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Los Angeles: Turn Out and Vote for Measure EE on Tuesday, June 4!

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
2

Thousands of public school teachers in Los Angeles went on strike in February, demanding basic services for their students: smaller class sizes (many classes have more than 40 students), classes in the arts and music, a librarian and nurse and other support staff in every school. The strike won broad public support. The teachers won an agreement from the school board.

Now comes the hard part: Paying for the agreement.

On Tuesday June 4, voters in Los Angeles will go to the polls and vote on Measure EE.

It is a parcel tax that would raise $500 million additional dollars every year for the public schools for the next twelve years.

Please show up and vote for Measure EE.

The money is desperately needed to provide the students of Los Angeles the schools they need and deserve. Why should they attend schools that are deteriorating, where the library is open only on occasion or not at all, where a nurse is available once a week, a guidance counselor has hundreds of students, and a school psychologist is available never?

Please show up and vote for Measure EE.

California is one of the richest states in the nation, with a roaring and dynamic economy.

But California spends less on education than most other states. Shockingly, it is on par with Kansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

Los Angeles spends far less than other big cities on its students.

Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez met with Superintendent Austin Beutner and UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl at an elementary school in the school library, which is closed two or three days a week.

He wrote:

“The two most powerful people in Los Angeles public education are like a tag team now, practically completing each other’s sentences.”

California, he wrote, “ranks at the top in wealth and near the bottom in funding per pupil.”

What would EE cost the taxpayer? The owner of a 1,500 square foot home would  pay an additional $240, twice as much for a house twice as large. About 82% of the revenue would come from commercial, industrial and apartment building owners, while senior homeowners (over 65) and disabled homeowners are exempted from the tax.

Who is fighting EE? The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, which opposes taxes and apparently opts for an undereducated workforce; the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is also opposed, that being the organization responsible for Proposition 13, which undermined school funding in 1978 by setting strict limits on property taxes. The Chamber prefers a regressive flat tax, one that is the same for the owner of a small house and the owner of a skyscraper.

Beutner and Caputo-Pearl pointed to business leaders who understand that the future success of Los Angeles depends on the success today of the students in the city’s public schools and who support EE.

Measure EE includes strict accountability requirements, meaning an independent financial audit to assure that every dollar goes to the schools for the intended purposes of reducing class size and providing needed services, such as nurses, counselors, and librarians.

Measure EE needs a two-thirds majority to pass, and that’s a high bar, but other cities in California have met it. Beutner listed them: Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Torrance.

The people of Los Angeles cheered the teachers when they struck and marched in the rain. They honked their horns and gave them thumbs-up because they were doing what was best for their students.

Now comes the voters’ turn.

Will they too stand up for the children who are the future of Los Angeles?

Will they agree that every school should have a working library, a school nurse, a psychologist, and reasonable class sizes?

Will they agree that all children deserve equality of educational opportunity?

Tuesday June 4 will be a decisive day for the children of Los Angeles.

They are OUR children.

If you live in Los Angeles, please vote and urge your friends, family, and neighbors to vote.

Vote as if your future depends upon it.

It does.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Democracy, Funding, Los Angeles

San Diego: Eleven People Indicted in Connection to Online Charter Fraud

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
7

 

The California Legislature is considering four bills to reform the state’s massive charter school industry (1,300 schools, mostly unregulated and unsupervised). One of the bills would prohibit school districts from authorizing charters in other districts. The following story is a classic example of rural school districts authorizing online charters in San Diego and Los Angeles, solely to get the commission attached to each student. In this case, the online charters were cash cows for their owners. [A personal aside: Last February, I was in Newport Beach, California, having breakfast at a hotel. The man at the next table was loudly discussing his schools with someone who was selling athletic services, $5 a student. When he got up to leave, I asked him if he was “in the charter school business.” He said, “Yes,” and said he owned 40 schools under six different corporate names. I asked him his name. He said, “Sean McManus.” I should have asked him to join us. He is one of the key figures in the following article.]

