Archives for category: Los Angeles
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New York City Gives Consulting Contract to Ousted Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
15

Tommy Chang was a top assistant to John Deasy in Los Angeles. After Deasy was pushed out in Los Angeles following a billion-dollar iPad bungle, Chang landed a job as superintendent of schools in Boston.

Things did not go well there, and Chang was abruptly pushed out by Mayor Walsh with two years left on his contract.

Now Chang has a job consulting for the New York City Department of Education, where he will be paid $10,000 “to produce a report on the ongoing reorganization of instructional divisions in the agency.”

Apparently there is no one in the vast New York City Department of Education who knows how to organize the instructional divisions.

Being a Broadie means having lifetime protection. When this gig runs out, Eli will find something else for him, maybe another district in need of transformation and closing the gap.

Categories Accountability, Boston, Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, New York City

Bill Raden from Los Angeles: Buckle Your Seat Belts, Strike Ahead!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
3

Bill Raden, education writer for Capital & Main in California, writes about the looming teachers’ strike in Los Angeles.

Fasten your seatbelts Los Angeles, it’s going to be a bumpy strike. That was the subtext to a tumultuous week that saw over 50,000 L.A. teachers, students and families take to the streets Saturday to support a union faced with budgetary saber-rattling by Los Angeles Unified, and that climaxed on Wednesday with United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl setting a January 10 walkout date — unless Los Angeles Unified negotiators meet key union demands for investments in the district’s highest-poverty students.

Caputo-Pearl’s announcement came a day after L.A. Unified superintendent Austin Beutner erroneously claimed that the union had accepted the district’s six percent pay raise offer, as recommended in Tuesday’s report by state-appointed fact-finders who also urged LAUSD to kick in the modest equivalent of a one to three percent salary increase for new hires to reduce class sizes, and for both sides to work together to lobby Sacramento for more state funding.

Fact-finding panel chairman David A. Weinberg mostly punted on 19 of 21 unresolved equity demands that form the heart of what UTLA has framed as a fight to save L.A.’s “civic institution of public education.” The union won some minor points, like the allowing of teacher input on charter co-locations, and on scrapping a district privilege to unilaterally lift class size caps during fiscal crunches. But by accepting at face value LAUSD’s latest claims of imminent bankruptcy, Weinberg left unanswered a critical question: How could LAUSD annually project catastrophic, three-year deficits and still have its unrestricted cash reserves balloon from $500 million to nearly $2 billion during the same five-year period?

“We have watched underfunding and actions of privatizers undermine our students and our schools for too long. No more,” Caputo-Pearl warned on Wednesday.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Funding, Los Angeles, Resistance, Teachers, Union

Eric Blanc: The Blue State Teachers’ Revolt Is On! L.A. Teachers Plan to Strike on January 10!

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
9

Eric Blanc has covered the teacher revolts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, and every other state where teachers said “Enough is enough.”

He writes for Jacobin.

Now, he says, the Blue State Teachers’ Revolt is on!

It’s official: Los Angeles teachers just announced they are going to strike on January 10. They’re challenging not just public education privatizers, but the Democratic Party establishment.

After months of contract negotiations, Los Angeles teachers have announced that, unless the LA school district leadership gives a dramatic set of last-minute concessions, they will begin a strike on January 10. The stakes of the struggle could hardly be higher. In the second-largest school district in the country, educators have thrown down the gauntlet against the forces of big business, gentrification, and privatization — including those within the Democratic Party.

The teachers’ revolt sparked by West Virginia has now spread to the “bluest” state of them all, California. LA’s schools show why the crisis of public education can’t be blamed only on Republicans. Huge class sizes, low per-pupil funding, rampant charter schools, over-testing, a lack of counselors, nurses, and librarians — these are the fruit of years of Democratic rule in the city and the state capitol.

