Archives for category: California
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Another Charter Scandal in California: The Moonlighting Principal

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2016 //
15

A few days ago, I wrote a post about California’s burgeoning charter industry and its lack of regulation or oversight. This is called a recipe for scandal, of which there have already been many in the Golden State. You might recall the charter operators who went to jail for misappropriating funds. Or the charter operator who paid a staff member to go to Africa and marry his brother so he could legally enter the U.S. Or the superintendent who set up a private consulting business to help charters grow where they aren’t wanted. Or…the list goes on and on.

Think of the opportunities when taxpayer money is handed out freely and left without oversight.

Now comes another scandal. The El Camino Real Charter High School’s principal moonlighted as a scout for the National Basketball Association, traveled across the country first class to basketball games, and charged his travel expenses to the school.

Fehte used the school card for expenses on two trips to Greensboro, N.C., during the March weekends of the 2014 and 2015 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Tournaments. In 2014 he charged $972 total at a luxury hotel 10 minutes from the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, the site of the tournament. Fehte, 55, signed a school form that stated one of the hotel charges was for a “Green initiative,” apparently a reference to the school’s environmental conservation efforts.

The Daily News obtained El Camino’s credit card statements and receipts for 2014 and 2015 under the California Public Records Act. The school is run by a nonprofit organization and receives about $32 million in government funds annually, accounting for 94 percent of its revenue. Officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District, which oversees charters in its boundaries, notified El Camino last fall that its administrators had violated the school’s own financial policies. Without naming him, the district criticized Fehte’s use of the card for personal expenses, and said he only reimbursed El Camino a handful of times.

This principal is the second highest paid executive director or principal of a public school in the state. He is paid $221,475.

Keep your seat belts buckled. This is the tip of the iceberg. More scandals ahead.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Reform

California: Charter Lobby Pulls a Dirty Trick and Throws in $1.2 Million for Legislative Race: VOTE KASSAKHIAN TOMORROW!

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2016 //
18

The California Charter School Association is a super-rich, highly political power broker in politics. It wants to control every possible seat in the state legislature so it can pursue its goal of mass privatization of public schools across the Golden State.

Consider this dirty trick: It has created an organization called the “Parent Teacher Alliance,” which endorses candidates. Thus, the candidates can say that they were endorsed by the “PTA,” even though this Parent Teacher Alliance has no affiliation with the Parent Teacher Associations of the state.

The Los Angeles School Report, whose editorial content is directed by Campbell Brown, has a story about a crucial legislative race playing out in a district where the assemblyman vacated his seat. Voters will decide tomorrow. The go-to speaker quoted in the story is Marshall Tuck, who ran and lost as the pro-charter candidate against Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent. Tuck speaks from the “reform” point of view, labeling those whom he doesn’t like as union candidates.

Here is the bottom line on spending: A rift in the Democratic Party over education policy comes into sharp relief one day before California’s primary election as a record $28 million has been spent by outside groups on state races, one-third coming from groups supporting charter schools.

There you have it: with all the issues facing the state, one-third of the $28 million spent by outside groups on state races is coming from charter advocates.

The latest example in Southern California is playing out in an open state Assembly district seat in Glendale, Burbank, La Canada Flintridge and parts of Los Angeles where an independent expenditure committee supporting charter schools has spent more than $1.2 million to back a Democratic candidate, flooding voters’ mailboxes over the past eight weeks with attack ads on a fellow Democrat supported by teachers unions…..In the 43rd Assembly District seat, being vacated by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Burbank, due to term limits, an independent expenditure committee called the Parent Teacher Alliance, sponsored by the California Charter School Association Advocates, has spent $1.2 million as of Friday, state campaign finance records show. Parent Teacher Alliance is not associated with the well-known Parent Teacher Association.

Records show that donors to the CCSA Advocates Independent Expenditure Committee include Michael Bloomberg, Doris Fisher, Jim Walton and Eli Broad.

Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian has been backed by the California Teachers Association, which is considered among the most powerful lobbyists in Sacramento. Glendale City Councilwoman Laura Friedman has been endorsed by the California Charter School Association Advocates, the political arm of the CCSA. The union and education reformers have clashed over education policies like teacher tenure and the expansion of charter schools.

How touching to see that billionaires like former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Doris Fisher (of the Gap business), Jim Walton (of Walmart), and Eli Broad are deeply engaged in financing the phony “Parent Teacher Alliance.”

