Archives for category: Los Angeles
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Los Angeles: Billionaires Huddle to Take Down Steve Zimmer

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2017 //
50

Steve Zimmer is the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board. I know Steve. He is a good guy. He is smart and thoughtful. He started in education as a TFA teacher and stayed for 17 years. He ran for School Board and against the odds, was elected. His critics on the left complain that he has not fought charters as hard as he should. He has tried to keep the district focused on improving. He has not pleased everyone.

Despite his efforts to accommodate the billionaire bullies, they are out to get him. Eli Broad has targeted him and gathered millions of dollars from his billionaire buddies to knock Steve out. The Broad billionaires are trying again to gain total control of LAUSD so they can achieve their goal of putting half of the kids in private charter schools. They are pulling out all the stops. They want control.

Let’s be clear: Eli Broad is the Betsy DeVos of California. Although he went to public schools, he looks down his nose at them. He wants privatization. He wants control. He doesn’t care about your children. He cares about power.

Read this article and learn about the bundling tactics of the billionaires.

Give Like A Billionaire – Protecting The Power Of Their Purse: How Billionaires Obscure Contributions And Command Influence

Only billionaires could be so arrogant as to think that they know better than everyone else. Most of them don’t live in Los Angeles. None of them has children in public schools.

Los Angelenos: Tell the billionaires to take a flying leap off a high peak.

Tell them your schools are not for sale.

Re-elect Steve Zimmer.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

UTLA Writes a Letter to Eli Broad about Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2017 //
12

The United Teachers of Los Angeles sent this letter to billionaire Eli Broad. Broad has been a major funder of privately managed charter schools in Los Angeles, Detroit, and other districts around the nation. He currently is promoting a $450 million plan to put half of all students in Los Angeles in charter schools. He also donates large sums to candidates who advocate the replacement of public schools with charter schools.

A few days before the vote to confirm Betsy DeVos, Broad announced that he opposed her.

UTLA wrote to Eli Broad:

Dear Mr. Broad:

UTLA and public education advocates, parents, students and community members have been fighting against Betsy DeVos’ nomination as Secretary of Education months before your letter, dated Feb. 1, was sent to all US Senators, in which you asked them to vote against her confirmation, which just took place today.

You were late to that struggle. We are not surprised.

If you are, according to your letter, “a believer in high-quality public schools and strong accountability for ALL public schools, including traditional and charter,” then you can do something right now: Immediately withdraw your financial support for the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA).

CCSA is a lobbying arm of the charter school industry that has amassed more than $170 million to fight the very existence of our neighborhood public schools.

Instead of continuing to fund CCSA, you should take responsibility for the damage you have caused, through your funding, to the school systems in California, Detroit, and New Orleans. In the latter two places, you worked hand-in-hand with Betsy DeVos.

To repair the damage, send your generous donations with no strings attached to the democratically elected school boards in California, especially the Los Angeles School Board, as well as schools in New Orleans and Detroit. School boards and school communities will invest this money appropriately.

In your letter, you say you “have never met Mrs. DeVos” and you have “serious concerns about her support of unregulated charter schools and vouchers as well as the potential conflicts of interests she might bring to the job.”

Forgive us as we take a moment to put this statement in context.

Last year, as one of the largest donors to CCSA, you helped thwart common-sense legislation like SB 322, which would have protected charter school students from unfair expulsions. You, through donations to CCSA, also intensely lobbied against AB 709, an accountability and transparency bill, which would have required that charter schools comply with the same state laws governing open meetings, open records and conflict of interest that traditional public schools do.

You and DeVos teamed up to fund legislative races in Louisiana, a state that, post-Hurricane Katrina, became the poster child for unregulated charter growth and the systematic destruction of the civic institution of public education.

Since 2008, you gave $212,500 to DeVos’ lobbying organization founded and chaired by her called “Alliance for School Choice.” It is a Washington, DC-based lobbying firm that, similar to CCSA, undermines public education and pushes for expansion of unregulated charter schools and school vouchers.

You and DeVos both funded the Educational Achievement Authority in Michigan, which oversaw the mass charter-ization and de-unionization of Detroit public schools, resulting in a wasteland rife with student equity and access violations, recently documented in a front page story in the New York Times.

While you claim to have never met her before, you have worked with her on multiple fronts, in multiple cities.

