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Los Angeles: Teachers Authorize Strike

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2018 //
9

This just in:


** MEDIA ADVISORY **
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 22, 2018
Media Contact: (213) 305-9654 (Cell)
Anna Bakalis, UTLA Communications Director

Tomorrow: Nation’s Second-Largest Teacher Union Local Begins Strike Authorization Vote

WHO: United Teachers Los Angeles represents more than 33,000 LAUSD educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, early childhood and adult teachers. They have been working without a contract for over one year. This strike authorization vote will allow the UTLA Board of Directors to call for a strike if one becomes necessary. Voting results are expected Aug. 31.

WHAT: After 17 months of fruitless bargaining, the California Public Employment Relations Board has declared we are at impasse with LAUSD. As UTLA demands that LAUSD stop stalling and get to mediation immediately, tens of thousands of LAUSD educators begin a strike authorization vote tomorrow that lasts through Aug. 30. UTLA has made it clear to LAUSD that we are ready and willing to meet for mediation on August 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, & 31. However, Supt. Austin Beutner and the district have basically ignored their legal and moral obligation to participate and refused to meet until September 27. Despite a $1.7 billion projected reserve, LAUSD refuses to make progress on key issues, including:

· Smaller class sizes

· Fair pay raise

· More nurses, counselors, psychologists, and librarians

· Less testing and more teaching

· Charter and co-location regulation

· Real support for school safety

· Community schools and support for families

· Greater stakeholder input to help magnet school conversions

· Expanded support for bilingual education

· Improved working conditions for early education and adult education teachers

Event Details: Teachers at Thomas Starr King Magnet Middle School will be casting their strike authorization votes after school. They will be available to give interviews in English and Spanish. The district has been giving out false information that UTLA opposes magnetization. UTLA does not oppose magnets. In fact, King MS is a successful school that, with the approval and input of educators, went all-magnet in 2013 and includes three on campus: Gifted Arts & Tech, Environmental STEAM and Film and Media magnets. These educators will be joined by parents who are supporting their fight for a fair contract. Visuals include: Educators, parents, exterior of school, handmade signs and ballots being cast.

WHEN: Thursday, Aug. 23
TIME: 3 – 4 PM
WHERE: Corner of Bates and Fountain Avenues Thomas Starr King Middle School / 4201 Fountain Avenue Los Angeles, CA

Categories Education Reform, Los Angeles, Resistance, Unions

LAUSD Rejects Mediation with UTLA, Rejects Outstanding Candidate for Ref’s Empty Seat

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2018 //
29

The latest from Los Angeles, where a strike is a real possibility and a clueless hedge fund manager is superintendent.


Subject: UTLA demands LAUSD accept mediation dates immediately

UTLA demands LAUSD accept mediation dates immediately

UTLA continues our demand that LAUSD stop stalling and agree to start the mediation process immediately. UTLA has made it clear that we’re ready and willing to meet for mediation on August 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, & 31. However, Austin Beutner and the district have basically ignored their legal and moral obligation to participate and refused to meet until September 27.

“We find it upsetting that the top public employee for LAUSD has tried to dodge the state mediation process, which labor laws are built on, which protects UTLA members, and frankly is the only way to guarantee that the legal rules of bargaining will be followed by someone who brags about breaking rules all the time,” said UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl.

As UTLA members gear up for an important strike authorization vote beginning this week, Supt. Beutner continues a campaign of blaming educators and spreading misinformation. Some of these false claims have landed in media reports. They include:

Claim: Beutner is not stalling mediation.
Fact: The district has refused to meet for state mediation date until 56 days (Sept. 27) after a mediator was first appointed on Aug. 2. This is unacceptable.


Claim: A “pact” has been forged between Beutner and the UTLA president.
Fact: There has been no progress made toward an agreement. Beutner, who is accustomed to back-door deal making as a multi-millionaire hedge-fund capitalist, hasn’t grasped the fact that he’s dealing with a 34,000-member union that demands a transparent and legal collective bargaining process.

Claim: Beutner offered UTLA members a 6% raise and proposed an increase in staffing and lower class sizes.
Fact: Neither Beutner nor LAUSD has made any of these proposals. In fact, the district gave very few proposals or counterproposals through 19 bargaining sessions over 17 months. That’s why there are more than two dozen issues that have to be bargained, many of which wouldn’t cost the district more money.