Here is the spending:

State campaign finance records also show the California Teachers Association’s Independent Expenditure Committee has spent $47,721 on the race: $35,791 on mailers opposing Friedman and $11,930 supporting Kassakhian.

The CCSA committee has spent $910,791 supporting Friedman and $304,355 opposing Kassakhian as of Friday, records show.

This is the score: $1.2 million assembled by the California Charter Schools Association to beat Kassakhian; $47,721 spent by the California Teachers Association to support Kassakhian. Goliath vs. David.

The fight over charter schools in California is really a fight over the future of public education in the state. Will there be public education 20 years from now, or will community schools be run by entrepreneurs and charter chains whose corporate leaders are based in other states?

If you live in the 43rd Assembly District, please vote for Ardy Kassakhian. DON’T LET THE BILLIONAIRES BUY YOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Hoax, Privatization

California Legislators and Governor Brown: No Accountability for Charters

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2016 //
32

Jessica Calefati of the San Jose Mercury-News wrote a shocking series about the online charter schools of K12 Inc., which have the lowest graduation rate in the state, and which counts students “present” if they log on for only one minute.

Millions of public dollars fund the California Virtual Academies (CAVA), which operates for profit and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, founded by Michael and Lowell Milken, delivers a substandard education. It should be closely supervised or shut down.

Unfortunately, as Calefati discovered, the legislature is moving at a snail’s pace to authorize an audit of CAVA. Nothing seems to be happening. Much clucking of tongues, but no action.

CAVA is the lowest performing school in the state. Why hasn’t it been shut down long ago? If you recall, K12’s online charter in Tennessee was the lowest performing school in the state, and not even the State Commissioner Kevin Huffman was able to get it closed. Why?

Governor Brown likes charters. When he was mayor of Oakland, he opened two charters. The legislature has been unwilling to stand up to the rich and powerful California Charter Schools Association. CCSA should be demanding close scrutiny of CAVA, whose tactics embarrasses all charter schools. Their silence is deafening.

When the legislature dared to pass a bill banning for-profit charters, Governor Brown vetoed it. He also vetoed a bill to require charter schools to ban conflicts of interest.

So California has a greedy, rapacious charter industry, whose growth will continue unchecked until public schools enroll only students the charters don’t want. Fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter industry will grow without oversight. Conflicts of interest and nepotism will proliferate. Charters will continue to be run by entrepreneurs and speculators.

Does anyone think these developments are “reform”? From a distance, they look like graft and corruption.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization

Half the Juniors in 2 Palo Alto High Schools Opt Out

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2016 //
8

Students at two high schools in Palo Alto, California, opted out of the tests of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, the Common Core test funded by the US Department of Education.

 

“For the second year in a row, both Palo Alto and Gunn high schools failed to meet the government’s required participation rates for new standardized test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment, with about half of the junior classes choosing to opt out.

 

“About 47 percent of Gunn juniors and 61 percent of Paly juniors submitted exemptions, with their parents’ permission, to opt out of two days of testing the week of May 16, according to Janine Penney, the district’s manager of research, evaluation and assessment.

 

“At the elementary level, approximately 1 percent of third through fifth graders opted out, according to Penney, and less than 3 percent of middle schoolers.

 

“California schools are required by federal law to meet a 95 percent participation rate. Schools with federal Title I status, meaning they have high percentages of low-income students, could face losing federal funding if they don’t meet the participation threshold. Paly and Gunn are not Title I schools.”

 

California high school students are smart. Don’t believe anyone who says otherwise.

 

 

Categories California, Common Core, Education Reform, Standardized Testing, Students

California: Unbridled Charter Expansion Threatens Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2016 //
14

Thomas Ultican, teacher of physics and mathematics in San Diego, California, writes about the disastrous impact of charter schools on public schools. According to a study commissioned by the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the district loses $500 million annually to charters.

 

The charter lobby in the state–led by the California Charter School Association– is wealthy and politically powerful.

 

Ultican points to Prop 39, passed into law in 2000, as the mechanism that allows privately managed, lightly regulated charters to expand into public space and gobble up resources and the students they want.

 

“The MGT study illustrates how charter school law in California is fashioned to favor privately operated charter schools over public schools. If a local community passed a bond measure in the 1980’s to build a new public school, it is the law in California that the members of that local community – who still might be paying for that public school – will have no choice but to allow a private operator move into the facility. In addition, the charter school law requires the local school district to incur many direct and indirect costs to support charter schools.

