"And not merely pride of intellect, but dulness of intellect. And most of all, the deceitfulness; yes, the deceitfulness of intellect" — Leo Tolstoy
To David Welch, Eli Broad, Theodore J. Boutrous, Theane Evangelis Kapur, Theodore B. Olson, Enrique A. Monagas, and Joshua S. Lipshutz:
Your Students Matter website explicitly states "When it comes to education quality, numerous studies show that teachers have the greatest impact on student achievement."
Can you please produce even one peer reviewed study from a legitimate source that backs up that assertion?
As a person closely associated with top academicians in the field of education research and policy, I am not aware of any study that makes such a brazen and strident claim.
Indeed, even Eric A. Hanushek, an economist who shares your unfortunate politics and world view, has found that teachers account for no more than 13% of student achievement. A far cry from the declaration on your website, which, in the absence of any factual basis, is mendacious at best.
Since you're billionaires, businessmen, and attorneys it's safe to assume your knowledge on issues of pedagogy and education policy is negligible. With that in mind, I'll do you a favor and clarify your grossly erroneous statement, albeit even the correction is lacking nuance and context. What some initial studies have shown is that teachers are the largest of in-school factors impacting student achievement. I refer you to the aforementioned Hanushek findings to put that into some context.
I understand that neither your law firm, nor the astroturf public relations 501(c)(3) you created to disseminate misinformation, are interested in facts. That said, I felt a moral obligation to let you know that many community members are not fooled by your propaganda.
I taught bilingual catechism, primarily at St. Teresa of Avila Church, for a dozen or so years. One of the things we had to teach young children about was the definition of a lie. This idea was simple enough for 7-9 year olds to comprehend: "when you say something that you know is untrue, it's a lie." Sadly that concept is seemingly too complex for high powered litigators like yourselves to grasp.
"I can't wait until all contracts are thin contracts." — LAUSD President Mónica García on Unions
School Privatization Hurts Everyone
Privatization via charter schools removes agency from communities and encourages the lowest wages possible. Aside from eschewing organized labor within schools themselves, every aspect of privatized schools encourages the use of non-unionized labor and at-will employees. This is true from construction, to food services, to site maintenance, and every other facet of building, running, and maintaining schools.
Corporate charter chains like CNCA are under no obligation to even consider contractors with agreements with organized trade unions. Instead of their numerous projects benefiting the workers in the community, those tax dollars go into the pockets of well heeled developers. Other large charter chains like Alliance outsource to 501c3 firms all the work that would typically be done by classified union employees at public schools.
Ultimately school privatization drives down wages, commoditizes labor, and takes the dignity out of work and our communities.
President Mónica García supports school privatization
Mónica García's policies of giving schools away to outside bidders has exacerbated anti-labor practices. Even in the case where she can't eliminate organized labor, she has made disparaging remarks like "I can't wait until all contracts are thin contracts." Rather than viewing unions as partners in educating students, she treats them as adversaries. Her disdain for collective bargaining is disconcerting.
While real estate firms, contractors, and charter executives have flourished under Ms. García's leadership, we've seen a steady decline in certified and classified personnel in the district. This trend towards privatization affects all labor.
Moreover, her policies have been hurtful to the community at large. Here are a few of the more egregious things she can take credit for.
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 held millions 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.
In the interest of our communities and all the hard working women and men who still have the hard earned right of collective bargaining, we need to endorse school board members who will partner with labor.
Open letter to Los Angeles County Federation of Labor on School Privatization and Ms. Mónica García
LAUSD District 2 candidate Robert D. Skeels speaking, and the following roundtable discussion at the December 6, 2012 meeting of the Association of Raza Educators Los Angeles. The topic was 'Reclaiming Education is a Human Right during this era of Neoliberalism.' The talk was in preparation for the anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, celebrated on the December 10 of each year.
Robert D. Skeels' Talk at Association of Raza Educators on December 6, 2012
For many years the people of Los Angeles City Council District 9 (CD9) have not been represented. Instead, deep pocketed developers have had virtually unfettered influence and access, and we've seen tragedies like the razing of the South Central Farm, the victimization of the homeless under Safer Cities Initiative, and intentional blight to displace low income families of color to make way for gentrification and development greed. Indeed the past dozen years have seen the residents of CD9 subjected to all manners of indignities, exploitations, and oppressions, including environmental racism.
Community members and groups asked long time community activist Ron Gochez to run for the CD9 seat. While Ron has never had aspirations of running for political office, he has always been responsive to the needs of his community. He is backed by a diverse, multiracial, multi-ethnic coalition of working class peoples, many of whom are immigrants, who are tired of their voices being utterly ignored on City Council.
I've known Ron for many years. He is a man of conviction, principle, and integrity. He has spent countless hours in selfless service to his community, and most importantly, to those who are the most vulnerable in our society. He is never afraid to speak truth to power, and he alone is the only candidate for CD9 that will represent the families and working peoples of such an underserved and exploited community.
Ron is a social justice educator both professionally in his role as a teacher, and in his every interaction with his community. We need more people of conscience to take a stand like Ron has. His campaign is known as the "People’s Campaign," and that is truly what it is. That is why I have contributed to his campaign and wholeheartedly endorse Ron Gochez for Los Angeles City Council District 9.
