Barack Obama has far exceeded George Bush in corporatization of education in the United States. — Glen Ford
Master dialectician Glen Ford's speech "Corporate Assault on Public Education" draws out all of the historical and material conditions that have created the current crop of African Americans who serve the most reactionary sectors of the corporate education cabal. His peerless voice matched with his uncanny ability to narrate compelling facts like Cory Booker's deep ties to the arch-reactionary The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation make for a powerful and informative speech. This is required viewing for every social justice advocate engaged in the desperate struggle to keep the remaining public commons out of the clutches of corporate coffers.
In the space of less than 20 years, the public school privatization movement has emerged from the narrow, right wing fringes to dominate both major political parties. From vouchers to school choice to charter schools, the issue has divided even Black Americans, who were once public education's most fervent supporters. Glen Ford explains how this came about by wealthy individuals buying black politicians and promoting their careers, particularly Corey Booker.
Glen Ford is a veteran of more than 40 years in broadcast, print and Internet journalism. A former Washington Bureau Chief and White House, Capitol Hill, and State Department correspondent, he is currently Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report (BlackAgendaReport.com), a weekly magazine of news, commentary and analysis from the Black Left. Along with co-host Nellie Hester Bailey, Ford hosts and produces the weekly, one-hour Black Agenda Radio program on the Progressive Radio Network.
Sponsored by LifeLines and Peace and Justice Task Force of All Souls Church. Event May 9, 2012 Camera, sound Joe Friendly
Several people sent me a video of Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report skewering Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, and Howard Fuller of Black Alliance for Educational Options as sell-outs for a rightwing agenda. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPACwRgw04
I must say there was nothing in the video that surprised me. Back in the late 1990s, when I was involved in three different conservative organizations, there was a concerted effort to find and promote black advocates for choice. The leaders on the right wanted to promote charters as a boon to minorities and the poor. The pitch was, "We are saving poor kids from failing schools." After all, they couldn't very well go to state capitols and say, "Please pass charter legislation so that we can get government off our backs." Or, "please pass charter legislation because we can't get vouchers."
So the strategists on the right devised a clever campaign that was irresistible to liberals and conservatives alike: Create privately-managed schools to save poor black and Hispanic kids. Republicans would like the privatization aspect and liberals would fall for the "save poor minorities" part.
It worked.
Glen Ford, Bruce Dixon, and all the other contributors to Black Agenda Report have consistently been the most principled and acerbic critics of the corporate education reform agenda. Please donate to their site to keep it going, and share their site far and wide.
Glen Ford: Corporate Assault on Public Education + Dr. Ravitch's Comments
Waiting for "Superman" would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great public schools. — Grassroots Education Movement
Today Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) announced their landmark picture released last year, "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman," was now available online. Don't forget to visit the website for a wealth of resources to accompany the film, like a brochure for showings.
This is such an important film. It speaks truth to power on so many levels. Moreover it dismantles the disgusting right-wing charter-voucher propaganda piece by the slick mendacious hipster Davis Guggenheim. His dishonest, despicable and duplicitous film was probably the most pernicious documentary since Birth of a Nation.
I've organized screenings of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman" at Union Avenue ES and Micheltorena ES, the former with guest Professor Stephen Krashen. Parents and community members at both showings were transformed watching the film.
I for one realize how much hard work GEM put into the film. They provided a great gift for all of us that still believe in social justice and public education. Please share this film with everyone you know. Discuss it. Create school projects based on it. Write about it. Do everything you can to get the truth, however inconvenient, about corporate reforms and charter-voucher schools into the mainstream dialog.
La lucha para escuelas publicas y liberación para el todos gentes continua. En solidaridad.
'The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman' now available online
Unprecedented attacks call
for unprecedented resistance. Superintendant John Deasy, School Board
President Monica Garcia, and other “leaders” are rolling back the
HUMAN RIGHT to Adult Education, with plans to summarily shut down
programs that serve over 300,000 students—27% of LAUSD’s total
population. They stand to save a meager 2% of the budget with these
cuts, while they spend 12%—$793 million—on unspecified “Other
Operating Expenses”.
On Saturday, students,
teachers and community members will go on the offensive by offering a
vibrant, bustling Community Fair to SAVE ALL OUR SCHOOLS. There will
be a wide array of speakers to share all that Adult Ed means for
millions of people. Special booths will allow attendees to record
their Stories with a folklorist, create arts and crafts, and get
informed and involved with the many facets of Adult Ed. A Family
Literacy Coordinator will conduct Family Story Time for children and
their caretakers. There will be music, and even a mass Zumba! Class,
because healthy minds and healthy bodies go hand-in-hand.
Ataques
sin precedentes llaman a medidas extraordinarias. El Superintendente
John Deasy, presidenta del consejo escolar Mónica García, y otros
“lideres” crean un revés al DERECHO HUMANO a la educación
adulta, con planes de eliminar en forma sumaria programas que prestan
servicios a más de 300,000 alumnos – 27% del total de la población
de LAUSD. Su postura es eliminar con estos recortes una cifra magra
de un 2 % del presupuesto total, mientras gastan un 12 % -793
millones – En “Otros Gastos de Operación” no detallados.
Este
sábado miembros de la comunidad, alumnos y profesores lanzaran una
ofensiva al ofrecer un vibrante y animado evento comunitario para
SALVAR NUESTRAS ESCUELAS. Habrá una amplia gama de oradores
quienes compartirán lo que representa la educación para adultos
para millones de personas. Puestos especiales permitirán a los
presentes grabar sus cuentos con un folklorista, crear artesanías,
informase e involucrase con los distintos aspectos de la educación
adulta. Un coordinador de alfabetización realizara un tiempo de
lectura familiar para niños y sus cuidadores. ¡Habrá música e
incluso una clase masiva de ZUMBA! Porque cuerpos sanos y mente
sanas van de la mano.
