Michael Kohlhaas has been drip-drip-dripping emails between and among the charter industry’s bigwigs in Los Angeles.
He reveals in this post that he filed a public records request for the emails and his request was granted by the in-house counsel for Green Dot charter chain, Keith Yanov. Lo and behold, Mr. Yanov has “transitioned” to the private sector, meaning that he either quit or was fired.
Kohlhaas writes:
KEITH YANOV — FORMERLY GENERAL COUNSEL FOR GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS — HAS “TRANSITIONED TO PRIVATE PRACTICE” — WHICH MEANS HE QUIT OR WAS FIRED — AND GIVEN THAT IT WAS ALMOST CERTAINLY HIS DECISION TO FOLLOW THE LAW AND RELEASE THAT MASSIVE SET OF EMAILS TO ME IN JUNE — REVEALING THE APPALLING INNER WORKINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION — THE WORLD-SHAKING MAGNITUDE OF WHICH IS STILL ONLY BARELY KNOWN — I WOULD VENTURE A GUESS THAT THE LATTER IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE — FIRING SOMEONE FOR FOLLOWING THE LAW CERTAINLY WOULDN’T BE OUT OF CHARACTER OVER THERE AT GREEN DOT — OR ANY OF THESE CHARTER SCHOOL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACIES FOR THAT MATTER
Kohlhaas began publishing the bombshell contents of the emails, Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times wrote about Kohlhaas’s revelations, and all hell broke loose.
Kohlhaas wrote:
And then things really blew up, as you may already know. Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times published two separate articles based on this material, the first one and the second one. The material revealed that Austin Beutner was letting the CCSA write his speeches for him and Nick Melvoin was letting them write actual board resolutions and also slipping them confidential info from LAUSD’s general counsel at the very same time that CCSA was suing LAUSD.
These documents recently showed that CCSA’s ultimate goal is to have every kid in California essentially in a charter school by 2030. And, friend, the revelations are not done even now, just wait and see. And the silence from CCSA has been amazing. The day I put out the news about CCSA writing Beutner’s speech charter school PR flack Cassy Horton dismissively tweeted (and since deleted) that this was all perfectly normal.
Yanov left for the private sector. And it is now a matter of public record that the California Charter Schools Association gives orders to Austin Beutner and Nick Melvoin.
Is this legal?
This expose is not finished. Kohlhaas has more.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sometimes I wonder if agents of power have decided along with the DEFORMERS to ruin American Public Schools. Nothing surprises me any more.
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more and more global oligarchy goals are made transparent…
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Is this legal is THE question.
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Is it legal? We need to ask.
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My attorney friend is not available right now, but someone’s attorney friend must be. Sharing defense strategy with the prosecution just doesn’t smell right. Rival businesses writing company policy for opponents doesn’t smell right. There’s something rotten in the state of Melvoin.
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He was almost certainly fired
Jed Wallace the former CCSA president wrote a guest blog where he insisted that CCSA’s charter schools are “more accountable than traditional public schools.”
That quote is here: (second to last paragraph)
https://www.educationnext.org/california-case-study-charter-school-success/
How does CCSA’s member charter schools acting in a way that’s “more accountable” work?
Does the following (BELOW) sound like an organization that is showing evidence of it being transparent and accountable?
The Green Dot Charter School Corporation — a prominent member in CCSA and its governing body …
1) fires a lawyer because he followed the California’s Freedom of Information law and handed over legally accessible documents when asked by Michael Kohlhaas;
2) replaces that lawyer with a high-powered law firm which proceeds to stonewall Kohlhaas’ further requests, with a months-long or years-long churn-‘n-burn legal strategy of filing motions and appeals to wear down Kohlhaas — any one else — and keep anyone from accessing those documents, with Kohlhaas lacking the same financial resources that a multi-million charter corporation has to fight this scorched earth legal strategy.
Seriously, how is that being accountable and transparent?
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BELOW is a stupefying quote from Green Dot’s new lawyers as to one of the reasons which they cite for refusing all further PRA (Public Records Act) document requests from Kohlhaas.
Apparently, they’re claiming that the Green Dot organization has finite time or energy, and has to be judicious, and make hard choices in how it expends that time and energy.
Don’t you SEE?
The Green Dot corporation can either …
… collect and provide Kohlhaas with the legally-required-to-release documents which Kohlhaas requests…
… OR …
…. they can educate students …
… but they can’t do both. Doncha know?
Therefore, since the the “public interest” of the latter outweighs the “public interest” of the former, Kohlhaas gets no more documents from Green Dot, even though Green Dot, per California’s Secretary of State’s ruling, IS LEGALLY BOUND TO RELEASE THOSE DOCUMENTS WHEN REQUESTED.
(Can that reasoning hold up in court? If it does, then any government entity can just claim the same thing, and not release anything.)
Here’s the actual lawyer’s quote:
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
“Green Dot now believes that the public interest in (i.e. that will be served in honoring) *your requests is now outweighed by the public interest in providing students an education.”
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
This is the very last sentence in the very last paragraph in this email form Green Dot’s lawyer at this link:
Click to access 20190719-1622-Keith_Yanov-Re_CPRA_request__GD_2019_07_06_e_.pdf
Wait a minute, Kohlhaas replies. In my prior request, you provided over 5,000 documents within a month of my request, and now all of a sudden, you’ve found this rate of document collection and release is now too burdensome, and will negatively impact the education of Green Dot students? That not only will you not release documents in a longer time frame, but you will cease any and all future release of documents?
How does that work?
How do lawyers doing the fairly easy and labor-free work of putting together documents and releasing them affect the way teachers in Green Dot schools are teaching students?
If this goes to court, it should be fairly open and shut.
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When you read the latest emails from Green Dot’s lawyers denying Kohlhaas’ PRA requests, you experience, in words, the same concept that you see in the compelling visual image (from this classic animation BELOW) of a money-sucking charter school building transforming into a giant, black metal safe with the words “KEEP OUT!” on its walls:
( 0:32 – 0:57 )
( 0:32 – 0:57 )
NARRATOR: “You see the beauty of a charter chain is that when it descends on your town, it can feed on taxpayer dollars because it runs a public-ish school, BUT if someone snoops around and wants to know where the money gpes (i.e. Kohlhaas with his PRA document requests), then — PRESTO! CHANGE-OH! —
(image of the same charter building morphs into a giant black safe with the ALL CAPITALS words “KEEP OUT!” on its walls)
“the charter chain becomes a PRIVATE corporation, or a complex non-profit, so following that money (i.e. or Kohlhaas’s attempts to follow any of the charter industry’s inner workings or operations)can be impossible. It’s efficiency in profit-taking … err *.. *education.”
Here’s another one of those charter school expose animations:
Oh, and here’s another one about the causes of teacher shortages and strikes:
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You know, not only did Green Dot lawyer Keith Yanov, thanks to Kohlhaas, have a rough summer, but CCSA’s high profile spokesperson Cassy Horton apparently did as well, as evidenced her deleting tweets where she vigorously tried to counter and refute the stuff exposed by Kohlhaas. Doing so may have dug her into a hole of sorts with her CCSA bosses, and prodded her latest career move (SEE BELOW). In addition — and in contrast to her usual chiming in on everything — Cassy’s recently and strangely gone radio silent about everything.
Indeed, here’s the latest.
She’s following Yanov, at least temporarily and partially, out of the Charter School industry in order to move to Chicago and get her M.B.A. (though she claims that she “will still be based in LA, fighting for education equity, access, and quality w/ my @calcharters colleagues.” Whatever THAT means.)
From Cassy Horton’s sTwitter
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