The two pro-charter candidates swept to victory last night in Los Angeles.
Nick Melvoin, the candidate of the charter industry, beat Steve Zimmer, 57-43%.
Charter teacher Kelly Fitzpatrick-Nonez beat Imelda Padilla, 51-48%.
It was the most expensive school board race in U.S. history. At least $14 million was spent, most of it by the charter forces to defeat Zimmer. Inthe two districts, only 75,000 people voted.
This marks the first time that the board of LAUSD has a pro-charter majority.
It was an exceptionally dirty campaign.
Melvoin falsely accused Zimmer of responsibility for the iPad debacle, which was in fact the pet project of former LAUSD superintendent John Deasy, a supporter of Melvoin. Deasy currently works for billionaire Eli Broad, who has proposed to put half the students in Los Angeles in privately-run charter schools.
When the new board members are installed, Eli Broad is likely to get his wish.
Zimmer’s campaign, whose lead supporters were teachers unions, is accused of associating Melvoin with Trump and DeVos. This claim is true, as Trump and DeVos agree with the goal of rapidly expanding charters as a form of privatization, and prominent donors to Melvoin’s campaign, as the article in the Los Angeles Times article acknowledges, are anti-union and Republicans.
But Melvoin took cover and won as an Obama Democrat, which in the case of education, is indistinguishable from a DeVos Republican.
Charter operators want a larger share of LAUSD construction funds and more of its buildings. They will now encounter no opposition from the board.
“Whatever their allegiance, the winners of the board seats will confront an ocean of challenges, including the seemingly inevitable growth of charters and the strain that places on the district’s budget and its ability to serve students at its own schools.”
LAUSD will now become a dual school system, with no constraints on charter growth.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is there credible research showing who actually uses vouchers? The Republicans want us to believe it’s poor people escaping poverty and low performing schools. I wonder how many rich suburban kids use vouchers to go to elite private schools.
Jeffry,
I can’t answer off the top of my head at 7:15 am but I will ask around. It depends on the limits in the law. As a rule, states that pass voucher plans begin by saying they are for children with disabilities. Or they set an income limit and say it is for “poor kids trapped in failing schools.” Over time, these restrictions are lifted, then removed. The voucher movement seeks vouchers for all. In its most extreme form, the voucher movement hates public schools and considers them godless and would like to see them disappear.
“L.A. Unified has more charters and more charter students than any other school system, but they still account for only about 16% of enrollment.”
So 84% of parents and students have no representative on the school board? How is that a “win” for them?
Chiara,
There are supporters of public schools on the LA board, but the majority is now, for the first time, in the hands of the charter industry. It will be interesting to see who they hire as the new superintendent. Arne Duncan? John King?
The big takeaway from this election is that Obama and Duncan provided cover for those whose agenda really is no different from DeVos: a free-market of schools with a preference for private management.
I concur re “[t]he big takeaway.”
Much said in few words.
😎
Read: LISTEN LIBERAL by Thomas Frank.
This country has lost its mind and soul.
You hit the nail on the head! And here’s the question for those who supported Hilary Clinton: would SHE have changed directions at USDOE? My hunch is that she would have continued the “privatization lite” plans Obama launched: privatization that favored for-profit non-sectarian charter schools and omitted any support for vouchers that can be used by homeschoolers ad those attending religiously affiliated schools. That’s the “third way” of neoliberalism: support the spread of capitalism (i.e. free markets) at the expense of democracy (i.e. locally controlled “government schools”).
wgersen,
You could be right about Hillary but my hunch is that you are wrong. Hillary has always been a wonk and the few times she did speak to education and charter schools she demonstrated that she understood at least some of the nuances of the issue. I certainly was far less impressed with Bernie Sanders’ support of “public charters” in which he demonstrated that he knew nothing about the issue and had no curiosity whatsoever about it during the campaign. Bernie’s comments reminded me of President Obama in which – I assume because neither had the least bit of interest in educating themselves on the issue — their “I’ll do whatever the person who has my ear tells me is right” positions led to great harm.
Sure, maybe Bernie would have done the right thing because the right person got his ear but what we need is politicians who aren’t lazy on this issue. I trust people willing to understand the complexities and acknowledge them far more than those spouting slogans. Hillary got bashed because she didn’t spout the kind of slogans that get you elected. But one reason America is in the rut it is in is that we led by politicians who don’t really care about policy and thus they are overly impressed with the Broad “research” or whatever rich billionaire who seems “smart” tells them. Sometimes that leads to progressive policies, but what we SHOULD be having is an honest debate and discussion about what works and what doesn’t. That’s what I would have trusted Hillary Clinton to be interested in, too. it’s certainly the way she tried to do health reform originally if you ignore the propaganda attacks on her at the time.
