Steve Zimmer is the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board. I know Steve. He is a good guy. He is smart and thoughtful. He started in education as a TFA teacher and stayed for 17 years. He ran for School Board and against the odds, was elected. His critics on the left complain that he has not fought charters as hard as he should. He has tried to keep the district focused on improving. He has not pleased everyone.
Despite his efforts to accommodate the billionaire bullies, they are out to get him. Eli Broad has targeted him and gathered millions of dollars from his billionaire buddies to knock Steve out. The Broad billionaires are trying again to gain total control of LAUSD so they can achieve their goal of putting half of the kids in private charter schools. They are pulling out all the stops. They want control.
Let’s be clear: Eli Broad is the Betsy DeVos of California. Although he went to public schools, he looks down his nose at them. He wants privatization. He wants control. He doesn’t care about your children. He cares about power.
Read this article and learn about the bundling tactics of the billionaires.
Only billionaires could be so arrogant as to think that they know better than everyone else. Most of them don’t live in Los Angeles. None of them has children in public schools.
Los Angelenos: Tell the billionaires to take a flying leap off a high peak.
Tell them your schools are not for sale.
Re-elect Steve Zimmer.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Queenie tells it like it is with this excellent report…thanks.
I certainly urge a YES vote for Steve Zimmer and a YES vote for Lisa Alva.
Both are long time teachers in their respective districts who put their students first and don’t cavort with Eli Broad and his greed meisters. Their mutual goals are to keep improving our public schools and not privatizing them. Lisa’s comment re Marshall Tuck is a big red flag…he is devious and conniving and must be watched carefully as a virtual ‘bag man’ for the billionaires. All other candidates are the pawns of both the billionaires and their CCSA and of the Gulen Magnolia Charter Schools.
Caveat re my last sentence above…..with exception of Carl Peterson who is also running against Monica Garcia (and is not in league with the billionaires, as Garcia is with her big war chest inflated by the Broad group). Carl, as a parent candidate, has done some great work exposing gross irregularities at both Granada and El Camino Charter high schools.
Running against the billionaires is a great campaign strategy. The problem is, it can obscure the issues that school supporters care about most. In this race, all that is being reported is the campaign contributions. With respect, as a constituent of Steve Zimmer’s who helped him fight the billionaires last time, and has been one among many in my community who have pressed him on issues impacting our schools, holding Zimmer up as one of us belies his steady track record of advancing charters and TFA while our libraries are closed, arts classes are minimal, our class sizes are among the largest in the country, more kids opt for charters than ever before, and we brace ourselves for a propped up graduation rate to unravel.
The wagons are circling to silence any of us who dare to raise these issues instead of sticking to the script of Steve being a victim of the billionaires. But these are the issues that are driving this election and they have been brewing for four years in my community.
Thanks Karen for this info…since Zimmer is the BoE member from your home district, and you know first had what is happening, it would be helpful to know who you suggest supporting in this election.
Who would further our goal of saving LAUSD from being privatized by the Broad group and Great Public Schools Now?
I think a discussion of the real issues would further our goal. I do not think any of them are committed to our cause of fighting privatization. It weakens our ability to push for these issues when the board member knows we will look the other way.
Agree with what you say about “the issues, and the board member looking away once elected”. Zimmer knows we watch and report…but it is an uphill battle to get his attention.
I know Zimmer has his critics, but you do have to wonder why the billionaires are working so hard to oust him.
Steve Zimmer is, by far, the best of the worst.
Thanks Leftie for clarifying it all.
I agree that we should scrutinize campaign contributions. But it doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to voting records.
The corporate reformers are giving money to a lot of candidates in California. It hasn’t always resulted in the catastrophe we have expected.
Three years ago, a new candidate for California State Senate ran in my district with the help of the education reform billionaires. I was panicked. He won and we haven’t seen that money drive any education reform agenda at all. There was even an article about it http://www.laweekly.com/news/why-is-bill-bloomfield-spending-buckets-of-cash-on-ben-allen-5165229.
Now, Senator Ben Allen is the chair of California’s Senate education committee.
