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Lubic: The Cozy Nepotism in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2013 //
22

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.)

http://edreform.blogspot.com/

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?

Categories Los Angeles

Joanne Barkan: How Big Philanthropy Undermines Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2013 //
13

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.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Los Angeles, Parent trigger, Walton Foundation

A New Perspective in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2013 //
27

Up until now, Eli Broad and his minions have dominated education discussion in Los Angeles. But something pretty terrific happened over the last few days. New voices are being heard. The public is getting the word that “corporate reform” is not working and will not improve their children’s education.

As educators, our job is to educate the public. We don’t have access to the mainstream media, but bit by bit the story is getting out. Americans have heard the negative propaganda for many years, yet they think their own public school is terrific.

The Los Angeles Times is taking a more critical look at the problems created by corporate reform as well as the lack of any results. The corporate reformers are on the defensive.

Let’s keep up our job: Organize, inform, educate, build coalitions with parents and educators. We don’t need more testing. We don’t need more merit pay. We don’t need more test-based evaluations. We need to make sure all kids get a high-quality education with the resources they need. All schools should have arts education and daily physical education. Children should have health clinics and after-school programs. Children who are struggling to learn need smaller classes. The children of Los Angeles need what the children in affluent districts have, only more of it.

Categories Arts Education, Los Angeles

HECHINGER Report: Inside Story on L.A. iPad Fiasco

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2013 //
39

Here is a very interesting story in the HECHINGER Report about what went wrong in Los Angeles, after the district decided to send $1 billion on iPads.

Poor planning, poor implementation, a rush to get them in the hands of students without thinking about how to make it work or what might go wrong.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

L.A. Times Columnist Asks Whether iPads Are Worth $1 Billion

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2013 //
36

Columnist Steve Lopez says that the L.A. officials rushed into the iPad deal without thinking through the problems.

Students broke the security codes to use them for fun.

Many went missing.

Biggest uncertainty: is the content any good?

Who will be held accountable, he asks.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

LA Times: The Charter School Mistake

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2013 //
16

The Los Angeles Times invited me to write about my
concerns about charter schools. This was brave, because the
editorial board supports charters, although with occasional
backsliding. An excellent editor worked closely to get it shortened
and to tighten the argument. Here
is the result. I wrote this article on the flight from
Denver to Seattle. I do my best writing on airplanes because there
are no phone calls or emails or Internet. Enjoy. Or not. Let me
know what you think.

Categories Charter Schools, Los Angeles

$1Billion for iPads in Los Angeles: A Colossal Joke

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2013 //
25

Howard Blume reports that students in many districts quickly cracked the security code on their shiny new iPads. Now they are using them for Facebook, music, gaming, whatever.

Thanks, citizens of Los Angeles!

Too bad the district can’t afford to repair its buildings or reduce class size or hire arts teachers.

Have fun, kids. Just make sure you don’t lose your new toy.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Class Size in L.A.: Out of Control?

By dianeravitch
September 17, 2013 //
19

A comment on the blog:

I’m an LAUSD middle school art teacher with class sizes reduced to 31, 32, 39, 44, 45 and 48. That averages almost 40/class. AVERAGE doesn’t make sense! With 48 students in a 50 minute class I have no time to actually help students. More students means more time on attendance, more time passing out and collecting supplies (for which I have no budget.) My class of 45 has a sped teacher’s entire class load of 6th graders mixed in with 7th and 8th. If it is based on average and the actual class size doesn’t matter, why not give me 250 in my first period??

Categories Class size, Los Angeles

Los Angeles: Deasy’s Top Deputy Quits

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2013 //
16

Jaime Aquino, the deputy superintendent for instruction in LAUSD, unexpectedly quit his $250,000 a year post, although he plans to stay until the end of the year.

The story is that he was disheartened by the change in the board, in which progressive members took control away from the corporate reform bloc controlled by Eli Broad.

Board members expressed dismay about his departure and praised him fulsomely.

Aquino was in charge of Common Core implementation, and rumors are swirling that he may be blamed for the controversial decision to invest $1 billion in iPads, using money that was approved by voters for 25-year school construction bonds.

Aquino was a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. He was hired by John Deasy less than two weeks after Deasy took over.

Clearly Aquino was disappointed when the corporate reform bloc lost control and was reduced to only 2 votes on the board.

He personally donated $1,000 to the political campaign of Monica Garcia, the school board president, who was supported by the Eli Broad/Villaraigosa funders.

A teacher sent me the following comment: ” I am a K-5 arts teacher with LAUSD.   Jaime came to speak to the arts teachers when he was newly hired and bluntly stated that he had shut down arts schools in the past for teaching “frivolous arts activities”.  I hope our next Dean of Instruction makes the arts a priority in our district.”

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Los Angeles: Will There Be an Investigation of the Misuse of Bond Funds?

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2013 //
9

This article asks: “LAUSD iPad Deal: iPaid Too Much?”

Is it legal to use voter-approved construction bonds with a 25-year or 30-year paydown period to buy devices that will be obsolete in 3-4 years?

Isn’t this a misdirection and misuse of what was approved by the voters?

Were voters misled?

Would they have approved a $1 billion tax to pay for iPads?

Surely there must be a city or state official with the power to investigate this mess.

Categories Accountability, Los Angeles, Technology, Computers
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