It astonishes me that Hillary gets bashed this way when she is the first democrat I have seen who tilted left after winning the primaries instead of offering right wing platitudes to try to get more Republican votes. She came out more forcefully on the “divisive” issues during the Dem-Republican debates than any candidate I have seen and she didn’t try the mealy mouth approach I have heard so much from Dems — including Obama — in which their they try to hide from progressive issues because they are terrified of painting themselves as too liberal and lose the vote of some “moderate”.
Notice how late Bernie was to endorse the progressive LA school board candidates? Same thing happened in Massachusetts when it took so long for Warren and Sanders to finally come out against the pro-charter Proposition the privatizers had put on the ballot. And even then they both gave the kind of ambiguous statements that only added to my belief that neither of them really cared to learn exactly why so many people are opposed to charters and articulate it. And that is exactly what is needed. A politician interested enough to learn the nuances of this argument instead of parroting some lines that tell you that even if they happen to vote the right way this time, they don’t have a clue what the real problems are and have no interest in finding out.
Bernie still has no grip on charters as the gateway drug to vouchers
They didn’t VOTE! How many times do we have to learn this lesson!
I live in a very “Blue” well-to-do neighborhood on the San Francisco peninsula. In March, we had a special mail-in election to renew a parcel tax that supported the local elementary school district to the tune of $7,000,000 a year. It received a bit over 65% approval, but fell just short of the required 2/3rds majority.
The really pathetic fact, however, is that, even in a well-educated, well-to-do area turnout was a lousy 28% and voters had an entire month to simply check one box on the ballot and mail it back in using a postage-paid envelope!!!
The schools are now faced with the loss of over $500/student/year. I have held several meetings with the Superintendent and the Chief Budget Officer and am putting together ideas for another ballot measure, but the lack of participation is a major problem.
This was a topic in the March cover story of The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/
Thanks for that link. David Frum is no leftist. He makes a great argument that Trump has unchecked power to loot the US treasury and take down his enemies, 1 at a time.
This statement is chilling ““The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”
The disproportionate punishment of the innocent is played out every day under the guise of “accountability”.
David Frum if I recall correctly may have been the author of the “axis of evil” speech for George W. Bush. If so, he seems to be trying to atone for past sins…
I read that article a couple of months ago, but recall that his main point was about the tendency of a kleptocracy to drive the public into a state of cynicism and apathy.
I heard that Barbara Boxer made robocalls to support Melvoin. I have lost all respect for Boxer as I thought she was better than that.
At last…something we agree on. Boxer shocked us all with her support of Melvoin, but now that she is running her own PR type firm, guess she wants all the WLA cash…yes, Broad, Milken, etc. all live and vote in Melvoin’s district.
The results of this insanely financed school board election represents a brutal take-over of by the corporate Democrats of California–who share many of the same goals as Wall Street Republicans.
The alignment of their interests is in areas such as Education.
This race deserves (and will get) a much more full post-mortem. Steve Zimmer ran a dignified campaign against disingenuous charges. Although Zimmer himself was a very flawed candidate with a spotty Progressive voting record, it is worthy to note that white power and white privilege were the driving forces against him.
This charge was never brought up in the campaign, but the charter lobby is dominated by well-to-do, powerfully connected white people who want an education system that favors their needs (and economics). This is the true intersection between Education and Economics that the corporate Democrats and almost all Republicans enjoin.
The Left needs to shout this from the rooftops of Broad and Walton enterprises everywhere.
This is a sad day for Progressives on many different levels.
The dominoes will fall from Los Angeles across the nation unless we learn how to make our case despite the vast sums of money used to obfuscate the dark underbelly of the Charter Movement.
Thank you Geronimo for clarifying who voted for Melvoin.
WLA is primarily a Dem area, but many voters are the
wealthy DFER group and their followers including Broad, Milken, and other hedge funders. They long ago were able to create their own private school in their rich community of Pacific Palisades, by installing a charter within Palisades High School. This school caters to among the most privileged students anywhere…all paid for by taxpayers all over LA County. These private schools will now grow exponentially with this total control by the privatizers. The hedge funders and stock brokers have long had ads in the WSJ and other business media on how to invest in public school education and grow rich…and it will mushroom exponentially, starting tomorrow IMO.
As to the new make up of the LAUSD BoE, now only Schmerelson, Vladovic, and McKenna, are left to represent the preponderance of students who are in our public schools, and the many who will be left behind with little funding to educate them. Of these three, only Schmerelson has been consistent in his support of the public schools. And all three are older, lifetime, educators….but they have no chance of saving LAUSD now that there are four puppets of Broad on this Board who all will urge charterizing all of LAUSD.