Robert D. Skeels Education writer, social justice activist, and District 2 candidate for the LAUSD School Board
Why I enthusiastically endorse Ron Gochez for Los Angeles City Council District 9
"Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We've been tarred and we've been brushed with the picture of pornography." — Harvey Milk
The current crop of teacher-bashing political opportunists including Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Peter C. Cook, Gloria Romero, and Andy Smarick, are nothing new. While it's always been in vogue to attack the female dominated profession, teachers have really been in the crosshairs of reactionaries ever since they won the modicum of protections that unions provide.
San Francisco's Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated 34 years ago today. Milk, who had been a teacher early in his career, was a man who always spoke truth to power. When right-wing extremist John Briggs coined Proposition 6, he relied on the same bigoted thinking that we've seen in recent times with Proposition 32, and other anti-teacher, anti-student, anti-worker initiatives. While the defeat of the Briggs Initiative was clearly a watershed victory for the Gay Rights Movement, it was also victory for labor and public employees, especially school employees.
Milk was no stranger to supporting and partnering with organized labor. His successful partnership with the Teamsters was an excellent example of what today's activists need to be emulating. Milk was savvy to realize that oppressed groups need to work together in order to overcome their oppressions. The fight for gay rights, women's rights, workers' rights, immigrant rights, and all our struggles are one in the same. The other side counts on us being divided.
The corporate and neoliberal forces pushing education reform rely on divide and conquer strategies. They pit parents against educators, students against other students via standardized tests, "lucky" lottery winners against families with special needs children, and we can increase this list ad infinitum. Using deceptive language about "choice," they've begun to destroy one of the great things in our country—universal public education. We need to call out the reformers' false dichotomies for what they are. We need to strengthen the natural alliances between students, educators, parents, and community. We need to tell the privatizers that the only "choices" we want are those that assure equity for all students!
We get there by emulating Harvey Milk's coalition building. We get there by exposing billionaire funded astroturf 501c3s for having the narrow interests of their funders, not our communities. We get there by pushing all unions—especially those in our schools—into social justice unionism. We get there by electing school board members who will be activists and advocates on behalf of their communities.
The struggle continues.
In memory of Harvey Milk: teacher witch-hunts are nothing new
It's difficult to explain exactly what being poor is all about, or why access to books and ideas might be as important as a free breakfast. — Walter Dean Myers
Hope Is an Open Book, an op-ed piece by author Walter Dean Myers, was tweeted this morning by educator Susan Ohanian. While written in 2005, Myers' message about access to books is profound and even more urgent today with canned corporate education solutions that narrow curriculum dominating policy. Sadly, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is run by a Superintendent who neither values books, nor libraries. This has to change, and change quickly. We need to shutdown LAUSD's testing-industrial-complex and reopen both our school and classroom libraries. Reopening libraries also means rehiring credentialed librarian-educators. We can pay for that by ditching discredited and expensive attempts to tie teacher evaluations to test scores (VAM/AGT) and use the millions of squandered dollars associated with them. Read with your children, read in front of your children, and let them choose their own reading materials. It's a proven formula for fostering authentic life-long learning.
Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) is a well researched methodology in which students are allowed to choose their own reading materials. Professor Stephen Krashen and his colleagues have found that "[r]ecreational reading or reading for pleasure is the major source of our reading competence, our vocabulary, and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions." The Power of Reading, Second Edition: Insights from the Research is an excellent text to familiarize oneself with the concepts and research behind FVR.
Refocusing LAUSD on reading and learning instead of testing
While value-added models are intended estimate teacher effects on student achievement growth, they fail to do so in any accurate or precise way — Dr. Bruce D. Baker
Maybe it's karma, but Kyle Hunsberger of the Gates Foundation backed astroturf TeachPlus, and one of Los Angeles Unified School District's biggest cheerleaders of the highly discredited VAM/AGT pseudosciences, is now a victim of that selfsame modern phrenology.
This quote is pretty amazing coming from a bona fides member of the "no excuses" camp.
"I have to be reassured that I don't have to lobby for honors students," Hunsberger said. "I have to know that I have a shot at a good evaluation if I teach lower-performing kids."
Maybe he'll be a former member of that camp from here out, now that he's experienced the practical application of his faulty theoretical framework. That framework incorrectly posits that "effective" teaching "overcomes" any other factor including poverty, student motivation, or even English Language Learner status.
Call me cynical, but I doubt Michael Stryer and James Encinas, Hunsberger's TeachPlus coauthors of this fact-free Op-Ed shilling for value added measures will stand by him now that the worm has turned. Corporate reformers are just like that, they're snakes and most venomous to anyone who break ranks and start telling the truth.
Let's stop testing children and start teaching them. Standardized tests are a perversion. NCLB/RTTT/CCSS are the real "status quo" and an abject failure at that.
Schools Matter: How the VAM/AGT pseudoscience worm turns
I am honored to have been invited to this event and am looking forward to discussing critical education issues. Many thanks to the District 2 Neighborhood Coalition for organizing these forums. Thanks to PESJA, CARECEN, MALDEF, and others for endorsing the event.