Save LAUSD Adult Education Community Fair May 12, 2012
Want to see the schoolboard member most responsible for privatization and cuts to services crucial to immigrant and impoverished families get her own personal pink slip? All it will take is FIFTEEN of your Dollars, FIFTEEN Hours of your time, and for you to Tell FIFTEEN of your Friends.
Of course we won't be mad if you add a zero or two to that figure, but we'll take what we can get. It costs money to print petitions, and we don't have any "big funders" like Mónica García does. Donate now at recallmonicagarcia.com. If you want to donate offline, we can do that too.
We need volunteers to collect signatures, help organize, and a host of other tasks. If you are a registered voter, we'd love to have you circulate the recall petitions. We have a bunch of jobs that need community members driven by their pasion to restore School Readiness Language Development Program (SRLDP), Early Education Centers (EEC), Elementary Arts, and the Division of Adult and Career Education (DACE). Sign up as a volunteer at recallmonicagarcia.com
Share the recall website recallmonicagarcia.com, our facebook page, and our twitter account. Talk to your friends, colleagues, and family members. If you're an activist or educator in District 2, let parents know that people are fighting back against the budget cuts and privatization. The more people we can get to give 15, 15, and 15, the better chance we have of successfully recalling the Board President.
This campaign is about sending a clear message!
The recall campaign isn't about García as an individual. Instead it's a repudiation against budget priorities and policies that are not in line with our community. All of the LAUSD Trustees need to know that they will be held accountable for decisions that are harmful to the ninety-nine percent. We want LAUSD to answer to every nieghborhood, not just 10900 Wilshire Boulevard!
Want to see Mónica García's 15 Minutes of Infamy come to an end?
Help fight ALEC! You may have been reading about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) lately because this group wrote the controversial Florida "Stand Your Ground" law involved in the Trayvon Martin case. They were also behind the union-busting and voter ID laws in Wisconsin.
ALEC is a secretive business-backed group that writes conservative legislation and then spreads it rapidly across the nation with the help of wealthy individual and corporate sponsors.
PAA warned parents a year ago about ALEC's education initiatives, which include promoting the "parent trigger," vouchers, and virtual learning.
Now ALEC is being exposed nationwide and many of its sponsors are fleeing the wreckage. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Kraft have already jumped ship. McDonald's pulled out yesterday as a result of organized pressure. Bill Gates has said he will not renew his current support for ALEC's online education and teacher merit pay initiatives.
Help turn up the heat on other ALEC funders and put an end to their ramrodding bad laws through states before the people even know what's happening. Sign this petition asking AT&T, State Farm, and Johnson & Johnson to stop funding ALEC. Thanks!
Parents Across America Action Alert: Help fight ALEC!
She has failed to listen to our voices, the students, and she refuses to see any of us to hear our stories. — Mary Ann Reyes
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 saw nearly three dozen parents, students, and activists hold a press conference in front of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board Room announcing the start of an official recall campaign for LAUSD Board of Education President Mónica García.
Speakers announced Ms. García had been served with a Notice of Intent to Recall on April 7, 2012, and the City Clerk of Los Angeles was provided appropriate papers as part of the protocols for recall. While Ms. García's privatization policies and wrongheaded budget priorities have long been an anathema to social justice activists, the recall proponents cited Ms. García's recent unconscionable cuts to critical programs including School Readiness Language Development Program, Early Education Centers, Elementary Arts, and Adult Education, while the district holds over $700 million in reserve as the final straw. The text of the Notice of Intent follows:
NOTICE OF INTENT TO RECALL MÓNICA GARCÍA, DISTRICT 2 TRUSTEE, LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Vera Padilla, Maryanne Reyes, José Lara, Ken Montenegro, Robert D. Skeels
STATEMENT OF REASONS
Mónica García has consistently ignored the voices and needs of our parents, students and communities, employing repression to stifle legitimate dissent. Under García's leadership, tens of thousands of teachers, librarians, and health and human service employees have been subjected to reduction in force notices. While some of these educators have been rehired, the net effect has been teacher demoralization; a disincentive to enter the teaching profession; a disruption and marginalization of impoverished schools; and arguably illegal classroom overcrowding. Under García's watch, hundreds of millions of dollars in LAUSD properties and resources have been given to privately managed charter school corporations, systematically starving public schools of resources. García has overseen several destructive school reconstitutions and closures, despite warnings from scholars that such drastic “reforms” do nothing to improve outcomes. García has been a party to handing public schools over to charter corporations which are documented to perform worse than the schools they replaced. The hallmark of García's tenure has been hundreds of millions of dollars squandered on unnecessary tests, consultants, and questionable hiring priorities. This budget mismanagement has led to the current situation where programs critical to poor and immigrant families including: The School Readiness Language Development Program, Early Education Centers, Elementary Arts, and Adult Education have been cut, while the District holds $700 million in reserve. Under García, LAUSD has taken Federal Title I and Title III funds (supporting low-income students and English Language Learners respectively) away from school sites. We believe García’s abysmal failure to address the needs of LAUSD District 2 stakeholders leaves us no option but to demand her recall.
