Although the Internet and my email box was ablaze within announcements that Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy had announced his resignation, and that it was reported by the Los Angeles Times, the resignation was less certain and more conditional by this morning.
Did he resign or just threaten to resign or just suggest that he might resign? Or was it part of a negotiation?
Stay tuned.
Report from Howard Blume of the LA Times
John Deasy, superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, announced he was resigning as of February.
So Los Angeles spent $1 billion on iPads, promising grand outcomes, closing the digital divide between rich and poor, the “civil rights issue of our time,” yada, yada, yada.
But as this blogger points out, this move was made without the most elementary planning or forethought.
Should anyone have been consulted before spending 25-year school construction bond money on iPads? Will voters ever again approve such a bond knowing that it may be diverted to an administrator’s pet project?
She asks questions that apparently never occurred to the administrators who bought the iPads:
“If the ipads stay in the classroom, how is their distribution to be managed in any way efficiently?
If in the classroom, is the physical integrity of the building sufficient to ensure everyone’s and everything’s safety?
If staying in the classroom, does that forfeit the device’s biggest potential, as substitutes for heavy, expensive, resource-intensive textbooks?
If not to stay in the classroom, how will internet access be managed among “not-wired”, very poor or chaotic homes?
How are electronics to be harnessed for education alone and not hijacked by its social, interactive component?
If not in the classroom, how to reconcile bond construction monies targeted to long-term infrastructure support, with transient instruction delivery tied to non-durable goods?
If not in the classroom, how to manage the high turnover (purportedly up to one-third) among students of some high-poverty communities? What is the implication for device-specific instruction? For physical disappearance of the devices?
When was the imperative of Common Core testing agreed upon, as it underlies the drive behind implementing the
ipad program precipitously?
When were teachers presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting professional input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their students???
And:
“When were parents presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting parental input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their child???
“The bottom line is: the people such massive programs with gargantuan implications affect, need to be asked first. A program of such eclipsing size and existential implications needs at the least to be tested, to be piloted and then: to be evaluated before approving or denying subsequent phases.”
“It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to feel patronized and exploited by in-house imperialists. How do these detached, possibly ulteriorly-motivated administrators know what is best in the classroom, without going into the classroom? Ask the denizens there what they need, and for some sense of the fallout.”
From California to New York, the same questions arise: why don’t the people making decisions about children and education listen to parents and educators?
In a democracy, consultation is necessary and wise. Great leaders know how to listen and are wiling to learn from their errors.
School officials in Los Angeles are still trying to figure out the actual cost of the iPads for all students. The price goes higher unless the district buys 600,000 devices. The cost of keyboards was not favored in.
Another problem arose in hearings on discovery that the Pearson content loaded into the iPads is licensed for only three years. Will it disappear or will upgrades cost more?
District staff promises answers at next meeting.
Los Angeles superintendent John Deasy made a commercial for Apple long before his board voted support for a $1 billion purchase of iPads for every student.
His deputy Jaime Aquino worked for Pearson-owned America’s Choice. He was in charge of the iPad purchase, which became a major embarrassment for Deasy and the LAUSD board. Aquino resigned his $250,000 a year job, but won’t actually leave until the end of the year.
The iPads are loaded with…..surprise!…Pearson content.
Will voters ever approve another bond issue, now that they know whatever new funds they approve will be spent on whatever the superintendent of the moment wants to do?
This teacher, who requests anonymity for obvious reasons, has noticed a peculiar tendency on the part of editorial boards and business leaders to shower praise on educational leaders who act brusquely, with a maximum show of contempt for those they lead. He calls this the “Dick Cheney” style of leadership. Those of us in New York have recently seen this kind of leader in our State Commissioner John King. He recently showed disdain for parents by lecturing them for over an hour at what was billed as a “dialogue about the Common Core,” then–after he was booed and hissed by those parents– insulted them as having been manipulated by “special interests.” The state board of Regents affirmed their support for him, even though he lacks the support of parents and teachers. They actually like the idea that they have a leader who is willing to bulldoze parents and educators. That was the style that didn’t win in Iraq. It certainly won’t “win” in the field of education, where collaboration is needed among parents, students teachers, principals, district leaders, and state agencies. Braggadocio and swagger work in penitentiaries and in the military: not in education.
