Karen Wolfe reports here on the surprising dilemma facing the Los Angeles school board: Whodunnit?
As has been reported, the principal of the El Camino Real Charter High School used the school’s credit card for his personal expenses. Apparently, there were other school officials who racked up heavy bills at the taxpayer’s expense. The principal billed the school credit card for first-class air travel, expensive meals, hotels, wine, and other luxuries. Now the school has been given a month to straighten out its financial mess.
Some commenters on this blog have said that if this were a public school principal, he would have been fired, not given a month to make things right.
At the recent school board meeting, defenders of the school said the school should not be blamed. They said that the school’s problem were the fault of the district for its failure to supervise the charter school!
Really!
This is like the old story of the man who murders his parents and then begs for the court’s mercy because he is an orphan.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Very engaging writing, Karen. Que Syrah Syrah indeed! And the Risky Bisnose reference — priceless.
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“Bus nose”. I saw what you did there, LCT. John Oliver is smiling.
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“Bisnose”. (My iPhone is not smarter than I!)
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Yup. Happy Labor Day. Labor strong movement, culture, people.
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THANKS!
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And don’t forget the moonlighting for an NBA team! What is it with edu-theft and basketball? I’m surprised this guy never used school fund to purchase Laker tickets. Or Pitbull or Puff Daddy tickets.
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This bit from the linked piece jumped out at me:
[start]
The charter school’s attorney said the problem isn’t unique to El Camino. “Like Charlie Brown kicking a football, charter schools are set up to make compliance mistakes, and then they’re heavily penalized when they actually do,” she complained.
[end]
So when administration and staff are “freed” from those horribly burdensome public school regulations and mandates and get all kinds of goodies—
Then they are being set up “to make compliance mistakes”?
The author rightly points out the irony: the charter seems to be arguing for MORE oversight and control by LAUSD rather than less.*
[*As the author puts it: “How much authority does the LAUSD board have over an independent charter school? Will charters start lobbying for more oversight? LOL. What will the California Charter Schools Association say about that?”]
This from a school that has won the national academic decathlon a record number of times. Perhaps they should now be awarded the First Place Trophy for Cognitive Dissonance and Word Salad.
😎
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I just posted this on Oped news, and it answers the question you posed, Diane, in this post:
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Are-charter-schools-the-ne-in-General_News-Bank-Fraud_Business-Economics_Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools-160905-127.html#comment616515
No one is responsible, and in fact it goes so much beyond just the corrupt bureaucrats/businessment who runs charter schools, so much beyond what these criminals in business suits can abscond with.
The charter schools are now the object as mortgages once were, to those for whom there is no accountability. After all, these scoundrels hedge fund manger and bankers took down THE ENTIRE NAITON’S WEATLH, bankrupting the middle class and throwing millions into poverty, as THEY WERE REWARDED. NO ACCOUNTABILITY, thanks to Citizens United.
Go, watch what they did last time…. go see the last 3 charts…. see the truth!
Now, these same guys are doing it again, using the are PUBLIC SCHOOLS–something that the courts THIS VERY DAYS, SAID WERE ABSOLUTELY not public!
The same guys, whom you see in that last graphic, at that link, are these guys:
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
They gave the principals of public schools a process to make them fail, and so they could be replaced by ‘charter schools,’ stealing public money!
AND THEN, they let the corrupt failed human beings who bought and run the schools to steal away at will!
With not a shred of oversight of course a school will fail. Any large organization will fail whenINCOMPETENCE & GREED are the ONLY FACTORS to INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME!
IN LAS ANGELES?