 

“In California, since its statehood, a super-majority (67%) was required to pass a school bond measure. In 2000, after losing an effort that March to mitigate the super-majority rules and the infamous proposition 13 limitations, supporters brought forward proposition 39 that would reduce school-bond super-majorities to 55% and did not seriously threaten proposition 13 protections enacted in 1978. It passed 53% to 47% in November.

 

“In the official ballot summary for proposition 39 in the November 7, 2000 election the support message was signed by Lavonne Mcbroom, President California State PTA; Jacqueline N. Antee, AARP State President; and Allan Zaremerg, President California Chamber of Commerce. The statement against the proposition was signed by Jon Coupal, Chairman Save Our Homes Committee, Vote No on Proposition 39, a Project of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association; Dean Andal, Chairman Board of Equalization, State of California; and Felicia Elkinson, Past President Council of Sacramento Senior Organizations.

 

“This proposition was a battle royal with every media source and elected official bloviating endlessly about the righteousness of their side. However, like in the official ballot measure statements, there was no discussion of the charter school co-location funding requirement in article six of the proposition.

 

“When proposition 39 is coupled with the undemocratic charter authorizing system in California, citizens lose all democratic control of their local schools. With the three levels of government having the power to authorize charter schools it is almost impossible to turn down a charter request no matter how bad the schools previous history is or how inundated a community might be with certain types of schools…..

 

“Public education run by democratic processes is a major good. The past two decades of school reform have produced nothing but negative results and profits. The more enthusiastically the corporate and billionaire driven reforms have been embraced the worse the results (see Denver, New Orleans and Washington DC). It is time to stop all new charter school authorizations in California. It is time to reject the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. It is time to embrace professional educators working democratically within local communities to restore public education in America. It is time to protect our great inherited legacy – public education – which is definitely not a privatized market driven education.”

 

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Funding

California: The Charter Game is Rigged

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2016 //
63

This article provides an inside view of the charter racket in California.

 

If local districts oppose charter schools, it doesn’t matter. No matter what they say or how well the community organizes, the die is cast. State officials will approve the charter application, regardless of its flaws.

 

Rocketship charter chain wanted to move into the Mt. Diablo district. It had a federal grant to expand, and the chain wouldn’t let community opposition stand in its way. The district did not want Rocketship’s computer-based approach. It did not want a corporate chain whose headquarters was sixty miles away. Neither did the county board of education, which rejected Rocketship.

 

“This is the opposite of local control,” said Nellie Meyer, the superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, who called the proposal deeply flawed and was followed by MDUSD’s general counsel, Deborah Cooksey, who said Rocketship had collected its petition signatures “under false pretenses,” by telling people—including parents who were non-English speakers—their kids could get kicked out of school if they didn’t sign.

 

“This is going to be something that will divide our community,” said Gloria Rios, who has lived in the Monument Corridor near the northeastern Bay Area city of Concord for 20 years and has three children in the district’s public schools. “Our children will suffer the consequences, and these funds can be used for the schools we already have.”

 

Rejected by the local community and the county board of education, Rocketship went to the State Board of Education.

 

Slam dunk.

 

“The first indication that the proceedings were tilted to Rocketship came when Cindy Chan, who oversees the California Education Department’s charter school program, summarized Rocketship’s petition and, using the same legal terms that the Mt. Diablo and Contra Costa County Boards used to reject Rocketship, concluded the opposite. Rocketship’s prograns were “sound” and they “will implement it,” she said.

 

“Rocketship’s Cheye Calvo, its chief growth and county engagement officer, then led the board through a powerpoint presentation filled with all the buzzwords of the charter school movement. He talked of closing the “achievement gap.” He said that most “Rocketeers” learn more than one year’s worth of studies every school year. He said the school collected 1,100 petition signatures from district residents. He said the computer labs were “personalized learning,” saying they were “no substitute” for instruction. He called their teachers “purposeful, focused.” He said they rely on data to “assess students” and focus on the “whole child.” He acknowledged that Rocketship has high turnover—losing 20 percent of its faculty annually, but said their “teachers are performance-driven professionals who strive to achieve gap-closing” results. Finally, he put up graphs that compared the test scores from Rocketship’s San Jose schools with students in the Mt. Diablo district, saying they can do better than the traditional public schools.

 

“The opponents, led by the Mt. Diablo School District superintendent and local school board president, said Rocketship’s persistence was an affront to local control. They recounted the major flaws in its curriculum, especially its shallow approach to teaching English to students who did not speak it at home or as a first language. The district’s programs, especially in the Monument Corridor, were appropriately bilingual and award-winning, they said, adding their approach was seen by Rocketship as a liability. They said that Rocketship was not invited by parents to come into the community, but was lured by local real estate developers.