“Corporate Democrats are getting money from the same billionaires and corporations as the Republicans,” explains United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) Secretary Arlene Inouye, “so essentially all public educators in this country are targets.” In Los Angeles, deep-pocketed pro-charter ideologues recently installed Austin Beutner — a billionaire investment banker with zero educational experience — as superintendent. Their plan is straightforward: drastically downsize the school district to push students into privately run charter schools.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization, Teachers, Testing, Unions

Los Angeles: Network for Public Education Action Fund Endorses Jackie Goldberg for School Board

By dianeravitch
December 19, 2018 //
4

The Network for Public Education Action Fund is delighted to endorse Jackie Goldberg for election to the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board.

Jackie is the ideal candidate to replace convicted felon and charter school founder Ref Rodriguez.

She has experience, knowledge, integrity, and wisdom.

The Network for Public Education Action has endorsed Jackie Goldberg for the District 5 seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

Jackie has a long history as a public servant with a passionate voice in defense of public education. She previously served on the LAUSD board from 1983 to 1991, and the Los Angeles City Council from 1993-2000. She went on to serve in the California State Assembly from 2000-2006, where she chaired the Assembly Education Committee for several years.

With her decades of experience, Jackie has concluded that “the billionaires have stacked the deck against district public schools.” The 2017 LAUSD school board election was the most expensive in history, with almost $10,000,000 in outside spending coming from pro-charter groups.

By winning this election Jackie hopes to prevent a 4 to 7 majority controlled by the board members elected with pro-charter money.

Jackie has remained active with grassroots activism as a founding member of TEAch (Transparency, Equity, and Accountability for Charters), a group dedicated to increasing public accountability within the charter sector. She has also remained active as a community watchdog of the LAUSD board, delivering powerful public comment at meetings.

Jackie will be up against an avalanche of money in this election. The board and staff of NPE Action urge you to vote for Jackie Goldberg in the primary election on March 5, 2019. It will be up to us to show that people power can triumph over the billionaire’s agenda for LAUSD.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund

California: Teachers in Los Angeles and Oakland Preparing for Confrontation

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2018 //
9

Bill Raden of Capital & Main reports on potential strike developments in Los Angeles and Oakland.

Two California teachers unions, which are currently deadlocked in separate contract talks with their respective school districts, are on the verge of launching the West Coast’s biggest teacher walkout since 1989. What happens next will decide far more than fair wages for career educators. At stake are broader principles of equity, expressed as contract demands for smaller class sizes and less testing, the addition of sufficient health and social services staff, and an investment in community schooling and fair funding — aimed at restoring public education as a public good for all Californians, rather than as a private interest granted to the lucky few…

Meanwhile, an estimated 90 Oakland Unified teachers skipped classes December 10 in a one-day wildcat sickout to protest some of the state’s lowest teacher pay — against a backdrop of California’s fast-rising living costs. But a more fundamental grievance is with the $60 million that Oakland Unified must cut over the next two years. It has led superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell to adopt a draconian district downsizing plan that could close up to 24 mostly low-income neighborhood public schools and coordinate the remainder of the 87-campus district with the city’s 34 charters on things like enrollment and transportation. The strategy has been likened to a “portfolio model,” the controversial template for privatized district governance that favors charter expansion at the expense of traditional public schools.

It also bears an uncanny resemblance to “Re-Imagine LAUSD,” the prematurely leaked but still mostly secret pet portfolio plan of L.A. Unified supe Austin Beutner — just one of the issues behind the takeover by 50 placard-carrying protesters at the L.A. school board meeting last Tuesday. Students, parents and teachers seized the floor and unfurled a banner of union-aligned demands: an end to random student searches; reductions in class sizes and testing; and the hiring of more health workers, community schools and per-pupil funding. For good measure, they also chanted down attempts by board president Mónica Garcia to restore order, a caterwaul that eventually drove Beutner and his board allies from the room…

If November’s blue wave means the tide has indeed turned against California’s market-driven ed reformers, grassroots activists aren’t resting on any laurels. That’s why they are circulating a petition launched by the Oakland Public Education Network (OPEN), asking Governor-elect Gavin Newsom to abide by four seemingly common sense hiring principles:

*No conflicts of business interests

*Education-related appointments must strictly mirror California’s 90/10 proportion of public-to-charter-school enrollments

*No more Betsy DeVoses guarding the regulatory henhouse (i.e., appoint only seasoned, public school-committed educators to the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools)

*Genuinely partner with the public schools community to uproot what OPEN considers the predatory incentives and equity barriers that it says are the legacy of California’s 25-year-long ed reform wrong turn.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Oakland, Privatization, Resistance, Teachers, Unions

UTLA: 50,000 Marched for Better Funded Schools!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2018 //
7

More than 50,000 March for Public Education in LA


LOS ANGELES — In a historic march, tens of thousands of students, parents, educators and community members marched through the streets of Los Angeles today to demand a reinvestment in public education and that the Los Angeles Unified School District stop hoarding the record-shattering $1.9 billion in reserves and use it immediately on our students, our schools and our classrooms.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl told the massive, picket-holding and banner-waving crowd that if there is no settlement by next month, “we will strike in January.”

“If we are forced to strike, it will be to defend our schools; but it will also be because we think our kids deserve more and we deserve more, because we dare to have high expectations,” Caputo-Pearl said to the cheering crowd. “If we strike, it is all of our strike. When we win, it is all of our victory. Are we going to win for our schools? Are we going to win for our kids?”

Then tens of thousands people began the march, chanting throughout the streets of downtown, bringing the momentum and energy of the national teacher rebellion to the doorstep of the nation’s second-largest school district.

The massive demonstration then walked from City Hall, chanting as they marched side by side to demand Supt. Austin Beutner and LAUSD fulfill the promise and hope of a quality public education for all, not just some. The march ended in front of the Broad Museum tohighlight the destructive role billionaires like Eli Broad play in draining money from our public schools and funding privatization schemes like the portfolio model.

“Eli Broad fought against school funding measures and he has funded the charter industry to undermine neighborhood public schools,” Caputo-Pearl said. “Broad has made LA a national experiment in privatization. Who’s ready to turn the tables on that? Who’s ready to fight for the nurses our students need? Who’s ready to fight for the counselors our students need? Who’s ready to fight for the class sizes our students need?”

United Teachers Los Angeles has been in contract negotiations with LAUSD for more than 18 months. In August, 98 percent of union members voted to authorize a strike. Negotiations are near the end of the fact-finding stage, after which the school district can impose its last, best, and final proposal and UTLA members can strike.

With class sizes that are too high and not enough resources in their classrooms and attacks to their profession, teachers are fighting for a profound reinvestment in Los Angeles schools. LAUSD has yet to make any meaningful progress on UTLA’s contract demands, including the ones that don’t cost money or would even save money, such as stopping overtesting and giving parents and educators a voice in school budgets.

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Categories Broad Foundation, Education Industry, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Teachers March Was a Great Success!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2018 //
5

Here is the first report on the thousands of teachers who marched today in Los Angeles.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-teachers-march-20181215-story.html

More funding for schools! Not privatization!

LAUSD Teachers March in DTLA as Union Moves Closer to Calling First Strike in Nearly 30 Years

Categories Los Angeles, Supporting public schools, Teachers

I Support the UTLA March for Education Tomorrow at 10 AM PST!

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2018 //
7

Teachers in Los Angeles will be marching on Saturday December 15 at 10 a.m. PST at Grant Park in downtown Los Angeles.

Teachers are negotiating with LAUSD and its banker superintendent for a fair contract that includes reduced class sizes; improving school safety by adding more school counselors and social workers. Fully funding schools so that all schools have librarians and other support staff. Less testing and more teaching. Ending the drain of privatization, which removes $600 million annually from the public schools.

UTLA is prepared to strike if necessary.

Please go to Twitter to see the gorgeous banners that L.A. teachers have made in case there is a strike. Teachers have the best artwork and the best songs.

I stand with UTLA and the teachers of Los Angeles.

To understand why teachers are ready to go out on strike, please read this article about “the looting of public education in Los Angeles by the 1% and their corporate shills.”

It begins:

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When the pro-charter LAUSD school board majority appointed investment banker Austin Beutner to superintendent earlier this year it effectively declared war on schools of color and communities of color. Nationwide, public schools have been gutted by the rising tide of charterization, privatization, high stakes testing, union-busting, civil rights rollbacks engineered by the Trump/DeVos Department of Education. Teacher walkouts have reverberated across the country as states slash public education funding and schools re-segregate to pre-Brown v. Board levels.

The cynical appointment of the grossly underqualified Beutner (a one percenter white male with no prior public school teaching or administrative experience) signified that the board was essentially handing over the District to these forces on a silver platter in a swaggering f-you to parents, teachers, and students who’ve seen their schools reduced to detention centers.

Resist!

Categories Accountability, Class size, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Testing, Unions

Los Angeles: UTLA Endorses Jackie Goldberg for School Board

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2018 //
1

Los Angeles is ground zero for the privatization and DPE Movement (DPE=Destroy Public Education). The billionaires have pumped millions of dollars into races for the local school board. Last year, they knocked out Steve Zimmer, president of the board, with the most expensive local school board race in American history. Their small majority selected a businessman, Austin Beutner, as superintendent of schools despite his lack of any education experience. A key board member, Ref Rodriguez, Charter School founder, voted for Beutner, then left the board after he was convicted of campaign finance violations.

The race for his open seat will be held this spring. The UTLA just endorsed the extraordinarily experienced and articulate Jackie Goldberg. Jackie, if elected, will be a powerful voice for sound education policy.

UTLA endorses Jackie Goldberg for LAUSD School Board

The UTLA House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly tonight to endorse Jackie Goldberg in the special election for the District 5 seat on the Los Angeles Unified School Board.

Goldberg’s resume stacks up like no other: She was a classroom teacher for 17 years before serving on the LAUSD School Board, on the LA City Council, and in the California State Assembly, where she chaired the Education Committee.

Goldberg has been an unapologetic voice for the role of LAUSD as an essential civic institution in our city—a voice that’s urgently needed as the board considers Superintendent Austin Beutner’s plan to break LAUSD into 32 networks. This so-called portfolio reform has been tried in many cities, where it has ignited parent anger, increased school closings, deepened segregation and disparities between schools, and brought no proven benefit in student learning.

“We look forward to Jackie bringing her special brand of passion and integrity to the School Board and for the people of District 5 to once again have a voice on the board,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said. “Jackie understands that our schools don’t need failed privatization schemes but instead need investment in lower class sizes; more nurses, counselors, and librarians; and other fundamental student needs.”

Ref Rodriguez stepped down from the District 5 seat in July after pleading guilty to a felony conspiracy charge and a series of misdemeanors for money laundering during his 2015 election campaign. For nearly a year, Rodriguez ignored calls from the community to step down, staying in place until he could be the deciding vote in the controversial hiring of non-educator Beutner.

The election to fill the open seat will be held March 5, 2019, with a runoff if needed on May 14.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Protesters Shut Down LAUSD Meeting

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2018 //
7

Parents and teachers shut down a meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board, complaining about businessman Austin Beutner’s leadership, large class sizes, and the conditions likely to produce a teachers’ strike in January.

“These days, two major possibilities color just about everything in Los Angeles Unified — the growing prospect of a teachers strike and Supt. Austin Beutner’s still largely confidential plan for a massive district reorganization….

“The protesters echoed the contention of United Teachers Los Angeles that the district — whose general fund budget this year is about $7.5 billion — is hoarding a massive reserve that could be used to pay teachers more and improve conditions for students. They point to last year’s ending balance of nearly $2 billion…

“A senior at King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science, who identified herself only as Cheyanne because she said she felt at risk for speaking out, talked of the need for smaller class sizes and better staffing. She said she’d had 52 students in her 10th-grade chemistry lab.”

Categories Accountability, Class size, Los Angeles, Teachers, Unions
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