Nick Melvoin beat Steve Zimmer for the LAUSD school board in the most expensive school board race in history.
The LA Times says he has fresh ideas.
Most of what he says is intended to enable the normalization of charter schools. Or is trite.
But get this:
“About 40% of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on measurable academic growth, such as standardized test scores, Melvoin said.”
Melvoin obviously is in the dark about the total failure of VAM.
But what would you expect from a puppet of Eli Broad?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So public schools should be closed after 5 years if they don’t meet data metrics, but charters get gentle encouragement to “move to a place” where they comply with open meetings and transparency?
“Although Melvoin has opposed current legislation on the issue, he said “we should move to a place” where charters are operating “under the same framework” as traditional schools when it comes to public records and open meetings.”
I can’t find anything in this plan that actually benefits kids who are in existing public schools. I know it’s impossible to imagine that parents and kids may actually prefer a public school over a charter school, but that is indeed often the case.
Why do ed reform plans never include supporting or improving public schools? Why are these plans always written to benefit charter schools?
Frankly, I think it’s a joke that these people claim to be “agnostic”. I don’t mind that they promote charter schools. That’s an opinion and they’re allowed to hold it. I mind that they won’t admit that’s what they’re doing.
It simply isn’t fair to parents and children in public schools to take over a district with a majority of public school attendees and set to work weakening their schools. No one hired these people to do that. It’s dishonest to tell the public one supports public school when one has no intention of doing that.
Just run on opening charter schools and closing public schools. That’s the plan. Why hide the ball if these ideas are so popular?
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This, by the way, is almost exactly the Obama Administration plan for public schools and public schools didn’t do very well under the last President. Public schools lost funding every year the President was in office and these plans were very unpopular with public school parents.
Admittedly Trump is worse- they don’t even pretend to value public school students or parents, but did LA really vote for Arne Duncan’s clone to run their schools? I doubt it.
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“The first school I visited last week was Walgrove [a traditional public school] … and one of the things they showed me was a classroom that’s not an instructional classroom, but they use for a half-theater, half-art-type program,” Melvoin said. “And I think that is a valid concern of parents, like, are these classrooms going to be taken away?”
Thank goodness the parents didn’t have a concern deemed “invalid”. He’s generously agreed to consider allowing them to keep the classroom they built and paid for.
What was the plan, I wonder? Just boot the public school kids out? So much for their art room, huh? We all must make sacrifices for the “innovative vision”- it seems public school kids are doing all the sacrificing. What was the benefit to them of losing the room? No one cared?
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He will find himself frustrated at almost every turn. Our research here in Canada says – if there is not substantial buy in by teachers for any particular reform it simply will not work.
Sometimes teachers will strangle it in the closet. Sometimes they will watch it fail with arms folded. The VAM issue if it sees the light of day will go to court where it will come unglued.
High seniority teachers will not go to poor schools without incentives. Force will lead to grievances and endless union fights.
His lower remuneration ideas will provoke strikes.
Populist claptrap from someone who doesn’t know the research and doesn’t know what he is doing. The bureaucracy and the union will tie him up in political knots and make him look like a fool.
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You seem to assume that teacher unions will survive the assaults on them, along with the deep pocket investments in replacing experienced teachers with TFA and other temps. VAM is still on the books in a number of states in spite of several recent court cases won by teachers.
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Nick seems to say different things to different outlets:
“This is what excites me at the moment,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of area of agreement when it comes to lowering class sizes, [putting] more money in education — potentially through a parcel tax or bond measure — and [creating] great working conditions for teachers, finding ways to stem the teacher shortage. Now, there might be differences in policy solutions for that, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity [for cooperation].”
All are tantalizing thoughts. But when questions turn to the possibility of regulating a system that has left neighborhoods blighted by charter oversaturation, or by charters that simply refuse to play by the transparency, oversight and accountability rules demanded of public schools, and has trapped public school kids in emotionally toxic Proposition 39 co-locations, Melvoin falls back on the familiar charter tautology of some-kids/not-all-kids laissez faire economics that marks the LAUSD board-member-elect as the Anti-Zimmer.
