I was curious to see whether the L.A. Times editorial board would stand up for public education or would join the chorus of privatization and greed.
Would the editorial board be offended that billionaires are swamping the district with millions to promote the privatization candidates?
Would they recall all the stories about charter scandals and corruption that the newspaper has reported? Would they forget about the Celerity charter chain, whose CEO used the school credit cards for resorts, fancy hotels, lavish meals, couture clothing, and chaffer-driven limousines?
Could they possibly endorse the candidates benefitting from the money poured in by the likes of the Walton family and other out-of-town Republicans and rightwing corporate Democrats?
They could and they did.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that they endorsed the candidates who are best equipped to promote the Trump-DeVos privatization agenda. And I won’t attribute it to the fact that the newspaper accepts $800,000 a year from Eli Broad for its education coverage, the elderly billionaire who has a fetish about stamping out public education. The editorial board has the chutzpah to refer to puppets of the charter industry as “independent thinkers.” If those two fit the L.A. Times’ definition of an “independent thinker,” they must be reading from a script provided by the billionaires who pull their strings.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sigh…and that same issue had an article about closing two charter schools due entirely to poor management by administration, with questions about governance structure and finance. They are under federal and state investigation. But by all means, let’s support this profit making system that takes tax dollars from the classrooms. The billionaires supporting charters have undue influence on the editorial board of the L.A. Times, making them often woefully at odds with what is being published by some reporters.
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Corporate Media = Corrupt Media
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Long history of anti-union activity on the part of the L.A. Times. Plus they believe (as does Eli Broad) that they can eliminate the “bad” charters and keep the good ones. I heard a little speech by my board member Ref Rodriguez to that effect. Right now it’s the parents and teachers who are fighting “co-locations” of charters in many of our schools, including the under scrutiny Celerity Schools.
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When has the L.A. Times ever not joined the Reform crowd?
Actually, I’m interested to know if any areas have editorial boards who go against Reformist doctrine. In Cincinnati, I can’t remember a time the editorial board didn’t toe the line.
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This is the email I sent to all members of the LA Times Education staff:
Along with myriad other progressives in L.A., I eagerly await your coverage of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ endorsement in our upcoming school board run-off election. A serving U.S. senator (who nearly won the democratic presidential nomination on a populist, progressive platform) is endorsing Steve Zimmer.
I fear that neglecting to report this would too closely resemble “editorializing by omission.”
I understand that news failing to advance the school privatization movement presents your team with a conflict of interests. Perhaps, then, Education Matters staff will not be reporting on this story at the behest of Mr. Broad or his designee at the paper. However, the remaining journalists have a civic obligation to announce to Los Angeles that here, in the bluest of blue cities, the bluest of blue senators is pulling for Steve Zimmer.
I imagine many of you consider yourselves progressives, or at least democrats. But, like Nick Melvoin’s, your paper’s stance on education is incompatible with true liberal values. Until your education reporting ceases to march lockstep with Broad, Sarah Angel, and other neoliberal profiteers, you remain propagandists.
The people of this city adore Bernie Sanders and view him as the embodiment of progressive thought and values. Unless you report on Sen. Sanders’ endorsement of Steve Zimmer, you are hiding it from your readers. Is this how you want to be remembered?
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Well stated. Thank you.
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You know who could hold a press conference, discuss it exclusively and thereby pressure the LA Times to print the Sanders endorsement (even though with the Times’ tinted wording)? Steve Zimmer could. Just sayin’.
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This is in the morning mail from the LA Times:
Another Lesson in the Charter School Debate
“Just last fall, the State Board of Education approved two new charter schools operated by the Celerity Educational Group in Los Angeles. Now board members have voted to close two of the nonprofit’s other schools because they have lost confidence in Celerity, which remains under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education and the inspector general for the L.A. Unified School District. The incident highlights the difficulties in regulating charter schools at a time when some want to add more in Los Angeles.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-celerity-troika-dyad-renewal-20170511-story.html
California’s State Board of Education votes to close 2 Celerity charter schools
http://www.latimes.com
The State Board of Education voted unanimously to shutter two L.A. charter schools run by Celerity Educational Group, a nonprofit under investigation by federal and local education authorities.
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And Trump gets his money from Russia.
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Tell it like it is!
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And just as the Seattle Times takes money from the Gates Foundation for some of their education coverage.
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For some????