 

“But mostly, the critique was aimed at Rocketship’s overreliance on its test-centered curriculum and its lack of attention to the needs of what was working in a low-income, bilingual community, and one where special education also was a challenge.

 

“We are outraged at Rocketship’s lack of information on special education,” said Cheryl Hansen, president of the Mt. Diablo School District Board. “This is not Rocketship’s first school. Rocketship has not been able to answer special education questions at the school board and county board level.” And returning to their English language instruction, Hansen said, “More than 75 percent of their charter schools show declining achievement in the last four years.”

 

Nothing the district said mattered. Diablo will get a Rocketship charter, despite its poor performance elsewhere, despite its rejection by the local community.

 

This process is a rejection of local control and a rejection of democracy. It serves corporate interests, not children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform

California Charter School Association: Gimmee, Gimmee

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2016 //
6

Here is an interesting list of the bills supported and opposed by the California Charter Schools Association, the most powerful lobby in the state.

 

It supports a bill to improve facilities financing for charter schools.

 

It supports a bill that would lower the requirement of school-based instruction from 80% to 60% to benefit blended learning schools.

 

It opposes a bill that would subject charters to open meeting requirements.

 

It opposes a bill that would prohibit charter schools from operating in a manner that conflicts with state accountability requirements for special education. The same bill prohibits charter schools that operate for profit. (This bill was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown.)

 

It opposes a bill that “Requires charter schools to comply with due process requirements related to suspension and expulsion. Adds “the reason for a pupil’s departure” to the list of information that must be provided.” Such requirements, CCSA believes, would impose a burden on charter schools.

 

It also opposes a bill that “Prohibits authorizers in negative certification from approving charter schools to locate outside of district boundaries.” Thus, the CCSA wants charters that are in “negative certification” to continue to have the power to open charters in multiple districts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry

Thomas Ultican: Time for A Moratorium on New Charter Schools in California

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2016 //
12

Thomas Ultican teaches high school mathematics and physics in San Diego, in a school where more than 50% of the students are English language learners and 75% are Title I. In this article, he calls for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter sector in California. That state happens to have more charter schools and more students in charters than any other state. This is no accident. The charter school legislation is extremely permissive. If a charter applicant is turned down by the local district’s board of education, he can appeal to the county board of education. If he is turned down by the county board of education, he can appeal to the state, which does not review the reasons that the local board rejected the application. If the applicant has trouble writing his application, he can turn to the California Charter Schools Association, one of the most powerful lobbies in the state. Its staff will help newcomers develop a proposal that it is likely to get adopted somewhere along the line.

 

California has had many charter scandals, financial and academic. The charter schools are virtually unsupervised, as the state lacks the administrative staff to watch what they are doing. The charter schools claim to be “public schools” when they seek funding but they are exempt from many laws and regulations that apply to public schools. When a couple of charter operators were indicted for misappropriation of funds, the California Charter Schools Association filed an amicus brief, which contended that charters are not really public schools and not subject to the same criminal laws as public employees. The charter operators are “private entities.” Their plea failed; the couple were convicted and sent to jail.

 

Ultican lists the reasons why a moratorium is past due. The sector is growing “explosively,” without transparency or accountability. Schools open quickly, but at the same time, other charter schools fold, creating instability in the lives of their students. The charter industry is riddled with fraud and profiteering.

 

Ultican quotes distinguished professor Gene V. Glass, who wrote:

 

“A democratically run public education system in America is under siege. It is being attacked by greedy, union-hating corporations and billionaire boys whose success in business has proven to them that their circle of competence knows no bounds.”

 

Ultican concludes:

 

Let’s heed the words of real experts. It is time to put a halt to the privatization of public education long enough to see what we have wrought before we do further damage.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools

California: One Student Starts Huge Opt Out in Burbank

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2016 //
20

Sam Gorman, a junior at Burbank High School, started an opt out movement that was joined by 40% of the students in his class. He demonstrates the power of a single individual to make a difference. I happily add him to this blog’s honor roll for his intelligence and leadership.

“Students began taking state standardized exams in Burbank earlier this month, but about 40% of Burbank High’s junior class chose to opt out of the process, according to Burbank Unified Supt. Matt Hill.

“There were 269 out of 656 juniors at Burbank High who opted out of taking the exam after getting a parent to sign off on the request.

