Michael Kolhaas is going through his treasure trove of leaked emails and discovered some that are very embarrassing to Nick Melvoin of the Los Angeles Unified School District board.
He says that Melvoin as a member of the board was privy to the LAUSD legal strategy in its perennial struggle with the charter lobby. He says that Melvoin shared this strategy with the charter lobby.
Very ugly.
He begins:
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about an episode in January 2018 when the California Charter School Association actually drafted a resolution for then newly elected, then and now bought and paid for, LAUSD board member Icky Sticky Nicky Melvoin,1 to present to his colleagues on the school board. It was and is a complicated story, and I promised at the time to lay it on you in increments.2 That first post was about the CCSA-drafted resolution and how they passed it on to Nicky in January 2018.
Today we’re moving along to February 20, 2018. On that date Nick Melvoin, his senior advisor Allison Holdorff Polhill, and his policy director Danielle Tenner met with Cristina de Jesus of Green Dot Private Schools, Emilio Pack of STEM Preparatory Schools, Caprice Young of the creepiest cultiest charter chain, that is Magnolia Charter Schools, and Cassy Horton, Ebony Wheaton, and Jason Rudolph, all the last three from CCSA, all met to discuss the resolution.3
Also at that time, explained below, CCSA was suing LAUSD. And, amazingly, it seems that in this meeting Melvoin passed on a great deal of privileged information about LAUSD’s legal strategy to the charter advocates. He also agreed to intervene with LAUSD’s lawyers to further CCSA’s interests. This is on its face appalling behavior from an elected official, sworn by oath to faithfully execute the duties of his office, a violation of which oath this behavior pretty clearly is.4 As always, the details are complicated.
We know about this meeting from an email sent the next day, February 21, 2018, by the aforementioned Jason Rudolph to his co-conspirators de Jesus, Pack, Young, Horton, and Wheaton. This email is interesting in itself, and it is reproduced below in full. Much, much, muchmuchmuch more interesting, though, is the attachment to the email, consisting of Rudolph’s notes on the previous day’s meeting.5This document is endlessly complex. I expect that the next four or five posts in this series will be on this document.6
Drip, drip, drip. All the secrets spilling out into public view.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Crooks and thieves will be crooks and thieves, eh!
That was my reaction, too. Then I got this feeling, from Melvoin’s Twitter feed and my knowledge of John White, that these folks feel they are above the law because they are on a noble mission, a crusade to help underprivileged kids. Laws and proper channels (which created the inequity, in their minds) are obstacles to be creatively overcome for the greater good. And they are smooth, elitist operators.
There is no noble crusade. This is entirely about putting money into wealthy persons’ pockets and furthering Melvoin’s political career.
If it were about kids the 240+ charter schools in LA would be laser-focused upon serving the neediest of students: special ed students, ELL students, and students that are at risk. As it is, only a handful of existing charters do that.
that action even more dangerous than a directly imagined theft: “these folks feel they are above the law because they are on a noble mission, a crusade to help underprivileged kids.”
Naïve, dumb, elitist, technocratic solution: charters, as imagined by naïve, misguided, elitist technocrats.
Mere crooks? More insidious than that.
Here’s Carl Peterson’s deeper dive into these Kohlhaas’ emails:
View at Medium.com
Yes.
The superintendent of Santa Barbara Unified School District, Cary Matsuoka, is in the 2019 fall cohort of the Gates-funded Pahara Institute. He’s the only public school official in the group. The New Schools Venture Fund was founded by the same person as Pahara was. In a Philanthropy Roundtable interview she described the goal of charters “…brands on a large scale”.
The kids of the rich like Gates’ won’t attend branded, profit making education businesses because that product is reserved for labor’s’ children. Rich, grifting cannibals found a way to feed off of the middle class’ tax dollars intended for Main Street’s kids.
“The kids of the rich like Gates’ won’t attend branded, profit making education businesses because that product is reserved for labor’s’ children. Rich, grifting cannibals found a way to feed off of the middle class’ tax dollars intended for Main Street’s kids.”
We have a winner! Give the lady a Kewpie Doll!
Yes, I have little doubt about the large-scale effects. This is big business, in America. Exploitation at its best.
SUMMARY:
1) CCSA — along with CCSA-aligned, billionaire-funded charter school private corporations — sue LAUSD for more classroom space & for even entire school campuses (multi-million-dollar buildings and real estate, mind you) to be given over to those same private sector charter schools corporations; the only classes that would not be allowed to be stripped away from traditional public schools and then given over are those occupied by actual classes, with any other rooms — no matter how currently dedicated and necessary the purpose and use of those rooms — would be, should the lawsuit succeed, fair game for charter invasion and takeover;
2) LAUSD’s attorneys formulate a response & legal strategy to fight the lawsuit, where a success in defeating that lawsuit would enable pre-existing traditional public schools — many of which have occupied those campuses for over a century — to keep their classroom space not being used for classes to continue to be sued for important and necessary purposes such as use as computer labs, libraries, parent centers, teachers workrooms, art class rooms etc.;
3) Charter school mole and LAUSD Board District 4 Member Nick Melvoin covertly meets with LAUSD attorneys, elicits all the details about their response & legal strategy — hearing highly privileged info that he’s OBVIOUSLY not supposed to blab to anyone outside that room, as he’s one of the 7 Board Members running the entity (LAUSD) that is being sued by CCSA;
4) Harvard-educated lawyer Melvoin acts in the role of a corporate spy, and violates the oath he took in 2017 just before taking office, knowingly breaks attorney client privilege, and blabs everything to the opposing party in the lawsuit, CCSA, pursuant to CCSA’s goal to wreck LAUSD’s chances of fighting CCSA’s lawsuit and/or allow CCSA-backed charter schools to invade as many schools / classrooms as possible, and to take over as many entire school campuses as possible.
It’s interesting to contrast Nick’s backroom treachery with what he says when he speaks to upscale parents of a traditional public school — in this case, a school with both high academic achievement, and high parent satisfaction.