Broad, the Waltons, and those other billionaires funded Ben Austin and former State Senator Gloria Romero when the they wrote and carried the Parental Choice legislation in 2010, and then Austin, who was paid a huge salary by this greedy group of profiteers, developed his devious and dangerous Parent Revolution (now run by Litt and Rose et al), grabbed at least 12% of inner city and poverty area
public school students and redirected them to the often failing charter schools, all at the expense of We the People who pay all the bills.
Currently, with Great Public Schools Now resurrected, they will aim for and surely get ANOTHER 50% of our students. This means they have majority control of this district with the agreed help of both the BoE and of the Supt., Michelle King. It is a DONE DEAL.
Your comment on the “charter” at Palisades High School and those kind of comments helped Melvoin win.
The charter at Palisades High School — where the unionized teachers mostly supported Melvoin — is nothing like private charter schools. It is far closer to the original vision for charter schools where the parents and teachers sit on the board — not some corporate lackeys and billionaires from elsewhere.
Those parents might have been persuadable but there was so much negativity about them that just wasn’t true. In fact, Pali High’s charter board fought to get money in order to underwrite transportation costs to bus students from disadvantaged neighborhoods to the school. They could easily have shut up and kept their school much more affluent instead of fighting to keep kids from outside able to attend their local school.
They have nothing in common with the corporate charters that the right wing billionaires support. Those attacks hurt and allowed Melvoin to get votes where he should not have.
Where did you say you live? Your nom de plume says it is NYC.
Again you comment on things you know little about.
The original charter law in 1994 in California was worthwhile and encouraged innovation such as magnet schools and integration (through bussing). However, today, in the real world of charters in LA and in California, I use the term ‘private’ since I believe all charters have grown to become basically private schools supported by public funds with little to no oversight. They may call themselves Independent and/or Public schools, but they function with their own Boards of Directors and their own CEOs running the BUSINESS of schooling.
Pali HS is a good school both academically and socially, and has always been for it is generally populated by students whose families are highly educated in the best schools in America and who are in the top economic sphere, perhaps top 20 – 1 %. Some of the wealthiest hedge fund managers went to Pali.
I grew up 5 minutes away from this high school, which I have frequently described on this blog, when the state took it by eminent domain from All Hollows Farm, but that was in the 1950s when my family home cost $8K (it is now probably worth about $ 2M as a tear down, due to the location) and there was more of a middle class with a very small suburban population. My own family members and friends and their children have attended Pali from the 1960s to today.
I have no quarrel with the academics in any way and the location at on Temescal Canyon overlooking the Pacific Ocean is superb. And yes, parents and teachers do run it in unison, although last year there was insurrection over issues of style and substance.
I do however, have a major beef with the system of CCSA, LAUSD, and Broad and buddies, establishing ‘golden’ charters in the midst of such wealth that the parents can well afford to send their kids to real private schools and not steal from the public purse.
The same goes for El Camino Charter HS and some others in this vast county. I won’t go into the comparisons with Santa Monica HS and Granada Hills HS since Carl Peterson often explains extended problems in similar areas of the LA Basin with careful rigorous insight.
So New Yorker, Melvoin won because almost all of the voters in his district are wealthy Dems who support Eli Broad and his DFER followers. Melvoin was a sham candidate IMO and the deep pockets funding ($14 Million) bought him his seat on the BoE. The Jewish Journal article about ‘Melvoin/Zimmer/Caputo-Pearl and WLA voters’ published about a week ago makes much of this clear…. as does living ones long life deeply attached to this LA community and the public schools, as have I. Some of us here really do pay attention.
How about you identify yourself by name, true location, and occupation, and let us know, New Yorker, how you can be so dogmatic about so many things on this blog? Hiding behind a pseudonym is does not inspire trust, at least not in me.
Guess you will never get over Hillary….
Addendum…charters must be able to show some diversity to meet the legal standards, so bussing in students of color is an imperative. I have sat in on some of the start up discussions in chic neighborhoods, and have been astounded at the conversations…it is generally not from heartfelt desire for equity but rather to uphold the letter of the law, not the spirit of law, that kids of color are included.
Ellen,
I have never pretended to be something I am not. Why are you so determined that I provide my real name when there are plenty of posters who don’t use their real names?
I don’t hear you calling out Geronimo or SpewingTruth or KrazyTA or SomeDAMPoet to provide their “real” names or you will no longer post.
Just because you live in a community doesn’t mean you know anything about the schools there. Surely your criticism of Melvoin should have taught you that. When was the last time you actually spoke with parents at Pali High? With teachers there? What did they tell you? Did you condemn them when they fought to keep busing kids from poor communities when the city wanted to cut them?
Do you know the teachers are in the union? And your union has done such a terrible job of understanding the issues that the teachers supported Melvoin?