Claim: UTLA does not want magnet schools.
Fact: UTLA is not against magnet schools. One of the keys to a successful magnet conversion is stakeholder buy-in, so our proposal calls for a 60% vote by the educators at a school to endorse the magnet. We want guardrails in place so the district doesn’t exploit the magnet process to remove teachers who are willing to speak up on behalf of students, question the leadership of the school, or express different opinions about the direction of the conversion.

“All indications point to the fact that Beutner does not believe educators should have a say in their own future or the future of our students and communities,” said Arlene Inouye, chair of the UTLA Bargaining Team. “That goes against the very nature of bargaining, which allows a democratic process for union members to create better working conditions for themselves and a better learning environment for our students.”

What adds to this insult, Caputo-Pearl says, is that today the school board voted down Board Member Scott Schmerlson’s resolution on the interim BD5 appointment of Jackie Goldberg, a veteran educator and former school board member. Instead, Nick Melvoin and Monica Garcia proposed that BD5 residents to submit applications for the job, an orchestrated attempt to appear open and transparent. The board would appoint the candidate at the Sept. 11 meeting. The vote was deadlocked 3-3.

“The reason they are appointing an interim board member is because the entire tenure of Ref Rodriguez was ill-gotten, yet the charter-lobby-backed board majority did not cry foul over this because it served their purposes,” Caputo-Pearl said.

“This smacks of hypocrisy,” he said. “The people of BD 5 had to endure a year-long insult to democracy while Ref Rodriguez faced felony charges tied to campaign finance money laundering. He was kept on the board by the same people who are now making overtures for transparency and accountability.”

As this cloud of corruption hung over the school board, Rodriguez was kept on for his swing vote, to have a prominent role in deciding the rules and policies that govern the nation’s second-largest school district. His vote was crucial in the appointment of Beutner, a mega-wealthy investment banker with no experience as an educator.

UTLA reiterates our demand that any interim appointment to BD5 seat be a true advocate for public education, not beholden to CCSA, and one who truly respects and values transparency and accountability, until a special election can be held.

****FOR MEDIA PLANNING PURPOSES****

What: UTLA strike authorization vote
When: Thursday, Aug. 23
Time: 3 PM

For more information:
Anna Bakalis, UTLA Communications Director
(213) 305-9654 (c)
Abakalis@UTLA.net

Categories Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Will the LAUSD Select the Best Qualified Person to Fill Convicted Felon’s Empty Seat?

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2018 //
15

The LAUSD school board has an empty seat due to the resignation of charter founder Ref Rodriguez’s resignation following his conviction for money laundering.

The board will decide Tuesday whether to fill that seat.

It has the opportunity to appoint a uniquely qualified person: the legendary Jackie Goldberg.

“Perhaps you’ve heard that Jackie Goldberg is being considered for appointment to Ref Rodriguez’ vacant District 5 School board seat?

“The deal is, she won’t run for either a special election or the regular election in 2020 if the LAUSD board will appoint her to Rodriguez’ vacant seat.

“If you’re familiar with Jackie Goldberg, you may know her as a 7-times-elected official to LAUSD’s school board, the City of Los Angeles City Council and State of California Assembly.

“It’s also possible you’re familiar with her no-holds-barred rebukes at the School Board. This is a person who speaks Truth To Power and is comfortable with it.

“Because while frank, she’s not dogmatic and in truth weaves a conciliatory road of compromise and practicality even while seemingly unfazed by belting out that Truth.

“You may have heard she is “against” Charters yet that is not true. She is on record supporting Charter Schools, over and over again; yet she also fights for them to be held accountable in the same way as regular public District Schools, to have the same requirements for transparency and the equity that anchors the very foundation of our democracy: Public Education for one and all.

“When our current school board members act shocked at accusations of Trumpism among the LAUSD board and snuggling up with plutocrats, even while tacitly condoning or even protecting Rodriguez’ tenure in the midst of accumulating legal corruption charges, there is a rank disconnect with this whole sordid Ref-affair that really doesn’t wash.

“Ref Rodriguez withheld disclosure that he was under investigation for felony fraud when he accepted the Chair of LAUSD’s board; he withheld resignation from the board long enough to cast its deciding vote in favor of the controversial selection of a non-Educator as Superintendent. And he hefted this standard for Poor Governance all the while that his fellow board members and local politicos protested the flood of Poor Governance at a national level.

“To make good on their protestations of clean politics and an Ideology of Equity, Nick Melvoin, Monica Garcia, Dick Vladovic and Kelly Gonez must come together to appoint Jackie Goldberg to the LAUSD board on Tuesday, August 21.

“This will insulate the board from the next utterly bruising campaign for LAUSD5, whether as a special or regular election. For a sitting board member to be involved in the sorts of shenanigans that characterize the new normal board election, would distract and deflect from the Good Governance critical at this moment to our beleaguered school board. On their docket is the threat of strike from our teachers and the dilemma of accounting for future employee benefits, managing equity within a beleaguered system and protecting our students from social winds of change operating at a national-level.

“We are amazingly lucky to have a public servant of Jackie Goldberg’s caliber, character and integrity available to serve LAUSD5 in this moment of acute need. She is an actual exemplar of Good Governance who can provide that voice which would Represent and truly Protect LA’s children of all stripes, independent of whatever public school they happen to attend, or the theories, fears or ideology suffusing the adults surrounding them in charge of choosing where it is that they attend.

To read the rest of the post and open the many links, read the full article.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Union and Inexperienced Superintendent at Odds

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2018 //
27

Austin Beitner, the former hedge fund manager-publisher picked by the school board as superintendent of the nation’s second-largest district despite his lack of any education experience, is at loggerheads with the UTLA.

UTLA released this statement last night (note the return of Cami Anderson):

We are responding to the letter you sent yesterday to UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. We are writing this letter jointly because Arlene Inouye is UTLA’s bargaining chair and, with the UTLA Bargaining Team, has urged the district to stop refusing to meet with a state-appointed mediator in a timely fashion as required by law.

In response to the mediator proposing multiple dates for August and in contrast to UTLA’s willingness to meet for mediation immediately, LAUSD is refusing to participate within a reasonable time frame. This is unacceptable and indefensible.

Two UTLA officers met with you yesterday with one goal: to get you to abide by the bargaining process and schedule timely mediation dates. No outline of an agreement was discussed in that meeting. Nor did you offer a path to a contract settlement, as your letter suggests. Instead, you continued your steadfast unwillingness to send the LAUSD bargaining team, now that we are at impasse, to mediation. Therefore, your availability to “meet anytime” rings hollow.

You have claimed that you cannot schedule mediation for 56 days because you don’t want to interfere with the beginning of the school year. Yet yesterday, on the second day of school, you had plenty of time to discuss ways to cut educator healthcare, pensions, and other compensation with a “realignment” plan created by high-priced consultants tied to the privatization movement. One is the firm founded by former Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson, who aggressively imposed failed charter and privatization schemes that ended in school closings and mass firings of teachers. After a community uprising against her disastrous leadership, she resigned in disgrace. Anderson now joins your new chief of staff, Rebecca Kockler, who is tightly connected to the privatization of New Orleans schools.
You continue to talk about salary as if it is the only issue we care about in bargaining. While a fair salary increase is essential for attracting educators in response to a growing shortage, our comprehensive bargaining package provides a vital pathway for drawing families into our schools and saving the civic institution of public education. This includes proposals to: eliminate the contract language (Article 18, Section 1.5) that allows the district to unilaterally increase class sizes every year; increase the number of nurses, counselors, school psychologists, and teacher librarians; expand accountability for charter schools and co-locations; reduce the drain on instructional time from overtesting; increase investments in bilingual education and ethnic studies; empower local school leadership councils to manage school budgets and create school climate and discipline plans; end the mistreatment of early education teachers, adult education teachers, and substitute teachers; and more.

Making vague comments about small salary increases and the need to cut healthcare, while showing no willingness to bargain over our package of proposals, is not a plan to respect educators but a plan to wind down the public school district, the way you wound down so many corporate entities as a private equity profiteer.

At this point in the bargaining process — when the parties are at a deadlock on roughly 23 different issues after more than 17 months and over 130 hours of bargaining — a state-appointed mediator is the best potential path toward reaching an agreement. The California Public Employment Relations Board agrees, by virtue of their certifying our impasse and appointing a mediator.

Enough is enough. You cannot put students first when you put educators last. Your letter suggests we are not looking out for the best interests of our students, which we take great exception to. Mr. Beutner, you have never taught in a classroom, but you should know that our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.

If you can’t or won’t do this, then educators, parents, and the broader community will question your ability to lead the second-largest school district in the country.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Union

Los Angeles: What Happened after The Los Angeles Times Published the Test-Based Ratings of Thousands of Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2018 //
66

Chalkbeat reports on what happened eight years after the Los Angeles Times paid to create a value-added, test-based rating system to evaluate teachers and then published their ratings online.