This is the second largest targeted school system. PERDAILY.COM has chronicled the corruption at all levels of the government that allowed Cortines (transported from NYC where his failures are legend) and then sleazy Deasy to utterly destroy the public schools (LAUSD)
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/10/post-4.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/social-promotion–lausds-prime-mover-for-continued-and-predictable-student-failure–do-they-really-w.html
and where Lenny Isenberg offers this :
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/10/charting-a-course-away-from-charters.html
of course the mayors had help…hOw else could they charge and fire thens of thousands of teachers with no hearings
FORMER CTC ATTORNEY KATHLEEN CARROLL LAYS OUT UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN UNION AND PUBLIC EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
and to bring you back to the ENABLER of all this,
1- the $$$$$$
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
2- LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY by allowing the public to see how PUBLIC EDUCATON was going DOWN — the great enabler isTHE MEDIA,– by spreading only malicious lies about teachers, they then REMOVED ANY SPOTLIGHT ON THE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND did this:
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/HAVE-REPORTERS-BECOME-POLI-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Media_Media-Bias_Media-Blackout_Media-Corruption-140322-673.html
Nothing is going to stop them until there is a JOHN OLIVER or expose in the media, or a Supreme court justice that shouts:” ENOUGH.:The INSTITUTION that is PUBLIC EDUCATION is not for your greedy fingers, like the health care industry was.
HEARING ABOUT IT HERE… is one thing, but making the public aware that their children are being robbed of their best opportunity to climb OUT of poverty… THAT is when things will change.
WHEN the voice of the PROFESSIONAL AT THE BOTTOM,— THE TEACHER- PRACTITIONER, IS OUT there, EXPOSING THE REALITY— to the people ACROSS THE NATION in the MEDIA.. WIL THIS STOP.
Maybe, when Diane’s voice and face, or Carols’s or Anthony’s, or Leonie’s words (OR MINE) echo in the public mind will anything change
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Susan .
The only way to stop thoses criminals is ( with kid abusers , lovers of money , corrupts and sicopats , no negotiation with them , * { with terrorists , no negotiations )
Susan I could rents busses we parents , very unpset to Washinton . The nation have to know the true of Charters Scools .
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So true, es verdad. They are criminals, and it will be PARENTS who demand their schools be returned to them, that make things change.
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What needs to be understood is that the charges made on the El Camino credit cards are not just about breaking charter laws, but more to do with basic IRS rules relating to how non-profits have to be run. So, how come their Chief Business Officer, a CPA himself, or their own accountancy firm or their membership in CCSA(CA Charter School Association) could not or did not provide any of that guidance? The head of LAUSD’s Charter School Division said at the meeting that their role is not to run the schools. If that was their role, the charter schools would have to be charged a lot more money to do that level of oversight.
So, in the end, Karen Wolfe has pointed out that there is no single entity either able or willing to do that deep a dive into how charter schools operate and hold them accountable.
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Well put.
Leaving aside what you wrote for a moment—and referring to the linked piece with its transcript—is it possible that the entire staff [many of them long-time veterans] and almost every administrator was completely unaware of flights and meals and hotels and wine and such?
Over a period of years no less?
Unless this was a workplace that can be described as sui generis [Latin, literally “of its own kind”] then claiming almost universal ignorance of what would have been the juiciest type of grist for the job site rumor mill is insulting to those concerned about rheephorm abuses.
I take no joy in writing the following but, unfortunately, one has to wonder about what kinds of lessons are being taught to students, parents and the general community about the personal responsibility for conducting oneself in an ethical manner as an educator and citizen.
That’s the way I see it.
☹️
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KTA,
“is it possible that the entire staff [many of them long-time veterans] and almost every administrator was completely unaware of flights and meals and hotels and wine and such?
Over a period of years no less?”
It is called “control fraud” the term coined by William Black who prosecuted over a thousand fraud cases in the Savings and Loan debacle of the 80s and who exposed the Keating Five.