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The problem too is we have a UTLA corporate leadership. They held a secret meeting in the middle of the 2014 UTLA Campaign between their leadership and then Superintendent Deasy, a reformer. In exchange for letting them campaign for office during school hours, they likely agreed to delay talk of a raise, and delay efforts to fight for housed teachers. In fact, the leadership has said they are an “organizing” union now so pursuing grievances filed by rogue principals against teachers is no longer a priority. Instead the leadership hires friends and family members to no bid contracts and travels the globe giving speeches about “unity.” They also refuse to say how much they spend on travel, a flagrant violation of existing UTLA policy. Sure the Times is wrong on this one — but so is our “union.” And teachers suffer the consequences. UTLA literally no longer protects teachers against rogue principals, and so when members are written up by lousy principals, the union’s response is to ask for campaign contributions to fight the “Trump-Devos” Agenda. It’s a joke and it’s an affront to the history of organized labor. When is our leadership going to stand up for members instead of treating dues money like a slush fund? Crickets from UTLA.
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Sorry to be a stick in the mud here, Diane, but every once in a while I feel obligated to remind you and your readers that teacher unions are private organizations and are part-and-party to “the chorus of privatization and greed.” My hope in pointing out this grand discrepancy is to remind your readers that American democracy is founded on choice, the individual choices made by citizens at the ballot box and in the marketplace. It is not greed but self-interest and individual freedom that makes our country one of the most successful in human history. And even if you and your readers don’t agree with that, at least admit the contradiction at the heart of your complaint about “privatization and greed”: public sector unions are huge and powerful parts of that system. Thank you for the space to comment. –peter meyer
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Hello peter meyer: I can tell you don’t read this blog. Perhaps I can summarize:
For privatizers, the term “choice” is not what you mean by it. Rather, it means parents get to choose between private corporate schools–which, in the end, is about erasing public education on the “grounds” that it is unfair competition–so that choice is eliminated. It also is a ruse to get public money for private and sometimes religious schooling which, again, in the end does an end run around the separation clause in the First Amendment; and drains money and resources away from public schooling making them in the “starve the beast” category. That is, starve the public school system and then scream: See how awful it is! Add to that teacher-trashing and claiming “bad schools,” and you finally eliminate the CHOICE of public schools. So in the end, they don’t serve your version of “choice” at all.
As an aside, I think it’s important for all of us to learn to recognize Orwellian double-speak when we see it. If you are not a troll, your sentiments about choice as essentially American and as a common meaning are my own.
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Dear Katherine, I’m sorry but the Orwellian burden is yours: you have ignored most of my comment (e.g. that public sector unions are NOT “privatizers”), turned the word “choice” into something that it does not mean, and accused me of a double-speak that your message represents perfectly. –pm
p.s. I am also very familiar with this blog.
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Peter Meyer: I’m not changing the meaning of the term “choice.” I’m saying that many of those who use the term to refer to aspects of the privatizing movement (charters, vouchers, etc.) use the term as a ruse to cover, in this case, their efforts to actually deprive parents of choice. The other aspect is the reduction of regulations and REALLY local and public oversight. I guess that means “freedom.” Another related double-speak term is “freedom caucus.” We all love freedom–right? But this use of the term really means freedom from regulation for the wealthy.
But no matter. If you’ve read this blog as you say you have, you will recall the many other explanations of the twisted meaning of “choice” that privatizers use. And I didn’t address the teacher-union issue on purpose. My focus was on your take on “choice” and how it was wrongly applied to the general privatization movement.
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Catherine, first, sorry for misspelling your name. But I know enough about this blog to recognize the newspeak: “privatizers,” for example, is a common terms used here. But what is a privatizer? There is an altogether unhealthy and mischaracterized (in my opinion) view of the choice movement as something that is bent on killing public education, which makes for nice marketing but bad facts: public education has already been killed by the powerful — and private! — unions. That’s my point here, which is why I wish you would have addressed that problem. From a sector point-of-view, teacher unions are no different than charter management organizations, construction associations, text book companies — all are private organizations that lobby public school boards. Your “private corporate schools” are as much a child of private unions as charter management companies. —pbm
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Peter,
You are in the heart of the privatization movement. Who can forget the article you wrote for Education Next telling the world that Brighter Choice charter schools in Albany were “the Holy Grail of charter schools”? http://educationnext.org/brighter-choices-in-albany/
Did you ever write a follow up article about the collapse of the Holy Grail?
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Diane, I am not aware of any “privatization movement” except the one that you and many folks on this blog are part of. And I am certainly not a member of such a group. As I have said many times privatization began when the unions (which are private organizations) began gaining enormous influence on our schools. The reform movement was in large part a reaction to that influence….. As to Brighter Choice, there was nothing in my story that was factually inaccurate and calling it “the gold standard” was, at the time, also arguably correct. The fact that Brighter Choice has since withered away does indeed merit a followup and I have proposed such a story to the editors at Ed Next. –peter
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Yes, Peter, there is a privatization movement.