AVISO DE INTENCIÓN DE DESTITUIR A MÓNICA GARCÍA, MIEMBRO DEL CONSEJO DE ADMINISTRACIÓN DEL SEGUNDO DISTRITO, DEL DISTRITO ESCOLAR UNIFICADO DE LOS ÁNGELES (LAUSD)
Vera Padilla, Maryanne Reyes, José Lara, Ken Montenegro, Robert D. Skeels
EXPOSICIÓN DE MOTIVOS
Mónica García continuamente ha ignorado las voces y las necesidades de nuestros padres de familia, estudiantes y comunidades, usando la represión para sofocar la legítima disidencia. Bajo el liderazgo de García, decenas de miles de maestros, bibliotecarios, empleados de salud y servicios humanos han recibido cartas de despido. Aunque algunos de estos docentes han sido contratados de nuevo, el resultado neto ha sido la desmoralización de los maestros, la falta de incentivos para cursar la carrera magisterial, la interrupción y marginalización de escuelas en áreas con altos índices de pobreza, y podría decirse el hacinamiento ilegal de los salones de clase. Bajo la vigilancia de García, cientos de millones de dólares en propiedades y recursos del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD) se han canalizado a empresas de gestión privada que operan las escuelas “charter”, mientras que se quitan recursos de las escuelas públicas de manera sistemática. García ha supervisado la reorganización y cierre de múltiples escuelas a pesar de las advertencias de expertos que indican que éstas “reformas” drásticas no hacen nada para mejorar el rendimiento de las escuelas. García también ha tomado parte en la entrega de escuelas públicas a empresas “charter” las cuales están documentadas de tener un peor desempeño que las escuelas a las que sustituyen. El estandarte de la presidencia de García ha sido cientos de millones de dólares despilfarrados en exámenes innecesarias, consultores y cuestionables prioridades de contratación. El mal manejo del presupuesto nos ha traído a la situación actual en la que programas esenciales para familias de bajos recursos y inmigrantes como el Programa de Preparación del Desarrollo de Lenguaje Para la Escuela (SRLDP), Centros de Educación Temprana, Arte para las Escuelas Primarias y Educación para Adultos han sido recortados, mientras el Distrito mantiene 700 millones de dólares en reservas. Bajo la dirección de García, el Distrito ha quitado a fondos federales de Título I y Título III (fondos de apoyo para estudiantes de bajos recursos y estudiantes cuya primera lengua no es el inglés, respectivamente) de las escuelas. Creemos que el fracaso abismal de García de atender las necesidades de las partes interesadas del Distrito 2, parte del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles, no nos deja otra opción más que exigir su destitución.
모니카 갈시아, 엘에이 제2구역 교육위원, 퇴진을 위한 공고문
Vera Padilla (베라 파딜라), Maryanne Reyes (메리앤 레이스), José Lara (호세 라라), Ken Montenegro (켄 모테네그로), Robert D. Skeels (로버트 디. 스킬즈)
퇴진해야 할 이유 진술문
모니카 갈시아는 학부모, 학생, 그리고 지역사회의 필요한 요구사항과 의견들을 끊임없이 무시해 왔으며, 모니카의 의견에 법적으로 반대하는 사람들을 억압해 왔습니다. 모니카의 강압에 의해, 수많은 선생님들, 도서관 직원들, 보건과 복지사업 종사자들이 해고 통지서를 받았습니다. 몇몇 교육자들이 재취업 되는동안, 선생들의 사기를 저하시키고, 선생님이 되고 싶어하는 사람들의 의욕을 꺾었으며, 교육의 질을 낮추면서 혼란을 가져오고, 불법적으로 한 학급에 많은 학생을 두게 했습니다. 모니카의 지배아래, 몇 백만 달러의 엘에이교육위원회 재산과 자원들이, 모니카의 개인적 관리아래, 조직적으로 공교육을 무시하고 기업이 운영하는 챠털스쿨을 지원하고 있습니다. 교육 전문가들은 모니카가 추구하고 있는 교육 개혁안들이 교육발전에 아무런 기여도 하지 못한다고 경고했습니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 모니카는 기존의 제도를 무너뜨리고 여러 학교들을 폐교시키는 파괴행위를 자행해 오고 있습니다. 모니카는 정치적인 마인드를 가지고 공립학교들 (public schools)을 기업이 운영하는 챠털학교 (charter corporations)로 넘겨 주고 있습니다. 그러나 보고된 자료에 의하면 챠털학교의 교육의 질이 공립학교 교육에 비해 훨씬 떨어진다고 합니다. 모니카가 재직하고 있는 동안에 수백만 달러가 필요없는 시험, 상담 그리고 의문스러운 사람고용에 사용되고있습니다. 교육위원회가 700만달러를 보유하고 있으면서도, 예산을 잘못된 곳에 사용하면서도, 저소득층 학생과 이민자 가족, 즉 언어읽기 발달능력 프로그램, 조기 교육센터, 초등학교 예능교육, 성인교육(어덜트스쿨)에게 예산을 없애는 심각한 상황을 초래하고 있습니다. 모니카의 지도아래, 정부직함1과 직함2 (저소득층 학생과 영어습득자들을 위한 지원금)을 학교 웹페이지에서 삭제했습니다. 우리는 모니카가 최악의 지도력으로 엘에이 제2구역 교육 이해당사자의 당연히 필요한 요구와 의견을 무시한 것을 선언하고 퇴진할 것을 공고합니다.
The five proponents of the recall are all long-time LAUSD District 2 residents comprised of one student, one teacher, and three community activists. Two of the proponents were participants in the highly successful OccupyLAUSD campaign that brought the abject truth to the consciousness of the Los Angeles public that members of the one percent including Philip Anschutz, Stephen Bing, Eli Broad, Jerry Perenchio, and Bill Gates control LAUSD.
The recall campaign was started in response to hundreds of poor and immigrant families wanting to see a LAUSD budget that puts their needs ahead of wasteful and unnecessary testing that degrades their children and deprofessionalizes teaching. Many Adult Education students, qualified to collect signatures on the recall petitions, have already volunteered for the campaign. The media coverage at the press conference was extremely favorable, and activists vow to bring their issues to the forefront of the education debates that until now have excluded those most affected by LAUSD policies.
Currently the proponents are on schedule to begin circulating petitions in late April or early May. They welcome any and all support from grassroots community members, progressive organizations, and organized labor. If successful in gathering the signatures of 26,608 registered voters in LAUSD District 2, then a special recall election will be scheduled.
