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Florida: Principal Doubles Salary When Public School Turns Charter

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2019 //
10

 

What a payoff!

A principal in Florida doubled his salary when his public schools converted to a charter, which is what the rightwing governor and legislator want to happen.

Meanwhile teachers In the state are raising money to pay for basic school supplies for their students.

Lincoln Memorial Academy principal Eddie Hundley, the subject of a federal investigation, earned more than twice the average salary of middle school principals in Manatee last year.

Former Lincoln Memorial Academy principal Eddie Hundley, who is currently the subject of a federal investigation into fraud, bribery and embezzlement, earned roughly $204,000 last year, according to Manatee County School District general counsel Mitch Teitelbaum.

Hundley’s salary nearly doubled overnight when Lincoln converted from a traditional district middle school to a charter on June 30, 2018. Before the conversion, school district officials say Hundley was earning $105,560, but as of July 1, 2018, his base pay increased to $174,990 plus a supplement of $2,450 per month.

“This may not be the entire compensation received by Mr. Hundley,” Teitelbaum said in an email.

Hundley’s salary had been a mystery, as school district officials have sought more details about Lincoln’s finances. The school was declared in “dire financial condition” in May. Lincoln was found to have missed roughly $60,000 in payments to the Florida Retirement System, and the city of Palmetto has threatened to turn off the school’s water twice due to unpaid bills…

Hundley’s base salary and monthly supplement, not including benefits, puts his earnings well above middle school principals in Manatee, who on average earned $83,200 in 2018-19, according to the school district.

However, Hundley’s salary it is not out of the realm for charter school principals in the district. In 2017 the Herald Tribune compiled salaries of the highest paid employee at all charter schools in Sarasota and Manatee. At that point, Manatee School for the Arts principal Bill Jones earned roughly $184,000. Fred Spence, the founder of Bradenton’s Team Success, earned $237,000 in 2014, the last year of salary data available before management of the school was handed over to his management firm. The highest paid employee at a charter school in Sarasota in 2017 was Vickie Marble at the Student Leadership Academy, at $143,175.

Local officials said the school’s administrative costs had tripled beyond what was expected..

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Florida, Funding, Privatization

Charter Schools and Enrollment Decline in San Antonio

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2019 //
14

 

Texas Public Radio reported on the devastating effect that charter expansion is having on the public schools of San Antonio. The city leaders, in their ignorance, decided not to improve the public schools, but to create a parallel private system to compete with them. Both sectors are funded by the public, but the charters choose their students and some do not offer transportation.

The city’s population is growing but enrollment in its public schools is shrinking.

The main reason for the apparent contradiction is an exponential growth in publicly-funded, privately-run charter schools. Charter school enrollment in the San Antonio metro area has grown by more than 200% since 2009, according to a Texas Public Radio analysis of a decade of enrollment records obtained through public information requests. 

In the past two years alone, charter networks in the San Antonio metro area gained nearly 11,000 students. For traditional school districts, that meant a corresponding loss in funding. State funding is based on attendance.

The big charter networks, like IDEA and Great Hearts, have selective enrollment practices. IDEA has received more than $200 million from Betsy DeVos and the federal Charter Schools Program.

Some local parent groups are fighting back, but they are vastly outspent by the charter networks and undercut by state policy, which favors privatization.

Charter favoritism guarantees that the local public schools, which enroll most children, will be underfunded and will serve a disproportionate number of students with the highest needs.

Some parents have organized to fight back:

Standing in the neighborhood next to Oak Meadow Elementary in the North East school district, Cameron Vickrey said her daughters’ school “experienced a kind of mass exodus” a few years ago to go to Great Hearts. Great Hearts is a charter network that uses a classical curriculum similar to private schools.

“When all of those people left there was a volunteer vacuum,” Vickrey said. “That was when I came to the school, and as a new kindergarten mom I was put on the PTA board… because they pretty much had to create a PTA board from scratch.”

Vickrey’s neighborhood is mostly one-story, ranch-style houses a short walk or drive from the elementary school.

Trimmed yards are sprinkled with white signs that say “Proudly RootEd in NEISD.”

Vickrey and a few other Oak Meadow parents started making the yard signs after hearing other parents say that nobody in the neighborhood goes to the traditional public school.

RootEd yard sign in the Oak Meadow neighborhood of North East ISD.
CREDIT CAMILLE PHILLIPS | TEXAS PUBLIC RADIO

“And we stopped and thought about it, and we were like, ‘That’s not true! Of course people go to that school.’ They just don’t know those neighbors, right, because maybe they’re not in their clique or whatever.”