“You know, when you look back at the charter movement,” he reflected, “those rules weren’t meeting kids’ needs. And so the 130,000 kids’ [parents] who have chosen charters clearly believe that we need a new set of rules, and so there’s definitely a difference between regulation and rules. But this idea that we should get all charters to play by the same rules as the district school completely defeats the purpose of the whole movement.”
What happened to lowering class sizes and putting more money into education? That was for liberal voters, I guess. It seems to have dropped off the ‘ol agenda now that;s he’s safely elected.
It’s great that he’s an advocate for the “130,000 kids in charters”. Unfortunately he told public school parents and kids he would work for them too. If that isn’t true they should have voted for the other candidate.
https://capitalandmain.com/will-nick-melvoin-be-los-angeles-charter-schools-game-changer-0608
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The definition of a phony
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The LA Times’ editorial board had previously been all in favor of Gates Foundation corporate reform initiatives, such as publishing the bogus VAM scores of thousands of teachers on the LA Times’ website, which achieved nothing except shaming thousands of innocent teachers, and driving one teacher, Rigoberto Ruelas to suicide. Ruelas’ survivors asked to Times to take down his page out of respect, but they refused.
However, they recently had a change of heart about the Gates Foundation:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-gates-education-20160601-snap-story.html
Now, it says that the Gates Foundation “doesn’t have all the answers” when it comes to education.
The L.A. Times describes the Gates Foundation’s latest statement as “chastened” by its repeated failures in all of its signature reform initiatives — including the one that led to Ruelas’ suicide.
The LA Times editorial board now insists that “philanthropists shouldn’t be setting America’s public school agenda.”
Okay, fair enough, BUT THEN WHY THE (BLEEP) DID YOU ENDORSE Nick Melvoin AND Kelly Gones for School Board????!!!!
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Guess he got paid off and will benefit hugely in the $$$$$ and perks department.
So sick. The bigger the school district, the more $$$$$ pours into elections. It’s gross and absurd unless one profits.
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Melvoin on charter oversight: Some charters have been around for a while, so let’s remove all oversight and not require renewals. After all, older charters never change CMOs, CEOs, board members, or principals. Less oversight.
Melvoin on whether to limit charter growth: No limits.
Melvoin on having charters comply with the state’s open records and public meetings laws: I am “in favor” of openness but opposed to three bills introduced to the California Legislature intended to create openness. So, no openness.
Melvoin on providing charters space on public school campuses: We won’t take your “art type” classroom. We’ll take everything else but that.
Melvoin on managing and evaluating teachers: Look, at 31 I am too young to remember when Deasy tried and failed to make VAM 30% of evaluations. So, 40%! No, seriously, I’m just not very aware of research or public opinion on this issue. After all, when NCLB became law, I was in high school.
Melvoin on the district’s budget: Teachers are child molesters and should be removed before they can collect their pensions. That will save money.
Melvoin on Supt. King: I expect her to be on board as she was with Deasy and Cortines. I expect she will focus on standardized testing and obliterating pensions from the face of the Earth.
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VAM is a perfect example of a zombie idea, defined by Paul Krugman, as “a proposition that has been thoroughly refuted by analysis and evidence, and should be dead — but won’t stay dead because it serves a political purpose, appeals to prejudices, or both.” http://skepdic.com/zombieidea.html
Unfortunately, Google did not reveal any easy ways to rid the world of zombies once they are in place….
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Diane: A new book with author interview on http://www.BookTV.org (direct link below)
“The Givers: Wealth, Power and and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age,” by David Callaghan.
Callaghan gives a measured and critical discussion about the new oligarchs in our culture and their philanthropic activities. He weaves education, and their use of money in its development (mentioning charters and vouchers throughout), as a theme all through the interview, showing some philanthropy that is good, some bad, some from ignorance, some from intentional interest in changing the basic structure of democracy through covert organizations.
For instance, he says that the Zuckerbergs, having had so many problems with their infusion of cash into a New Jersey town and high school system using the fire hose method, did it again with a community in Silicon Valley–and THIS time “he “listened” to the local groups, boards of ed, teachers.
I do think there are some who have made cazillions of dollars who are well-meaning but just ignorant of the field of education. AND they have bought the propaganda that public schools are “failing.”