The bottom line: The rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. And some teachers left teaching.

New research suggests that’s what happened next — but only for certain families.

Publishing the scores meant already high-achieving students were assigned to the classrooms of higher-rated teachers the next year, the study found. That could be because affluent or well-connected parents were able to pull strings to get their kids assigned to those top teachers, or because those teachers pushed to teach the highest-scoring students.

In other words, the academically rich got even richer — an unintended consequence of what could be considered a journalistic experiment in school reform.

“You shine a light on people who are underperforming and the hope is they improve,” said Jonah Rockoff, a professor at Columbia University who has studied these “value-added” measures. “But when you increase transparency, you may actually exacerbate inequality.”

That analysis is one of a number of studies to examine the lasting effects of the L.A. Times’ decision to publish those ratings eight years ago. Together, the results offer a new way of understanding a significant moment in the national debate over how to improve education, when bad teachers were seen as a central problem and more rigorous evaluations as a key solution.

The latest study, by Peter Bergman and Matthew Hill and published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Economics of Education Review, found that the publication of the ratings caused a one-year spike in teacher turnover. That’s not entirely surprising, considering many teachers felt attacked by the public airing of their ratings.

“Guilty as charged,” wrote one teacher with a low rating. “I am proud to be ‘less effective’ than some of my peers because I chose to teach to the emotional and academic needs of my students. In the future it seems I am being asked to put my public image first.”

But a separate study, by Nolan Pope at the University of Maryland, finds the publication of the ratings may have had some positive effects on students, perhaps by encouraging schools to better support struggling teachers.

Pope’s research showed that Los Angeles teachers’ performance, as measured by their value-added scores, improved after their scores were published. The effects were biggest for the teachers whose initial scores were lowest, and there was no evidence that the improvement was due to “teaching to the test.”

“These results suggest the public release of teacher ratings could raise the performance of low-rated teachers,” Pope concluded.

The Los Angeles Times sued to get additional data so it could rank and rate even more teachers based on test scores, but a three-judge appellate court turned the newspaper down. The public did not have a right to know the ratings of individual teachers, the court said.

The distinguished mathematician John Ewing wrote an important paper in the journal of the American Mathematical Society called “Mathematical Intimidation,” in which he thoroughly debunked the Los Angeles Times ratings. He later debunked the “crisis in education” in a speech at Brown University.

The New York Post followed the lead of the Los Angeles Times and published the ratings for thousands of New York City teachers. The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid identified what it called “the worst teacher” in the city and hounded her, publishing her photo and banging on her apartment door in search of an interview with this terrible teacher.

But another look and it turned out that this teacher taught new immigrant students who cycled in and out of her class all year long. The ratings were meaningless.

Gary Rubinstein reviewed the city’s ratings and found them to be incomprehensible. A teacher might be highly effective in math and ineffective in reading, or vice versa, leaving the choice of which half of him/her should be fired.*

The review of the Los Angeles ratings omitted one consequence that mattered, at least to his family and friends: Roberto Riguelas, a teacher of fifth grade in a rough neighborhood, got a mediocre rating and jumped off a bridge, committing suicide.

Arne Duncan still praises the “courage” of the Los Angeles Times for publicizing the ratings of teachers, no matter how many of those ratings were erroneous and hurtful.

*Here are Gary Rubinstein’s posts about the absurdity of New York City’s value-added ratings. Blog #2 is the most important:

Part I
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-1/

Part II
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-2/

Part III
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-iii/

Part IV
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-4/

Part V
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-5/

Part VI
https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/analyzing-released-nyc-value-added-data-part-6/

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Teacher Evaluations

Los Angeles: School Board in Limbo after Ref Rodriguez’s Conviction and Resignation

By dianeravitch
August 1, 2018 //
18

Now that Ref Rodriguez, the charter founder who was convicted of money laundering, has resigned, the Los Angeles school board has a 3-3 tie.

While Rodriguez was under indictment and awaiting trial, the board hired a non-educator venture capitalist as Superintendent.

Now the board must either select a replacement or call a special election in Rodriguez’s district.

The three-year scandal that has embroiled the Los Angeles Unified school board concluded anticlimactically this week when besieged District 5 board member Ref Rodriguez tendered his resignation. The bow-out followed a Monday court appearance in which Ref pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy and three misdemeanors connected to his laundering $24,000 of his own cash during his successful 2015 election campaign.