From there, RootEd grew into a nonprofit with a mission of spreading positive stories about district schools — both by word of mouth and on social media using the hashtag RootEd.

“RootEd just wants to say, ‘Wait, hang on a second. Remember that these schools are here. And there are awesome things happening in them still,’” Vickrey said. “Make that your first stop, the first thing that you look into and if it doesn’t work for you for whatever reason, nobody’s going to fault you for that. You have a right to do that but we just want to make sure that people don’t discount their public schools.”

Vickrey said she also wants parents to consider the “unintended side effects” of choosing charter schools: less money and volunteers for the traditional public school, and a tendency to choose a school where people look like you.

“Our middle school that we’re zoned for here is a Title I (low-income) school, Jackson Middle School,” Vickrey said. “And it’s fabulous, but so many start choosing their school path for elementary school based on trying to avoid Jackson Middle School.”

Jackson Middle School is 80% Hispanic and 72% economically disadvantaged. San Antonio’s Great Hearts schools are less than 20% low-income and almost 50% white.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, San Antonio

West Contra Costa Public Schools Lose $27.9 Million Annually to Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2019 //
10

 

According to a study by the watchdog group In the Public Interest, The public schools of the small West Contra School School District in California lose $27.9 million each year due to charter schools, a loss of nearly $1,000 for each student in the public schools. The majority of students suffer budget cuts so a small proportion can attend charter schools that may be no better and may close mid-year.

As of 2016-17, the school year for which the costs in this report were calculated, 28,518 students attended WCCUSD’s traditional public schools, while 4,606 students—14 percent of the total student population—were enrolled in 12 charter schools within the district’s physical boundaries. More recent data indicate an explosion in charter school enrollment. The proportion of WCCUSD students attending charter schools has more than doubled in four years, from 8 percent of the district total in the 2014 -15 school year to 17 percent this year.


The costs of charter schools


When students transfer to charter schools, funding for their education follows—but costs remain. Because charter schools pull students from multiple schools and grade levels, it’s rare that individual traditional public schools can reduce expenses enough to make up for the lost revenue. While WCCUSD schools have 14 percent fewer students to serve, a school cannot adjust expenses by, for example, cutting 14 percent of its principal, heating bill, parking lot paving, internet service, or building maintenance. The district also cannot proportionately cut administrative tasks such as bus route planning, teacher training, grant writing, and budget development. Because these central costs cannot be cut, districts are forced to cut services provided to traditional public school students.


Even if such cuts were possible, districts are legally responsible for serving all students in the community and must maintain adequate facilities to reabsorb students when inherently risky charter schools fail. During the 2016 -17 school year alone, 51 California charter schools either closed or were converted into traditional public schools.3

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization

Anna Clark: The Public Schools of Benton Harbor, Michigan, Deserve Support, Not Closing

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2019 //
0

 

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is poised to close the high school of Benton Harbor instead of giving it the resources and support it needs. Perhaps it is time to review the state’s funding formula, created by a generation of Republican legislator, Gov. Engler, Gov. Snyder, and Betsy DeVos.

In this article, journalist Anna Clark describes what the public schools of St. Joseph, the twin city of Benton Harbor, meant to her.

It begins:

Over on Court Street in St. Joseph, Michigan, one mile from the little bridge to Benton Harbor, my hardworking family struggled to make do. We poured milk over broken Saltines and called it cereal. I tried, in a thousand obnoxious ways, to persuade my parents to buy food they couldn’t afford, not least in a choreographed song-anddance routine with my siblings titled “The There’s-No-Food Blues.”

We had one big advantage: terrific public schools.

For all the separateness between St. Joseph and Benton Harbor – one whiter and richer, the other poorer and mostly African American, with the St. Joseph River curving between them, doomed to be a perpetual metaphor – these are small communities. For many of us, our roots span both sides. I grew up in St. Joseph, but Benton Harbor is where my mother was raised, where relatives live, where our family church is, where I worked part-time jobs in high school and college, and where I run a 5K on Thanksgiving mornings. It, too, is home.

Yet the differences between our so-called “Twin Cities” grow ever more serious. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has proposed closing Benton Harbor High School for at least a few years, to get the distressed school district out of the death spiral of debt, following a consent agreement that gave the state oversight of the schools for years; it was lifted last November in favor of a financial plan that has, apparently, been scrapped. Benton Harbor’s enrollment may be lower than it used to be, but the prospect of shuttering the community’s single public high school – one that many still take pride in – is a blow.