Thanks Jesus that someone captured this on their phone camera and uploaded it to YouTube:
In this audience are the parents who would presumably go thermonuclear on Nick’s butt if, as a result of such treachery on Nick’s part, their children / their children’s school lost use of rooms currently dedicated as computer labs, libraries, parent centers, teachers workrooms, art class rooms etc. and allowed some invading charter to throw their children’s school and campus — and their kids’ eduction into a total uproar — as has happened dozens and dozens of times at other campuses.
Mind you, some of these parents were some of the same folks who were tricked into voting for Nick, thanks to Nick’s misleading, $10 million, billionaire-funded campaign for school board, a campaign that put up the phony facade where Nick tricked such voters into thinking that he was not out to promote charter schools over traditional public schools, or that and his billionaire backers were out to sabotage traditional public schools to allow charters to replace them.
However, at the time, some of Nick’s own plast writing came back to haunt him.
Before Melvoin ran for LAUSD Board, he wrote that infamous op-ed where openly cheered and salivated for (in his words) “a hostile (corporate) takeover” of LAUSD. Here’s Melvoin’s infamous *“hostile takeover” op-ed.
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs/
During the campaign, Nick backtracked and claimed that he re-though that op-ed, and now longer supports its contents, and that he would be an LAUSD Board member supportive of all schools public and charter. Lies, lies, lies.
Contrast that to Nick talking to the Play del Rey Elementary parents, where he re-iterates his multi-million-dollar campaign’s lie about how he supports traditional public schools, stating his goal of making LAUSD’s pre-existing traditional public schools so gosh-darn-great that we’ll never need to open another charter school:
x x x x x x x x x x. x x x. x x x x
(at 0:45)
(at 0:45)
NICK MELVOIN: “My goal in running (for the LAUSD School Board) was to improve (LAUSD) District Schools (i.e. traditional public schools, many of whom have been in existence for over a century) so that we DON’T NEED to open ANOTHER charter ANYWHERE.”
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… and again HERE:
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(at 2:35)
(at 2:35)
NICK MELVOIN: “So my goal is to improve our (traditional public LAUSD) District schools, and that all the things which I’m fighting for will do that (i.e. will improve traditional public schools). That doesn’t mean that I don’t support charter schools, and yeah, that’s right. A lot of my constituents WERE and ARE parents who thought that traditional schools were not meeting their needs, but I said THEN what I say NOW. It’s that I don’t think that the answer is more charters. It’s figuring out how to improve schools within the (LAUSD) District* (i.e. improve existing traditional public schools).”
x x x x x x x x x x. x x x. x x x x
LIAR, LIAR!
PANTS ON FIRE!
Nick Melvoin is lying.
Nick Melvoin lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, … !!!!!!!!!
He is most certainly lying to these parents, and tricking them into thinking he’s supportive of this particular school’s well-being, and even its continued health and existence, when he’s most certainly not, or to be more specific, Nick’s corporate masters most certainly do not support that goal. They want charters everywhere! In any district in which they attempt to takeover, there’s never any co-existence, or a point at which they stop expanding. They keep privatizing until the last traditional public school is wiped off the face of the Earth (SEE New Orleans, and large sections of Detroit, Newark, and hell, what looks to be the fate of the whole friggin’ state of Florida.)
Also, how about Nick’s multiple claims about his goal being “improving” existing traditional public schools?
Seriously?!
You’re “improving” LAUSD traditional public schools, such as the one where you’re speaking in this video, BY ENGAGING IN BACKROOM TREACHERY, VIOLATING LAUSD’S ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGE IN CO-LOCATION LAWSUITS, THEREBY HELPING AND ALLOWING PRIVATE SECTOR ENTITIES WHO FILED THAT LAWSUIT TO INVADE AND PILLAGE THOSE SAME SCHOOLS VIA HIGHLY-UNWANTED-BY-SCHOOL-PARENTS CO-LOCATIONS, WHERE THE SCHOOLS ARE JAMMED DOWN THE SCHOOL’S, THE SCHOOL’S PARENTS, & THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY’S COLLECTIVE THROAT WHETHER THEY WANT THEM INVADING THEIR CAMPUS OR NOT????!!!!
You’re “improving” LAUSD traditional public schools, such as the one where you’re speaking in this video, by engaging in illegal violations of LAUSD’s attorney-client privilege, where such betrayals will lead to those same schools losing their necessary computer labs, libraries, parent centers, teachers workrooms, art class rooms etc.???!!!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Melvoin said at a recent board meeting that charter investors have rights. He was not concerned with the civil rights of students or with the civic responsibility of democratic society to provide equality in public education. He didn’t see his duty to the school district that employed him, so he was blind to the breech of ethics behind his back room communication with charter company investors. He needed to be taught ethical behavior before he ran for office, but he never was. He was taught greed.
“Melvoin said at a recent board meeting that charter investors have rights. He was not concerned with the civil rights of students or with the civic responsibility of democratic society to provide equality in public education. He didn’t see his duty to the school district that employed him, so he was blind to the breech of ethics behind his back room communication with charter company investors.”
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“charter investors have rights” .. ???
“He was not concerned with the civil rights of students or with the civic responsibility of democratic society to provide equality in public education.” … ???
Wow, what a difference between THAT, and what he told the parents at Play Del Rey Elementary in January. See the above video and quotes to see the contrast between the two.
Imagine if Nick had told Plays Del Rey parents something like that, instead of the baloney the did foist upon them.
You know .. something like … when asked about how co-locations work, Nick offered up the following:
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NICK MELVOIN:
“Hey, folks. Y’all gotta face facts. Charter investors have rights to have its schools invade and wreck your pre-existing school, and, in the process, harm your own kids’ education, so, now that I”m in charge, if one day a charter corporation DOES want to co-locate one of its schools here at Playa Del Rey, you parents are just going to have to suck it up and take it, because at that point, I’m going to have the charter industry’s back, NOT YOURS!”
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That might not have had the same effect as Nick’s smarmy “I-love-public-schools-so-much-that-I’m-gonna-improve-them-so-much-that-we-don’t-need-to-open-any-more-charters-ever-again” speech that he did give.
In 2) of the SUMMARY, the word “sued” should be “used”
as in …
… to keep their classroom space not being used for classes to continue to be used (NOT sued) for important and necessary purposes such as use as computer labs, libraries, parent centers, teachers workrooms, art class rooms etc.;
Have the greedy, lying, power-hungry, corrupt charter school vampires made any attempt in court to muzzle Michael Kolhaas?
