Joshua Leibner wrote an open letter to celebrated author Ta-Nahisi Coates, with the expectation that Mr. Coates would never see the letter.
Leibner, an NBCT teacher in Los Angeles for 20 years, wrote this letter to counter an “open letter” that John Deasy had written to Ta-Nahisi Coates.
Leibner acknowledged that both of them were using the format to make a statement directed at the public, not the author.
He used his letter to excoriate Deasy and his fealty to the agenda of the Billionaire Boys Club.
If Deasy would like to respond to Joshua Leibner, I welcome his letter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s frustrating that we, the tax payers, have to wait so long for the results of the FBI and SEC investigations into the iPad project and use of school construction bonds. Deasy resigned in October of 2014, which is now almost 2 years ago. In the meantime, he is biding his time working under Eli Broad. So much for any consequences!!!!!
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Yes..educator…you and I and others in our community have been working on all this for at least the last 4 years (note to Diane and our blog members, most of us met and became allies on this great blog years ago…thank you Diane for helping us find each other.) . I want to publicly laud you, and Josh, and our great allies, for all the work you do, and have done, as exemplary teachers (and brave reporters) to save our public schools.
Here is what I just posted as a comment on LA Progressive to expand on Josh’s important article.
“Thanks Josh for this excellent report on Deasy. As you know, he was hired by LAUSD, without there being any national search as is the usual standard when hiring a Supt. of Schools, and primarily at the urging of both Eli Broad, and his toadie, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Deasy’s actions were full of deception and manipulation from day one. He hired Jaime Aquino who had just left Pearson, the huge British corporation who is contracted to produce all the Common Core curriculum for the US, as his top assistant and second in command at LAUSD. He thereafter spent $1.3 billion in School Building and Repair Bond Money paid for by the public, to purchase both the outdated over-retail cost iPads, and the still undeveloped curriculum from Pearson. The VAST failures of this charlatan are published online including MiSiS implementation before it was ready to use, which caused thousands of students to not get their classes for many months, and other tech horrors. Meanwhile, he unfairly put hundreds of teachers in “teacher jail” for manufactured charges that to this day remain unproven. Teachers lost their incomes, their health insurance , their homes, their good reputations, and some died, due to Deasy’s doing the bidding of Eli Broad. Of course, the moment Deasy left LAUSD, Broad put him on his payroll, and has him now working with Ben Austin, the other infamous and notorious shady character who used to run Parent Revolution, as a team of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dom to foster Vergara-like lawsuits in California and nationwide to eliminate due process for teachers, and to break the teachers unions. The vulture billionaires find willing henchmen like Deasy and Austin who will do their bidding for money and power, but they call it “civil rights”….so I urge all readers of Josh’s article do more homework and join us in putting down this movement to destroy public education in America in favor of their drive to privatize our public schools for investment opportunities.
You can contact me at
Joiningforces4ed@aol.com
Ellen Lubic, Director, Joining Forces for Education”
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Ellen, I’ve read references to the to the teachers unfairly put into “teacher jail” in LA but have not heard specifics. It sounds horrible. Is there a source that documents some specifics about what Deasy did regarding this subject?
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Jonathan…there are endless reports of how Deasy handled teachers who were targeted for removal. Many are in Diane’s archives, and currently, over a thousand teachers are joined in the class action lawsuit that the Mark Geragos law firm has filed against LAUSD with the prime plaintiff being Rafe Esquith. This filing is online and can be googled.
Another source is the LA Times archives. Even this news media source, so ruled by Eli Broad (Deasy’s mentor and boss, who funds the LA Times for many of their education articles), has reports on innocent teachers who were jailed. A story that incensed the public was that of the beloved music teacher at Crenshaw HS who took her chorus to Europe to perform during summer vacation. This well known chorus was even invited to play at the White House. The European trip they made had nothing to do with the district. Parents signed releases and paid for their children’s participation.
The district however, was put off by this success and the temerity of the chorus director, who on her own unpaid time still worked with and nurtured her inner city students, and they had the teacher/leader jailed for many months until pressure from the community forced them to release this sterling music teacher to continue teaching.
Another egregious situation was that of Mira Monte Elementary School where one male teacher was proven to have sexually imposed on his students, actually for some years. Instead of getting rid of this teacher under the law, Deasy chose to shut down the entire school and jail all the teachers, thus traumatizing not only the innocent teachers with guilt by association not chosen by them, but also the entire inner city student body which had to find other schools to attend.
All of this information can be found online and in greater detail.
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Here are just a few googled articles on LAUSD teacher jail.
Lausd Teacher Jail – Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/lausd-teacher-jail/
The Huffington Post
Hundreds of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers accused of misconduct are spending months in so-called “teacher jail,” where teachers still c.
JUST IN: LAUSD slapped with $1 billion lawsuit to end teacher jails …
laschoolreport.com/just-in-lausd-slapped-with-1-billion-lawsuit-to-end-teacher-jails/
Oct 15, 2015 – Following up on a months-long threat, high-profile attorney Mark Geragos today slapped LA Unified with a class action lawsuit, calling for an end to the practice of “teacher jails” and asking for more than $1 billion in damages. … At his downtown office only a few blocks from …
Two in LA Unified ‘teacher jail’ plead their cases to school board – LA …
laschoolreport.com/two-in-la-unified-teacher-jail-plead-their-cases-to-school-board/
Sep 11, 2015 – Two teachers put in “teacher jail”–but have had no charges filed against them–made their plea to the LAUSD to be allowed back into the …
Inside LA’s ‘teacher jail’: Educators are ‘broken, depressed, suicidal …
america.aljazeera.com/…/inside-l-a-a-s-teacherjaileducatorsarebrokendepres…
Al Jazeera
Aug 1, 2014 – The Los Angeles Unified School District still hasn’t officially told Stevenson what allegations landed her in so-called teacher jail. She teaches a …
Teacher Jail « CBS Los Angeles
losangeles.cbslocal.com/tag/teacher-jail/
KCBS‑TV
LAUSD Science Teacher Allegedly Placed In ‘Teacher Jail’ Returned To His ClassroomA Los Angeles Unified School District science teacher returned to his …
L.A. Unified’s ‘teacher jail’ policy ends up punishing students – LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/…/la-ed-rafe-esquith-lausd-teacher-jail-2015081...
