rafe is completey innocent, then a whole slew of administrators should still have been fired for their failure to report. If he is guilty, a whole slew of administrators should have been fired. Guilt or innocence is irrelevant. Mandated reporters are legally mandated to report and lose their job when they do not.
Does it not puzzle you, Tim, that LAUSD never reported anything and not a single administrator (to say nothing of the lawyers) have lost their jobs for violating the law?
One more point: when a teacher is suspended or fired, those allegations (and all the “evidence”) go to the California Teacher Commission (CTC) to also be investigated so the teaching credentials of dangerous and incompetent teachers can be revoked. Sacramento would immediately revoke the teaching credential of ANYONE it had ANY REASON to believe had committed such conduct. Yet just like the hundreds of other teachers LAUSD fired on false, often ridiculous charges, the CTC stated “The Committee of Credentials, after careful review of the materials contained in your file, has determined to close its investigation and to recommend no adverse action at this time.” Direct quote, Tim.
Does this tell you nothing?
It should tell you this case (and the hundreds just like them) is nothing but a contrived, malicious, and merciless dog and pony show bent on destroying the careers of primarily senior teachers, not just those who ruffle feathers, but more importantly to shed itself of teachers at the top of the salary scale while simultaneously freeing itself of its obligation to fund lifetime health benefits when they retire. A fired teacher cannot retire and LAUSD saves billions over time.
Judge this case not by LAUSD’s words, but by its actions. In this case its inaction. Judge this case by the CTC’s action which also in this case was inaction. The State of California found nothing wrong with Rafe Esquith and he is free to teach in California. Not “pending the results of a civil suit,” Tim. The CTC thoroughly investigated and found the allegations without merit.
Evidently, you are deaf, dumb, and/or blind.
The problem is, Randall, that you’re relying on logic instead of hysteria. With logic, you have to lean on demonstrable facts, often those that are a matter of public record (e.g., the printed regulations of a district, state, etc.) coupled with other public records. With hysteria, you get to believe every “leaked” email and insinuation. And when it comes to charges that a public school teacher is a pervert of some sort, not even that much “evidence” is necessary. A couple of coerced student statements, a bizarre leap of logic by some colleague, an out of context quotation all suffice to hang ’em high.
After all, by far the biggest threat to children of sexual abuse is WELL-KNOWN to be family members and close family friends and associates (into which class I would put priests and other religious leaders), not teachers or child-care workers. We’ve had some bad apples in the teaching profession. There are cops who are abusers. Probably a florist here and there, too. But the ones who continue to make the biggest headlines are educators. I wonder just why that is? Couldn’t POSSIBLY be part of a systematic attempt to undermine public confidence in its, ahem, government schools, could it?
In passing, I have to add that just because Tim takes an anti-Esquith stance, that doesn’t make him a troll, and I wish folks would be a lot more conservative about using that term. It’s not unreasonable here for people to read those leaked emails and determine that something’s rotten in the state of Esquith. But it’s wiser to exercise scepticism given the full context in which they’ve been released. I think what Esquith’s defenders want is at least a suspension of condemnation until there has been a legal determination of guilt/ wrongdoing on his part. And thus far, the legal situation is that he’s guilty of nothing. I have no problem with someone arguing (with some degree of logic and facts) that there’s enough to convict Esquith. I disagree, but I’m willing to see what others think. Where I become enraged is when there is a rush to judgment coupled with condemnation of anyone who doesn’t immediately “believe the victims,” even when there is no solid evidence that anyone is complaining or that there are, in fact, victims. I’ve been called a child molester, pervert, Republican, Tea Party member, Trump supporter, and lots of other things I’m anything but over the last few years. The Internet is filled with people who are very brave about name-calling as long as they need not face those they are attacking. I’m reasonably well inured to it, but the cowardice of such behavior is still troubling.
Tim relies, like Donald, on the voices in his head, and he is impervious to evidence that contradicts it. He loves to argue, and he gets smart folks like you to spend time doing it.
Lenny Isenberg created Perdaily com , and has chronicled the corruption and the story of LAUSD’s descent into the swamp!