Monica Garcia is attracted to the Gates’ Pahara crowd. She was in the Spring 2015 cohort of Fellows. The L.A. Times reported in Feb. that she has strong relations with the SEIU.
BTW- New America’s school privatizing COO was in the fall 2015 Pahara cohort.
Here’s another thing:
LAUSD District 4 Board Member Nick Melvoin cast the sole vote against the health benefits agreement that the UTLA teachers union and LAUSD management spent a couple years carefully negotiating. It’s complicated, but there’s a groundbreaking arrangement whereby a joint UTLA/LAUSD committee administers the health benefits program and health benefits fund, again, staffed by both labor and management, this committee carefully selects the most cost-effective providers, maintains a fiscally-responsible surplus needed for emergencies, etc. This enables the district to provide teachers these benefits.
Nick and his union-hating corporate masters hate that, of course, and want to wipe it out. (What’s that? A union having joint and equal control with management over its members’ health benefits??? Sacre bleu!!! That’s gotta go!!! Now!!!)
Why?
First, here’s the LAUSD-is-broke-&-teachers-are-greedy-bastards lies which, in an L.A. DAILY NEWS op-ed, Nick told in defense his anti-teachers’-health-benefits vote:
(mostly likely written for him by one of Nick’s CCSA corporate masters, who then emailed to him, and which he then forwarded to the L.A. DAILY NEWS, with his false byline attached, and probably without him even reading it himself, or barely reading it … as an earlier Kohlhaas email showed about Nick’s LAUSD board motions, which were written by CCSA, which Nick later and dishonestly presented as his own.
You see “it’s a bad deal” for teachers to have freakin’ cost-effective, and jointly-agreed-upon health benefits, and “it’s a bad deal” for parents/students for their teachers to have those same cost-effective health benefits. Kids/parents/school communities would all be better off if teachers had their salaries gutted to pay for those same health benefits … Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!!!)
Don’t you see, folks?
THIS is how Nick’ is “improving” LAUSD’s traditional public schools, and making further charter schools from opening. By wrecking the health benefits of the most important people on the front lines teaching traditional public schools’ students.
Here’s the truth:
The real reason why the health benefits agreement was “a bad deal” is because voting for and passing that agreement would ACTUALLY lead to “improve(ing)” traditional public schools — you know, that “goal” that Nick told those parents that he supports, but actually opposes — in part because it would lead to those institutions flourishing and kids at those schools doing well in their educational outcomes, which interferes with, and slows down progress toward’s Nick’s corporate masters’ end game, which is to wind down and phase out traditional public schools totally, making them go the way of the 8-Track tape player.
Indeed, a decent salary and health benefits for teachers would help LAUSD’s traditional public schools attract and retain the best teachers, which would again, in turn, “improve” academic achievement in those traditional public schools.
And we can’t have THAT, now. Can we?
In addition, there’s another drawback to this plan.
Improved salary & benefits for traditional public school teachers helps doesn’t just help those traditional schools; it also hurts the best interests of charter operators, as it would draw teachers away from working in those privately-managed, CCSA-backed charter schools — whose backers spent $10 million dollars electing Nick as their political prostitute and ventriloquist mannequin (playing “Charlie McCarthy to CCSA’s Edgar Bergen,” as Kohlhaas puts it).
And that would make it more difficult for those corporate privatizers to cheaply staff those privately-managed schools with quality (but alas, poorly compensated and totally-unprotected-by-unions) teachers.
Here’s an actual quote from the Broad-Walmart Plan — otherwise known as the
Great Public Schools Now Initiative — for privatizing through charterizing LAUSD schools, the same report which Nick celebrated in his infamous “hostile takeover” op-ed:
http://documents.latimes.com/great-public-schools-now-initiative/
(go to the bottom half of Page 29)
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BROAD-WALMART PLAN:
“Across California, enrollment in teacher preparation programs fell by 53 percent between 2008 and 2013. As a result, charter schools are facing increased competition with LAUSD for a smaller pool of program graduates. Moreover, charter operators are concerned that the new LAUSD contract, which includes a two-year quality-blind 10% increase over two years, will not only make recruitment more challenging, but may also increase attrition as existing (charter school) teacher leave for (unionized LAUSD) district jobs.”
x x x x x x x x x x. x x x. x x x x
Hey guys!
Here’s a solution: instead of whining about it, raise the damn salaries & improve the damn benefits (and also do other stuff such as lower class size) at your privately managed charter schools, and thereby put that key market-based principle of The Law of Supply-and-Demand into effect forthwith!
Indeed, why don’t you make those teachers’ salaries even higher than LAUSD teachers, and steal away all their best talent to teacher kids in those schools?!!! That would also lead to more college and high school students choosing teaching as a profession, and increasing enrollment in those teacher prep programs, which you rightly cites as having a 53% drop in enrollment.
Nahhh, we ain’t gonna do that, now. Are we?
Indeed, whenever there’s an improvement or an on-going favorable deal in salary/benefits/class size, etc. for traditional public school teachers, this forces, or at least puts pressure on the private sector charter school industry to match, or at least raise those costs, which would drive up the overall costs of teachers in those privately-managed charter schools and charter school organizations— the line item of health benefits and salaries.
The more they have to pay for teachers benefits and salaries — especially if, God forbid, their teachers organize a union — the less that these CCSA-aligned charter operators would be able to pay themselves, and the less that they would be able to expand and open new highly-profitable charter schools, and the less that scurrilous Wall Street profiteers will want to rape and pillage the trillion-dollar world of public education.
There’s a reason why the Alliance for College-Read Students charter chain took in $3 million in dark money (sources unknown) which it then used to suppress efforts of its teachers to unionize. Read HERE for more on that horror show:
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-struggle-to-unionize-within-las-biggest-charter-chain/
Indeed, we can’t have all THAT, now. Can we?! … or so goes the thinking of CCSA and its privatizing, billionaire backers, with puppets such as Nick Melvoin acting on CCSA’s behalf to stop that from happening at traditional public schools, so such trends such as unionization and good salary/benefits/job conditions won’t, in turn, expand into those privately-managed schools.
