Breaking: NAACP calls for moratorium on charter schools

Julian Vasquez Heilig, education chair of the California NAACP posted news that the NAACP has called for moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charters. The motion was brought by California.

Vasquez Heilig said, "I believe the NAACP, the nation’s vanguard of civil rights, has AGAIN demonstrated and articulated critical leadership sorely lacking from many other civil rights organizations on the issue of school choice."

Vasquez Heilig is right about AGAIN. When I talked with him this morning, he outlined the evolution of NAACP's position. In 2010, the NAACP acknowledged that charter schools cause segregation. Last year, it stated that charter schools are privatization. Now, NAACP is boldly calling for action.

The topic is sure to come up at next month's conference of the National Urban League in Baltimore, when Vasquez Heilig joins a panel with Steve Perry, John King and others who have co-opted the language of the civil rights movement to advance charters and the privatization agenda.

You can read the rest of his post and others on his fantastic blog Cloaking Inequity.

Superintendent Tom Torlakson: Governor for a day! (or 3)

Well, here's our chance!

Imagine my surprise when I heard on NPR this morning that State Superintendent of schools Tom Torlakson--my very favorite State official--is Acting Governor of California for the rest of the week. This is what happens when your whole state government comprises the biggest delegation at the Democratic National Convention.

While every other force in Golden State politics is looking for unity in the City of Brotherly Love, my mind leaps to the education priorities we could advance!

It wouldn't be the first time an Acting Governor did a whole lot of governing when Jerry Brown was out of state.

So I’ve penned a letter to the Superintendent to offer my assistance.

Dear Acting Governor Torlakson,

First off, congrats!

I am writing you to offer to rush to the State Capital to work feverishly alongside you to advance our public education priorities while the rest of California’s political wish lists languish in the Philadelphia International Airport baggage claim. (It’s not their fault they exceeded the 3.7 ounce limit.)

I admit, I’ve been feeling envy what with all the selfies my friends have been posting. Betsy pictured with Dolores Huerta. Randi pictured with Bill Clinton. Carolyn and Dallas were even interviewed about their experiences as mother and daughter in Hillary’s and Bernie’s respective delegations.

But, oh, the things we can get done for our schools while they're distracting our elected officials! 

By the way, Tom, I hope you don't let the *Acting* qualifier get in the way of the work we can do together. The philanthropists and politicians certainly haven't let their lack of credentials get in the way of dictating what our teachers and principals do. So let's give it a go!

Just say the word and I’ll be on the next Southwest flight to Sacramento. I’ll use carry-on, so my only baggage will be emotional--a decade of mourning for the once top-funded California public school system and my more recent PTSD from the assault on public schools by the charter lobby.

But there’s no time for a pity party. Here’s my short list of what we mice should do while the cats are away.

What’s that? Charter = accountability? That’s so funny you say that because...they’re lying.

Charter schools claim to receive autonomy in exchange for more accountability. But this is just a slogan because--have you opened a newspaper lately?!

There’s the report of Principal David Fehte of El Camino Real Charter High School in the Southern part of the state who’s been flying first class and buying expensive wine and charcuterie plates at fancy hotels (does he wine & dine alone?) while he moonlights as a scout for the NBA. (Now that Arne Duncan has resigned as US Secretary of Education, I’m pretty sure basketball connections no longer exempt alleged cheaters from scrutiny.)

Then there’s the LA Times report of a charter school paying $566,803 to a teacher who sued because the director, Kendra Okonkwo, forced her to travel with her to Nigeria to marry Okonkwo's brother-in-law to gain US citizenship.

And Gulen.
I know, Caprice Young is cozy with the politicos--but they’re all in Philly this week! [Note: send Philadelphia Inquirer reporter list of California Democrats who have ignored the Gulen scandal said reporter has been covering for years. Pitch idea of confronting them on the Convention floor.]

And I get it; geo-political conflict is complicated. But the moms at the PTA meeting said there isn’t room on Tuesday’s agenda between the bake sale and ordering “I’m a proud public school parent” t-shirts to debate which side of an attempted foreign coup our middle school should be on. They just want the money for our schools that the cult leader in the Poconos is allegedly sucking out of the US education ATM through the vast network of charter schools he has *inspired*.

Here are a few articles in preparation for our discussion: the Washington Post, the New York Times,  60 Minutes, The Atlantic Monthly, just for starters.

I can't make any promises, but I’m pretty sure the expert, researcher Sharon Higgins, would rush right over to Sacramento from Oakland to brief us on this. Shall I tell her 10:00am on Wednesday? [Note: Locate entrance closest to freight elevator for her BOXES of documents.]

Tom, do the blinds in the Capital totally block the sun? I ask because we could co-host a screening of Killing Ed, the Mark Hall documentary that tells this story. (The Nigerian forced marriage has not yet hit the big screen, but we can discuss with Hollywood producers if you wish. Geronimo could write the *based-on-a-true-story-I-swear-I’m-not-joking* screenplay. [Note: clear 4 front parking spaces for stretch limo and ego of Hollywood producer.]

Voters were hoodwinked and they know it. Here's a 4-minute video to brief you on how the parasitic law creates conflict, featuring *me*.

Just throw away the whole project. Period. [Note: Do not exceed 5 minute discussion on this item.]

Some politicians might think kids need more reading and writing drill-and-kill just because I said "ain't" but I know you can take a joke. KPCC’s Mary Plummer covered this law when she was the knock-out arts education reporter for the NPR affiliate. Guess what? Now, she’s the knock-out *political* reporter, so she can go exactly where the story takes us. I would imagine she could cover a political angle for a lot of the reports she covered in education.

My own LAUSD middle school’s library has been shuttered for five years since LAUSD cut all the school librarians in an effort to offload pension costs of elderly teachers. It was shameful. And, no, telling principals they can cut something else in order to fund a librarian is not funding libraries.

Google could provide wifi, HP could provide the printers, VOX could create a digital version of The Weekly Reader (I know--I'm showing my age), etc. etc. In exchange, hang a plaque in each library saying they did something for humanity by helping to make this generation literate.

Sure, AB1369 was progress, but *suggestions* rather than requirements don’t go far enough. 1 in 5 students have dyslexia, and most cases go undetected for years. Can you imagine sitting in school and not being able to access written curriculum for years? We currently don’t test until two years after a teacher notices that a student is suffering. There is lots of evidence that this would put a major dent in the high school dropout rate, too. Now that’s a Data Wall I’d like to see in every school! I could pretty much promise that the dedicated folks from Decoding Dyslexia would rush over to help us with the details. They’ve been working on it for years.

12:00 lunch meeting on Wednesday? [Note: Search yelp for good lunch deliveries near the Capital.]

Charter schools should not be offloading their pension costs onto the public school districts. That's like charging the US Postal Service for the pensions of FedEx drivers. 
[Note: Are the union leaders away this week, too?]

I hear Eli likes to send his money to Arizona. Getting Eli out of education policy is our best chance of returning education funding to levels that are not a national embarrassment, and eliminating all number of his *disruptions*.

That about covers it for now. If Jerry has a long layover, I'll make further plans. I await your call!

Activists & Advocates make a dent in Democrats' Education Platform

There has been much debate in the last week about whether the Democratic Party is signaling a change in education policy, and this weekend’s Convention Platform meeting provides the best measure.

Earlier in the week, Hillary Clinton spoke to the National Education Association and was well received, except for a comment distinguishing for-profit charters from nonprofit, as if there is a way to qualify the threat charters pose to public schools. Dana Goldstein wrote in Slate that “Hillary Clinton is changing the Democratic Party’s relationship with the school-reform movement.” But education advocates are not so sure.

Blogger Peter Greene is not believing it, saying Clinton is just parsing words. He has the best line ever written on the topic:  "...a modern non-profit charter school is just a for-profit school with a good money-laundering plan."  Jeff Bryant says, maybe and Diane Ravitch says, “time will tell,” advising, “we should all give Hillary Clinton a chance to change direction.” All that is speculation based on interpretation. Advocates are petitioning Clinton to meet with Ravitch for more assurance. The Network for Public Education made headlines for helping advocates with a grassroots push to influence the platform.