From Wiki on Control Fraud:
The concept of control fraud is based on the observation that the CEO of a company is uniquely placed to remove the checks and balances on fraud within a company such as through the use of selective hiring and firing. These tactics can position the executive in a way that allows him or her to engage in accountancy fraud and embezzle money, hide shortfalls or otherwise defraud investors, shareholders, or the public at large. A control fraud will often obtain “investments that have no readily ascertainable market value”,[1] and then shop for appraisers that will assign unrealistically high values and auditing firms that will bless the fraudulent accounting statements.[2]
Some control frauds are reactive in the sense that they turn to fraud only after concluding that the business will fail.[3] Opportunistic control frauds, by contrast, are attracted to a criminogenic environment where it is harder to detect fraud, e.g., as a result of deregulation.[4]
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Many charter organizations are control fraud type organizations, plain and simple. Not all but many.
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And once again, you are ‘right on’, Krazed colleague.
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addendum…all of this brouhaha at El Camino should be reported to the IRS and the Ca. authorities who have the fiduciary responsibility of overseeing the 501c3 status of this Student Fund. Perhaps some letters would be in order, requesting them to investigate.
I can hardly wait to see if the prime organization of oversight, the LAUSD BoE really will do anything of substance at the next meeting, or they will they function as they too often do, and just pass it along to the next meeting, and the next meeting…..into infinity?
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This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George gets in trouble, and is questioned by Human Resources. It is alleged that, while staying late at the office, he spontaneously did you-know-what on his desk with one of the night crew cleaning women.
He admits to it, but then says it’s not his fault. This is on management, George argues, because no one above him gave him sufficient oversight to inform him beforehand that this was wrong: (sounds a little dicey, but you can still enjoy it)
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I’m reading through the transcript, and have to say, if the folks from El Camino had any grasp of the seriousness of their situation, the first words out of the El Camino Charter teachers’ and attorney’s mouths should be something like:
“The egregious actions of which El Camino Charter School officials have been accused were and are indefensible, unacceptable and blatant violations of the public trust. All of us here must begin this process by saying and agreeing on that basic fact.”
… and then proceed from there.
But sadly, that’s not what happened.
Instead, many of them are just spouting what boils down to long-winded versions the George Costanza defense (in the video above):
——————-
“If the thousands of pages of violations sent to ECRCHS hold any validity, I question the Charter School Division as to why these issues were not brought to our school’s attention prior to last year. We have the same administration. We’ve had the same financial team. We’ve had the same board members. If we were making so many mistakes, why did it take over four years for the CSD to point them out, and in pointing them out threaten revocation of our charter? It seems to me it might be more productive and helpful to a new charter and the students that we serve if we could have received guidance and assistance from CSD along the way.”
—————
“Many teachers are perplexed as to why and how it is that we haven’t received any actual guidance from the charter office for so long. Yet here In the first week of our sixth year we have the financial kitchen sink being lobbed at us…only at the start of this sixth year do we receive a notice of violation listing items that extend many years back.”
————–
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“El Camino Charter Executive Director David Fehte’s party was the premier topic at LAUSD’s August 23rd board meeting.”
I’m gonna guess this guy pronounces his name like “fête”. Party hearty!
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Here’s another on the double standard:
— how charter school administration scandals are handled
VS.
— how traditional public schools scandals are handled
BELOW is a detailed story of a sex scandal at the Summit Tahoma Charter School in San Jose, CA,
First, here’s some TV news coverage of this that I just found:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/02/29/police-investigate-whether-sj-principal-broke-law-in-teacher-sex-case/
At this point when this was broadcast, there still existed the possibility that the principal at Summit Tahoma, Nicholas Kim, might face criminal charges, but as the story BELOW indicates, that never happened, or hasn’t yet happened.
And here is that more detailed story:
————————————————————
Here’s a story — relevant to the issue of deregulation of charters — that I’ve been sitting on for a couple months. (long post, but worth reading, trust me)
This sordid tale was going around at the California delegation at the NEA-RA convention held in D.C. in early July of this year. (and yeah, I freely concede tht there’s a possibility of the story being embellished in the re-telling, as in the “telephone game” effect. However, I was able to find some corroboration of the main facts in media reports available on the internet. SEE BELOW)
It’s about how a principal at a Summit Tahoma Charter School in San Jose:
1) heard a report that one of his teachers was having sex with a female student;
2) he conducts “an internal investigation,” where he, on his own, concluded that nothing happened, and thus, never goes to the authorities;
(This action is a total violation of California law, and a major dereliction of duty, as he is not allowed to make that call NOT to tell the police. Like all adults working in a school setting — administrators, teachers, counselors, nurses, etc. — he is a mandatory reporter. Under penalty of jail and a steep fine for failing to do so, he MUST IMMEDIATELY contact the police. In LAUSD, we have to watch a video and take a test to this effect twice a year.