Prior to running, Nick wrote that op-ed (which thankfully survives) where Nick called for “a hostile (corporate) takeover of public schools.”
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs/
Expressed in that op-ed is a goal that the pro-public-school parents — such as the ones in that audience for this video BELLOW — vociferously oppose. Indeed, had those parents in that audience for this video…
… been fully conscious of Nick’s backers’ true agenda, they would have ridden Nick outa that Playa Del Rey Elementary Auditorium on a rail rather than calmly sit and listen to Nick’s lies.
During the campaign, that same despicable op-ed of Nick’s was brought up …
https://www.the74million.org/article/opinion-maybe-a-hostile-takeover-is-precisely-what-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district-needs/
… and Nick, per his corporate masters’ marching orders,, backtracked and claimed that … oh, no …. he had re-thought that piece, and that No, he longer believes any o’ that, and that’s he’s now supportive of both sectors, charter and public.
Lies.
For a good analysis of Nick’s beloved (still beloved by Nick … don’t believe his lies) Broad-Walmart Plan, otherwise known as the Great Ppublic Schools Now Initiative, read Peter “Curmudgucation” Greene’s take HERE:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/09/la-plan-to-crush-public-education.html
I’ve got more to say about the years-in-the-making UTLA/LAUSD health care deal that Nick and his corporate allies fought tooth and nail once Nick took office and when that agreement was in the final stages of negotiation, with Nick & Co. fighting it for all the reasons enumerated in the above post … all in vain, thank Jesus.
At one point, Nick’ corporate ed reform-ist masters, through one of its astroturf orgs, Speak Up, Parents, actually had their parent “dupes” or “plants”, during a Board meeting, get up at a mic and publicly lash out at the LAUSD’s 33,000 traditional public school teachers for those teachers’ greed in pushing for the the health plan being voted upon — eventually favorably, thanks Jesus — by the Board.
The low point came when a Speak Up, Parents woman, reading a script given to her by her corporate masters, said the following:
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(3:56)
(3:56)
ASTROTURF PARENT DUPE:
“Like a lot of parents, I’m upset because I don’t think that this(LAUSD) Board (through a YES vote for the health care agreement), will not be putting children first.
“Teachers will not benefit.
Students will not benefit.”
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Duh fuh???!!!!
Yes, that’s right, folks, A supposed pro-school, pro-teacher parent, fed lies and a script to read by an astroturf faux-parents group’s leaders, actually uttered those ridiculous lines.
Someone told me the woman in this video was a charter school parent, so what the-hell is she doing chiming in anyway? Her kids aren’t even being taught by teachers or schools affected by the health benefits agreement. Her kids’ charter school budget was totally separate from LAUSD’s budget.
I mean, Jesus, what’s her point? That the Board needs to make traditional public schools’ benefits as costly (for teachers) and/or as poor quality as the benefits meted out to charter school teachers, AND THAT WILL BE “PUTTING CHILDREN FIRST????!!!”
I personally know top notch teachers who, but for the benefits, would not be traveling 2-3 hours (total back and forth) commuting to work in LAUSD. Otherwise, they told me, they’d just stay and teach in (NAME OF OUTLYING CITY).
I also personally know top-notch teachers who chose to work in LAUSD, moving across the state and across the country, in large part because of those benefits, and for the strong, and united teachers who can and do fight to protect those benefits.
Those same top-notch teachers are STAYING in LAUSD in large part because of the benefits (and also due to the raises in 2015 and 2019).
Teachers’ teachers working conditions are a child’s learning conditions.
Teachers’ living conditions outside of school — for good or ill — strongly impact that child’s learning conditions, again for good or ill. (That’s something that the parents and students in Wisconsin have discovered,, to their horror, during the last ten years of Scott Walker’s demolition of teachers’ salary and benefits, and of the unions who can longer fight for them, thanks to Walker’s anti-union legislations.)
Therefore Lady, a high-quality teaching force, resulting from a good salary and benefits package, does indeed PUT CHILDREN FIRST.
However, in Corporate Ed. Reform Crazy-land, it works the opposite:
— the lousier the health benefits, the more higher quality teachers will end up teaching in LAUSD.
— the lousier the pay, the more higher quality teachers will end up teaching in LAUSD.
In what universe does it work that way?
I heard that once he was in office, Corporate Ed Reformist Superintendent said to the UTLA president in their first meeting, that he was cancelling the health benefits agreement, that it never should have been passed or approved. With a non-union workforce, he might have actually been able to do that. However, a deal’s a deal.
Here’s another classic Kohlhaas cartoon, with another word balloon containing some more “okay-he-didn’t-really-say-this-but-that’s-essentially-what-he-really-thinks-and-would-say-if-he-were-telling-the-truth” dialogue:
Also, as Dr. Ravitch noted, Kohlhaas claims that this is the first in a series of 5 (or 6) total articles — he said “4 or 5 more” are being polished up and readied for publication — about confidential and embarrassing emails from and/or about Nick Melvoin.
Time to pop some popcorn!
I don’t have time to look into this closely, but if this Nick Melvoin was sharing confidential information with the opposing party in litigation, then he has likely violated a number of Rules of Professional Conduct. Clearly several parts of Rule 8.4 Misconduct (i.e. (a)(c)(e)), Rule 1.11, and others.
I strongly encourage people to visit How to File a Complaint Against an Attorney on The State Bar of California’s (CalBar) website. The conduct that Melvoin has allegedly engaged in would result in discipline, or even disbarment, given the severity of the acts. However, CalBar will only take action if they’re aware of Melvoin’s alleged conduct.
Why don’t you file that, Robert?
LAUSD parent activist Carl Peterson just chimed in on this latest release from Kohlhaas, and which is the subject of this thread:
View at Medium.com
Above the headline for his piece, Carl highlighted this bit from the Kohlhaas email leaks:
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“Thanks for your participation in yesterday evening’s meeting with Nick Melvoin. For reference, I attached my notes and next steps from our discussion. Please do not share these notes outside of this group.”
