Betsy DeVos will visit a charter school in Woodland Hills tomorrow.
On Monday, DeVos is slated to tour the CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School, a charter school in Woodland Hills.
Monday also happens to be May Day, and labor and community groups throughout the region are planning major protests.
Alex Caputo-Pearl, head of the Los Angeles teachers union, put out this statement:
“The timing raises questions. Los Angeles is poised for a record-breaking May Day march to resist the Trump/DeVos agenda, and to stand up for human rights and educational justice. Rather than support families and communities who march for immigrant rights and public schools, she visits a charter school, in School Board District 4. Either she is tone deaf to the educational needs of our community, or more likely, she is actively promoting her privatization agenda here in LA. With her well-known collaboration with wealthy corporate charter school backers in LA, it also begs the question: Is she here to support the charter lobbyists’ endorsed candidates, Nicholas Melvoin and Kelly Fitzpatrick-Gonez?”
Perhaps the California Charter Schools Association will organize a demonstration to welcome her and thank her for her contributions to the charter industry.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You can be sure that the visit was well planned to be a thumb in the eye to public school supporters in California.
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May 1 is a Satanic holiday disguised around the world.
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Excellent tongue in cheek humor!!
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Isn’t May Day the day when dictators roll out their big weapons for all the little people to see? In keeping with that tradition, it seems fitting that DeVos should visit the schools that have become weaponized to destroy transparent, democratic public schools that aspire to serve all students. Trump and DeVos are all about opportunity for a few at the expense of many so this visit symbolizes their twisted world view.
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Unbelievable!
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Who :
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
What :
Visit to CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School
When :
9 a.m. PDT Monday, May 1, 2017 (Set time: 8:30 a.m. PDT)
Where :
CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School
19722 Collier St.
Woodland Hills, California
ACCESS:
Open press
Credentialed media interested in attending the event should RSVP to the U.S. Department of Education at press@ed.gov. A valid media credential and photo ID will be required for access to the school.
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thanks Educator for this info….
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Schwarzenegger Charter School, eh? Love it! Bodybuilding classes? Male chauvinism and adultery electives? Do they teach how to act (badly) like a robot, uh, cybernetic organism? Unpopularity civics? Is class like Celebrity Apprentice? No really, is this not the perfect place for a May 1st visit because it’s simply a great place for a protest, and the opposing words ‘Schwarzenegger’ and ‘school’ together in a title is the exact equivalent of ‘DeVos’ and ‘Education Secretary’. This is so wrong it’s perfect. It’s perfectly wrong.
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Perhaps, dear Leftie…you might ameliorate “cybernetic organism” to read the equally appropriate ‘cybernetic orgasm’….
You may remember that Arnie the Austrian also wanted to change American law (re being born in the US) so that he could be Prez.
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As a California parent and someone who follows California school demographics and standardized test data, I can offer that the CHIME Institute reveals some interesting data about its demographics through its testing data.
Although traditional achievement gap narratives compare test scores by race/ethnicity, family income, and sometimes English Language Learner status, I think the most telling and instructive measure is by parent education level. Ideally, public schools should be helping lots of students succeed at becoming the first in their family to graduate from college. That’s not happening so much at CHIME.
One can glean some idea about CHIME Institute’s demography by parent education level by looking at standardized test data (CAASPP, the California version of SBAC):
http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2016/ViewReport?ps=true&lstTestYear=2016&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=9&lstCounty=19&lstDistrict=64733-6119531&lstSchool=6119531
There are six standard categories for parent education level, here: No HS diploma, HS diploma, Some college, a bachelor’s degree, and graduate degree, and declined to state.
Taken from data on the ELA tests for 2016, CHIME Institute has no students (0%) in the first category (parents who have less than a HS diploma), 7% with only HS diploma, 14% with some college, 40% with a bachelor’s degree, 33% with graduate degree, and 5% declined to state
In LA County, those numbers are 19% with less than HS diploma, 23% with HS diploma, 18% with some college, 16% with a bachelor’s degree, 10% with a graduate degree, 15% declined to state.
For CHIME Institute, this is not a Mother Theresa narrative. They serve more of the educationally privileged. Perhaps an opportunity to get your kids away from the “lesser-educated rabble.”
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