A very prominent candidate was missing from the first forum...
Second Community Based LAUSD District 2 Candidate Forum Announced
I am honored to have been invited to this event and am looking forward to discussing critical education issues. Many thanks to the District 2 Neighborhood Coalition for organizing these forums.
First Community Based LAUSD District 2 Candidate Forum Announced
ALEC/DFER's Gloria Romero Stands Her Ground on Won't Back Down
"The idea of “choice” has been manipulated by the corporate reformers and spread by groups like ALEC, who seek to use methods such as the Parent Trigger to turn public schools over to privately-managed charters. This is not real choice; nor is it parent empowerment." — Parents Across America.
Ms. Romero, who discusses "special interests," should be taken very seriously on that issue. She is an expert in special interests after all. As a politician she enjoyed a constant flood of campaign funds from the lucrative charter school sector to craft pernicious legislation like SB 592, which hands public school property over to private corporations.
Romero and Austin's corporate charter trigger law, which she forgets to mention had plenty of input from Bill Lucia of Reed Hastings' EdVoice (one of Romero's favorite corporate contributors by the way), and Friedman acolyte Arnold Schwartzenegger. These fringe-right forces made sure the trigger law would be amenable to The Heartland Institute and The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The former is the trigger law's biggest promoter, the latter turned the commons robbing idea in ALEC template legislation.
When her billionaire special interest backers couldn't buy her the State Superintendent job, they gave her the next best thing: a quarter million dollar a year gig with the hedge fund supported DFER. In other words, Romero went from taking money from special interests while she was in Sacramento, to being one of the deep pocketed special interests influencing her former colleagues to push through more revenue streams through school privatization.
ALEC/DFER's Gloria Romero Stands Her Ground on Won't Back Down
Join Crenshaw and Dorsey High Schools at an EMERGENCY Community Meeting
Join Us at Our Community Meeting
Thursday, October 4, 5:30pm – 7:30pm African-American Cultural Center 3018 W. 48th Street, LA, 90043 (at corner of 9th Avenue)
After years of instability and lack of support from LAUSD, Crenshaw High School has been on its way back. A dedicated team of educators, parents, students, alumni, administrators, and community have been working in collaboration with the school’s partner, the Greater Crenshaw Educational Partnership (GCEP), to ensure that every student’s potential is fully developed. This includes:
Ensuring that every student masters the tools necessary to go to college or into a well-paying career after graduation.
Reducing the number of student suspensions and expulsions.
mproving school safety and providing wrap-around services to meet families’ needs.
Ensuring that every student can productively contribute to their community.
Crenshaw has developed a nationally-recognized instructional program that encourages academic excellence through building the self-confidence of students. The program provides students with:
Internships with local businesses and organizations.
College application workshops.
Exciting community learning projects that put knowledge and skills into action.
Opportunities to engage in great athletic, music, art, and social/emotional health programs.
Now, Superintendent Deasy wants to end Crenshaw’s partnership with GCEP. This will dramatically disrupt the school’s positive direction and programs that serve students. It will directly threaten Crenshaw’s ability to continue to raise funds from national sources to serve students. It will open the school to reconstitution (removing all faculty and staff) or charter turn-over. These two policies are not supported by research and cut students off from vital and ongoing people and programs.
Superintendent Deasy is threatening the school at the same time that the District has not provided Crenshaw and other South LA schools with the basics – up-to-date technology and materials, staffing for complete academic and college counseling, a full-time nurse, training in Positive Behavior Support, and support for site administrators. The school and GCEP have done a remarkable job of filling in these gaps, but LAUSD’s irresponsibility in these areas is felt deeply.
Crenshaw joins with Dorsey and South LA communities to demand that LAUSD not terminate the GCEP partnership, and that the District support rather than destroy promising reforms for students.
"Ms. Kopp's husband, Richard Barth, was an Edison executive before taking over as CEO of KIPP's national foundation, where he has sought to decertify its New York City unions." — Jesse James Alred
One thing I'll concede to the corporate education reformers is their uncanny ability to use anything as a sales pitch for neoliberalism and profitability. Perhaps the most egregious example of this was Arne "Katrina Schadenfreude" Duncan's racist pro-charter school statement that the abject disaster was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans." Not to be outdone by a dullard second rate basketball player masquerading as Secretary of Education, education reform mogol Wendy Kopp has taken the dark art of corporate spin to a whole new level.
Robert D. Skeels explica por qué se ha lanzado como candidato al distrito 2 para desplazar a Mónica García, a quien considera pésima dirigente escolar.
"So long as there are children who are coming to school hungry, there will be a need for school breakfast programs, and until workers are guaranteed a living wage, there will undoubtedly be hungry kids." — Dana Woldow
Ballyhooed as "historic" by Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) President Mónica García, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Broad Foundation backed InnerCity Struggle, Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) is a poorly thought out program with noble intentions, but plagued from start by insurmountable implementation issues.