Los Angeles Times
Aug 10, 2015 – L.A. Unified’s ‘teacher jail’ policy ends up punishing students … Esquith was suspended in April, pending an LAUSD investigation. Educator …
Senator Mendoza LAUSD Teacher Jail Audit Request Approved by …
voiceofoc.org/…/senator-mendoza-lausd-teacher-jail-audit-request-appro…
Voice of OC
Jan 13, 2016 – Senator Tony Mendoza “Teacher Jail” Audit Request Approved. Los Angeles Unified School District’s Use of Teacher Disciplinary Process to …
Teacher Rafe Esquith files $1B suit vs. L.A. schools – CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/15/…/los-angeles-teacher-class-action-lawsuit-rafe-esquit...
CNN
Oct 18, 2015 – “I’m calling for the complete shutdown of LAUSD,” Geragos said. … Esquith says his journey to teacher jail began on March 19 — with a joke.
LAUSD’s ‘teacher jails’ shut down – Los Angeles Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/social…/lausds-teacher-jails-shut-down
Los Angeles Daily News
May 27, 2014 – Los Angeles Unified School District shut down its “teacher jails” Tuesday, freeing educators to stay at home on paid leave, instead of at a district …
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Here are just a few googled articles on LAUSD teacher jail including one on Mrs. Stevenson, the choral director at Crenshaw HS which I referred to above. If you go further back, you will find many on how Deasy jailed teachers with NO due process.
Oct 15, 2015 – Following up on a months-long threat, high-profile attorney Mark Geragos today slapped LA Unified with a class action lawsuit, calling for an end to the practice of “teacher jails” and asking for more than $1 billion in damages. … At his downtown office only a few blocks from …
Two in LA Unified ‘teacher jail’ plead their cases to school board – LA …
laschoolreport.com/two-in-la-unified-teacher-jail-plead-their-cases-to-school-board/
Sep 11, 2015 – Two teachers put in “teacher jail”–but have had no charges filed against them–made their plea to the LAUSD to be allowed back into the …
Inside LA’s ‘teacher jail’: Educators are ‘broken, depressed, suicidal …
america.aljazeera.com/…/inside-l-a-a-s-teacherjaileducatorsarebrokendepres…
Al Jazeera
Aug 1, 2014 – The Los Angeles Unified School District still hasn’t officially told Stevenson what allegations landed her in so-called teacher jail. She teaches a …
Teacher Jail « CBS Los Angeles
losangeles.cbslocal.com/tag/teacher-jail/
CBS‑TV
LAUSD Science Teacher Allegedly Placed In ‘Teacher Jail’ Returned To His ClassroomA Los Angeles Unified School District science teacher returned to his …
L.A. Unified’s ‘teacher jail’ policy ends up punishing students – LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/…/la-ed-rafe-esquith-lausd-teacher-jail-2015081...
Los Angeles Times
Aug 10, 2015 – L.A. Unified’s ‘teacher jail’ policy ends up punishing students … Esquith was suspended in April, pending an LAUSD investigation. Educator …
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Thank you Ellen.
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Someone did a “Ten Stupidest Things Arne Duncan Said” a while ago.
Perhaps the same thing could be done for L.A. Schools Superintendent John Deasy. Here’s a good start.
Go to Deasy’s interview two years ago (Sepember 2014) with Tavis Smiley:
—————————–
Dr. John Deasy, LAUSD Superintendent | Interviews | Tavis Smiley | PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/john-deasy-2/
The quote is at —
03:52 – 04:29
(the CAPITALS and () parentheticals are mine, Jack)
—————————————————–
JOHN DEASY:
“As far as Last-In–and-First-Out, I don’t support that in any fashion whatsoever… uhhmm… in the notion that when you have to make decisions to lay off faculty because of budget cuts—and we know here in California, we’ve been through a horrific situation, uhhh… in terms of lack of money for public education—the decision has to be made solely on the day the person is hired. Well, why don’t we use teacher HEIGHT? I mean, THAT’S objective… uhmm, you can easily determine the highest, the tallest teacher. You wouldn’t do that either. So why (base pay on) some day (i.e. start day on the job)?
“You want to be able to make a decision on the contributions teachers make…”
—————————————————–
At this point in the interview, Deasy then deviously dishes out some disinformation and misdirection as he gushes about how wonderful some teachers and their “contribution” is, and and that “honoring” those good teachers’ contribution is the only and real reason he’s out to gut all teachers’ job protections in backing the Vergara decision.
Gee, how nice of him.
Why MUST those evil teacher unions get in his way when all Deasy wants to do is “honor” teachers? What’s WRONG with them? They’re all just corrupt, defenders of a failed status quo putting their own adult self-interest ahead of the children that they’re failing to teach!
Thank God we have John Deasy to take them on!
Deasy fails to mention that it’s NOT just “BAD” teachers’ job protections he’s after, but “ALL” teachers’ job protections.
I was in an audience when Deasy gave a speech at Occidental College a couple years ago, and he said a teacher’s career should not last more than five years, before that teacher moves on to their “real” career. Deasy and his ilk view the veteran teacher—10 years or more—with undisguised contempt, seeing them as lazy, overpaid, and basically worthless. If you went to an LAUSD teacher jail, it looks like an AARP meeting, as the Deasy-ite principals were given a directive to doctor up and trump up false charges against as many veterans as possible—to lower the line of item of salary in the budget, not improve teacher quality. If the Vergara decision stands, they’ll all be instantly fired.