Yesterday’s amendments to the Democratic Party’s education platform are the first indication of anything concrete. Much of what was found in the amendments are also recommended by the Network for Public Education.

Of course, bloggers and activists will continue to debate. To help that discussion along, here is the text of the amendments and some of the remarks made during the Committee’s consideration. (Quotation marks indicate direct quotes. Full remarks can be heard on the C-SPAN link, which is indexed and easy to navigate.)

The session started with higher education topics including eliminating college debt and increasing access to college. K-12 amendments were introduced by Chuck Pascal, a Bernie Sanders delegate from Pennsylvania, and AFT President Randi Weingarten, a Hillary Clinton supporter.

AMENDMENT 76 – Testing – passed unanimously

We are also deeply committed to ensuring that we strike a better balance on testing so that it informs but does not drive instruction. To that end, we encourage states to develop a multiple measures approach to assessment and we believe that standardized tests must meet American Statistical Association Standards for reliability and validity. We oppose high-stakes standardized tests that falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities, and English Language Learners as failing; the use of standardized test scores as a basis of refusing to fund schools or to close schools; and the use of student test scores in teacher and principal evaluations, a practice which has been repeatedly rejected by researchers. We also support enabling parents to opt their children out of standardized tests without penalty for either the student or the school.

Chuck Pascal: We should only be using standardized tests that are statistically valid. The current standardized testing only indicates that a student is in poverty...We oppose the toxic test and punish culture that allows these invalid test scores to be allowed to use to close schools, be used to punish schools, be used to defund schools and to demonize teachers. We would ask that Randi Weingarten be able to speak.

Randi Weingarten: …Schools become places of joy for children again where we engage kids and we care about their wellbeing.

Amendment #77 – A comprehensive curriculum - passed unanimously

We will invest in high quality STEAM classes, community schools, computer science education, arts education, and expand linked learning models and career pathways. We will end the school to prison pipeline by opposing discipline policies which disproportionately affect students of color and students with disabilities and by supporting the use of restorative justice practices that help students and staff resolve conflicts peacefully and respectfully while helping to improve the teaching and learning environment. And we will work to improve school culture and combat bullying of all kinds.

Chuck Pascal: Recognition that arts are important, too. Of course we support a well rounded education that also includes social sciences and humanities. The amendment importantly talks about discipline policies. 

A secondary amendment also passed unanimously. It was introduced by Troy LaRaviere, a Chicago Public Schools principal and President of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. If Pascal and Weingarten’s unity says something bigger about Clinton and Sanders—and it does—LaRaviere’s presence says something bigger about the Democratic Party. He has famously tangled with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the neoliberal Democrat who represents what some progressive education advocates believe has been the Party’s worst self.

The Democratic Party is committed to eliminating opportunity gaps, particularly those that lead students from low income communities to arrive to school on day one of kindergarten several years behind their peers from higher income communities.

That means advocating for labor and public assistance laws that ensure poor parents can spend time with their children. This means being committed to increasing the average income in households in poor communities. It means ensuring these children have healthcare, stable housing free of contaminants and a community free of violence in order to minimize the likelihood of cognitive delays. It means enriching early childhood programming that increases the likelihood that poor children will arrive to kindergarten with the foundations for the expectations that we have for them in the areas of literacy, numeracy, civic engagement, and emotional intelligence. It means that we support what it takes to compel states to fund public education equitably and adequately as well as expand support provided by the Title I formula for schools that serve a large number and high concentration of children in poverty.

It means that we support ending curriculum gaps that maintain and exacerbate achievement gaps. We’re also committed to ensuring that schools who educate kids in poverty are not unfairly treated for taking on the challenge of serving those kids.

This means an end to the test and punish version of accountability that does no more than reveal the academic gaps created before they reach school.

We support policies that motivate our educators instead of demoralizing them. No school system in the world has ever achieved successful whole system reform by leading with punitive accountability.

We must replace this strategy with one that will actually motivate educators and improve their training and professional development in order to get results for all students with an emphasis on equitable results for students of color, low income students, English language learners and students with disabilities.

Amendment #38 - Restorative Justice - Passed

We will encourage restorative justice and reform overly punitive disciplinary practices that disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinos and students who identify as LGBTQ.

Roberta Achtenberg said, During the 2011-2012 school year, about 3.5 million students were suspended, 260,000 were referred to law enforcement and 92,000 were arrested either in school or through school activities. Rather than improving the quality of our schools, overly punitive disciplinary policies make matters worse. They fuel mass incarceration epidemics. These policies have a discriminatory bent. We need to change our approach to school discipline. 

Amendment #65 – Charters – Passed

Democrats are also committed to providing parents with high quality public school options and expanding these options for low income use. We support democratically governed great neighborhood public schools and high-quality public charter schools. And we will help them disseminate best practices to other school leaders and educators. Democrats oppose for-profit charter schools, focused on making a profit off of public resources. We believe that high quality public charter schools should provide options for parents but should not replace or destabilize traditional public schools. Charter schools must reflect their communities and thus must accept and retain proportionate numbers of students of color, students with disabilities and English language learners in relation to their neighborhood public schools. We support increased transparency and accountability for all charter schools.

Randi Weingarten said, “We started the education section with a unity amendment and we are ending the education section with a unity amendment because Democrats should be foursquare for high quality public schools for all children regardless of zip code, regardless of race, regardless of economic status.

“So we have called for a commitment to democratically governed public schools. We’ve said in this amendment that there is a place for charter schools--public charter schools--but we have also said that we can’t have what is happening in Detroit right now where entities like the DeVos Family and the Koch Brothers are trying to use charters to kill off public schools. We need to make sure that we level the playing field for all kids and ensure that all kids have the right, the opportunity to learn and that all public schools are schools where parents want to send their kids, where educators want to work and most importantly where children are engaged and have the opportunity to learn. That is why together we submit this new amendment.”

Chuck Pascal said, “Just to wind up here, this amendment talks about democratically governed public schools, and what that means is we support schools being accountable to their communities through having an elected school as opposed to an appointed board that’s accountable to no one in the community.

“We also want to make it clear that, while we understand that charters’ original purpose was to be innovative and experimental—and small, what we have now is not that. What we have is a dual system that is purporting to be equal, but in reality, it is perpetuating a segregation, a segregation by race, a segregation by income and a segregation by opportunity. That has to stop.

“I want to thank Randi Weingarten for working with me over the last day to get these unity amendments, and to get agreement on language, from those of us in the activist education, and activist community and to the unions and to the Clinton Campaign, I want to thank you for that. “

In smoothing over co-locations, did LAUSD give away the farm?

The LAUSD Board voted late on Tuesday to direct the Superintendent to either more transparently assist privately operated charters in the takeover of district-owned, public facilities, or to create a fairer process, depending on what is to be believed.

George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson, both retired principals, voted against the motion, which was brought by PUC charter founder Ref Rodriguez and fellow charter champion Monica Garcia. 

Garcia’s opponent in the upcoming school board election, parent Carl Petersen of Change the LAUSD, spoke up on behalf of neighborhood schools, calling Rodriguez’s bluff in the motion’s claim that Prop 39 presents an opportunity for district and charter schools to collaborate.

“I’ve never heard a parent say, ‘Gee, I really hope a charter co-locates on our campus next year.”

He said the situation reminded him of a song lyric from his youth: “You say it’s raining, but you’re pissing down my back.”

Petersen represented parents throughout the district whose children attend co-located schools when he called on LAUSD’s charter division to look for alternatives that put protecting neighborhood public schools ahead of accommodating charters.

But with the exception of McKenna, none of the board members seemed to view the measure in the context of the threat by the charter groups to privatize the school district. Although they reassured each other that the polcy would remain in their hands, not the superintendent's. In discussion, Monica Ratliff acted like a mediator, trying to find a way to get unanimous approval for a measure she said lays out a transparent process. McKenna was not budging. He seemed to think the measure was a surrender. He gave an impassioned speech in support of our schools, saying it was the district's responsibility to try to make our schools the best, not make it comfortable for charters. 