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. — Christopher Bonastia
Fordham troglodyte Adam Emerson stepped up on behalf of the billionaire funded California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) today with an essay attacking the Los Angeles Unified School District's mulling a charter moratorium while investigations into widespread fraud, graft, and criminality are conducted. Short on facts, but chock full of propaganda, Emerson defends the lucrative charter industry and its nefarious trade association, the CCSA. I had some choice comments for Emerson and his fellow baggers, birthers, birchers, and choicers:
For far too long only the well-paid members of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC) posing as parents have been able to attend public LAUSD board meetings. Why? Because the meetings are intentionally held when working people...well, are at work or attending school. This petition calls on LAUSD to move public meetings to the evening so that the true voice of the community will be heard. Parents, students, educators, and community have been shut out of LAUSD. Meanwhile the charter industry and the NPICs have dominated the dialog and continue to provide the "Anschutz Four" board members political cover.
Billionaires like the Koch Brothers, Betsy DeVos, and Bill Gates fund astroturf tools like Jonah Edelman, Rebecca Nieves Huffman, and Kyle Olson. Working with anti-working class politicians like Rahm Emanuel, these groups and individuals strive to privatize public education, union bust, and profit off the sufferings of the poor. Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is on the front lines of the battle to save public education, but they are fighting right-wing forces with limitless resources. Their bold actions in the face of overwhelming odds may well be the turning point in the battle to prevent the neoliberal project from eliminating public education nationwide. They need our support, please contribute to the CTU Solidarity Fund.
The Chicago Teachers Union is currently on the front lines of a fight to defend public education. On one side the 30,000 members of the CTU have called for a contract that includes fair compensation, meaningful job security for qualified teachers, smaller class sizes and a better school day with Art, Music, World Language and appropriate staffing levels to help our neediest students.
On the other side, the Chicago Board of Education—which is managed by out of town reformers and Broad Foundation hires with little or no Chicago public school experience—has pushed to add two weeks to the school year and 85 minutes to the school day, eliminate pay increases for seniority, evaluate teachers based on student test scores, and slash many other rights.
Teachers, parents and community supporters in Chicago have fought valiantly—marching, filling auditoriums at hearings and parent meetings, even occupying a school and taking over a school board meeting. Most recently, 98 percent of our members voted to authorize a strike. But now we find ourselves facing new opponents—national education privatizers, backed by some of the nation's wealthiest people. They are running radio ads, increasing press attacks, and mounting a PR campaign to discredit the CTU and the benefits of public education.
Chicago Teachers Union Versus Astroturf Billionaires
"Just continue to follow the money. This Race to the Trough will make the Reading First crooks under Bush look like dopey Boy Scouts." — Professor Jim Horn
The neoliberal cabal at Southern California's KPCC can't cheerlead for school privatization loud or frequently enough. Not content with Pat Morrison lobbing softballs to Broad Superintendent Academy graduate and former Gates Foundation employee John Deasy once a week, KPCC's intrepid education beat reporters are always looking for the latest anti-public-school story angle.
"This increasingly well-rooted network provides the Gulen Movement with daily access to the minds of over 45,000 students, and yearly access to hundreds of millions of hard-earned tax dollars." — Sharon Higgins
Charter schools are privately managed entities with negligible oversight, but funded with public money. The somewhat secretive Gülenist Islamic sect, named after charismatic Turkish Imam Fethullah Gülen, runs more charter schools than any other charter school chain in the United States. While there's nothing wrong with privately financed religious schools, it's problematic at best that public funds are being used to fund religious charter chains.
The cultish Gülenist Movement currently operates eight such privately managed charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Several more are slated to open after having won approval under the woefully misnamed "Public School Choice" (PSC) resolution, brewed by former LAUSD District 5 Trustee, Yolie Flores, who was also an employee of the Gates Foundation while concurrently "serving" the school district. Flores' PSC gives brand new school facilities built with public money away to charter school corporations like the Gülenist Magnolia Science Academy.
The individual most responsible for the proliferation of Gülen Charter Schools in LAUSD is the Board President herself, Mónica García. García's ties to the Gülenists are long-standing, and she is a tenacious advocate on their behalf. She is speaking at the Gülenist Pacifica Institute in September 2012 regarding her prominent role in corporate education reform and the unprecedented privatization of LAUSD under her neoliberal reign. The Pacifica Institute ran into controversy last year, when Armenian groups protested the organization's ties to Turkish groups denying the 1915-1918 Armenian genocide. That García chooses to be so insensitive to the considerable Armenian population in her school district is most likely attributable to the fact that there are no Armenian organizations managing large chains of lucrative charter schools in LAUSD.
Advocating for the Gülenist movement and speaking at their events have paid handsome dividends for García. In addition to helping proliferate more privately managed charters schools, the Gülenists have been very generous donors to García's political coffers. García, who raised more than $100,000 in just two months for her 2013 reelection bid, counts several Gülenist operatives among her contributors. Suleyman Bahceci, CEO of Magnolia Charter Corporation, donated $250, as did Varol Gurler, Magnolia's CAO. The Pacifica Institute's Director, Ferdi Mesut Ates, chipped in $100. Pacifica's Ilker Yildiz contributed likewise. Undoubtedly, García will continue to rake in cash from the Gülenist machine, as she has from most of the lucrative corporate charter chains. In an ethical education environment, donations from corporate charters to district board members that have the power to grant them their charters and give them choice facilities would be considered a conflict of interest.