This brilliant teacher, writes so well. Read the Perdaily posts on social promotion, because the story begins with REAL teachers, like Lenny, who blew the whistle and who wanted to end the tragedy for the ethnic population which graduates 12 grade with second grade skills.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/between-dishonest-social-promotion-of.html
So, for his honesty, Lenny lost everything: http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
And remember this is the SECOND LARGEST school district of the 15, 880 districts; (would I kid you?)
Isenberg has been writing about the Esquith case forever
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/06/there-is-a-great-deal.html
Lenny got it right..YEARS AGO!
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
HERE HIM HERE:
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/01/now-is-the-winter-of.html
Cortines (the charlatan before Deasy ) had been a weak NYC Chancellor, and was sent packing but did not end up like those ‘failed’ teachers, unable to find a job, their careers ended. OH no, he found his way to LAUSD, where he got to ‘fix’ the schools — which were broken because social promotion was the top-down mandate).
Money was flowing! C is for charters and for Corruption! And the media did its “thing”, what it does everywhere that money talks… distract the public with lies.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/have-reporters-become-poli-ticks–the-media-parasites-of-the-body-politic.html
His fix? Blame the experienced teachers, the professionals. Take the practitioners out of the practice (classroom) and replace them with trained personal… because anyone can teach… according to Deasy and Cortines.
It worked… Fabricated charges emptied the schools. 10,000 teachers charged…ALL fired!
THIS saves THE BUDGET $60,000 , IN BENEFITS AND SALARY FOR EACH VETERAN TEACHER GONE. (and with the experienced professional out of the conversation, Broad gets to turn the now-failed schools over to the charters.
Here are just a few links to help you know what this case means
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/09/while-some-kids-will-succeed.html
and the teachers are at great risk:
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-continues-to-target-teachers.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2010/06/nothing-is-certain-but-death-and-taxes-and-more-charges-from-lausd.html
and this is why
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/10/why-does-utla-continue-to-support-lausds-violation-of-california-teacher-dismissal-process.html
But, he fights on, and wants teachers to bring a CLASS ACTION SUIT and find a top attorney who will finally break this American tragedy to the public.
After all, over a hundred thousand teachers were thrown to the dogs BEFORE VAM MADE IT LEGAL.
IN NYC< we all experience this:
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Lenny WON'T GIVE UP
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/11/lausd-gives-me-a-chance-to-be-a-hero-for-student-teachers-and-families.html
he is, in my opinion THE GREATER FOOL
In Buffalo the five social studies teachers at one of the city high schools were put on paid administrative leave for insubordination. They refused to begin grading the final exam while students were still taking the test. This is according to the Regents protocol, but their principal had other ideas. If they had followed his directions they would have compromised the exam results. Superintendent Cash said they should all be fired. Yesterday, over a year later, the court ruled to reinstate them, About half a million dollars wasted because of administrative error.
The LAUSD doesn’t have a monopoly on shooting themselves in the foot to spite their face.
Where is the union in all this? Hundreds of teachers fired! Oh, I forgot: In California the unions get their dues whether a teacher joins the union or not. I’m sickened about hearing how teachers are under assault with non-stop abuse. Right-to-Work may not be the answer but clearly something is wrong with the current regulations with union dues in non-right-to-work states. Union leaders must have an incentive to fight for teachers. As it currently exists in non RTW states the union leaders are guaranteed their dues by the state provided they don’t rock the boat such as even merely calling for strikes.
This is the method across 15,880 school districts.
You are experiencing now, what we all went through in the nineties.
nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
This is a civil rights issue.
We are Americans, but there is no justice for the utter lawlessness ongoing across th nation.
Right to Work doesn’t help AT ALL. As someone under “investigation” for simply teaching the curriculum I was supposed to teach, I know that Right to Work gives pretty much no due process. The pooh-bahs in administration and at the district, constantly validate each other, and become judge, jury, and executioner. There is almost NO recourse for the teacher, even when protocol was failed dozens of times, and when the charges leveled are false. Doesn’t matter. The teacher is hosed anyway.
MANY districts are just like LAUSD, only smaller. Our profession has become indentured servitude.
I read all 32 pages that LAUSD released. Rafe, sad to admit, is a creep. I doubt his emails were enough to be cause to be fired, but I’m glad my daughter never had him for a teacher.
It doesn’t mitigate the fact that LAUSD did not give Rafe due process. EVERY teacher who is put into teacher jail is denied due process, loses credibility, and the process robs the community of their teacher – the one who knows the IEPs, school customs, and long-term plans. Putting in a long term sub seldom makes education better. They should only be removed when the proof is incontrovertible.
Good teachers are often removed from their classroom for political reasons. Administrators hold the power to do so. The original complaint against Rafe was so thin, yet LAUSD used it as an excuse to remove him. It happened shortly after he criticized common core as just another panacea.
This will be a very difficult case to win because Rafe was not the perfect teacher everyone thought. The strength comes from the fact that it is a class action suit. The process used to remove him and the other 1999 teachers goes against the constitution. Rafe’s suit may change the amount of power that administrators now enjoy.
Yours is the most balanced response.
I work at Beaudy. I’ve been through 6 Superintendents. Mostly what I see is folks saying they want to do good things, and many good things happen, but constantly changing leadership and the need to create legacy projects has killed us.
We are never working in a stable environment.
Dr. Frances Gipson, the new Sup of Instruction is one of the finest educators I have ever had the chance to work for. But it is brutal what she endures to move us forward. I’m not sure how long she will be able to sustain the effort it takes to maneuver in such a political environment.
I say it’s the French Resistance meets Game of Thrones.
We have to get beyond Press Conference decision making.
BTW, the characterization of Steve Zimmer is so far off the mark. I can’t ever imagine him pounding his chest. There is a very clear bias in the article.
“Rafe, sad to admit, is a creep. I doubt his emails were enough to be cause to be fired, but I’m glad my daughter never had him for a teacher.”
If you read the LAUSD Code of Conduct with Students, I’m not sure how you can conclude his emails and emails alone weren’t cause to be fired.
Click to access Code%20of%20Conduct%20with%20Students.pdf
As I have long suspected, Tim is probably placed here to deflect comments in support of Esquith. The LAUSD law firms use this technique often, and Tim’s lack of empathy and his leading the charge BEFORE a trial, serves to cloud the jury pool for Esquith. Beware of trolls planted in various blog sites who are paid to manipulate the chat.
I said this back in 2000. but the national conversation was subverted
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
Tim, IF the emails are a correct reflection (no editing, not taken out of context) of what he sent to young girls, then I agree with you.
However, Randall is right. If the emails were that damning, why does Rafe still have a credential? You can look up his credential at this link:
https://educator.ctc.ca.gov/esales_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&_sn=tPHkYDcHplPyJbLSQSibAYy0aAb0F75TSfNYUa8ER17QNUzVZJsC1NUmmnPA4NpTk1tSRdFVpsHPnYpaB7rfsJl6TD22rLXxhP8v.P94r6flu6M4k.-ahaMiKL2L13jeGDpo9V22NfDNtSrvAeNj60tsG3G83Htq9EpZcEhQhF3lxHzY47Q2EMb8RU2IgLzy2w-HEz50OEU_&SWEView=CTC+Search+View+Web&SRN=&SWEHo=educator.ctc.ca.gov&SWETS=1468946553
Rafe was investigated by the LAPD and they did not arrest him. I’m not so sure that I was entitled to my opinion that he is a creep. I only said so because he has not denied that the emails are his – but it belatedly occurs to me that he may have a good reason for not doing so.
Can I say I feel strongly both ways?
As an LAUSD parent, I bristle a bit when I see Geronimo lumping all of the district personnel into the same category as the destructive Deasy. I have met lifelong educators who work in that headquarters truly pursuing avenues to elevate hundreds of thousands of students. Yet, it is so true that there is a culture of LAUSD, Inc. that interferes. One solution might be to empty that building (which, not incidentally, was purchased from Eli Broad desperate for a buyer) and house most of the employees on school sites. A tour through the many empty offices in any school’s administrative wing reminds us of how many adults we used to rely on to perform the functions at our schools. Now, we ask a single principal and the classroom teachers to serve all the needs of our school communities, needs that increase by the day.
DellaRios’s reference to “press Conference decision making” is right on the money. Actually, I think that’s what Geronimo calls “chest-pounding”.
And Karen…the district demands that office staff, many are not college trained, administer meds and shots to students because there are no longer nurses at these schools on any regular basis. The liability issues are huge and must have increased the costs of the district insurance policies. Many of my teacher contacts told me that their principals insisted they do this medicating of students, but they refused, understanding the liability.
I agree with you that the entire workforce at Beaudry should not be painted with the same brush, but neither should the people who serve only themselves and their nepotistic mentors, be white washed.
Geronimo, who has been an award winning teacher for many years, gives a heart felt and sincere view of the problems. I applaud his open and clear eyed reporting.
As always, Geronimo, I thank you for your consistent insights and your ability to educate us all.
Yes Karen. It’s the union that allowed this to happen.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
while the media hid it.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/have-reporters-become-poli-ticks–the-media-parasites-of-the-body-politic.html
I totally agree that they should not be whitewashed. I am hugely grateful to Geronimo for courageously and eloquently speaking up for a long time now.
Perhaps they shouldn’t be lumped together because they have pure hearts but what they don’t have is any means to put those into practice. Those elevated to principal and other leadership roles during DZ’s time were personally vetted by him so the climate at the schools continues as one of fear and intimidation. Teachers live in constant fear that they’ll be next.
The wholesale abuse and dismissal of teachers will only continue. $15 million dollars has been allocated to teacher jail in next years budget and UTLA has said little to nothing about this and remember the administrative staff has increase by 23% over the last five years while the number of abused teachers has increased and enrollment has fallen by 20%. The district’s legal department has grown at the same time in order to take care of the teachers slated for dismissal. It does not sound as if this district is preparing for anything other than bankruptcy.
I have lived the horror that Geronimo describes. I am not he, my nom de guerre is Tiffany Finkelstein. Shocking as his story is, NEA, AFT and United Teachers Los Angeles serve the same corporate interests and masters as John Deasey. What Geronimo and I relate here is well know my the leaders of all three.
Both Geronimo and I were falsely accused, in my case of a crime for which one normally would be arrested but I was cleared by law enforcement immediately. Recognized norms of investigation were ignored and perjury was suborned. This atrocity was supported by UTLA whose lawyers told me, “You can’t fight it, enjoy your time out of the classroom you’ll never teach again, your career is over etc.” What shocks the conscience is that employees and the 1% of UTLA have bullied me and others by lying to us and saying, “The district will claw back your pension, and take away your health care, we’ll prepare the resignation papers etc.” Here is the most damning part; lawyers employed by UTLA ignore decisions that apply to accused teachers and second illegal directives that the district issues. They tell accused teachers that the district’s directive that we not talk to students, parents, or colleagues is a lawful order although U.S. law has time and again re-affirmed the accused’s right of free speech. Almost all UTLA represented accused teachers enter dismissal proceedings without benefit of any investigation, depositions, or even discovery before the Office of Administrative Hearings because this is what these lawyers, whose salaries are paid by our dues, advise. This is official UTLA policy and one can only conclude that there are payoffs to be garnered by these organizations for destroying the careers of their own members.
UTLA is the only large affiliate of AFT – NEA that does not provide legal representation for its members. The insurance for this was dropped about 2005 for financial reasons. and maintains that it is ‘self-insured’ and that they “have paid to represent 77 teachers in dismissal proceedings.” A bald-faced lie, these 77 teachers are unknown and my estimation puts the total at about 5,000 UTLA teachers that have been forced out. To hire the UTLA affiliated law firm cost $30,000 -$80,000 and the bill for a recent case went up to $150,000. An accused teacher is on the hook for this while waiting for a court date without income.
This is a perfect storm and this ALEC initiated pogrom has been known for more than a decade, yet the president of UTLA, Alex Caputo-Pearl says of Rafe Esquith that he “He opted to hire his own private attorney, which is his right. We support his ongoing efforts to have his due process respected.” Caputo-Pearl left unsaid that Rafe would have no chance of exercising his rights to due process with UTLA because UTLA does not give a damn.
Mike…I appreciate your instruction on how the union has failed the ‘jailed’ and fired teachers. I am not a union member and therefore do not write in detail about this horrible and frustrating and seemingly very unfair situation.
However, many teachers who are also in this pool of union members who are not getting help from UTLA, have written to me at Joining Forces for Education.
Only yesterday, a well trained and long time LAUSD teacher wrote saying she has been warned that she is about to be fired. She teaches in an inner city middle school and she sent me a video of her class in action about 6 months ago. Although she is firm in her handling of mainly non English speakers students, she had their attention, was never unkind, and they are obviously learning.
She was commended in the past, but now she has become a target and is the crosshairs of the administration. She, and others who are in contact with me, express that, at Beaudry, the ‘deciders’ who are teacher adversaries seem NOT to like teachers from foreign countries, those from good schools of education, nor those who are proven effective in their teaching. Few of these ‘deciders’ doing the firing, seem to be long time classroom teachers with good academic creds.
Ellen, your comment reminds me of an administrator I had in my final year of teaching. She had a “degree” from one of the diploma mills and little experience with students. She tried to throw her weight around and was likely told to find something “wrong” in every teacher’s classroom. So one day she came into mine, looked at the alphabet on my wall and asked, “Where is the ph?” I responded, “There is no “ph” in the alphabet and she looked perplexed (As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.)
Later in the year, she was conducting an in-service and declared, “Of course, we know little children cannot do critical thinking.” Because it was my last year I just shouted out, “What!!! Cari, we are talking about human beings!” Again, she seemed confused and probably was.
Sad.
What I meant to write is this; “Well-known by leaders of NEA, AFT and UTLA.”
Google maps confirms that Hobart Blvd. Elementary School has been only 3.5 miles distant from the downtown LAUSD offices for more than the last 30 years. Hardly seems reasonable that Esquith could remain unknown to central office for so long.
Happily, Esquith’s defamation case survived a motion to dismiss, so presumably he’ll be exonerating himself soon, and making LAUSD pay to boot. I look forward to seeing the full context of the emails, which should be the last word on this already much-discussed issue.
FLERP!: although it may be too much to hope for, perhaps if Rafe Asquith’s situation and those of others are dragged through the court system we will have all the pertinent facts and context necessary to put the matter to rest.
As for your last sentence: there may never be a “last word” but at least we will some documented facts on which to base our opinions.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
“I look forward to seeing the full context of the emails….”
I look forward to hearing from the children and parents. Is there another incident where a teacher or coach or administrator was horribly abusing young children where the investigators are too lazy to bother interviewing a single victim and including their testimony? What I recall with these kinds of investigations is that as soon as it is in the media, people start coming out of the woodwork to talk about other incidents. I recall recently in NYC an emergency ER doc who did some despicable sexual abuse to a patient he gave some drug to and other women stepped forward as it had not been the first time. At Poly Prep and Horace Mann and St. George’s School and Taft, etc. when someone finally stepped up to complain about an abusive teacher and the media reported on it, it turned out that there were dozen of victims. Same with the Catholic Church and the pedophile priests. Same with Bill Cosby. Have victims of Rafe stepped forward and the investigators said “no need to talk to them, we have the e-mails?” Why wouldn’t they want to investigate to make sure the abuse didn’t go beyond e-mails? What investigative body would stop there if they believed there might be dozens or hundreds of abused children out there?
I am really turned off by a grown man making 3 or 5 references over a period of months or years to spankings and boyfriends when emailing a teenager who is a former student but whom he has not had authority over for years. But unless I see something other than these e-mails, I have to wonder at the kind of over the top reactions we are seeing from the exact same people who dismiss REAL abuse of young children whose parents have actually stepped forward to complain and where we have documented evidence that the school condoned the practices because those kids are targeted for removal. “But don’t put it in an e-mail”. THAT is the kind of thing that we already have evidence of great harm done to children and yet the same people so quick to condemn Rafe as a sexual pervert and abuser will at the same time defend teachers and administrators that emotionally abuse children whose parents have stepped forward but are ignored because of racism that says those children (almost always low income and minority) “deserved it.” The same people ready to condemn Rafe as a pervert based on sentences from inappropriate e-mails to former students (the operative word being “former”) are very quick to say that a 5 or 6 year old child “asked for it” if he or she is emotionally abused and targeted by their own classroom teacher or principal who has complete power over them.
Rafe taught for DECADES. This is now public. It is very likely that if he is a serial pervert and abuser that we will see evidence of that beyond a handful of inappropriate e-mail correspondence with some former students that just makes him look like a foolish old man with a crush or a stereotype of some theatrical, over the top director. THAT is the evidence I am waiting for. It is ridiculous to think that if these emails were “grooming” young women to be his prey that over the decades he didn’t find dozens of victims when he was apparently given free reign to do whatever he wanted.
Maybe these e-mails alone show that Rafe is too old to be teaching because the appropriate way to talk to teenagers has passed him by and he looks like a dirty old man with a crush on a former student. I have seen nothing in the evidence that as a classroom teacher he has done anything untoward to any students in his school (the nakedness joke – unless symbolic of a larger pattern of sexual joking – seems really stretching it if that is the worst the investigators found). I would certainly not do what the folks who condone emotional abuse of 5 and 6 year olds do and say “I’m sure the same agency who has ignored it for years will investigate the dozens of complaints and look how many well-behaved kids like the teacher so the abuse of some other 5 year olds is most likely their own fault and they brought on their own abuse.”
It’s like Ken Starr spending years investigating Bill Clinton for having a consensual relationship with a young girl where the President acted like a teenage girl unwilling to “go all the way” and have intercourse, while completely overlooking athletes who rape and sexually abuse women. It is true that both incidents are “inappropriate”. But they are not the same and when someone claims that Clinton’s actions were somehow worse than a real rapist’s actions because they have some political axe to grind — like Tim on here — then I start to get disgusted.
Thank you, Geronimo.
Thank you Geromino, A 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles public school district, who is also NBCT for your insightful and impartial analysis of “Deasy, Holmquist and the LAUSD School Board” on their misuse of their legal power to harm all talented, veteran, and conscientious educators.
These snakes think that they are invincible with the support of corporate’s money and power.
Tim and Marita are not conscientious people who are happy to receive few bucks to aggravate and maliciously damage the talented, compassionate and caring Rafe Esquith with the same misused concept like “nobody is perfect”, “everyone has materialistic motive”. These concepts are used to protect crooks and to implant an accusation on good citizen.
Yes, goodness will prevail, and bad deeds will yield sufferance on the dead bed where the bad souls will face their own music in the end. We do not need to know their miseries, except themselves. Back2basic
I am a former LAUSD teacher who was told by my principal that I was a very expensive teacher as I was at the top of the pay scale and slated to retire at age 57. Unless you have personally been through the harassment, bullying and outrageous false accusations perpetrated on unknowing teachers who naively believe that UTLA will protect them, it is difficult to believe the depths of the evil that goes on to this day at LAUSD. The union, UTLA, is decidedly culpable in this horror story because they actively collude with the District to get rid of highly-paid senior teachers. The District’s charges against me were laughably falsified, just as they are against Rafe Esquith. LAUSD concocts false morals charges against teachers so they can be suspended without pay and have no income with which to pay for legal defense. The Office of Administrative Hearings is not an actual court of law so it gets up to make the rules as it goes along. I now despise this country as it in no way resembles a democracy. Due process is a pipe dream for teachers. I pray for the death of every single person involved in this Kafkaesque nightmare.
If your union gets its dues the same way the UFT does in NYC then it is in the union’s financial interest to push out a high cost veteran who can be replaced by low cost new teachers. In NYC two new teachers can replace one high cost veteran which results in the union receiving double the amount of dues. In NYC dues are about $1,300 p/year for all teachers, new or old.
Go here to this post, and read my comment at the end, too.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/ATTORNEY-KATHLEEN-CARROLL-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Civil-Rights-Violations_Corruption_Educational-Crisis_Litigation-160816-669.html