Karen,
When Eli Broad and the Waltons shower millions on a candidate, they expect something in return. As Betsy DeVos frankly admitted.
In this case, Diane, former LA mayor Richard Riordan, poured in
$1 Million against Zimmer. Riordan is a formidable billionaire who along with Broad tried some years ago to buy the LA Times. He is a DFER as well. Why would anyone give so much money in a school board race unless they had a huge ax they were grinding?
BTW,,,State Senator Ben Allen was prez of the Santa Monica Public Schools BoE when he chose to run for higher office….and I was introduced to Ben by Steve Zimmer who is a friend of his. Ben may have been funded by the billionaires but he had credibility in the community as being on the right side of public ed.
While I share your frustrations, I will say when I have seen Steve Zimmer in person, he spoke much about “needing to work harder to better education for all.” which is the reason why I will vote for him. NO matter how frustrated I feel with the district, I cannot ever support a candidate backed by pro-charter movement billionaires. My daughter goes to one of the schools is in his area and people seem to be very happy with his work for the past 8 years.
Having watched many a board meeting, I can’t agree that Zimmer has been advancing charters and TFA because your statements have no basis on reality. The opposite is true: over many years, Zimmer has led the board in demanding that charter colocations are not unfailry burdening LAUSD students. He has also led the board in calling for maintaining the arts as a core subject and evidence of this are, for example, his two resolutions passed on September 10, 2013. (I am sure that I could find others, but these two are enough for now.)
Unfortunately, his efforts have been torpedoed at every turn by CCSA, its wealthy backers, certain board members (one is still there and is still backed by the Billionaire Boys Club!) and Superintendents. I don’t see how you can blame Zimmer for the actions of these others.
Would you prefer that one his charter-backed opponents be in his seat? One of them was in TFA and has gone on to build a career based on carrying water for charter and “reform” organizations. Another knows only charter schools and, based on her public statements, has no idea of how charter schools are funded. The third is based on the school that gave us Bustop and Bobbi Fiedler.
Given that, your “anybody but Zimmer” position is self-defeating for the longer term goal of preserving and improving public schools. It is too bad that you have allowed your personal issues to completely trump, no pun intended, the public interest.
Zimmer is the only choice that makes sense.
Cross posted at Oped News,: https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Los-Angeles-Billionaires-in-General_News-Accountability_Billionaires_Charter-Schools_Diane-Ravitch-170302-181.html#comment648025
with this comment which has embedded links at Oped
Going after Steve Miller is the way Eli Broad and the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf
takes over the second largest school district in the nation’s 15,880 districts… picking them off, one by one, and privatizing public education, so that schools become an ‘education marketplace.”
The media did its “thing”, what it does everywhere that money talks… ‘fake news’ to distract the public with lies. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/have-reporters-become-poli-ticks–the-media-parasites-of-the-body-politic.html
For the REAL story of the war by Eli Broad on LA kids, go to Perdaily.com where, Lenny Isenberg has chronicled this cesspool of corruption .
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
Lenny got it right..YEARS AGO! and he writes so well… read the Perdaily.com posts on social promotion, http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/social-promotion–lausds-prime-mover-for-continued-and-predictable-student-failure–do-they-really-w.html
or the one where Isenberg decides to be a hero, and sue rather than settle. He blew the whistle on social promotion in LAUSD, and found himself taken away in handcuffs for his trouble.
He tells the story of how they removed the teachers ‘en masse’ in LAUSD. Fabricated charges emptied the schools of the voices that would fight for the kids, that of genuine teachers who know what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE!.
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/10/why-does-utla-continue-to-support-lausds-violation-of-california-teacher-dismissal-process.html
So, begin your trip through the 15,880 with LAUSD, and then take a look at what happened to the FIRST largest of almost sixteen thousand school districts…nYC… get a cup of coffee and watch “The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting For Superman.
I’m not familiar with all the candidates since I’m not in LA, but I have a question for those who are:
I have heard good things about Allison Holdorff Polhill. She seems to be getting help from the billionaire privatization forces financially, but has no interest in doing their bidding. It sounds as if the real money is going to the other candidate, but is Polhill a viable alternative?