I know parents who have children there. And I have talked to them endlessly because I am probably far more anti-charter than you are. But I also LISTENED to what they were saying. And having people like you paint them as no different than the privatizers has done far more harm than good. These parents WANT transparency and accountability. They have no desire to hide their practices nor do they want other charters to do so. But when they hear themselves being mis-characterized they decide it is your side that is being dishonest.
When you make statements like “the school caters to the most privileged students” you have no idea what you are talking about. Those parents aren’t at Pali High — they are at private schools. The ones at Pali are affluent but not any more so than most affluent suburbs. What is different about Pali is that they also welcome a large number of at-risk children from outside their zone. 31% of the students are poor. Only 52% are white. This is not about rich parents trying to keep their privilege. This is about upper middle class and middle class parents trying to extend their privilege to students beyond their affluent community. It’s not perfect but Pali High is far more diverse — both economically and demographically — than the typical affluent high school.
I suspect Pali High is more diverse than when you sent your kids there.
And what is with that nasty comment about Hillary? I hope ALL of us will never get over Hillary. If you think this country is not suffering because she lost then you are truly deluding yourself. Look beyond yourself and see how many children are terrified of being taken out of their schools and sent to a country they can’t remember.
So what was the socioeconomic makeup of the Pali High that met with your approval in the 1950s? Inquiring minds want to know how wonderful this Pali High was in serving at-risk kids back when things were so idyllic and you didn’t have to bash them for all the ills of the reformers. How many non-white and economically at-risk students back then?
Ah, hell….
Tragic for LA and for the rest of the nation.
The 74 website is full of praise for the takeover. If LA is to be the new New Orleans miracle, then this school board will be doing everything possible to get rid of LA’s experienced teachers who have retirement benefits, put in temps, and spend another fortune on tech delivery of instruction to large classes.
The tech industry must be salivating.
Too bad, so sad. The future looks bleak for the city of Angles.
I think you mean “angels” but I can see why it could be called the city of “angles” with the shenanigans in this election.
How sad. L.A., land of my childhood and home area of my siblings, has come such a long way over the years and is a great city getting better all the time. This is a set back, but I hope the good citizens will see the light during the reign of Broad, et. al. and not allow damage that can’t be repaired eventually.
Thanks for your reporting, Diane.
This wasn’t a vote for “billionaire privatizers”.
The incumbent school board approved 10% raises for teachers in the last contract negotiation despite a huge deficit that is now over $1.6 billion. $1 billion of that could be attributed to charter schools if the district made no budget adjustments as 100,000 students left their schools, so this can hardly be blamed on charters. In fact, full time staff in LAUSD schools actually increased in the past 6 years while they lost that many students.
The district is already $4.2 billion in debt. Unfunded post-employment benefits are estimated at $10.9 billion. LAUSD’s own accounting shows they actually make money on charter schools: http://laschoolreport.com/lausd-makes-money-from-charters-contradicting-utla-funded-study-documents-show/. Union-controlled incumbents have driven LAUSD into debt and near bankruptcy.
Pedro Noguera says: “The implications of Steve Zimmer and his allies putting the interests of the downtown bureaucracy before the interests of kids, with the LAUSD teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, is if Zimmer wins, he’s going to turn around and negotiate billion-dollar contracts with the same special interests that just elected him.”
This is the problem when publicly elected school boards are largely made up of union-backed candidates (75%) who then are supposed to negotiate with those who elected them on contracts. This results in irresponsible spending. Frankly, this is viewed as charter vs. district only because the charter sector is the only credible opposition group to business as usual.
This is why there are so many mainstream democrats on the winning side. “Public education” didn’t lose to “privatization”. What lost is the union effectively being on both sides of the negotiating table and the resultant bankrupting of a school district. Talking about “billionaire privatizers” is a smokescreen for trying to protect a dysfunctional bureaucracy that is doing great damage to the children in their care.
And regarding Zimmer’s contention that all was well because graduation rates were up? All they did was lower the graduation requirement to allow “D”s in core classes. The result is more graduates, but 53% of LAUSD HS graduates now don’t qualify for admission to California public universities.
John, your focus is pretty dispiriting to say the least.
There is a whole other debate on Unionism and 2017 America. This is definitely a worthy one to have because I’m of the belief that Working America has suffered enormously to the great benefit of those “working class heroes” Eli Broad and the Walton Foundation. For all of 20th Century history, the Republicans and now, grimly, 21st Century neo-liberal Democrats, have targeted unions as the scourge of the problems of budgets.
The rich, under your economic and social structure philosophy, John, enjoy almost unfettered access to PUBLIC resources and funds. The Right Wing has sought to privatize as much as possible these revenues.
I am disgusted by how these billionaires have used a REPUBLICAN tax and economic system to further their conquests. To hear you cheering their methodology on turns my stomach.