In 2016, with a donation of $2 million to CCSA Advocates, you were the most generous among California’s
elite handful of billionaires, including the Walton family of Walmart, Reed Hastings of Netflix and Doris Fisher of Gap, Inc. Your friend and former Los Angeles mayor Richard J. Riordan donated $50,000 to CCSA. He has also given
$1 million in the school board district race against School Board President Steve Zimmer.

You have so much money, maybe there is confusion around what legislation and which candidates your
vast wealth is actually fighting or supporting.

Because of your torrential financial support, last year CCSA far surpassed all other funders in state political races, including groups backed by the energy industry and real estate developers.

You and members of your billionaire club gave more than $27 million to various PACs like the Parent Teacher Alliance (PTA), the title of which is sneaky and confusing to parents. PTA has amassed $8 million this year alone. EdVoice amassed another $9 million. You gave more than $1.5 million to both of these PACs.

These independent expenditures help fund groups like Speak UP, Parent Revolution and Great Public Schools Now, as well as countless CCSA-backed candidates, who then work to undermine public education on your behalf.

When DeVos was first nominated, on Nov. 23, CCSA released a statement with high praise for Trump’s pick, and even said “Mrs. DeVos has long demonstrated a commitment to providing families with improved public school options and we look forward to working with the administration on proposals allowing all students in California to access their right to a high quality public education.”

CCSA and Great Public Schools Now have since backed off their enthusiastic support for DeVos,sensing it would be unpopular. We hope you have a deeper reason behind sending out your letter to the Senate, and that it will signal a shift in your financial support.

In your letter, you say DeVos is “unprepared and unqualified for the position.” You further say that we must have someone “who believes in public education and the need to keep public schools public.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Our public schools are in great need, many of them suffering from the years of unrelenting attacks from people like you.

Make amends. Join parents, students, educators and community members in our fight to save public education.

Immediately suspend your financial support of CCSA. Give your generous donations with no strings attached to public schools in California, Detroit, and New Orleans, and leave the educational decisions to our elected school boards and local stakeholders, who — unlike billionaires — are truly accountable to our communities.

Sincerely,

UTLA President
Alex Caputo-Pearl

Cc:
United States
Senators

—
Anna Bakalis

UTLA Communications Director
(213) 305-9654 (c)
(213) 368-6247 (o)
Abakalis@UTLA.net
http://www.UTLA.net

Categories Betsy DeVos, Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, Supporting public schools

The Dirty Tricks of California’s Charter Industry

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2017 //
5

The Los Angeles Times endorsed two strong supporters of charter schools for the Los Angeles Unified School District board, both favored by the California Charter School Association. The rationale was simplistic: new voices are needed.This is bizarre. It doesn’t matter whether a voice is old or new. What matters most is what the voice is saying. Will a new board try to turn Los Angeles into New Orleans? Will it be Eli Broad’s puppet? His voice is the oldest of all. It would be truly refreshing if the LA Times told him to keep his hands off the public schools since all of his experiments have failed (e.g., Michigan’s Education Achievement District). Why don’t they tell him to stick to art and medical research and stop meddling in the schools?

However, the Times published an article by columnist Steve Lopez that offers a clear-eyed analysis of the CCSA’s dirty tricks. The CCSA and its billionaire buddies have decided that it is time to take out Steve Zimmer, chair of the LAUSD school board. They are raising millions of dollars to push him out, even though he has not been hostile to charters. But the billionaires don’t want a fair-minded board president who has classroom experience (Zimmer came into education through Teach for America but remained a teacher for 17 years). The last time they tried to beat him, they outspent him 5-1, but he prevailed. His winning issue apparently was the $1 million from former NYC Mayor Bloomberg, which gave the appearance that a New Yorker was trying to buy control of the LA schools. So this time the $1 million came from former LA Mayor Richard Riordan.

So here’s the dirty trick. CCSA created a phony group called LA Students for Change to demand Zimmer’s ouster. Once again, like Families for Excellent Schools in New York City, which is composed of billionaire families who will never see the inside of a public school, the charter industry finds it necessary to deceive voters. Worse, CCSA printed up flyers for their student-props, blaming Zimmer for John Deasy’s $1 Billion iPad fiasco.

How comical is that? The embarrassing iPad scandal caused Deasy to resign, with a cloud over his head. Deasy now works for Eli Broad. Broad is the city’s charter kingpin and a major financier of CCSA. and now CCSA’s student group is pinning Deasy’s mess on Zimmer.

I salute the Los Angeles Times for recognizing that it’s time for Monica Garcia, the board’s most fervent charter advocate, to go. The Times endorses Lisa Alva, a classroom teacher who would be a valuable addition to the board. She and Carl Petersen are running against Garcia, and here’s hoping that they pull enough votes to force her into a run-off and defeat her.