Corporate charter school magnate Yvonne Chan also recently donated to García's efforts to capture a third term as a LAUSD Trustee. Milken Educator Award winner Chan, despite a vested interest in the charter school industry, is on the California State Board of Education (SBOE). Like García, Chan has a long and rewarding history with the Gülen Charter Movement. In fact, she made sure that she and her other SBOE members granted Magnolia its Statewide Benefit Charter because:
Yvonne Chan had been on a free, Gulenist-guided trip to Turkey courtesy of the Pacifica Institute in one of the years just prior.
The Gülen Movement and their ubiquitous Gülen charter schools loom so large on the American education landscape that CBS' 60 Minuntes devoted a full length segment entitled: U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam to this phenomenon of school privatization.
What's important here isn't which kind of religious group runs these schools, but that public funds are being used to support schools having overarching political and religious agendas like the Gülenist do. This is no different than the right-wing Milton Friedman inspired capitalism indoctrination American Indian Public Charter Schools and Green Dot Public Schools push on their hapless pupils. The former actually requires their charter school students to make daily pledges to our abject political economy. Nor is it any different than the charter school chain that teaches its students that Emmett Till's brutal murder was a just desert for what they termed his "sexual harassment." The selfsame Celerity Charter Chain pushes a "post-racial curriculum" that ignores institutional racism in favor of students self-colonizing by "dress[ing] for success..." rather than "focus[ing] on how the history of the country has been checkered." Because there's little to no oversight or regulation for the privately managed charter school sector, these and many more such incidents will continue unabated.
There's another major problem with García's expansion of Gülen charter schools in LAUSD. Part of the Gülenist modus operandi is to staff their schools with teachers lacking credentials (part and parcel the standard in the charter school industry), many of whom have never taught before at all. Gülen schools bring in Turkish businessmen and professionals on 1HB visas to teach, yet there is currently a glut of highly qualified, credentialed, unemployed teachers in LAUSD. Gülen supporters claim a lack of educators versed in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), but the reality is that there's neither a shortage of STEM workers nor teachers in the United States. Instead, Gülen movement watchdogs have demonstrated a pattern of abuse in regards to H1B visas.
Ultimately, the failings of Gülen Charter Schools are the same as with all charter schools. They are privately managed. They have unelected boards. They have a glaring lack of transparency both in terms of finances and operations. They contribute to the deprofessionalization of teaching. They undermine public schools and the bare semblance of democracy which those pubic commons represent. They are, to all intents and purposes, private organizations with access to a publicly financed revenue stream. Johathan Kozol's prescient prediction that our public school system was on the corporate auction block is being borne out by the expansion of Charter Management Organizations. Gülen Charter Schools are a symptom of a much deeper systemic problem known as neoliberalism.
School board trustees are elected to represent their community's interests in regards to public schools. That Mónica García is so beholden to the competing interests of the lucrative charter school sector raises serious concerns of opportunism, greed, and favoritism. Her championing of the Gülenist charter movement is further proof that she has little to no consideration of her constituents and our community's schoolchildren.
"Prior research, then, strongly suggests that charter programs have not lived up to their initial promise of transcending the segregating effects of traditional district boundary lines. In fact, these studies indicate charters exacerbate already rampant school segregation, particularly for Black students." — Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Jia Wang
The Smith and Carlos Statue at San José State University
I was reading Dave Zirin's latest piece, Fists of Freedom: An Olympic Story Not Taught in School, this morning and several things stood out and had me thinking in terms of how Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and its related high-stakes testing regimes not only distort curriculum, but how they are intended to distort students' consciousness of their reality.
Al denounced the idea of charters when it became clear that the concept had changed and was being hijacked by corporate and business interests. In Al’s view, such hijacking would result in the privatization of public education and, ultimately, its destruction — all without improving student outcomes. — Edith Shanker
It all started a few days ago when Edison scoundrel and Broadyte Chris Cerf published a fact-free diatribe extolling a charter school solution to a non-existant problem. To say that Cerf plays fast and loose with facts would be the understatement of the summer, but his most mendacious statements (and a grievous factual error) occur in regards to the venerable Albert Shanker.
The so-called "Parent Trigger" is an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) template law written primarily by right-wingers Bill Lucia of EdVoice and Ben Austin of Green Dot School Corporation. DFER Corporate school privatizer Gloria Romero, who signed her name on that bill that was snuck through the California legislature in a desperate attempt to win Race to the Trough bribe dollars, recently took offense to the fact that many people are starting to learn the reactionary origins of charter trigger laws. Romero recently penned a ridiculous attack on the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch. Since Romero is a pariah even in her own political party, the only place that would publish her work is the American Center for School Choice (ACSC). My recent polemic and comments against Romero and the ACSC seemingly offended ACSC's Doug Tuthill, who accused me of "name calling, ad hominem arguments or false assertions." The following open letter is my response to Mr. Tuthill.
I rather appreciate your call for "civility and accuracy." In the interest of the latter, let's examine the issue. Nowhere did I say Mr. Coons was a member of the John Birch Society. What I said, and you quote it, is that your organization is headed up by "John Birch Society types" like Coons. I'm using the word "type" as in the widely accepted definition "a person or thing symbolizing or exemplifying the ideal or defining characteristics of something."