St. Joe schools gave me the chance to thrive. Besides classes with experienced teachers, I edited a newsmagazine, performed in plays, went out for speech competitions, and failed to make many, many athletic teams. The first time I traveled out of the country was on a class trip for fourth-year Spanish students. I worked constant extra hours to pay the bill, but I got to spend two wide-eyed weeks in Spain.

I didn’t have a conversation with someone my own age from Benton Harbor until I was a freshman at the University of Michigan, leading creative writing workshops at a juvenile detention center. He was in the workshop. We traded joyful memories of the beach at Jean Klock Park and brown bag lunches at Henry’s Hamburgers, while the gulf between us loomed. We had grown up as veritable neighbors, both in working- class families, and here I was, a college student, and there he was, incarcerated.

I began to see how segregation is not only bizarre but sinister. If you grow up on the St. Joe side of the river, even in a family that is poor, you have opportunities your peers in Benton Harbor don’t have.

I’ve often heard people in St. Joe blame Ben- ton Harbor parents for the school system’s woes: “They could have fixed it. They just don’t care,” they say, pointing to empty seats at PTA meetings and sporting events. I understand the value of loving parents, but I had a great public education because my schools were supported by the taxes of people far richer than my family. Until the passage of Proposal A in 1994 (most of my student years), property taxes were the main source of school funding. Unequal schools were a matter of policy.

Even now, in the era of per-pupil funding, schools with a disproportionate number of poor students must meet disproportionate needs, but with few resources.

Michigan ranks 50th for funding growth in public education, with total revenue declining 30% since 2002. Not coincidentally, it also ranks low for math and reading proficiency. But in St. Joseph, millages help. In May, my hometown renewed a millage for support services, technology, transportation and maintenance. The levy only applies to second homes and commercial properties, but it’ll generate $5.8 million.

Poverty is concentrated in Benton Harbor. Second-home millages aren’t an option. It’s a challenge to keep teachers, when salaries are among the lowest in the state. Average annual pay was $34,761 for the 2016-2017 school year, and fell during a statewide teacher shortage. In St. Joseph and nearby Stevensville, average salaries increased to more than $63,000.

I’m proud that I come from a community that prizes public education. But it is outrageously painful that some look across the river and suggest that Benton Harbor’s children don’t have the same advantages because their parents love them less.

It also misses the obvious: Inequality perpetuates itself. It can’t be forgotten that in living memory, segregation was law. Through redlining and racially restrictive deeds, enforced by every level of government and private enterprise, we designed a system where homes owned by African Americans were worth less. Then we tied school funding to property values.

Open the link and read the rest.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Funding, Michigan

Benton Harbor: Residents See Possible Closing of Beloved High School as Racism, Despite Low Test Scores

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2019 //
10

 

Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitme campaigned in Benton Harbor, promising to invest in schools and to reverse Republican Rick Snyder’s ruinous policies of state takeover and school closings. Once elected, she offered Benton Harbor a deal: the state will forgive your debts if you close the high school to cut costs. If you don’t take the deal, the whole district may be closed. The residents felt betrayed.

And rightly so. Poor communities can’t raise as much revenue as rich districts. The state has a responsibility to step in and assure equal educational opportunity, especially for the neediest communities.

 

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — In Benton Harbor, a small city beside Lake Michigan, the high school binds generations and strangers. This is a place where basketball games are a highlight of the social calendar, where signs celebrating state championships are placed at the edge of city limits, where residents say what year they graduated when they introduce themselves.

For years, Benton Harbor’s school system had faced dismal fiscal conditions, miserable academic rankings and intense scrutiny from the state. But when Michigan voters chose a new governor last November, it was seen as a hopeful sign in Benton Harbor. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who won more than 90 percent of the vote in this city, presented herself as a supporter of investment in struggling places, a defender of public schools, someone who cared about Benton Harbor.

But in May, Ms. Whitmer brought a grim message: Benton Harbor should close its high school and the state could forgive the district millions of dollars in debts. Otherwise, the entire school district was at risk of shutting down.

The proposal was seen as a betrayal in Benton Harbor, a predominantly black city where the high school has operated since the 1870s. What would it say to the children, residents asked, if their hometown was deemed unfit for a high school? And without Benton Harbor High School — without Tiger football games and the robotics team and the marching band — what would be left of Benton Harbor?

“It would kill the whole community,” said Greg Hill, 18, who graduated from Benton Harbor High this month and said he hoped to eventually return to the school as a history teacher. He called Ms. Whitmer’s plan “educational genocide.”