— Jason J. Rudolph, CCSA
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Too late, Jason. Thanks to Michael Kohlhaas, it’s now all been “shared,” whether you, Melvoin, & CCSA like it or not.
Yeah, right. … “the notes,” as Jason describes them, contained all the confidential information that Nick Melvoin — acting as CCSA’s mole or corporate spy within LAUSD governance — had earlier elicited from LAUSD’s legal team, and then later, in the private meeting mentioned by Jason J. Rudolph, illegally dished to the charter school industry and CCSA’s lawyers in order to help the latter prevail in a lawsuit against LAUSD, the very entity Nick was elected to protect and oversee, and for which he took an oath before being seated, as one of the 7 LAUSD Board Members.
Isn’t that pretty much smoking gun evidence and grounds for Nick Melvoin being disbarred?
Isn’t that pretty much smoking gun evidence and grounds for the other 6 LAUSD Board members to vote to expel, or at least formally censure Nick Melvoin?
I’m not a lawyer such as Robert, but doesn’t this rise to the level of a crime?
Peterson is careful to start his own piece with hypocrisy on Melvoin’s part regarding the sharing of confidential LAUSD information, and how Melvoin once said in an interview that someone who does so should be held accountable and even prosecuted by the Los Angeles City District Attorney.
Good catch on Carl’s part!
Peterson tells the story of how pro-public school and charter critic, LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson, spoke at a neighborhood council meeting where Schmerelson expressed his disgust with how the selection of the new Superintendent was handled behind the scenes. CCSA’s hand-picked candidate for the Superintendent job, Austin Beutner, was clearly the worst candidate interviewed, Schmerelson insisted. He either couldn’t or refused to answer any of the questions posed to him, but somehow “the slimmest majority” sill voted to approve Beutner in a meeting later on.
In essence, Beutner arrogantly told the seven LAUSD Board Members, “I don’t need to answer your stinking questions. The fix is in. I’m gonna get this. It’s already been decided.”
Melvoin saw a video of Schmerelson saying all this, and Peterson strongly suspects (though Melvoin denied it) that it was Melvoin who then went to the LA. District Attorney to investigate and prosecute Schmerelson for … wait for it … disclosing confidential LAUSD information
If it wasn’t Melvoin himself who asked the D.A. to go after Schmerelson, that’s kind of a moot point, because it was most certainly someone in the charter industry closely allied with Melvoin who did tried to get the D.A. to prosecute Schmerelson, his fellow Board Member.
At the very least, Melvoin, in an interview with SPEAK UP, PARENTS, cheered on and egged on the D.A. to prosecute Schmerelson, with Melvoin lashing out at Schmerelson for … wait for it again … “disclosing confidential LAUSD information.”
Now that’s rich, since Melvoin’s meeting with CCSA where himself blabbed “confidential LAUSD information”, and which is the subject of this whole thread, HAPPENED THREE MONTHS EARLIER than the neighborhood council meeting where Schmerelson spoke.
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-pot-calling-kettle-black-image9416841
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CARL PETERSON:
“The public only found out about this deception because Board Member Scott Schmerelson released a statement revealing that “On April 20, by the slimmest majority possible, four members of the LAUSD Board of Education (Garcia, Melvoin, Vladovic, Rodriguez) voted to authorize negotiations for an employment contract with Mr. Austin Beutner as the General Superintendent of the District.” In an appearance before the Northridge East Neighborhood Council, Schmerelson further divulged that every time he asked Beutner “a question about education, [Beutner] couldn’t answer because he really didn’t know.”
“Schmerelson was rewarded for his transparency with an investigation by the District Attorney. His fellow board member, Nick Melvoin, denied that he filed the complaint, but told Speak Up, (an organization created to promote his candidacy), that Schmerelson was “revealing closed-session stuff [and talking] about Austin’s answers.” Melvoin maintained that information about “who wanted Austin, who didn’t, what Austin said, is confidential” and should not have been revealed.
“So much “for a new era of transparency and accountability” that the Board District 4 representative (Nick Melvoin) had called for during his campaign.
“Ironically, just three months earlier, Melvoin was engaged in his own release of confidential information from closed-door LAUSD board meetings.
“However, unlike Schmerelson, Melvoin was not providing information to the public but instead to the California Charter School Association (CCSA). The latest release of confidential documents obtained by Michael Kohlhaas dot org suggests that not only was the former Vice-President of the Board outsourcing the writing of legislation to the charter school industry trade group, but he was also providing them with information from the District’s legal staff about a lawsuit that the CCSA had filed against the district. According to these documents Melvoin agreed to “ask [the District’s lawyer] to identify concrete reasons why District has not or will not publish data” related to the suit.
“As an elected member of the LAUSD School Board, Melvoin is supposed to represent the 80% of students who attend district schools, but these documents prove that his real loyalty lies with the charter school industry that invested in his campaign. The Brown Act allows discussions about court cases to be conducted in private in order to prevent the disclosure of legal strategy to opponents in court cases.
“Melvoin continued to keep the information provided by legal counsel from the public while he brought it directly to the district’s adversaries, potentially damaging the ability of the LAUSD to defend itself.
“If, as Melvoin himself noted in complaining about Schmerelson, “certain things require confidentiality to…increase leverage in negotiations”, his betrayal of trust needs to be severely punished.”
BELOW is the video which provoked Nick Melvoin — in an interview with SPEAK UP, PARENTS — to egg on the L.A. D.A.’s Office to investigate and prosecute his fellow LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson for “disclosing confidential LAUSD information.”
(BOY! Think of the hypocrisy at play in THAT!
(Parent/activist and blogger Carl Peterson strongly suspects that it was Melvoin himself who went to the L.A. D.A.’s Office, though Melvoin denied this. However, even if Melvoin wasn’t technically the one who did, that’s kind of a moot point because it was most certainly someone in the charter industry allied with Melvoin, and again, in any event, it was Melvoin who, in an interview, spoke approvingly towards the person who did go to the LA. DA’s office, and cheered on any resulting investigation and prosecution of Schmerelson.)
It’s a video of LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson speaking to parents and community members at a neighborhood council meeting after the controversial selection of Austin Beutner for LAUSD Superintendent:
Recalling the 7-member LAUSD Boards’s interview with Beutner, Schmerelson’s disgust and frustration is palpable, as is his condemnation of Beutner’s total lack of experience and qualifications to be LAUSD’s Supe.