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that eleven people connected to online charter schools have been indicted for “criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.“

The online charters operate in San Diego and Los Angeles, but were authorized by other districts that get a slice of the revenues. This is one of the corrupt practices that have been rampant in California, where lax state law allows sharp operators to get public money and cheat students with no consequences. The Legislature is currently debating a proposal to stop allowing District A to authorize a charter in District B, a practice that is mercenary and predatory. Until now, the powerful California Charter Schools Association—enriched by billionaires like Reed Hastings and Eli Broad—has fought all accountability for charter schools.

At the center of the allegations are leaders of the charter school management corporation A3 Education, a Newport Beach corporation whose leaders control 13 charter schools across California, according to an indictment filed May 17.

A3’s chairman, Sean McManus, and president, Jason Schrock, essentially owned and operated the charter schools throughout California at the same time that A3 contracted with those schools, according to the indictment.

McManus and Schrock operated multiple businesses that charged their own charter schools millions of dollars for services. Then they channeled money from those businesses into their own charitable trust and personal bank accounts, according to the indictment.

A3 Education and the businesses affiliated with McManus and Schrock together have invoiced at least $83.3 million from the 13 charter schools, according to the indictment.

From the affiliated businesses, at least $8.18 million went into personal bank accounts, some in Australia, and into charitable trust accounts for McManus, Schrock and their wives, and $500,000 went to a family member of McManus, according to the indictment.

McManus and Schrock also used $1.6 million of A3 Education’s funds to buy a private residence for McManus in San Juan Capistrano, the indictment states.

Also according to the indictment, six people, including McManus and Schrock, conspired to collect state money for students who were listed as being enrolled in Valiant Charter Schools but were not receiving services.

The two Valiant schools will close permanently on June 30. Several thousand students will need to find new schools. The San Diego online charter was authorized by the Dehesa School District, and the one in Los Angeles was authorized by the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District.

The children were not assigned to teachers who have state-required professional certificates, the indictment said. The students were not in contact with the schools or provided with educational services during the summer months, as some of the co-conspirators claimed, according to the indictment…

Also indicted is Nancy Hauer, who is superintendent of Dehesa School District, which authorized several charter schools, including Valiant Academy of Southern California. The Dehesa district office did not immediately provide a comment Tuesday.

Also among the indicted is Steve Van Zant, a former Mountain Empire Unified superintendent who three years ago pleaded guilty to violating conflict-of-interest laws, after he brokered deals with charter schools to operate in other school districts, prosecutors said at the time.

Valiant Academy had 43 students two years ago, 726 last year, and 2,250 this year. It’s academic performance was so poor that even the California Charter School Association recommended that it be closed.

Betsy DeVos says that parents always know what’s best. Why were they enrolling their children in these failing “schools.”?

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Corruption, Education Industry, Ethics, For-Profit, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization, San Diego, Virtual Charter Schools

Los Angeles: At First Meeting, Jackie Goldberg Changes Board Dynamics by Challenging Co-Location of Charters

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
16

 

Jackie Goldberg was sworn in to her new office as representative for District 5 on the Los Angeles school board, and she hit the ground running. 

She criticized co-locations, when charters take space in an existing public school, especially when charters are given preferential treatment.

Goldberg’s concerns arose minutes after the board began moving through its agenda. The item was $16 million to prepare space for charters operating on up to 79 district campuses. In all, about 11% of campuses host charters, according to the California Charter Schools Assn. Charters enroll nearly one in five district students.

Goldberg noticed that some of the money would pay for computers and wanted to know if the host school would have comparable technology.

“I have a school that lost its computer lab and the charter school went in there and put in a computer lab,” which it used to recruit students, Goldberg said during the meeting. “That’s crazy.”

Goldberg declined to name the school.

Another board member, George McKenna, raised similar points. And board member Richard Vladovic asserted that this sharing of campuses is “real bad for kids.”

More surprising were comments from two board members elected with substantial support from charter backers.

Nick Melvoin said it was difficult for staff and families at a district-run school to see a charter move in with fresh paint and new furniture on only the charter portion of the campus. He suggested that both parts of the campus should get upgrades…

Goldberg also raised questions about district bond funds being used to help build new facilities for charter schools when declining enrollment was already resulting in empty seats at both traditional and charter schools…

Even before Goldberg could get to it, staff withdrew a third charter school grant from consideration — at least for Tuesday.

