Claudia Vizcarra’s statement was posted as a comment. Steve Zimmer fought against the Billionaires Boy Club twice, and lost the second time. I strongly supported Steve. It was only after the election that I wrote that I wished he had fought harder against charters and drawn the lines more sharply against privatization. To Steve’s credit, he is a thoughtful, reasonable, open-minded person. If he had been able to match Melvoin dollar for dollar, he would have whipped him. But this is the reality we face: none of us who understand the value and importance of public education can match the BBC dollars. We are many, they are few. That’s the only way to save our schools: people power. Votes.
She writes:
“I feel the need to weigh in at this time. I worked for Steve Zimmer for 7 years, the last 4 I was his Chief of Staff. I appreciate Diane speaking to the complexity of the issues in this election. I want to add a couple of pieces that need to be taken into consideration, in my opinion.
“The first one is that Steve did not come out strongly enough against charter schools. I was there when Steve called for a moratorium for new charters petitions prior to his previous election – which was determined not to be legal and generated a massive campaign against him. Despite this, he prevailed in the election. Steve objected time and again against charters for not serving special education students or a diverse enough populations. Charters have long responded to these issues by saying, we’re trying. Some do and some don’t. Steve also called out the massive expansion of charters that Broad and his billionaire friends were (are) planning.
“And Steve made a strong case for changing the narrative to one that focused on increasing enrollment. He authored resolution after resolution asking Superintendent’s Deasy, Cortines and now King to make strategic investments in the programs that were drawing parents back into our schools.
“And it’s important to look at the issue in its complexity. We can’t forget that like it or not, charter schools parents are also constituents and cannot be flat out ignored. And let’s remember that Districts have to deal with the reality that even when they reject a charter petition at the onset, charters have the right to appeal both at the County level and at the State level again. So, a charter can be denied by the local Board and still have a right to be co-located in District schools that have available classrooms. Consider the complexity of this.
“Some people have argued that Steve lost his election because he supported the resolution that called for supporting SB 808 – which asks that an appeal at the county level can only be denied on the basis of the local Board committing a procedural violation. Whether this is the right fix or not, is an open question. Consider again, the complexity of this.
“Others have argued that the more appropriate arena for local Boards to engage in is the difficult conversation of defining what a ‘sound educational plan’. The LAUSD Board of Education began this conversation, and would have continued it if Steve had been re-elected. But consider how complex this conversation, is, if you will.
“My point is not to be a Zimmer apologist. We all know that like all of us, Steve is human and made mistakes. Our democracy does not require perfection from our leaders. But we are learning, all too painfully, that it requires our leaders to consider matters carefully. And it requires that more people join the conversation and have thoughtful conversations.
“In my opinion, Steve made a valiant effort to make a case for public education. He authored and supported countless resolutions detailing the many elements that make our District schools the best choice in some communities, and supported the District in making the improvements needed to make sure they are the best choice in the communities where parents don’t find them to be so. Anyone who cares to look, will find that his policy legacy is robust, and that we don’t need to start from square one to build progressive policy. There is a lot there to build on for those who want to do this.
“I am not sure if calling charters parasites is the best way to go. But I am sure that in California we have to start by working to repeal Proposition 39. I don’t believe there is a voter that is not shocked to learn that they voted to support the mayhem this has created. Voters across the state need to learn what this looks like on the ground, and we need to consider a better alternative.
“In Los Angeles, I also feel that there has been insufficient attention to making charters accountable. The LA School Report provides a daily dosage of LAUSD’s failings. But I don’t know which media outlet has ever sent a reporter to charter board meetings. No one has studied how many of those Boards have A-G resolutions, or resolutions that promote restorative justice. I am not sure if the civil rights groups in Los Angeles have paid the same attention to the rights of the over 100,000 students in charter schools.”
If charter schools are public schools, entitled to public dollars and public school classrooms, they require the same attention from those committed to social justice.
I am really sick of billionaires. They think that just because they have $$$$$$ they can do anything. I think being a billiionaire is a HUGE DISEASE and what those billionaires do is FATAL for this country.
You’re right.