This situation is similar to when the officials at St. Hope charter school failed to report what Kevin Johnson was doing.)
2) it’s rumored by some (again, I heard this from some people at the NEA-RA in early July) that during the charter principal’s so-called “internal investigation,” he found out the story was true; it’s further alleged that, instead of reporting this to authorities as he was legally required, he pressured both the student and the teacher to deny the affair if and when any police or any other oversight authority questions them as in “Do this, and it will all go away;
“You don’t want ruin Mr. So-and-so’s life and send him to prison. Do you?” … or words to that effect.
(UPSHOT: the best interests and reputation of the Summit Charter Schools are more important than the well-being of the schools students, or following the law, or removing a teacher whom the principal knows full well likes to get it on with underage girls.)
3) even though the principal allegedly tried to bury the story, the word got out anyway, and — THANK JESUS!!!! — a non-involved parent did what the principal had a mandatory legal requirement to do, but did not — she called the police;
4) the police, responding to the parent’s reporting, show up at the school site while the principal is off-campus, and the assistant principal allows the police to question the girl in question in a private room;
5) the questioning starts just as the principal arrives back at the school;
6) the principal discovers what’s going on, and frantically calls the Summit charter chain’s main headquarters, and talks his superior and the charter chain’s lawyer, who tells them the principal has a legal right (???!!!) to barge in to the room, stop the police questioning, and order the police to leave. Incredibly he attempts to do just that, invoking the legal advice he was just given over the phone to the police present;
7) the police tells the principal that their Summit Charter School chain’s lawyers or management to whom he just spoke are in error, and furthermore, the police allegedly tell the principal that if he doesn’t back off, he will be charged with obstruction of justice, and handcuffed; suitably chagrined, he backs the-hell off, and shuts the-hell up;
8) the police questioning continues, but the girl sticks to her story — the story the principal allegedly pressured her to tell — nothing happened with the teacher;
(Whew! That was a close one! … ehhh … Not so fast, Principal Kim!)
9) later, the girl is questioned again by police at her family’s house, and away from the allegedly obstructing principal, she spills the beans;
10) the teacher is arrested and is currently being prosecuted;
(He’s a goa-teed loser, from the mug shot in the media coverage BELOW… “Seriously Dude, does affecting that ‘Robin Hood look’ help you score with the girls whom you teach?” Sweet Jesus! God save us all! )
11) the principal and Summit Charter School put out a very carefully and legally vetted statement, saying that the school’s administration is happy that the evil pedophile teacher has been removed, that’s what they wanted all along if the story was true, and that, contrary to the gossip that been going around, he and the Summit Tahoma Charter school administration cooperated with authorities at all times, and they view the well-being of the victim and of all their students as paramount blah-blah-blah…
———————————————
Quite a yarn? Ayy?
Here’s the actual media coverage I was able to find corroborating the this rumor/story floating around the NEA-RA convention in D.C. this July:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29568103/san-jose-house-probe-teacher-student-tryst-elicits
The police and other authorities were furious at principal’s outrageous claim that he could simply conduct his own investigation, and then conclude on his own whether or not this matter did warranted contacting the police.
William Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law based in Oakland was quoted in the above article link, and did not mince words:
——————————————
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
” ‘The fact that he decided to take some of his time to investigate it automatically means it crosses the threshold of ‘reasonable suspicion,’ he (Grimm) said. ‘And what expertise does the principal have in identifying potential teacher-student sexual relationships?