Let's put my assertion to the test. I posit that both Mr. Coons and your organization espouse ideals in the realm of education policy that are central to those the John Birch Society. I won't waste time compiling too many examples, but here are a few quotations that are seemingly identical:
"parental authority forms the foundation for broadening the support for choice in education." John E. Coons
"for this reason we support choice of education in both curriculum and methods of funding with all matters being addressed by parents" John Birch Society
"Parental authority is precisely that legal attribute lodged in the adult person who, together with the child – and generally others" John E. Coons
"We must protect the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children." Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) quoted on John Birch Society site.
An exhaustive comparison would yield dozens and dozens of nearly identical quotes. However, given that the American Center for School Choice is a small fringe-right-wing group itself, it isn't surprising that the examples are bountiful.
Your turn Mr. Tuthill. In the interest of accuracy can you show me any substantive differences on education policies between The American Center for School Choice (ACSC) and the John Birch Society (JBS)? Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.
Both ACSC and JBS support charter schools
Both ACSC and JBS support vouchers (sometimes cynically called opportunity scholarships)
Both ACSC and JBS support public funds being used for religious schools
Both ACSC and JBS support homeschooling
Both ACSC and JBS support a form of school choice that includes institutions without publicly elected schoolboards
Both ACSC and JBS support absolute parental authority
Both ACSC and JBS support and extol the "qualities" of market based education "solutions"
You state Mr. Coons was a "leading liberal" (whatever that means) for several decades. Yet the ACSC site biography cites Coons as having "championed the cause of school choice for four decades." Given that school choice, the clarion call of the segregationists during the height of Jim Crow, is anathema to progressive ideals, it would seem that Mr. Coons holds many views that are the antithesis of those held by progressives and leftists.
More to the point, let's leave the JBS out of the picture entirely. How does ACSC or Mr. Coons' views differ on education from any of the extreme reactionary think tanks like The Heritage Foundation, The Manhattan Institute, The Cato Institute, The Heartland Institute, The Hoover Institution, The Koret Foundation, or any others?
I think I've made a cogent and ironclad case that I am not engaging in "name calling, ad hominem arguments or false assertions," but rather speaking some very uncomfortable truths to one of the bulwarks of oppression.
Advocating public education and social justice
Robert D. Skeels
Daily Kos: American Center for School Choice Versus The John Birch Society
Although the bungalows are used for after school programs, art classes, festivals and special education speech therapy space, according to the number of enrolled students at Micheltorena, the bungalows have been deemed empty and available for tenancy by any charter that requests them. — Lulu Wilson
The Los Angeles Times'LAUSD fights court order to give more space to charter schools highlights how the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has asked corporate friendly Judge Terry A. Green's "court to reconsider its decision. The school system is also preparing an appeal."
This is in response to the California Charter Schools Association's recent overreach in which they were able to obtain yet another privatization friendly court ruling that allows privately managed charter corporations to norm their classrooms as low as ten students per teacher, meanwhile LAUSD public schools "are crammed with about 50 students" in some classes. Of course, Howard Blume's biased article leaves this (and many other facts) out entirely. Cheryl Ortega was kind enough to address this issue:
The article also fails to mention the issue of smaller norming and how that could affect the home school. The issue of not counting the set asides has been the practice, if not the policy, since the inception of prop 39 in LAUSD.
Green's ruling will result in neighborhood children being displaced from their own schools and a further marginalization of children with special needs. Of course, we already know the charter school industry serves fewer students with disabilities to begin with, so it's no surprise that charters don't mind displacing those children from public schools either.
I left the following comments on The Times site:
These privately managed charters only care about their revenue streams. Displacing services, or even students from their own neighborhood schools, means nothing to the wealthy executives at the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), which continues to pull in tens of millions of dollars from right wing organizations like the Walton Family Foundation.
Meanwhile public school children are being crammed into smaller and smaller spaces, with less and less resources! The CCSA is on record for not caring about "severely disabled students, parent centers and computer labs." Californians were tricked by Prop 39, and now the fruits of that deception are coming to the fore.
Social Justice activists have fought against this charter colocation greed in communities like Echo Park and Silver Lake. What we need is create a large community push-back against the deep pocketed CCSA in every neighborhood. Any organization or law that puts revenues and executive salaries ahead of the needs of children and communities has to go!
Given the unlimited amounts of money the charter school industry has access to, it will always be an uphill struggle to battle against their efforts to undermine public education. That said, we must resist, and it's good sign to see that a school district and Superintendent renowned for kowtowing to the corporate charter sector, are, by necessity, beginning to fight back against the tide of neoliberalism and school privatization.
A reader emailed me the following yesterday. It explains a lot more about the corporate judge mentioned above.
Judge Terry A. Green, the one who ruled that charter school students have more rights than public school students, is a long time right-wing Republican donor who has given to fringe organizations like Economic Liberty PAC as well as the Bush-Cheney campaigns, the Republic National Committee, John McCain, the California Republican Party, and others like Congressman James Rogan and Senator-wannabe Bill Jones.