Her supporters were thrilled.

“OMG,” texted parent activist Sara Roos. “It’s electric in here.”

The public schools, which enroll 80% of the district’s children, have a forceful advocate on the board.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization

Los Angeles: Charter Chain Founder and Executive Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
6

 

Vielka McFarlane, founder of the Celerity charter chain in Los Angeles, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for misappropriation of $3.2 million from the schools’ accounts. 

In January, Vielka McFarlane pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to misappropriate and embezzle funds for personal use. McFarlane, 56, had for years used her charter schools’ credit card and spent taxpayer money on expensive clothing, luxury hotel stays and first-class flights. The bulk of the money spent was for the purchase and renovation of an office building in Columbus, Ohio, where McFarlane intended to open another charter school.

McFarlane was also ordered to pay restitution of $225,138.15 within 60 days.

The case dates to 2012. A routine request for Celerity’s financial records from L.A. Unified’s charter schools division revealed credit card statements of lavish purchases beginning in 2009 — five years after McFarlane had founded the first charter school. The school district’s inspector general opened an investigation and eventually, the federal government got involved.

Her conviction and sentencing raise the question of why Ben Chavis, founder and operator of the American Indian Model Charter Schools in Oakland, had all charges dismissed a few weeks ago after a state audit found that he had redirected $3.8 million of the schools’ funds to his personal accounts and that he used federal charter funds to pay the lease for the charters, which were located in buildings he owned. Are there any investigative reporters tracking this story?

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization

Jackie Goldberg: Why I Love This Woman!

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2019 //
11

 

Capital & Main interviewed Jackie Goldberg about her views, her vision, her hopes for the future. My heart sang and my brain hummed as I read her inspiring words.  

Reading Jackie’s words was like eating comfort food. I kept saying to myself, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Read the interview and you will see what I mean.

Jackie knows we are in the middle of a war to save public education. She knows that there is big money determined to kill it. She knows that the hope for the future of our democracy depends in having a well-funded public school system that provides genuine opportunity to all children.

And she is prepared to go to the mat, in Los Angeles and in Sacramento, to get the funding that public schools need and to get the financial accountability that charter schools need.

I am reminded of the first time I met Jackie. It was December 6, 2018. I had heard about her for years as an iconic figure but our paths had never crossed.

Over the past several years, the billionaires were buying seats on the LAUSD and things were looking bleak. I kept hearing about this dynamo Jackie Goldberg, the only one who could turn things around. She was the Cy Young pitcher in the bullpen, the one held in reserve until the ninth inning.

Last December, I went to Los Angeles to receive an award from a progressive group called LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy), which fights for fair wages for low-income workers, environmental protection, and a stronger public sector.

Jackie was there. We agreed to talk after the dinner. We sat in a crowded bar and talked for over an hour. I felt like I was talking to my mirror image yet our life experiences were very different. It was a joyous conversation.

When I returned to LA in February, I spoke at a fundraiser for her. Once again I was impressed by her knowledge, her experience, her passion for education and for children and for justice.

You could count me as her biggest fan but given the 72% win she just racked up, I’m guessing that there are many others in Los Angeles who have known her much longer and who love Jackie as much as I do.

It should go without saying that she is a hero of public education.

Cy Young just came in from the bullpen. Things are definitely looking up.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Honor Roll, Los Angeles, Love

Howard Blume: After Jackie’s Win in L.A., a New Political Landscape in Education

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2019 //
4

 

Howard Blume writes in the Los Angeles Times about the new political landscape in education after Jackie Goldberg’s landslide election to the LAUSD school board.

Jackie met with Superintendent Austin Beutner, and both pledged to work for the passage of Measure EE, a tax proposal that would raise $500 million in new revenues for the public schools.

More than anything else, Goldberg is stressing the need for better funding — a point of agreement among many combatants in the education wars, including charter supporters.

“We’ve been starving schools,” Goldberg said during an appearance Wednesday at Micheltorena Street Elementary in Silver Lake. “It is a crime that we are not investing in children the way they did when I was a kid….”

Goldberg’s win turned around a losing streak for the teachers union. Until Tuesday’s election, charter school supporters, fueled by wealthy donors, were outspending the unions in L.A. school board contests. And in July 2017, candidates they backed claimed a board majority.