You have heard good things? I heard her speak and I don’t think she is a viable alternative at all. Why? Because she is all about charters. That’s what she knows and her “solutions” can’t be translated to LAUSD.
And how is it that you know that she “has no interest in doing their bidding?” Where is the proof of that?
As for “real” money, her campaign has spent one third that of Melvoin’s and two thirds of Zimmer. Where the “real” money has gone are independent expenditures, with the biggest amount so far (nearly $1.5 million) spent against Zimmer.
Steve Zimmer is getting a lot of help from the teachers’ union. They have an independent expenditure committee funding direct mail pieces and social media posts on his behalf. In contrast, the union has sacrificed the fight in School Board District 2 where two good candidates are trying to unseat privatizer in chief Monica Garcia.
Please watch this interview I did with Carl Petersen. He had to good sense to reach out to the Bernie Sanders community here in Los Angeles. So I did this meet and greet for him.
Carl and Lisa draw different audiences. Carl is a white male parent. Lisa is a Latina female teacher. The thing is to stop Monica from getting 51% of the vote on Tuesday. Please share this on social media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYKaifw5aUM
Thank you, Lauren, for bringing up Dist 2 and the reprehensible Monica Garcia who must be taken off the BoE forever. I have been writing here about this election for some time and urge a vote for the Latina long time teacher, Lisa Alva, who lives and teaches in this district. Garcia has gotten huge donations from the billionaires for whom she plays puppet and charter supporter on the LAUSD BoE…
Alva needs some donations and any amount is welcome on her campaign website.
What a great focus for all the support Bernie amassed in LA. It’s baffling to me that UTLA has created a million dollar campaign against the billionaires in District 4, but has been silent in District 2 against Reform Queen Monica Garcia, who only won by a hair last time.
YES….very strange indeed. Alex, what were you thinking?
The billionaires are bashing Steve about the I-pads, which were Deasy’s doings, and they happened when Monica Garcia was Board President. However, those same billionaires are praising Garcia — and say nothing about the I-pads, for which she, along with Deasy, is mostly responsible.
Diane Ravitch asks:
“dianeravitch March 2, 2017 at 6:33 pm
I know Zimmer has his critics, but you do have to wonder why the billionaires are working so hard to oust him.”
I have to wonder why Karen Wolfe is working so hard to oust him. Who is she working for and why? Whatever Zimmer’s flaws are, it’s obvious Melvoin and Polhill are totally supported by the charter industrial industry.
Kim, I have told you repeatedly that I am not working for the CCSA or Melvoin. Please cease and desist spreading that rumor.
You keep bashing the candidate that the right wing is trying to get rid of as a right winger himself!
This election is going to be re-hash of Clinton v. Trump with you leading the way to make sure the Trump candidate is elected by non-stop bashing of the “co-opted, not progressive enough” candidate that the right wing mysteriously wants to get rid of.
Shame on you. Doing the dirty work of the right. Your posts remind me of those “we hate Hillary and she’s awful” posts that were on here non-stop right before the election. Those people were as deluded as you are and I questioned their real agenda.
If you didn’t like Hillary but weren’t a right winger, you would have voted for her and then pressured the heck out of her to be more progressive through public demonstrations and rallies and everything you could.
You would never say “well, let’s get Trump in there!” Because, as the rest of us already knew, that would be a DISASTER for so many people and cause so much suffering that no decent person would wish it on them.
And you would never say “let’s get the people who don’t care about anyone but the billionaires in there because the other guy just isn’t progressive enough”.
I am reading your posts watching the anti-Hillary people all over again. If you can’t see it, you are completely deluding yourself.
Reality Roll Call…..
