Tom Ultican writes that the board of LAUSD is nearing the time of making a decision about who will be the next superintendent of the Los Angeles public schools.
The former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Austin Beutner, a billionaire and a buddy of Eli Broad, wants to be chosen. He has no education experience, although he does seem to have ties to Betsy DeVos.
The superintendent of the Indianapolis public schools, notorious as a fan of privatization, has taken his hat out of the ring.
That leaves Andres Alonso, who was superintendent in very low-performing Baltimore City, and veteran Los Angeles educator, Vivian Ekchian. The NAEP scores for Baltimore City are significantly below those of the Los Angeles district.
Ms. Ekchian has worked in the LAUSD for 32 years. She has had every possible role in the schools and is now acting superintendent. An Armenian-American who was born in Iran, she has natural empathy for the many immigrant students in the public schools.
The LAUSD board should choose a consensus candidate, not ram through a candidate chosen by a temporary majority.
If the swing vote, Ref Rodriguez, should be convicted of the felonies on which has has been indicted, the board will be 3-3. The superintendent must be in a position to work for and with the board, in the best interests of the students. That will be impossible if the next leader is chosen in a divisive 4-3 vote.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for focusing on the problems that will certainly arise with a divided board. It’s expected that Rodriguez will not be able to hold onto his board seat for long. What will happen then as to how to fill his remaining term will be decided by the board. However, Rodriguez has accomplished one thing, and that is to point out how easily a charter operator can be corrupted. That alone will certainly pave the way to replace him with a public school supporter. In a 4-3 majority against charters, Beutner would not survive very long. I hope he is thinking about this and realizing this would show a pattern of being fired from the LA Times and potentially adding being fired by LAUSD to his resume.
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Let’s hope the billionaires are unable to buy Board Member Vladovic’s vote. And funny thing, by the way, the two main groups advocating for Bankster Beutner were created by Bankster Beutner. Just ridiculous. Leave the children alone, billionaires!
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Buffalo had a candidate like that. She had paid her dues, went up through the ranks, and was beloved by all. She knew the system and how to navigate it and perhaps she would have been successful at turning it around but we will never know because the school board voted to bring in an outsider instead of making her interim position permanent. Her “replacement” didn’t last too long before they needed to restart the process once again.
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