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BREAKING NEWS: More Charges of Financial Crimes Against LAUSD Member Ref Rodriguez

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2017 //
8

The Los Angeles Times reports that the charter chain founded by LAUSD board member Ref Rodriguez has now accused him of financial misdeeds. He was accused last month of money laundering during his campaign for the board seat. Rodriguez was put into office by the charter billionaires associated with the California Charter School Association. After the defeat of Steve Zimmer by Nick Melvoin last spring, The board had a charter majority for the first time and was on the cusp of privatizing many more schools. After his indictment, Rodriguez stepped aside as board president but refused to give up his seat.

Will Rodriguez cling to his seat? Will Eli Broad and Reed Hastings and Alice Walton have to buy a new board seat?

“The charter school network that L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez co-founded and ran for years has filed a complaint with state regulators alleging that Rodriguez had a conflict of interest when he authorized about $285,000 in payments drawn on its accounts.

“Officials at Partnerships to Uplift Communities, or PUC Schools, filed the complaint Friday with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

“According to the complaint and documents reviewed by The Times, the vast majority of the money transfers that Rodriguez authorized and PUC has flagged went from school accounts to Partners for Developing Futures, a nonprofit under his control.

“An attorney who reviewed the records for the school network said he has found little or no evidence so far of services provided for these payments.

“The payments were made in 2014, but do not appear to have been properly authorized,” said attorney Gregory Moser, whose firm was hired by PUC to conduct the investigation. “Nor are the purposes of the expenditures and benefit to the schools adequately documented, our investigation revealed.”

“PUC’s senior managers said they uncovered the transfers — made in a series of checks — while responding to questions and requests from The Times in compliance with the state’s Public Records Act.

“The conflict-of-interest allegations could add to Rodriguez’s legal problems.

“Last month, prosecutors charged him with three felonies and 25 misdemeanors for alleged money laundering in his school board campaign. Rodriguez is accused of soliciting people to give him donations and then illegally paying them back.”

Charter Schools Education Los Angeles Board of Education

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Dark Money, Fraud, Los Angeles

Mercedes Schneider: Who Funds Education Post?

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2017 //
26

Mercedes Schneider, continuing her practice of following the money, decided to take a look at Education Post, a website that regularly sings the praises of corporate reform and hires hatchet-persons to go after critics of privatization and high-stakes testing.

Education Post was whistled into existence by billionaire Eli Broad, theoretically to introduce civil discourse into education debates but specifically and expo,icitly to defend the poor billionaires who felt they needed someone to defend them in the social media world. Poor, poor billionaires, with tender egos.

Millions flowed to Education Post, but it is hard to know whether Eli and the other billionaires got a return on their investment. As Peter Cunningham once said to me in defense of high-stakes testing, “You measure what you treasure.” I disagreed, since I could think of any way to measure my grandchildren or my other loved ones.

Peter has certainly done well, as Mer exes reports.

“Cunningham garnered a raise, from $201,950 [$190,700 plus $11,250 deferred comp.] for 7.5 months in 2014 to $368,138 [$327,844 plus $40,294] for 12 months in 2015, which reflects an overall raise of $45,018 and a raise of $22,724 in non-deferred compensation.”

But how is Eli’s ego? Are the billionaires getting their money’s worth? How is the ROI?

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Education Reform

Eli Broad—Public School Ingrate—Says He Is Stepping Down from His Philanthropy

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2017 //
23

Eli Broad says he is stepping down from leadership of his foundation to “devote more time to his family.” This is cause for the New York Times to speak of his many gifts to the cultural life of Los Angeles.

We can only hope that he steps away from his hyperactive efforts to privatize public schools in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Eli Broad and his wife Edythe are graduates of the public schools of Detroit. But they feel no gratitude to the Great Democratic Institution that helped to lift them into a life of great riches.

Maybe they hated their teachers.

For whatever reasons, Eli Broad has contributed a significant bit of his vast fortune to training Superintendents to close public schools and replace them with privately run charters. They are known across the nation as “Broadies” and are viewed by parents and teachers as top-down bullies. He has created a plan to put half the children in Los Angeles into private charters. He contributes to publications and policy groups that defame public schools.