The truth is that Deasy—and more specifically, the moneyed forces backing him—wants to de-professionalize teaching, to make it more like a low-level service job like office temping, fast food, retail, etc., than a profession like law, medicine, engineering, etc. Of course this as being done…
1) to lessen the tax burden on business and ramp up their bottom line profits and the price of their shareholders’ stock;
AND
2) to make education a more profitable industry for privatization—where teachers can be more like Walmart workers with no job protections, little pay, etc.
That’s why Teach For America, and TNTP, and all similar groups get millions and millions of dollars of corporate backing. This fits right in with the long-term plan of the Billionaire Boys Club—Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, etc.—to destroy the teaching profession, and privatize public education… taking it from the public commons where it is accountable and transparent to the public via democratically-elected school boards, and put it under the control of private interests who are NOT accountable to the public, not transparent to the public, and who don’t educate all the public—i.e. the most costly and difficult kids to educate… Special Ed, English Language Learners, kids in high poverty, homeless, foster care, etc.
Anyway, getting back to the above quote, Deasy says that a teacher’s length of service should be totally ignored when making personnel or compensation decisions.
THE REASON: basing such decisions on a teacher’s number of years of services is the same as basing it on a teacher’s number of inches in his height.
Really, John? Seriously? You’re in your mid-fifties now, and it’s possible you may soon or eventually need open-heart surgery (or some other high-risk surgery.) Would you prefer to be operated on by a surgeon who’s done it…
2 times before he operates on you?
20 times before he operates on you?
200 times before he operates on you?
2,000 times before he operates on you?
According to you, John, judging that surgeon on the prior number of times he’s successfully performed open-heart surgery is like judging him on the number of inches of his height.
What an asinine analogy. Let’s compare it even further.
INCHES OF HEIGHT: a teacher—or his supervising administrator(s)—has NO control over that, as it is decided in the womb.
YEARS OF TEACHING IN THE CLASSROOM: being able to survive this is totally dependent on the teacher’s innate abilities, persistence, drive to work hard, and his determination to perform the countless and highly-demanding requirements of the job… and survive administrator evalutions, and prove himself / herself over and over to an administrator that they deserve to be on the job—even AFTER being granted tenure.
Bad teachers can and do get justly pushed out all the time… without actually going thru the technical process of termination or “being fired.”. The same goes for high-paid teachers who are unjustly fired, in order to save money.
What must a teacher do during that say, his first year of teaching, or 2 years, or 5, 10, 20, 30, etc., to remain on the job? What are some of the requirements that he must perform, or else, if he fails to do so, will get written up and eventually fired?
Well, let’s examine that.
Principals and other administrators come through our classes all the ding-dong day, folllowed by criticisms, e-mails and / or “conference memos” which demand and get immediate action.
Parents can be equally demanding, as evidenced during the scheduled parent-teacher conferences during the school year, and those unscheduled conferences resulting from a problem the parent demands that the teacher MUST address.
The students’ results on quarterly assessments—and annual standardized tests—in Language and Math are scrutinized to a fair-thee-well.
Accompanying these analyses are demands to address the needs of those students who are falling behind., and administrative monitoring as to whether we as teachers have done so. (And this is apart from the annual or bi-annual “Stull” evaluation that teachers go through)
Here’s more of what a teacher does:
— detailed report cards;
— lesson planning or all subjects (with a detailed lesson plan book with precisely stated objectives, methodology, etc— present and visible at all times);
— endless, constant grading & gradebook record-keeping that would tax any accountant;
— meticulously decorated and designed walls and bulletin boards ( with graded & finished student work corresponding to California Standards posted both in the classroom and in the hallway, and which must be changed regularly);
— mandated classroom environment with required centers (library, listening center, etc.); constant photocopying / prep for the upcoming lessons);
— I.E.P meetings for certain children with issues (with detailed documentation, writing, pre-planning, and execution of the I.E.P. plan itself);
— after-school “homework” clubs / tutoring that most teachers offer (unpaid and off-the-clock mind you);
— the grading of students’ writing (a very labor-intensive job by itself ) followed by individual one-on-one writing conferences with each student; regular after-school teacher meetings;
— intervening in and counseling regarding bullying, fights, or the often toxic dynamics of cliques; grade-level meetings;
— meetings of the entire faculty;
— after-school professional development meetings;
— the newly-mandated prep for the standardized tests;
— constant intervention with misbehaving children involving phone calls / meetings with parents; home visits;
— unpaid and emotionally-draining social work for children from distressed, impoverished homes with often-horrific personal situations;
— constant organizing and cleaning of the classroom itself;
— planning and executing of on-going projects;
— purchasing out-of-pocket supplies;
— the focused, on-your-feet performance of directed instruction itself; attending to children with special needs; and on and on…
That’s only a PARTIAL list of what we are required to do.
Now according to Deasy, the length of time that a teacher has performed these and other demands SHOULD MEAN NOTHING when making decisions in:
paying that teacher (salary schedule);
or
not firing/continuing to hire that teacher.
Why? Well, because Deasy says that judging by the years on the job doing all this is the same as judging that teacher by the inches of that teachers’ height.
The unbelievable demands they constantly have to meet, and the challenging and trying circumstances in which they work mean nothing to this man—or again, more specifically, the moneyed forces backing him.
————————–
Try to imagine L.A. Police Chief Beck saying:
———————————————————
L.A. Police Chief Beck:
“As far as Last-In–and-First-Out, I don’t support that in any fashion whatsoever… uhhmm… where the decision on pay or continuing to hire that police officer has to be made solely on the day a police officer is hired. Well, why don’t we use police officer HEIGHT? I mean, THAT’S objective… uhmm, you can easily determine the highest, the tallest police officer. You wouldn’t do that either. So why base police officer pay or personnel decisions based on their start day on the job?”
———————————————————
Or a Fire Chief, or a leader in any branch of the U.S. armed forces… dumping on those who chose to make teaching, or fire fighting, or the military a career instead of a short-time gig, before they move on to—as Deasy puts it—their “real” career.
The morale would plummet.
Deasy says that he would prefer a system where a teacher’s career lasts five years max. Well, 50% of public school teachers ALREADY quit within five years. As far as career change teachers—those coming from other professions, that’s 50% after TWO years, and 75% after five years.
Deasy—-and the moneyed forces directing him—-want to make it so that 100% of teachers quit withing five years…. that’s “public school” teachers, not the private schools where so many corporate reform billionaires send their own kids.
How many 2-years-and-out Teach for America corps members teach at Bill Gates’ kids’ private school up in Seattle? Or Michelle Rhee/Tim Huffman’s kids at Harpeth Hall in Tennessee? Or Obama’s kids at Sidwell Friends in D.C.? Or Rahm Emanuel’s kids at the Chicago Lab School?
When I talk to those career change teachers—who came from aerospace, or accounting, or entertainment, or from wherever—I hear something along the lines of… “I had no idea that this job was so hard, so demanding, so grueling, so full of stress, so time-consuming… yadda-yadda-yadda… ”
The ones who don’t wash out in five years or less, the ones who stay on longer—longer than Deasy’s preferred five years—are the survivors, the dedicated ones, the creme-de-la-creme, and as such, deserve a system of due process, and a pay system with step increases—where commensurately higher pay comes with a commensurate increase in years of the experience that more and more years on the job brings.
No doubt about it, teachers get better the longer they are on the job—it’s totally counter-intuitive and defies common sense to think otherwise. Their instincts on how to handle the myriad of situations that arise—both academic and non-academic—become second-nature. Through trial and error and repeated practice, they improve in their ability in how to teach specific concepts—i.e. the dreaded “rounding” lesson in Math for the little ones, up to Calculus for the high schoolers. The constant ongoing evaluation from administrators—both formal and informal—sharpen all of their skills.
In short, they’re professionals, and should be treated with the respect that professionals deservce, and not have their years of experience equated to inches in their height, and essentially told that those years MEAN NOTHING. What a slap in the face!
If the idea that teachers improve with experience were not so, the websites of the expensive private schools would not tout the decades of teaching experience that their staff brings to the job.
Deasy taught two years at a military school back in the 1980’s. That’s the sum of his own experience, so perhaps he’s intimidated by those with decades of experience… as well as carrying out his corporate masters’ marching orders in targeting veteran teachers.
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Here’s Deasy’s efforts regarding class size —
specifically his defiance of the LAUSD Board’s direction to lower class size:
I’m so sick and Deasy claiming he’s all about
the children.
Here’s a blast from the past (July 2013)
regarding Deasy failing to do something to
improve education for kids—in this case,
lower class size, as directed to him in a 5-2
vote of the pre-Ratliff LAUSD board:
Before you read this, here’s Board Member
Zimmer’s impassioned speech that preceded
the vote to lower class size:
Zimmer points out the hypocrisy of Deasy—
and his two allies on the school board,
Tamar Galatzan & Monica Garcia
On the one hand, they champion
the charter schools/chains that
financially back Deasy, Galatzan, and
Garcia, and that they claim are so
superior to traditional public schools
with unions, AND THEIR MAIN FEATURE
IS LOWER CLASS SIZE. The charters tout
this on their web pages, that Zimmer, in a
Pacino-esque moment, starts throwing
around the room.
And yet… Deasy, Galatzan, and Garcia
fight tooth and nail from funding the
same lowering of class size for those
traditional public schools, effectively
tying one hand behind those schools’
and teachers’ backs, and denying those
students the advantages of lower class size.
They’re rigging the game in favor of their
beloved charters who bankrolled their
campaigns.
They do this because even though they
know full well that traditional public school
students would benefit from this—the way
the students in their beloved charters do—
their ultimate goal is to starve the traditional
public schools into failure, and weaken
and wreck the teachers’ union, as they will
have less members, less dues, and a
membership angry at their leaders, and
fighting among themselves for less
classroom positions.
Deasy, Galatzan, and Garcia are following
their corporate masters’ marching orders…
and doing so to the detriment of the students
in tradiional public schools.
Even after this motion was passed, DEASY
publicly went on L.A. SCHOOL REPORT
and defiantly said, “I’m not doing it… You
can’t make me.” He derided the plan
to lower class size as “a directive to hire
every human being on the West Coast.”
Here’s Ravitch’s coverage at the time:
============================
Deasy Defies New L.A. Board Majority
By dianeravitch
July 12, 2013 //
When the Los Angeles school board prepared to elect a new president, Superintendent John Deasy let it be known that he might resign if Richard Vladovic won the election.
Vladovic won by 5-2. The two nay votes came from outgoing president Monica Garcia and her ally Tamar Galatzan.
Before the election, there were rumors that Vladovic was under investigation for verbally abusing board employees, and newspaper accounts suggested that Deasy was trying to derail his candidacy. That did not help their working relationship.
The new board passed a resolution endorsing class size reduction, a measure opposed by Deasy. Deasy favored a motion by Galatzan proposing more money for high-needs students, which was postponed by the board.
In a show of defiance, Deasy said he would comply with the resolution that was not passed because the board did not forbid him from doing it. Deasy opposes reduced class size because it will mean hiring more staff.
This is what he told the LA School Report (a pro-corporate reform newspaper):
————————————
JOHN DEASY: “The Board voted down the directive to have me come and do it,” said Deasy, referring to Galatzan’s local spending resolution. “[But] they can’t stop me from doing it; we’re doing it anyway. If they had voted to prevent me from doing it… well they didn’t think of that.”