And you called the now failed Brighter Choice charters the Holy Grail of charters. Oops!
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peter meyer: So sorry you are missing huge insights about what’s going on with organizations like ALEC and people like Betsy Devos. A brief clue: Those whom we mean by “privatizers,” specifically in education (they are not only in ed but are across-the-board about any public institution) set themselves off from public education. They are mostly market-based and either hate public institutions or don’t understand the difference or why they are so important to the democracy–or they DO understand, and target them for that reason.
They also see public schools as “unfair competition” and those who advocate for keeping public schools as a part of our vibrant democracy as just unable to face change. Bill Gates said this, for instance, on a Charlie Rose segment a few months back. a shallow view at best, and at worst, dangerous to the public and democratic institutions that, in fact, make this country great.
While we’re there, the mantra “make our country great again” is another supreme example Orwellian double-speak. They say that while, at the same time, the so-called “freedom caucus” is tearing down every public institution since the New Deal and is not afraid to say so–and replacing everyone in power who are “loyal” to the Supreme Idiot.
I think you know all that, however. Our investments don’t have to, but they usually keep us from understanding what we would easily understand and appreciate if we didn’t have them.
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CBK,
You can’t expect Peter Meyer to understand what you are saying. He is no naïf. He has been affiliated for many years with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Education Next (funded in large part by the Hoover Institution).
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Diane: Thanks–my last paragraph should clue to your point. But I am always amazed at your breadth of historical knowledge.
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“the individual choices. . . in the marketplace.”
Can you please advise me of where that vaunted free “marketplace” is. The last time I had google earth “fly” me there it took me to 13, 33 14.99 North and 29 29 42.44 West. Pretty hard to drive there.
One of the problems that I see with the concept of the marketplace, commonly known as the free market, is that people assign a mythical ability for that economic description of human interaction to do things. I applaud you for not falling into that trap as you specifically speak of the “choices made by citizens”. But according to your statement they are making those choices in a “marketplace”. A “marketplace” that does not exist. Much like assigning human capabilities to that marketplace, by stating that humans make a choice in a non-existent “marketplace”, the statement suffers a similar onto-epistemological fallacy in that there is no such marketplace where those “choices” are made.
Using economic descriptors as real entities with real locations in space and time is a fallacy. Using it weakens your argument to the point of not being believable.
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Peter Meyer,
Your logic escapes me. Teachers unions are private organizations representing public employees. They are the only bulwark protecting public education against the rapacious greed of the privatizers. That’s why Scott Walker, Trump, DeVos, and the Waltons want to destroy them. They stand in the way of those who want to destroy public education. The unions all put together don’t have the resources of the Waltons–$130 billion–or any of the other reactionary billionaires. The money of the unions come from the dues of hard-working teachers. They are in America’s classrooms. Tell me what skins do the billionaires and entrepreneurs have in the game?
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Labor unions, including teachers’ unions, are also democratic, nonprofit organizations. They are not autocratic, public sector, for-profit corporations.
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I disagree, that the teacher’s unions are the only individuals/organizations that are making a case to keep a single-payer government/public school system. Non-teaching and administrative employees of school systems also have a stake in maintaining the status quo. In some counties in eastern Kentucky, the school system is the largest employer in the county.
The cafeteria workers and the janitors know, that when the public school is down-sized, that they may be facing the unemployment line, as well.
Many politicians, want to keep the children locked into a government/public school, so that the teacher’s unions will continue putting up the cash, for their political campaigns. (Notwithstanding the fact, that many politicians send their own children to private schools).
Many parents are entirely satisfied with the existing public schools in their communities. These parents know, that if school choice arrives in their state, that other parents will withdraw their children from the public schools, and that the funding for the state-run system will face cuts.
And there are many people who opposed to change of any kind. “I went to public school, everyone should go to public school” mentality.
Bottom Line: There is a vast coalition of individuals and organizations, working to keep the nation’s children locked into public schools, and denying choices to parents.
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Sorry, Diane, the logic problem here is not mine. Does a private organization somehow get cleansed of its corporate and privatizing smells because it represents public employees? Hardly. A band of capitalists do not become socialists simply by saying so. Private unions represent private individuals, no matter their job descriptions. And such private organizations (unions) have done just as much to destroy public education as any Walton, Trump or Walker. –peter meyer
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@Peter: AMEN! I have lived in a communist dictatorship. The Marxist philosophy, is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. The only place you will find a communist, these days, is in a classroom.
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“The only place you will find a communist, these days, is in a classroom.”