I think also that the idea holds sway with many that, if you are teaching children, you must be childlike; and the idea of respect for professionalism shrinks to the background of thought in a way that doesn’t with other professions. I think many think of teachers in the same frame as they do dog-walkers and house-sitters. FYI
https://www.c-span.org/video/?429143-7/givers
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CBK,
If only I could get “Reign of Error” into the hands of Zuckerberg and Chan. If only they would read it.
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dianeravitch I’m convinced, like Callaghan suggests, that we’ve entered a kind of gilded age–but where, in terms of permanent power sources, e.g., government and philanthropy, can tilt in any direction. If big power happens to presently be situated in these oligarchs, and SOME are truly well-meaning and identified with education in a democracy (politically astute), then I think the utter reasonableness of the arguments put forth here do have a mark to hit, and CAN hit that mark. I don’t know how–like so many other important things, someone has to know someone, I suppose. Maybe a presentation on YouTube directed at these gilded-age potentates?
Callaghan, at the end of his talk, and still taking a remote attitude about it, mentioned the recent Los Angeles election and how it was tilted, and how dangerous it was.
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Diane Addendum: Callahan is connected with “Inside Philanthropy.” (link below). Also, I viewed Philanthropy Roundtable’s book list (link below–wow).
But there may be some “insertion” and communications possibilities in these sites for someone like yourself and your “network” organization to make a dent in in their thinking about such significant ideas, and where things are trying to go off-track by so many in that powerful group of people. If I can do anything, I’ll be glad to help, insofar as I am able.
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazine/P18
Inside Philanthropy: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/
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CBK,
Philanthropy Roundtable is an organization created by rightwing foundations who believed they needed a voice to distinguish them from Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller, once the big guns of philanthropy. PR puts out a list of recommended funding opportunities, and all the education stuff is charters, vouchers, and TFA.
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diane I didn’t mean to misguide. I only perused Philanthropy Roundtable’s list of books from a very brief Google search of “philanthropy”–not from reference to this author Callahan. The bios there are probably quite enlightening, read from a politically critical point of view. If what you say is true about RT, and I don’t doubt it, they probable would see Callahan’s work in his books, and in “Inside Philanthropy” as anathema to their opportunistic encroachment and takeover of US institutions.
Callaghan offers a measured critique of the kinds of (in our view) misguided and (by anyone’s view) corrupt organizations who are involved in political takeover. He is raising the right questions–and has been doing so in his writing for a good while (several books with themes of corruption). HIS connection, mentioned in the BookTV interview, was with “Inside Philanthropy.” FWIW
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Diane More: It seems to me that it’s difficult to keep one’s finger on change, especially in our time of instant communications. In that interview, Callaghan talks about Gates asking for the mega-rich to give away half of their fortunes for good cause–and apparently many are doing just that. There was one mega-rich woman who reads about problems in the newspaper and says to herself: Hey–I can do something about that (with her and her husband’s money). To someone like that, we can say: WHO KNOWS what that woman might know about what WE on this site are talking about or anything else significant for that matter; or whether she knows what’s happening at the level of foundations in a democracy where such a power shift is occurring as we speak–from government to gild– especially where certain “strings” are attached to some “giving.”
But just thinking about our present situation–as a transition time, where power is hovering between government and, in fact, just a bunch of who-knows rich people, and where many are really clueless–just looking for something good to do with their good fortune–we probably need an organization named something like: Philanthropists for Maintaining Democracy. Or Democratic Institutions, or a Democratic Education
Well, we could say, how about just paying your taxes as a group? That would do it (ha-ha). But really–the authentic problem with that is that the right wing is really into taking over the whole thing, Congress, the Courts, and the Presidency. In lieu of just paying taxes, WE are the educators. There probably are many of these rich people who are NOT like Betsy and NOT like many of the right-wing zealots, fraudsters, and Wall Street money-mongers, but who just want to do good, and who would shrink from such insidious inclinations if they knew what was going on; but who, again, are clueless about what is happening when the power shifts in the way that it is. Just like any large group, they cannot be so monolithic in their corrupt intentions as many think.
Ultimately it’s not about the rich vs the poor, or about race, (though it seems so sometimes). Ultimately it’s about democracy or oligarchy and, with the later, a return to a neo-fascism or tribalism and all of the conflict that goes with these turns in history.
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