Why the hostility to public schools? Why doesn’t he want to make public schools the best they can be instead of undermining and closing them?

I don’t have the answer but I do recall meeting with Eli in his gorgeous penthouse on Fifth Avenue in New York City. What stuck with me was his frank admission that he knew nothing about education but was certain that good management was the key to solving the problems of urban education.

When he looks over his accomplishments, education reform will not be one of them. He meddled heavily in Detroit, and he and DeVos cannot call it a success for their shared philosophy.

There is not a single district he can point to with pride and claim success.

He has been a destructive force in the world of education. His love of disruption produced nothing but disruption.

While he is retiring from an active role in philanthropy, don’t be surprised if he continues to meddle in education, about which he admittedly knows nothing but has very strong opinions.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

BREAKING NEWS: Eli Broad Lost! WOW! Double WOW!

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2017 //
34

Karen Wolfe, parent activist in Los Angeles, writes about a dramatic turn of events earlier today. Eli Broad wanted to open a STEM school in Los Angeles. Not with his money, of course, but with public money. He also wanted more autonomy for charter schools, so they have even less oversight than they now have. It is highly unusual for a billionaire to ask the Legislature to give him a school. The Los Angeles Times thought it set a bad precedent but they supported it because, well, he does give the Times $800,000 a year (their reporters are untainted by his money, fortunately, but $800,000 is real money). And if the powerful charter industry in California needs anything, it is more oversight, more accountability, more transparency, not less.

And guess what! ELI BROAD LOST!

Karen Wolfe writes:


Victory in California!

On the final day of the legislative session, a massive coalition of teachers & parents, activists & experts, unions & school boards, those Democrats and these Democrats, and Republicans beat big money!

AB 1217, a bill sponsored by Eli Broad, would have established a school in the middle of Los Angeles, and so much more. It would have created a law–and set a statewide precedent–to let charter school operators circumvent local districts, the County Office of Education, and even the State Board of Education. This has never been done in California, where “local control” is fiercely protected. Obliterating that is a top priority of the charter lobby.

But we won!

What an uprising. First, a couple of us button-holed some of our local delegates to the Democratic Party in Los Angeles. Especially on the heels of the recent school board election, they got it! And they got to work. Within two days, the matter was put on the Los Angeles Democratic Party Central Committee agenda as an emergency measure. It passed unanimously–and it put our state legislators on notice. They were not going to sneak this through.

Then we California BATs sent out an Action Alert and worked up and down the state asking public education activists to call their senators. BATS started tweeting. Diane Ravitch posted it, and our state senators were getting calls from activists across the country. They knew they were being watched.

Before one caller even started talking, a senate staffer said, I’ll put you down as opposing. She said, how do you know that? He told her, I can hear a child in the background.

Each day, it stayed off the Senate floor. Were they waiting for the right moment, or did they know support was crumbling?

Then the Network for Public Education sent an eblast to tens of thousands of Californians who care about public education. Los Angeles activist Lauren Steiner took our message to a whole new community of California activists, opposed to privatization in general.

All the while, the teachers unions were working the legislature, and getting more partners to join the fight. School boards, firefighters, the PTA, all against this bill.

Together, we spoke truth to power and MADE them listen. We will not let them sell off our schools in secret, pretending that it is putting “kids first”.

Thank you to everyone who made calls!

Diane Ravitch always says, “We will win, because they are few, and we are many.” Sometimes it is hard to remember that. Today, I believe!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization

Los Angeles: If Eli Broad Wants a STEM School in Los Angeles, He Should Get It, Says Editorial in LA Times

By dianeravitch
September 14, 2017 //
34

The Los Angeles Times knows that it is a truly bad idea to let a billionaire buy a school of his choice in the LAUSD, but hey, it is Eli Broad, and he does provide $800,000 a year to underwrite education coverage in the LA Times.

LAUSD already has STEM schools, but this is Eli’s STEM school, and he really wants it.

Besides, it will provide wonderful resources for a few hundred kids in the nation’s second biggest school district, so who can say no?