Garcia (who is about to beat Alva and is owned by Broad who funds her), Rodriguez (who runs 16 charters from which he has made millions), Melvoin (who is about to beat Zimmer, who also is owned by Broad and his band of uber wealthy Westsiders) are all non-teachers, and probably as history shows the ‘old guys’ who were teacher/administrators McKenna and Vladovic, and possibly whomever wins Ratliff’s seat, will generally, if not always vote for charters, particularly at the direction of Supt. King (who worked for Deasy who is owned by Broad) who has openly said she “welcomes working with Great Public Schools Now”..That leaves only retired teacher/administrator Schmerelson as the only pro public school vote left on the LAUSD BoE.
And with a weak and unreliable union which many if not most teachers feel colludes with the district and the billionaires, this motley crew is the LAUSD leadership.
Where does Zimmer stand? Can he beat Melvoin? Does it matter if he does? Can Alva beat Garcia? Is Mission Hills and North LA going to also succumb to mainly, if not all, charters (after the expensive and orchestrated ‘Pacoima event’ last summer (paid for by who, Eli or the taxpayers?) that Karen Wolfe turned into an eye opening video?
Total segregation in LA…total use of taxpayer money to run private schools with virtually no oversight.
And you still think Broad and Co. has not already won this second largest district in the nation?
Why should we torture ourselves with all this when Trump is deporting most of the students and their families to south of the border and the student roll is about 80% Latino which will make it all moot, and will bankrupt the district so Eli and his buddies can buy it all up at pennies on the dollar?
Ah so…America, the land of the greedy and the hopeless.
As huge as the “union versus the charters” conflict is in LAUSD, there are other issues that are critical to our schools. This campaign is a good example of how hard that is to get those issues the attention they deserve because the moneyed interests are setting the terms of the debate. Sorry to say, but that is not just the reform money.
In this campaign, the only thing that seems to matter is which side of that conflict you are on. But my concerns go beyond that. This is a school board seat, afterall. I wrote about that here http://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/los-angeles/12719-think-again-is-steve-zimmer-really-the-one-to-save-our-public-schools.
I was a strong supporter of Zimmer in the last election. These educational issues have been brewing throughout my community during his entire tenure. Zimmer chose to ignore how big they really are, and perhaps the union did, too, assuming that the anti-corporate reform chorus would sing for him no matter what else he did or failed to do. But with his tenure found wanting, a campaign with the right enemies might not be enough to make up for it.
No one is more shocked than I am to find myself considering what the other candidates might have to offer our schools. It’s nearly impossible to do that without looking like a shill for them (now I understand better why I’ve been dismissed as a shill for the unions while I supported Steve). Impugning my character and motives might feel good, but it does not serve the public discourse about education if anyone who dares to veer outside the anti-corporate reform talking points has to find new allies to fight back the attacks. We should be able to debate these issues on principle without making personal attacks. Chances are, we will have another two months to practice that. A run off will happen in May if none of the candidates gets a majority of the votes.
If any of these candidates wins and turns out to only be concerned with advancing charters, you better believe I will attack.
Karen Wolfe,
I read your linked article and you didn’t write one word about what the other candidates would offer public schools. You merely bashed Zimmer.
You reminded me EXACTLY of the people who bashed Hillary Clinton for not being liberal enough and saying she was no different than Trump. I notice they have disappeared from posting here now that we see how outrageously ignorant or perhaps just corrupt that thinking was.
I don’t doubt Zimmer isn’t perfect or ideal. Just like Hillary Clinton was not perfect nor ideal. Just like very few candidates are perfect or ideal.
And when you just bash them, it makes people wonder what your agenda is. You think it’s better to “blow up” the system just like we have in America under Trump?
Trump could not have won without the Hillary bashing — the non-stop constant drumbeat about how corrupt she was and a total sell out. Just like the right wing haters of public education can’t win without people like you to help them along.
You linked to an article you wrote that only bashed Zimmer, leaving one to believe that as long as you vote him out, all will be well. No doubt many anti-Hillary democrats fell for the same nasty one-side news articles.
^^I should add that it probably is not your intention to come off that way. But I do not understand the people who kept saying it didn’t matter whether Hillary won because she was just as corrupt. It did matter.
