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Ellen Lubic: Why Is the L.A. Media Biased Against Public Schools and Teachers?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2016 //
31

Ellen Lubic, a professor of public policy in Los Angeles and a frequent commenter on this blog,  comments here on the recent court ruling that overturned the Vergara decision.

 

She writes:

 

“Yes…keep on Raging, Raging. When we lose a free press, unbiased media, we lose democracy. Judging by Campbell’s new gig at LASR [Los Angeles School Report] and by the venomous LA Times (plus the biased NY Times), all is lost.

 

“Today the LA Times follows up on the last few articles on Vergara over the past few days, and distorts the entire matter. I am writing a full on review of this and hope Diane will post it. So won’t go into the many issues here except to say that Howard Blume and his pals follow the Broad line imposed by their Times bosses, even though they do not have the usual disclaimer on today’s front page manipulated article.*

 

“They chose once again to interview Ryan Smith, past hatchet man for United Way and now the darling of Edelman fame and fortune, and PRev shyster Ben Austin, former and still hatchet man for Eli Broad and now of Broad/Welch fame and fortune, to be their voices on education issues.

 

“These two men are in the lead in the deception to steal public education in the name of their view of civil rights. These are the two who led the infamous street charade of Oct. 29, 2013 to get the equally infamous John Deasy’s contract renewed…and the pathetic LAUSD BoE dances to their boss, Eli Broad’s tune. They use this important claim of civil rights to privatize schools, fire teachers without due process, and kill unions, but all on public funds on the backs of the taxpayers.

 

“No where do the reporters interview some of the skid row (see San Pedro St. in LA) crack mothers of almost 13,000 of LAUSD students who sleep on the streets. No where do these ace reporters do any in depth investigation of how these inner city kids live lives of desperate poverty, little food or rest, and virtually no parental supervision. Yes, there are poverty parents working three jobs to try to exist, but there are thousands of others who have NO business parenting children.

 

“But how easy it is to blame it all on the teachers. What a load of manure!!

 

“This story is filled with dichotomies…it is a continuum of despair of inner city life vs. the grandest of wealth and excess of WLA, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills. The 40,000 foot mansions which could house a hundred people, but are vacation homes for the billionaires who seek to run the world are what the tour buses show off…not the tents from 1st and San Pedro stretching for miles and miles, showing the degradation and filth of the poverty stricken, a twenty minute drive from Rodeo Drive.

 

“The Times hacks NEVER call any of the local activists you read here nor the highly regarded academics like Professor Rogers at UCLA or Emeritus Professor Kashen from USC, but ALWAYS feature the slimy corporatists from Eli Broad’s United Way, and Eli Broad’s California Endowment. So what the public reads is deeply slanted.

 

“So many of our colleagues from around the country write from the distance, but those of us who are on the ground in LA every day, and see the destruction these uber wealthy demi gods are inflicting in their arrogance, are the true reporters.

 

“Yes, Raging…I too am Raging from the thick of it.”

 

 

*The first post this morning by Mercedes Schneider reported that Howard Blume’s article about Vergara was substantially revised overnight.

Categories California, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Media

Mercedes Schneider: What Did Campbell Brown Say About the Vergara Reversal?

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2016 //
23

Mercedes Schneider writes here about Campbell Brown and the Vergara case. The lower court decision became an opportunity for the telegenic former TV correspondent to launch a new career as a tenure-fighting, union-busting vigilante.

 

Riding the Vergara wave, she created an organization called the “Partnership for Educational Justice,” funded by the usual billionaires.  PEJ filed a copy-cat Vergara lawsuit in New York and just week filed a similar lawsuit in Minnesota. Bad timing, to say the least.

 

On a roll, Brown launched a news site, “The 74,” to chronicle the struggle for corporate-style reform of public education. The 74 refers to the 74 million children of school age, many allegedly trapped in schools with unions and tenure. It was reported that the billionaires (Bloomberg, Walton and others) gave her $4 million for The 74).

 

So what did Campbell say about the overturning of the Vergara by a unanimous three-judge Court of Appeal? Nothing. A deafening silence.

 

Meanwhile, Mercedes examines a curious incident in the night at the Los Angeles Times, where education coverage is funded by billionaire Eli Broad. The original story about the decision by Howard Blume was mysteriously rewritten. Whole sections were dropped or revised to make them , well, less problematic to the funder. Accidental? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

Read the post for the details.

 

And remember to thank the Constitution for checks and balances and an independent judiciary (at least in California).

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Media, Teacher Tenure

Los Angeles: An Astonishing Swindle of Public Money

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2016 //
28

This story is incredible, astonishing, unbelievable.

In 2013, the operators of a Los Angeles charter school were convicted of misappropriating $200,000 from school funds. The school is called Ivy Academia. The founders are in jail.

Recently, the school complained that the district had failed to provide adequate quarters, as it was required to do under the Starr’s very charter-friendly law. The matter went to an arbitrator, who awarded Ivy Academica $7.2 million dollars plus legal fees of $625,000.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

“The Los Angeles Unified School District must pay $7.1 million to a San Fernando Valley charter school for failing to provide the school with rent-free classroom space, a violation of state law.

“School districts are required to share classrooms and other facilities with charter schools but, for three years starting in 2007, Ivy Academia Entrepreneurial Charter did not get enough space for its 1,100 students.

“The district’s approval of the charter required arbitration of legal disputes.

“In his written ruling, arbitrator John Zebrowski said that the district’s failure to comply with the law harmed children attending the charter during those years because it forced the school to use some money intended for educational programs to lease a building. Zebrowski said students were further harmed because the building leased by the charter was inferior to what it would have received from L.A. Unified….

“Ivy Academia spent $3 million on rent and other costs from 2007-10, but the arbitrator said L.A. Unified should be on the hook for more money because he believed the property denied to the charter had a higher value. The district must also pay the charter $650,000 in attorneys’ fees.

“Ivy was forced to cobble together multiple private facilities that were inferior and didn’t have things like playing fields, libraries, permanent science labs, and enough special education space,” Paul Minney, an attorney for the charter school, said in a statement.

“L.A. Unified acknowledged that it did not provide Ivy Academia the space it is entitled to under Proposition 39, which requires districts to offer charters facilities that are reasonably equivalent to those provided to students in traditional public schools.

“David Huff, an attorney representing the school district, said L.A. Unified simply didn’t have the space during the years that it did not comply.

“Huff also pointed to a criminal case that in April 2013 found two of Ivy Academia’s leaders guilty of misuse of public funds.

“According to prosecutors in that case, Yevgeny “Eugene” Selivanov negotiated the 10-year lease of a building for $18,390 a month but then charged the school $43,870 a month to sublease the property.

“It is the district’s theory that had we made a compliant offer of space. . . Ivy would have never accepted because it would have ended their $25,000 a month profit,” Huff said.

“But the arbitrator said the district could not prove that the charter would have rejected such an offer.”

So the charter operators were making a cool $25,000 in profit every month by over gargling the district. And the arbitrator rules that money will be subtracted from the district’s overcrowded schools, which have inadequate repairs and few arts teachers, to further enrich this school, even as its founders sit in jail.

An ally in Los Angeles wonders if the district’s case was sabotaged by a Broadie plant on the inside.

Astonishing.

Categories California, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Red Queen in L.A.: What’s Wrong with Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2016 //
8

Blogger Red Queen in L.A. has observed the rapid expansion of charter schools in Los Angeles. She knows that billionaire Eli Broad wants to put fully half the public school children in the city into privately managed charters.

 

 

In this post, she answers the question “What’s Wrong with Charter Schools?”

 

She begins:

 

“They foster segregation.

 
“Charter schools are in fact the new face of segregation, the enabling excuse for exclusivity and alienation. The Charter School movement glorifies the illusion of “choice” even while entitling homogeneity.

 
“This is borne out in the numbers and confessed every day via parent-to-parent euphemisms: “this school is a better ‘fit’”, “‘safety’ is my top priority”, “my child only responds to a ‘nurturing environment’”, “smaller class sizes are necessary for my child”, “I want my child immersed in a specialized program”.

 
“So much sorting and selecting sets up a double whammy for segregation. On one level families self-select according to like-mindedness and socioeconomic comfort level. At the same time the very process of school selection siphons highly involved families away from public district schools.”

 

 

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles, Segregation

Los Angeles: How the Biggest Charter Chain Fights Unionization

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2016 //
16

Investigative reporter George Joseph writes in “The Nation” about the battle inside Los Angeles’ largest charter chain over whether teachers should be permitted to form a union.

A group of teachers at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools announced their wish to form a union last spring. Since then, the charter chain has fought them to prevent their efforts from succeeding.

This is a crucial battle for Alliance because its CEO is Daniel Katzir, who was executive director of the Broad Foundation for a decade. The business model for the Broad charter plan depends on having a non-union workforce with steady turnover and long working hours.

Broad’s goal of getting half the children in L.A. into charters would be disrupted if the teachers at Alliance were allowed to go union. Now Alliance is pulling out the stops to turn parents against a union and to intimidate teachers who might want to join.

And, of course, the chain insists it is private, not public (despite its name), and therefore not required to honor fair labor practices. When you read about the management ‘s tactics, the only missing ingredient is the Pinkerton private detectives, who were hired by management in the 19th century to infiltrate unions, disrupt them, and break up labor protests.

Categories Los Angeles, Teachers, Unions

Los Angeles: Get Ready for Another Attack on Public Education

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2016 //
19

In the past few years, the privatization movement has targeted Los Angeles as a ripe target, in part because billionaire Eli Broad wants to squash the public schools where he lives, and also because the state has exceedingly lax regulation of charters. The state laws were written during Arnold Schwarzenegger’s time as governor, when he packed the state board with charter advocates.

 

In Los Angeles, the privatizers face a stumbling block: an elected school board. Each election, they dump millions into campaigns for their allies.

 

This is year is crucial. The privatizers’ main target is Steve Zimmer, the board president. Steve began his career in TFA but didn’t move on to a lucrative career in high finance. He remained an LAUSD teacher for 17 years. When he ran for school board, the big names of corporate reform spent millions to defeat him, but he won. He was outspent 5-1, but he prevailed. Can he do it again?

 

Zimmer is known as a thoughtful, deluberate, and fair-minded leader. He is not a partisan. But the privatizers don’t want a fair-minded board president. They want someone to champion their cause. They want power. They want control.

 

Yet the privatizers are starting their campaign to unseat him. Expect more millions from a handful of the wealthy elite–none of whom have ever had children in the public schools of Los Angeles–to knock Zimmer off the board.

 

Here is a description of his challenger, written by Joshua Leibner, a National Board Certified teacher in LAUSD.

 

 

As you may know by now, Nick Melvoin is going to be running for LAUSD’ President Steve Zimmer’s seat on the School Board.

 

 

It’s important to know his biography which definitely influences his political orientation on education. Nick comes from a very well-to-do Hollywood family and spent his youth in private schools and then off to Harvard and later LMU (the incubator for LA’s Reform movement with John Deasy and Ref Rodriguez as star alumni). He taught for two years in Brooklyn after receiving his five week teacher training and considers his TFA experience important “to make young, promising people aware of the issues of education, so that when they ‘graduate’ from Teach for America and become important leaders in society, they will effect long term change in the education system.”

 

 

Melovin as director of policy, communications and associate counsel for former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Great Public Schools Los Angeles and is currently a consultant to the Charter and Reform advocates Educators4Excellence and Teach Plus.

 

 

Melvoin worked on the ACLU’s Reed v. California lawsuit, which challenged LA Unified’s seniority-based teacher layoff policies, by helping recruit former students and co-workers from Markham to join the lawsuit. He also testified in the Vergara v. California lawsuit where a group of students successfully argued that the state’s teacher employment laws are unconstitutional.

 
In LA only four months ago, he penned an article for Campbell Brown’s The Seventy Four where he says of Eli Broad’s plan to charterize LAUSD: “If I were a shareholder of LAUSD — and as a taxpayer, I guess we all are — I might welcome a hostile takeover. In fact, a hostile takeover might be precisely what our district needs.”

 
Now, I am no huge fan of Steve Zimmer because for too long, he was silent on what was happening in education reform in general and in LA in particular. When educators wanted strong leadership in decrying what was happening in our schools by the rich and powerful, Zimmer oftentimes gave comfort to the very enemies who today have set him in their sights.

 

There is no doubt this is going to be one of the most publicized races in the nation. With a year to go before the election, we can now see how great the nationwide stakes are in these “piddly” school board battles.

 

That’s a year of the tsunami of fundraising that is going to be going on on Melvoin’s behalf through dark money contributions. Every charter group, hedge fund and corporate entity is going to pour massive resources into this race.

 

LA’s District 4 School Board race will be the most expensive battle royale in the country’s history. LA’s UTLA will pour tremendous money into the campaign to back Zimmer but it certainly won’t be enough to compete with what he is going to be up against. Melvoin is a perfect Central Casting school board candidate to “speak” to LA’s more affluent, white and politically engaged West Side. The Reformers know what a great “fit” he is going to be.

 

 

The problem is that what Melvoin believes to be “Progressive Education” is radically at odds with mine and other public school advocates definition. His backers are of the same pedigree as those who give to the Jeb Bush campaign and understand completely both Donald Trump’s AND Eli Broad’s use of money to buy the public policy they want. In LA, he will sell himself as a liberal and I’m sure he believes it.

 

So here’s an opportunity.

 

 

This should be the race where the Democrats battle out what Progressive Education is. This is the fight that has been a long time coming between the Neo-liberal Democrats and the Social Justice Democrats. It is going to be an argument that will challenge notions of race and class and privilege. Each side is claiming that mantle and I love to finally have that debate in public.

 

 

Our side has got to be ready and smart. The potential pitfalls are numerous. It is very tricky navigating and we have to articulate forcefully why Melvoin’s notion of education is wrong for the MAJORITY of LA.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: “Walk-In” Protests Charters, Privatization, and Billionaires

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2016 //
9

Pro-public school demonstrators marched in Los Angeles as part of the national “walk-in” for public schools.
The 20th Street Elementary School was one center for the protest because it has been targeted for privatization by the billionaire-funded “Parent Revolution.”
“Parents at 20th Street filed a petition earlier this month to convert the school into a charter school. To make the change, they’re using the state’s “parent trigger law” that allows parents to decide who will take control of a low-performing campus once the school district confirms that a majority of parents had signed a petition.
“The parent group hasn’t yet chosen an organization that would run the charter school. Under state law, only parents who signed the petition will have a vote. The advocacy group helping them, Parent Revolution, is backed by nonprofit organizations that support the growth of charter schools, including the Walton Family Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, the Arnold Foundation and the Broad Foundation.
“The petition drive has divided the campus, with supporters accusing teachers of misconduct and retaliation. The union, in turn, has accused Parent Revolution of using deceptive tactics to gather signatures. Both sides have denied any wrongdoing.
“The signs and posters at 20th Street focused on what students loved about their school — the teachers, the music — scrawled in colorful, children’s handwriting.
“Some rallygoers at Hamilton High School in Palms were more direct in their attack on the charter school expansion plan, which was originally spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. That proposal laid out a plan to spend $490 million to double the number of charters in L.A. over eight years.
“Protesters held white posters that proclaimed in black block letters: “Billionaires, have a heart. Your plan will tear our schools apart!” and “Billionaires: Pay your taxes so we can get smaller classes!”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles, Parent trigger

Los Angeles: Charter Schools Whine About Their Victories

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2016 //
31

Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times reports on a controversial decision to grant a renewal to a charter school owned by one of the elected board members, even though the charter division of the school district said its performance was so poor that it did not deserve renewal. The owner of the charter, Ref Rodriguez, recused himself from the vote. As usual, the room was packed with charter students and staff, demanding renewal of a failing school, and they won.

 

There are more charters in Los Angeles than in any other district, and an independent panel of experts recently warned that charter growth could threaten the solvency of L.A. Unified.

 

Most charters are non-union, and charter critics include unions. They say that charters serve fewer students who are more challenging and expensive to educate.

 

Charter advocates include well-heeled foundations and donors, who say continued, rapid charter expansion will improve the education system.
The big charter winner on Tuesday was Partnerships to Uplift Communities, more commonly known as PUC Schools.

 

PUC overcame the opposition of the charter division, which said its standard review showed that, based on academic performance, PUC’s Excel Charter Academy fell far short of deserving a five-year extension.

 

Excel supporters — about 140 packed the board room and waited until well after dark to be heard — put forward other statistics that painted a better picture of the middle school in Lincoln Heights.

 

They also presented testimonials from students, parents, teachers and administrators. Such presentations have become a regular and lengthy ritual when the fate of a charter comes before the school board.

 

 

Meanwhile, the members of United Teachers of Los Angeles voted to increase their union dues to fight the billionaire-funded effort to gobble up more and more public schools and turn them into non-union charters.

 

 

Sarah Angel, a spokesperson for the California Charter School Association, criticized the union for amassing a “war chest” to fight back against the charter invasion. She said the union was being divisive.

 

She said:

 

“UTLA is going to amass the war chest that they feel that they need,” said the California Charter Schools Association’s Sarah Angel. “But I think all of us in public education: moms, dads, teachers, principals, and board members need to be focused on the number one priority which is educating kids and how we do that better, how do we improve outcomes, raise children out of poverty, get them to graduation, college, and career. That needs to be our number one focus, not raising money, not fighting each other.”

 

In other words, don’t fight the charter takeover of public schools. Let them privatize half the district, the entire district. Don’t resist. I recall that when I wrote an op ed for the LA Times supporting public schools, it was the same Sarah Angel who called me “divisive.” It seems the only way to be a uniter is to support Eli Broad’s program of privatization.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Jan Resseger: Campbell Brown’s Takeover of the L.A. School Report

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2016 //
20

Jan Resseger, a long-time advocate for children, families, and public schools in Ohio, asks “What Gives Campbell Brown Standing to Spin the News about Public Education?” Good question.

 

She was a news anchor.  I know she gets upset when I say this, but she is pretty. It’s true; being pretty is nothing to feel bad about.

 

She has no prior experience in education. But with the financial support of the Walton Family and the Bloomberg Foundation and a few other billionaire donors, she now is in a position to opine about how to “reform” public schools. Did she ever attend one? Do her children? Was she ever a teacher or a principal? Is she a scholar? Has she studied the problems of the schools in depth? We know the answers to those questions.

 

She is obsessed with stripping away the rights of teachers. She hates unions. She thinks the schools are staffed by large numbers of sexual predators.

 

Why? I don’t know.

 

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Los Angeles

Campbell Brown Takes Charge of Editorial Content at LA School Report

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2016 //
33

The LA School Report has long been a partisan supporter of charters, Deasy, Broad, and all other parts of the privatization agenda. Under a new editor, the LA School Report became a neutral source. Now that editor has announced he is leaving because the LA School Report has merged with Campbell Brown’s “The 74.” The publication was founded by Jamie Alter Lynton, sister of major ed reformer Jonathan Alter and wife of Sony executive Michael Lynton. With the Broad Foundation funding education coverage at the Los Angeles Times and “The 74” controlling the editorial views of the LA School Report, there will be a dearth of unbiased reporting in the city. This happens at the same time that Eli Broad proposes to take control of half the children in the city’s public schools. When we lose the free press, our democracy is in trouble.

 

 

 

From a long string of messages, beginning with an email written by Steve Zimmer, President of the LAUSD school board:

 

 
On 2/1/16 12:14 AM, Zimmer, Steven wrote:
Michael,

I am deeply saddened, angered and concerned.

As you know, we have often disagreed and sometimes vigorously. But through it all, you have maintained a commitment to the integrity of your profession and of the School Report. Under your leadership, the blog regained credibility and became an important element of the public’s understanding of public education in Los Angeles. It is no small thing that you gained my trust and confidence even though I knew Ms. Linton still wrote the checks that funded the publication. Our interpersonal trust, which you never once betrayed, is a testimony to your skills but more so to your person.

Much more important, you approach this work with the dignity and weight our kids, their families and their dreams demand. You always were careful to respect the teaching profession and the 80,000 public employees who put kids first every day in this district. This is not a game to you and the serious lens you applied to every story strengthened confidence in a publication that was, under Mr. Russo, little more than an amplifier for the orthodox corporate reform movement.

I thank you for your service and your efforts to bring a measure of objectivity to a press corps that now seems more intent on making news in public education than on reporting it. You do not deserve to be treated this way. Our students, their families, their teachers and their school communities deserve better.

Lastly, I ask you to consider not walking away. We cannot give up on objective coverage and analysis of public education in Los Angeles and across the country. It is no accident that Campbell Brown is coming to join Eli Broad in the effort to dismantle LAUSD and eviscerate democratically elected school boards and public sector unions across the nation. Now that the Los Angeles Times education coverage is funded by Broad, Wasserman, and Baxter and that the School Report will now be controlled by Brown and her funders, truth itself as it relates to public education in Los Angeles will be filtered through an orthodox reform lens at every turn. After the Times editorial leadership essentially told me that agenda was as important as accuracy in their coverage of the Board and of the district, I knew we were in a different place. Tonight, I understand that even more.

But being in a place and accepting that place are two different things. I hope you will engage with me and others who care about the future of public education and the future of journalism as we try to figure out what to do next. You and I both know this is way too important to do nothing.

Thank you again, my friend.

Steve

From: Michael Janofsky [mailto:michael218@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2016 11:01 PM
To: Zimmer, Steven; Haber, Shannon; Jones, Barbara A.; Holmquist, David (OGC); Ref Rodriguez; Aman, Aixle; Alex Caputo Pearl; Jason Mandell; Vladovic, Richard; Ratliff, Monica; Vizcarra, Claudia; Pollard-Terry, Gayle; Blanca Gallegos; Wells, Frank; Alberto Retana; Sara Mooney; baustin@parentsunion.org; Ama Nyamekye; Dan Chang; Vanessa Romo; Naush Boghossian; John Deasy; Mckenna, George; Garcia, Monica (Board Member); Schmerelson, Scott M.; Crain, Jefferson; Manny Rivera; Catherine Suitor; Maria Brenes; Glenn Gritzner; Jenny Hontz
Subject: A change at LA School Report

I apologize for the mass email, but it’s the best way to inform all of you a bit of news.

After 2 1/2 years as managing editor, I am no longer working for LA School Report. Its founder has merged it with reform-minded Campbell Brown’s The 74, a change that was related to me only a few days ago. As part of the new arrangement, I learned I was removed as editor, with LA School Report and The 74 installing a replacement.

In my time as editor, I’ve worked closely with many of you, and I want to say how much I’ve appreciated your professionalism, your collegiality and your willingness to help us understand contentious, controversial and complicated issues affecting LA Unified. As an editor and occasional writer who has worked only for news organizations that favor neither one side of an issue or the other, I always tried my best to steer LA School Report down the middle, keeping it as fair and neutral as possible. I know some of you might disagree, but I am proud of the work we did.

I’m especially indebted to those who were always eager to respond to our questions in a timely manner and to help us understand the issues more deeply. Thank you.

I’ve learned a great deal from all of you, and I thank you for that, as well.

I wish all of you the best.

Michael Janofsky

Categories Broad Foundation, Democracy, Los Angeles, Media
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