Two Los Angeles teachers write with pride about the accomplishments of the recent strike. They note that the strike proved two things: one, the teachers’ demands were just and had overwhelming support from stakeholders: students, parent, and teachers; two, Superintendent Austin Beutner is out of his depth and lac is the trust of those he serves: he should go.
He came to disrupt thedistrict but demonstrated his lack of readiness for the job he holds.
Bill Raden of Capitol& Main reports here on the sources of the contributions for the March 5 LAUSD special election for the empty seat created by the resignation of Ref Rodriguez, who stepped down after being convicted of money laundering in his campaign for the board. He relies on the spade work of Sara Roos, who blogs as “Red Queen in LA.” Early vote by mail has started.
Raden writes:
“The latest update on the money race in Los Angeles Unified’s March 5 special election to fill out the term of disgraced Board District 5 member Ref Rodriguez comes courtesy of intrepid ed blogger Sara “Redqueeninla” Roos. In a must-read, granular analysis, Roos breaks down the race’s campaign donations by profession or “affinity.” The results? “An awesome display of the power of machine politics” reflected in the number and size of donations from city contractors, developers, commissioners, public employees and appointees, political consultants and public-private partners.
“Of the top four money recipients, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy executive Allison Bajracharya drew 75 percent of the charter-related donations in the race, which comprise 45 percent of her campaign’s receipts. Former Eric Garcetti aide Heather Repenning is second, with 15 percent of all charter donations (or seven percent of her campaign’s overall contributions). Though Repenning, who also leads the top four with a whopping .81 patronage rating, has pledged that she would refuse charter school money, the independent expenditure committee backing her candidacy has already banked a $5,000 check from millionaire businessman and charter super-patron Bill Bloomfield.”
To get the whole story, read Sara Roos’ investigative report here.
Full disclosure: I support Jackie Goldberg, former teacher, former member of the LAUSD board, who served three terms in the state legislature, where she was chair of the Assembly Education Committee. she is deeply knowledgeable about education. I contributed to her campaign.
As is clear in Sara Roos’s tables,Jackie is not #1 in fundraising.
Word is that the charter lobby is sitting out the special election,waiting to see if there is a runoff. Then they will pour millions into defeating Jackie Goldberg. She is their worst nightmare.
Which will win? Money or knowledge/wisdom/experience?
Carl J. Petersen wonders if the LAUSD school board will hold failing charter schools accountable?
Predictably, it turns out that the charterization of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) did not provide the miracle that was promised. The District has the highest number of charter schools in the country, with approximately 18% of its students in these publicly funded private schools. In the just-released list of 110 underperforming schools in the LAUSD, 20%were independent charter schools. Are we diverting $591.7 million from our public schools to get basically the same results?….
The list of underperforming charters includes schools run by large, influential charter chains like PUC, Kipp, Green Dot, and Camino Nuevo (whose chief of operations, Allison Greenwood Bajracharya, is running in the District 5 special election). This will make any attempt to hold these schools accountable extremely difficult. Will the Board put “Kids First” and face this opposition head on?
Gary Rubinstein heard that Teach for America corps members were persuaded not to take part in teachers’ strikes.
But did they stay neutral?
They are scabs if they don’t strike. They risk their Americorps funding if they do.
What do they do?
What do you think?
Jesse Hagopian, a teacher activist in Seattle, immersed himself in the UTLA Strike in Los Angeles to learn what teachers won. He interviewed Gillian Russom, a history teacher at Roosevelt High School and member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Board of Directors, about how the strike was organized, the significant gains it made for students, and implications for the ongoing uprising of teachers around the country..
This is what he learned.
The key lesson is that the model was the zchicago strike of 2012. Even though Karen Lewis stepped down due to her health issues, she and her vision continues to inspire teachers.
There’s been a long history around the country of progressive caucuses fighting for unions to be more active, and to have a broader vision and a broader set of alliances in our struggles. The Chicago 2012 strike and the work of CORE—Caucus of Rank and File Educators—leading up to that strike really helped to educate so many of us around the country and clarified our direction. I’ve been a teacher and union activist in Los Angeles for eighteen years and I studied what worked in Chicago and joined together with others to help bring those lessons here to LA.