Charters are privately operated, mostly nonunion and compete with district schools for students and the funding that follows them. They enroll close to 1 in 5 district students. It will not be easy to find the way forward on charters, because most rules governing their expansion and oversight are made at the state level.

While the L.A. teachers union has remained a political force, its influence in local board elections was being eclipsed by charters.

With its success Tuesday, the teachers union might be riding something of a national wave, said Julie Marsh, professor at USC’s Rossier School of Education.

“We’re seeing some shifts in the narrative around charter schools,” Marsh said. Charter backers long have pointed to the bipartisan appeal of these schools, but their embrace by President Trump and his polarizing Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, “make it difficult for Democrats to associate with these reforms….”

Goldberg insisted Wednesday — as she has before — that she has no agenda to push Beutner out.

Her presence, however, could circumscribe Beutner’s long-awaited district reorganization. In campaign appearances, Goldberg said she suspected Beutner of secretly crafting a plan that would favor charter school expansion. As evidence, she and others cited the work that consultants for Beutner had done in other districts. She vowed to oppose any such effort.

In recent appearances, Beutner has emphasized that he envisions helping district-run schools operate more efficiently and effectively.

As a candidate, Goldberg had much in common with board member George McKenna, who also had a strong base even without the teachers union. He too allied with the union to win office against a well-funded opponent.

McKenna’s win, in 2014, contributed to the departure of then-Supt. John Deasy because he defeated an opponent who’d strongly supported Deasy.

Goldberg, like McKenna, is no union vassal, although her preferred policies align closely with those of United Teachers Los Angeles. In reality, all seven board members are more nuanced in their beliefs than the stark contrasts represented by their supporters.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization

Great News! Jackie Goldberg Sweeps LAUSD Special Election!

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2019 //
9

 

Jackie Goldberg won the empty seat on the Los Angeles school board, the one vacated by convicted charter school operator Ref Rodriguez.

She swept to victory with 72.68% of the vote in District 5, despite the fact that her opponent had the support of the charter industry, the mayor, and the LA Times. 

Her election is a rebuff to Eli Broad and the other billionaires who tried to buy the school board.

She is knowledgeable and experienced and will be a great asset to the board.

She was a classroom teacher for nearly 20 years. She was previously elected to the school board, she was a member of the state legislature and chair of the education committee.

What a win for public education and the children!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: One of the Richest Cities in World Can’t Afford Elementary School Libraries

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2019 //
23

 

I am often asked what billionaires should do with their money if they stopped investing in privatization.

Here is a small project for billionaires in California.

Los Angeles may close its elementary school libraries. 

Can’t afford them.

Where are you, Reed Hastings? Eli Broad? Bill Bloomfield? Arthur Rock? Mark Zuckerberg?

You give millions to charters and TFA, and what good have you done?

Do something real.

Be the Andrew Carnegie of LA.

Support libraries for elementary schools.

No, it won’t transform everything. But it will change lives.

Steve Lopez wrote in the LA Times:

Here we go again, tumbling down the shaft and into a bizarro world in which school libraries lock out students who need them most.

L.A. Unified elementary school libraries are on the chopping block once again, and library aides, many of whom could lose their jobs, are screaming for justice.

Some L.A. Unified board members, meanwhile, have made passionate pleas to keep the doors open.

“If you’re not reading by grade level by third grade, you’re going to struggle for the rest of your life,” said board member Scott Schmerelson, who has introduced a resolution calling for the district to come up with the necessary funding.

But just a few months after the L.A. Unified teachers’ strike drew strong public support for better pay and more resources for the struggling district, budget woes are forcing miserable choices that will hit students hard.

“An elementary school library is one of the more magical places in a child’s life,” said Meredith Kadlec, a second-grade parent who has been writing letters in the campaign to ward off cuts. “Imagination is born from books, and what about the kids who don’t get that enrichment at home? I feel like we’re going the wrong way in America when libraries are at risk.”