Los Angeles should have a great public school in every neighborhood. That won’t happen as long as charters continue to drain away the students they want and drain away resources, leaving LAUSD with the students most expensive to educate and less money to meet their needs.

The district needs that vision, not just new voices and faces for the sake of novelty.

Categories Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

Los Angeles: Charter School, Raided by FBI, Has Money for Parties, Not for Basic Supplies

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2017 //
31

Last week, federal authorities raided the offices of Celerity charter schools in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times takes a closer look at the Celerity charters in this article.

Teacher Tien Le worked at Celerity Dyad Charter School, where she

taught in a portable classroom on an asphalt lot — not unheard of in this city of tight squeezes and little green space, but her students also had no library, cafeteria or gymnasium. The school didn’t provide most supplies, Le said, so when her sixth-graders needed books, or an extra pencil and paper, she spent her own money to buy them.

Months into her first year at Dyad, Le and her colleagues were invited by the organization that managed the school to a holiday party at a large house on a winding street in Hollywood. She parked in a lot rented for the occasion and took a shuttle to the house with other teachers and staff. Inside, there were two open bars, casino tables for poker and blackjack, and a karaoke room. At evening’s end, a limousine ferried guests back to their cars.

“I remember being really confused that night,” Le said. “When I asked for basic supplies, I couldn’t get those things, yet you have money for this expensive party? I know at big corporations and for-profit places these parties are normal, but for a public school it was not normal.”

Celerity operates seven charter schools in Southern California and four in Louisiana.

The investigation is ongoing. I can’t help but wonder whether Betsy DeVos will call a halt to the investigation when and if she becomes Secretary of Education. True, the FBI is involved, but a phone call to her friend in the White House….

Categories Betsy DeVos, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Los Angeles, Privatization

Former Mayor of Los Angeles Puts Up $1 Million to Defeat Steve Zimmer, School Board President

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2017 //
10

Those Los Angeles billionaires are up to their old tricks, handing out astronomical sums to capture control of the public schools, in which they have never had children or taught.

 

Former Mayor Richard Riordan, a close ally of billionaire Eli Broad, just contributed $1 million to a fund to defeat Steve Zimmer, the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board.

 

The committee to defeat Steve Zimmer is called, ironically, “LA Students for Change, Opposing Steve Zimmer 2017.” Neither Richard Riordan nor Eli Broad nor any of the other billionaires who contribute to this fund are “LA students.” It is a typical “reformer” deception, intended to mislead voters that students are putting together a multimillion dollar campaign to clear the path for Eli Broad’s desperate desire to put half the students in Los Angeles into charter schools.

 

This nomenclature is similar to the billionaires in New York and Conne richter who created the fake group “Families for Excellent Schools,” who raised millions to promote charters, although none of those elite families had a child in a public school or intended to send their own children to charter schools. Their own children are at Andover, Exeter, and other posh schools where tuition is about $50,000 or more.

 

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles, Privatization

Help Re-Elect Steve Zimmer to LA School Board

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2016 //
34

I am sending $200 to Steve Zimmer, president of the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Each time Steve runs for election, the billionaires target him for defeat. So far, despite the millions spent by the billionaires, Steve has prevailed. Steve started as TFA, but became a career teacher. He ran for the school board after 17 years in the classroom.

 

Please send whatever you can afford.

 

 

“Dear Diane,

 

I am running for re-election to the School Board on March 7th, and we are facing an important campaign deadline. We will formally launch our campaign and website early in 2017. But I wanted to reach out to you now as we approach this critical funding deadline on December 31st at midnight. I need your support like I’ve never needed it before.

 

As you know, we have made important progress in LAUSD over the past eight years. We weathered the worst budget crisis ever to face this district, made real and measurable improvement in key indicators of student outcomes, dramatically expanded equal access to arts education, and most critically, raised graduation rates to the highest level in the history of our public school system.

 

LAUSD is simply a better school district today than it was eight years ago.

 

But I know there is much, much more to be done, including expanding our reforms to all our schools and fighting for adequacy in public education funding. I need your help to continue this important work – I hope I can count on your support for my campaign. I need your donation today.

 

I face a difficult challenge this election, one more daunting than four years ago. In an effort to gain control of the School Board, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) together with a few Corporate Reform Mega-Investors has recruited three wealthy candidates to oppose me in this election. They will have limitless funding to promote a very different agenda for public education, including creating a false narrative about crisis and failure in our public schools that belies all our progress and insults the efforts of our amazing teachers, school leaders, and families.

