Monday, January 24, 2011

Big Finance and Big Business paying for corporate charter school advertisements

In an age where our communities are seeing the last of the public commonwealth sucked up by the profit machines that are charter-voucher schools, advertising and marketing have become key aspects of the move towards privatization. Most EMO/CMO charter-voucher schools have budgets for this, but just in case, the well heeled bosses at the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce want to make sure you understand and act upon their corporate message. Hence this message and photos submitted by an avid solidaridad reader, exposing the dark underbelly of the business community's tampering in affairs once reserved for people with an understanding of pedagogy.

Granada Hills Charter HS is running an unprecedented publicity campaign in a bid to take over VRHS #4 in Granada Hills. The curriculum for the new school includes International Baccalaureate and AP courses. What kind of student will this curriculum attract? In addition, there will be no football at the new school, but there will be a 7 period day and mandatory summer school for incoming students. Since this new school is in a "Zone of Choice," no student is required to attend. Will this kind of school really relieve overcrowding at local high schools like Kennedy and Monroe? Or will it become a satellite campus for the high performing Granada? With 45% of Granada's students gifted/talented, and extremely low percentages of special ed, ELL, and socio-economic disadvantaged, will a fair demographic representation of neighborhood students actually enroll in another school run by Granada with a curriculum geared towards the highest performers? Our tax dollars were meant to pay off the bond issues to relieve overcrowding, not to provide an opportunity for administrators to increase their compensation by opening another cloned version of itself.

Paid for by the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce
Say no to corporate interests, vote for public schools not charters!Say no to corporate interests, vote for public schools not charters!

photos taken by our avid reader

We can also see a bit of the John Birch Society effect here too. Word on the street is that the upscale and predominantly white business community would like to keep other folks out of the new school. How better to do that than a highly specialized charter school with a curricular focus and student population that only a chamber of commerce member could love?

Show the lords of finance capital and the other business types grazing the buffet at the country club that we want public schools to remain public. Vote for the Local District 1 with Monroe HS (K. Hancock) & UTLA plan. See the schedule and location to vote. Look under VALLEY REGION HIGH SCHOOL #4.
at

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous20:13

    Jobs listing directly tied to Prop 39. The sad thing is, the only way an existing school will get repairs is if a charter school needs the repairs to be made so it can move in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene11:32

    Whenever we discuss budget and progressive tax justice to fund public schools, we're told "there's no money." However, as soon as a corporate charter-voucher school needs anything, suddenly there's a flood of funding, a veritable deluge if you will. Look at when ICEF Los Angeles' Mike Piscal ran off after huge amounts of money "disappeared" inexplicably. Donors aplenty found millions to float ICEF and put CORO/CCSA millionaire Caprice Young in charge of their corporate charter loss leader. That type of malfeasance and waste would be lambasted in the media had ICEF been a public school!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown16:42

    When Collier Street Elementary, long closed, was rented to a private school, the lessee made numerous costly improvements, all reimbursed by LAUSD, none of which were happening in surrounding LAUSD public schools. When LAUSD took back the campus, CHIME Charter got a spectacular campus paid for by LAUSD tax dollars.

    ReplyDelete