"I don't know how we keep our schools stabilized if we continue to make it easier for us to share our resources." 

McKenna wondered if the real purpose of the motion was to force the board members to make their positions on the issue public. This is no small thing considering board President Steve Zimmer will be up for re-election next year. The California Charter Schools Association is a big player in school board (and beyond) elections. It helped Rodriguez knock veteran educator Bennett Kayser off the board last year.

McKenna directly appealed to his frequent ally: “Mr. Zimmer, I hope you heard what I said.”

But Zimmer voted for the measure, and said the charter schools association has all the power because they sue. Was he acknowledging that the real decision will be made not by the school board, but by a judge? Or was he backing down to the powerful lobby that defeated Kayser? Both fates potentially await.

A parent testifies about charter co-location

I don't know who the blonde haired, blue eyed woman wearing the sport coat was. When the board members were an hour late, she huddled with three Latina moms and asked if they could hang just a little longer. She said the board members were on their way. The reporter from the LA Times interviewed them but refused to acknowledge the woman in the sport coat. Once the meeting started, two of the moms made public comment about how important it was for charter schools to keep their funding. One said the teachers union is trying to keep their schools from getting money for special ed. Stealing was mentioned. Another explained how much better special ed is in the charter school. The teachers at the regular school had tried to put her child in a special class. Now he has art.

Then I spoke. Here are my prepared remarks, and below is a recording of my four minutes. I sound strident, but damn. I can't believe we are fighting this fight. 

"I noticed that this resolution seeks to find an impartial group of people currently working on co-located campuses. As a parent who has been a charter parent co-locating, as well as a traditional host school parent, I wish you luck in that. You have all heard about the fences that divide co-located campuses. If you come to our schools, you wont find anyone sitting on that fence. There are people firmly planted on one side or the other.

"So the best we can hope for is a balanced group from both sides of the fence: of people pushing for more privatization through charters, and those of us who seek support for our district public schools.

"I would request that you include in your discussion concrete examples in real life, many of which we have sent to some of you:

- The misrepresentation of waiting lists, including charters asking the public to sign even with no intention of enrolling in order to game the system to get more Prop 39 space. You check our work; you count the students in the classrooms we say are unavailable. Check the work on the waiting list and make sure they’re official.

- The increased burden on the public district school that turns principals into multi-tenant property managers.

- An equitable allocation of classrooms—a charter classroom is considered full when there are 24 students and the district’s classrooms are sometimes well over 40.

"I share the anecdote [video tape here] of a charter parent confronting me on a public sidewalk near a shared campus and asking me, what is wrong with the charter, a vibrant vine, wrapping itself around the dying tree of the district school?

"Lastly the charter lobby informs parents of meetings like this so their voice will be heard. Please do the same. Tell your school communities that important policies like this are going to be discussed so that we have an opportunity to save our own schools and save public education. The public schools don't advertise; the charters do. Please do your outreach. It is odd to me that many charter advocates on the board and in the district proudly proclaim to be so, yet our district’s public school advocates remain quiet. We need you to speak up. Defend our schools. Defend public education.

"Please, get off that fence."

There was no discussion among the board members today. They will deliberate and possibly vote on the resolution at the next board meeting. 

LAUSD retreats on charter co-location. Meeting today.

The LAUSD school board will retreat--er, meet--today at 10:00am to consider Ref Rodriguez's (founder of PUC charters and current school board member) recommended changes to Prop 39 implementation.

Prop 39 is the state law that requires neighborhood schools to turn over underutilized public classroom facilities to privately managed charters. A copy of the resolution is here.

The resolution seeks board approval for an "impartial group of District and charter school leaders, currently working at co-located campuses, [to] be assembled".

He hasn't mentioned yet how he intends to find anyone working on a co-located campus who could possibly be described as impartial.

Rodriguez's resolution claims that Prop 39 is "an opportunity for charter schools and traditional schools to collaborate by sharing resources that benefit all public school students..."

So, it's all good. And to make it obvious that this is going to be an amicable conversation--whether you want it to be or not!--the board meeting will be "retreat style". Rather than the usual, chilly board room, the retreat will be held at the California Community Foundation. That's the foundation that administers Eli Broad's grant to fund Los Angeles Times coverage of  Broad's and the charter industry's hostile takeover plan of LAUSD. Again, impartiality abounds.

What could possibly go wrong?

A teacher remembers

I celebrate Memorial Day as the proud daughter of a World War II Marine, the first in his family to go to college--on the GI bill. It seems if we celebrate that, we must remember people like Adrianna "Audrey" Castellanos, too. So I'm posting this with the permission of the author, Joshua Leibner, NBCT. It is one of Josh's regular emails to a list of former students. I'm lucky to have gotten on that list and would be luckier still if I'd spent time in his classroom.

Hey All--

One of my favorite contemporary authors is a poet from Milford, Michigan named Thomas Lynch. He is also the town's undertaker.

In one of Lynch's many extraordinary essays about death and life, he noted a truth about his trade:  "When we bury the old, we bury the known past, the past we imagine sometimes better than it was, but the past all the same, a portion of which we inhabited. Memory is the overwhelming theme, the eventual comfort. But burying infants, we bury the future, unwieldy and unknown, full of promise and possibilities, outcomes punctuated by our rosy hopes. The grief has no borders, no limits, no known ends, and the little infant graves that edge the corners and fencerows of every cemetery are never quite big enough to contain that grief.  Some sadnesses are permanent.  Dead babies do not give us memories.  They give us dreams.”

Ten years ago today, one of the most remarkable students I ever had, Adrianna "Audrey" Castellanos, was driving home to Carson from her first year at UC Santa Cruz when a car swerved in front of her and caused her car to crash. Audrey died that day.

Most of you, of course, didn't know her--although a lot of you did, or you heard of her.

Although Audrey wasn't one of Lynch's "babies," she was still in the infancy of her potential future and a life and unrealized dreams that would have gone on to affect many others. 

Most students aren't politically "aware" until later in life.  All of you who have moved beyond high school have at one point been made cognizant of how much politics and its application dictates everything about our lives.  On your college campuses you certainly saw activists protesting and campaigning for causes both global and local and you saw how your one tiny life can create a change in the universe by lending your own voice to a movement.

I first met Audrey when she and some friends wanted to sponsor a Peace Club at Carson High. 

Okay.  Sure. Come here meet during lunch.

But what I was most impressed by was that this wasn't some wussy, namby-pamby Kumbaya organization that was more feel good for college bound participants than truly a meaningful, thoughtful activity. Audrey had a very sophisticated understanding of oppression politics as played out on minorities and the poor.  She was determined to make the Peace Club live and breathe.

Audrey and that Peace Club did something in March, 2003 that I will always remember. In a now faraway era of the Bush-Cheney years, the machinations for the Iraq War invasion were fully in place. They had greased the political wheels for an assault on that country among the population, but, all ground wars need soldiers to show up.

The sickening truth is that the US Military recruits on high school campuses across the country--but they target poor and minority schools to get their working class soldiers.  How did we know Bush had decided on war? A few days before the attack on Iraq, the Army came to campus with all the candy. The Humvees and glitzy war props were set up in the Carson quad...the glossy brochures with promises of a college education after a four year commitment...the promises of a "career" after service...the flags and gang-like brotherhood of soldiers with words of "honor", "respect" and "duty" tossed like star-spangled graffiti on a population whose country only comes to them with goodies if blood is required.

The Peace Club reacted quickly with a counter protest of their own and surrounded the snappily dressed recruiters with signs saying "Go Recruit in Manhattan Beach!" or "Take your Humvee to Palos Verdes!" and got in their face challenging their promotion pitch. Nervous administrators were worried about these student protesters and thought it was disrespectful to the school's "guests" to confront them in such a manner.

I have never been so proud of a bunch of high school students in my entire life.

Audrey would go on to further her education and activism at  UC-Santa Cruz, a school with a fabled history of social justice. Two months before her death, Audrey had already participated in supporting striking bus drivers in Santa Cruz and traveled to Tecate, Mexico for her spring break to help build houses for the poor. She belonged to the Coalition Against Militarism in Schools and Amnesty International.