"When she needed us, to get to the position she's in, we were there for her. Now that we need her, she isn't helping us. We don't want Monica Garcia to keep her position...She is affecting the needs of our communities, our children and our families." — Enoe Terra (Parent and Adult Student)
This is no different than the myriad bills the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) provided her with to do the same. Where the mendacious Romero talks about parents and children she really means charter executives and their deep pocketed lobbyists. For example Romero's SB 592 which handed public school property paid for by taxpayers over to private corporations.
I was interested in the fact that the scandal over Deasy's PhD hit the headlines at the same time he was hired by Gates. His financial connections with Robert Felner date back to his Santa Monica days — Susan Ohanian
Last week the Los Angeles press was effusive with anniversary homages to Eli Broad and Bill Gates' personally selected poverty pimp, Superintendent John Deasy. Short on facts and long on neoliberal cheerleading, the articles paint the man who has shuttered libraries and killed programs depended on by countless desperate poor and immigrant families as some kind of thoughtful hero. The Huffington Post jumped on the bandwagon, paying political tribute to the pirate king. My comments on The Huffington Post's Lucy Blodget's gushing love letter to Deasy are duplicated here:
The debut has been disastrous. Deasy squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on highly discredited programs like VAM/AGT. He spent millions more on costly tests that aren't mandated. Meanwhile, programs critical to impoverished and immigrant communities were cut entirely including: SRLDP, EEC, Elementary Arts, and Adult Education. I document much of Deasy's 1% spending spree in NCL: http://blog.ncladvocacy.org/2012/03/on-adult-educations-critical-role-in-social-justice-2/#notes
Peer reviewed academic studies find only three things improve student performance when poverty is accounted for. Reduced class size, teacher experience, and access to books. My Schools Matter writing colleague Professor Krashen has done expensive research on the latter. Deasy's response to allowing poor children access to books? Close countless school libraries and fire numerous librarians, while telling poor children to buy iPads. I discuss this tragic incident in: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/09/john-deasys-queen-antoinette-moment-let.html
Others mentioned his stealing Title I and III funds to pay for his VAM/AGT white whale, and elimination of the only voice community and parents had in councils. Eliminating parental input, he brings in the vile Maria Casillas, whose long career in service to the lucrative charter-voucher industry belies Deasy's purposes.
On balance Deasy has been everything one would expect the plutocrats Broad and Gates to unleash on the working people of Los Angeles. We need a schoolboard that will eliminate him and get a superintendent that will place pupils above profits.
I also took issue with another Deasy fanfare in the Los Angeles Times, but chose to comment on a single turn of phrase which was incredulous, even by their standards.
One of you penned: "...diverse organizations as the Chamber of Commerce, the United Way, the Urban League and InnerCity Struggle, an Eastside community group."
Since both Urban League and Inner City Struggle are funded by the United Way, just how "diverse" are these groups?
Moreover, outside the plutocrat Billionaire Boys Club that comprises United Way's Tocqueville Society, the vast majority of their donors are the well heeled and quite reactionary members of the Chamber of Commerce.
In other words, diversity would be the last word that one would use to describe an essentially monolithic set of groups with an identical right-wing privatization agenda.
Two recent essays speaking truth to Deasy's power are valuable and enjoyable reads.
Of course, if my current endeavors are successful, one of the first things I'll do is push to start a search for a qualified Superintendent for LAUSD, since no such search was conducted when Ramon Cortines stepped down.
The Susan Ohanian piece quoted above says: "Many speculate that the Gates job was just a holding pattern for the Los Angeles appointment, which will give him the opportunity to turn LA in to the Gates model district." The broad base of community members, parents, and educators that I work with on a constant basis don't want a "Gates model district," we want a social justice model district.
Highs And Lows? More like a Year of Woe! Deasy has got to go.
Politics or Pedagogy - KPFK - with John Cromshow and guest Robert D. Skeels. March 31, 2012 source: KPKF 90.7 Discussing the social justice struggles against Proposition 39, especially the efforts to save beloved Micheltorena Elementary School in Silver Lake from the deep pocketed Citizens of The World Charter Corporation.
What is Prop 39, and What is the Colocation Fightback?
"It think this is a great country. In some countries I might be actually locked up for teaching the way I have, but in this country, I'm just banned from doing it." — Curtis Acosta (TUSD Teacher)
What is really, really outrageous to me — as a thirty year...forty years in this community, of advocacy — is that there has been a systematic exclusion of the leadership of this community. — Frances Lucerna (El Puente Leaders for Peace and Justice)
The illustrious Real Reform Studios bring us this brilliant short documentary showing the community of Los Sures' principled resistance against the vile privatizers running the lucrative Harlem Success Academy.
Pay close attention to hedge fund backed Moskowitz's advertising budget. That huge amount alone would provide arts programs or English Language Learner classes for many students. Also, see Karen Sprowel's testimony about how her special needs child was mistreated by the Stein and Moskowitz money making machine.
Knowing only his indigenous language when he arrived to the US ten years ago, he was homeless and lived under a bridge...learning English enabled him to get a job and, subsequently, the resources to provide for himself, get off the street, and live in a house. Video taken during the United Adult Students strategic planning meeting on Saturday, February 18, 2012. — SaveAdultEdNOW
LAUSD Adult Education's Lorenzo: "Learning English and Spanish Saved my life"
"It's also important to note that adult education serves an important social justice role in that it allows people to improve their lives despite a system that benefits from their remaining underprivileged." — Robert D. Skeels
The article series featured students, educators and activists engaged in the struggle to save Los Angeles Unified School District's Division of Adult and Career Education from the designs of neoliberalism. Speaking on behalf of my fellow activists, we genuinely appreciate the National Coalition for Literacy bringing our struggle to a national audience. What happens in Los Angeles is often a bellwether, and we can only hope that our struggles won't be in vain and inspires people to stand up to what Freire called "neoliberal fatalism."
National Coalition for Literacy's mission is to advance adult education, family literacy, and English language acquisition in the U.S. by increasing public awareness for the need to increase funding and programs; promoting effective public policy; and serving as an authoritative resource for the field on national adult education issues.