I know there are many (mostly well off people) who LOVE Wal-Mart and believe they represent the best in America. They have entered the political fray most clearly in what they endorse in terms of national EDUCATION policy. We KNOW what they endorse in terms of ECONOMIC policy..
John, it is completely disingenuous to say that this school board election was about the district’s solvency issue.
The Charter Power Structure, their lobbyists, their backers are almost exclusively rich, well-connected and white. Sorry to bring race into it, but THAT debate needs to be put front and center. Who benefits from this dual school system? Who benefits from the influx of cash that comes with Charters?
This is not a Civil Rights crusade. When one looks at the forces and faces behind the charter movement and the grotesque Republican philosophy that has gone to the wall for the California Democrats in these school board races, then it is impossible to argue that these folks are in the Progressive vanguard.
UTLA has a number of problems (I actually wish they were MORE Progressive than they are!), but the school budgets and, more importantly, the PRIORITIES of districts are decisions made by people with a lot more power and influence.
Steve Zimmer was lousy at articulating a Progressive argument for his re-election. I wish there was someone else running who could have put forth a better case for public education. But he was up against enormous power, money and influence. Eli Broad and company excel in putting self-interest ahead of a common good–and then selling it to the (mostly white) public.
Here Broad and Walton share a commonality with the President of the United States.
Let’s have this debate on values and Civil Rights, John. And sure, I’m all in about exchanging ideas with you about what economic policies are best to help both the school district and the students they serve.
John…your comments are politically loaded.
You forget the almost $1 Billion debt caused by John Deasy, the Eli Broad/Tony Villaraigosa puppet, who caused so many disasters during his reign as Supt. He not only did the dirty deals with the iPads and Pearson, but also MiSiS, and the huge overkill he used in closing an entire school when one teacher was proven to be a child molester. The lawsuits are still being paid off to the large group of parents whose children were traumatized. And then of course, there was the interim Supt. Cortines whose sexual harassment lawsuits and settlements were paid for by the taxpayers.
In California, over 40,000 teachers and support staff were fired due ostensibly to the recession. Only a few thousand were hired back.
HOWEVER, the administration, Supt. King, has hired additional administrators to work at Broad’s Beaudry building (Broad sold this overpriced real estate to the school district) and it is almost impossible to find out how and why these ‘6 figure’ earning
employees were hired when the district needs nurses, librarians, janitors, who earn a pittance. So many teachers have been not given due process but have been put in ‘teacher jail’ to get rid of them just as their pensions and health care were about to vest….so these university trained teachers are being replaced with TFA kids who work for $18,000 – $30,000 with no real education creds of 4 – 6 years of higher ed training, but have only FIVE WEEKS of TFA classes.
So John, although you present some facts, you avoid the hubris that this district has presented for some time, and that is being economically squeezed by these “free marketeers” who spent
$14 Million on this election to win the majority of only 75,000 votes.
This system STINKS.
We MUST get rid of Citizens United and all this DARK MONEY that pays for lies…and we must concurrently all be active in overseeing where our tax money is going…but as far as the few of us who do speak out see, there are hardly any activists who give a damn about not only the LAUSD BoE, but about our NATION all told.
I agree re Citizens United, and I don’t have enough information to argue with you regarding LAUSD. But, if union-backed candidates had the majority of the board, why are they not responsible for the actions of the superintendent they hired?
“There is a whole other debate on Unionism and 2017 America. This is definitely a worthy one to have because I’m of the belief that Working America has suffered enormously to the great benefit of those “working class heroes” Eli Broad and the Walton Foundation.”
I don’t disagree. But, a union-backed majority has advanced the union agenda of more jobs and more spending at a time when it was really irresponsible.
I guess the question is this:
Can public sector trade unions be expected to work in partnership with management for the advancing of the organization’s purpose in the same manner European-style trade unions do in the corporate world? I honestly don’t know the answer since our economic system is so different from Europe. But, I think if it can’t happen, the public sector union’s role will continue to diminish.
“For all of 20th Century history, the Republicans and now, grimly, 21st Century neo-liberal Democrats, have targeted unions as the scourge of the problems of budgets.”
Don’t you acknowledge the budget-busting unfunded pension and benefit costs that have led to so many district bankruptcies? Unions act in their own best interests (as they should), and when they are overrepresented in school Boards, they work together to make financially imprudent decisions. Moderate democrats just recognize that unions only represent a portion of the best interests of public education.
“John, it is completely disingenuous to say that this school board election was about the district’s solvency issue.”
I guess polls will tell, but I don’t think that’s true at all. As I mentioned, the charter folks were the only organized opposition.
“Who benefits from this dual school system? Who benefits from the influx of cash that comes with Charters?”