“For Burbank High student Sam Gorman, the choice to opt out signifies his stance against a test that is based on “big data and redundant standards instead of the acquisition of long-lasting knowledge,” he said in an email.

“He learned he could skip the exam last summer in Switzerland, where he attended a student leader summit hosted by Education First, an international company that runs study-abroad programs.

“Working with progressive education experts like Sir Ken Robinson and Nikhil Goyal helped open my eyes to the exciting possibilities of an educational system that treats students more like the individuals they are and less like the raw data they’ve become,” he said.

“The state exam tests students on California State Standards, which until recently were called Common Core standards.

“The computerized exam made its debut in California two years ago. It replaced the STAR exam, which students took by filling in bubbles on paper tests that asked multiple-choice questions.

“The new computerized exam tests students in math and language arts and is used by educators to gauge high school juniors’ preparedness for college. Students in third through eighth grades are also tested to give educators insight into their grasp of state standards.

“Sam wrote about Common Core testing on his website, YoungchangeBestchange.org, and then in mid-March, he tweeted a link that explained how students could opt out.

“Juniors needed to make the request in a letter, provide a parent’s signature and date, and submit it to their school principal.

“It was around mid-March, still a few weeks before testing began on April 7, when junior Daniel Park was asked by a classmate if he would opt out.

“People everywhere were just asking, ‘Are you opting out?'” he recalled by phone this week.

“Daniel is a college-bound student who is enrolled in five AP classes — U.S. history, English, calculous, psychology and physics.”

Daniel opted out, along with 40% of his class.

Categories California, Honor Roll, Opt Out, Resistance, Standardized Testing, Students

Ellen Lubic Rages at the Los Angeles Times

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2016 //
15

Ellen Lubic, a professor of public policy in Los Angeles, is furious that the Los Angeles Times fails to investigate and uncover the nefarious plans and f billionaires to destroy public schools in Los Angeles.

 

 

She wrires:

 
“Why does the LA Times hate and deride real teachers and public schools, but love and support Eli Broad and his billionaire partners in their privatizing takeover?

 

 

“In the last few days, the LA Times has published misleading information on the California Appeals Court decision this week denying the lower court ruling in the Vergara lawsuit, wherein a few carefully chosen students were urged to press a lawsuit to terminate teachers without due process and to change the law pertaining to what they call tenure. Also this lawsuit would serve to weaken teachers unions.
“This lawsuit was contrived by billionaires David Welch, under the aegis if the non profit called Students First, and with the input of Eli Broad and of the Walton Family and others of the billionaire anti-public school contingent. These uber wealthy non-educators tried to prove that bad and uncaring teachers were assigned to inner city schools so as to diminish the civil rights of inner city students to a fair and equal education in public schools, and that laws should be changed to be able to fire them with no due process.
“However, these same billionaires have been working toward privatizing most of Americas’ public schools and turning them into “Wall Street investment opportunities” as openly expressed by Rupert Murdoch in his NY Times oped a few years ago, and also by hedge fund managers such as Whitney Tilson, who sell their clients products of investments in charter schools and other allied corporations, and hold classes for these clients on how to invest in “public” education for large profits.

“This is the greatest scam in the universe and outshines Teapot Dome as a robber baron scheme. They call the schools “public” but the only thing public about them is that they are paid for by the American taxpayer public. Other than that, these charter schools have no oversight by real educators and education administrators, nor a Board of Education, but they are run on business models devised by Eli Broad and his Broad Academy, to make vast sums of money for their leaders and investors, none of whom are generally educators.

“These vulture business managers fire real trained teachers with degrees in education, and replace them with low paid Teach for America recent college graduates who only get 5 weeks of minimalist training before they are dumped into classrooms in inner cities for only a short period of time, with often 50 children in a room that was built to hold 30. Many disasters occur, and students suffer.

“This week one of these ersatz public charter schools was awarded $7.2 million dollars by an LA court for not having LAUSD provide them with a free site for their marginal school. We also see Fetullah Gulen, the Turkish Imam who lives in guarded seclusion in the Poconos, running over 146 of these questionable charters all over the US, with 11 in LA. These Magnolia Schools in LA are headed by the infamous charter school queen, Caprice Young, who has made a fortune in her career off these schools that use taxpayer funds with no taxpayer oversight.

“As to the LA Times….this information is always soft pedaled by the Times reporters, and we have been told they are under the thumbs of their bosses, the editorial board, who carefully monitor and edit their reports. Focusing on Saturday, April,16, 2016, we find the reporters front page story starting off with their own Broad-directed take on this week’s decision by the Appeals Court to throw out this highly flawed case. The Times, and LASR, all week kept calling this a “landmark case,” which it is not. It is a failed case of bad law based on unproven allegations and bias against teachers and their unions, but the Broadies will again file similar lawsuits for they have endless deep pockets.