Anyone over the age of 30 should recall phrases including "school choice" were the clarion call of segregationists and southern dixiecrats. [Still are.] — Robert D. Skeels
Professor Christopher Bonastia's Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed is perhaps the best work I've read on the modern segregation and eugenics movements that are cloaked in the rhetoric of school choice. Packed with historical precedents and an honest assessment of today's empirical data, the essay is a powerful antidote to the nonstop stream of privatization propaganda pumped out by the deep pocketed charter industry. The following excerpt provides an idea of why everyone must read the whole piece:
The driving assumption for the pro-charter side, of course, is that market competition in education will be like that for toothpaste -- providing an array of appealing options. But education, like healthcare, is not a typical consumer market. Providers in these fields have a disincentive to accept or retain "clients" who require intensive interventions to maintain desired outcomes--in the case of education, high standardized test scores that will allow charters to stay in business. The result? A segmented marketplace in which providers compete for the "good risks," while the undesirables get triage. By design, markets produce winners, losers and unintended or hidden consequences.
I just want to say that while my steadfast support of PUBLIC education is well known, I have a very special place in my heart for what DACE does and who it serves. This goes far beyond having a member of my household enrolled. All of those you serve are the ones that are the most vulnerable in this brutal system we live in. I promise that Yoon and I will fight alongside all of you until the last, we can't let them take this away from people that have nothing else to turn to. — Robert D. Skeels (In a note to Adult School Teachers)
I'm not sure if all of you have heard, but the Superintendent is presenting a draconian budget to the LAUSD Board of Trustees to vote on today. Even though the alleged budget shortfall is only 10%, Deasy (a former Gates Foundation executive and a graduate of the Broad Superintendent's academy) has crafted a budget that will eliminate education for 35% of the district's students and eliminate 100% of Elementary Arts and after-school services. Garcia and Deasy are threatening to lay off nearly 10,000 people in this round, meanwhile charters are sucking up resources and real estate.
While the elimination of Elementary Arts and after-school services directly effect K-12 families, I hope that everyone will realize that the elimination of SRLDP, Early Education, and Adult Education are attacks on the most vulnerable in society and represent a human tragedy.
If any of you have late afternoon to early evening availability, I'm pleading with you to show up and join the protests at Beaudry today. Here's the Adult Ed flyer, but to be sure SRLDP and all the other impacted programs will be out in force today. Tell the District not to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and most needy.
For anyone that tells you that Adult Education isn't important, or tries to divide us by saying its a choice between adults OR children, always remember it's about adults AND children. Share this with everyone:
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health concluded that programs to boost the academic achievement of children from low income neighborhoods might be more successful if they also provided adult literacy education to parents.
The researchers based this conclusion on their finding that a mother's reading skill is the greatest determinant of her children’s future academic success, outweighing other factors, such as neighborhood and family income.
The analysis, performed by Narayan Sastry, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, and Anne R. Pebley, Ph.D., of the University of California, Los Angeles, examined data on more than 3,000 families.
The study, appearing in Demography, was supported by NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
"The findings indicate that programs to improve maternal literacy skills may provide an effective means to overcome the disparity in academic achievement between children in poor and affluent neighborhoods," said Rebecca Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NIH institute that funded the study.
After mother's reading level, neighborhood income level was the largest determinant of children's academic achievement.
The researchers undertook the study to isolate factors contributing to the disparity in academic achievement that other studies have found between children in low income and affluent neighborhoods.
Sastry and Pebley's analysis was based on data collected between April 2000 and December 2001 as part of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, an ongoing examination of families in 65 LA county communities. The information included the results of reading and math assessments of 2,350 children ages 3 to 17, their mothers' education level, census records of neighborhood income, and family income and assets. The participants in the study were representative of the larger Los Angeles community.
Sastry and Pebley noted that neighborhood income had the largest impact on achievement for children ages 8 to 17, who are at the middle and higher end of the age range. This is consistent with the idea that the environment outside the home becomes more important as children grow older, they said.
"This analysis gives us a chance to isolate the different factors that affect children’s achievement," Dr. Sastry said. "Policy measures to encourage mixed-income neighborhoods, improve early childhood education, and build mothers’ reading skills each could have positive effects on children’s achievement scores."
The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute’s Web site at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
As an eighteen year 90026 resident and a long time supporter of Micheltorena Street Elementary School, I urge you not to cave into the California Charter Schools Association's (CCSA) pressure to remove the following motion from the agenda for the March 7, 2012 Board Meeting:
VIII.c. Motion: Micheltorena Elementary School – Charter Co-location (proposal to not support co-location between schools per LAUSD/Prop 39)
Firstly, the representatives of Silverlake residents deserve to make their voices heard on this important issue without interference from outside organizations with vested interests. The proposed colocation of Micheltorena Street Elementary School won't only be disruptive to Micheltorena and the immediate community, but the community at large and surrounding neighborhoods. In my observation Prop 39 is a divisive and inequitable law that allows private charter school corporations to seize and occupy space on public school campuses. As one of the social justice writers who documented [1] the ordeals of the Gabriella Charter Corporation colocation of Logan Street ES, I can tell you firsthand how divisive and destructive Prop 39 Colocations are. Initial research by community members and myself have brought up some grave questions about Citizens of the World Charter (CWC) Corporation as well.
