Open Letter to DFER's Gloria Romero regarding her recent reactionary letter to the AFT

I think about former Senator Gloria Romero comparing Compton educators to "batterers" and wondered whether the writers of those words ever stop to think about the consequences of their prose. — Martha Infante

Photo by Mark Warner (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sen. Romero:

Here are some questions I'd like to ask you for an upcoming Schools Matter article I'm writing regarding your recent letter to the AFT:

Why did you find the AFT slide show offensive?

Why does the Parent Empowerment Act only contain the punitive portions of NCLB? Why nothing to help existing schools improve? Why nothing that would actually empower parents?

You mention "bake sales," in reference to supposed parental power at public schools. Are you aware that charter corporations have nothing like Governing School Councils, School Site Councils, or Governing boards like Pilot, Traditional, and ESBMM schools have. Why no efforts to increase the existing decision making power parents have in those venues, and why don't you advocate for charter schools to provide similar mechanisms for their disenfranchised parents?

You authored SB-191 and SB-592 on behalf of the deep pocketed trade group California Charter School Association. No apologies for helping the CCSA increase market share and the already considerable wealth of their executives? Any explanation from Democrats for Education Reform as to how privatizing schools empowers parents or communities?

Lastly, what's to stop cynical charter-voucher proxy groups like Parent Revolution from using the "trigger" law to increase charter school market share? Also, were you aware that Ben Austin broke the law when he lobbied at the State Board of Education? Did you know he received a letter of admonishment for his illegal activities? There's a copy of the letter in this article: "Parent" Trigger co-author Austin knew he was breaking laws while he lobbied the California State Board of Education.

I appreciate your prompt response to my questions

Advocating public education and social justice

Robert D. Skeels

Open Letter to DFER's Gloria Romero regarding her recent reactionary letter to the AFT

EchoParkPatch: Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again?

"[Camino Nuevo Charter Academy Corporation]'s board is UNELECTED by the public and composed exclusively of investment management executives, high powered lawyers, and other wealthy business types. Not one of them is an actual educator, and none of them have been teachers or principals in a K-12 setting. Furthermore, not one of them lives in Echo Park or Historic Filipinotown." — Robert D. Skeels


Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again? is my report back from the final meeting held by Camino Nuevo Charter Corporation at Union Avenue School reveals very serious resume padding for Shannon Leonard, CNCA's new Principal of CRES #14. Most importantly we photographed a slide featuring Shannon Leonard's "credentials." The last line mentioning he was a "Professor at LMU's School of Education" is wholly untrue as per officials at Loyola Marymount University's School of Education. Turns out that claim was an out and out lie. If CNCA Corporation can't be honest about things like that, what can they be honest about?

Published on EchoParkPatch, please read it there and share widely.

EchoParkPatch: Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again?

Update on the veracity of McKinley Parents for Change

"We want to keep McKinley open under new management (Celerity Educational Group)." — Parent Revolution's Gabe Rose posing as McKinley Parents for Change


The bottom of the McKinley Parents for Change flyer states "You can also call 310 866 2118 to have your questions answered." Considering the certainty and conviction of the bullet points on the flyer by this newly formed, pro-Celerity "parent" group, supposedly wholly unrelated to the well paid professional staffers at the billionaire financed Parent Revolution, I figured my questions and concerns would be promptly addressed.

I left a message with my name and number for McKinley Parents for Change last night, and lo and behold Parent Revolution returned my call this morning. Yuri (not sure if I'm spelling that right, my apologies if I'm not) must not be aware of my years of investigative journalism exposing the insatiable greed of the lucrative charter-voucher industry. The poor woman couldn't answer any of my questions about Celerity's lack of compliance with the Modified Consent Decree or the State Board of Education's proposed regulations on their Corporate Charter Trigger Law, so she said she'd have Gabe Rose call me back to clarify.

She also was very helpful and explained to me that Gabe Rose played a major role in the creation of the flyer (who would have guessed), so he was the best person to explain it. So much for McKinley Parents for Change's claim that they are parents at McKinley Elementary School. I somehow doubt I'll receive that second phone call.

By definition Astroturf.

---

It's Yuritzy "Yuri" Anaya.

Update on the veracity of McKinley Parents for Change

Excerpts from "What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report"

"[T]here should be no education marketplace." — Diane Ravitch (celebrated education professor and author)


Here are important excerpts from William J. Mathis' brilliant essay:

Federal and state policymakers continue to embrace reforms that have little positive effect (if not downright negative effects) while ignoring reforms that make a difference. Buried within the PISA report is an analysis of educational systems that registered high test scores. Here are some of the less-reported findings:.