It ended an ethically challenged 10 months in which Ref’s legal bills were paid by his lone legal-defense fund donor – billionaire charter school enthusiast and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. The patronage had kept alive LAUSD’s slim, 4-3 pro-charter school board majority as it doggedly ticked off a dream list of California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) wins. Gut “district required language” for charter petitions? Check. Deny CCSA bête noire Ken Bramlett a contract renewal as inspector general? Check. Hire non-educator venture capitalist Austin Beutner as a disruption-prone superintendent? Check.

The suddenly even-split LAUSD board now has 60 days to either appoint a successor or to follow recent board precedent by letting District 5 voters decide in a special election.

One group paying close attention will be L.A. teachers, whose union on Tuesday submitted its “last, best and final offer” in contract talks that it says have again ground to a deadlock. “Anti-union, pro-privatization ideologues are currently running the school district but are setting us up for failure,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl charged in a statement. The district has 48 hours to respond to the LBFO.

Meanwhile one of the state’s major charter scandals received new attention, following the court settlement “stemming from 2017’s catastrophic failure of Tri-Valley Learning Corporation (TVLC). The undisclosed payment to bond trustee UMB Bank, by municipal bond law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, was for its part in brokering a 2012 bond issue for the Livermore-based charter management organization.

This latest fallout covers only a fraction of the $67 million in tax-exempt, facilities-funding bonds at the center of a bankruptcy that affected over 1,200 students and shuttered four TVLC schools.

The closures led to a devastating June, 2017 audit by the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District, which forwarded multiple allegations of possible fraud and misappropriation of assets against Tri-Valley and its former CEO, Bill Batchelor, to the Alameda County DA. It also resulted in state Assembly calls for closing regulatory loopholes that have allowed millions of dollars to be converted into the private real estate holdings of limited liability companies and charter management organizations.

“There is no authority, body [or] entity that I know of that [a charter management organization] has to answer other than to a self-selected board of directors,” testified Livermore Unified superintendent Kelly Bowers at 2017 Education Committee hearings.

All legislative efforts to hold charters accountable and make them transparent have been vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. Two years ago, he vetoed legislation that would have made charters subject to open records laws and conflict of interest laws.

To learn more about the unregulated squalor in the charter sector in California, read Carol Burris’s “Charters and Consequences.”

Categories Accountability, California, Corruption, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: UTLA Makes It’s “Last, Best, and Final Offer”

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2018 //
18

Negotiations in Los Angeles between LAUSD and its teachers union UTLA are at a critical point. UTLA issued this statement:


We demand a 48-hour response from LAUSD

When UTLA declared impasse earlier this month, LAUSD officials said they would bring significant proposals to today’s bargaining. Instead, they brought a previously proposed 2% ongoing salary increase, an additional one-time 2% bonus and a $500 stipend for materials and supplies. The UTLA bargaining team deemed this insulting, quickly reaffirmed negotiations are at a deadlock and gave the district 48 hours to respond to UTLA’s package proposal in a last, best and final offer.

“Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. We must continue to fight for a sustainable future, yet we don’t have a partner in the very school district we are trying to save,” said Arlene Inouye, Chair of UTLA’s Bargaining Team. “We have been pushing for real change, they are keeping the status quo.”

Some outstanding key issues:

Class Size Matters. LAUSD gave no proposals to reduce class size. LAUSD has some of the highest class sizes in the nation, yet refuses to eliminate section 1.5 of the contract, which allows the district to ignore class size caps.

Fund Our Schools. LAUSD gave no proposals to address funding issues. California is the richest state in the nation, yet ranks 43 out of 50 in per-pupil funding.

Support Community Schools. LAUSD gave no proposals to fund Community Schools. Community schools meet the needs in the surrounding community, including wrap-around services, broadened curriculum and parent engagement.
Less Testing & More Teaching. LAUSD gave no proposals to address overtesting. Our kids are being overtested. Their teachers should have more discretion over what and when standardized assessments are given.

End the Privatization Drain. LAUSD gave no proposals for reasonable charter accountability and co-location measures. LAUSD refuses to address the $590 million lost to the unchecked expansion of charter schools each year.

Despite the need to look at factors that impact student health, safety and well-being, LAUSD has refused to address our common good proposals. In recognition of legal constraints tied to the “scope of bargaining,” UTLA has withdrawn proposals that are not mandatory subjects of bargaining. Nonetheless, we will continue to work diligently with parents and students for these improvements we think are vital to overall student success.