She was one of only six winners statewide of the Youth Activism Award, an honor presented each year by the California Teachers Association. 

The perennial Christmas favorite movie It's A Wonderful Life speculates about what would happen to one man's community if that person wasn't around to "change" things for the better.  I often wonder what difference Audrey would have made to plenty of communities if she were still around rolling up her sleeves and motivating others towards working to a more just society.

You should know that I'm tremendously proud that a lot of you have taken up work and passions that seek to assist others in ways that challenge power structures and demand rights and empowerment for many who have been hurt and injured by a system that has ignored their needs. Despite its working class and minority status, Carson High produced a lot of hearts who have dedicated themselves to a broader, societal perspective.

Schools (and education pedagogies) are not neutral. Educators have a duty and obligation to expose and challenge their students to understanding the world that they are entering into and give them the opportunities and tools to find their own voices and ways in doing so.  Each student will discover their own unique and individual way of expressing that world, all navigating how they choose to live in it.

But they must LEARN and EXPERIENCE that world for themselves.

So this note is not for Audrey who is sadly dead these past ten years.

This is for you, the living, in hope that whatever you are doing or thinking, you are finding a greater meaning in the opportunity that merely being alive affords.

What is the New Yorker cover really telling us in "Commencement"?

"Commencement,” by R. Kikuo Johnson. (courtesy of The New Yorker 2016)

By Michael Cavna, The Washington Post
POMP is so often short-lived, because it necessarily must run headlong into circumstance. And to illustrate that point perfectly, one image this week keeps floating back, as resilient as hope, into my visual consciousness.

The work is called “Commencement,” by Brooklyn-based artist R. Kikuo Johnson for The New Yorker magazine, and at first blush, it can register as simply a leafy seasonal illustration that glides across your awareness as light as whimsy. Then pause a moment and the visual joke hits: A fresh graduate glimpses one possible future, as embodied by the manual labor of the...
Read more here

Forget the presidential race. These students are getting politically engaged in issues at school.

“We can’t be measured with numbers. We’re more than numbers. We’re human beings.”

The presidential primaries are putting a huge emphasis on political engagement among our youth, but some youth are cutting their political teeth on issues closer to home.

At Venice High School, two students have started the Union of Venice Students to inform their classmates about their rights, especially the right to opt out of standardized tests.

The students, Cobalt and Ruben, were inspired by the movie “Defies Measurement”, a documentary that traces the transformation of an Oakland, California school from a creative, nurturing incubator for students into a test prep institution. The documentary is a moving portrayal of corporate education reforms sucking the life out of a school.

Armed with detailed information and plenty of passion, the Union of Venice Students is imploring their classmates to get engaged and opt out of the upcoming standardized tests.

I interviewed these courageous and intelligent activists after a copy of their no-longer-underground newspaper Venice Posted found its way to me.

PS: So how did you get involved in student politics?

Ruben: The school system is here for us. It’s always been a philosophy of mine, but with the student union, I felt as though it would be a powerful way for us to really kind of establish that philosophy among our fellow peers. Get more and more students involved in what’s going on in our education system.

Cobalt: My focus on the union is awareness of rights. Because in state law, with education code and all that, there are all these rights that students have. But students don’t know they have these rights and the administration doesn’t recognize these rights. So that, I think, is one of the main forces of evil.

PS: Evil is a pretty big opponent, but you don’t strike me as someone Waiting for Superman. How are you fighting evil?

Ruben: Last semester I sent an email to our principal where my stance was on the Smarter Balanced test and I was kind of asking her why she was putting so much pressure on it. I told her Instead of focusing on these exams, we should maybe focus on making the school better. Ya know? Well, she really rebuffed it and kinda said, ‘oh, just meet with me in person’. I really wanted something in writing, too, to see what her stance was on it.

PS: Why?

Ruben: I felt it’s more clear what her position is and there’s no miscommunication, where, ‘I heard she said this.’ Having it in writing is what she said, to make it more clear.

PS: Is this the first time you’ve considered political action?

Cobalt: I’ve always been sort of saying ‘hey, I’ve got this right and I should be allowed to exercise this right’. It has gotten me into some trouble in the past.

One of the rules at school is you’re not allowed to wear hats that don’t have the Venice High School logo on it. But I always saw that as infringing on my free speech. So I have this hat with a red star on it that I bought when I was in China. And I always wear that. Then this year I got called out on it. I was in the Dean’s office for three hours while they basically told me that if I didn’t agree to follow this rule they were going to send me out of the school. That’s how that ended, I sort of stopped wearing the hat because I wanted to focus more on organizing this so we could have a larger body with more strength than just one person wearing his hat.

PS: Kind of the opposite of a dunce cap. What else?

Cobalt: The [administration] is putting in a lot of things to convince students that you’re better off taking the test. She’s bringing back the policy of Off-campus passes for seniors next year. The requirements are you have to have 3.0 GPA, high attendance, and you have to have taken the Smarter Balanced test. There’s also, I’ve heard talk of local businesses giving money to the school for every student that takes the test and some teachers are only going to sign you letters of recommendation [for college] if you take the test.

Cobalt: Yeah, a couple of my teachers have said that they would only sign you a letter of recommendation if you’ve taken the test.

PS: So is that the typical response from your teachers?

Ruben: We have an interesting response from teachers. Either you’re completely for the test or you’re completely against the test. That’s something we’ve noticed, a trend. Several teachers have approached us telling us to kind of quiet down, I want to say, with our distribution of our newsletter, and other teachers are completely endorsing us like ‘yeah, I’m with you 100%’. But they don’t want to put it out there and, really stay out of trouble with the administration. I thought that was an interesting trend.

PS: Has the administration talked with you about your activism?

Cobalt: Not directly. She went to [our teacher] and told him to tell us to stop. He basically said, ‘I’m not in charge of them. They have this right to do that.’ She’s never actually come to us directly. She’s always tried to go indirectly around or talked to someone else to tell them to tell us to stop.

Ruben: More recently, she’s told all of my teachers. They’ve got pressure from the administration to tell us to stop distributing this newsletter.

PS: New York State had 200,000 opt outs last year. How many did Venice High have?

Cobalt: Last year, I feel like the bulk of the opt out movement was because it was happening at the same time as the AP tests, and not having anything to do with the whole standardized testing in general.

We’ve noticed that it seems to be flipping around this year. A lot of the people who have been telling me, “oh yeah, I’m definitely going to opt out’, most of the people who I feel like  I’ve been hitting the most with this message are people who aren’t in AP classes. The people who seem to be in opposition to the movement the most are the ones who are in the AP classes.

Ruben: I think they’re just trying to be as much of a scholarly student as they possibly can.

Cobalt: There’s also a lot of propaganda going around about the test. Like if you don’t take this test your life is not going to be able to be good. You’re not going to be able to have a good college education. You have to take this test. It’s almost being brainwashed into some people that, this test, you have to take it.

PS: Last election, someone named Marshall Tuck ran against our State Superintendent on the platform that the Ed Code is too long and cumbersome for adults to understand. What do you think?

Cobalt: Ever since I’ve been getting into issues regarding free speech and stuff, I’ve gotten myself well versed in several sections of the Ed Code.

Ruben: He knows them like the palm of his hand.

Cobalt: Like, that one is Section 60615. I think it clearly says that these tests, you can’t be forced to take them, and the parent does have the right to opt them out. But I do feel like it should be worded as more of an explicit right and less of a ‘this is something you can do’. I feel like if it was listed as more of an explicit right, then that would, ya know, like all the things that are happening like with the principal saying, ‘you have to take the test in order to get this thing’, I feel like that would sort of stop because you can’t be punished for exercising your right.

PS: After some parents sued their school district, LAUSD has actually told schools they have to send a letter home informing parents of the right to opt out.

Cobalt: Yeah, I don’t think we’ve gotten that.

PS: What do you think about the idea that parents just want to look at a school's overall test score to decide on a school for their kids? What do you say to them?