What Schmerelson describes here is his account of the LAUSD Board’s interview with Beutner, the details of which are truly beyond the beyond. When Beutner can’t answer — or out-and-out refuses to answer — any education-related questions, Beutner then arrogantly implies that he doesn’t need to be able to answer, as Beutner “know(s) Big Boy”.
I’m presuming that “Big Boy” is Eli Broad, but Schmerelson thinks that it might refer to a famous rapper.
Instead, according to Schmerelson, Beutner blathered on incoherently that it was he, Beutner — as with Al Gore’s purported invention of the internet — who went to Russia and was a key player in the de-nuclear-ization of Russia, and in converting Russia from Communism to Capitalism.
Beutner then went on about doing similar work in Czechoslovakia.
Schmerelson’s reaction at the time to this irrelevant-to-education spiel was a jaw-dropping, “What duh duh???!!!”
(my words, not Schmerelson)
Here’s a partial transcript:
( 17:42 – )
( 17:42 – )
SCOTT SCHMERELSON, LAUSD Board member:
(describing Beutner’s interview conducted by Schmerelson & the rest of the LAUSD School Board)
“Here comes this man named Austin Beutner. I said,
” ‘Is this for real? Is this for real?’
“But I learned that certain (LAUSD) Board Members had this (Beutner’s selection) planned months ago, but I’m so stupid, that I think that everybody (including Melvoin and the other three. pro-charter Board members) is honest and fair, that I thought, ‘No, this can’t be. This can’t be (i.e. it can’t be that the illegal, Brown Act-violating decision to hire Beutner had already been made months ago, and therefore, the later interview process was a total sham and a waste of everyone’s time and energy).’
“So I thought, ‘Let’s be fair and let him (Beutner) interview.
“(Beutner’s) was the worst interview that I have ever seen in my entire life. Not one question (asked of Beutner) was answered about education.
“Nothing! Nothing!
“Here’s what he (Beutner) said … I can get in trouble for saying this, but I don’t care.
“Here’s what he said (instead of answering tough questions)
” ‘I know Big Boy,’
” (Schmerelson asked) ”Who’s ‘Big Boy’?’
“Well, apparently ‘Big Boy’ is a Rap artist. So he was trying to tell me that he was ‘cool’, and that he was ‘with it.’ The only ‘Big Boy’ that I know is the one who carries the hamburger on the tray. That’s ‘Big Boy’ for me.
“And then he (Beutner) was telling us how he was in Russia, and how he helped to take Russia out of the nuclear attack stage, and how to make Russia more like a capitalistic country than a Communist country.
“That’s nice. That’s good. Then he told us that he was in Czechoslovakia, and he worked for the Czech government and then he did this, and he did this, and he did this.
“But every time I asked him a question about education he couldn’t answer because he really didn’t know.
“So I just said (to himself), ‘Oh no. Nobody’s going to pick this guy, Nobody.’
“And boy, was I WRONG!”
… and on it goes.
Parent activist Carl Peterson wrote about this speech of Schmerelson, and the background leading up to it HERE:
http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2018/05/20/was-the-public-deceived-in-the-lausd-superintendent-search/
You need to understand a nuance here in reading Schmerelson’s piece.
A group called “The East Area Progressive Democrats” were as livid as Schmerelson was at the illegal, behind-the-scenes deal months earlier to make Beutner the Supe, as it violated California’s Brown Act regarding decisions made by government bodies, and the transparency and public input required when elected officials make such decisions. They sought to nullify Beutner’s selection, and have the interview process go all the way back to SQUARE ONE, and have it re-started from scratch.
Beutner’s speech was the evidence they needed and used… in vain, as it turned out.
.
CARL PETERSON:
“When the East Area Progressive Democrats filed a complaint with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office regarding alleged violations of California’s Brown Act, LAUSD Board member Scott Schmerelson’s Public Statement was used as Exhibit A. In releasing this document, Schmerelson exposed that the Board had taken a vote in closed session on April 20, but had not reported this action to the public as required by law. This violation was further compounded by the fact that the Board’s Executive Officer had announced that there were “no actions to report”, “creating a deception that misled the public and confused any accurate understanding of the genuine status of decision-making by the Board.”
If you want a good laugh at Nick’s hypocrisy, here he is in the interview with SPEAK UP, cheering on the investigation and prosecution of LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson for again (COUGH! COUGH!) “disclosing confidential LAUSD information.”
According the the secret emails obtained and published by Michael Kohlhaas, these staments from Nick came THREE MONTHS AFTER the meeting where Nick told CCSA LAUSD’s secret legal strategy — the subject of this thread..
Keep in mind that SPEAK UP is a faux parents group, and an astroturf arm of the billionaires out to privatize LAUSD schools and bust the teachers’ union:
http://speakupparents.org/speakup-board-watch-take-action/2018/5/23/da-to-review-allegations-of-brown-act-violation-against-board-member-scott-schmerelson
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SPEAK UP:
“Breaching the confidentiality of closed-session Board meetings can be a violation of the Brown Act, and Board Vice President Nick Melvoin (BD4) told Speak UP he believes that Schmerelson did so when recently speaking to the Northridge East Neighborhood Council.
” … ”
” ‘He’s revealing closed-session stuff. In the video, he talks about Austin’s answers,’ Melvoin told Speak UP. ‘I’m not a Brown Act expert, but my understanding from our general counsel is that the revealing of confidential information is a violation of the law. What happened before we publicly voted: who wanted Austin, who didn’t, what Austin said, is confidential.’ ”
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If you want a further laugh, check out how the astroturf group SPEAK UP treated convicted criminal and disgraced former LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez, and contrast that with how SPEAK UP treats current non-criminal LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson.
