Recently I posted David Sirota’s article about the super-wealthy who are taking children as “hostages” in their big to take over public education itself. Sirota looked at events in Denver, Los Angeles, and New York City.
That article prompted this response from Los Angeles:
David Sirota’s article couldn’t be more apt for what has happened in LA. We were blitzkrieged by this outside financing to the point where they have a stranglehold on just about EVERY decision that effects the livelihood of teachers and most importantly, the quality and scope of education the children receive.
I’ll leave it to others to discuss how Eli Broad has financed so much of Deasy’s tenure at LAUSD and how he managed to get not only Deasy, but others of his “academy” appointed to the highest echelons of power in our woe-begotten district. I will talk about one example of their attempt to control the media.
In Los Angeles, we have a web based objective journal that purports to report about LAUSD and the issues that surround it. It is called LA SCHOOL REPORT. It is completely financed by Jamie Alter Lynton. This paper has been a tremendous cheerleader for the School Reform Movement in general and Superintendent John Deasy in particular.
This is an excerpt from a letter on their site that questioned its role as “objective” in the iPad debacle. They took down this letter immediately:
But it is VERY HARD to forget so many pieces that have appeared in LA SCHOOL REPORT and who Ms. Alter Lynton is and her past history when dealing with Mr. Deasy and the School Reform Movement. Fair-minded people will debate what is the correct direction for national education in general and LAUSD in particular, but Ms. Alter Lynton has made her alliance quite obvious. LA SCHOOL REPORT was never “objective”. The reporters who have contributed here and in the LA WEEKLY have made their opinions in their coverage well-known. People who read this site should be well aware of Ms. Alter Lynton’s past words and deeds in the School Reform Movement and how she has used LA SCHOOL REPORT as her mouthpiece.
Most often referred to as a “philanthropist”, Ms. Alter Lynton gave $100,000 (very few people I know have that kind of money that they can just “donate” to their food and rent let alone a political organization) to Los Angeles Fund for Public Education to back Karen Anderson over Steve Zimmer in the spring’s school board election. She also supported Antonio Sanchez over Monica Ratliff.
Married to the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Ms. Alter Lynton enjoys tremendous city-wide clout and has deep financial and political connections that opens a wide swath of influence in the Los Angeles, Sacramento and DC stratosphere that ordinary people could never hope to gain that sort of access.
In an article in THE LA TIMES by Howard Blume on September 15, 2011
(http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/15/local/la-me-schools-fund-20110915), we read about her efforts to raise $200 million dollars for the public schools…”Donations could support districtwide initiatives, such as a new training program for principals, among other things. They could also bring to the district effective approaches used at charter schools, said spokeswoman Amanda Crumley.”
This is the portion of the Blume article that is DIRECTLY RELEVANT to Sirota’s article. It is so grotesque that these people CELEBRATE their anti-democratic use of money and the sway they know they can influence because of their wallets. The article continues….
“One selling point for participants is that the elected L A. Board of Education would have no direct control over the money.”
“As you know, the innovation Los Angeles’ students need cannot start within a rule-bound bureaucracy,” the letter states.
Key education donors have refused to give much, if anything, to L.A. Unified because they question how well the nation’s second-largest school system would use the money.
L.A. Unified, like other districts, has been hard hit by state funding shortfalls, resulting in thousands of layoffs, larger class sizes and a shorter school year.
Deasy, who became superintendent in mid-April, has made pursuing outside support a high priority.
Before joining L.A. Unified a year ago, Deasy was a top official at the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organization and one that has focused on education.
Deasy also attended the superintendents academy of local philanthropist Eli Broad, whose foundation, like the Gateses’, has given little to L.A. Unified. The Broad and Gates foundations have generally awarded grants to Los Angeles-area charter schools instead of the L.A. schools system. Charters are public schools that are independently run.”
Ms. Alter Lynn’s support for Deasy is, well, almost messianic. On April 26, 2013, wrote her own worry about the District, the upcoming School Board election and the “hard line” the union was taking on Deasy and her perceived harm they were doing education. http://laschoolreport.com/commentary-a-dangerous-game-for-utla/#more-7894
Ms. Alter Lynton wrote: “As the intransigence and fervor of the union deepens, its stated core mission — to fight for teachers’ rights — puts it further and further from what we should all be talking about: How do we best serve the interest of students?
Imagine this in terms of a baseball team: What if, instead of managers setting lineups, the players union was allowed to mandate that the pitching rotation should be based solely on seniority? What if they decided that stats or behavior couldn’t be used to determine when to make a trade? Would we expect that team to win?
The analogy goes only so far, but it points to the deep conflict of interest created when a school board is put in place by the union it then must bargain with on teacher contracts. Can board members with strong ties to the union and its campaign dollars be expected to make an independent decision about the superintendent? It’s a question worth asking. The board already has a vocal contingent of members supported by the union, and it could add another in the May election.”
In the same spirit of Sirota’s article, the letter to LA SCHOOL REPORT countered, how can Superintendent Deasy who has such strong ties to Eli Broad, Bill Gates, charter schools, the school testing complex and a management style that is secretive, manipulative and bullying be expected to make the right decisions for what’s best for “the kids”. Ms. Alter Lynton has every right to create this site and advocate for whatever she wants. Rich people have always had that tremendous privilege. That is why those who own the media like Rupert Murdoch, the owners of The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post have mostly ALWAYS sided with Michelle Rhee/John Deasy sort of superintendents because they love their brashness, their head long charge into interfering with the art of teaching, their gushing enthusiasm of metrics/testing/evaluations that they can’t back up with ANY scientific data…but can be justified when you throw in the words “Civil Rights” in your attacks on detractors. Oh, and “defending the status quo” and “no sense of urgency” are also helpful. Oh, and go after the unions as impediments to…”the welfare of the children”.
Imagine if I were to use this phrase that Superintendent Deasy has used so often when talking about teachers, but turned it on him instead: “I will never apologize for anything I do to protect a child from the abuse of this Superintendent.”
Deasy is a master of shutting down an argument by wrapping himself up in grandiose, self-righteousness on almost ANY issue that calls into question his competence and motivation. Go back and look at LA SCHOOL REPORT since its inception and it has almost always backed Deasy and his methodologies because of the money that finances this site.
In closing, I still have no idea whether LA SCHOOL REPORT will continue to be THE CHINA DAILY of LAUSD. I wish I had more confidence in this site, but what has ALWAYS been lacking is a sense of true investigative journalism. Yes, you can say you have “broken” a few LAUSD stories in the past, but they are really only an inch deep when you don’t push for answers. It is not enough to just report information or some press release from someone or an organization.
No. The letter is not public. In fact, LA SCHOOL REPORT now seems to censor letters that challenge its “legitimacy”. It is definitely not a journalism site, but another bought and paid for LAUSD, INC. steamroller.
It is so awful when money is used to HARM children in the name of “Civil Rights” when profits for those who bankroll their endeavors makes others very rich. Worse when it comes from people who believe themselves socially liberal, but are light years removed from the classroom as they yell from their cavier-ladden tables about how THEY KNOW how to fix the system.
The public education system in LA is really a marionette performance.