They’ve been at risk for years now in L.A. Unified. Many years ago, every school had a fully funded librarian. But as budget problems became more severe, teacher-librarians gave way to library aides, who then got laid off by the hundreds before being rehired. In the recent past, some libraries have been locked up despite the district having spent millions on new books. Typically, elementary school libraries are open only every other week as it is, and aides split their time between two schools

The strike settlement earlier this year resulted in teacher raises and promises of eventual reduced class size, nurses on every campus, and a commitment to have a teacher-librarian on every middle and high school campus.

But elementary schools got no commitment on library aides. In recent years, those positions — which used to be directly funded by the district — became optional expenses made at the discretion of principals. But those principals have to make gut-wrenching decisions with limited discretionary funds at their disposal. And the needs, in a district in which 80% of the roughly 600,000 students live in poverty and 90% are minorities, always exceed the available money.

Categories Budget Cuts, Librarians, Libraries, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: The LA Times Prefers a School Board Member with Neither Experience Nor Knowledge

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2019 //
8

 

The Los Angeles Times wrote an editorial endorsing Heather Repenning over Jackie Goldberg for the LAUSD seat in a special election. The editorial admitted that Jackie Goldberg has the experience and knowledge that her opponent lacks but the Times preferred a blank slate.

Repenning admittedly knows little about education issues but she previously worked as an aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti. In the primary, and she said she would not take charter money. Now that she is in a runoff with the far better qualified Jackie Goldberg, Repenning has decided that it is okay to take money from the charter billionaires. 

The Times lauded her as independent. The fact that she is now the favorite of people like billionaire Republican Bill Bloomfield is evidence that she is not independent. She will cast her vote, if elected, to support the Eli Broad privatization and Disruption agenda.

The Times posted some of the letters to the editor that it received objecting to its endorsement of an unqualified candidate, including one from me.

One letter came from a retired principal, who wrote, “The Times is repeating the mistake it made when it endorsed Ref Rodriguez in 2015 and other candidates bought and paid for by billionaire privatizers.” Rodriguez operated a charter chain at the time of his election, but was removed from the board after he was convicted on felony counts for campaign finance violations. He did not step down until the board had selected the unqualified, inexperienced Austin Beutner as superintendent of the nation’s second largest school district.

This is the Times’ description of Jackie Goldberg:

“She’s brimming with experience, smarts and humor — and connections. She’s been a teacher and served as a member of the school board, the City Council and the state Assembly, and she knows everyone involved in the world of education in California. To say that her chances of winning the May 14 runoff are high would be an understatement.

”Nor would it be a terrible thing if that happened. Goldberg’s institutional memory and her talent for digging to the heart of an issue would be of value to the board.”

So why didn’t the Times endorse her? Because the teachers already endorsed her.

Educators know and trust Jackie.

The charter billionaires know and trust her opponent.

I say to the voters of District 5: Vote for the candidate with experience and knowledge.

Don’t let the billionaires buy another seat on the school board.

Vote for Jackie Goldberg on May 14.

She will represent you, your children, and your schools, not Eli Broad and the other billionaires.

 

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Enrollment in Charter Schools Declines While Executive Salaries Soar

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2019 //
14

 

Blogger Red Queen in LA (Sara Roos) has combed through tax filings to reveal the exorbitant salaries paid to charter school execitives, demonstrating that the ban of for-profit charter corporations has not limited the raid on taxpayers’ dollarsby charter profiteers. At the same time that charters executives are pulling down hefty salaries, charter enrollments are declining.

She writes:

“Overall, enrollment in LAUSD’s 37 CMO/Gs dropped 16.5% between 2016-17 and 2017-18, from a total of 93,842 to 78,315.”

But executive salaries are staggeringly high.

Dan Katzir, formerly Eli Broad’s Foundation Leader, now brings in more than half a million dollars a year in salary, although he was never a teacher or principal.

The CEO of Green Dot rakes in a tidy $386,000 per annum.

These are private-sector salaries, yet charters have the gall to dub themselves “public schools.”

If they really want to be considered public schools, they should be paid the same as their counterparts in the public sector.

But that might lead to executive flight that exceeded the declines in pupils choosing charter schools.

Next time you hear about those fabled “wait lists” for charter schools, recall that 80% of charters in Los Angeles have vacancies, a fact released to the public by LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization
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