Go to the link and look for Terry A. Green from CA/Pasadena to see. Sometimes he is listed as Honorable Terry Green and the Superior Court is listed. http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/qind/
In fact, he donated $500 to the Republican National Committee just 8 months ago, perhaps after reading the party platform on charter school/school choice expansion. http://tinyurl.com/d4uztel
Shouldn't a judge who donates thousands of dollars to organizations and individuals who blindly support charter schools recuse himself from these cases? Instead, he rules for—surprise—the CCSA!
Backed into a corner by a monster it helped create, LAUSD fights back against charter colocation greed
On the morning of Friday July 13, 2012 wealthy charter corporation heads, billionaire funded 501c3 "non-profits," and well heeled business leaders celebrated a "Decade of Corporate Education Reforms" courtesy of LAUSD President Mónica Garcia.
Community members, students, educators, and social justice activists showed up on last minute notice to let Ms. García know that her tenure has been, and continues to be, unbearable to those suffering under her neoliberal regime of privatization and school closures. Several members of United Adult Students were on hand to remind everyone that García has stolen many students' futures have closed so many of our Early Education Center, Adult Education Schools, and SRLDP programs!
The Chamber of Commerce was the perfect place for the chief school privatizer—Mónica García to join her fellow one-percenters, profiteers, privatizers, and poverty pimps, since none of them are about education, they're all about business and revenues instead. Joan Sullivan, Marshall Tuck, Angelica Solis, Elise Buik, Veronica Melvin, and a host of other charter school bandits were on hand to salute Eli Broad and Philip Anschutz's avatar.
My name is Robert D. Skeels. Over the course of many years as an education activist and a social justice writer, I've witnessed many grave injustices perpetrated by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on our community. Sadly, a primary reason for this is that a majority of our current Schoolboard members were elected with, and beholden to, money from the one percent and corporate interests. Until we have a majority of social justice minded Schoolboard Trustees, we will continue to suffer from policies that don't serve the needs of students, families and communities.
This is why I am running for the District 2 Trustee seat. As an individual committed to social justice, I will stand up to the corporate interests that currently dominate LAUSD. I bring both a wealth of knowledge on education and a commitment to the principles of social justice set forth by luminaries including Paulo Freire, Donaldo Macedo, and Henry GIroux. Armed with facts and truth, I will challenge the fatalistic neoliberal narrative that currently dominates Los Angeles education policy and I will speak truth to the corporate power that dominates our schools.
I've lived in LAUSD District 2 for eighteen years. My wife and I own a home in Echo Park/Historic Filipinotown.
I need donations and campaign volunteers. Help save Los Angeles Schools from privatization.
Robert D. Skeels, a Social Justice Schoolboard Candidate
The student activists of United Adult Students (UAS) held their Summer Celebration on the last day of June 2012. Through their hard work and perseverance they were able to salvage a portion of their programs despite the fact that LAUSD President Mónica García and Superintendent John Deasy were hades-bent on shutting down all of adult education and many more programs for working class peoples. The students held multiple large demonstrations, gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures, obtained resolutions from many Neighborhood Councils, garnered support from many community leaders, endorsements from politicians, and so much more. Their efforts made it politically untenable for Deasy, García and the rest of the Anschutz Four to steal their futures. The Los Angeles City Council passed an unanimous resolution supporting adult education, and unsurprisingly Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — who postures as an 'Education Mayor' — refused to sign the resolution supporting over a quarter million working and immigrant families trying to improve their lot. While the students celebrated, they also thought of all the schools, educators, and opportunities that were lost through the missmanagement of LAUSD's resources and wrongheaded budget priorities. They resolved to continue the struggle to use our community's resources on classrooms rather than creating revenue streams from Pearson, plc.
Students, Parents, and Community Activists provided an update on the recall campaign and other activities to save LAUSD SRLDP, Early Education Centers, Adult Education, and to prevent further privatization, reconstitution, and closures of our local neighborhood schools. http://recallmonicagarcia.com
"We had an African American woman walk up to us and say 'why do you need Ethnic Studies?', and we looked at each other and said, 'that's exactly why we need Ethnic Studies!'" — Santee Students speaking at PLAS protest.
It would be a mistake to think the absolutely tragic stream of bigoted and racist legislation flowering in Arizona is confined to Arizona alone. Sadly, one of the most egregious perpetrators removing access to ethnic studies and heritage language programs in this country isn't Michael Hicks, Tom Horne, or John Huppenthal, but a privately managed organization called Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) founded by the vehemently anti-public education Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa.
PLAS' latest attack comes in the form of killing the only Ethnic Studies program at the culturally diverse South Los Angeles Santee High School. The announcement shook the community, given the program's popularity and importance in a community desperate to retain its identity and dignity. The following video was taken at a demonstration held in front of PLAS headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The protest was held by community activists in order to save both the Ethnic Studies program and the program's leader — Social Justice Educator Ron Gochez.