Last Thursday, July 19, LAUSD Supt. Austin Beutner told a room of business leaders at a Valley Industry and Commerce Association forum at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City that if things don’t change, ‘by 2021 we will be no more.’ Read the entire LA Daily News story here.

Beutner also said the loss of $590 million to charter school expansion is a “distracting shiny ball” and not a real concern. That amounts to $4,950 per student per year.

“That is much, much more than a ‘distracting shiny ball,’” said UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. “It amounts to robbing our students of educational resources and programs. That funding could mean more nurses, more librarians, more counselors, more arts, sports and music programs.”

“The real ‘distraction’ is that anti-union, pro-privatization ideologues are currently running the school district, and they are setting us up for failure, not success,” Caputo-Pearl said. “Regardless, UTLA remains steadfast in our fight for a better future for all students. We continue to fight for the heart and soul of public education in LA.”

Click here for more info on bargaining proposals. https://www.utla.net/members/bargaining

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals in district and charter schools in LAUSD.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Class size, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Teachers, Union

Los Angeles: UTLA Calls on Board to Toss Out All Decisions Where Ref Rodriguez Cast Deciding Vote

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2018 //
14

United Teachers of Los Angeles called for the LAUSD Board to reverse all decisions in which RefRodriguez cast the deciding vote. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to serious criminal charges.

Here is the UTLA statement:

LAUSD School Board member Ref Rodriguez resigned this morning, after pleading guilty in a downtown courtroom to a felony conspiracy charge and a series of misdemeanors for money laundering during his 2015 election campaign. Next, Rodriguez is expected to reach a $100,000 settlement with the City Ethics Commission.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said of his apology in court today:

“‘I’m sorry’ does not cut it. Ref Rodriguez has been disingenuously hinting at his innocence for over a year. In the meantime, critical, long-lasting policies were decided, using his swing vote – including the 4-3 vote to begin the process of hiring investment banker Austin Beutner as superintendent. Therefore, UTLA demands that all 4-3 votes where Rodriguez cast the deciding vote be reconsidered or thrown out completely. Every vote he made on the school board was not in the interest of students or parents of LAUSD. He carried out the wishes of the wealthy elite, including the CEO of Netflix and the billionaire-backed California Charter Schools Association,” Caputo-Pearl said.

Ignoring an outcry from the community and parents for his resignation, Rodriguez refused to step down for almost one year. He should have done the right thing when allegations first came to light, Caputo-Pearl said.

“His ethically challenged behavior sets a bad example for our kids, but is great for CCSA and those who funded his legal battles,” Caputo-Pearl said. “These people have a plan to undermine LAUSD and public education. We must continue to fight this agenda.”

We reiterate our demand for a special election. The LAUSD School Board says it will move quickly to appoint a member to the board in the interim and will hold a special election eventually. We reiterate our demand for transparency in the process to bring about the appointment, and that it not be similar to the hiring of Supt. Austin Beutner, who was selected with little public input or oversight.

While awaiting the election, the appointee must be a true advocate for public education, not beholden to CCSA, and it must be someone who respects and values transparency and accountability. The appointee must be someone who supports the essential civic role of public school districts, and must be someone with experience in education, community, and politics, not someone who is learning on the job.

UTLA, the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union local, represents more than 35,000 teachers and health & human services professionals in district and charter schools in LAUSD.

###

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Fraud, Los Angeles

Breaking News! Los Angeles: Ref Rodriguez Pleads Guilty of Conspiracy, Resigns Seat on Board, Avoids Jail Time

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2018 //
4

Charter school founder Ref Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in Los Angeles and agreed to resign from his seat on the local school board, which he clung to until a new charter-friendly superintendent was selected. He will be on probation for three years and do community service. The plea deal allows him to avoid jail time, which could have been several years.

The board must decide how to fill his seat. At present, it is deadlocked 3-3. It could remain deadlocked, or one of the weak dissidents could join the former majority.

Superintendent Beutner, billionaire and former hedge fund manager, will now have to figure out how to work with a board that does not have a working majority until this issue is resolved.

Expect the billionaires–Reed Hastings, Eli Broad, Richard Riordan, William Bloomfield, Michael Bloomberg, etc–to come in to salvage their prize.