Parents who send their kids to charters benefit. You tell me who you think benefits from the “influx of cash”, and please be specific and offer evidence. As LAUSD’s numbers show, the district makes money when a student goes to a charter.
“UTLA has a number of problems (I actually wish they were MORE Progressive than they are!), but the school budgets and, more importantly, the PRIORITIES of districts are decisions made by people with a lot more power and influence.”
Now this is disingenuous. UTLA-backed candidates have had a majority. Do you think UTLA gets nothing for their support of these candidates?
“Steve Zimmer was lousy at articulating a Progressive argument for his re-election. I wish there was someone else running who could have put forth a better case for public education.”
This argument only works if you think that “public education” lost in this election. To draw that conclusion, you have to pretty much define “public education” as what’s best for teachers without regard to budget deficits, debt, and failing academic performance.
FYI, I’m a progressive democrat and I believe we should be spending more on public education. I wish I could feel better about unions, but the management/labor divide in this country is not a benefit to organizations. IMO, both sides need to change, but I don’t see it happening.
John,
Every argument you make to support charters is what is used to say we need to get rid of social security. Privatize it instead.
Those Dems just aren’t facing facts that we don’t have the money. We need to raise the retirement age to 75 and tell people there is no longer any guaranteed benefit but whatever their contributions earn will determine their pension.
We need to end social security as we know it and let people “choose” to contribute or not contribute to their salary. There is no other option.
And youir argument is EXACTLY the right wing argument to get rid of medicare! Too expensive now. Instead, you get your “voucher” and are free to choose whatever “charter” insurance will cover you. And by the way, that insurance company can drop you as soon as you get too sick. Tough. They have to make a profit don’t they?
What’s that you say? You want us to pay the doctors who treat the sickest patients a decent wage? Not a chance — after all, the proof of how terrible they are is that those patients aren’t getting better.
We’re spending our money instead to pay the insurance company that gets such good results with the patients who are healthy. And they are so very good at kicking out the patients who just have to go.
Oversight? This system doesn’t need no stinkin oversight! The “market” will decide. After all, the sickest patients who get shown the door will die soon anyway so their “choice” doesn’t matter. Let them rot. And if a ‘public’ hospital takes them and they don’t get better, that just PROVES that our system works because our private insurance keeps all patients healthy. And the ones who don’t are disappeared so it’s 100% healthy! You can’t beat that! And the healthy patients love us until their kids get sick and they realize their kid is where the unworthy Americans belong. But since the kid deserves it, it’s all good. Let’s claim those kids’ illnesses are their own fault for their nastiness and therefore charters have no responsibility for them because they are unworthy. If they go missing who cares?
That’s just the price you have to pay in our new world order that people like John say are the ONLY choices we can have. And we’ll offer Trump-like lies about how we care about all children as we throw the ones who we don’t want out with the garbage. Or better yet, leave them in public schools so we can attack their teachers and demand more of their resources for their failures! The rich get richer! It’s all good because the kids that don’t count are worthless and invisible to you except as props in which you bash the only schools willing to teach them. Which are very much NOT charters. Shameful.
The fake “reformers” have so much in common with Trump and the right wing Republicans and every word they spout to justify the privatization of public schools could be used to end every single public program in American history. Who needs that stinkin medicare and social security anyway? You’ve proved to us all that any private insurance company that is allowed to run rampant with no oversight can kick out the expensive patients and claim success. Let’s do the same with medicare. Because every argument you make about schools applies to that as well.
Denying financial realities does not solve any problem and does not make one a progressive.
What’s your solution for LAUSD?
I don’t believe in privatizing social security as that does not solve any problem and merely puts more money in the pockets of the financial industry. It is a transparent money grab by well-connected donors.
But, the same just can’t be said about not-for-profit charter schools. Nor can one argue that LAUSD is being financially responsible.
My solution for LAUSD is to have TWO budgets:
One budget takes care of ALL the historic pension costs for retired teachers and it has nothing to do with the school budget. Voters decide whether to raise taxes on the rich to pay for the fact that these pensions should have been funded for decades but weren’t.
The second budget is for CURRENT education. And if someone wants to open a charter, it is run by the same school system and subject to the same transparency laws as every public school. No separate private boards of outsiders. If there are savings because the charter’s students, while poor, are all from motivated families willing to go the extra mile and thus save the charter huge amounts of money, that savings goes back to the pot and isn’t spent on marketing to get even more of those kids. What a waste.
You don’t allow someone who is politically connected start a charter for privileged children that also “welcomes” any child but since my handpicked teachers are taught exactly how to treat the children that I don’t want there, can rid themselves of as many children as they want. It’s certainly a nice boondoggle for them since they demand funding that should be spent on the schools that don’t drum out those kids and get it based on “results”.
