The Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to appoint a wealthy investment banker, Austin Beutner, as its superintendent by a vote of 4-3. The deciding vote was cast by Ref Rodriguez, a charter founder who is waiting to stand trial on multiple felony indictments related to campaign finance. The initial vote was kept secret for more than a week. Then another vote to taken to offer a contract to Mr. Beutner, and that was approved 5-2.
After many years as an investment banker, Beutner served briefly as deputy mayor of Los Angeles and served briefly as publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He has a close association with Eli Broad, the octogenarian billionaire who has declared his hope to put half the students in the nation’s second largest school district into privately managed charter schools.
The two career educators on the board were the dissenters. Scott Schmerelson released a statement decrying Beutner’s lack of any education experience.
George McKenna issued this statement today.
For Immediate Release May 2, 2018
Contact: Patrice Marshall McKenzie (213) 259-9763
STATEMENT FROM BOARD MEMBER DR. GEORGE J. MCKENNA III
REGARDING THE SELECTION OF LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT
As an experienced lifelong public-school educator, I feel compelled to voice my dissent regarding the selection of a non-educator to lead the second-largest school district in the nation.
In an abbreviated and rushed process without open community forums or input from school and District staff, parents and students, a majority of the Board of Education selected the new superintendent with a 5 to 2 vote. This choice of a person with no experience as an educator in K-12 school districts reflects the lack of concern for the continuity and stability of the District.
The premise that a non-educator is a better fit to lead a large educational organization because of limited managerial experience in outside business experiences is fundamentally flawed and politically motivated. To intentionally seek non-educators to serve as superintendents reflects a lack of respect for the professional educators who have demonstrated effective service and leadership within school systems, along with a denial of the Board’s ultimate responsibility to establish policies that govern the District and hold the Superintendent accountable.
The primary purpose of a school district is to establish and adequately resource effective schools, which are ultimately dependent on teachers, administrators and other school site staff. The dream of business-style governance being used in an urban school district to turnaround failing schools and/or lessen the achievement gap is a myth that has not materialized. This continued experiment on the neediest students and families is an injustice and an avoidance of the reality that our communities need the best educational leadership that be found.
Despite the enthusiasm by some for “outside” and “non-traditional” leadership for school districts, the reality is that this strategy never results in the reversal of underachievement in our neediest schools and communities. It is hard to believe that a governing board of a multi-billion dollar company would hire an inexperienced novice to lead their company in time of greatest need. This decision was predetermined by outside influences with a profit and political motive that will continue to expand without providing adequate resources to our neediest schools.
Although this decision was predictable and disappointing, I encourage our great team of employees and parents to continue communicating their needs and concerns to the superintendent, to me and the other Board Members.
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333 South Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor / Los Angeles, California 90017 Telephone (213) 241-6382 Facsimile (213) 241-8441 E-Mail:George.mckenna@lausd.net
Diane Ravitch's blog 
George McKenna has importantly added his voice to what has happened to “public” education in Los Angeles and how it is being shaped.,
Beutner’s tenure is going to be marked by the predictable disasters that will befall an educational novice. The hubris of corporate leaders whether they are Eli Broad or Donald Trump to “businessplain” the needs of education to the rest of us has brought ruin wherever their CEO pedagogy is implemented.
LAUSD will be no different.
The Board can’t help but dig itself deeper and deeper into holes looking for some outside savior to step in to give the district the answer.
Reading NIck Melvoin’s enthusiastic optimism over the selection is about as textbook cliche hokum as could be typed out by a monkey: “I’m confident that Mr. Beutner along with this board and as a partner of this board can bring some innovative thinking to this. If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you always have gotten. The status quo is not good enough for our kids. We don’t have the luxury of waiting.”
Nick Melvoin and Austin Beutner represent the corporate “status quo”. Let’s see how it works out for the greater community.
Well said as usual, Geronimo. Eli Broad’s greed is the status quo.
posted at
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/How-its-Done-in-L-A–LAUS-in-General_News-Bankers_Board-Of-Directors_Education_Experience-180503-386.html#comment699307
with this comment which has, at the link above– embedded links to the articles at perdaily,
YOU really should go and click on them and get the whole sad story of LAUSD!
My comment
“This is the shining example, of ’THE PLOY IN THE PLOT” to end public education by removing the professionals who know what learning actually looks like, and must have to be facilitated.
“Underfund, then appoint ‘wrecking balls’ to run the show, and be sure that the REALl voice of education, is gone. Imagine running a hospital after removing those who were the authentic medical. professionals
I have known Lenny Isenberg, for over a decade. He created http://perdaily.co, which has chronicled the swamp that is LAUSD, the second largest school system in the 15,880; he explains that for every tenured teacher fired, or any teacher not allowed to reach tenure, the district saves 60,000 in benefits. With the budget about to be overwhelmed by budget obligations, instead of funding public education, the Eli Broad backed bureaucrats and corrupt politicians in LA, figured that thy could fabricate charges http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
and remove teachers willy nilly, with clear civil rights violations –which they did as the media ranted about bad teachers.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/have-reporters-become-poli-ticks–the-media-parasites-of-the-body-politic.html
The corrupt union, looked the other way.Lenny pointed out the collusion of the union UTLA which supported the dismissal process (so much for all the ranters who claim unions protect those ‘bad teachers)!
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/03/lausd-and-utla–connecting-the-dots-of-blattant-corruption.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
Lenny is using his own money to sue the ones responsible for what they did to him and tens of thousands of other fine educators. Of course his fight is hidden. http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/has-utla-rank-and-file-been-told-that-im-suing-utla-why-not.html
He IS a hero we should all know about. http://www.perdaily.com/2013/11/lausd-gives-me-a-chance-to-be-a-hero-for-student-teachers-and-families.html
Go there and tell your friends and contacts who are supplied by what happened to the ‘schools’ as the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX ended the INSTITUTION of public educated, and made education into a market…like health care…and we see how THAT worked!
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
GO THERE!
Running school as a business has succeeded in making school good business for those who wish to make it a business. As for making better school, it has repeatedly flopped.
I met George McKenna very briefly once, nearly twenty years ago, when I was a relatively new teacher in South L.A. and he was my superintendent. He told me to forget anything anyone told me about strictness, and to instead be warm and kind to students. He cared about them. He still does.