Cobalt: For me, when I was looking at schools, we first were looking around and my mom had found this school because of the foreign language magnet. I had always been into foreign languages. She said oh let’s go here. we went to the tour, one thing we noticed on the tour was the tour was being run by students and they were all happy to be at school and they loved the program and they were all talking about the activities and the clubs they were involved in, the classes they were taking. Someone mentioned that there was a trip to China they took with the Chinese class and that’s really what got me to want to come to this school. And then I went to another school and the entire first hour of the tour was sitting in the library watching a presentation, a powerpoint where they were talking about their curriculum and what they focus on and then going through their test scores, like a chart or graph of their test scores and you didn’t actually get to see the classes. What I liked about this school’s tour was that we went into a lot of classes. The other school, we didn’t go into any classes. It was just focusing on these scores and numbers that didn’t mean anything.

PS: You’ve been handing out the opt out forms. Do people get it?

Cobalt: Some people do. If they read the newspaper. I wanted to distribute it with the newspaper but I didn’t have enough copies printed. That was the only problem. So we’re going to have an Opt Out Day. We were originally planning to all stand out on the front lawn and make a large line and hand them out. Have a couple extra copies but then it rained that Friday. So we were stuck.

PS: In the movie, we pretty much see how a school district’s obsession with test scores can suck the life out of a school. Has all the life been sucked out of Venice High School?

Ruben: No, now it’s just two or three minutes of a teacher explaining why we have to take the tests. Not much of a curriculum change.

Cobalt: I feel like that will be coming soon. This is only the 2nd year of Smarter Balanced, so I think that as the years go on, curriculum will start to shift to teaching to this test specifically.

I’d always had the idea of, hey, teachers have a union. Maybe students should have a union. But then with the growing issues at the school, I decided, you know, I think we should actually start one.

PS: What do your parents think?

Ruben: They’re behind us 100%.

PS: There’s no standardized test for student activism. So how do you measure your success?

Cobalt: The way we distribute [the newspaper], is we go out in the hallways or after school out on the front lawn, and we just hand it to anyone we see. We look around and can see a couple people reading it. That’s what we like to see.

Ruben: We’re adamant about not distributing during class time. To make sure it’s legitimate and we don’t violate--

Cobalt: We don’t hand it out during class time because that can be disruptive.

Ruben: We have a lot of mixed response. The more scholarly students are like, ‘You guys are crazy. Stop doing this nonsense. Take the test and get over it.’

Cobalt: ‘You can’t do this. You’re going to hurt the school too much’. I‘ve heard other people saying, ‘Man, I’ve just read this, everything is so right, I’m opting out right now.’

PS: What else did learn from the movie?

Cobalt: In the movie, they said there was some law regarding statistics, that when you take a statistic that measures something and you really focus on it, then the focus shifts to the statistic itself rather than what that’s trying to measure.

What I think is happening is this country, the education system, the people in charge of it, the government and all that, is focusing on these test scores, but they’re not really focusing on what these test scores are measuring: the quality of our education.

PS: What do you think would be the best measure of your education?

Cobalt: Personally, I don’t think that you can measure the true quality of one’s education. I feel like that’s just too complex of a thing. It’s multi-sided. You can’t actually accurately measure it with any sort of testing, or any sort of assessment. It’s something that develops within a person and they take that and go into the real world and put that in action.

Ruben: I agree with him. We can’t be measured with numbers. We’re more than numbers. We’re human beings. We have different qualities. Some people have qualities in art. Some people love math. Some are more analytical. Some are a bit more closed minded. I feel like numbers, or choosing A, B, C or D really can’t measure what kind of human being you are. What’s your ranking as a human being?

PS: Are either of you planning to run for elected office any time soon?

                              Note: The school principal did not respond to requests for an interview.

California wins $1.2 billion in Corinthian Colleges suit brought by Attorney General Kamala Harris, also the front runner for US Senate.

The California Attorney General Kamala Harris has won a $1.2 billion judgment against the for-profit Corinthian Colleges for predatory practices that left tens of thousands of students with large debts and useless degrees.  Students whom Corinthian had targeted for their *special characteristics* like "isolated", "impatient", "low self-esteem" folks "who have few people in their lives who care about them" according to documents Harris' office discovered.

Does the case reveal any special characteristics of Kamala Harris? That's especially important since she's running for US Senate.

She’s in the lead for the retiring Barbara Boxer's seat. In a race that not enough of us are watching, she handily beat out Orange County’s Loretta Sanchez for the State Democratic party’s endorsement last month.

Even if we were paying attention to this important election, education advocates know that an election for national office is not exactly the best venue to find out a candidate's stand on public education. With so little campaign emphasis on our cause, candidates’ actions and occasional words are open to interpretation. So what do the tea leaves say about Kamala Harris?

The bulk of the judgment in this case is loan forgiveness for former students. The rest is to punish the shyster Corinthian and try to deter other profiteers from creating business models that prey on hopeful students. That's a good sign.

The win shows Harris to be a fighter for pupils over profits, something that should help her distinguish herself to voters concerned about the privatization of public education. 

One of Harris’ Republican opponents is cringeworthy to education voters. Ron Unz is a Palo Alto software executive whose interest in education stems from his effort to obliterate bilingual education in our state. He successfully championed the 1998 “English only” ballot initiative, which the state legislature has nearly finished repealing. This has so ticked off Unz that he decided to throw his hat in the ring for the Senate seat.

So Unz can make some anti-immigrant noise, which apparently is a selling point in this reality-TV-based election season, though he has little chance of winning against either Democrat.  

The Democrats are having their own difficulty breaking through the cacophony of the presidential election. An LA Times article this week reported one third of California voters are still undecided in the Senate race that includes four Democrats. Harris polls first, ahead of Sanchez among registered voters and Harris’ take doubles Sanchez's among likely voters.

There’s no poll of education voters, but if there was, this shellacking of for-profit colleges by Kamala Harris surely would put her at the front of the class.

Why is Bernie Sanders getting a pass on public education?

Bernie Sanders voted to appoint John King as Education Secretary at a Senate committee hearing today. According to his Washington, DC Senate office, Sanders voted by proxy because he was out of town. Sanders is campaigning in Florida for the Democratic nomination for President.

Bernie Sanders’ support for John King stands in direct opposition to the thousands of online education activists who have supported his candidacy, despite little record on public education issues.

President Obama nominated King after his contentious stint as New York State Education Commissioner prompted headlines like this one in the Washington Post: If you think Arne Duncan is controversial, meet his successor.

Online education activist groups have fiercely complained about John King. Prominent blogger Anthony Cody named King’s implementation of Common Core in New York one of the “ten colossal errors” of the Common Core standards.

Another prolific blogger called the appointment of King a “tone deaf decision”, asking Do Democrats give a crap about education?

The online crew of education activists cried foul when both teachers unions endorsed Hillary Clinton. But what do they make of their candidate supporting their arch education enemy?

Radio silence.

It’s a mistake for activists to give Bernie a pass even if it’s because they really want him to become President. A campaign is precisely the time when a candidate is most likely to declare a position to which they can be held to task for the next four years. It’s the time they are the most receptive to adjusting flawed positions--especially when he or she sees you’ve got the muscle of 55,000 online activists behind you.

We don’t know much about Bernie’s k-12 education positions. He passed up an opportunity to de-fund Common Core, the nemesis of progressive education activists, and he voted for an amendment to increase testing. Maybe the few education votes in his record would have been better if he had been informed by activists who were in a position to deliver advice as well as votes. 

If Bernie becomes President and continues his current policy stands, education activists will learn they squandered their best opportunity to influence him.

Joe the Plumber takes on public education

 At Tuesday night’s CNN Town Hall in South Carolina, public education got a moment on the Democratic primary campaign stage. But what did it really tell us?

Audience member John Loveday was introduced as the principal of a charter school. He asked Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton whether she would support a longer school day or school year to keep up with India and China.

Given the limited attention K-12 schools have received in any of the presidential campaigns, education voters were glad for an opportunity to evaluate a candidate's position.

Public education advocates recognize this particular question as a talking point of Democrats for Education Reform, “Third Way” dems who seek to turn public education into a business. They're supported by disruptive innovators poised to receive massive amounts of public money to provide the services. It wasn’t surprising that this question would come from a charter administrator. You can think of it as you would if a fund manager wanting to privatize social security were to ask a candidate about collecting fees on retirement accounts.