Moreover, the CCSA is not an organization the Neighborhood Council should be acquiescing to. Perhaps a brief history of their organization is in order. The CCSA was co-founded and led for years by right-wing reactionary Steve Poizner [2]. Poizner, if you recall, was a gubernatorial candidate whose platform was viciously anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and anti-gay rights. Obviously, these are positions incongruent with the progressive families and residents of Silver Lake. The CCSA serves on behalf of the lucrative charter schools sector much like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce does for big business. The CCSA receives billions from ALEC allies, right-wing billionaires, and ideologically charged foundations to carry out a school privatization agenda. For example, the arch-conservative Walton Family Foundation recently handed the CCSA 15 Million Dollars [3] for it's dubious activities which are ultimately all aimed at increasing market share for the burgeoning charter school industry. [4]
Yet this about more than whether CWC Corporation has a spotty past or whether the CCSA uses its vast wealth and political influence to disenfranchise communities. This is about Micheltorena Street ES, the tremendous progress it has made, and the exciting future it can have. As a longtime advocate of dual language immersion programs, I would be saddened to see the proposed Micheltorena program lose the opportunity to flourish because of a collocation. Public School principals under duress of brokering and peace-keeping between their public schools and the privately managed charter schools occupying their campuses aren't able to devote all their energies to their own school. We've seen this exhausting ordeal with Logan's Principal Luis Ochoa, who won the Echo Park Patch 2011 Person of the Year [5], despite the pressures of a colocation by their bad neighbor in Gabriella Charter Corporation.
Indeed, Micheltorena Street Elementary School families and the Silverlake community benefit greatly from their public school. It would be a tragedy not to use every available resource to resist the colocation of the school. As the Neighborhood Council is the voice of the community, I urge you to allow this vote and to support public schools against the tide of school privatization.
Join hundreds of community members, students, teachers and parents are going to City Hall in force to protect West LA from the effects of that the relocation of New West Charter could cause, namely:
Insane traffic at all hours of the day
Use of public funds to gain a rent subsidy just because they are near a Title 1 Elementary school
Possible continued underserving of the local West LA community and its students by a charter that doesn't answer to the community itself
Please examine the attached documents for more info!
Please call Councilman Rosendahl on his cell phone: (310) 367-0237 and remind him of his responsibility to his constituents!
February 22, 2012
Re: CPC-2011-1923-CU-SPR
ENV-2011-1924-MND
To:
Councilman Ed Reyes
Councilman Jose Huizar
Councilman Mitch Englander
Councilman Bill Rosendahl
Cc: Len Nguyen
As a member of the WLA Neighborhood Council’s PLUM committee, I have consistently voted to oppose New West Charter School’s expansion into the site at 1905 S. Armacost in our modest, already-congested, West Los Angeles neighborhood. I live six blocks away, and not only will this project destroy the livability in the immediate vicinity of this location, but it will have severe ramifications for the entire, surrounding community.
You have to ask yourselves why the administrators and parents are so gung-ho about sending their kids to school in a WAREHOUSE…with no lawn, no cafeteria, no gymnasium. Why do they want to transport them to OUR neighborhood from various parts of the greater Los Angeles area?
Is it because they have a sweetheart deal whereby the state (we taxpayers) will subsidize most of their rent at this boxy, brick, shell of a building? Is it because it’s a block away from OUR neighborhood park which is already at capacity with daily, private school activities? Is it because it’s not far from our LAUSD high school, University High, and they feel entitled to muscle onto their campus to use THEIR gymnasium and THEIR other facilities?
Quimby funds that compensate us for the overdevelopment of our community’s up-zoned areas have gone into Stoner Park to enhance it for OUR local residents…not for a bunch of interlopers who eye it as a commodity they can come in and usurp.
From the first time the New West representatives came to a neighborhood council meeting, the administrators and parents have painted a rosy picture about high-performing students having a quality education while turning a blind eye to the negative impact they would impose on the surrounding community. We want ALL our neighborhood children to have a high-quality education. This issue before you is not a referendum on private schools. This is about the inappropriate use of a warehouse which is directly across the street from very modest R-1 houses, some occupied by elderly people who’ve lived in our neighborhood since the early 1950s.
We have an abundance of private schools occupying industrial space within a quarter mile of this location. We already deal with their traffic and cut-through traffic from businesses in Santa Monica that pass through WLA in huge, sluggish numbers. At least the other private schools were obligated to implement significant mitigation measures to ease the burden on our community, most importantly…school busing. New West Charter School’s answer to the question about busing is, “We can’t afford it.” Their answer to whether they could cut down the size of their student body has always been, “We can’t afford it.” Their answer to the proposal to divide their student body between two different sites is, “We can’t afford it.” New West at this Armacost location??? WE can’t afford it!
They SAY they will carpool and give bus passes to their students and have them ride bikes, but we know that’s not practical for parents and kids from all over town. There is no viable way for them to mitigate the impact of 875 students coming into this peaceful neighborhood and no way to mitigate the impact of morning drop-offs and afternoon pick-ups in this already-burdened community.
The enforcement measures they propose are tied to contracts between the parents and the school. Theoretically, if a student is not car-pooling, he can be expelled. Do you really think they’re going to expel high-performing students who help keep their API up, just because they don’t follow the transportation guidelines? Of course not!
Their proposed car-pooling figures are so unrealistic as to be laughable. Their plans for queuing cars in our neighborhood are absurd and are presented as if they’re happening in a vacuum instead of in a heavily-trafficked neighborhood.
The fact is, the City has no mechanism for enforcement which could hold New West Charter School’s feet to the fire if and when they were to violate the conditions they say they’d agree to. Their demeanor at our neighborhood meetings demonstrates that they won’t even care if they’re abusing the privilege of situating THEIR school in OUR neighborhood. New West Middle School, at its present location on Pico Blvd., with a smaller-size student body has a history of hostility toward nearby businesspeople. And the best indication of future behavior is past behavior. They are not good neighbors now, and there is no reason to believe that they will be respectful, considerate, compliant or fair with the members of our local community. If you allow New West to set up shop in our residential area on Armacost, there will be no recourse for the residents and nearby business owners who will suffer from the congestion, the dangerous pedestrian and traffic conflicts, the noise, the parking on our streets…
What would our WLA neighborhood GET out of putting New West Charter School at 1905 S. Armacost Ave.? Nothing but headaches, inconvenience and ongoing dangerous situations.