———————————–
“The Superintendent explained that the future spending plan the Board ordered him to produce will comply with the Board-passed Kayser resolution regarding staffing (or as Deasy derisively called it, a “directive to hire every human being on the West Coast”) but will also include some form of the local spending plan he and Galaztan have been advocating.”
When the unions learned that Deasy would ignore the board vote, they wrote a letter to the board.
They raised the question about why Deasy intended to flout the authority of the board he works for.
With a number of strong wills converging, this will be worth watching.
Bottom line: How long will Deasy last as an employee of a board whose leadership he does not like or trust, and how long will the board tolerate insubordination by Deasy?
For your convenience, here’s the text of the two
the two union presidents’ letter TO THE 7
LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS,
expressing their outrage over Deasy’s
defiance of the Board’s directive:
(those union presidents are then-President
of the UTLA teachers’ union Warren Fletcher,
and his equivalent for administrators/principals/
asst. principals, Judy Perez, President,
Associated Administrators of Los Angeles”
(AALA)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“July 10, 2013
“Honorable Richard Vladovic,
—President, LAUSD Board of Education
“Honorable Marguerite LaMotte,
—Board Member, District 1
“Honorable Monica Garcia,
—Board Member, District 2
“Honorable Tamar Galatzan,
—Board Member, District 3
“Honorable Steve Zimmer,
—Board Member, District 4
“Honorable Bennett Kayser,
—Board Member, District 5
“Honorable Monica Ratliff,
—Board Member, District 6
“Dear Board Members:
“We are writing on behalf of the members of our two
organizations: United Teachers Los Angeles, which
represents the 36,000 classroom teachers and health
and human services professionals of LAUSD, and
Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, exclusive
representative for over 2,300 certificated and
classified administrators within the District.
“We wish to raise a concern about recent statements
by Superintendent John Deasy, related to his
obligation to abide by the policy positions and
directives of the Board of Education.
“On June 20, the ‘LA School Report,’ published a
story entitled, ‘Defiant Deasy Says He’ll Push
Targeted Spending Plan Anyway.’ In that article
Mr. Deasy clearly indicates that it is his intention
to circumvent the Board vote on use of new state
LCFF monies.
“Specifically, Mr. Deasy is quoted as stating that,
” ‘The Board voted down the directive. . . ,’ referring
to Ms. Galatzan’s recent local spending resolution,
” ‘[But] they can’t stop me from doing it; we’re doing
it anyway.’ ”
“To date, we have not been able to locate
any report that Mr. Deasy has disavowed these
public statements, nor has he indicated that he was
misquoted.
“The Superintendent is an employee of the District,
and is legally required to operate ‘under the
control of the Board.’ The California courts have
recognized that a Superintendent does not
‘exercise independent powers’ (Main vs.
Claremont, Unified School District, 161
CalApp 2d189, 204).
“As the presidents of two organizations charged
with representing and bargaining for a large
proportion of District employees, we do not
expect that Mr. Deasy’s statements and policy
positions will always align with those of our
respective organizations.
“However, as both District employees and as
taxpayers, we do expect that the
Superintendent will, at all times, discharge his
duties in a manner that is consistent with his
role as the District’s chief executive officer.
Statements and conduct to the contrary can
only erode public confidence in the Board
and the District.
“California law clearly places both the power
and the responsibility for ultimate leadership
of the District in the hands of its elected
governing board. Regardless of Mr. Deasy’s
motives or intentions, no district, and no
community, is served when this democratic
authority is undermined.
“Please contact either of us if you have any
questions. We are thankful for your time and
attention to this matter.
“Respectfully,
“Warren Fletcher
President,
United Teachers Los Angeles
“Judith Perez
President,
Associated Administrators of Los Angeles”
————————————–
————————————–
Did this letter have any impact on Deasy’s
defiant refusal to lower class size?
Nope… it never happened to this day.
Oh… and here’s the earlier L.A. SCHOOL
REPORT article that includes the
comments from Deasy about defying
the board (and includes Deasy’s
asinine “hire every human being on
the West Coast” line:
http://laschoolreport.com/defiant-deasy-says-hell-continue-to-push-local-spending-plan/
————————————————
“Defiant Deasy Says He’ll Push
Targeted Spending Plan Anyway
“Posted on June 20, 2013 1:28 pm
“by Hillel Aron
“During Tuesday’s seemingly endless meeting, the LAUSD School Board postponed Board member Tamar Galatzan’s resolution to have new State education funds flow to schools with large numbers of low-income and English language learning students and approved Board member Bennett Kayser’s resolution calling for the district to hire more staff across the board.
“The votes seemed like a loss for LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who had floated the idea of having new funding flow where it was needed most (along the lines of the Galatzan resolution) and had opposed the idea of hiring more staff.
“But on Wednesday a defiant Deasy told LA School Report that his plan for future spending will include the spirit of Galatzan’s resolution anyway:
“ ‘The Board voted down the directive to have me come and do it,’ said Deasy, referring to Galatzan’s local spending resolution. ‘ [But] they can’t stop me from doing it; we’re doing it anyway. If they had voted to prevent me from doing it… well they didn’t think of that.’
“The Superintendent explained that the future spending plan the Board ordered him to produce will comply with the Board-passed Kayser resolution regarding staffing (or as Deasy derisively called it, a ‘directive to hire every human being on the West Coast’ ) but will also include some form of the local spending plan he and Galaztan have been advocating.
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There’s a great COMMENT from Robert Skeels
accompanying and BELOW this article:
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ROBERT SKEELS:
“Once again this Superintendent proves he values profits over pupils. Rather than address the abjectly overflowing class sizes that have students sitting on the floor and windowsills, Deasy chooses to direct funds to Rupert Murdoch’s DIBBELS®, Laurene Powell Jobs’ iPads, and John Fallon’s textbooks. Students need access to books and the world of literature, not distracting toys designed for playing Angry Birds.