 

I need you to help me tell the true story of what can happen when we work together for our kids. Please take a few minutes to contribute to our campaign before the deadline on December 31st. Here is a link to follow for credit card donations before December 31st.

 

Thank you for supporting public education in Los Angeles. Together, we will keep building the positive momentum for our kids and their schools.
All my best,

 

Steve

 

Paid for by Steve Zimmer for School Board 2017 FPPC ID #1384608, 249 E. Ocean Blvd., Ste 685, Long Beach, CA 90802. Additional information is available at ethics.lacity.org.
PO Box 27164
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Forward this message to a friend
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, click here
Powered by NGP VAN, Inc.

Categories Billionaires, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Los Angeles

Karen Wolfe: The Next Election for the LAUSD Will Be a Showdown Over Privatization

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2016 //
5

Karen Wolfe, a public school parent and blogger in Los Angeles, reports on the upcoming battle royal for control of the school board.

The charter ndustry is planning a raid on the school board, and their candidates can expect to be showered with money from billionaires who want to privatize more of the public schools. As karen points out, most of the donors will be able to hide their names until the primary is over, so voters won’t know which billionaires have decided to buy their public schools.

Steve Zimmer, president of the school board, will be challenged by a parent organizer for the California Charter School Association, the mother lode of privatization. Zimmer started his career as a TFA teacher, but stayed in the classroom for 17 years. The billionaires raised nearly $5 million to beat him last time he ran, but he prevailed.

Carl Petersen, a staunch friend of public schools, is running for a seat.

In another board race, the queen of corporate reform, Monica Garcia, is being challenged by teacher Lisa Alva. This will be an interesting contest because Lisa Alva started her career on the reform team but fell off the bench when she happened to participate in a conference call in 2013 that disillusioned her.

There is another candidate, Nick Melvoin, with sterling reformer credentials. He has raised $161,000. Garcia has raised $132,000. Zimmer has raised $29,000. So far. The billionaires and PACs haven’t weighed in yet. They will. The LAUSD is a big prize. The second largest district in the nation. Nearly a quarter of the students in the district attend charter schools. Billionaire Eli Broad wants half the kids in charters. He is persistent.

Will the people of Los Angeles allow the billionaires to take control of their public schools?

The primary election will be held on March 7, 2016 and the general on May 16.

We will watch this election closely as it develops.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization

Karen Wolfe to LAUSD Board: Turn This Charter Down!

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2016 //
14

Karen Wolfe is a parent activist in Los Angeles. She wrote the following plea to the school board of LAUSD, which will make a decision tomorrow:


Dear Board members,

I just learned that a proposal for a brand new LAUSD Playa Vista middle school is to be voted on at tomorrow’s board meeting.

Please vote No on Agenda Item 14, Establishment of the New Middle School Pathway in Collaboration with Loyola Marymount University.

· It was clear last December, when the board rejected this, and it is clear now. This is a segregated school for certain families to feel more comfortable being in LAUSD. The curriculum is STEM, which is already available at the curriculum at the existing middle school. If this becomes the well resourced, favored school, all nearby middle schools will experience an exodus.

If the only justifiable rationale for an additional middle school on the west side, where enrollment has dropped, is that these families prefer to segregate themselves from our LAUSD children, then it is morally imperative that the school district do everything in its power to make integration of our students a priority. Especially given the potentially horrifying impacts of last week’s world events, then Interim Superintendent, Ramon Cortines’ words from last December’s board meeting seem prophetic:

“There are some people in our schools that don’t want to go to school with ‘those children’ based on class.…Because there are people that feel that they are entitled because of where they live, and I am saying you can’t escape it anymore. Our children need to grow up in an education that deals with all levels of socio-economics, all levels of ethnic and cultural diversity. We cannot escape it anymore.
This district and this area needs to be a model for this.”

I am not saying that parents have racist intentions. But unintended bias is something that needs to be interrupted.

· The Board Informative erroneously states that the policy implications of this vote are “unknown at this time.” Since the School District creates policy through board action, the policy is well documented in the near unanimous vote recorded at the December, 2015 board meeting, and the policy rationale is well documented in the transcript and recording below. In fact, then Superintendent Cortines requested board approval for a plan that prioritized integration policy. The only opposing vote was because Ms. Ratliff perceived the associated charter school as getting special treatment in the facilities upgrade.