• The best performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all children.
• Students from low socio-economic backgrounds score a year behind their more affluent classmates. However, poorer students who are integrated with their more affluent classmates score strikingly higher. The difference is worth more than a year's education.
• In schools where students are required to repeat grades (such as with promotion requirements), the test scores are lower and the achievement gap is larger.
• Tracking students ("ability grouping") results in the gap becoming wider. The earlier the practice begins, the greater the gap. Poor children are more frequently shunted into the lower tracks.
• Systems that transfer weak or disruptive students score lower on tests and on equity. One-third of the differences in national performance can be ascribed to this one factor.
• Schools that have autonomy over curriculum, finances and assessment score higher.
• Schools that compete for students (vouchers, charters, etc.) show no achievement score advantage.
• Private schools do no better once family wealth factors are considered.
• Students that attended pre-school score higher, even after more than 10 years.

As OECD Paris-based official Michael Davidson said in National Public Radio comments, "One of the striking things is the impact of social background on (U.S.) success."

Twenty percent of U.S. performance was attributed to social background, which is far higher than in other nations. Davidson went on to point out that the United States just does not distribute financial resources or quality teachers equally. In a related finding, students from single-parent homes score much lower in the United States than they do in other countries. The 23-point difference is almost a year's lack of growth.

All emphasis mine. Read the whole article: What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report

Excerpts from "What international test scores really tell us: Lessons buried in PISA report"

How corporate school reform proxies treat students -- neoliberalism requires violent enforcement

[click if you can't view this video]

How corporate school reform proxies treat students -- neoliberalism requires violent enforcement

Mayor Villaraigosa, can you be honest for once? Please?

"Soviet style elections" — Ben Austin in response to parents and communities choosing community school plans over corporate charters.


In response to the Mayor's latest school privatization diatribe in which he lionizes teabagger Michelle Rhee and praises the underhanded tactics of his good friend Ben Austin.

Mayor Villaraigosa:

As of Spring 2010 Green Dot's average API 657, Compton's McKinley 684. Who determines failing schools? Oh yeah, the foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon (aka CEO of Parent Revolution).

Mayor, we know Eli Broad's money is critical for your political future, but could you please stop the constant dishonesty? The trigger law was leveraged into the State legislature by the biggest enemies of parental and community control there are -- Ben Austin of LAPU/PR and Gloria Romero of DFER. Please Mayor, tell us how much power parents have over the unelected, secretive, private boards of charter-voucher schools?

We also understand that Ben's wife, Tracy Austin of Austin Egoscue Development (whose office is conveniently a block or two from Eli's headquarters) is your primary Fundraising Consultant.

http://austinegoscue.com/clients

Mayor, your long history of malfeasance and collusion in conjunction with Ben Austin in order to capture market share for your CCSA allies is well documented:

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_13185224

In other words, you're not fooling anyone.

Instead of constantly serving the interests of the well heeled charter-voucher industry, could you just once listen to the community and what we want? We want public schools run by our communities, not privatized schools run by the CMO/EMO plutocrats.

Mayor Villaraigosa, can you be honest for once? Please?

Charter Charlatans Caught Cheating in Compton!

"We are giving away our schools and now we want to get rid of transparency... so we can do whatever we want in the dark of night." — Marguerite P. LaMotte in response to Yolie Flores Corporate Charter Choice Resolution


Wow! A sudden lapse in the normally dishonest dominant discourse by the charter-voucher sector sycophantic Los Angeles press? Effort to convert Compton school to charter draws fire.

The mendaciousness of the wealthy Ben Austin and his junta of school privatization drones including Gabe Rose, Pat DeTemple, Shirley Ford, and Mary Najera is legendary. While I was researching my first article on LAPU/Parent Revolution's foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon, I had parents from Garfield HS tell me that Mary Najera used to go monolingual Spanish church services with English petitions and tell them to sign the petition if they wanted their children to go to college. Of course, there's also the well documented incidents of shameful class and race-baiting discussed in Code Words and Green Dot’s Pandering to Westside Racism. It doesn't take much to understand that the Gates and Walton Foundation funded "Parent" Revolution are still employing such deceptive and deplorable tactics.

The entire network of charter-voucher front groups for the CCSA and DFER, which are a collection of astro-turf 501c3s including Families in Schools, Alliance for a Better Community, Families That Can, and first and foremost — Parent Revolution (née LAPU), are a despicable collection of liars and thieves.

I want to commend Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe for having the courage to write this article given Russ Stanton's editorial policy of non-stop charter-voucher industry cheerleading.

Charter Charlatans Caught Cheating in Compton!

DFER Reactionary Gloria Romero Jumps on the Hostile Takeover Bandwagon in Compton

Barr's parent organization gave... a grass-roots visual... And his paid staffers hit the right rhetorical notes... while identifying themselves to reporters and officials only as parents. — Howard Blume (Los Angeles Times)


Here's my comments on Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe's latest glowing, gushing piece on everyone's favorite corporate school privatizers.

Good to see the reactionary pro-corporate Gloria Romero side with of parents that signed the petition and utterly ignore the wishes of parents and community members that opposed it. Why did you want to "prevent opposition" Senator? Is it because giving the parents all the facts and multiple choices instead of a hand picked single choice would have prevented the well heeled Vielka McFarlane from increasing her market share? Or is it that you and your fellow wealthy elitist Ben Austin felt those parents weren't capable of making informed decisions outside of those you already made for them?

Can't wait to see the DFER 990 filing to see how well Romero is compensated for her loyal devotion to the lucrative corporate charter-voucher industry.

One thing Austin, Romero, Barr, and Schwarzenegger don't mention is that their petitions can legally contain parents who won't send their children to the school including: parents sending their kids to parochial schools and parents that will move before their kids attend a school. They also don't bring up the fact that community members (ie. taxpayers that finance the school) have no voice in the corporate trigger process. In other words, a tiny minority of the 'stakeholders' have sway over the process. How convenient for the well financed proxies of the charter-voucher sector, like Parent Revolution, are able to use this carefully crafted legislation to subvert any semblance of democratic processes. That's how corporate America rolls, right?

Lastly, I'm hope all the McKinley parents with special needs children will be sure to thank Ismenia Guzman for essentially casting their children to the curb. Given the dearth of Celerity's special education capacity, that future Guzman speaks of will be quite grim for the neediest children of all. But charter-voucher supporter don't care about 'those' kids. Greedy, heartless, and selfish doesn't begin to describe...

With less than 1/5 of CMO/EMOs outperforming average public schools, you've got to wonder why all the "free market" kooks support them. How does railing against "big government" schools explain the fact that 83% of public schools are better than charter-voucher schools. Further, unlike charters, public schools are required to educate every child, and they still outperform their privatized counterparts. Sadly these charters eschew responsibility to special needs children for no other reason than it cuts into profitability. That's a coup de grace argument against the private sector, but corporate charter supporters ignore the facts for of one of two reasons.

There's a camp getting obscenely wealthy from charter bubble. charter CEOs are making whopping six figure salaries, and others are scoring big too. Real estate and vendor contracts are so lucrative that the hedge fund parasites and even the big dogs like Goldman Sachs and Tilson Funds are in on the action.

Then there's a camp ideologically wedded to privatization despite the overwhelming evidence it doesn't work. While this includes extremist right wing think tanks like Cato, AEI, and Hoover, it also includes so-called philanthropists manipulating behind the scenes. Unfortunately this camp hasn't figured out that Galt and Rourke are fictional characters from a depraved woman's mind.

DFER Reactionary Gloria Romero Jumps on the Hostile Takeover Bandwagon in Compton

Vielka McFarlane and Ben Austin orchestrate hostile takeover in Compton

"We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success..." — historical revisionist and Celerity CEO Vielka McFarlane on why she insists on hiding the history of Emmett Till's brutal murder at the hands of white supremacists.


First read Teresa Watanabe and Howard Blume's obsequious homage to the corporate school privatizers in this story. Here's my quick response:

Big news! Ben Austin helps the wealthy Vielka McFarlane, owner of the Celerity corporate charter-voucher chain, increase her market share and revenue stream. Too bad for the community. For anyone deluded enough think that Ben Austin cares about anyone's kids, try taking a look at Part VII of his 501c3's 990 form.

Austin's quote about transferring power to the parents is laughable considering that parents are POWERLESS over CMO charters -- maybe the parents should have asked how much decision making power they would have once the school was seized by McFarlane and her board. Of course, Austin never addresses those questions. Remember when Austin and his privatization junta hid cowardly while parents from his previous parent organization were cast to the curb when Marco Petruzzi shut down Animo Justice by fiat declaration? Was that a "unapologetic transfer of raw power?" The community, on the other hand, protested the gross injustice at the hands of the corporate charter-voucher sector's elite executives.

Give Austin some credit, for a guy on the corporate payroll, he sure finds creative ways to co-opt the language of struggle. A "revolution" funded by Wal-Mart and Microsoft? Please!

Wait until McFarlane and company start pushing out children impacting their inflated API scores like they have in all their other schools. Sorry, but if a school takes public funds, it should be OBLIGATED TO EDUCATE EVERY CHILD.

Today we've seen yet another "unapologetic transfer of" public funds into private hands.

Vielka McFarlane and Ben Austin orchestrate hostile takeover in Compton

Rhee, the Evil Princess of Privatization on Teabagger Transition Team

Right wing reactionary Michelle Rhee is finally working with her own ilk — the racist Teabaggers! Corporate darling Rhee, along with a host of other far right ideologues will work on teabagger-white supremacist favorite Florida Governor-Elect Rick Scott's transition team.

That Rhee was immediately picked to head the education transition team of a teabagger/tea party politician should come as no surprise. Her ability to put the needs of corporations before communities, to call hard working people "special interests," and to make conditions favorable for the get rich quick schemesters in the charter-voucher sector fit right in with the reactionary, market driven, racist teabagging world view.

In this regard so-called edreformers like Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Gloria Romero, and Eric Lee hold a ton of common ground with the teabaggers. Check out this piece on David Harmer Tea Party Frontrunner: Abolish Public Schools. No surprise that the teabaggers hold the exact same principles as the hedge fund founded DFER does for education: markets, choice, competition, etc. What is it that Ben Austin always says? "We'll make schools great by forcing them to compete?" Good to know Ben Austin and David Harmer share 18th century values. I thought Harmer was channeling Austin when he said: "In this quintessentially American approach, free people acting in a free market found a variety of ways to pay for a variety of schools serving a variety of students"

Here's the Evil Princess of Privatization's recent appearance on The Steven Colbert Show.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Michelle Rhee
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

[Click if you can't view the video]

Ms. Rhee gets one thing partially right. American schools were better during the 1950's, but let's look at some of the "inconvenient truths" the corporate edreform crowd leaves out. What was the state of infrastructure of all the other leading industrial nations Rhee refers to in the 1950's? Hint, there was a world war a few years prior. Here are two more questions to ask smug Harvard graduates and TFA alumni: what was the corporate tax rate during the 1950's? What was the tax percentage on the wealthiest Americans during the Eisenhower administration? Answer those questions, and you come to the only cogent explanation for the decline in public education, which as Dr. Stephen Krashen always puts it: "The Problem is Poverty."

Rhee, the Evil Princess of Privatization on Teabagger Transition Team

Governor Elect Brown: Please remove Ben Austin from the State Board of Education

Dear Governor Elect Brown:

One of the first things you can do to help the people of our beleaguered California is help restore balance to the State Board of Education. Please consider removing recent appointees Ben Austin and Alan Arkatov, both of whom are employed by the charter-voucher school sector, and neither of which have any substantial background in education.

The distinguished Ralph Shaffer, Professor Emeritus, History at Cal Poly Pomona, makes a cogent case for a generalized reason why these appointees should be denied:

We need to remove the monopoly grip charter schools have on the state board of education. There’s probably no more powerful, and certainly no more successful, lobby in California than that which promotes the interests of charter schools. Consider the biographies of those currently serving on the state board. Four of the nine are deeply involved in charters. That’s why they are on the board. The governor has just appointed two more charter advocates – one of whom has been the head cheerleader for the most powerful charter school corporation in the state, if not the county. Charters have no more than 5% of California’s students, yet with these appointments they will have a lock hold on the board. Who will speak for the overwhelming majority of our students, the 95% of our kids that the state board is slighting with its rush to expand charters, who already are draining the state education budget to the tune of a billion dollars a year.

We need a State Board of Education that represents the people of California, not an exclusive club of wealthy executives that operates essentially as an extension of the California Charter School Association. The lucrative charter-voucher industry has too many ways it can manipulate and game the system as it is. They shouldn't hold the State Board of Education hostage as well. For too long have corporations held all the reins of power in California, this is an opportunity to give some power back to the people.


Advocating Public Education

Robert D. Skeels

Governor Elect Brown: Please remove Ben Austin from the State Board of Education