Michigan has a uniquely troubled history of state intervention in financially struggling cities with mostly African-American residents. In Inkster, where 72 percent of residents are black, the school district dissolved six years ago after the state deemed it financially unviable. In Detroit, where the population is 79 percent black, the state seized control of the school system and took the municipal government through bankruptcy. In Flint, 54 percent black, a state-appointed emergency manager changed the drinking water source and touched off the city’s water crisis.

So in Benton Harbor, where 86 percent of the 10,000 residents are black, many people saw Ms. Whitmer’s proposal not as an unavoidable end to longstanding academic and fiscal problems with the high school, but as the racist result of years of state meddling and disinvestment.

Categories Budget Cuts, Closing schools, Michigan, Racism

Valerie Jablow: D.C. Chancellor Ferebee is Cutting the Budgets of Public Schools While Shifting Funds to New Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2019 //
7

Valerie Jablow, parent activist and blogger in D.C., wrote a scathing indictment of the leadership of the District of Columbia Public Schools.

She is sure that the districts leaders are actively undermining public schools–a policy of benign neglect– and promoting charter expansion.

A few weeks ago, the D.C. Public Charter School Board [sic] approved five new charter schools, despite the large number of empty seats in both public and private charter schools.  Only one of the new charters will locate in Anacostia, the city’s highest poverty district.

Many of the public schools enrolling students with high needs are suffering devastating budget cuts. At the same time, the Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn testified that the city was “over investing” in these same schools. She notes that the Deputy Mayor sends his own child to an expensive private school where it is just fine to “overinvest” in education.

Chancellor Lewis Ferebee was hired away from Indianapolis, where he was actively collaborating with those who supported the privatization of public education. Now he oversees the harsh budget cuts inflicted on D.C.’s public schools, while declaring that more seats are needed for charter schools. Conditions are so bad in many of the district’s public schools that students are literally being pushed out of public schools and forced to seek “choices” other than their neighborhood public schools.

Chancellor Ferebee is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which actively promotes vouchers, charter schools, and high-stakes testing.

And here is a voice in the D.C. wilderness, a teacher and Vice Chair of the Ward 7 Education Council, calling for a moratorium on charters in D.C., because they open and close at will and have no allegiance to their community, nor do they fill any need. Venola M. Rolle wrote in a letter to the Washington Post:

Stories regarding sudden closures and substandard performance justify a moratorium on establishing charter schools in this city. I do not know what information could be more damning. It’s time to have an open discussion about how to cease the proliferation of charter schools in the city and, instead, devise approaches to strengthening the schools we already have and that are the anchors of our communities.

With the current leadership of D.C., its mayor, its deputy mayor for education, and its chancellor, that discussion is not likely to happen.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Education Reform, Indianapolis, Privatization

Los Angeles Times: What Tony Thurmond’s Charter School Task Force Recommended

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2019 //
17

A few months ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appointed a task force to make recommendations to the State Legislature about the needed reforms of the state charter law. Of the 11 people on the Task Force, several had ties to the charter industry, two work for the California Charter Schools Association, and others are employed by charter schools. I had my doubts. But Superintendent Thurmond read my posts and called me to say, don’t judge me until you see what happens.

When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.

Twenty percent of students in LA attend charters. At least 80% of LA charters have vacancies, contrary to phony claims about “long waiting lists.” The UTLA commissioned an audit which concluded that public schools lose $600 million every year to charters.

Howard Blume explained the recommendations of the Task Force report in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Blume writes:

When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.

California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.

The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.

One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.

The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.

But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.

To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.

The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.

A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.

The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.

“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students….”

One problem up and down the state has been inconsistent oversight of charters. The panel said California should create one or more entities to develop consistent standards and to train school districts in how to use them.

Some recommendations received majority but not unanimous favor, including limiting when another agency can overrule a local school district’s decision to reject a new charter or close down an existing one.

A majority also wanted to prohibit school districts from authorizing charters located outside district boundaries. Some tiny districts used these faraway charters to generate revenue but provided little to no oversight, as outlined in a Times investigation.

A panel majority also recommended a one-year moratorium on “virtual” charters, which enroll students in an online program. Prosecutors recently indicted 11 people from online charters on criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Los Angeles, Privatization

Bernie Sanders Vigorously Criticizes Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
27

 

Despite the outrage of the privatization movement, which attacked Bernie Sanders for his position on charters, Sanders doubled down by publishing an article in the San Jose Mercury News reiterating his views. 