In 2013, we pushed for a referendum within our union calling for a campaign for the “Schools LA Students Deserve.” This was modeled off of the Chicago teachers who based their strike around their own “schools our students deserve,” aiming to draw in parents, students, and the community.
Our agenda for union transformation basically came down to transforming the union from a top-down service model to an organizing model. We were crafting our agenda of union demands in conversation with community allies so that it would be an agenda that would draw the active participation of people beyond our own union membership. Up until 2014, we still had a model of one union rep for every school, including massive high schools of like 100 teachers.
California has one of the worst charter laws in the nation. Anyone can open a charter.districts can authorize charters in other districts. Read Carol Burris report “Charters and Consequence” to learn just how bad things are. It is jaw-dropping.
There is hope for change, as Bill Raden reports in “Capital & Main.
“California’s charter school sector moved one step closer to accountability on Tuesday when Governor Gavin Newsomofficially asked State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond to assemble an expert panel to assess the effect on public school district finances by unregulated charter school expansion. Thurmond’s panel represents the first time California will have conducted any kind of in-depth analysis of charter impacts on public education since the state passed its original charter legislation in 1992. It has until July 1 to deliver its findings.
“Meanwhile, the race for L.A Unified’s March 5 school boardspecial election entered its final stretch this week as candidates vied to fill out the term of pro-charter Board District 5 member Ref Rodriguez, who resigned in July following a felony conviction for campaign money laundering. At stake is the political balance of a split board as L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutnerprepares to roll out a controversial portfolio district reorganization plan.
“Beutner’s biggest fear has to be an outright March 5 win by former two-time BD 5 representative Jackie Goldberg, a progressive L.A. icon who is fourth in campaign contributions but is expected to benefit from her broad name recognition and the pivotal endorsement (and financial might) of United Teachers Los Angeles. Nipping at her heels as far as labor support goes is money leader Heather Repenning, a former aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti. Repenning comes to the race with the backing of Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents school cafeteria workers, janitors and teachers’ aides, and has already chipped in over $400K in independent expenditure money. The contest for the charter vote — and the endorsement of California Charter School Association Advocates, which announced it is waiting to see who makes it to a runoff — is between former charter school executive Allison Bajracharya and Huntington Park City Councilmember Graciela Ortiz, who are respectively number two and three in total campaign contributions.”
AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, tried to extort Jeff Bezos, the multibillionaire owner of Amazon and the Washington Post. The lawyers threatened to post embarrassing photographs of him if he didn’t make certain statements that were untrue. Instead of bowing to their demands, he published their letters. His letter is wonderful.
It just goes to show that if you are a billionaire, you can laugh at extortionists.
The issue: AMI apparently doesn’t like the Washington Post coverage of the murder of Jamaal Khashoggi. It has a long history of protecting Trump and paying off women who want to sell their story of having a liaison with him.
Of interest to readers of this site: Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the LA public schools, was on the board of directors of AMI after his company invested in AMI.
Evercore Capital Partners, the controlling shareholder of American Media, Inc. (“AMI”), announced today that it has agreed to a recapitalization of AMI in partnership with Thomas H. Lee Partners (“THL”) that values the Company at $1.5 billion.
Evercore and THL investors will each fund approximately one-half of the total equity of $508 million in the recapitalization. Following the transaction, Evercore and THL will jointly control AMI.
“AMI has strong, well-established titles, consistent and substantial free cash flow, and terrific growth potential through advertising, pricing, brand extensions, the integration of the Weider transaction and new acquisitions. We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Evercore and David.”
The transaction will be structured as a recapitalization in which the original investors in the May 1999 purchase of AMI, led by Evercore, will sell their interests to the new investor group.
American Media Chairman, President & CEO David J. Pecker said, “This new capitalization of AMI better allows us to build a larger media company and makes the multi-billion dollar funds from Evercore and THL available to us. Thanks to the efforts of Austin Beutner and Evercore, our recent acquisition of Weider transformed us from a tabloid publisher into a consumer magazine company, and this new transaction will let us pursue even bigger targets. Thomas H. Lee Partners’ investment will be a great addition for AMI, not only in terms of capital, but also in their wealth of experience.”