“Deasy was already shunting Title I and Title III funds to corporate profits, and LCFF essentially gives him a blank check to stuff more money into the pockets of the people that put him in power. Meanwhile LAUSD students are denied an education that would provide them the critical thinking skills to change a sick world that would allow a former Gates Foundation executive to run an urban school district.”
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… followed up by another great comment
from one “Chance LaRue”:
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CHANCE LaRUE:
“This is all true, Mr. Skeels, but Deasy wants to destroy LAUSD. This is his agenda, because Gates, Broad, Walton and the rest of these greed corporate thugs have more than trillion dollar signs .in their eyes as they commandeer public education. They see a next generation of compliant consumers and wage slaves. Everything these people do is about enriching themselves. They sport black holes, where their souls ought to be.”
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– – – – – – – – – “Deconstructing Deasy: A VIDEO” – – – – – – – – – – – –
(WARNING: this is long)
There are lots of videos of LAUSD Superintdendent John Deasy on YOUTUBE, where he proceeds to utter one absurdity after another.
For example, try this video is at:
It’s a cell phone video from a public forum on March 3, 2014 at Portola Middle School, located in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley.
At 00:07 , Deasy says…
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00:07 – 00:55
00:07 – 00:55
DEASY: “I would say… overwhelmingly… like 80% or so, or 90%, an outside agency notifies us of the issue (abuse allegations)… Either the LAPD, the FBI, or the (L.A. County) Sheriffs… they bring to our attention an issue that has occurred… uhmm… and unfortunately, those issues are very serious.
“This person is accused of (drug) trafficking on the intent.
“This person is accused of uhh… molestation.
“This person has is of trafficking drugs, prostitution, or whatever.
“Those come to us, and those agencies do the investigation. We don’t tell an employee anything unless that agency tells us what they can say. So we don’t take and over-rule sherrifs, or the FBI in those cases- ”
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Not true. Deasy and his henchmen “over-rule” and ignore the law enforcement authorities’ clearing of teachers—i.e. law enforcement authorities rendering them innocent, and authorities saying “this investigation is closed”—all the time.
Leonard Isenberg, a falsely accused teacher has written more than once about this lie told by Deasy. Deasy often makes the claim that once teachers have been cleared, they immediately return to the classroom.
At other times, Deasy tells a different story.
In the link BELOW, Isenberg includes an embedded video video, which Isenberg analyzes at:
http://www.perdaily.com/2012/12/lausd-superintendent-deasy-lies–knbc-lets-him-get-away-with-it.html
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ISENBERG: (referring to the embedded video on his page, not the one above)
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/on-air/as-seen-on/139141379.html
ISENBERG: “It is clear that Deasy is lying on this and other assertions. Last week, he claimed that only the worst teachers were being incarcerated in teacher jails by LAUSD, and that if teachers are cleared by the police, they get their jobs back immediately. I have many many teachers in my database who have sat in teacher jail for over 3 years many without any charges and long after they were cleared by LAPD. And yet no mainstream or public media reports this.
“Listen carefully to Superintendent Deasy closely when he says, ‘We don’t know the facts in the case,’ but then says
DEASY: ” ‘We are within our rights to make a judgment call of inappropriate behavior and initiate termination proceeding.’
ISENBERG: “Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty or due process of law? The hysterical witch hunt atmosphere that now prevails at LAUSD, which Deasy continues to exploit after Miramonte, has now destroyed the lives of hundreds of teachers without a shred of verified evidence given under penalty of perjury. There is not one case in my database that LAUSD has respected teachers civil rights and given them timely due process of law in a neutral forum as clearly required by law.”
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Anyway back to the above Deasy video:
After these local agencies have totally cleared falsely-accused teachers, Deasy’s administrators, under his directions, have kept these innocent teachers languishing in “teacher jails” for years or months on end—knowing full well that these teachers were innocent of what they were being accused… like in the old Soviet Union.
For example, after the one pervert teacher at Miramonte Elementary School was discovered and rightly removed, Deasy then made a bone-head move, and REMOVED THE SCHOOL’S ENTIRE STAFF OF 120 teachers, stuck them in a half-finished school for six months to rot, and go crazy sitting in cubicles for hours every day.
Since this was a multi-track school, this included teachers who had never met the pervert. As one Miramonte teacher said at the time, “This guy may as well have been teaching in Iowa, for all I know. Why am I even in here??!! I’ve never even met him!”
This is the totalitarian tactic of the “mass arrest.” Whenever you have a “mass” ANYTHING—“mass trial”, “mass execution”, “mass firing”, etc.—-by definition those being targeted include the innocent along with the guilty.. indeed, they may all be innocent. This was Deasy employing totalitarian tactics—a toxic, fear-based management style, and exploiting an actual tragedy to carry out his/his corporate reform backers’ goal of weakening UTLA, the local teachers’ union.
In the Spring and Summer of 2012, Deasy and his allies on the LAUSD Board—Tamar Galatzan and Monica Garcia—even tried to exploit the hysteria in the wake of the Miramonte tragedy (that’s certainly what it was) to ram through legislation in Sacramento that would have turned all California teachers into at-will employees (the goal of the Vergara lawsuit, by the way, which Deasy supports and testified at the trial.)
In late June 2012, Deasy went mano-a-mano with then-UTLA-president Warren Fletcher in testimony before the legislature… with dueling testimonies and dueling Q & A. The result, this legislation was barely defeated, and teachers kept their due process protections… until Vergara did exactly this, that is… thankfully, Vergara is on appeal .
(Vote for Tom Torlakson, as his corporate reform opponent Marshall Tuck claims that he will drop the appeal to Vergara should be get elected).