” ‘He (the principal himself) posed a danger to the school by doing this and not having the qualifications necessary.’ ”
——————————————
When the principal of Summit Tahoma Charter, Nicholas Kim, entered the room where police were questioning the alleged victim of a teacher’s molestation, this transpired:
——————————————
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
“And in the early stages of the police investigation at Summit Tahoma Public School, the same principal, Nicholas Kim, burst into a room to demand police stop interviewing the alleged victim, only to be rebuffed by a sex-crimes detective. This came a short time after the detective reminded the principal about his duty to report any potential child abuse allegation; the principal asserted he was following the direction of his management and legal team.”
——————————————
Here’s some of Summit’s legally vetted statement about this affair:
——————————————
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: (with my editorial NOTE’s in parentheses)
“In a statement to this newspaper, Kim (and the Summit Charter chain) wrote that …
” ‘At no point was there any intent by the school to conceal or hide any information. We acted in good faith. Under the circumstances and evidence available to us, we acted immediately and with speed to find all information. When we received information we followed up according to legal requirement.’
(NOTE: “followed up according to legal requirement” = chose not to go to the police when he heard a report alleging sexual abuse of a minor, so that, had the parent not gone on his or her own and reported it to the police himself or herself, no one would have ever been the wiser, and that goa-teed Robin-Hood-looking perv would still be on the loose preying on minors at San Jose’s Summit Tahoma Charter School.)
” ‘Once law enforcement became involved and interrogated the student, new evidence came to light that we acted on immediately.’
(NOTE: while that “new evidence did eventually “come to light” in the context of a police interview, it was no thanks to either Principal Kim, or to the Summit Management or to its legal team who gave Principal Kim the ridiculous and unlawful direction to barge in the room where police were questioning a witness, and attempt to stop this information from “coming to light”. Therefore, it’s DESPITE Principal Kim and his Summit Charter superiors, that the truth DID, in fact, “come to light,’ NOT BECAUSE of them.)
“The District Attorney’s Office said Friday that Kim’s decision not to notify police or Child Protective Services was not a violation of the mandated reporter law because the rumor alone did not create a level of ‘reasonable suspicion’ abuse had occurred, as the state penal code requires.
(NOTE: Now, this bit gets me really steamed.
I don’t know if the Summit charter folks are plugged in with, or have clout with the police in San Jose, so much so that they able to elicit such a statement and treatment from the local police, but I can say with absolute certainty:
THIS NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN ACCEPTABLE WITH EITHER LAPD, or WITH LAUSD management. (especially in the wake of the Miramonte fiasco a few years back.)
ALL HELL WOULD HAVE RAINED DOWN ON ANY LAUSD PRINCIPAL — or teacher or administrator or other mandated reporter working in an LAUSD school — WHO ACTED THUSLY — both from the police, and from LAUSD administration. He or she would have been canned, banned from education for life, and probably prosecuted and fined, if not imprisoned.
What’s wrong you guys up in San Jose?
Once again, you see the difference between what goes on in a traditional public school setting, and in a deregulated charter setting.)
——————————————
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
“The code reads, in part:
” ‘Reasonable suspicion’ does not require certainty that child abuse or neglect has occurred nor does it require a specific medical indication of child abuse or neglect; any ‘reasonable suspicion’ is sufficient.”
” ‘Where we see administrators making mistakes is when they have a victim telling them that some abuse occurred and then the administrator does their own investigation to see if it’s accurate, to see if it’s true,’ Assistant District Attorney Terry Harman said.
” ‘If you have a situation where what you’re hearing is a rumor and you’re not hearing from someone who saw something or someone who experienced something, then can you have a reasonable suspicion from what appears to be a rumor?’ ”
———————————–
Here’s more coverage of this:
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Jose-teacher-arrested-for-allegedly-having-6855398.php
As I reflect on this charter school abomination, I wonder how Campbell Brown — that simultaneous privately-managed-deregulated-charter-lover, and crusader against teacher-child-abusers — and her crack team of reporters at The 74 would handle this story, had it happened …
… at a traditional public school
VS.