 

“Howard Blume and his writer pals follow the Broad line imposed by their Times bosses, even though they do not have the usual disclaimer on today’s front page manipulated article. Ryan Smith and Ben Austin are quoted by the LA Times today. They chose once again to interview and quote Ryan Smith, past hatchet man for United Way and now the darling of Marion Edelman fame and fortune, and Parent Revolution/parent trigger shady lawyer, Ben Austin, former and still hatchet man for Eli Broad and now of Broad/Welch fame and fortune, to be their voices on education issues. These two men are in the lead in the deception to steal public education in the name of their manufactured view of civil rights. These are the two who led the infamous street charade of Oct. 29, 2013 to get the equally infamous John Deasy’s (who now works for Broad fulltime) contract renewed…and wherein the pathetic LAUSD BoE danced to Eli Broad’s tune by allowing the spectacle takeover of Beaudry Street and Board Room…and then signing and extending the disasterous contract, after the multiple fiascos caused by Broad’s Supt. Deasy which cost the District around $780 million in losses and payoffs for lawsuits. Deasy almost forced the District into bankruptcy.

 

“The supportive ‘reformer’ language these reporters use in the their introductory paragraphs, “the nation’s most generous teacher employment protections…and, the (reformers) centerpiece effort to remake schools….and, teachers’ unions have flexed their muscle locally and nationally” is egregious. These biases set the scene for the rest of the manipulation of the story.
“The ‘reformer players’ and the Times use the important claim of civil rights to elevate the privatizing of public schools, and the firing (and teacher jailing) of teachers without due process, and with the goal to kill off unions, but they want the exclusive use of public funds in running their charter schools, all paid for on the backs of the taxpayers. Deasy testified against teachers at the Vergara trail, and at the Treu decision for the plaintiffs, he stated that he was delighted and would rush home to fire more teachers…and he did.
“Today’s article mentions the recent Friedrichs case which SCOTUS dropped in a 4 to 4 tie after Justice Scalia’s death as a case “which could have prevented unions from collecting dues from employees who didn’t agree to become members.” This is not actually what the case shows…as with Harris v. Quinn (” Holding: The First Amendment prohibits the collection of an agency fee from the plaintiffs in this case, home health care providers who do not wish to join or support a union.Judgment: Reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Alito on June 30, 2014. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor joined.”), teachers who do not join the union are generally required to pay a small fee since they benefit from union negotiations in their behalf as well as paid members.
“But how easy it is to blame it all of public educations problems on the teachers.
“However, do these reporters interview some of the skid row (see San Pedro St. in LA) crack mothers of the thousands of LAUSD students who sleep on the hard streets every night? Rarely do these ace reporters do any in-depth investigation of how these inner city kids live lives of desperate poverty, with little food or rest, and virtually no parental supervision. There are also many poverty level parents working three jobs to try to exist, but there are thousands of others who have NO business parenting children. These students are sent to school and teachers are supposed to fill all the spaces of their wretched lives and make them math and language successes, and college-ready, too. These same expectations extend to the lives of all those of LAUSD students living at or below the poverty level which is close to 80% of LAUSD. Could Eli make this work? Could the Kochs, or the Waltons with their endless billions as the two richest families in the world? Why don’t they focus on curing poverty? Can it be because there are no fortunes to be made by curing poverty?

 

“As to their education articles, the Times reporters seem never to interview highly respected academics like Professor Rogers at UCLA or Emeritus Professor Kashen from USC, but rather, they feature on the mendacious warriors for privatization from Eli Broad’s selected non-profits, United Way, Parent Revolution, and California Endowment. So what the public reads is deeply slanted.

 

“This story is filled with dichotomies…it is a continuum of despair of inner city life vs. the grandest displays of wealth in LA. The 40,000 foot mansions which could house a hundred people, but are vacation homes for the billionaires who seek to run the world are what the tour buses show off…not the tents from 1st and San Pedro stretching for miles and miles, showing the degradation and filth of the poverty stricken, a twenty minute drive from Rodeo.
“When we lose a free press, unbiased media, we lose democracy. Judging by Campbell’s new gig at LASR, and by the venomous LA Times (plus the biased NY Times), all is lost.”

Categories California, Education Reform, Teacher Tenure
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »