The United Teachers of Los Angeles invited the powerful California Charter School Association to debate the issues surrounding the explosive growth of charter schools and their lack of accountability. The CCSA refused.
Here are the issues that CCSA doesn’t want to talk about:
Lack of financial accountability; lack of transparency; cream-skimming the students they want; bias against students with special needs and English language learners; the loss of funding for public schools that enroll all students; fraud, self-dealing, profiteering.
Why is CCSA afraid to debate?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Go ahead and have a debate without them. WHAT? Look up Clint Eastwood’s 2012 debate with Barack Obama at the Republication National Convention. A classic.
Although you may think an empty chair would fill the bill…it would not. It would only be a void.
Alex Caputo-Pearl and other supporters of the union and of our public schools must continue to urge CCSA to come forward and debate the issues openly, with FULL transparency.
The LA Times should be urging this as well as the other local media. Supt. Michelle King, Mrs. Angel and Caprice Young and their CCSA cohorts (including 74 and LASR) should openly and fully talk about charters, with those others who firmly believe in protecting public education…and the whole education world of parents, teachers, students, voters, taxpayers, and activists, should tune in and speak out. Perhaps Michael Moore would film and distribute it all.
Oh, Diane, everyone knows charter schools are vastly superior to public schools.
These decisions have already been made. The one and only question debated in ed reform is whether public schools should be allowed to continue to exist at all.
Here’s the ed reform reporting on “public education in California”
It is 100% about charter schools:
https://edsource.org/2016/push-to-expand-california-charter-school-enrollments-provokes-backlash/571132
Inside the echo chamber, public schools have completely disappeared.
“Everyone knows charter schools are vastly superior to public schools”
Chiara you are a great comedy writer, nothing in the research suggests that to be factual. But we do know that 1 out of every 5 charter schools close and most never make it past 6-10 years. Very few that opened over 20 years ago are still open.
Amazing how many charter schools operators are being indicted some for felony charges.
Here is one of the classics this one bought himself a red Ferrari off the kickbacks received from kick backs. http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/former-school-superintendent-van-zant-facing-felony-conflict-interest-charge
These Gateway Charter Schools were closed about 6 years ago and it was a long investigation that involved the shooting of an officer but in the end it was IRS issues that closed them not their obvious radical behavior and ties to jihadism.
California Charter Academy’s case is ongoing and expensive, more non educators opening charter schools and creating “shell” businesses to reap the bidding of services to the schools.
The largest charter school chain in California was closed,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Charter_Academy
LIst of 2,500 charter schools that have closed- some were closed BEFORE they open – got the start up money then disappear.
Oh yes, they lie about financials and academic achievements.
The UTLA members are approaching this wrong.
If they really want to stump ed reformers ask them about what they’re doing to improve public schools. We all know they’re well-versed in charter cheerleading- it’s fully 90% of what they do on a daily basis.
That’ll be a short debate. After ” more testing and data collection!” they got nothing.
If this were a boxing or MMA event and the entire charter/privatization movement were your opponent—
Chiara by KO, fifteen seconds into the first round.
😎
This is the smartest suggestion I’ve heard so far.
Geeze.What a question. Want to answer it Laura, or Lenny Isenberg.
We in Ohio are up to our armpits in charter fraud and nonsense about the “quality” of charter school laws.
Exactly!
Sorry guys…but NOT “exactly” Susan and Laura.
We live in a nation of laws (and FLERP will belch when I remind you that for 45 years I have taught public policy and I truly am a believer in a lawful society), and although Laura and Chiara from Ohio, and Susie Lee from NY, state what seems right to them, they are not the boots on the ground who are working in California to change the flawed Charter School law, and Parental Involvement law which have been passed by the voters.
As I keep writing, our California system of endless biased bloated ballot measures supported by dark money, often produces lousy laws.
The facts and true transparency, if published fairly, without bias, by the media, might grab the attention of the voting public to implement change….but beating our chests screaming ‘fraud,’ is not the answer.
It Howard Blume and Karin Klein, etc., of the LA Times would publish real stories about the blatant education negatives in our community and our state, instead of always interviewing the ‘perps’ like Gulen’s Clarice Young and Broad/Walton’s Ben Austin who give their slanted pro charter pap, then maybe the public would get a fuller picture of the dangers of privatizing/charterizing.
It always amazes me that distant readers from other states come up with easy solutions for us, even after reading for years, the hard facts here which are written by Californians, parent Karen Wolfe, Educator (who is a retired teacher and very much in the fight), Carl Petersen who is running for BoE, retired teacher Linda Johnson, former teacher Lenny Isenberg, former teacher Rene Diedrich, Robert Skeels who ran for BoE, Mike Dominguez (a teacher was roundly screwed by LAUSD like so many other teachers who were and are in ‘teacher jail’),.and even my endless regurgitation of the FACTS…not hyperbole.,
Some of us met yesterday for many hours to continue to plan how to fight for our public schools…so please be more supportive of us.