And TRANSPARENCY. Do you even look at what happens in Ramapo NY when the people who sit on boards — in that case the religious Jews who don’t use the schools – – are in control of money and insist on no transparency? Why would anyone but a crook promote that for charter schools in LA? You “trust” people who are outsiders to the school to make decisions that they can hide from the public? Why?
The fact that the charter folks fight transparency so hard should be enough to tell you how corrupt they are. No one but the most corrupt people fight it. There is absolutely no reason to unless you have something to hide. Although Trump supporters everywhere disagree strongly. Do you?
LA has a board of people who will fight transparency and that speaks volumes. Hearing them pretend to oppose Trump — who reflects their views that the powerful should be above transparency because they re so trustworthy — is laughable. When you spend so much money to fight transparency, as both Trump and your pals in the charter industry do, you have something untoward to hide. But Trump supporters, and perhaps you, strongly disagree. Just own it.
My guess is nobody here likes your option to let voters decide whether to pay for historic pension costs, and neither do I.
The narrative about the elected board members being against transparency and the defeated ones for it is nonsense. Nothing but a rationalization to avoid looking at the real issues.
Your talking points regarding motivated parents and profit motives are old and refuted.
“Refuted??”
Stop with the lies. Got to go lists? Insisting that 25% of any class of 5 year olds from the most motivated families were so violent that you had no choice but to suspend them? Fighting transparency that hides outrageously high attrition rates for the randomly selected lottery winners in Kindergarten who are at-risk? And that’s the charter that Eli Broad recognizes as the one that need to be replicated for their “good work” in separating the unworthy kids from the worthy ones (or as charter school advocates call them — the worthy “strivers” who charters are now willing to teach since the non-strivers aren’t providing them with bragging rights and bragging rights trumps kids every day.)
How good is your charter, John? I bet your own charter isn’t matching the 100% proficiency rates of those that push out kids. Dare you claim that it is? Why don’t sub-par charters like yours hand over the keys to an administrator that CAN get top scores? Is it because you know those top scores are based on a lie? You can’t have it both ways. If you cared about kids and you didn’t believe those scores were a lie, you would shut down your charter and beg one of those 100% Success charters to take it over. But when it comes to comparing your school with them, you go silent. You are complicit.
Feel free to step down and turn your charter over to a chain that knows how to get 100% passing rates. Will you? Why is that charter getting them while your mediocre charter isn’t? What’s wrong with you that you have the ability to fire a lousy teacher at will and still INSIST that your failing teachers keep their jobs? Other charters can find teachers who can get 100% success and you hire teachers that fail with so many students. Why?
“nobody here likes your option to let voters decide whether to pay for historic pension costs, and neither do I.”
I know, John. You seem content to have the students in public schools bear that burden because it provides an excellent incentive for families of the “good” ones to choose charters where their per pupil allocation doesn’t have to cover that cost. And maybe if charter operators weren’t greedy and dishonest I would actually hear even one of them acknowledge this: “It’s wrong for the public schools that handle a far more expensive and special needs population have to use part of their per pupil dollars to pay for historic pension costs and we don’t even though we teach much cheaper kids.” Servicing debt that was accrued by the same people who rushed to start charters should NEVER be borne only by public school students.
But no one ever said charter operators were honest. After all, if you can rationalize that you are helping those poor non-white kids and pat yourself on the back for doing good you can pretend the massive number of children you harm by your dishonesty are unworthy anyway and don’t deserve it. And pretend that your nice little overpaid compensation package at your “non-profit” charter has nothing to do with you being complicit to the Trump/DeVos agenda.
FYI – I will be secretly laughing at charter operators like you when the voucher people get their way because your own dishonesty in this debate. You will get a little taste of your own medicine as your cheapest students go running for the “better” schools and you are left with the rest. You’ve spent so much time being dishonest that when that same dishonesty goes to enrich the for-profit voucher schools that will happily take the best pupils off your hands, it will only be karma. But don’t worry, I’m sure there will be plenty of high paying jobs with some of those new for-profit voucher schools for the complicit charter advocates willing to sell out more “unworthy” kids to promote their schools. And I’m sure today’s pro-charter advocates will rush to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
Didn’t even need to get to the first paragraph before I learned everything I need to know appeared.
In Partnership with The 74
If that’s “everything you need to know”, then I guess we know everything we need to know about how educated your opinion is.
Disclosure: The report was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, which also funds The 74.
So the answer of course is to turn the whole thing over to unaccountable charter schools, who show no better results than the public schools and present multiple opportunities for fraud and the looting of the public treasury for public gains because, you know unions. Because terrible wages and no benefits are sure to attract the type of workforce needed to educate kids. Your side would be much more credible if the CCSA did not fight tooth and nail to resist every effort to bring transparency and disclosure to the sector.