Here is a letter from a Los Angeles teacher:
In today’s LA Times, the editorial board came out in support of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy and his iPad roll out with recommended modifications. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ipads-lausd-deasy-20131020,0,7789669.story
The editorial begins: “John Deasy, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, can be impatient and stubborn, qualities we often admire in him. It takes a sense of urgency to get things moving in L.A.’s schools, as well as a willingness to stand against the forces that resist change.”
And here lies the problem.
They still talk with school girl crush admiration about this man. Other big city newspapers also use this IDENTICAL language to support their Superintendents who come in with their agenda to bulldoze the system.
I have been trying to think who John Deasy is.
He’s Dick Cheney brought in to run the school system.
They both share the same headstrong “sense of urgency” (for the love of God, can we PLEASE RETIRE THIS CLICHE!) and intolerance for those who stand in their way. They both listen almost exclusively to people who have never been in the classroom while totally ignoring the advice from the “boots on the ground.” They both push their positions without a trace of self-doubt or humility, completely disdaining the “status quo wimps” who dare ask them for real world rationales. They both believe what they believe not requiring a trace of hard evidence to support their positions while utilizing aggressive, angry, bullying tactics to get their way.
Both Cheney and Deasy’s “plans” have been developed in secret and then sprung on the public with an intense PR pressure for everyone to get with their program. They are backed by powerful money forces that have vested interests in their decisions. The hubris and over confidence and righteousness in their edicts is designed to intimidate their critics. In the system, very few feel free to speak out against them for fear of reprisal and both Cheney and LAUSD proved quite adept at meting it out (Ask Valerie Plame or many of the politically active teachers in LAUSD’s jail).
Worse, I fear, they are NEVER held accountable for the wreckage they have wrought. In fact, they just move on without reflection. John Deasy will one day move on. But we will be stuck with it.
Deasy has always enjoyed tremendous support from the LA TIMES editorial board. If you read their editorial, their admonishment of Deasy with his iPad initiative is very mild and timid. They still support the decision and don’t address some or the critics biggest complaints about it.
Whether it is John Deasy, D.C.’s Michelle Rhee, Philadelphia’s Mark Hite, Dallas’s Mike Miles, Bridgeport’s Paul Vallas or Chicago’s CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett the main editorial boards of each of these cities have supported the Cheney-model management style they have brought to their positions.
Although he is no longer publicly embraced as the Genius he carried himself as, Cheney enjoys a lucrative retirement and is still treated with deference and respect by many of his true believers. The swagger has worn off but look at the cost of what Cheney was allowed to get away with.
The kids would be far better off if the press were a tad more skeptical and aggressive toward those people in power who push their School Reform. The fawning coverage Deasy has received from the LA Times and this most recent excuse-making for them does not serve the greater education community.
And the LA kids are the collateral damage.
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.
Might Makes Right When Viewing LAUSD and California Nepotism…..or does it?
By Ellen Lubic, Educator and angry taxpayer
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times printed two stories that affect public school education, and those who ‘dabble’ in it. One was by journalist Howard Blume on the Billion Dollar iPad scandal at LAUSD, and the other was written as an op-ed team by Eli Broad and Richard Riordan, two of our always prominent LA billionaires.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-lausd-ipads-20131007,0,7268509.story
This tag team, who own between them the wealth of a small nation, self-describe their activities, generosity, and community spirit, as the most major of philanthropists. It seems to be a rationale of why the majority of us should love, cherish, and probably obey, America’s billionaires. This self-serving op-ed, comes on the heels of the Times finally allowing Blume to recently print truth about what is happening to taxpayers, students, parents, and generally, public education in our community. It was at very least a ‘quid pro quo’ day at the Times, with the ipowerful billionaires getting their half page of self aggrandizing space, and the rest of us getting to read some accurate information about the farce Supt. Deasy, Eli Broad’s chosen/mandated guy, has once again perpetrated on us all.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1008-banks-education-ipads-20131008,0,2823736.column
Today, we get more bad news, but now about LAUSD School Board President, Richard Vladovic, regarding charges that not only were made 13 years ago on his management style, but that were carefully reviewed some months ago. Vladovic today apologized for things said in anger. So why bring them up again now?
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/174490330#fullscreen
With the amazing behind-the scenes power that Broad and Riordan have with their battery of O’Melveny and Meyers legal team, and their best in the world Public Relations team, they seem certainly to be able to join with Deasy to create a new ‘spin’ to deflect We, the People, from focusing on the huge waste of our tax money and the ongoing deficiencies of their chosen Superintendent Deasy.