· The communities most heavily impacted by the establishment of this school should be provided an opportunity to give input for the board to consider. School board president Zimmer wisely stated in December, 2015, “it is absolutely clear to us now, and is the way we are going to move forward. All stakeholders together working together for a solution here that works for all families. For all families. I believe even in this difficult week, even as there’s been missteps and communication which I apologize for, I believe it is possible for us to get to answers that work for all families, all children and all schools by working together. All stakeholders together in this process.” That was a year ago. Last month, at a small meeting of the education committee of the Westchester/Playa neighborhood council, we were told that one group of stakeholders had worked to create this school. We were reassured though, that a community meeting would be held before the board voted. This new school would have wide reaching impacts, and the larger community including Westchester HS, Orville Wright MS, Marina Del Rey MS, and feeder elementary schools should have a fair opportunity to discuss them and propose mitigations for potential problems.

· I have heard two different district staff explain that this proposal is what Orville Wright teachers want because they did not want this school located on their campus. That is like telling a restaurant owner that a new restaurant is being built next door because he didn’t want one on his patio. The teachers and parents I have spoken to at Wright tell a different story. They would have felt differently if LMU had approached them in a collaborative manner, rather than simply to take Wright’s real estate for their own separate school, offering nothing to the teachers or children at Wright.

· The agreement calls for waivers from the UTLA and AALA contracts. Parents do not have contracts with the schools. We and our children have to live by the rules contained in those labor contracts, and we can look them up on the internet. If this school is going to have different rules, then those rules and the reasons for waivers should be part of the community’s consideration of this project.

· Loyola Marymount boasts the largest and longest running Teach for America corps. TFA is a drastically different organization than it was 20 years ago. Our board president is a rare exception to the well documented attrition rate of TFA. Over 70% of its temporary teachers leave after two years. Using a large number of TFA temps in one school would have a significant impact on a school. This should be part of the discussion.

· The further gentrification of the west side is bringing new families into LAUSD’s boundaries. This could become the future lifeblood of our neighborhood schools. Creating a new school for a wealthier, predominately white population will set a dangerous precedent. As new families continue to move into the west side, they will expect their own schools. These newer families could enroll their children in existing middle schools and prevent the closure or merger of existing schools. The possibility of such segregation, especially in such close proximity should be avoided.

· Adding schools and classrooms to the west side will increase the available Prop 39 space, creating more work for principals and more conflict in schools already beleaguered by charter co-locations.

Finally, please do not go down this path. After last week’s presidential election, the beautifully diverse and vibrant California made clear that it would lead the way in protecting the values we hold dear. Please do not let us down; raise us up.

Sincerely,

Karen Wolfe

TRANSCRIPT AND RECORDING OF DECEMBER, 2015 BOARD MEETING
http://lausd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=377&meta_id=25162

Superintendent Cortines said:

Wright has an opportunity to be an outstanding middle school for the feeder elementary schools. “I really see a seamless system” in Westchester. It shouldn’t be about those that can yell the loudest. It needs to address the issues of Wright that this district has neglected for years of it becoming a leading middle school on the west side of the City. That is the plan I am recommending…

3:44 Now, I’m going to say it the way it is. I’ve been to those schools. And there are some issues here, and you’re going to disagree with me, some of you. I’ve spent my life, my professional career, 60 years, dealing with the issues of integration. I want you to know that when I was superintendent in Pasadena, and they would say to me, well the African American community or the black community. And I would say which one of the communities? One of the issues that you as a community are going to have to face is the class issue. There are some people in our schools that don’t want to go to school with ‘those children’ based on class. Ma’am, I see you saying it’s not true. I’ve seen it and I’ve gotten the letters that it is true. So I’m saying you together, in working on an instructional plan for the elementary and for Wright are going to have to face that head on. Because there are people that feel that they are entitled because of where they live and I am saying you can’t escape it anymore. Our children need to grow up in an education that deals with all levels of socio-economics all levels of ethnic and cultural diversity. We cannot escape it anymore. This district and this area needs to be a model for this. My recommendation is very clear that under the direction of Dr. Gibson and Mrs. Hildreth, the superintendent and other that we should begin the study that should be in the middle school , not just in one elementary but in five elementaries. That’s my recommendation.