The billionaires get away with it because they are white-washed by media. Vanity Fair, AARP, Redbook ,,,did it for Melinda Gates. Newspapers did it for Bill Gates.
The national Democratic Party failed to be an opposition party which aided the Republican DINO’s destruction of American democracy. The Center for American Progress, synonymous with Democratic National Party leadership, white- washes Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Corey Booker… David Brock’s Media Matters provides the mask for Broad, DFER, Gates….
Don’t forget PBS and NPR. When have you heard a truly balanced report on the problems facing teachers? When have they reported without using the phrase “failing public schools.” Consider how the media reports the teacher shortage not as a problem with abuse of teachers by supervisors but as some inexplicable mystery.
When PBS released Cato’s School Inc. privatization plot video and local PBS stations aired it and/or had a link to it at their sites, they ceased to have the right to exist. I’m sorry for the kids, PBS was the most convenient place for a lot of kids to get some programming that was beneficial to them.
Linda,
I saw the whole series. It is sheer privatization propaganda. I will be writing about it.
I am not impressed by A-G resolutions. In fact, I think it is a stupid idea to make being able to solve advanced mathematics problems a requirement for graduation. It has led to the fraudulent credit recovery that Zimmer embraced.
I also doubt that restorative justice is very big outside of the leftist community. People want good safe schools.
I think his TFA elitist routes did not allow him to conduct a focused fight for public schools. He didn’t make it clear that charter schools were private contractors and that they were sucking money out of public schools and undermining the LAUSD. He became just another neoliberal politician.
If he really fought for public schools, he may have still lost but it would not have been a wipe-out.
Tultican is correct. Steve went along with Deasy and Cortines style changes like A through G requirements and online credit recovery classes. He was definitely NOT a critic of TFA. He voted for Deasy. Twice. His vote for iPads was made knowing full well their main purpose was Common Core testing. Vizcarra wrote, “He authored and supported countless resolutions detailing the many elements that make our District schools the best choice in some communities, and supported the District in making the improvements needed to make sure they are the best choice in the communities where parents don’t find them to be.” It seems to me the word ‘improvements’ is interchangeable with ‘turnarounds’. Well, I happen to be a teacher whose District school fought off and therefore survived one of those attacks — er, I mean improvements. Now, once again, I face another voucher zealot because the Commoner Core/charter scam apologist is gone. At least this voucher zealot isn’t orange.
I am in accord with Claudia, Tom Tutican, and great teacher from the Left Coast. We are all in agreement that Zimmer was too much of the problem and too little of the solution.
However, the buying by Broad/Riordan and Co. of privatizers Melvoin and Gonez, Rodriguez and Garcia, and his hold over the others, with the exception of Schmerelson, is disgusting and defeats true democratic elections.
TFA minimalists like Caputo-Pearl who heads UTLA, and Zimmer, seem to be easy captures for the big boys with the deep pockets.
Who knows? Ellen knows.
BAM, Ellen Lubic nails it. Don’t forget that Caputo-Pearl ran a very doctrinaire party-line campaign without input from outside his echo chamber.
Claudia Viscarra writes;
“If he had been able to match Melvoin dollar for dollar, he would have whipped him.”
Teachers have direct contact with our students’ parents but very few volunteered this time around because of the contradictions in Zimmer and UTLA’s message compared to their actions. I sure didn’t. It’s madness to think that money and tv commercials are more important than parent contact. This worked during our strike in 1989 but has not been used since in a meaningful and effective way
““And it’s important to look at the issue in its complexity.”
Here come the obfuscations and deflections! Hope you all have put on your galoshes.
Duane, you are too harsh. Steve Zimmer has been replaced by a puppet of the Billionaires. He will their servant. They paid for him.
First I was referring to his chief of staff with my comment. Chief of staff is an appointed position. While I wasn’t referring to Zimmer in my post, his CoS, I presume speaks for him.
Last sentence of post which I assume is from his chief of staff, which I assume he agrees with.
“If charter schools are public schools, entitled to public dollars and public school classrooms, they require the same attention from those committed to social justice.”
Well, we know the vast majority if not all of the charter schools are private schools funded by public monies in the LAUSD. Please correct me if I’m wrong. So is he a really against those private schools sucking funds out of the LAUSD? It doesn’t matter now, though does it, as he was not able to rally the base to get re-elected (not that I wouldn’t have preferred him over Melvoin, but I don’t live in La La land.
I read a sorry apologetic letter that serves. . . I’m not sure what purpose. A letter so typical of those who him and haw, who pretend to be one thing when they are another, to baffle with bullshit, etc. . . .
Which is okay, I just ain’t buying.
No. Duane sees the picture pretty clearly.
LAUSD has lost more experienced teachers than can be explained by actuaries or loss of enrollment. Any wonder why? It seems that experienced teachers are not important in building any kind of “sound educational plan.
An example?
“Our democracy does not require perfection from our leaders.”
They are not “our leaders”. They are our servants!
Our “servants” are leading us to slaughter.
Got that right, Duane, but way too many (if not most) of them seem to believe that they are our “leaders” and that we need to follow wherever they “lead” us.
Apparently, none of them have ever read our Constitution. 😦
That sounds a little bit like the student who throws at a teacher that his parent pays his salary so the teacher works for his parent. A teacher is not the servant of the parent. Neither is a Board member my servant because I elected them. They are there to serve the common good. They were chosen to make decisions on behalf of the community. I’m not saying this very well. I am trying to point out a difference between serving and being a servant. Help!
Memo to Zimmer and Vizcarro- NOT CHARTER, NOT PUBLIC- They are CONTRACTOR SCHOOLS.
If I may add a word to more fully explain you’re thought: Private contractor schools or Privately contracted schools.
Perhaps ‘teaching mercenaries” is more like it…after all Eric Prince and his sis Betsy know how to keep that kind of money pot going.
Mercenary contractors… but, that’s redundant.
Don’t forget that UTLA has been hectoring us about supporting our “friends” for the thirty years that I’ve been around. With such friends, who needs enemies?
You ask the operant question, Mike.
For UTLA not to have supported university-credentialed long time LAUSD teacher who lived her entire life in the district in which she taught, Lisa Alva, in her campaign to unseat the Broad charterizer puppet, Monica Garcia, was beyond folly.
I have become very jaded after registering voters in LA County Latino/Chicano communities for over 35 years, and then to have a showing in this vital election of a mere 7+%, leaves me nonplussed.
We who write here, who live and work in So. California, all seem to be on the same page.
By the way, we still don’t know who put up the $25,000 for the Voteria that defeated Kayser, do we?
Ask Antonio Gonzalez of the SouthWest Voters Registration group, Mike.
Might have been Broad and his fellow travelers. I too would like to know but could not get an answer from him. And parenthetically, could not get him to publicly support Lisa Alva for BoE. So I assume by his lack of response, he supported Monica Garcia. Recently, I notice that the Latino CoC is very active with this group both in California and the other SouthWestern states where they have developed a major election presence.
They were far more egalitarian when I joined long ago.
I have been a member for many decades and never before saw anything like that Voteria (like Loteria) scam. I think so many of we long time members shouted out in horror about Voteria (and how deceptively Rodriguez used it to beat Kayser) that the Prez of the organization. Gonzalez, seems to have shut it down. Even a fellow City College professor, when interviewed by him, said it was “illegal.”
And LAUSD and the League of Women Voters share blame for allowing students eligible to vote to actually be targeted on high school campuses to register and vote for cash. Disgusting.
Ever vigilant, pal. Glad you remember my rants here.
Your rants aren’t rants because you just tell the truth. You appeal to good sense.
I guess illegal doesn’t always mean against the law.
Thank you, Claudia. You are so right. I hope that both you and Steve will continue to fight for all students in LAUSD.
Everybody should be fighting against the oligarchs’ agenda to make the U.S. a colony for the richest 0.1%.
The idea is to stand up for public schools and against competition among them. Children shouldn’t have to compete for resources. I was reminded of Steve Zimmer’s attempts to “improve” public schools to help the compete with charters when I read the recent Howard Blume interview with Nick Melvoin, who said, “My goal is to mitigate charter growth by improving district schools.” Sounded familiar.
As Melvoin held hands with PRev leaders Litt and Rose with crossed fingers…and as he kissed his benefactors derrieres.