… at a charter school … as it most certainly did in this case.
The former would have rated a sizzling expose article on Campbell’s The74 website, proving once again how horrible traditional public schools are … “Unionized teachers are pedophiles!!! And their administrators protect them!!! We need to close ’em all down, and convert them to privately-managed charters, where these horrible things NEVER happen.”
The latter? … Ehhh … not so much… as in … “Oh no. We need to bury this one folks. We can’t make charters look bad.”
On that score, here’s a piece about how reporters at The 74 are allegedly barred from reporting anything negative on charter schools. (NOTE: since last fall, the Success Academy charter chain has faced on public relations disaster after another, and not a word from The 74 about any of them. Campbell Brown, naturally, serves of the Board of Directors of Success Academy charter schools)
———————————————-
DIANE RAVITCH:
“Jennifer Berkshire, aka EduShyster, got a tip about a journalist who applied for a job with The 74. She was told that the 74 news service needed investigative journalists but they would not cover the subject of charter school scandals. She shared her story with EduShyster but insisted on anonymity as revealing her name would be “career suicide.” EduShyster repeatedly reached out to a high-level official at The 74. Eventually he responded and insisted that he could not comment based on a report from an anonymous source.
“And of course, the site will be ‘fair and balanced.’ Where have we heard THAT before?”
Here’s the Edushyster story to which Dr. Ravitch refers:
http://edushyster.com/will-the-74-investigate-charter-scandals/
———————————————-
Indeed, this whole Summit Tahoma Charter School story goes to the heart of why it’s such a danger to allow charter school operators to be so free of regulation — as they so often demand in order to … in their words … “be free to innovate” or whatever.
I’ll say it again: regarding this situation at Summit Tahoma Charter School, these same events would NEVER have played out this way in a traditional public school, at least not without serious consequences for the administrators or any adults who acted the way Principal Kim and the Summit Charter School management did.
Here’s how it works in California, in a traditional public school:
Both teachers and administrators in traditional public schools are “mandated reporters.” They have to attend “mandated reporter” training twice every school year (I’ve taken it over 20 times), in which it is made loud and clear that once you have knowledge or suspicion that abuse has taken place, a 36-hour clock starts from that very moment. If you don’t report it immediately, or within 36 hours at the latest,
1) the teacher or administrator will be fired;
2) the teacher or administrator will lose his/her credentials, and be banned from education for life;
and possibly …
3) be prosecuted as an accessory, if you collude with the perpetrator in covering up or destroying evidence.
In contrast to the way it works in LAUSD, with the adult administrators and teachers at a California charter … they apparently can get away with a lot … even if it puts children at risk of sexual predators.
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Jack .
That is nothing , I can’t tell you more because I read but I can’t right English . I have the time you don’t . I have the fact , the prove in my hands , you only read but don’t investigate . I’m not rude , I just talk what is on my main , even most can’t handle the true .
You know why I’m no dead ? Because
my enemy’s knows that I’ll trough my weopon and they will regreted .
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I used to live in that area and the real, non-charter El Camino High School had great scores, a wonderful reputation and used to win the Academic Decathlon all the time. I can’t figure out why there ever needed to be a charter in that area, or one with a similar name.
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Here’s another wrinkle to this story about Summit Tahoma Charter School sexual molestation scandal (just ABOVE).
The inexperienced principal who acted so outrageously, Nicholas Kim, was the same age as the alleged pedophile teacher, Zachary Drew, whom he hired to work at Summit, and whom he supervised during Drew’s alleged predations.
Here’s Nicholas Kim’s LinkedIn page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-kim-14638b90
Kim graduated college the same year, 2009, as as Zachary Drew, the alleged pedophile teacher, which makes them both around 29-30.