(Is all of this what Deasy is studying in South Korea?)
Also, Deasy makes the bizarre claim that 80-90% of the accusations against teachers deal with accusations of “(drug) trafficking and molestation… prostitution.”
Again… a total fiction.
Go back and again watch the video from 00:07 on…
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00:07 – 00:55
00:07 – 00:55
DEASY: “I would say… overwhelmingly… like 80% or so, or 90%, an outside agency notifies us of the issue… Either the LAPD, the FBI, or the (L.A. County) Sherrifs… they bring to our attention an issue that has occurred, and unfortunately, those issues are very serious.
“This person is accused of (drug) trafficking on the intent.
“This person is accused of molestation.
“This person has is of trafficking drugs, prostitution, or whatever.”
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Also, Deasy’s “prostitution” accusations are pretty bizarre. I’m an ed policy junkie—reading everything I can on the internet—and talk to UTLA officials who defend teachers all the time, and I have never heard of an LAUSD teacher being accused of prostitution, and when I asked those folks at UTLA, they likewise claim to have never heard of such a thing.
“If this would have happened, I think someone in my position would have heard of it,” said one UTLA official, “But you never know.”
I’m not saying it didn’t happen… but given the bias of the media, if an LAUSD teacher had been moonlighting and working in the “the world’s oldest profession,” this story would have come to light… nay, it would have blown up on all the media. Whatever the case, for Deasy to make the “prostitution” claim the third thing out if his mouth misleads the audience into thinking it’s more routine than it actually is.
At 00:53 , the FEMALE MODERATOR calls Deasy on this claim that only serious and credible accusations prompt a teacher’s removal from the classroom. She cites a well-known example who allegedly kicked the wheels of his car, or his car’s muffler, or whatever, and was removed and thrown in teacher jail as he was treated the same as an alleged pedophile.
This prompts applause from the teachers and parents in the room
It’s interesting to watch the controlling and manipulative Deasy attempt to win back the room by
1) shaming them, pressing their “Guilt Button” through the use of a thought-terminating cliche.
2) play the “I’m-Defending-Abused-Children-but-You’re-Not CARD”…
Deasy never answers this question, and successfully changes the subject.
At one point, Deasy says, “I’m not uncomfortable discussing the rights and safety of children. It is first and foremost (inaudible) we do in LAUSD.”
However, at 00:53 , Deasy is quite uncomfortable answering the Female Moderator’s question—a question he clearly did not expect or appreciate—as evidenced by his desperate attempt to change the subject.
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00:53 – 01:44
00:53 – 01:44
FEMALE MODERATOR: “What if it (the accusation) didn’t come from the police and sheriffs? Let me pick another case where a teacher was accused of something by a parent that wasn’t even criminal. It was more like kicking a muffler in a parking log, and they were moved, and they didn’t even know why they were moved until – ”
(HUGE APPLAUSE)
DEASY: “I think it’s bizarre that people will clap when we are looking to ensure childhood safety.”
(He actually pronounces the word bizarre “biz-zahhh”… gotta love that Boston accent)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “It’s an important question!”
DEASY: “Sir, don’t raise your voice to me! I don’t raise my voice to you.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Don’t lie to us, then!”
FEMALE MODERATOR: “I… I’m trying to – … ”
(DEASY turns from the FEMALE MODERATOR
then forcefully addresses the audience)
DEASY: “We’ll always make the decision to err on the rights and safety of children whether people are comfortable with that or not… ”
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Like Pavlov’s dogs hearing a bell ring, this gets applause from part of the audience. Deasy successfually short-circuits their capacity for critical thinking this way.
This is a rhetorical trick or fallacy used in propaganda… the false dichotomy… by implication Deasy is the righteous defender of children, while anyone who dares disagree with him is not.
Deasy continues with a manipulative attempt to trigger the emotions of the audience… i.e. his experiences “looking into the eyes’ of abuse children, and then employs a particularly clumsy sentence construction… is the child being “molested with his parents” watching, or “molested” along with his parents?
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01:46 – 01:55
01:46 – 01:55
DEASY: “You don’t look in the eyes of a child who has been molested with his parents. I do!”
AUDIENCE applauds
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Once again, the Pavlovian applause response from playing the Abused-Child-Card, and the propaganda trick of false dichotomy.
In effect, he’s communicating:
“I, John Deasy, care about abused children. Any people who refuse to back me 100% do NOT, and are a bunch of pedophile-enablers.”
This guy sits up in a luxury office on 24th floor of LAUSD’s Beaudry Building, while it’s the teachers who interact with the students for 7 hours (or more… i.e. after-school tutoring, homework clubs, extra-curriculars, etc.) each day.
I’ve seen those same tears from abused children, Dr. Deasy. We teachers have to report any and every suspicion of child abuse to police and child protection authoritiies, or face being fired and loss of credential. We do it all the ding-dong time.
I and thousands of my fellow teachers have looked into the eyes of those abused children on many occasions, and done my duty, as have countless administrators, filling out the SCAR (“Suspected Child Abuse Report”) Form, and staying late for hours… off-the-clock, and I”m happy to do so….meeting with authorities to give details on what the child reported to me.
Again, let’s get back to he muffler-kicking incident at
00:54
At one point, Deasy claims that he’s “not uncomfortable” discussing his handling of child abuse accusations, but throughout the night, he ducks the hard questions, diverts attention, and plays the “Abused Child Card” over and over to avoid answering these questions
However, the moderator’s question about the” kicked muffler” makes him pretty “uncomfortable” discussing these things.
(forgive me it this is repetitive)
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00:54 – 02:38
00:54 – 02:38
FEMALE MODERATOR: “What if it (the accusation) didn’t come from the police and sheriffs? Let me pick another case where a teacher was accused of something by a parent that wasn’t even criminal. It was more like kicking a muffler in a parking lot, and he was moved, and they didn’t even know why they were moved until –
(AUDIENCE breaks into applause… Deasy has just lost the crowd.