While the SPEAK UP article ABOVE is a full-on condemnation of and call for the head of charter critic and LAUSD Board Member Schmerelson — someone who has never been prosecuted for anything (he’s 35-year veteran teacher and later principal in LAUSD) — the article BELOW gives the pro-charter LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez a big, wet, sloppy French kiss IMMEDIATELY AFTER Rodriguez resigned in disgrace after pleading guilty and being convicted of a serious election crime:
http://speakupparents.org/speakup-board-watch-take-action/2018/7/23/as-ref-rodriguez-resigns-parents-worry-vacant-seat-will-leave-them-unrepresented
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SPEAK UP: (defending a convicted criminal, though privatization ally)
“But parents in Board District 5 were not happy to be left in limbo. Huntington Park parent and Speak UP member Gloria Rodriguez (no relation to Ref Rodriguez), has one child attending a traditional LAUSD school and one at a charter school. She cried when she heard the news of the resignation.
*“We’ve never had anybody support us the way that he did,” she said. “Ref had an open-door policy. He really listened and acted, and that’s something that we’ve never had before. He did it for everybody. Kids first — all kids, period. The parents at my parent center are really upset. We’re just wondering, so now what? We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
” .. ”
“While a small group of parents showed up at court to demand his resignation, many parents continued to support Rodriguez in spite of his legal troubles because of their direct experiences with him as a Board member and champion for LAUSD’s most vulnerable kids.
“Rodriguez was an openly gay pioneer for LGBTQ students and was responsible for moving the district toward more compassionate restorative justice discipline model — interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. He was also the Board’s strongest proponent of early childhood education, passing a Birth to 8 Roadmap to improve early literacy.
“ *’We certainly don’t condone unlawful actions, and we appreciate that Ref Rodriguez has taken responsibility for his mistakes,” Braude said.”
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” … his legal troubles … ”
” … mistakes …”????
He’s a freakin’ convicted criminal, and a horrible example for 700,000 students of LAUSD, and a disgrace to the parents, students, and citizens in his LAUSD Board District.
What is wrong with you people???!!!
We all know the true story behind this. As with Melvoin’s board motions, this ludicrous piece was probably written for SPEAK UP by their corporate ed. reform masters — or at least, vetted by them — and then published under a phony byline.
It is pro-privatization billionaires who fund such astroturf groups such as SPEAK UP, one of them being NETFLIX’s Reed Hastings, someone who doesn’t even want there to be elected school boards, and someone who … wait for it … funded Ref Rodriguez’ campaign for offices, and also paid for the entirety Ref’s legal defense, as an after-the-fact bribe for Rodriguez actions promoting Hastings’ goal of privatizing all of Los Angles schools. The SPEAK UP article is another sort of after-the-fact payoff as well.
Such actions on Ref’s part also includes Rodriguez’ tie-breaking vote to make pro-privatization Austin Beutner the Superintendent of LAUSD schools. Smoking gun evidence of his crimes hit the news in early fall 2017, but Ref, in opposition to calls for him to step down, hung on for 10 months so he could, per his corporate masters’ marching orders, make the tie-breaking vote to put the pro-privatization Beutner in the Supe’s seat. (SEE POST ABOVE for more on THAT fiasco.)
Every LAUSD Board motion in which Ref made a tie-breaking vote during those final 10 months should be voided, including and perhaps especially the selection of Beutner as Superintendent.
Hopefully, in the months to come, SPEAK UP will be forced to write another wet, sloppy kiss article after Melvoin’s resigning in disgrace.
— WHY LAUSD Board Member’s Initial Skepticism Over Beutner’s Selection as Superintendent Turned Out fo be Very Warranted —
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in the above post, Board Member Schmerelson expresses his disgust with Beutner’s selection, and with how that selection was conducted, and with how some of his fellow members voted, and with their suspect rationale for why they voted to make Beutner Superintendent.
However, less than a year later, it turns out that Schmerelson’s initial concern and skepticism over Beutner’s ascendancy proved to be highly warranted.
Parent activist and blogger and Carl Peterson hits the nail on the head:
View at Medium.com
Peterson details how, during his first months in office, Beutner went behind some — but not all — of the 7 LAUSD Board Member’s backs and initiated multi-million-dollar contracts with various venders allied with the pro-privatization forces outside LAUSD. As Superintendent, he was legally obligated to share these with ALL SEVEN of those members, but didn’t not do so. One of those Board Members from whom Beutner withhold those contacts and documentation was …
… yes, you guessed right …
Scott Schmerelson !!!!
Indeed, for months Schmerelson requested copies and documents related to those rumored (but not verified) contracts which Beutner initiated, and again, that Beutner stonewalled from giving over to Schmerelson right up until Schmerelson was forced to propose a formal resolution that would authorize filing a Freedom of Information Act request against someone, Beutner, who is Schmerelson’s technical subordinate. In short, Schmerelson engaged in rank insubordination to one of his bosses, someone duly elected by the citizens of Los Angeles.
By the time Schmerelson eventually was given the requested documents, these Broad-connected consultants — of whom Schmerelson was totally unaware were even at work carrying out Eli Broad’s bidding — had already completed their work for Beutner, so Beutner’s boss, Schmerelson, had no say over what these consultants were doing ,or whether they should even be doing it in the first place, before finding out their undisclosed (to Schmerelson) work was already finished.
Parent activist and blogger Carl Peterson doend’t mince words on his own blog:
View at Medium.com
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CARL PETERSON:
“In a clear case of insubordination, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) *Superintendent Austin Beutner has ignored a request for copies of contracts that the District had signed for four months. On at least one occasion, Beutner publicly promised to turn over these “confidential contracts” to Board Member Scott Schmerelson but did not do so until last week. ‘The consultants’ work was not disclosed.’
“To make matters worse, it appears that information about the contracts, which ‘total $3 million so far’, was selectively released to other Board Members. Schmerelson noted at yesterday’s Board meeting that he is ‘sure that certain offices receive more information than others’, which eliminates any notion that the information was somehow unavailable.
“The lack of disclosure was willful and a clear attempt to keep information away from an elected Board Member who is, by definition, Beutner’s boss. In the private sector, this would be a fireable offense. It should be no different in the public sector.”
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These contracts pertain to the so-called “re-imagining” of LAUSD, including breaking it up into 32 autonomous chunks, which would, some argue, accelerate or grease the wheels for rapid privatization of schools, and, a la Chicago, lead to closing of traditional public schools, and the opening of more privately managed charter schools.