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

Los Angeles: Board Member Appears to Have a Plea Deal in Criminal Charges

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2018 //
4

The LAUSD has a 4-3 Majority of charter supporters. One of them, Ref Rodriguez, is about to take a plea deal that may lead to his resignation. Then businessman-turned-Superintendent will have a 4-4 split. Things get interesting.

Rodriguez held on to his seat long enough to put a Reformer in charge. But the day of reckoning draws near.

“The stage appears to be set for a deal that would resolve political money-laundering allegations against Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez, based on a filing posted Friday afternoon by the city’s Ethics Commission.

“The deal is likely to include his resignation from office, although parties involved in the negotiations would not confirm that.

“In the filing, Rodriguez, 47, admits that he “engaged in money laundering to further his 2015 campaign for a seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.”

“The commission staff is recommending a $100,000 penalty that would be paid by Rodriguez and his co-defendant, Elizabeth Melendrez.

“That fine would resolve Rodriguez’s case before the Ethics Commission, but that is just one half of his troubles related to political money laundering. The other — and the more serious — is a criminal case based on the same actions.

“In that proceeding, Rodriguez is charged with three felonies and 25 misdemeanors. If convicted on all counts, he could face several years in prison.

“Because Rodriguez has now apparently admitted guilt to the city’s Ethics Commission, it would be seemingly impossible for him to claim that he is not guilty of the same offenses in the criminal case. For that reason, all signs suggest that the criminal case also has been resolved with a separate plea deal.

“Details of the expected deal in the criminal case have not been made public.

“Legally, Rodriguez could probably remain in office if prosecutors agreed to lower the felony charges to one or more misdemeanors. But observers and those close to the case said it’s difficult to imagine a deal that would allow Rodriguez to keep his board seat, even if he is able to avoid time in jail.

“The ethics filing describes in some detail what happened, according to investigators.

“Late in 2014, Rodriguez, who was then a senior executive at a charter school organization, was putting together his first run for office.

“That December, he instructed Melendrez, his cousin, to enlist contributors and later reimburse them with Rodriguez’s money. Melendrez worked under Rodriguez as an administrator in the same charter-school organization.

“Rodriguez held an event at a family member’s residence later that month to announce his candidacy. During the event, he asked family and friends for support.

“Afterward, Melendrez promised contributors that Rodriguez would reimburse them. From Dec. 23 through Dec. 31, Rodriguez’s family and friends, including employees under his supervision, made 25 campaign contributions ranging from $775 to $1,100. The contributors included low-wage custodians for the charter schools and totaled $24,350.

“Soon after, on Jan. 15, Rodriguez attended a mandatory Ethics Commission training for candidates. It included a detailed discussion of city law regarding contributions, including prohibitions on money laundering.

“Rodriguez declined to come forward. Had he done so, the fallout could have derailed his campaign.
Instead, when Rodriguez filed his first campaign statement, he reported raising $51,001. Nearly half of that was the laundered contributions. In the same reporting period, incumbent school board member Bennett Kayser reported raising $13,739, and another challenger, Andrew Thomas, reported raising $10,732.

“Therefore, Rodriguez’s first public disclosure statement identified him as having received more contributions in that reporting period than any other candidate in the LAUSD District 5 race,” the Ethics Commission noted.

“Rodriguez could have contributed the money openly and legally to his own campaign, but it is against the law to disguise the true source of campaign donations.

“The violations “were deliberate, and Rodriguez knowingly received and made use of laundered funds during the election,” the filing states. The actions reflected “an intent to conceal, deceive and mislead.”

“It is possible that the ethics case and the criminal case could be resolved simultaneously Monday. The Ethics Commission, which has jurisdiction over local campaigns, has called a special meeting at City Hall for 10 a.m. The Rodriguez matter is the only item on the agenda.

“Meanwhile, for the criminal case, a hearing also is scheduled for Monday morning in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, which is across from City Hall.

“If the plea bargain happens as expected, Rodriquez would not necessarily be free from legal jeopardy. Sources tell The Times that the U.S. attorney’s office has looked into unrelated conflict-of-interest allegations against Rodriguez.

“Those allegations arose when his former employer, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, or PUC Schools, reported that Rodriguez had an improper conflict of interest when he authorized more than $285,000 in payments.

“The payments were made from PUC to a separate nonprofit under Rodriguez’s control and to a private business in which Rodriguez may have owned an interest.”

For a chronology of Ref Rodriguez and his troubles with the law, see here.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Los Angeles
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