At this point, notice how Deasy diverts attention from this question, and never answers the question. He tries to shame the teacher for “raising his voice.”)
EASY: “I think it’s bizarre that people will clap when we are looking to ensure childhood safety.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “It’s an important question!”
DEASY: “Sir, don’t raise your voice to me! I don’t raise my voice to you.”
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “Don’t lie to us, then!”
FEMALE MODERATOR: “I… I’m trying to – … ”
(DEASY turns from the FEMALE MODERATOR
then forcefully addresses the audience with his
“only I care about abused children” canard.)
DEASY: “We’ll always make the decision to err on the rights and safety of children whether people at schools (inaudible) or not… ”
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: “What about the Crenshaw music teacher?”
FEMALE MODERATOR: “I don’t want to get into specifics, because this is not really the forum for that right now.”
DEASY: “No, we should NOT talk about other individuals. It is their private right to either go to their attorney, or to their union.”
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: “What about … (inaudible.. but I believe the parent or teacher in the audience is complaining about how, since Deasy took over, the investigation process… a process that returns innocent teachers to their classrooms… has gone from taking mere days… to taking weeks… to taking months… and now years to wrap up… meanwhile those teachers are cracking under the strain, and giving up and quitting… Deasy’s goal when dealing with the high-paid teachers, by the way…. lower the line item of salary, and replace them with docile newbies with no connection to the union.)
DEASY: “LAUSD will take as long as necessary to do its investigation, to ensure the rights of both the employee, or the teacher. Thank you.” (I think he meant to say the “student and the teacher.”
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This above back-and-forth refers to the high-profile case of Dr. Iris Stevenson, a nationally-renown music teacher from Crenshaw High School who was unjustly removed from her classroom.
Her Crenshaw High student choirs perform all over the country.
Dr. Stevenson and her student choir singers had just returned from a performance for President Obama at the White House. Upon landing in L.A., she was thrown in teacher jail and never told what the allegations against her were. At the time of this forum in the video, Dr. Stevenson was still stuck there. There were rumors that she was there because she didn’t fill out all the required paperwork for out-of-town student trips. She claimed that she DID do all the required paperwork, just as she had done dozens of times before.
The public outcry against this led to her eventually being returned to her position in August.
Instead of being “not uncomfortable” discussing the high-profile matter—and admitting he screwed up—Deasy, in the above video, ran from the question. This Stevenson affair was a major embarassment for Deasy and his corporate reform backers. Throughout her incarceration, Dr. Stevenson was never told of what she was being accused of, or given any documentation whatsoever.
Here’s some coverage about Dr. Stevenson, who was finally
returned to the classroom recently:
http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail
… and here’s L.A. School Report’s coverage of Stevenson’s exoneration and return to the classroom:
http://laschoolreport.com/crenshaw-choir-director-released-from-teacher-jail/
That’s all for now.
I hope that you enjoyed this lengthy post.
Jack
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Wow, the article from THE NATION
about teacher jail and Dr. Stevenson
is devastating. It was published in
April 2014, when Dr. Stevenson was
still languishing in teacher jails,
and written by one JoAnn Wypijewski.
It deals with Deasy’s exploiting the “sex”
and “child molestation” angles as a
dishonest way to crush innocent veteran
teachers—the highest paid naturally—
and simultaneously destroy teacher
unions’ ability to protect innocent teachers
unjustly accused of something.
http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail
Here’s the opening paragraphs:
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JoAnn Wypijewski of THE NATION:
“Iris Stevenson hurt no child, seduced no teenager, abused no student at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. This is what her supporters say in rallying outrage that this exemplary teacher has languished for months in the gulag of administrative detention known as ‘teacher jail’: she doesn’t belong there.
“And she doesn’t.
“Days before being removed from her music classes in December and ordered to spend her workdays isolated on a floor of the LA Unified School District (LAUSD)HQ with other suspect teachers, Stevenson, a legend in South LA and beyond, was at the White House directing the renowned Crenshaw Elite Choir as it sang for President Obama.
“She has not been officially informed of the charges against her. Unofficially, Stevenson is said to have swept off the choir to perform first in Paris and then in Washington without permission—an absurd claim, since parents had to consent, and Stevenson has conducted such foundation-supported field trips untroubled for decades. District authorities say only that Stevenson is under investigation.
“If she were a de facto kidnapper, police should have been called long ago. But, no, this is not about criminality or even misconduct; it is about a larger game of control being played by School Superintendent John Deasy. That game owes quite a lot to sex, because a few years ago a scandal tripped the panic button, which Deasy has kept his finger on ever since, exploiting justified public anger over a classroom pervert to pursue a war on teachers.
“The political question, then, is not just whether Stevenson belongs in teacher jail, but what this institutionalized containment regimen, this sub-bureaucracy of punishment, exists for in the first place, and how the specter of sex is the cowing excuse to go after anyone.”
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And it goes on from there… Read the whole thing at:
http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail
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I didn’t know about the tattoos. I did not know that! The image of Deasy, with his tattoos of the Chinese character for “courage” on each arm, taking the place of Martin Sheen in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now, doing fake t’ai chi and bloodying his hand punching the mirror, is now indelibly etched onto my brain. That was a great article by an obviously great teacher. Thank you, Diane. “iPads are civil rights” — unforgivable.
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Here’s an ed reform panel in DC:
http://educationnext.org/american-public-opinion-k-12-education-policy-2016-poll-event/#.V8mcc7NVA70.twitter
Accountability and charters. Rather than “education reform” why don’t they label this movement correctly and call it “testing and charter schools”
That’s accurate, although less politically savvy.
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