Watch Schmerelson blow a gasket at Beutner — and to Beutner’s face — over this outrage at an LAUSD Board Meeting:
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( 1:53 – )
( 1:53 – )
SCOTT SCHMERELSON:
“I’d like to restate for the record that I remain incredulous and very frustrated that IT TOOK FOUR MONTHS and a formal resolution to get you to disclose these documents. As a member of the Board, I should NOT have have to threaten to file a Public Records Act request to find out the terms and scope of services for vendors that your (unelected) philanthropists think should be driving the future of our district. There is STILL outstanding documents that were requested on October 1st, and that is included in my resolution.
“The documents (just turned over) that we have NOW raise more questions than they answer, and I’d like to see a public meeting discussion the various ‘re-imagining consultants, THEIR backgrounds, THEIR process, THEIR track records in OTHER school districts. I think it is critical that we have these conversations before we go forward with their (those consultants’) proposals, or any district re-organization or policy changes based on their analysis.
“I’ve read the 109 pages (of just release contracts) and am saddened to see that some of these consultants come from failing districts across the United States, I would kind of hope that they came from ‘success stories’, but they’re not.
“And that is my statement for this resolution.”
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If you keep watching to the end, you get to see pro-privatization Board Member Monica Garcia stun the room by casting the sole “NO” vote to Schmerelson’s reasonable and necessary transparency resolution, and you get to hear Garcia claiming that she did so because of what she believes was Schmerelson’s mistreatment of Beutner in Schmerelson’s speech (transcribed ABOVE)
Seriously?
I mean who cares what Schmerelson’s tone or choice of words were? If he has a point on having more needed transparency on Beutner’s part, then Garcia should have voted “YES” along with Melvoin and the rest. Her “NO” vote was likely a sop to the wealthy privatizers who bankrolled her campaigns, and who compelled her to vote “YES” on Beunter become Superintendent months earlier.
By behaving this way, when Garcia runs again for LAUSD Board, or for some other office, she can tell those wealthy funders (including Beunter), Hey, “Don’t you remember how I stuck up for Austin when that other guy spoke so mean to him?”, so their coffers will flow into her campaign war chest.
How cynical.
Here’s what she said.
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(8:38 – )
(8:38 – )
MONICA GARCIA: “I’m going to vote ‘NO,’ because I expect better of this body in the way that it deals with its employee (Beutner).”
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Incredible.
I mean, seriously …. That’s Board Member Garcia’s takeaway from all of this??!!
Garcia — who was one of the Board Members given all the contracts and documents which Beutner withheld from Schmerelson — utters not one word against Beutner’s months-long willful deception and defiance and lack of transparency, but instead Garcia beats up on Schmerelson for what she thinks is his being mean to Beutner for calling him out on this.
The mind boggles.
What a book this would make. The title could be “Looting the Schools”.
Here’s another great article arising from Kohlhaas’ obtaining and releasing emails, and which lays out certain emails’ LAUSD-related content. In this case, reporter Bill Raden lays out CCSA’s behind-the-scenes coziness with Beutner and certain LAUSD Board Members, such as Nick Melvoin, and also Ben Austin’s email leaking the charter industry’s upcoming 10-year battle plans:
https://citywatchla.com/index.php/2016-01-01-13-17-00/los-angeles/18062-chartergate-austin-beutner-s-transparency-problem
BILL RADEN:
“The most sensational reveal? Emails written by then-California Charter Schools Association CEO Jed Wallace and his successor Myrna Castrejon, detailing how a ‘major’ September, 13 2018 policy address by the supe on the RFK Community Schools campus was vetted by LA charter school leaders, and that Beutner incorporated changes desired by Wallace in a September 7 phone call.
“CCSA’s LA lobbyist, Cassy Horton, defended the back channel in a tweet, implausibly insisting that the episode represented a ‘normal’ courtesy extended by LAUSD superintendents to all district stakeholders. Not quite, scoffed UTLA spokesperson Anna Bakalis, who reminded Learning Curves that Beutner’s freeze-out of LAUSD’s largest labor partner from any information about the speech was the reason that the union mounted a protest outside the event. The emails are part of an over two-gigabyte, public records act request document dump from Green Dot Public Schools that the Kohlhaas has uploaded to Archive.Org for crowdsourced investigating.
“Also exhumed from the cache by the LA Times’ Howard Blume was a kind of order of battle for LA’s charter establishment on how to retake the political initiative after January’s union victories. Penned by Parent Revolution founder and deregulation hardliner Ben Austin for Los Angeles Advocacy Council (LAAC) Leadership — a shadowy klatch of LA charter elites — and a handful of political consultants, the confidential document reads like a declaration of war — against UTLA, against LAUSD and against the LA Mayor’s office (Austin evidently blames Mayor Eric Garcetti for brokering a strike settlement that included statewide charter law reform).*
“It calls for the recapturing of the LAUSD school board majority in 2020, the mayor’s office in 2022, another legal attack on teacher protections framed as a civil rights lawsuit against the school district, and a renewed assault on neighborhood schools by doubling down on No Child Left Behind-era accountability measures. The goal? A decisive district takeover by 2030.”
… and on it goes.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t include Sara Roos’ blistering attack on Beutner’s work — past, present, and future — and how his past financial takeover artist work relates to what Beutner is now trying to do to LAUSD — a missing piece in the discussion.
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SARA ROOS:
“The modus operandi of his (Beutner’s) vulture”/venture capitalism is:
“1. Buy distressed entities (take over an LAUSD well-prepped through the advance narrative of failure);
“2. Offload (or manufacture) debt (e.g., close schools/empty classrooms by raising class size thereby justifying charter school co-location);
“3. Offload leaner entity at high profit (enact transfer of 50 percent of LAUSD—and its real estate—to charter schools).”
” … ”
“Our city’s establishment did not elevate him (Beutner) to this position to manifest a lifetime’s achievement of good educational practice. He is installed to play out his life’s work of financial chicanery. That’s the basis of his own education, it’s what got him his fortune, and it’s what will be the demise of ours.”
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From here:
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/l-a-schools-superintendent-austin-beutner-agent-of-privatization/
I won’t excerpt any more of this.
Just read it for yourself.
Wow.