But this guy was no banker. How much more authentic can you get than a school principal? Reminiscent of Joe the Plumber entering the public realm in 2008’s presidential race, the charter principal claimed that his school was doing something innovative--and he hoped to hear Secretary Clinton declare her support for it--and thereby her support for his enterprise.

“My charter school is unique because we are the only school in the state that offers more instructional days than required by law. We offer 230 instructional days versus the traditional 180. If you look at countries like India and China, they offer--they require--their high school students to attend 220 days on average. That’s 40 more than our high school students. Do you think that puts our students at a disadvantage and, if so, would you work with states to modernize that policy?”

Hillary Clinton answered by explaining that some kids languish when school lets out for the summer. She concluded, “I have said I want to be a good partner for educators and teachers. But I want to help them do what they know they are supposed to do. We need better and fewer tests, not more tests. We need more support in the classroom because a lot of kids come with needs.”

Activists have jumped on her remarks as a policy statement for longer school days and a shorter summer. But just like Joe the Plumber shared the spotlight with the candidate years ago, this charter principal deserves some attention, too. Is he helping the kids Clinton describes? Should a presidential candidate support innovations like his?

Well, Loveday is the principal of an online, virtual charter school which tells students, "as long as you meet the state attendance requirements in a year's time, your personal school schedule is up to you." Students “can enroll any time of the year. Our self-paced curriculum allows students to graduate early or to take the extra time they need to master a subject.”

So it’s hard to take Loveday at his word when he seems to brag about his school offering more instructional time to give American students an edge. Is his school really just taking advantage of more days of funding? We don’t know for sure without a deeper analysis.  

But the question--and the questioner--underscore something important. With “innovators” like this charter administrator at the mic, we are reminded of the smoke and mirrors that have blurred the public's view of some of the changes in education policy in recent years. In this presidential campaign, we need candidates to show they understand what is really being asked about public education before we can judge their grasp of the issue. For example, how does the goal of reaching higher standards end up meaning that 50 neighborhood schools in Chicago close? How does the promise of innovation end up meaning that public assets are sold off to private enterprise? How does the idea of school choice end up re-segregating our schools along racial lines? 

To judge who is most capable of standing up for our schools, we need to know if candidates even understand how much is at stake. For that to happen, this election must include a more vigorous education debate.

PTA adopts position against state laws - President Obama adopts position against his own education policies - What is LAUSD to do?

Now that winter has all but passed without the torrential rains we expected, Angelenos are wondering what all the fuss was about El Niño. 

The same might be said as the national standardized testing opt out movement finally reaches California. What started out in New York as a hurricane seems to have been downgraded to a chance of sprinkles here in sunny California.

But with the SBAC tests still two months away, the conversation is getting lively in school council meetings, on blogs and among policymakers.

Probably fearful of a spread of the New York movement in which over 200,000 students opted out across that state last year, the National PTA is trying to muscle parents out of exercising their legal right to opt children out of standardized tests. In January, the PTA adopted a position against state laws that give parents the right to opt out of state testing. Former US Deputy Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch says that might have something to do with the PTA receiving $1 million last October to promote Common Core assessments. This will be news to some of the less edu-policy obsessed.

Even President Obama admitted that his education policies have rained on a lot of parades, saying recently that he hears from parents who worry about "too much testing, and from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning. I want to fix that," he said.

The PTA says, “We highly value family engagement in education and respect the rights of parents to make decisions on behalf of their children, however,,,"

So where does that leave LAUSD? The district has issued a directive to school administrators that they must inform parents of their legal right to opt out of standardized testing, even providing school administrators with a sample letter to send to parents.  But don’t think that means LAUSD is taking a stand against standardized testing. Sources who attended a district meeting last December said that principals were warned not to let their opt out rate reach 95%. Some principals I’ve spoken to are quietly ignoring the directive. One claimed to have no knowledge of it. And some parents see the nonsense in standardized tests but know that's the #1 marketing tool for prospective parents. One parent even suggested that students should take the SBAC--and be  given community services hours for the chore. 

I'm not predicting that the testing game will get rained out here in Los Angeles, but Coffee with the Principal and other school site parent-teacher-principal meetings should get pretty lively in the next couple of months. 

Breaking news: Complaint accuses Magnolia Charters of illegal use of funds

A public school teacher and a parent in Orange County, California, filed a legal complaint today against Magnolia Charter Schools accusing the charter organization of violating state and federal law by improperly using state and federal funds, maintaining poor internal controls and financial  accounting, and utilizing nepotistic vendor selection.

The complaint describes a revolving door between the Magnolia board and its vendors, and even shared business addresses. The complaint asserts that the California Department of Education has “failed to take meaningful action” despite its own findings of misdeeds.

“It's like the state screaming, 'Come and get this money that's supposed to be for our schools. We’ll look the other way while you spend it on other things,’” said complainant Tina Andres, a Santa Ana teacher. “It just invites corruption and fraud. That’s not what charter schools are supposed to do.” Andres’ son attends a charter school in Orange County.

Andres joined Jose Moreno, an Anaheim parent, and Amsterdam & Partners LLP law firm on the complaint which was filed with the California Department of Education under the Uniform Complaint Procedure process. It can be viewed here. 

The complaint calls for a comprehensive investigation by the State Department of Education. It cites findings made last year by the state in an audit of Magnolia including that 69% of Magnolia's financial transactions were unaccounted for; that Magnolia routinely awards large contracts to vendors that have overlapping connections with their own employees and board of directors; and that Magnolia has illegally used hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to pay for visas for Turkish nationals.

The complaint states that all three of these activities are hallmarks of Gülen charters. Magnolia has denied ties to Gülen, an organization under investigation by the Turkish and United States governments.  

Magnolia is headed by Caprice Young, former president of the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), and founder of the powerful lobby, the California Charter Schools Association. Under Young's leadership, Magnolia runs 11 schools, including eight in LAUSD, and recently submitted petitions for eight more schools in Anaheim, LAUSD, Garden Grove, Fremont, and Oceanside. The complaint states that if all eight charter schools were to be approved, the cost to the state of California would be in the billions of dollars.

The complaint presses the regulatory authorities to take immediate action before Magnolia's additional charters could be approved. 

Journalism ethics expert says LA Times is trapped in a massive conflict of interest

A member of a facebook group that discusses education asked journalism ethics expert Peter Sussman about the LA Times coverage and posted this, shared with their permission:

"I asked a journalist friend about the ethics of the L.A. Times taking money from Eli Broad while editorializing in favor of his project. His response:

"Was I tagged because this is such a tough ethical issue to parse? It is not. With this kind of entanglement with the subject of its news stories, the Times has given up the right to expect any trust or credibility for its journalism on education. They are trapped in a massive conflict of interest, and no amount of pro forma disclosure will fix that. It's so sad to see what has happened to that once-great publication.

"You can add to the comment that trust and credibility are the life's blood of journalism, and without it, a "news" organization is no different than any other partisan in public disputes, with the added problem that there is no major paper to hold it accountable, although in this case a blogger has apparently stepped into the breach. People have jeopardized and lost their jobs for defending their editorial independence and standing up to such conflicts of interest. I haven't read the background on the issue you've highlighted, but if all your information is accurate, the Times' problem extends beyond opinions to reporting, however well-intentioned their education reporters are."

--Peter Sussman, a retired longtime San Francisco Chronicle editor who is a past co-author of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. (He was co-author of the 1996 version.)

The Los Angeles Times* backs itself into a corner in supporting Eli Broad's hostile takeover plan of LAUSD

The LA Times has written another diatribe peddling Eli Broad’s privatization plan for Los Angeles public schools (Eli is certainly getting his money’s worth in underwriting the LA Times education coverage).

“What the [LA School Board's] resolution [opposing the Broad plan] might accomplish is to continue making this a politically divisive issue. Potential donors might then decline to join the effort, but would that really be helpful to students?”

Really? Is it the democratically elected representatives’ vote to support public schools against a hostile private takeover that is the problem here? Is it LAUSD’s fault for discouraging otherwise willing donors to pay for the weaponry that would destroy its schools?

The LA Times goes on: “A better move would be to call on Great Public Schools Now [Broad's group] to provide a place at the table for the district’s new superintendent, Michelle King, to participate in the planning process. If the new nonprofit organization hopes to overcome resistance in the community, it needs to be more open about its planning and it needs to open the process to public discussion…”

Hello!

In its ongoing effort to convince the city that a huge public entity should be handed over to a private group of titans, the LA Times now suggests inviting the public official to the table to give the effort some credibility. This is the superintendent, who was appointed by the democratically elected board, to lead the public entity the titans seek to control.

As Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis has said, “You can’t have a seat at the table when you’re on the menu.”

The LA Times even suggests the plan should include funding for outside auditors.  I guess that’s to head off the mob that will cry foul at circumventing public process.

It seems the LA Times needs a civics lesson.

The things they think would make this process go better are the very things that define democratic process—the things inherent in a public school system: Public hearings. Involvement of experts. Inclusion of all stakeholders. Service to all not some.

If this group of do-gooders has such a bright idea, why don’t they come to a school board meeting, present it, and participate in the discussion that any of us does? Let’s hear a discussion about the educational value, the impact on desegregation goals, the research-based evidence, the cost, etc.

They won’t do that because they’re titans. They think they should run things without the inconvenience of public interference.

The LA Times has backed itself into a corner in advocating for the private takeover of the public school system. Now calling for a *public* process into a private takeover does not fix that.

The LA Times’ conflict of interest in promoting Eli Broad’s plan remains a problem. Just as every LA Times article about education now comes with an asterisk, so does this version of a public process.

LAUSD: What's going on in the Neutral Zone?

Before the rebranding of Eli Broad's attack on LAUSD, he had put fellow billionaire David Geffen on his team roster. Geffen and Broad teaming up would be even more serious than Broad bringing in charter vendor ExED to manage the effort. Was it even likely that Geffen would have suited up with his fellow billionaire?

“Not in a million years.” That’s what Geffen said ten years ago when Broad suggested they buy the LA Times together.

There’s no indication they’ve patched things up. So is the enemy of my enemy my friend? Could LAUSD count on Geffen’s help defending the school district?

That’s not likely either. It isn’t because Geffen is uninterested in education. Last week, the LA Times announced his $100 million donation to UCLA for a private middle and high school for the children of professors.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez, the conscience of Los Angeles, is the only one who has cried foul. The world class public university smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles feels the need to create its own school district and LAUSD considers it a neutral zone.

Somebody blow a whistle!

Forget for a moment how the children of professors would strengthen LAUSD’s nearby University High School in terms of seats in classrooms and the funding that comes along with them. Though that is an important loss that seems to have been written off.  But why is LAUSD not bending over backwards to forge relationships with this brain trust for research, policy advice, and vision? It’s a neutral zone, not a gated community.

UCLA is the university that Gary Blasi has called home for decades. Blasi’s scholarship, policy advice and legal services include improving learning opportunities in substandard schools, racial and other stereotypes, and how large bureaucracies can better respond to the needs of poor and disabled people.

UCLA is the same university that just recruited Pedro Noguera, famed scholar in community development, youth violence, and race and ethnic relations. He wrote a book called Schooling for Resilience: Improving the Life Trajectories of African American and Latino Boys. The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District has already enlisted Noguera's help.

Finally, UCLA is the same university where John Rogers’ co-founded the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) 15 years ago "to confront what may be the most pressing public issue in Los Angeles and in California today: bringing neighbors together across the many communities of Los Angeles to address the critical problems of public education.”

I swear, I didn’t write these descriptions with LAUSD in mind; I didn’t write them at all. Do the very scholars whose research could make a real difference in school districts like ours not want to have anything to do with our schools?

Perhaps they know too much. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a disconnect between ideals and practice in LAUSD. Even supporters of former Superintendent John Deasy agree with critics that his implementation of lofty goals was problematic (though his critics never believed those were his goals in the first place). Sure, he could gather a parade of civil rights organizations to cheer his banning suspensions, but teachers and parents complained about a lack of resources for authentic positive discipline programs that would improve the learning environment for everyone.

But Deasy wasn’t alone in that disconnect. Board President Steve Zimmer has been waxing poetic lately about some of these lofty issues in interviews and he, too, seems light on the details. Is he going to be wowed by a superintendent who gives lip service to civil rights and equity goals that should simply be the starting point of the vetting process? What are the policies they have experience implementing?

Which brings us back to these scholars and others like them. They know a thing or two about connecting lofty ideals with policy and practice. Some of them may have even sparred with Eli Broad a time or two.

Yet the news of UCLA’s private high school underscores just how closed off LAUSD is. Why are the policymakers of the country’s second largest school district not talking with some of the best minds in public education policy? Doesn’t LAUSD think there is something to gain from some of UCLA’s six Nobel laureates, a Pritzker Prize winner, 12 MacArthur geniuses, an art department that features some of the most important artists working today, an engineering department that helped invent the internet (Yes, THAT internet.) and on and on and on?

With a meaningful relationship with the scholars and academic programs at UCLA--and any number of the universities in Los Angeles--LAUSD would be a better district that would then withstand the “choices” of parents and, therefore, be more resilient to an attack like Broad’s.  The best superintendent candidates in the country would be clamoring for the job as head of LAUSD.

Why is no one asking, “Would some more scholarship make LAUSD a better school district?”

I’m not a scholar and I’m not a school board member. But I’d be glad to escort some of both off the field for a chat. The theme: The best defense is a good offense.

Supe Search Survey Deadline Today!

LA School board president Steve Zimmer used Halloween as a way to draw attention to the public survey seeking input for the superintendent search by dressing up as Waldo--Where ARE those surveys?!

The response rate has been abysmal. Last week, less than 4000 responses had been received--in a district with 600,000 kids.

The whole nation is watching whether the LA School Board will stand up to Eli Broad’s hostile takeover and hire a superintendent who will fight for public schools. For good reason; what happens in LA has far reaching consequences. So it is only right that the board hear from the national activist community that has been fighting for public education for years. Please help us urge our school board to do the right thing by taking the two-minute anonymous survey now.

The local turnout of the community outreach forums has also been scant. A defeatist mood of “What difference does it make?” has prevailed. That’s understandable. After years of leadership that ignored the concerns of parents, teachers, and principals, many of us got at least a little beaten down. But now things could change for the long haul.

Remember FDR’s advice to those pushing him to do the right thing? "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

It’s our job to remind the board members of their duty. Los Angeles Unified School District is the largest district in the country with a democratically elected board. While other big cities have lost local control of their school boards to bully mayors and governors, Los Angeles survived its former “education Mayor” Villaraigosa’s” attempt at mayoral control when the courts shot that down.

Now, a billionaire bully has threatened a hostile takeover of half our schools. That makes it more important--and more urgent--than ever to participate.

The school board has already rightly rejected the push to allow special interest groups to have a special place in the process.

Now the public interest groups need to weigh in. That means you and me. We need to remind the board that they serve the public. We need to provide good advice so they will make a better decision. 

So we start by taking the survey today--and getting five friends to take it, too--and tell the school board to do the right thing.

Make them do it.

Is Eli Broad's hostile takeover of LAUSD coming from the outside or in?

LAUSD was making a clean break from a past that included the iPad scandal (still under federal  investigation) and the “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” resignation of John Deasy. Board President Steve Zimmer launched LAUSD’s community engagement campaign for the superintendent search last week.

“The public will be involved in helping to shape the conversation...Your voice as a stakeholder is very important to the Board of Education,” Zimmer wrote. This is a welcome change, considering Deasy was Eli Broad’s handpicked superintendent for the public schools, and is now his private superintendent at the unaccredited Broad Academy.

Input will be gathered at community outreach sessions. The LAUSD community is accustomed to such meetings, facilitated by a team of experts who have built trusting relationships with parents, faculty and neighbors, in sometimes difficult circumstances. We know them by name: Lorena, Fortunato, Holly, Judy and others.

However, rather than a Human or Community Relations facilitator, the person at the center of the outreach for the supe search is a lobbyist who has spent her career advancing an agenda closely aligned with Eli Broad’s.

Before joining LAUSD’s lobbying department, Beth Doctor Gibbons sharpened her chops for nearly three years at Michelle Rhee’s lobbying group, StudentsFirst, one of the leading organizations that champions Broad-style reforms.

Biography of a Zealot
Gibbons’ entire resume reads like the biography of a Broad zealot. To familiarize yourself with the organizations in Broad’s favor (or who you should not let bring free cookies into the teachers lounge), read on.

Let's start at the beginning.

Gibbons is an alumni of Teach For America (TFA), or Temps for America, as critics call it. TFA places elite college graduates in two-year teaching internships after five weeks of training. The departure of most of them after two years, when they move onto careers in other fields--sometimes to positions shaping public policy--destabilizes schools and undermines the teaching profession. Education policy scholar Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig of Cal State Sacramento has researched TFA extensively. He recently called for a policy debate about TFA when public outcries led two Southern California school districts to reject contracts with the organization. TFA is a foundational element of Broad’s plan.

After her two years was up, Gibbons spent a few months teaching at Harlem Success Academy, one of the schools in Eva Moskowitz’s New York charter chain. The chain is so closely aligned with Eli Broad's goals that he donated $5 million to help it expand from 20 to 100 schools. Sound familiar? Diane Ravitch's blog has the most complete log of the numerous published reports of the shenanigans of Success Academy charters over the years (draconian discipline policies, astonishingly high suspension rates, which Moscowitz defended as a way to promote “order and civility in the classroom,” closing the school for one day a year to have families lobby in support of charters).

After a semester at Harlem Success Academy, Gibbons worked for Educators for Excellence (E4E), a Gates-funded organization whose mission aligns perfectly with Broad’s plan. According to the education blog, Edushyster, E4E members sign a pledge to support school choice, the statistically invalid value-added measurements in teacher evaluations, and merit pay among other core values. These are major tenets of the Broad Academy.

Gibbons’ close ties to Broad’s agenda aren’t just guilt-by-association either. She claims credit for StudentsFirst’s lobbying campaign for California Senate Bill 441. Introduced by then Senator Ron Calderon, before he was indicted in a separate pay-for-play scheme, the bill was based on rightwing ALEC model legislation. It would have increased the frequency of teacher evaluations and eliminated teacher input into the process. Here is a short promo video starring Gibbons pushing for Calderon’s bill in the Capitol and urging the public to contact their legislators to vote ‘yes’. Disgraced Mayor Kevin Johnson (Rhee's husband) is represented, too.

It was defeated, but Gibbons’ actions in the video are enough to scare anyone who is rooting for LAUSD against Broad’s hostile takeover. Now she represents LAUSD in those same halls of the State Capitol?

Now at LAUSD
Since January, 2015, Gibbons has been an external affairs and legislative liaison in LAUSD’s Office of Government Relations, according to her  LinkedIn profile. That’s before the new board convened; certainly before new board member Scott Schmerelson vowed not to let Eli Broad bully the school board, before Steve Zimmer was board president, and before he said that Broad’s plan was a “gross perversion” of charters in an NBC television interview.

So has Gibbons turned over a new leaf since joining the largest school district in the country with a democratically elected school board? Not likely. She sent out an “invitation only” announcement for a “Community Briefing and Superintendent Search Meeting” to a select few. Who received this? Why is the rest of the community left out?

She also appears to be continuing to promote the corporate privatization agenda that Broad pursues even while the school board publicly reassures us that they are fighting against it.

Her twitter feed includes a lament to the nation's chief antagonist of public school parents and teachers:
“@arneduncan - You’ve been a true champion for kids and a bold systems innovator. You’re going to be sorely missed.”

And shouts out to her charter friends:
“...these KIPPsters and educators totally deserve it. Congrats! @KIPPLASchools”.

Can parents and community members trust that Gibbons will somehow fairly facilitate the outreach process for superintendent when she has built a resume lobbying a very specific agenda for schools?

Facilitating the Parent Advisory Committee for LAUSD, Gibbons has shown some responsiveness to parents, according to minutes. She “acknowledged the frustrations in the room and stated a willingness from her department to help make this process more meaningful.” However, when the LA School Board voted to approve the Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) based on the Parent Committee's input, six months after Gibbons arrived, a parent from new board member George McKenna’s district cried foul. She testified with complaints that parents had not been meaningfully involved.

There is also evidence that Gibbons might have collaborated with outside groups driving a specific agenda. One of the LCAP sessions was even hosted by the United Way, a civic  group now pushing Broad’s charter plan and demanding a central role in  the superintendent selection process.

They assert that only a committee outside of LAUSD will have legitimacy. If they convene such a committee to drive their reform agenda, Gibbons might make a good facilitator--for them.

A New Beginning
Since the new Board convened in July, 2015, most of its members have taken seriously their responsibility to repair the damage to the district--including the public perception--by the scandalous past. They have supported the Interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who has put a district back together that appears to have been dismantled from the inside. Now, the threats of “disruptive innovation” are coming from the outside.

At least we thought they were.

The School District will not win public confidence in the next superintendent by turning over the important community engagement process to a cheerleader for the very agenda they claim to be fighting against. Why is a lobbyist responsible for parent outreach in the first place?

The District needs to take immediate, definitive action to ensure an honest and transparent process that restores the trust of community members. That means Gibbons should not even be allowed in the room.

Then, if they’re serious about defending the district against Eli Broad’s attack, they can ask themselves what in the world anyone with Gibbons’ resume is doing representing LAUSD in any room at all.
 

Is the Los Angeles school board speaking truth to power, or was that Pope Francis?

When I say AALA, think Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, not Allah. This was no mosque, after all.

The AALA Fall Reception took place last Wednesday at the Plaza Center at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Maybe, with Pope Francis making the most sense of anyone in the halls of Congress last week, AALA was hoping some of that holy mojo would rub off on all the board members, senior district staff and administrators present. There was no mention of any sacredness of the spot by AALA president, Juan Flecha, separation of church and state and all. Still, it was not business as usual.

The AALA event was rousing. The speakers--especially the board members--seemed inspired. 

California State Superintendent, Tom Torlakson offered a benediction of sorts and then the more personal messages followed. Board President Steve Zimmer, with his usual preachy oratorical flare, paid tribute to the superintendent.

"What Ray Cortines has done is one of the most incredible acts of public service I have ever seen," Zimmer said. He went on to thank the administrators, particularly in light of the horrific news of the high number of shootings in Los Angeles neighborhoods over the weekend, for being the rock that students and families lean on in such times. He reminded everyone there that school is the center of many communities.

Zimmer closed by reassuring the administrators in the wake of the privateers' declaration of war against LAUSD, saying, "We are going to walk through this fire together."

George McKenna offered the parables and personal anecdotes to which we've become accustomed. "We can't just fight to fight; we have to fight to win. When the elephants fight, only the grass gets trampled," he said.

McKenna's best line, which seemed to either search for encouragement or to serve as a warning, was, "We're either going to be the seven board members or we are going to be the seven dwarves. And I am not going to be Dopey!"

Monica Ratliff shared her uplifting comparison of those in attendance to the administrators she's now working with in a nearby school district. She said she had hoped to take a part time job outside LAUSD to bring in some great ideas but reported that she has witnessed no miracles.

"You experience challenges that many [administrators] in many districts do not." Ratliff also lamented, "We don't see a lot of news about how fantastic our principals are."

If it's true that God helps those who help themselves, perhaps the miracle was prophesied by the newest board member, Scott Schmerelson. He thanked AALA members for being the first to endorse him in his election.

A retired principal, Schmerelson's folksy remarks sounded typical at first: "I think it's very important that we model good behavior."

But then, like in a Catholic funeral mass, when a crescendo lifts the deceased into the heavens, Schmerelson led the charge: "There is to be no bullying anywhere in LAUSD. And that is not just for kids. We need to expose those bullies and embarrass them. And there is a big bully running around and his name is Eli Broad. And he will not bully us."

The audience seemed overjoyed. Or maybe that was the angels singing.