Board President Zimmer said: I understand this is a public meeting. The courage that you have shown all of those 60 years demands all of our respect and thanks. If this was not clear from the beginning, it is absolutely clear to us now. And is the way we are going to move forward. All stakeholders together working together for a solution here that works for all families. For all families. I believe even in this difficult week, even as there’s been missteps and communication which I apologize for, I believe it is possible for us to get to answers that work for all families, all children and all schools by working together. All stakeholders together in this process. We can’t do it if we don’t have the facilities investment. Very clearly, that I believe in Orville Wright Middle School. I believe in the efforts, driven by staff, not by this district, by staff, teachers and families It’s s transformation process that I will continue to invest in. Has to be about instruction. So when we make commitments about meaningful instructional pathways, we have to work out how we fulfill that commitment without injuring a commitment to others…Each of the elementary schools in the feeder pattern, as we see a reinvestment in each of our schools, again driven by instruction, driven by the quality and excellence that we demand for our children, and we should demand for all children

Karen Wolfe
310.823.4204
@kwolfepack on twitter
http://www.PSconnectNow.org
PS Connect – Friends to Schools

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Los Angeles: Educators at 4 Public Schools Reject Broad-Walton Money

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2016 //
19

This just happened in Los Angeles: Educators at four LAUSD public schools turned away money from the two billionaire backers of privatization. Broad and Walton are offering funding to these schools at the same time that their charters are diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from the district’s public schools.


For immediate release
Media Contact:
Anna Bakalis
UTLA Communications Director
213-305-9654

UTLA Educators Overwhelmingly Vote Against Broad-Walmart Grant Funding

Los Angeles, CA – This week, educators at four LAUSD schools voted to reject grant money from “Great Public Schools Now,” the public face of a group backed by the California Charter School Association and bankrolled by billionaires Eli Broad and the Waltons of Walmart.

Educators say that this is a PR stunt, not a genuine effort to fund schools in need and are calling on the District to uphold the vote by not accepting the grant money from GPSN, in any way. These four schools are within the targeted 10 areas for Broad-Walmart funding.

The vote was 98% in favor of rejecting the money; ballot counts at Drew Middle School, Pacoima Middle School, San Fernando High School, and Gompers Middle School were, respectively, 35 to 1, 58 to 0, 72 to 0, and 22 to 3.

Jared Dozal, who voted against his school receiving Broad-Walmart money, is a math and computer science teacher at San Fernando High School. He says this is a distraction from real, lasting efforts for sustainable funding for all public schools.

“We know that some will see this as an opportunity missed for funding, but the amount offered is peanuts for the billionaires behind this effort,” Dozal said. “We won’t let this distract us from saving our schools from a corporate takeover, paid for by the people who only want to destroy public education.”

Dozal said the grant’s offer of “up to” $250,000 per year for three years is insulting, considering the amount of money siphoned from public schools to subsidize rampant charter school growth.

For example, according to LAUSD’s own numbers, Gompers Middle School has $1.4 million less in its budget than 2013. Since school budgets are in large part determined by enrollment, the rapid expansion of charter school growth has clearly impacted the middle school.

In the zip code that Gompers is in, and in the nearby zip codes, there are 21 charter schools. Thirteen of these are the largest corporate charters, including Green Dot, Alliance, Aspire and Kipp. The Waltons of Walmart have contributed generously to these four corporate charters, and Eli Broad alone has contributed more than $75 million over the last few years. In fact, in the June 2015 GPSN plan, Broad and Walton say they will be raising $135 million more for these charter school operators.

Getting the funding and resources our students need requires meaningful and sustainable initiatives. To that end, members of United Teachers Los Angeles join with parents and community members to address issues like school site improvements and student safety, enriched curriculum that includes funding for arts, music and ethnic studies as well as fully staffed schools with full-time nurses, librarians and counselors.

UTLA is also working to pass Prop. 55 on next week’s ballot, pursuing long-term funding solutions in Sacramento, and supporting efforts such as the Make It Fair campaign to close corporate property tax loopholes.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Los Angeles, Privatization, Resistance, Teachers, Unions, Walton Foundation

Los Angeles: Why Won’t the California Charter School Association Debate the UTLA about Charters and Privatization?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2016 //
33

The United Teachers of Los Angeles invited the powerful California Charter School Association to debate the issues surrounding the explosive growth of charter schools and their lack of accountability. The CCSA refused.

Here are the issues that CCSA doesn’t want to talk about:

Lack of financial accountability; lack of transparency; cream-skimming the students they want; bias against students with special needs and English language learners; the loss of funding for public schools that enroll all students; fraud, self-dealing, profiteering.

Why is CCSA afraid to debate?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »