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Public education, immigrant rights, and contempt of the bourgeoisie and their reactionary servants.
GRITtv: The F Word: Top Secret: Privatizing Fails
UTLA May 1st Teachers Press Conference! Teachers, we need you!!
I've responded to this several times, but will reproduce some of it here. My first and somewhat cynical thought is, given Ponce and CNCA Corporation's track record, who would take them at their word? More to the point though, I wrote this recently on the list:
The charter document needs to contain the language, and we didn't see it in the charter document. If someone can email me a pdf of or fax me the page in their charter that says what we want, then I'll back off this issue.
Without the phrases Mainstream English program, Structured English Immersion program, and Dual Language Immersion program appearing in their charter for this school, CNCA Corporation and Yolie Flores have essentially pulled off a deception. Ms. Flores promised the other LAUSD Trustees that she'd address CNCA Corporation's one-dimensional language program offering. To this point, no one has shown evidence that this is the case. Frankly [An Echo Parque Parent] shouldn't be the one scrambling to get this information. In a democracy, where communities had some power over the public commons, then the onus would fall on CNCA Corporation to document what we are asking for. Unfortunately, since they're a private corporation with an unelected board, they can and have chose to ignore us and our community's very real needs.
Since the charter is a legal document, it gives our community a modicum (however slightly) of recourse when CNCA Corporation's business executives don't deliver what they promise.
First question. Yes, absolutely — a publicly financed school must be obligated to educate every child. Given the demographics of CRES #14's attendance boundary, CNCA Corporation's existing program would only serve a portion of students potentially wanting to attend.
For your second question, you're conflating different bilingual programs with each other. ALthough this is addressed above, please familiarize yourself with the difference between Developmental/Transitional Bilingual Model Versus Dual Immersion Models. More to the point, CNCA Corporation's model assumes that all entering students are ELL with Spanish as their mother language. How does this benefit Korean, Mandarin, Tagalog, English, or other speakers?
Addressing your last question. I hope your intention was be facetious when you discuss "competitors." Public schools are tasked with the moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to educate every child, not to be bastions of divisiveness and duplicity brought on by competition. There are no credible peer reviewed studies indicating that contrived "competition" between schools fosters anything except for widespread cheating (Michelle Rhee's DC Schools for example), and demoralization of both students and educators.
Instead of having a narrowly defined language program that reeks of exclusivity and elitism, let the publicly financed CNCA Corporation choose to serve potentially any student that wants to attend. I know that will cut into their bottom line somewhat, but that should be their obligation given that we're the ones that foot their bills.
It's a real shame that an organization like CNCA Corporation, that claims its goal is to create "agents of social justice with sensitivity toward the world around them" is in practice agents of injustice in our community. I'm a little shocked at their intransigence, especially at Philip Lance, who used to have a good reputation before he got into the charter school business.
Ordinarily, but not in this narrowly defined case. CNCA Corporation's program assumes precisely just that. It's a transitional program for Spanish speaking ELL to transition to English. While we discuss this as not necessarily a good thing, and inappropriate for serving every child's needs, CNCA Corporation sells it to many mono-lingual Spanish speaking parents as a good thing, since their children will be predominately English speakers by the eighth grade. Meaning of course, that their Spanish skills would not be sufficient for even undergraduate level essay writing. In fact, Cervantes would probably be too difficult for those "bi-lingual" speakers CNCA Corporation produces. If that's fine with some parents, great. What about all the other families? They don't deserve consideration? Optimally we'd like to see CNCA Corporation offer a range of language programs, but at this point it's a struggle enough to get these mendacious businesspeople to just comply with offering a Mainstream English program.
For a review of the different bi-lingual programs, see: Developmental/Transitional Bilingual Model Versus Dual Immersion
I don't think it's a matter of their definition versus ours at all. In academic and pedagogical circles, these distinctions are clearly defined. CNCA Corporation has many employees that know all of this, any one of them would be able to tell you the same thing. Ana Ponce could tell you the difference, given her educational background. The definition(s) of bilingualism isn't in question here, and this isn't a matter of semantics. For more on bilingual education see Prof. Jeff Bale of MSU and Prof. Stephen Krashen of USC.
What's in question is why won't CNCA Corporation commit in writing what LAUSD Vice President Flores promised they would when she gave them our school?
I'm not sure it would take much for them to write what we want into their charter for CRES #14. I can't speak for them, but I think their resistance stems for economics rather than any other explanation. It will cost them slightly more to do the right thing. Perhaps Ms. Ponce or another CNCA Corporation representative can correct me here, but they seem to be afraid to commit resources when they aren't sure what the composition of their student body will look like yet.
Given that they've just been handed a multi-million dollar facility for free, and that all their student related costs are borne by the public, they should only be focused on educating every child. Because we're asking CNCA Corporation to accommodate our community instead of our community accommodating them, there has been resistance. They still have to hire staff for CRES #14, all they'd really have to do is make sure that they hire enough teachers qualified to teach what we're asking. After they write what we want into their charter.
Let's be clear. We're not asking CNCA Corporation to replace their transitional bilingual education model. We're asking them to commit, in writing, to offering several different language models — including Mainstream English. I don't think we're asking too much.
I've been patently ignored by the Board of Education. I suppose this isn't unexpected, but you'd think they'd leave personal issues aside and do what's best for my community. After all, Ms. Flores promised.
"Luis Sanchez...worked the room at a posh Beverly Hills condo...The nearly 50 guests drank Au Bon Climat chardonnay and Piper Sonoma sparkling wine as Sanchez's backers, including school board President Monica Garcia and charter school leaders, lauded him..." — Los Angeles Times
Fielding a local reporter's questions about Camino Nuevo Charter Corporation's designs on CRES #14
Poor Teaching for Poor Children... in the Name of Reform
Luis Sanchez candidate for LAUSD school board has accepted over half million from GOP Bush supporters. One of them is billionaire Phil Anschutz who has also supported anti-gay and lesbian measures (Colorado's Amendment 2), the FreedomWorks foundation that organizes the Tea Party and anti-immigration campaigns, the Discovery institute which promotes teaching creationism instead of science and other regressive efforts
"Luis Sanchez...worked the room at a posh Beverly Hills condo...The nearly 50 guests drank Au Bon Climat chardonnay and Piper Sonoma sparkling wine as Sanchez's backers, including school board President Monica Garcia and charter school leaders, lauded him..." — Los Angeles Times
Five Factual Articles on Corporate Candidate Luis Sanchez
¡Marcha a Primero de Mayo! May Day 2011 March
Mr. Newton:
You cast an all African American CUSD Board as "civil rights villains" and then speak of the wealthy white Ben Austin, and his right wing charter school trade association as heroes for hoodwinking parents into handing a community school over to the vile Vielka McFarlane? The same McFarlane who dismissed institutional racism by declaring children of color merely need to "dress for success..." rather than "focus on how the history of the country has been checkered."
Austin a civil rights hero? With no background in education, he was recruited via a six figure salary to represent CCSA interests and increase charter school market share. While he poses as a disgruntled parent and champion of people of color, he has no school age kids and according to The Times Austin's neighborhood [Benedict Canyon] is 87.5% WHITE with a median household income of $169,282. Austin's house cost $1,210,000. He holds public events with The Heartland Institute [1]. That's a civil rights hero Compton parents and the rest of us can all identify with!
Talk about taking Newspeak to a new level. We've come to expect this non-stop charter cheerleading from the Times. Newton and Stanton come off as Jed Wallace's personal public relations firm. Your defense of the Walton, Broad, and Gates funded Austin and his corporate trigger law is deplorable. Is a glowing tribute to the late Generalissimo Franco next?
Advocating Public Education and Social Justice
Robert D. Skeels
Yellow Journalist Jim Newton Hails a Dubious Civil Rights Hero
I wanted to make sure you are aware that CRES#14 is part of Board District 5. I would invite you to contact Ms. Ana Ponce, Executive Director of Camino Nuevo, to address any questions you might have of the school.
Please understand that at least half of the attendance boundary for CRES #14 is comprised of District 2. Parents and community members have repeatedly tried address this with Ms. Ponce, CEO of the CNCA Corporation, and the matter remains unresolved.
Since LAUSD is the entity approving and authorizing the charter, our final recourse is to appeal directly to the LAUSD Board.
Urgently requesting a meeting with the LAUSD Board President
"The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" Premieres in May
On LAUSD's urgent need to pressure CNCA to revise the CRES #14 charter
Mayor Villaraigosa's "Stars (M)Aligned" Education [sic] Speech
Women's Rights Activists and Groups Press Conference (Sponsored by SCIC)
Community activist priorities for LAUSD versus those of Food Revolution
Open Letter to LAUSD Board Regarding Grave Issues with CNCA's Charter for CRES #14
Public schools fight to keep their rooms from being seized by privatized charter-voucher schools
They are key propagandists to the present right wing movement in the U.S, supporting any demand that increases corporate profits and weakens the peoples' movements and democratic rights. In education vouchers are at the center of their reform demands.
'In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word voucher has been successfully discredited by enlightened Americans who believe in the public sector. So they've resorted to two strategies. First, they no longer use the word "vouchers." They've adopted the seemingly benign phrase "school choice," but they are still voucher advocates.' — Jonathan Kozol
For education, fringe right wing is no longer confined to the fringe
WORST Education Events of 2010
1. Stimulus dollars for education were mainly spent on avoiding layoffs.
About 80 percent of the administration’s $100 billion education stimulus money went to avert teacher layoffs and continue existing programs without regard to their effectiveness and with no hint of school improvement. The $10 billion EduJobs bill did more of the same. Such spending rewarded schools for inefficiency at an enormous cost in dollars and missed opportunities.
Tim Delia: Who's really behind VAM
Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we've had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg's Leadership Academy and Eli Broad's Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such 'academies' accredited? What quality of leader needs a 'leadership academy'? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children's schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires."
Hedges' point about charters teaching corporate values isn't merely rhetorical. Let us recall the Eli Broad funded Green Dot Public [sic] Schools' original Alain Leroy Locke Charter High School petition contained language requiring students "demonstrate a belief in the value of capitalism." Professor Ralph Shaffer's exposé of the right wing reactionary American Indian Model Schools' requiring a "pledge to capitalism" is further testimony to the corporatization of pedagogy.
Another egregious example is when the plutocrat funded Celerity Charter CEO Vielka McFarlane [1] dismissed institutional racism by declaring children of color merely need to "dress for success..." rather than "focus on how the history of the country has been checkered."
I'd like to see if people could provide more examples. My goal is to compile a list of these types of corporate ideology being foisted upon today's students for a future essay. Sharon Higgens and Caroline Grannan have done an excellent job exposing the Gulen Movement's involvement in charter schools. I'm certain that solidaridad readers can contribute many more such tales of woe.
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[1] The selfsame McFarlane in collusion with the vile Ben Austin to seize McKinley ES in Compton using the callously named "parent trigger."
Comments on Hedges on Why the U. S. is Destroying Its Education System
An underdog with an array of billionaires, checkbooks at the ready, to fund its every move, and with the avid support of the president of the U.S., the governor of California, and so on? That really is an interesting new definition of "underdog."
This is a good piece, though there's one erroneous notion behind it: the assumption that Rose and Austin actually believe in the principles they extol. Both are paid spokesmen, mouthpieces, flacks. They extol whatever principles they're paid to extol. On that basis I even disagree with my co-blogger Robert Skeels here: "...[Skeels] believes that Austin is only pretending to show concern for students at underperforming schools, and that his primary concern is promoting the "privatization" of public schools. "
I would restate that: Austin's primary concern is promoting whatever he's paid to promote, and pretending to show concern for whatever he's paid to pretend to show concern for.
Ben Austin sat and talked. The air grew thin in the parent center as he went on and on about what “they” weren’t about. He apologized for his inflammatory remarks about Emerson. He said that any parent in his group who supported a separation of class and race was not welcome. I paraphrase. He was indignant at the thought. How offensive.
He could not tell me why Emerson was a failing school.
He could tell me that he would not stop his takeover attempts.
He would not answer a direct question.
Nayla gave me her card.
I graduated from Emerson in 1976. I teach there now. I look out of the tall Neutra window and see the light filtering in and the leaves of the elm tree outside. I think of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think of my students. We shall not not be moved.
Ben Austin's conivery doesn't surprize me. When he and I attended law school at Georgetown, he used tricks to inflate his grades. He got a doctor's not stating that he had a learning disability so that he would have longer to complete his exams. for one exam, he wrote in the voice of a black woman because the prof was a black woman teaching a class on race and gender issues.
It sickens me the type of raw sewage and the degree of ignorance that anthony spews from the sewer he calls a mouth. Austin is NOT a hero. As a former member of the SBE he had a chance to implement true reform and his only claim to fame is a move in which he has come to pull the emotional strings of the parents he has come to use as his puppets. Krinski must be truly evil or truly stupid to state what he has mentioned here for they reak of Kumbaya ignorance of the reality of education. Thank Goodness that Austin is out of SBE and he cannot do any more harm. He is a beast who will stop at nothing to destroy what little is left of education.
He has lied about what charter schools are expected and, lo and behold, Crecendo, a charter school was found to be cheating. Austin's Green Dot has an API much lower than that of McKinley, yet he claims to reform Mckinley? give me a break. The truth is that he attempted to preempt the reform plans that have been at the school for the past three years before they come to fruition. Of course, once QEIA proves to be a successful reform method the need for charter schools will be less.
THe truth is that Austin lied to the parents and used such lunatics in the media as Fernando Espuelas to push his evil antichild agenda. Once his lies were pointed out by the committed teachers of the school he proceeded to attempt to destroy the integrity of the most dedicated teachers at the school. How perverse! His flunkies the "parent" revolution, many of whom are paid to pose as parents in the schools they attempt to hijack, performed illegal activities such as threatening parents with deportation unless they sign the procharter waiver. Lying to parents claiming it was for beautification and painting the school, harrassing students. Yet, they shamefully come back and raise false testimony accusing the staff of doing exactly what they, PR, did! How shameful! Austin needs not be revered- he needs to be tried for libel and for treason!!!
By the way, the true reason why education is failing is not the teachers. It is that we have too many people without teaching credentials in positions of power. What the hell was Austin, who has no teaching credential doing as part of SBE? As long as jerks as Romero, Schwarzzeneger, Villaraigoza, Austin, Waltons, Gates, Rhee and Broad decide to leave education to the real educators, schools will continue to fail.
Consider this analogy, I know some neurology, but I am not a neurologist. What would happen if I were to be telling a brain surgeon how to operate on a prefrontal cortex? The patient would most likely die! Here we have hundreds of wealthy businessmen who have no teaching experience telling teachers how to do their job and pushing policies that run coutner to good teaching strategies. When their policies fail due to their ignorance, this fools are quick to blame the teacher. THey need to shut up and let teachers do their jobs.
@Gabe, unfortunately, I have met Ben. The description of Ben as, in your words, 'a greedy white trying to get rich,' is not far from the truth. Interesting how after working with the guy 'everyday' you would describe your dad, I mean your boss, in that manner. Truth is Gabe, your not very good at what you do--running corporate take-overs is a lot harder than playing politics at UCLA--after spending large sums of money on PR, what have you got to show for it? Oh yeah, a secure job.
Exactly why Ben Austin would not tell us WHY Emerson is a failing school. If test scores are only a part of the equation (as he said), then what makes us a failure?
The attack on our school is an attack on our kids and families. Our demographics shouldn't be in 90024. But hey, that can't be the issue because then you'd be a bigot, right? So label us a failure that doesn't do right by our students.
Parents have more opportunities to participate in our school governance and budget processes than most of the Charters and private schools I've seen. And there is no pay to play. We are grassroots, not astroturf. Caroline's stats say it all.
Michele
McKinley Elementary school has a very diverse population of teachers. Many of the teachers grew up in Compton. There are Hispanic, African American, white and Asian teachers. All of the teachers are fully credentialed by the state of California. It is a fairly young and very energetic staff. The teachers voluntarily participate in professional development with UCI Math and Science Project. Many teachers seek and pay for workshops to learn new strategies to help their students. The staff, as a whole, is currently working on becoming National Board Certified (this is a very difficult process and only fifty percent of teachers that apply are certified). Most of the teachers have masters degrees. There are teachers with masters in science, linguistics and education. There are several teachers who have a B-CLAD. The test scores have been rising and continue to rise. This year has been very difficult on the morale of the hardworking staff and the parents that support them. Parent Revolution has actively campaigned against this school and the teachers that work there. The teachers and parents at McKinley do not have the political and media connections to defend this assault. This is an emotionally violent attack on a school and is pitting parents against parents. I can’t imagine that the type of behavior exhibited by this organization (Parent Revolution) would be tolerated in a wealthy suburban community. All parents need to have a voice in their child’s education. The way this was done . . . no one will really every know what McKinley parents want. Some parents weren’t contacted at all. Some believed they were signing a document to help beautify the school or improve the school (not supplant the principal and staff). There are parents that want the charter school and everything that was promised with that charter school. We will never know.
Robert, I was really shocked when I looked up the statistics for Warner Ave. Elementary after seeing Ben Austin praise it as a school worth emulating, and I think its statistics deserve more of a spotlight, as they are so very revealing about Green Dot's ideals. Here I am comparing to LAUSD's statistics.
Latino students
Warner Ave. 5%
LAUSD 73.2%... Read More
Low-income students
Warner Ave. 2.4%
LAUSD 75.9%
English-language learners
Warner Ave. 6.2%
LAUSD 32.1%
African-American students
Warner Ave. 2.1%
LAUSD 10.7%
White students
Warner Ave. 73.6%
LAUSD 8.8%
Asian students
Warner Ave. 18.3%
LAUSD 3.7%
i’m a parent of two kids who attend/ed Emerson, and live two blocks from the school. The “Parent Revolution” employee who came to my door with a petition to have it turned into a charter school was a young, white man with light brown hair.
excellent article. spot on.
i particularly liked Caroline’s telling statistics and Lichen’s “The rich already have their “choice” of private schools–any further privatization just means that most students are caught up in bad, test-oriented schools, run like prisons , where the teachers get paid pennies, there is no pta or school board, or any other system answerable to democracy.”
Thanks, Robert the public needs to see this tallywhacker for what he really is. A chainsaw for schools.
I hope people will call and write their senators and congress people. Like Duncan, who never taught a blade of grass or Sharpton, who dropped out of Brooklyn Collge, or Gates wh dropped out of university, these men somehow know something about education teachers and students don’t. How could this be?
And the dung like Schwartzenegger who appoints these scurillous bums does so to shore up the charter school race to the slop.
Austin is as inauthetnic as the tests he promotes for students and without going into ad hominems, you make the case well as to why these baseless sycophants, who roam around schools in penny loafers are suffering from what can be only called MCD. Mad Curriculum Disease.
The oligarchs will not come out of their mothballed closets to talk to the public abut their privatization plans for LA schools and California — the plutocrats like philanthro-pirates, Gates, Walton, et. al. so they send out their rhetorical boyish looking prevaricators who wine and dine the corporate press with noble lies and pious frauds.
These people not only are vicious bodyguards for the denuding of education, their gun slinging rhetoric is anti-child, anti-teacher and anti-community.
Best to put them on Megan’s List as serial child molestors and not allow them to get within one hundred feet from a school or anywhere kids play.
In a decent society we wou ld perp walk these malignants to San Quentin but now that it is up for sale along with our schools and Austin and friends are bought, this seems unlikely.
Jerry Brown will have a ruthless educational landscape to dodge when he makes his bid for Governor but since he supports charter schools he should feel quite at home with Austin.
Thanks Robert
I've dedicated my life to providing those you condesendingly refer to as "poor parents" with the tools necessary for self determination and emancipation.
Here's some fun facts for you Anthony
According to the LA Time's mapping project
Ben Austin's neighborhood is 87.5% white and the median household income is $169,282.
Robert D. Skeels' neighborhood is 4.5% white and the median household income is $26,787
You should look up your neighborhood stats and post them here too Mr. Krinsky. I know West LA isn't as affluent as Benedict Canyon, but still.
http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/
According to Trulia
Ben Austin's house cost $1,210,000 (1.2 million dollars)
Robert D. Skeels' house cost $194,000 (a little less than Ben makes a year)
Did I mention Ben's neighborhood is 87.5% white?
Unlike Ben Austin and Gloria Romero, who get lavishly paid for increasing corporate charter-voucher school market share, all my work for Coalition of Educational Justice, Community for CRES14, and other organizations is strictly voluntary.
¡La lucha sigue!
Loved this part, "In other words, when he gets up in front of the school board and talks about "our schools," and "our kids, our communities, and our collective futures" [1] he's using a very rhetorical our."
We are trying to deal with these folks at Mark Twain MS in Venice/Mar Vista. The "Parent Revolution" claims it is not "targeting" our school, but if you check out the web site, you'll see that is a myth. Now that the parents and teachers are speaking, up, Ben Austin is getting a little irritated. This school is not "good enough" for kids of his other Green Dot buddies, and the revolution is on. They've collected over 1,000 signatures, but have admittedly never been to the school, met the teachers, or kids, yet send their reps out to all neighboring schools to explain what makes the place unacceptable for their kids. Too brown, too black? We're not sure, but we will defend our wonderfully diverse students and dedicated teachers as we confront this so called revolution.
Readers speak out on Ben Austin, Parent Revolution, and Green Dot Public Schools
Jacobin: No Friend of Immigrants
Truthout: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex's Role in Imposing Neoliberalism on Public Education
CounterPunch: Crackdown on Skid Row