Here is an excerpt, where he accurately cites the study by Gordon Lafer on how charters drain money from public schools and the NPE study showing the waste of federal money spent on charters that never opened or closed almost immediately.

My education plan calls for rescinding Donald Trump’s tax breaks and using those resources to triple funding for low-income school districts. We will also institute a national per-pupil funding standard, so that the quality of a child’s education is not contingent on her zip code. Education should be a human right, not a privilege.

In addition, my plan also calls for restrictions on charter school initiatives that siphon resources out of the public education system and resegregating schools.

When parents enroll their children in charter schools, the public funding allocated to those students goes with them. In the Oakland Unified School District, for example, charter schools were costing the district more than $57 million per year. This amount would easily cover the budget shortfall of $56 million over two years that Oakland officials have projected.

Charters are publicly-funded, but they are privately managed — meaning, they are not accountable to taxpayers. As a result, billionaires like Eli Broad, the DeVos family, and the Walton family are able to bankroll destructive charter school experiments to enrich investors and real-estate developers with taxpayer resources.

Between 2002-2017, California charter schools received more than $2.5 billion in tax dollars or taxpayer subsidized funds to lease, build, or buy school buildings. In one example, the Alliance Ready Public Schools network of charter schools used public funds to build a $200 million private real estate empire in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, a report from the Network for Public Education found 38 percent of California charter schools that received federal funds between 2006 and 2014 “had either never opened or shut their doors by 2019.”

Advocates argue that charters deliver good outcomes — but the overall results are mixed at best.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding

UTLA Reacts to Loss on Measure EE

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
5

Measure EE went down to defeat in Los Angeles yesterday. It was an effort to raise taxes mostly on commercial real estate to raise $500 million a year for the schools—to reduce class sizes, hire librarians, nurses, social workers, and psychologists and to expand classes in art and music. An election this important should appear during a general election, when most people vote.

 

For immediate release

CONTACT: Anna Bakalis
UTLA Communications Director
(213) 305-9654 (c)
(213) 368-6247 (o)
Abakalis@UTLA.net<mailto:Abakalis@UTLA.net>

To watch the live 1:30 PM press conference, click here<https://www.facebook.com/UTLAnow/videos/2390124311212283/>.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl on Measure EE

We are proud of the work we poured into the Measure EE campaign. Our members participated in precinct walks, community events, and phone banks, talking to voters across the city. We know the community fundamentally trusts educators and supports the demands we are making for our schools, with UTLA’s strike in January being the historic case in point.

We faced a scorched-earth opposition, led by the LA Chamber of Commerce and aided by the Howard Jarvis Association and key Trump allies like Geoffrey Palmer. They had one purpose: to defend corporate profits at the expense of the students of our city.

The No on EE forces created lies about how the tax would work and fanned the flames of economic insecurity. They attacked not just LAUSD but the civic institution of public education and the educators who serve our students. They drove a destructive individualistic message that encouraged voters not to think about the needs of our students or the broader city.

Measure EE was just the beginning of the fight for funding sparked by our strike. It’s simply unsustainable for the richest state in the nation to rank 44th out of 50 in per-pupil funding. We are resolved to keep organizing for measures like Schools and Communities First on the November 2020 ballot, which would close commercial property tax loopholes and restore $11 billion for schools and community services.

There were ground-breaking elements to the Measure EE campaign that make us stronger for the work ahead. The City of LA is talking about the chronic underfunding of public schools in a way it never has. We partnered with community organizations focused on increasing voter participation in working-class communities and communities of color. In a district with 85% low-income students and 90% students of color, this is both righteous and necessary. We built a broad community/labor/elected coalition around addressing school funding that has not existed before in LA. That coalition, which includes some unlikely partners, has decidedly landed on the side of progressive taxation — taxation of business and corporations — as the pathway to improved school funding.

The agenda to starve our public schools will not win as long as we continue to build our movement.

Today is hard — but educators face and overcome obstacles every day. There is no other option. Like we do every day, we will continue to fight for our students.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Class size, Funding, Librarians, Los Angeles

Bad News from L.A.: Landlords Win, Students Lose

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
6

 

Voters in Los Angeles yesterday turned down Measure EE, which would have raised $500 million yearly for schools. The measure required a 2/3 yes vote, but didn’t win a majority. It would have been funded mostly by taxes on commercial properties, and the LA Chamber of Commerce mounted a campaign to defeat it.

It would have funded smaller classes, nurses, social workers, librarians, arts and music.

What a crying shame.

If you care about the kids, you have to do right by them.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles
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