Schools Matter: Yolie Flores Aguilar email colluding with charter school executives

First published on Schools Matter on February 20, 2017

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“PLEASE don’t forward this email. simply state it in your own words.”—Yolie Flores Aguilar

This email was addressed to some 60 individuals, including myself, on February 4, 2017. While its authenticity is not absolutely certain, I have researched the email addresses in the email body and they all seem legitimate. The content is consistent with the language that these charter school executives use both in public and internal conversations.

Yolie Flores Aguilar was an employee of the infamous Gates Foundation (of ALEC and Discovery Institute donation fame) while she sat on the LAUSD Board. She brought a resolution to give away new schools built with taxpayer dollars to privately managed charter school corporations.

Here Flores colludes with several well paid charter executives to avoid public mention that her resolution (inappropriately named Public [sic] School Choice) was essentially a real estate bonanza for the lucrative charter school sector. Marco Petruzzi and Ben Austin of Green Dot/Parent Revolution, Judy Burton of Alliance, Mike Piscal of ICEF are the big names in this secret missive. The lot of them have been plagued by scandals, but most of them are still profiting mightily from the charter industry.

Flores is currently running for U.S. Congress. If she's capable of this sort of duplicity and malfeasance while on a school board, imagine her in another position of power to further serve her corporate masters. Arch-reactionary Betsy DeVos would love to have more neoliberal Democrats that support her school privatization agenda of charters-vouchers. DeVos already has corporatists like Corey Booker in her thrall, Yolie Flores would be no different.

The second document should help authenticate this email chain. It's an email from Dr. Danny Weil with Yolie Flores Aguilar's <itsyolie@sbcglobal.net> email address in the to field. I recall she had a blog by the same name (i.e. "itsyolie"), and remember seeing emails from her from that address back in that era.

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Yolie Flores Aguilar email colluding with charter school executives by Robert D. Skeels on Scribd

Dr. Danny Weil email with Yolie Flores Aguilar's <itsyolie@sbcglobal.net> email address by Robert D. Skeels on Scribd

Schools Matter: Yolie Flores Aguilar email colluding with charter school executives

Stoner families to present petitions to ICEF Board to oppose proposed co-location at Stoner ES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Today Thursday, March 19 at 5 PM, parents of Stoner Elementary will be giving petitions to the ICEF Board at their monthly meeting to oppose the proposed co-location of ICEF Vista on the Stoner campus.

Over the past few weeks, Friend of Stoner Avenue Elementary conducted a petition signing and letter writing campaign to urge ICEF Vista to withdraw its co-location request for 2015/16.  Friends of Stoner will be presenting the petitions to the board and again asking ICEF to withdraw its co-location request.

*A PDF copy of the petitions is included with this press release.

WHAT: Friends of Stoner Elementary School booster club will be:

PRESENTING PETITIONS TO ICEF TO OPPOSE CO-LOCATION AT STONER 

WHEN: Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 5 PM
WHERE: ICEF Vista Main Office. Monthly Board Meeting.
5120 W. Goldleaf Circle, Suite 350, Los Angeles, CA 90056

_________________

ICEF Vista Elementary, a neighboring school that is currently located two blocks from Stoner on the campus of the defunct St. Gerard Majella Elementary School, has requested co-location space at Stoner.  To many people in the neighborhood, ICEF is seen as ‘the school at the church’ and many ICEF families take pride that their school provides benefit to the local parish.  However, ICEF wants to expand and that means leaving the church grounds. Part of ICEF’s expansion plan includes co-locating at another campus to open up space at the St. Gerard campus.

ICEF is “stealing from Peter to Give to Paul”

Stoner ES parents are outraged to learn that ICEF Vista’s plan to co-locate would to take set aside rooms that are used for music, art, parents center, and computer lab at Stoner so that ICEF can open up space on the St. Gerard campus to have room for an art room, parents center and computer lab.  ICEF is literally taking away resources from Stoner ES to give those same resources to the ‘school at the church.’

Stoner community collecting petition signatures

The Stoner parents are have been collecting signatures and handing out information in front of Stoner ES and ICEF Vista opposing the proposed co-location.  To the Stoner parent’s surprise, there are many in the ICEF community that are opposed to the co-location for various reasons and signed the petition opposing the co-location.

Some ICEF parents see the co-location as just flat out wrong.  Other stated that the reason they are at ICEF is they don’t want to be at Stoner. So, sending their child to the Stoner campus doesn’t make sense to them. Parents from outside the area said they would not be happy driving their children to a school across from the Mar Vista Gardens housing  projects, and would rather enroll their child at another school.

With opposition coming from both the Stoner community and the ICEF community, it is surprising that ICEF wants to continue down this path.

Co-location Protest at ICEF, more planned

The Stoner community is furious about the co-location and is working hard to oppose it. Last week, on March 10, Stoner parents held a protest in front of ICEF to oppose the co-location.  ICEF parents were present at the protest and were asking for a better school for their children. If the Stoner community is working this hard to oppose the co-location, and it hasn’t even happened yet, image how the opposition will be if the co-location happens.

If the co-location happens, the Stoner community has vowed to have protests against the co-location for the entire first week of school, and to have more protest throughout the year.

ICEF Facebook Bombarded with 1 star reviews

The co-location is also being opposed online. Stoner supporters have taken to the ICEF Facebook page to oppose the co-location. Supporters have bombarded the review section with comments opposing the co-location and 1 star reviews, bringing the previously 5 star rating down to 3 stars.

Stoner community documenting co-location woes

            The Stoner community is also online document the co-location struggle on the blogAdventures in Charter School Co-location available at http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/  Since the announcement of the ICEF co-location the blog has started to received hundreds of hits a day.

Petitions opposing co-location to ICEF board

Today, the Friends of Stoner booster club will present the 100 letters and signed petitions to the ICEF board and once again ask them to withdraw their co-location request. The petitions have been signed by members the Stoner community, ICEF community and local Del Rey community. A PDF copy of the petitions is included with this press release.

Media is invited to attend.
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WHAT DO WE WANT:

            The Stoner parents are requesting that ICEF Vista to withdraw it co-location request for space on the Stoner ES campus.

Adam C. Benitez
President, Friends of Stoner Avenue Elementary School

www.friendsofstoner.org 

Stoner families to present petitions to ICEF Board to oppose proposed co-location at Stoner ES

Schools Matter: When Capricious Young says no experience required, she requires no experience

"We are told that this 'reform' alliance of everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the Walton family to leading hedge funders spends huge amounts of money pushing for radical changes to public schools because they suddenly decided that they care about destitute children, and now want to see all kids get a great education." — David Sirota


In Los Angeles, nobody has been more adept at stuffing public money into their pockets via charter-voucher sector windfalls than Caprice Young. Her early career showed a trajectory of opportunism and greed that would place her in ever more lucrative positions as time progressed.

In my new Schools Matter article When Capricious Young says no experience required, she requires no experience I trace her nefarious career in which she has worked for people ranging from the racist, bigoted, anti-immigrant nativist Steve Poizner to the predatory capitalist and junk bond felon Michael Milken. We also see how she and her husband have both cashed in at the public's expense at the charter-voucher cash cow. Most importantly, we feature an informative letter from a reader who explores Young's newest hustle — EnCorps, Inc. — an odious organization designed to deprofessionalize teaching.

Published 2011-10-01 on Schools Matter, please read it there and share widely.

Schools Matter: When Capricious Young says no experience required, she requires no experience

Schools Matter: A match made in privatization purgatory? Capricious Young and A.J. Duffy!

"Improving education is not the goal. Privatization is the goal... Private interests are just that – private." — Bruce A. Dixon (Managing Editor, "Black Agenda Report")


I recently posted a short essay on political opportunist and public education turncoat A.J. Duffy jumping on the privatization bandwagon. In that essay I mentioned how the Los Angeles Times was using the episode to push their vile privatization agenda via an odious editorial. Right on the heels of the Times' gleeful hit-piece, expounding on their love for all forms of corporate rule, they gave Duffy's newfound partner in poverty pimping, Caprice "Capricious" Young, a platform to further pimp privatization. Young, an unelected board member of Duffy's lucrative foray into the privatization pool was quick to lay on the corporate charter spin. My Schools Matter essay entitled: A match made in privatization purgatory? Capricious Young and A.J. Duffy! looks at Duffy's newfound neoliberal colaborator. Remember Caprice Young is a devil. For a reminder see her endorsement on the back cover of this book on union busting and community exclusion.

Published 2011-09-07 on Schools Matter, please read it there and share widely.

Schools Matter: A match made in privatization purgatory? Capricious Young and A.J. Duffy!

Schools Matter: Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie

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


In Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie I take the Valerie Strauss piece discussing where and how funds from the arch-reactionaries of the Walton Family Foundation were divvied out to various entities engaged in the privatization of public education, and put the spotlight on egregious local offenders.

The list includes: Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union), Green Dot Public Schools, California Charter Schools Association, and Inner City Education Foundtion.

My favorite quote:

[C]orporate charter chain Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (CNCA), which claims that it wants its students to become "agents of social justice with sensitivity toward the world around them" is on this list. Camino Nuevo Elementary School #3 got $250,000 from the right wing extremists at the Walton Family Foundation who also fund anti-gay, anti-female, anti-union, and a host of other reactionary causes and organizations. Seems to me that you can't teach the principles of social justice if you're taking money from organizations whose entire purpose is to perpetuate and exacerbate injustice.

Published on Schools Matter, please read it there and share widely.

Schools Matter: Los Angeles privatization pushers take second biggest slice of reactionary Walton pie

ICEF Crooks to get gobbled up by competing Corporate Charter Chain

"The education industry represents, in our opinion, the final frontier of a number of sectors once under public control... represents the largest market opportunity... the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada." — Montgomery Securities prospectus quoted in Jonathan Kozol's "The Big Enchilada"


Howard Blume details how the filthy rich Judy Burton and Antony Ressler's corporate behemoth Alliance is on the verge of gobbling up beleaguered ICEF in Merger of 2 organizations would create California's largest charter school operation

No surprises there. That's what corporations do when they see their competitors floundering, they merge (a euphemism), moving closer towards monopoly status, and everyone except for the wealthy CMO executives and their vendors loose out.

Los Angeles' communities and taxpayers have but one question. "Where's the money Mike Piscal?" "Where did it all go?" ICEF's criminal squandering of millions of dollars makes the bureaucrat bullies of Beaudry look positively on the level. There needs to be a serious investigation of Piscal and his conies to see if funds were misappropriated.

I am a little surprised that Riorden and the poverty pimping plutocrats didn't give the CORO princess of of privatization, Caprice Young, more time to salvage ICEF's completely tarnished reputation. For years the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate and the charter-voucher sycophants in the corporate media held ICEF up as one of the "models" public schools should seek to emulate. LAUSD is no stranger to fiscal mismanagement either, but I hope they don't follow ICEF's dubious accounting strategies. In LAUSD's case, at least we get to vote on their board, we don't get to vote for the vile hedge fund managers running Alliance or ICEF's boards. The list of Charter School Scandals increases exponentially by the day, but no one wants to discuss the elephant in the room outside of community activists, parents and schoolteachers.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but are privately operated by unelected boards, typically by corporations. Charters are free from nearly any rules or regulations and only have their charters revoked on the rare occasions they're exposed in the media. State Senator Liu's SB 433, which would require charters to follow public school rules in regard to suspension and expulsion of pupils, could go some way towards changing that.

ICEF Crooks to get gobbled up by competing Corporate Charter Chain