That’s a fair criticism of this article. However, I had previously written posts laying out the situation with the corporate-backed candidates. This article was intended to explain the specific problem with holding Zimmer up as a defender against Broad et al. This is not about Steve compromising or not being pure enough. It’s about him ending up as controlled by the privatizers as someone handpicked by Broad, to the point that he votes their way. I am not going to say “vote for the guy who hasn’t figured out how to open libraries in the 2nd largest city in the country because he’s not a reformer.” Hillary clinton had a decades long record of fighting for progressive causes–specifically in every job she ever held. Zimmer has a record of voting with the privatizers and making speeches against them.
Karen,
If Steve is as controlled by privatizers as you say, why would they be spending so much money to defeat him? Which candidate is LESS controlled by them who is running against him?
I’m not sure what libraries have to do with this – I don’t expect the NYC Chancellor to open public libraries. Are you talking about libraries in public schools? Because in an era of overcrowded space and (at least in NYC public schools) each classroom having a fairly extensive library, having a separate school library is down the list of many parents’ priorities.
I am truly interested in which candidate running against him you endorse?
The fact that you have no idea what school libraries have to do with this election is why it’s problematic for a national movement to try to tell local voters how we should vote.
Even if corporate reform were the only concern, it is baffling why Steve Zimmer is held up as the anti-corporate reformer—while important school board races in other parts of Los Angeles are completely ignored. He has voted for almost every charter that has come before the board and so enrollment has dropped to 50% of what it was in our schools. He has bragged about LAUSD’s robust choice program at every candidate debate I’ve heard. And we are supposed to believe he is against corporate reform? He pushed through—he didn’t follow, he led the charge on—a TFA contract despite over 1000 public education activists opposing it. And we are supposed to believe he’s against corporate reform?
But the local issues have everything to do with the corporate reform battle. Leaving our schools vulnerable to well-funded competition provides the perfect in for corporate takeover. And that has happened under Zimmers watch. It’s easy for us to blame the well identified enemies of public education, but Zimmer gets to vote with them with no consequences?
Refusing to press him on these issues does nothing for our movement. If he wins, he will know again that for the next 5 ½ years, we will look the other way as he votes with the reformers.
Karen,
Much as I respect you, you are following the logic of “it can’t get worse if the billionaires win.” Yes, it can.
If this election really is about preventing LAUSD from getting a procharter majority, why in the world is our movement not doing more to unseat Monica Garcia?
Karen,
If I were in LA, I would be working double-time to defeat Monica Garcia.
In response to your question about my endorsement, I’m not endorsing in this election. Maybe I’ll cover up Steve Zimmer’s name and throw a dart at my ballot.
Karen,
And that response is why you remind me of the people who said Hillary Clinton is no different than Trump.
If that were really the case, the billionaires would not be spending so much money to defeat Zimmer. But as I said, if you think Trump is no worse than Clinton would have been, by all means use your dart board.
I’m sorry I did not realize that the most important issue in the campaign was school libraries and not whether the forces against public schools — the lying, dishonest, can’t tell the truth because we can’t handle the truth forces who hate public schools — get their way.
After all, people who sounded just like you were so right about Trump being no different than Hillary. Good thing they knew best and bashed Hillary Clinton constantly and made sure Stein drew votes away her support. What could go wrong?
I’m certainly not saying that school libraries are the most important issue in this election. It is one example of how difficult he has made things for schools. It is hugely significant though. Many LAUSD students do not have access to public libraries in their own neighborhoods (there is apparently a big difference between Los Angeles and NYC in that regard. None of the classrooms I see have their own extensive libraries. Here, teachers are more likely to use DonorsChoose to buy book sets.).
Steve is so paralyzed by the charter lobby that he votes with them much of the time, and he believes in some of their reforms. He pushed the TFA contract; he did not merely go along. The energy to prop him up could easily have been directed at other board seats that would have made a much bigger difference for us in Los Angeles.
The comparison to the Hillary-bashers is just not apt. As you know, I was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. She might have compromised in order to move progressive issues along incrementally, but she succeeded in moving them along. She has a track record of a lifetime of progressive accomplishments to prove it. On the contrary, Steve has a track record of corporate reform accomplishments and speeches against them. His heart is in the right place, but that is not enough.
Yet, he gets a pass by our movement. Because he and the teachers union have decided that the narrative for this campaign shall be Steve against the billionaires, there isn’t much bandwidth for a discussion about what our schools need. As I’m sure you know, election campaigns are the urgent time to have such discussions.
Karen,
Seriously, you could not sound more like one of the anti-Hillary folks who voted for Stein or even Trump because Hillary just wasn’t progressive enough.
You have not made a single good case for why any other candidate would be better. You just bashed Zimmer like people bashed Hillary and then tried to make America forget that by refusing to vote for Hillary and listening to the lies they were guaranteeing Trump a victory.
Which of the right wing candidates are you trying to guarantee a win for against the Zimmer/Clinton candidate? Are you going to insist that he can’t be any worse than Zimmer? Because we all heard that again again when the anti-Hillary posters sounded remarkably like you.
Like those anti-Hillary trolls or deluded voters, you take no responsibility for the great harm you are doing. So what if Hillary or Zimmer wasn’t as progressive as I wanted. You want me to vote for Trump or the Trump-like candidate against Zimmer instead. Why?
Because the situation we have now in this country makes you so happy that you hope to duplicate it in California?
I’m not trying to make a case for any of the other candidates. As much as people want to make this about my personal vote or endorsement, that is not what it is. I’m explaining why Steve Zimmer is so vulnerable in my community, and why our movement in Los Angeles might not be making the progress it could—or desperately needs to. Our poster boy has a big problem!
Before you act like the sky is falling, why don’t you get a commitment from Zimmer that he will not sell off half our schools anyway. Has anyone heard him say that he has not had meetings with Broad’s group? Has anyone gotten a commitment from him about which schools he plans to consolidate and close after the election? Has anyone heard him commit to pushing LAUSD’s lobbyists (fresh out of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst) to lobby for charter school oversight? These are the things he could have been pressed on during a campaign if our public education activists had not jumped so early to champion him.
Lastly, I have posted this in places where people discuss politics of ed reform, not on my community lists and not in my neighborhood. I have not campaigned for the other candidates. If we are not even willing to discuss these issues, then what are we fighting corporate reformers for? Just the mental exercise of it?
Karen,
You said you’d throw a dart at a board for “anyone but Zimmer” as your vote.
If you believed Zimmer was too co-opted by the privatizers, why weren’t you fighting for a candidate who was MORE progressive to run against him? THAT is how you get someone to move to the left. That’s exactly what happened to Hillary with Bernie’s candidacy. If her opponent had been a viable candidate to the right, you can bet she’d have become less progressive, not more, just like every other Democrat before her had done.
Instead, you look at the candidates and say “I’ll work hard to attack the one least in bed with the pro-privatizers”. How does that make any sense at all? Now you demand a “discussion” in which you attack only one of the candidates to turn voters off from voting for him so that they can vote in a more right wing candidate?
Maybe you could have reached out to Allison Holdorff Polhill to educate her about the real privatization issues and what those reformers really want, and moved her to the left of Zimmer if she had any integrity at all. But instead you just kept attacking Zimmer in a manner that was shockingly familiar from the disaffected Hillary haters who attacked her for not being progressive enough when she was running against Trump.
When we explained to the Hillary-haters that this wasn’t about saying she was perfect, it was about an election where her opponent was a truly awful person who would do bad things to the progressive agenda, they just said they had to stand up for “what was right” and keep bashing her. Just like you are so certain you are right to make sure Zimmer goes down to defeat for not being progressive enough so that a far right privatizer can do so much harm.
I mourn for LA that the progressives are doing the right wing’s dirty work for them, just like they did when very similar progressives helped elect Trump with their one-sided Hillary-bashing. I’m sure those right wingers appreciate your hard work on their behalf. Who needs public education anyway? I’m sure the privatizers you help elect can’t be any more harmful than Trump is. So you can sleep well. Better to get Zimmer out now because it will be far easier to fight for progressive ideals when the board is 100% privatization just like it’s much better for progressives to fight for their agenda now that Hillary is out of the way and it is complete right wing control of the government. Right?