Austin M. Beutner, Evercore President, said, “It has been a great and very profitable partnership with David Pecker and the team at AMI over the last four years and we look forward to the next phase of growth. As the company has proven itself in building significant value through acquisitions, and as the acquisition environment is becoming more favorable, we felt it prudent to recapitalize AMI in order to provide greater financial flexibility. We have partnered with our friends at THL in the past and look forward to continuing together the successful execution of AMI’s long-term strategy.”
Evercore Partners and Mr. Pecker acquired American Media in May of 1999. AMI purchased the Globe later that same year. Since then they have significantly enhanced the position and performance of AMI’s six tabloids, launched four successful new titles, become the leader in the country music magazine market, and recently purchased Weider Publications, the leading worldwide publisher of health and fitness titles, for $350 million. EBITDA has nearly doubled under their ownership.
Carl J. Petersen, a watchdog in Los Angeles, has untangled a web of cronyism surrounding Superintendent Austin Beutner.
He begins:
Instead of meeting with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) in the days leading up to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) strike, Superintendent Austin Beutner and Board President Monica Garciawere in Sacramento in an effort to “drum up lawmaker opposition to the teachers strike.” They were accompanied on this trip by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (SRT), the son of “powerful L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas (MRT)”. While not publicly disclosed at the time, SRT was there as a paid lobbyist for the District.
As if a District pleading poverty while paying a lobbyist during labor negotiations was not bad enough, the choice of SRT is particularly bewildering. It appears that, under Government Code §87406, the former Assemblyman was legally prohibited from lobbying his former colleagues “for one year after the end of the term to which” he was elected, a waiting period that he had not met. The younger Ridley-Thomas resigned from his elected office on December 27, 2017, citing “health reasons.” He “was the subject of two sexual harassment complaints at the time he stepped down”.
SRT was then hired as a professor of social work and public policy by USC despite his not having a graduate degree. Shortly afterward, MRT “made a $100,000 donation from his campaign coffers to the social work school. The school dean, Marilyn Flynn, then sent the money to Policy Research and Practice Initiative, a start-up think tank that was unaffiliated with the university and controlled by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas.” After an internal investigation, the University ended SRT’s employment and told the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles that “it had concerns” about the donation.
Petersen then details a timeline showing Beutner’s close relationship with the Ridley-Thomases and other political figures.
At least one Angeleno wonders whether Beutner’s lack of an ethical compass will be his downfall.
Shouldn’t the superintendent of schools in the nation’s second largest school district have an ethical compass?
Remember the stories about the long waiting lists to get into charters?
Baloney.
In Los Angeles, more than 80% of all charter schools have vacancies.
Yet the billionaires are still spending to try to open more charters, in the absence of need or demand.
Please read this article in California-based Capital & Main, which contains a fascinating statistical analysis of charter school saturation.
The evidence suggests, writes Larry Buhl, that charter schools are now stealing students not only from public schools but from other charter schools.
Total student enrollment across the Los Angeles Unified School District has been declining for years, due partly to the high cost of living, which is pushing out families from the city. The latest LAUSD Superintendent Budget showed an overall enrollment decline of approximately 100,000 K-12 students districtwide — at the same time enrollment in charter schools increased dramatically over the past 14 years.
According to the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), 118,820 students are being served at 249 charter schools throughout LAUSD. The CCSA also reports that there are more than 16,000 students on a wait list for charters authorized by LAUSD, and nearly 20,000 on wait lists for all charters in greater Los Angeles. The waitlist estimates are based on reported counts given by charter leaders; CCSA says that its estimates take into account duplicate students applying to multiple schools.
Unless there are a few standout charters that every student is applying to, those wait list figures are hard to square with district data that show widespread under-enrollment across LAUSD charters.
A November 2018 LAUSD interoffice memorandum on charter school enrollment showed that more than 80 percent of the 224 district-authorized independent charter schools were under-enrolled:
* * *
With more charters chasing fewer students, marketing and outreach have become increasingly crucial to enrollment.
More money for marketing means less money for instruction. This is insane. It is very expensive and wasteful to maintain a dual school system.
Want to know which charter schools failed to meet their enrollment target. Look here.