The possibly sweetheart iPad deal made for the over-retail cost Apple iPads, with Deasy having been entangled with Apple both as a stockholder and on an employee level wherein Apple used him in their ads to promote the iPads, and with the Deasy/Broad resigned Asst. Supt. Jaime Aquino having worked for the British corporation, Pearson, which made endless millions with their Common Core software for the iPads, and who knows how much more secret dealing, all this should alert the public who pays the freight for all these bad decisions.
Looking purely at costs to the public, not at ethics, these fiasco deals that we now know about, and factoring in the multitude of lawsuits against LAUSD from teachers in teacher jail which are never publicized, are all costing us a fortune of our hard-earned tax money. The clear evidence of terrible management of LAUSD should certainly be obvious to all, and present the only solution, to rid the district of these managers and do a national search for managers who are not tainted by being trained by the Broad Academy to be corporate CEOs rather than academic leaders of our public schools.
To add to this egregious LA nepotism, we learn today that our new Mayor Eric Garcetti, compounds his position of appointing charter school supporter, Ms. Melendez (with her own sweetheart deal surrounding her pay check, by staying on the LAUSD payroll although working for Garcetti, to eventually have the highest level of pay for her retirement 10 years from now) to lead his Dept. of Education.
http://laschoolreport.com/la-unified-board-expected-approve-marquez-bond-committee/
Today we learn that he has appointed Mrs. Abigail Marquez ( holdover from the Villaraigosa days), his big campaign contributor and fund raiser, to be on the Construction Bond Committee (see LA School Report today for these stories, and the LA Times). This is the pseudo advisory Committee that approved using the Construction Bond funding for the IPads purchase in the first place. And this woman, when googled, shows no business nor academic background for this appointment.
We California taxpayers will be paying for the long outdated and obsolete iPads, with big interest, for the next 25 years as we pay off the Construction Bond. In addition, the new Mayor’s wife worked with/for Riordan some years ago to implement his charter schools. It does not take genius to figure this out, but it makes you wonder if only highly educated people with proven business acumen, and no personal axes to grind, should have oversight of our tax money, not rich housewives who get political perks for their donations to legislators.
Many folks will certainly be looking into the business connections of all these interrelated elected, appointed, and just plain uber rich, overlords who are mangling public education with the goal of turning our system of universal free education into a big free market investment opportunity. (Suggest everyone read the Tilson Blog Site to see how this hedge fund manager is working to this end…all of this info herein can be found online.)
We must also keep in mind how the input of our former Mayor Tony Villaraigosa, (an outspoken lover of charter schools, and soon to be a candidate for Governor of California, who now works for the questionable pyramid-run company Herbalife while his longtime pal Fabian Nunez works for charter promoter Michelle Rhee whose husband is Mayor of Sacramento where they closed 23 public inner city schools this year), whose cousin is now Speaker of the House in Sacramento, factors into all this. Tony saw to it that his billionaire contacts like Bloomberg and Murdoch and the Waltons sent considerable millions to influence the last LA School Board elections, to get pro-charter school candidates elected. That failed when Steve Zimmer and Monica Ratliff beat the billionaires, proving that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
It is seems like a game of Monopoly. Who owns “boardwalk”…who owns our public schools????
So, America, who says Los Angeles, and California, cannot compete for the dirtiest, most nepotistic, politics award?
Joanne Barkan has an excellent essay in Dissent magazine that explains how foundations founded by plutocrats use their wealth and political power to damage democracy.
She uses the example of public education to demonstrate how a small number of large foundations have captured control of public policy, taking it out of the hands of voters and parents to impose their will and get what they want.
She offers the examples of the AstroTurf groups created by the Gates Foundation; these are groups that pretend to represent local, grassroots groups but in fact carry out the wishes of the plutocrats.
Then there is the example of grants offered to districts that are contingent on certain officials remaining in office.
Then there is the example of the “parent trigger,” which manipulates parents to hand over their public school to a private corporation.
And another example is the practice of the Broad Foundation, which underwrites the salary of certain public officials to ensure that it gets its way.
She asks a good question: why are these plutocrats allowed to get tax breaks as they impose their control over and subvert a democratic institution?
This is a subject that deserves a book-length treatment. With her meticulous research skills and her understanding of the political dynamics involved, Joanne Barkan is just the one to do it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 