So much for public education. So much for deliberation and due process. So much for billionaires buying whatever they want.

Does the LA Times agree that any other rich person should be allowed to get funding from the state for any school they want to open? Oh, yeah, that’s charter schools.

The LAUSD board split on the issue, with the pro-charter majority (all in debt to Eli Broad) supporting it, and the anti-charter minority saying that the district already has many excellent STEM programs which could use extra funding. (If they voted again today, the vote might be a tie, since the president of the board was just charged with multiple felony counts of campaign finance fraud.)

But with Eli, enough is never enough. He enjoys sticking his big thumb into the public’s eye and expecting gratitude.

Let us never forget that he secretly contributed money to defeat a ballot proposition to increase funding for the public schools.

If he can’t control them, why bother?

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

California BATS Need Your Help! Stop Eli Broad Now!

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2017 //
11

Parent activist Karen Wolfe appeals for your help!

STOP AB 1217, Eli Broad’s latest power play.

California BATS need your help today!

California BATS Action Alert>> Please call or fax the State Assembly Education Committee TODAY! (Fax – (916)319-2187, or contact info at the bottom):

Tell them you OPPOSE AB 1217. A vote is expected this Thursday or Friday.

AB 1217 is sponsored by Eli Broad. It is a GUT & AMEND bill. That means it was sneaked into other legislation while we weren’t looking. Please help us tell the Assembly Ed Committee that we are awake!

Although not technically a charter, the bill would set a statewide precedent that lets charter school operators circumvent local districts, the County Office of Ed, and even the State Board of Education. It creates a new authorizer–the legislature. This is a top priority of the charter lobby.

Please tell Assembly Ed Committee to vote NO because:

– Usurps Local Control. The new LA school board is pro-charter. LACOE is pro-charter. Why skip them?

– Why are legislators far away pushing for a school in downtown Los Angeles? Why don’t they build one in their own district? Assembly member Miguel Santiago, who represents downtown L.A., opposes this bill.

– It circumvents an already established process to open a school. This law would create even less oversight and accountability than charter schools currently have.

– The State Finance Dept recommends a NO vote on AB 1217.

– The fields named are the blue color jobs of the tech industry. Why not a school to prepare for NASA jobs, or biotech or Engineering?

– The math & science problems are in elementary school. A high school does not address the problem, but charter operators receive more money for high schools. So is this really about kids? Or is it about money?

– We don’t need STEM schools; STEAM schools include the arts.

– California’s powerful charter lobby says it is neutral on this bill, but CCSA came to the LA School Board meeting and asked the board not to vote against it. The Center for Education Reform says, “Permitting the creation of multiple authorizers is one of the most important components of a strong charter law. The data show that states with multiple chartering authorities have almost three and a half times more charter schools than states that only allow local school board approval.”

– It will open the flood gates in California. Small, independent charters would be drowned by the big corporate charter management organizations that are ready to expand.

Shareable Action Alert by California BATs: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=776937455825833&id=164608490392069

LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl is against this bill.
On the LAUSD board, all three retired school principals are against this bill – George McKenna, Scott Schmerelson, Richard Vladovic.

The California Department of Finance is opposed to this bill. Its report states:

“It would be more appropriate for the school to seek establishment from the local school district, rather than from the Superintendent. The bill requires the school to develop a similar plan that charter schools must develop when submitting their petitions for charter, while circumventing the existing process to establish charter schools in the state.

“It could result in a school that lacks proper oversight, as it requires the Superintendent to issue reports to the Governor and the Legislature if the school fails to comply with this bill, but does not give the Superintendent authority to rescind its approval of the school or take other remediating measures.

“It sets a precedent for the Superintendent to approve, oversee, monitor, and report on the operation of the school beyond what the Superintendent is required to do with existing state schools.

“It creates additional total costs of $1.4 million non-Proposition 98 General Fund over five years that are beyond those included in the recently enacted Budget Act.”

California Assembly Education Committee:
Fax the Committee (916)319-2187
Patrick O’Donnell, Chair (916)319-2070
Rocky Chavez (916)319-2076
Todd Gloria (916)319-2078
Kevin Kiley (916)319-2006
Kevin McCarty (916)319-2007
Tony Thurmond (candidate for State Superintendent) (916)319-2015
Dr. Shirley Weber (916)319-2079

AB 1217 is wrong. Please call or fax, and share this with allies today!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, California, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry

St. Louis: a One-Great School District and the Vultures Who Destroyed It

By dianeravitch
September 7, 2017 //
43

Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network reports here on the sad story of what happened to public education in St. Louis, once a mecca of public education. The city has elegant public school buildings that were designed for eternity, but now stand shuttered and desolate.

What happened?

Racism. Segregation. White flight. Civic abandonment. Economic decline.

Remedies? The Broad Foundation and the Koch brothers to the rescue (not). Politicians committed to privatization. Business management. School closings, almost entirely in African-American neighborhoods. Incompetent business leadership. Some charter schools with high test scores, most with lower scores than the public schools. Charter scams and scandals. Profiteering. Loss of accreditation. State takeover. A new superintendent, determined to revive public education. Improved scores and graduation rates. Accreditation restored. New public schools with selective admissions, competing with charter schools.

Bryant visits some of the beautiful, abandoned schools and draws lessons from them.

“Many of these schools, like Cleveland High, are grand structures, built a hundred years ago or more, in a style that features intricate brick and stone exteriors with turrets and arches and spacious interiors with vaulted ceilings and sunlit classrooms.

“But the story of St. Louis’s schools is about so much more than the buildings themselves. It’s a story about an American ideal and what and who gutted that ideal.

“It’s also a story that merits important attention today as prominent education policy leaders, such as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, contend conversations about education should not even include the subjects of buildings and systems.

“Today’s current thinking that learning can “occur anyplace, anytime” prompts entrepreneurs to create networks of online schools and charter school operators to open schools in retail storefronts and abandoned warehouses.

“But the grand schools St. Louis built for its children caution that the permanency of schools as buildings and institutions is worth defending.

“More than a century ago, St. Louis embarked on a revolution in education that made the city’s schools the jewel of the Midwest and a model for urban school districts around the nation.

“I was recently standing in at one of the places where the revolution started: Elliot School at 4242 Grove St. It was padlocked with a graffiti-covered “For Sale” sign out front. The district closed the school in 2004.”

Footnote: Missouri legislation now debating expansion of charter schools to other districts.

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Failure, Privatization, Racism, Segregation, St. Louis

Los Angeles: Rally Today to Protest Eli Broad Takeover of STEM Programs

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2017 //
42

Eli Broad will go down in history–if at all–as a selfish billionaire who used his money to destroy public education wherever and whenever he could. He graduated from public schools in Michigan, but instead of gratitude, he wants to ruin the public schools that helped him succeed. He promotes privatization. He has an Academy for superintendents where they are taught top-down, undemocratic methods; most are failures. He should be ashamed of himself. But billionaires know no shame.

Rally and Protest to support STEM schools, defeat ‘boutique’ school bill AB 1217

LOS ANGELES – Educators, students, parents and graduates of district STEM schools will rally TODAY at 4 PM on the front steps of Helen Bernstein High School, home of a successful STEM program, to protest AB 1217, which is co-sponsored by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra and State Senator Anthony Portantino. The proposed bill would give away local authority to a boutique, privately-run STEM school in downtown LA.

Assembly Bill 1217 is a secretive, last-minute bill to create a publicly funded but privately operated STEM school, bypassing the local School Board, parents, and educators. If approved, it would take about 800 students from LAUSD but would not operate under the district’s purview. Citing accountability and funding concerns, the California Department of Finance opposes AB 1217 (see attached report). The bill would take away essential per-pupil funding and resources from the 142 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs already run in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The backers of the bill include Billionaire Eli Broad, who for years has bankrolled various “some kids, not all kids” schemes to kill the public education system that serves all students in favor of unregulated, unaccountable charter school operators. Ironically, Broad and his cohorts, like the California Charter Schools Association, just spent millions of dollars to buy the LA School Board election — and now he is driving a heavy-handed attempt to circumvent the same board just a few months later. Read LA Times story.

“This bill is an insult to the STEM programs that are in existence at LAUSD schools,” said Ben Kim, who teaches AP Calculus and AP Statistics at the STEM Academy @Bernstein. “Our STEM schools are doing amazing work, despite operating on shoestring budgets. Why don’t they fund these programs before allowing a billionaire-backed school to open up, without proper oversight and accountability?”

TODAY’s protest follows a recent campus visit from newly elected board member Nick Melvoin, who praised the STEM @ Bernstein. The visit was then followed by a board vote to undercut funding at the same school, which is in his district. On Tuesday, Aug. 22, the LAUSD School Board voted 4-3 against George McKenna’s resolution opposing AB 1217. Divisive politics is what Nick Melvoin claimed to be avoiding as he voted along party lines, upholding the ‘billionaire bloc’ vote to deny local opposition to the state bill.

“The 4-3 school board vote shows that they are still beholden to their donors,” Kim said. “In their visit to our school, they tell us they support us. When it comes down to it, nice gestures mean nothing if they won’t fight for our public schools.”

Read Capital and Main story.

Speakers will include: UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, Dr. Ruth Montes (STEM graduate), current STEM students and educators, community members and parents who will call on Portantino, Bocanegra and Melvoin to save LAUSD’s STEM programs and kill AB 1217.

PRESS AVAILABILITY (English and Spanish interviews available)

What: Rally against AB 1217
When: Monday, Aug. 28, 4 p.m. To 5 p.m.
Where: STEM Academy @ Helen Bernstein High School
1309 N. Wilton Place
Los Angeles CA 90028

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Education Industry, Injustice, Los Angeles, Privatization, STEM

Los Angeles: The Unprecedented Flood of Campaign Cash That Elected a Pro-Charter Majority to the School Board

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2017 //
20

Howard Blume in the Los Angeles Times describes the flood of campaign cash that managed to sink School Board President Steve Zimmer and another candidate and put a pro-charter majority in charge of the school board.

The billionaires pulled out all the stops to gain control of the board. Now the president of the LAUSD board is Ref Rodriguez, who launched a charter chain in LAUSD. Contrary to my first report, Rodriguez stepped down from the board of his charter chain (PUC). But his sympathies are clear.

A last-minute splurge of donations from billionaire Eli Broad and businessman Bill Bloomfield swept the pro-charter candidates to victory. More than $15 million was spent by both sides, the most ever spent on a school board election in American history.

Netflix founder Reed Hastings alone spent more than $7 million. The Waltons added a few shekels.

The billionaires strike again, intent on destroying public education and democracy, and opening even more privately managed, privately owned and nonunion charters.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Gary Sasso: Why Don’t the Billionaires Help the Schools That Most Children Attend?

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2017 //
86

Gary Sasso, dean of education at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, asks a simple question: if billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad care about our nation’s future, why don’t they help the public schools, which enroll 85% of America’s children?

Sasso wrote in Salon:

“Obscured by the rancor of the school reform debate is this fact: Socio-economic status is the most relevant determinant of student success in school.

“It is not a coincidence that the so-called decline of the American public school system has coincided with the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center report, the wealth disparity between upper-income and middle-income families is at a record high. Upper-income families are nearly seven times wealthier than middle-income ones, compared to 3.4 times richer in 1983. Upper-income family wealth is nearly 70 times that of the country’s lower-income families, also the widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years.”

So why do the 1% blame teachers and unions for sociology-economic conditions they can’t control?

“Charter schools will never be the answer to improving education for all. It is simply not scaleable. And yet titans of industry such as Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family, and billionaires such as John Paulson who earlier this year gave $8.5 million to New York’s Success Academy charter school system, are pouring their millions into support for charter schools—millions that will not, incidentally, be invested in improving the schools that the vast majority of U.S. students attend: traditional public schools.

“Can it be a coincidence that those who have benefited most from the last 50 years of steadily increasing income inequality—the top 10 percent–support an education solution that hinges on denigrating public school teachers, dismantling unions and denying that income inequality is the underlying condition at the root of the problem?”

The facts don’t support their crusade for charters, he says, so they must be driven by ideology.

What do you think?

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization
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