For a visual, here’s the goa-tee-less Zachary Drew:
http://calpoly.classfaqs.com/listings/view/Zachary-Drew#.V8weQIUVP-U
It’s from page identifying Drew as a professor at California Polytechnic (Wait! Did Cal Poly hire him after being arrested for sex with a minor? What’s up with THAT?!)
In short, both Principal Kim and Drew are contemporaries, or buddies. While the motive of the charter chain’s brass and legal team was in suppressing this information was to protect the school’s and the Summit charter chain’s reputation, Kim’s motives may have been different or more personal. As a contemporary of Drew’s, as well as a fellow graduate of the California university system, Kim may have identified with Drew to the point where he put his friend Drew’s best interest — avoiding jail time for jail bait — against the well-being of the “jail bait” whom Drew was victimizing.
This points out one of the dangers of promoting teachers so young, so untrained, and so inexperienced in a position of high authority at a school site, and not mandating any kind Child Abuse Awareness Training.(CAAT, as it’s abbreviated in LAUSD.)
If Kim had been properly trained on child abuse protocols — as he would have been had he worked in a regulated traditional public school under the oversight of a district… and not in an unregulated charter school — Kim never would have barged into a police interview of an alleged victim, then ridiculously ordered the police to cease questioning and leave the building. (Sweet Jesus! You gotta have big cojones to try and pull that off! Either that, or you’re a complete idiot!)
Once more, had Principal Nicholas Kim obstructed justice like that in LAUSD, he would have been immediately put on leave, then fired soon after.
Here’s another story relevant to the Summit Charter School molestation scandal.
In late May of this year, there was a protest of African-American students against the racist school discipline policies, and the lack of African-American teachers at their privately-managed charter school — Achievement First Amistad (a better-named school there never was… look up Amistad) in Connecticut.
I noticed the same thing about the principal in the Amistad situation. Her name is Claire Polcrack. From the newspaper accounts, Polcrack was bungling the whole situation, and seemed to be way in over her head. Like Nicholas Kim, she was way young for the job …. just 28. I called this the Doogie-Howser-ization of school administration (That’s for you Gen-X-ers out there. For the Boomers, you can call it the Bugsy-Malone-ization of school administration).
The charter chains are so desperate to expand as quickly as possible that they put people in charge who have neither the experience, training, nor the innate ability to pull off performing on the job.
Dr. Ravitch covered Amistad situation here:
Again, in the article, the school’s principal in the picture is Claire Polcrack, who has a Linked-in page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-polcrack-37340411b
According to this, Principal Polcrack’s career trajectory was the following:
Age 22, TFA teacher for two years, (right out of college in 2009 same year as Kim and Drew … hmmm … coincidence?)
Age 24, TFA aluma and staff teacher (2011)
Age 26, Academic Dean (2013)
Age 28, Principal (June 2015)
Age 29 (today), 1st-year Principal facing a public relations disaster
Wow, that was fast!
Actually, this is nothing. In Los Angeles, I’ve heard of charter school principals as young as 24 (!!!). WTF?!
Chew on that for a while.
Mark my words, if and when Eli Broad commences his program of adding 260 more corporate ed. reform charter schools to the LAUSD landscape, this “Doogie-Howser-ization” of school site management will become a routine and a widespread practice. The charter folks will be forced to do so, as there simply isn’t enough seasoned, trained talent with years of experience to fill those administrative positions.
Nobody will ever be able to tell me that this will be good for the kids being educated in those schools, or for the teachers working under the amateur principals — as is evidenced in the cases of Summit-San Jose’s Nicholas Kim, and Achievement First Amistad’s Claire Polcrack.
Indeed, this is very common in corporate Charter World. That child-abusing Charlotte Dial, the Success Academy teacher from the infamous “rip-and-redo” video …
… is only in her 20’s, and instead of being fired for the above abomination, has been put charge of training Success Academy teachers system-wide. Again, WTF?
