Bill Raden, the investigative journalist at Capital & Main, unearthed a surprising deal behind Austin Beutner’s decision to settle with the UTLA.
L.A. School District’s Hire Under Fire as Ridley-Thomas Questions Mount
it involved hiring the son of a key politician.
Raden writes:
One political winner of last week’s Los Angeles teachers strike settlement was L.A. Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner. The former investment banker has made no secret of his desire to one day land the top job at L.A. City Hall, and signing a deal became his first real test of public leadership. Test Two may be more daunting — namely, explaining why he put a scandal-plagued and #MeToo-accused former State Assemblymember on the district payroll as a lobbyist.
The existence of the four-week lobbying contractbetween LAUSD and Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (SRT), whose father is the powerful L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas (MRT), came to light January 16, when the Assembly released findings that SRT likely sexually harassed staffers before resigning from the legislature in December 2017. The L.A. Times noted that SRT had accompanied Beutner and LAUSD school board president Mónica García to Sacramento on January 9 to help them drum up lawmaker opposition to the teachers strike. But it is the timing of Beutner’s January 11 bargaining offer two days later — sweetened by a $10 million pledgeof county mental health money for school nurses by MRT — that is now raising eyebrows.
Not to worry, former Center for Governmental Studies president Robert Stern assured Learning Curves: “The only way [SRT’s hiring] would have been illegal is if [Mark] Ridley-Thomas had gone to Beutner and said, ‘You want $10 million? Hire my son.’ But is it unethical? Absolutely!”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is an example of bad news that can be used for good when we spread it far and wide that Austin Beutner is “absolutely unethical” and deserves the BOOT ASAP to the gutter.
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Is there anything the friends and followers of pals “Democrat” Eli Broad and Republican Richard Riordan do with integrity and transparency? John Deasy’s deal with Apple for iPads was an insider arrangement. The plan to charterize half of Los Angeles was hashed out in secret. The donor lists of money spent on so many expensive school board races were kept private. Everything about Celerity and other charters has been scandalous. Austin Beutner was hired as superintendent in private, without public or independent input. The charters lied to their customers, again, at the end of the strike, telling them a moratorium was a ban. Now this, a lobbying contract with SRT, a dirty secret. Charters and ethics do not know one another.
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“The plan to charterize half of Los Angeles was hashed out in secret.” This exposes a real problem for district teachers looking to organize and strike: negotiating with district leaders means nothing to those who are privately deciding the fate of a city behind the scenes.
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To help them drum up lawmaker opposition to the strike. With Monica Garcia. (Your tax dollars at work.) They also hired outside and very expensive lawyers to delay the strike, and try to suppress it. But they are also too broke to meet the demands of the teachers.
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I just read that the father used his campaign coffers to make a big donation to USC when his son was hired as a professor. I’m sure it’s just a another peculiar coincidence!
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Raden’s article is chock full of questionable actions on the part of Beutner and his pal, Sebastian. Beutner has interacted with father and son frequently over the years. At the very least, the three were in lock-step when it came to privatizing education. I am particularly concerned that the LA Times article referred to does not mention that Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was hired by Beutner as a lobbyist. That’s a giant piece of this highly suspect contract.
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Very interesting news about the disgraced Sebastian Ridley Thomas. But Beutner a political winner in the strike? Nah.
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