Charles, that is a deplorable statement showing your ignorance and bias. The only reason communism ever existed was because of autocrats and frauds like Agent Orange in the White House, the Koch brothers and ALEC, the Walton Walmart welfare creation family, Besty the Dumbster, Bill Gates, Robert Mercer, etc.
Movements that promise to make life better for the majority of the people (99-percent) come about because of the abuses and tyranny of the wealthy and powerful one percent that worship at the altars of avarice; is psychopaths and malignant narcissists.
Misery, poverty, suffering, abuse, hunger, desperation are the causes of movements like socialism and communism.
In 1900, before any of the social safety net programs existed, women didn’t have the vote, children could be sold into slavery as young as age 7 (even into prostitution for old men like the malignant narcissist in the White House to buy and abuse), democratic labor unions were struggling against corporate violence as they organized to represent the working people, people of color were violently discriminated against, and 40 percent of the American people lived in poverty, 7-percent graduated from high school, and 3 percent went to college.
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For all its attempts at rebranding itself, the LATIMES editorial board has learned nothing from its vigorous cheerleading for former LAUSD head and rheephormster John Deasy’s [by its own account!] iPad and MISIS fiascos.
Note this telling paragraph from the editorial:
[start]
A vote in April further crystallized our sentiment. As part of the board majority, Zimmer voted to support state legislation that would be devastating to charter schools. Not only would it take away their means of appealing a local school district’s decision to reject their charter application, but it would also allow school boards to reject charter applications if they decide the charter school would have a negative effect on district finances. As Ratliff pointed out in her dissenting vote, pretty much any charter school could fit that description because of the enrollment-linked funding that leaves the district when a student chooses a privately managed school.
[end]
Those pushing privatization in all its forms routinely deny or don’t want to talk about what is made plain above: charters are [literally, not symbolically] a huge drain on public schools. So instead of the “rising tide that lifts all boats” they are by their very nature the “tsunami that swamps all public school boats.”
And don’t expect self-reflection and self-correction on the part of rheephormistas. Reason must give way to $tudent $ucce$$, ensuring a state of mind well expressed by Albert Einstein:
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
😎
P.S. Also note in the above paragraph how “enrollment-linked funding” is described as something that leaves a public school district and goes into a “privately managed school.” Whatever happened to that favored bit of rheephorm spin “public charters”?
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There were two events so egregiously foul that they drew me all in to this never ending fight to protect public education. One was Michelle Rhee firing an employee on television. The other was the LA Times publishing the names of individual teachers with the test scores of students who happened to be in their classes. Will Rhee ever change her sociopathic ways? Will the LA Times ever change its hateful ways and support progressive economics? No and no. No.
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I grew up in Southern California and know enough about the Los Angeles times to consider it only good for wrapping fish and cleaning windows.
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Too dirty for windows, too dirty for fish. Try the LA Daily News for fish and windows, a paper at least honest enough to come CLEAN about being a right wing publication.
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Sadly we are now living in an oligarchy. Does the Los Angeles Times, or any other major newspaper, dare to anger the corporate owners who pay the bills? I don’t think so.
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Thank you Diane for your leadership, honor, strength and intelligence in pushing back against this manifestation of greed and wrong-headedness. At the root of the assault on public education is the same condition which lies at the bottom of every major misstep in American society right now: the concentration or money and power amongst the few at the expense of the many. It’s not a simple equation to solve, but all current ills can be walked back to the inexorable march of social inequality begun in earnest with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The exhaustion and public mistrust sown during the Vietnam War and the Watergate Era made it possible for the conservative movement to eventually undo all vestiges of the New Deal and to undermine the cares and concerns of our nation and its people.
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I think that many of us, perhaps half-consciously, still labor under the misapprehension of a myth we absorbed in childhood — that newspapers are quasi-public institutions that survive through service to their local communities.
Well, I can hardly put that into so many words without rousing from ½-conscious to more like ¾ and it’s clear today that the commercial free press is just another name for the bought and paid for press, that is, bought and paid for by private interests with bigger bullions than you or I.
When it comes to the public interest in public education, all our commercial media today operate under an overpowering conflict of interest. Public institutions in general do not buy a lot of advertising — they even beg all the PSAs they can — but the prospect of commercial ed factories waging ad wars in Red Queen races through public cash reserves has them blinded by the glitter of all that tax gold for the taking.
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I’d just like to point out that there is little but the money given charters that is public. Having actually been employed at one I may have more to say than Meyer. Parents have a choice. That choice is to “apply” to the school.
That’s it. The school then accepts the student. Once in, they can threaten to leave when things do not go their way. The charter can “choose” to let them. Little recourse for parents.
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