Our residents wouldn’t be fighting a school that served our local community. They’d be more sympathetic if an under-enrolled, local, public school which was the “victim” of changing demographics, needed to bus public school children from other Los Angeles neighborhoods. But this project serves OTHER people’s children who live in OTHER communities and seeks to stuff them and their commuter traffic and their noise and their trash and their parents’ cars on back-to-school nights in the middle of a neighborhood that gets not ONE OUNCE of benefit from their intrusion.
I implore you to vote “NO” on this proposal. There may be a good location for New West Charter School’s proposed expansion, but it is not at the site they currently have their eye on.
Please join the parents of 28th Street, Roberti and Trinity Early Education Centers, along with UTLA Central Area as we protest to Save Pre-School in LAUSD. We cannot allow LAUSD to close down our Early Education Centers and SRLDP programs.
March 1st is also a National Day of Action to Save Public Education. Many Universities will be staging walkouts, teach-ins, and other actions. We join in solidarity with these student activists as we know that the road o college begins at Preschool!
Save Pre-School in LAUSD Rally and Press Conference
A facebook group for schools, communities and families struggling against the divisive and inequitable law that allows private charter school corporations to seize and occupy space on public school campuses.
Communities & Families Resisting Proposition 39 Charter Colocations
A look at the divisive and inequitable law in California that allows private charter school corporations to seize and occupy space on public school campuses. Special thanks to Cheryl Ortega for the Spanish translation.
Passed with the backing of the multi-billion dollar charter school industry, Proposition 39 is a law that forces public school districts to provide space for private charter corporations on existing public school campuses. The deceptively worded legislation demands our schools make any "free space" available to charters. In most cases this free space turns out to be computer labs, English Language Learner rooms, arts and music rooms, and other vital services that are surrendered. Once established on public school campuses, charters create a divisive two tier system which are frequently based on class and race. In addition to dividing communities and causing ill will, these charter corporations often begin to encroach more and more public schools space over time.
We saw this terrible scenario played out at Logan Street Elementary School, which has been collocated by the Gabriella Charter Corporation for several years. Not satisfied with occupying more space than they were originally allotted under their Prop 39, Gabriella seized Logan's auditorium over the summer of 2011 and turned it into their office for several weeks. Following this incident, they also annexed several classrooms that had just been painstakingly restored by the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council. In the process of taking over these rooms, Gabriella's staff removed all of the existing furniture, computers, and materials, haphazardly piling these items up in adjacent rooms, damaging both rooms and items in the process.
Photos by Lisa Baca-Sigala
The photos on the right were taken during these events at Logan. We have seen many similar incidents at other collocated schools throughout the district. The following online articles chronicle the Gabriella incursion:
The film The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman also exposes the damage that collocations cause, especially in terms of the charters taking over the best parts of school facilities for themselves while relegating the public school students to basements and other undesirable locations. New York communities have long been fighting the scourge of collocations, and community groups like the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) are on the forefront of that struggle.
Charters Are NOT Public Schools
Despite all the marketing hype promulgated by deep pocketed trade associations like the California Charter Schools Association, charter schools are not public schools. Instead charters are privately managed entities whose only claim to the word public is the fact that they drain public funds. Dozens of court cases have ruled that charter schools are not "public entities." Two well known examples include the following:
Moreover, the US Census Department expressed difficulty in obtaining information from charter-voucher schools because the are NOT public entities.
Charters Exclude the Local Community
The private, unelected boards of charter schools ignore the needs of communities. More often than not charter schools boards have no educators or community members. For example, the fourteen member board of CNCA Charter Corporation, which was awarded the local CRES 14 campus against the explicit wishes of the Echo Park community, is packed with bankers and venture capitalists with no connection to the community or the families enrolled at their school. Likewise, Gabriella Charter Corporation's board has repeatedly refused to inform community members where or when they hold their board meetings.
Our favorite Social Justice Educator, José Lara, is featured at the 1:39 mark. This isn't over, we have to keep fighting and keep pressuring officials to find solutions. Visit http://saveadulted.org/ for next steps.
"How do we help students and teachers to stop blaming ourselves and each other and start working together to change the system?" — CEJ Student Activist
We're beginning to see scattered resistance to the corporate school privatization agenda of the Billionaire Boys Club, ALEC, and Arne Duncan. Across the country we are seeing parents stand with educators against the scourge of standardized tests. Parents Across America is a representative cross-section of many of those on the forefront of these battles. In New York we've seen powerful movements by entire communities and groups like the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM). GEM brought us the watershed The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. Seattle activists have opposed charter schools in the backyard of one of the most infamous charter supporters around. Oregon organizers passed Tax Fairness with their Measures 66 and 67. In Florida authentic parent groups opposed the charter trigger law imported by right-wing astroturf groups. In my neighborhood community members and parents from Micheltorena Street Elementary School and Elysian Heights Elementary School have begun fighting back against proposed colocations (read corporate charter occupations) imposed by the corporate Prop 39. These struggles, and many more, hint at a nascent organized resistance to the corporate privatization fatalism our rulers say we have no choice but to accept.
In order to overcome the vast resources of those pushing the neoliberal school privatization project, it's going to take increased organization, engagement, and political education of community members, educators, activists, parents, and students. The recent Social Justice Schools Conference held jointly by Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) and Progressive Educators for Action (PEAC) did just that. I want to reproduce this report I received from a CEJ member Rosa Jimenez in order to instill a sense of hope along with an understanding that this type of organizing takes work. I myself attended this amazing conference, and also assisted the organizing committee that put it on. It's no small work to organize these type of events, but over two days hundreds of people were reinvigorated, educated, inspired, and armed with new tools to continue the fight against the privatization of our public schools.
Social Justice Schools Conference Report Back
by Rosa Jimenez
Dear Educational Justice Community,
THANK YOU so much to those of you who were able to attend CEJ's and PEAC's Social Justice Schools Conference on February 10 and 11. Over 200 people attended this historic convening. This was more than a one-time event, it was a critical moment to regroup and redefine a new strategy for meaningful educational reform. The entire conference was volunteer-led and volunteer-driven. Registration, childcare, and lunch were all free. We hope that the event reminds all of us that we can continue to create the spaces that we need in order to move forward our work and our communities' rights!
Students, UTLA teachers, parents, community-members, and a few charter school teachers discussed the attacks our schools and communities face. We also focused on education policies, our vision for how we want schools to be, and specific pedagogical practices that support genuine student learning.
On Friday evening, civil rights and labor leader, Bill Fletcher challenged the audience to shift UTLA into a Social Justice Union — one that aligns itself with students, parents and community in the fight for real education justice. He described how the public sector is under attack and that unions must be committed to democracy, organizing and aggressively challenging ineffective education policy. Students, parents and teachers then engaged with each other about his speech, in small groups, and then posed questions to him about the connections between rebuilding the union movement in this country and the occupy movement, and how to get unions to be committed to issues beyond pay and other narrow trade union issues, but aligned more with what students and parents are fighting for such as economic and racial justice.
On Saturday morning, conference attendees heard panelists speak to a broad set of issues we must address as we build social justice schools. John Rogers, Director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Equity and Access, spoke about how neo-liberalism, education policy and the economy are structured so that there are fewer jobs, higher incarceration rates and less money going toward education than in decades past. He then offered up ideas on what unions and community orgs can do to put out a vision for real change and the need to organize around it. CEJ student leader Taylor Broom, CEJ parent leader Kahllid Al-Alim, and I then spoke about on the ground organizing we have done at our schools through CEJ, PEAC or independently to challenge the attacks on education and promote real change. Additionally, Taylor spoke about how schools should be focused on more than just test scores — that schools should also be focused on what students need — like providing college counselors, small class sizes, electives like Black and Chicano/Latino history and literature, and other electives that students want to take. Students asked critical questions like "How do we help students and teachers to stop blaming ourselves and each other and start working together to change the system?"
The conference then moved into workshops. Many of the workshops showcased working examples of how we can create the education that students, teachers, and parents want and need. There were workshops on developing critical literacy skills and a love for learning, community-based education programs that engage students in deep thinking and action, alternatives to the school-to-prison pipeline and the need to stop truancy ticketing, dual-language immersion programs and more. While this conversation has been happening separately for many years, this conference brought together union members and community members in an important step towards growing our ability to work together. As a 5th year teacher who has been RIF'd four years in a row and as a young Chicana and mother, I found the dialogue inspiring — it gives me hope in a time when the attacks keep growing. It reminded me that I am not alone in thinking that what we need is movement!
Photo by Ronni Solmon. The sign at this CEJ student workshop said: 'Who are the 1% and what do they have to do with public education?'
While the adults were in workshops, students from ten different schools participated in a student-led section of the conference. This was a space for youth to discuss with each other the systemic problems of public school funding, how the 1% influence education policy (and what to do about it), racism and inequity, and what kind of changes students feel need to be made in schools so that schools better meet their needs.
The conference ended with a lively and theatrical action at Chase Bank, a few blocks away. It was a fun way to end the weekend and make connections between the underfunding of our schools, the 1%, and our willingness to take things into our own hands...
We were thrilled to have the Raza Ed Committee, Latino Caucus, Women's Progressive Caucus and United Valley Caucus endorse this conference and it was great to see rank and file and union leaders from other unions come out to support as well. We know that it will take all of us together (and many many more) to transform our own union and to work more systematically in the long-term to organize for educational justice with our communities.
These are crucial conversations in era where elite education "reformers" are the ones shaping and promoting educational policies for our schools. These reformers include Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and Richard Riordan who represent the 1% that the Occupy movement critiques. Their policies and strategies coming from the 1% for educational reform ignore the reality that our schools and our communities do not have what they need and deserve. This conference set us on a course to define our own educational reform needs together. We cannot and will not have elite business people who have their own interests in mind determining the future or our public schools which are supposed to be for everyone.
It would be great to hear from others who were in attendance about what you experienced and got out of the conference!
Thanks again to everyone for participating in this important and inspiring process of creating social justice schools.
Rosa Jimenez
UCLA-CS Social Studies Teacher
Coalition for Educational Justice Steering Committee Member
Progressive Educators for Action Member
Parent
Conference Coordinator
Resistance begins with organizing: Social Justice Schools Conference Report Back
"It is not legally or morally acceptable that these so-called “schools of choice” that are concentrated in urban communities and supported with public funds, should be permitted to operate as segregated learning environments where students are more isolated by race, socioeconomic class, disability, and language than the public school district from which they were drawn." — COPAA (Charter Schools and Students with Disabilities p. 42)
On the heels of the recent damning Southern Poverty Law Center report Special Education in New Orleans Public Schools, which further exposed the lucrative charter-voucher industry as a bastion of discrimination, comes this equally condemnatory paper from the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA) illustrating how the "market model" of charters and vouchers abjectly and utterly fails the most vulnerable and disadvantaged of all students.
Want to see the schoolboard member most responsible for privatization and cuts to services crucial to immigrant and impoverished families get her own personal pink slip? All it will take is FIFTEEN of your Dollars, FIFTEEN Hours of your time, and for you to Tell FIFTEEN of your Friends.
Last week the Los Angeles press was effusive with anniversary homages to Eli Broad and Bill Gates' personally selected poverty pimp, Superintendent John Deasy. Short on facts and long on neoliberal cheerleading, the articles paint the man who has shuttered libraries and killed programs depended on by countless desperate poor and immigrant families as some kind of thoughtful hero. The Huffington Post jumped on the bandwagon, paying political tribute to the pirate king. My comments on The Huffington Post's Lucy Blodget's 