Ray,
In elections, people don’t get to choose shades of gray, they choose from a limited set of candidates. So no, I don’t think the answer is all charter schools, and I’m confident that the vast majority of people who voted for the winning candidates don’t think so either.
Also, it’s the union that framed this as a battle between public schools and privatization. I’m sure they would have continued to do that if their candidates won. But, since they didn’t, maybe they’ll look at the real issues that caused them to lose. Hint: not privatization.
More charter schools = continued weakening of public schools for the benefit institutions that will only be around for so long as there is money to be made. 30% of all charters close in 10 years. In the meantime, entities such as Alliance College Ready Public Schools have amassed a portfolio of $200 Million in real estate, owned by private interests, not the public, with funds provided by the state and federal governments, according to the Spending Blind, a report by In the Public Interest. Why would a billionaire like Reed Hastings, who has no kids in the LA Schools invest $5 million in this battle? Open your eyes. it is not a question of “framing.” As a self-described liberal democrat you can possibly support a movement that will suck out as much of the public treasury as it can before leaving the public to deal with the burnt out rubble of what is left of the public school system – real estate taken over as schools are closed and sold, experienced teachers gone as they are fired in favor of the low-skilled individuals preferred by charters, all for the benefit of an opportunistic few-certainly not for the students. .
The privatizers don’t want all charter schools.
They want public schools as the dumping ground for the ones who cost more. In the old days, the cheaper costs of the easy to teach students were balanced out by the more expensive costs of the tougher ones so the “per pupil” spending was a true average of both types of students.
But charters decided there was profit to be made by taking only the cheapest students and making sure that public schools had a disproportionate number of the most expensive ones.
Normally most people would have laughed such a notion out of business because it’s a ridiculous expenditure of public money. If an insurance company offered to take all the healthiest senior citizens and only send back to Medicare the ones who need expensive treatment, John would never say “it’s a great idea! Let those private insurance companies make their profits or let a non-profit “private’ insurance company who does the same thing have money to pay their staff and CEO enormous salaries. Medicare is happy to cover the expensive ones so they can make a profit.”
No doubt once the same people chomping at the bit for charter schools get the privatization they want, they will start on medicare next.
Or social security, except it will be the opposite! John’s favorite “charter” social security company will take the SICKEST seniors who will die in the next few years. If their cancer goes into remission, they get sent back to the regular social security pension. It’s depressing to believe that this country is run by such greedy people who are in charters to save money and nothing else.
You sound a lot like John Deasy….could it be
John,
Steve Zimmer was not anti-charter. He approved almost every charter proposal. But he made the mistake of wanting transparency and accountability. That enraged the charter industry which prefers to let corruption and greed go unchecked. They had to take him down.
You make my point for me. Zimmer lost because he refused to address the financial challenges, not because he was for or against charters.
Zimmer lost Because of a $15 million smear campaign and a turnout of less than 10%
Broad, Fordham, hedge funders like Loeb, tech tyrants, ECOT owners declaring a win over the common weal… isn’t a victory. It is evil supplanting good.
“unfettered free markets, so revered in British policy that a million Irish were allowed to die of starvation, had no place in this colony.” Tim Egan writing about the principles of Civil War Gen. Thomas Meghear.
I can’t print what I’m thinking.
UTLA shouldn’t be left off the hook.
Zimmer was definitely a “flawed candidate,” but L.A. has a long history of politicians who talk a progressive game by starting their careers on the LAUSD school board. The so-called UTLA influence on the school board has been a disaster for the profession of teaching. The elephant in the room hidden behind a great wall of lies and sensationalism, is the teacher jail program that UTLA runs in order to forestall the ‘sky is falling’ financial disaster that is on so many people’s lips. This ‘looming disaster,’ is in many ways manufactured by changes in accounting requirements pushed by the ‘run government like a business,’ power structure in both parties. Their next target is government employee pensions in general and California State Teachers Retirement System in particular. (Follow the link below for an analysis that clearly explains the issue. This applies not only to pensions but to retiree health benefits which will soon be done away with. UTLA tells members “that no other district in the state provides lifetime retiree health benefits,” instead of fighting for what we won through a nine day strike in 1989.) UTLA does not actually defend or protect dues paying teachers but spends a lot of money ‘organizing’ charter school scabs. Morale among members and trust in UTLA is at its lowest and this influenced the turnout for Zimmer.
Thanks for the link.
Beware of the supposed progressive-training organization “New Leaders Council” (NLC) to whose institute Nick Melvoin attended. The NLC is promoting Melvoin first in a non-alphabetical listing of newly elected grads.
http://www.newleaderscouncil.org/on_the_rise_5_nlc_leaders_elected_yesterday