Hey there Ellen, I post Carl’s pieces here, when he writes at Oped, and I have been posting links to Lenny’s site, here and at Oped….support you completely! It’s a swamp out there, and you guys are working hard to stay afloat amidst the muck that Broad leaves behind.
Follow link and sign petition.
Rebecca Miller
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Not sure that they are afraid. They don’t care. They have a stranglehold on media of all kinds so what do they care what public school teachers think. We can’t even get a majority of the Board to really question what these charters do – for the most part (except this recent meeting) they rubber stamp any requests to continue or open up new charters. Karen Wolfe is my hero for taking them on. I also belong to TEAch – Transparency, Equity, Accountability in Charters — http://www.teach4equity.org We won’t give up but it’s a tough battle.
Exactly Joan…those who are not in LA in the midst of this battle do not have a clue about the strength of Great Public Schools Now backers. They swat Alex, teachers, activists, like gnats…since they can. They are far more sophisticated than Trump, but have his attitude that their Midas-like wealth makes them the ONLY voices in the war, so why should they agree to the transparency of a debate…when they got their plan in place in secrecy…and it is now fully implemented with the help of the BoE and the Supt.
Thank you, Joan. I’m glad to see UTLA taking on charters as some of us parents, teachers and principals have been doing in our own school sites for nearly ten years. It’s exhausting and it would mean the world to know that the teachers union is willing to help.
UTLA is posturing only to bolster the leadership’s image. This debate should include the 5,000 teachers dismissed from our jobs with UTLA ‘s help. The UTLA leadership’s connection to TFA, support of anti-teacher politicians, autocratic anti-democratic leadership style, secrecy in operations and suppression of democratic dissent make it obvious that charter schools will find little effective opposition from organized labor in L.A. UTLA, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association all oppose the initiative to eliminate charter school funding which would return $5 billion to California schools. The lion’s share of this would go to the LAUSD.
Michael,
If teachers fight their unions, they have no allies at all. That would be the end of public education, with no one left to defend it or Teachers.
No one disagrees that we need the power of the unions, Diane but every one of the tensor thousands of teachers who faced fabricated charges with no access to the law BECAUSE THE UNIONS let it happen.
THAT WAS TH EPLY AND THE PLAN to remove the VOICE O FTHE TOP EDUCATORS, AS GATES , PEARSON AND PARCC WAITED IN THE WINGS!
Then once the first assault TOOK OUT me and the rest of the tenured GENUINE PROFESSIONALS, they went to step 2, VAM, because they COULD!
If you are fearful of taking on union corruption, then all is lost!
I respect you. YOU KNOW THIS!
You respect me, but THIS happened to me at the very moment thE Harvard was filming me and I was the cohort for the Real research by Pew of the National Standards.
Ow could this happen, How could I be found guilty of corporal punishment,my dear, when no charges were ever put out. How could a celebrated teacher be charged with incompetence?
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
AND this happened to Lenny Isenberg: http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html and why he wrote this, long ago
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/LAUSD-OR-TARGETED-TEACHERS-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Deception_Evidence_Fired_Innocence-150720-360.html#comment555646
AND THIS to Francesco Portelos — who is now reduced to a substitute , but who just ran for President of the UFT,.
http://protectportelos.org/allegations-against-me/
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Portelos.html
In fact at the NAFTA site there are hundreds of stories that beg WHERE WAS THE UNION!
And lets no forget the talented, celebrated NYC educator, David Pakter, who spent half a million dollars and lost 6 years of his life, fighting.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/search?q=david+pakter
Betsy Combier nailed this a decade ago
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
While the mainstream media spun the horror of the rubber room where I couldn’t go to the bathroom without permission:
http://nypost.com/2014/07/13/four-city-teachers-rake-in-millions-while-banned-from-classrooms/
It’s the UNIONS! They have to clean up their act! We need them, but not when they fail us.
Teachers have to rise up and with one VOICE throw out the union leadership that has enabled the war on public schools, beginning with the assault on the civil rights of teachers, that did THIS to NYC
Michael, and all California voters here…this is why we MUST vote NO on Prop,.55.
Read the small print which indicates the very bad public policy of this ballot measure (indicating it only gouges the wealthy and no one else pays for it, pure crap). It specifically states it will fund charter schools as well as some public schools.
As a follow up to Prop. 30 whereby Jerry Brown strong armed voters with threats to vote for a ONE TIME tax increase, this Prop. 55 makes it virtually permanent. (for at least the next 12 years)
It is terrible public policy to fund schools by targeting a few wealthy taxpayers, for when recession hits, and it will, their incomes diminish too and there goes the the funding.
School funding must be based on constancy of widespread broad taxation of all brackets and in various methods. The best way to overcome this is not by Prop.55 or Indian Casinos or the lottery…but by doing away with the failed and terrible law of 1978, Prop. 13.
Do your homework folks…don’t listen to the sound bites.
A lot of people are not putting energy into the measure you’re referring to, which is a petition to repeal the state charter law, because it’s not likely to pass. My god, we couldn’t even get Governor Brown to sign a bill requiring charter schools to adhere to open meeting laws. No need to demonize folks for putting their energies where they can be most useful.
My response was to Michael P. Dominguez.
We can’t get Gov. Brown to support open meeting laws for charters but he, the Democratic Party and more than a few members of the LAUSD BOE can count on millions of dollars from UTLA’s Political Action Committee of Educators. Whether or not one proposition makes it to the ballot is not the point; it is a symptom. UTLA has said very little about charters, has ignored abuse of teacher due process and has spent millions on organizing charter school scabs. The Democratic Party has embraced neo-liberalism and has helped destroy the labor movement in the U.S. Susan Lee Schwartz explains it clearly above.
Civil Rights for people of color and Women’s Suffrage were considered unattainable when their movements began. The struggles were not short nor were they easy. David slew Goliath with a rock and a sling.
What about unions that fight their own teachers?
Democracy is messy, autocracy in all its forms is very efficient but it invariably crumbles. Monarchy, aristocracy, fascism, tyranny of the wealthy and powerful over the rest are atrocities that we reject. Public education and the labor movement are headed for implosion unless they change and soon.
Any leadership that ignores and belittles the suffering of those it purports to lead is doomed.
I agree Mike…but hope that if there is at very least some open public talk between the parties, with vast Q and A, maybe the media will start to report without bias, and without taking payment from Eli Broad and his forces of deformation.
Q and A is verboten in UTLA.
I understand your rightful disillusion with UTLA, Michael.
But it might be that if the media and the public demanded a debate PLUS a public Q and A, it might happen. The impasse teachers have had to live under, you and other unfairly jailed teachers, and even currently working teachers, is untenable…the public listen, and must speak out.
During the build up to the UTLA strike of 1989 teachers leafletted informing parents what we were fighting for. Now UTLA does photo-ops and full page ads in the Times.
UTLA views a future that includes charter schools taking the 50% of our students that are easiest to teach because market share and cash flow are all that concern the leadership. I bet that in all this bluster UTLA never mentions class sizes which are equal at public and charter schools even though they are sold as “providing the private school experience.”
Class sizes at the charters and traditional schools are hugely unequal. In the Prop 39 battles (the California law that forces public schools to hand over “available” classrooms to charters) I have fought, this disparity has been a major issue. public schools have to be sardines for a classroom to be considered full. If it isn’t, it’s turned over to the charter school for only 20-24 students. These smaller class sizes are a major marketing ploy for the charters.
Ms. Ravitch asks, “Why is CCSA afraid to debate?”
For months UTLA had been touting a planned October 2016 Town Hall on charters with State Senator Ricardo Lara, then canceled it a week before the event, stating to members in a letter, “over the last two months, CCSA (California Charter Schools Association) successfully exerted its financial influence to get state legislators to stay away from our October 20 town hall.”
UTLA leaders then tried to spin this as a victory, writing in the letter that they challenged CCSA to a debate but that CCSA “refused to debate us in public.” In other words, CCSA successfully convinced legislators not to attend, and while UTLA leadership postures for members, the Broad-Deasy plan is moving forward at breakneck speed — so there is no reason for CCSA to alter course in any way or even entertain the idea of debating UTLA.
Beyond that, each and every LAUSD school board meeting the elected board approves new charters and reauthorizes dozens of charters — without fail — and our UTLA leaders never show up, or if they do, they sit in the audience and say NOTHING! This has been going on for years. So parents and community members are left with the impression that all these hard-working pro-charter parents just want what’s best for their kids, and it’s the backwards, bureaucratic school district that’s stopping kids from getting a quality education. So the board approves and reauthorizes — without fail. Since 2011, to date, out of 207 charter requests, the district has rejected only ten applications.
To top it off, UTLA leadership smears anyone who doesn’t agree lockstep with their “vision” and so within the union there’s no substantive discussion (or effort) to turn anything around, and there’s a bullying mentality towards anyone who even disagrees with leadership even in the slighest way. Seemingly, the leadership doesn’t really want to fight, they just want to posture for members. Seemingly, they prefer to travel the country using our dues money as a slush fund, giving speeches about “the struggle,” and hiring friends and family members as independent, secret, no-bid contractors to perform unspecified work for who knows how much money. #ourduesatwork
I’m also posting this on lasubs@yahoogroups.com and lausd-teachers@yahoogroups.com, two of the handful of UTLA discussion groups where information is not censored by UTLA leadership.
So, no, Ms. Ravitch, CCSA isn’t afraid at all. CCSA knows that UTLA is irrelevant and uninterested in their plans.
By “vision,” Mr. Smith means the unfettered exercise of power. The vision of UTLA’s Union Power leadership excludes the rights of teachers for something called an “organizing union,” and community engagement. Old timers can tell you that we had solidarity and community engagement during the 1989 strike but that was due to informational leafletting by teachers after school. UP now spends our increased dues money on billboards and full page ads in the L.A. Times and is feted by the Democratic Party. They are more interested in advancing up the party machine apparatus rather than the welfare of our members.