What makes you think I didn’t fight to get a more progressive candidate to run? One is running in another district. One decided that it wasn’t worth going against the union. Another couldn’t for family reasons. Another died. Only one candidate is right wing, someone none of us are mentioning. Melvoin and Polhill are Democrats. But regardless of political persuasion, what voters in my district seem to be looking for is someone who can actually manage a district for the betterment of our schools.
Thank god Steve Zimmer won’t pick any Supreme Court justices. The rest of the country will be saved from some convoluted logic that would elevate the ghost of Antonin Scalia in an effort to keep the right wing off his back.
And Trump wasn’t “right-wing” either! Why, he had just as much in common with Bernie as he did with the Republicans.
Let’s all ignore why the big money is spending inordinately to defeat one flawed candidate who isn’t in their pocket. What could go wrong?
Look how great things are now with the billionaires calling the shots in DC. No doubt LA’s new board of billionaire minions who call themselves “Democrats” (just like Eva Moskowitz does) will be looking out for the interests of ALL kids.
After all, if you can’t have the progressive candidate you want, better top let the billionaires’ candidate defeat one who isn’t progressive enough.
What could go wrong? I’ve sure heard this song before and it gave us Trump.
I’m voting for Nick Melvoin. I am against Steve Zimmer. Charters in LAUSD are not private schools, or there are not vouchers going to private schools. To me, there are only two obstacles to charters really being an issue in LAUSD:
1) Charters are not a part of the teacher’s union
2) Charters require LAUSD to accommodate space for them.
So I wonder, what are you really against? Are you against the fact that they don’t use unionized teachers, or do you feel threatened by the fact that they require spacial accommodation?
To my knowledge, Eli Broad hasn’t directly funded any other candidates, but he does have his foundation, which is pro-charter. In LAUSD, which is beleagered with underperforming schools, I don’t see that as a bad thing. Maybe the charters will replace the traditional schools in time, and maybe that is what will become of LAUSD – an alternative, rather than a traditional model. Give me an argument why this is a bad thing. So far, I just see bluster.
There are a million articles and posts on this blog about the reasons to oppose charters. Students do not do better, the schools are mostly segregated and there is little oversight.
“Give me an argument why this is a bad thing”.
If you want the end of public schools, you should vote for Melvoin. All-charters, who all get to push out the kids they want to push out and they become someone else’s problem! Or no one else’s problem as they end up on the street!
What could go wrong? Why shouldn’t LA model itself after the lovely Chicago which has already embraced all that you hope for Los Angeles!
Maybe when the demise of neighborhood schools — those failing schools whose teachers disgust you so much because you know better than them about which kids they should have rid themselves of — Los Angeles will get the fun of Chicago! Pushed out kids on the streets joining gangs! No more community schools stabilizing neighborhoods because it’s all privatized and as long as you get yours, then who cares about the “others”. What’s a little high crime and high murder rate when you are allowing all the kids who do well in those failing public schools to concentrate in privatized charters that reward their CEOs for their ability to identify the unworthy kids and drum them out on the street! What could go wrong? As long as you don’t care about the unworthy kids — and I find that people like you truly do not care about them at all — you should absolutely vote for someone who shares you values. Melvoin and Trump. And Betsy DeVos. Because only some kids are worthy when you talk about charters and the rest can rot. After all, they cost a little more and won’t ever be a credit to their school so why would any school want them? In your privatized world where no one has responsibility for anyone but themselves and the kids who make them look good.
So In your charter scenario, what happens to the other 600,000 plus kids including my children who are in traditional LAUSD schools? I am only interested in a candidate willing to keep money in schools for all kids and not the selected few. Charter schools are making inequality in education even worse and further promoting segregation in affluent areas.
So In your charter scenario, what happens to the other 600,000 plus kids including my children who are in traditional LAUSD schools? I am only interested in a candidate willing to keep money in schools for all kids and not the selected few. Charter schools are making inequality in education even worse and further promoting segregation in affluent areas.