Contrast this with LAUSD, where the process of becoming a principal is not so rushed. There’s more of a dues paying process, with greater requirements and demands for those who are aspiring to achieve the role of principal. A future principal usually teaches at least 10 years, before moving up to the position of Coordinator, a sort of hybrid administrator/teacher position, where he or she remains part of UTLA. A Coordinator has one foot in management’s camp, and one foot in labor’s.
After a few years — at least two — as a coordinator, they may move up to serve as Assistant Principal for a few more years. They attend a district training program while serving as coordinator to prep for the move to A.P. Only the most select move up to be an A.P. After several years as an A.P. — sometimes more than a decade — they finally achieve the role of principal.
In short, one attains a principal-ship (Is that a real word? 😉 ), at the very earliest, in your late 30’s at the absolute earliest. Throughout the entire decade-and-a-half-plus process, one is mentored by principals, seasoned pros with decades of experience. Prospective prinicals are followed and monitored closely to see if they can cut it, or have what it takes. I’ve seen many Assistant Principals — wanna-be principals — who get moved permanently back to a teaching position, after being deemed not up to snuff.
Anyway, by the time one survives this and becomes a principal, they know what they’re doing, or should. (with the rarest exceptions… another story or stories)
This is not a slight on Ms. Polcrack’s teaching ability, who appears to have been a top-notch Math teacher (TFA ain’t all bad😉 ). It’s just that she seemed to be way in over her head as principal, at least moreso than she would have in a program run like LAUSD’s. (UPDATE: she was removed as principal at the end of the school year, around June 2016.)
What’s the origin of the “Bugsy-Malone-ization” of charter school administration?
For a little late Baby Boomer nostalgia, here’s Bugsy Malone (which first put Scott “Chachi-from-HAPPY-DAYS” Baio on the map):
For the “Doogie Howser-ization” reference, here’s a trailer or commercial for that show which makes my point — the front office of so many charter schools are staffed by far too many unqualified Doogie Howser’s running the show:
However, Doogie is eminently qualified for his profession … albeit he’s a fictional character. 😉
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Helooooooooo
Why you guys out there sub estimate me ?
Well I can challenge and tell that the most prestigious Charter here , by my self I force the principal to fired the Sience teacher/ baseball Coach as many others the next one is him . This principal will regreted what he did , I told him I’ll make sure , he told my wife at front of me . He keeped close doors horrendous crimes . No one else can beat me . This city is the worts # 1 corrupted nation one . Humdres of people are specting someday one of you guys out the’r invite me to show that I’m telling the true . Papers talk , winesss staiment , videos , recorded , I nener image be an sucefull , unpaid detective , paying cabs nigh time nights , washing thoses criminals who they move they piece , but I got more …
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Many thanks to Ms. Wolfe, Mr. Petersen, and all the other Los Angeles public education activist that have been shining light on these El Camino Real Charter scoundrels. They force the corporate media to report on charter scandals they otherwise would have helped to cover up.
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Agree Robert…and thanks to Educator who is also on top of all this. As a retired teacher, she shows up at the BoE meetings along with Karen and Carl and some others, and she informs us of their shenanigans.
Karen and Carl…thanks for keeping us, and Howard Blume of the LA Times, focused on this latest over reach by a charter executive who sounds as though he probably should do jail time for embezzlement rather than run a large and wealthy charter high school. This is not an inner city school which is benefiting from taxpayer funding, but rather is in the midst of a wealthy community which could pay their own freight and open a private school, not commandeer a public school.
With BoE incumbents Zimmer (the current BoE Prez), Vladovic.former BoE Prez), Garcia (the long time BoE member and lackey of Broad and the charterizers), Ratliff (leaving to run for City Council), Rodriguez (who developed and runs 16 charter schools, and despite that two recent negative audits showing his failures with finances, he still got elected and not censured by the Bd.), and occasional wild card McKenna, it would seem that Schmerelson is the only BoE member whom we can rely on to do anything that will affect a change at El Camino. This next BoE meeting should be pivotal and will show us if this Board really wants to do their job, or if it is merely a show piece yet again, as it was with Deasy (and Broad) in charge.
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Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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