At the heart of the decision is a vindictive reprisal against Social Justice Educator Ron Gochez by Mayor Villaraigosa. Gochez drew Villaraigosa's ire by running for Los Angeles City Council District 9, and — as a principled social justice activist — by being a constant thorn in the Mayor's side. Gochez has been one of the activists instrumental in the Southern California Immigration Coalition and National Lawyer Guild's stand against the Mayor and his cronies seizing and selling the automobiles of undocumented peoples. We've even held demonstrations in front of the Mayor's lavish mansion. Here's an announcement of one such protest:
To protest the continued confiscation of undocumented people's cars. The police continue to use minor violations as a pretext to pull over undocumented drivers and take away their vehicles. Police have repeatedly targeted immigrant communities to establish patrols in areas that are designed not to deter traffic violations but provide a pretext for stopping suspected unlicensed drivers, including in front of schools as parents drop off their children. These stops are tantamount to racial profiling as they repeatedly target immigrants who in many instances have committed no crime.
Ultimately Mayor Villaraigosa's political payback effects not just Gochez, but his students, Santee High School, and the South Los Angeles community as a whole.
The initial decision was surreptitiously announced by one of Villaraigosa's education henchman, ex-Green Dot Schools Corporation flunky Marshall Tuck. Tuck has been PLAS' CEO since the privately managed organization began. Eliminating the only Ethnic Studies program at Santee High School is tantamount to cultural sterilization. Such politically motivated attacks are both racist and ethnocentric. PLAS' Marshal Tuck, Doc Ervin, Angela Bass, Joan Sullivan, and Ricardo Ruiz have a long history of these types of attacks on our communities.
The decision to rob Santee's impoverished students of color of their chance to learn about their culture and history follows on the heels of PLAS killing heritage language programs at two of their other schools. Four years ago they banned the Dual Language Program and the Academic English Mastery Program at Ritter Elementary School, and two years ago they banned the teaching of core subjects in Spanish at Roosevelt High School as they had had as a response to the activism of the famous East Los Angeles Blowouts in 1968.
I asked United Teachers of Los Angeles' Director of Bilingual Education, Cheryl Ortega, for full details on program elimination:
This is the first I've heard of eliminating ethnic studies at Santee, but it makes me think a lot about Tuck and PLAS banning the Dual Language Program and the Academic English Mastery Program at Ritter 4 years ago. Tuck and his people, Doc Ervin, Angela Bass and Ricardo Ruiz worked very hard to pit the Latino and the African-American communities against each other at Ritter instead of promoting unity. It was shameful.
Two years ago Marina Salas, chair of the Bilingual Ed Committee, and I visited Roosevelt HIgh, a PLAS school, at the request of the CC and the ESL teachers. They were outraged that they were no longer permitted to teach core subjects in Spanish as they had done for a generation. If an English Learner takes a math course, for instance, in Spanish, the student will receive credit for the A-G. The same student could take the math class in English and receive the same A-G credit if he/she passes the course which is unlikely because of the language challenge. So the EL student is put in a general math class which, although, is just a rigorous from a language perspective, is a lower level math class which does not generate A-G credit. So dozens of kids, many newcomers, perfectly competent to take algebra or chemistry cannot get graduation credit for those classes. PLAS has denied thousands of EL students access to core curriculum because of their limited English skills. The year before that, PLAS eliminated the Dual Language Program and the AEMP program at Ritter ES in Watts in spite of parent protests. The people that the mayor has running PLAS, Marshall Tuck, Doc Ervin, and formerly Angela Bass, are, at best, completely insensitive, and, at worst, purposely undermining the chances of student success in minority communities. I always felt that the mayor had distanced himself from the actual running of PLAS, leaving it in the hands of these people.
I would opt for they are "purposely undermining the chances of student success in minority communities." The elimination of the only Ethnic Studies program at the culturally diverse Santee is further proof of the cultural genocide that PLAS inflicts on the most needy children in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Fighting this type of sophisticated racism is just as important as the struggle against the outright ignorant racism of Michael Hicks, Tom Horne, or John Huppenthal. PLAS is part and parcel Villaraigosa and his wealthy cadre of school privatizers' pet project. For a Latino Mayor, who is on record for rightfully criticizing Arizona for it's nativist bigotry, to allow the same thing to go on in his own schools is the height of hypocrisy.
Stop cultural genocide! Contact the following and demand that PLAS retain the Ethnic Studies program at Santee High School and that social justice educator Ron Gochez be restored to his position.
Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa
Mayor of Los Angeles
200 N. Main St. Rm 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 978-0600 mayor@lacity.org
Joan Sullivan
Deputy Mayor on Education
Office of the Mayor
200 N. Main St. Rm 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 978-0662 Joan.sullivan@lacity.org
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
As the DFER veneer for right-wing "parent trigger" laws wears off, and more and more people see the privatization agenda for what it is, charlatans like Gloria Romero and Ben Austin have been scrambling to hide or minimize their ties to right wing extremists. The good news is that it isn't working, and that aside from shills like Andi Rotherham and Alex Russo even mainstream media journalists are starting to see through what the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch refers to as the "Parent Tricker."
My recent Schools Matter essay, Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform's Gloria J. Romero's Parent Tricker days are numbered, looks at DFER's Gloria Romero' unconscionable attacks on the distinguished Professor Diane Ravitch.
Published 2012-07-02 on Schools Matter, please read it there and share widely.
Bonus: Open letter to Doug Tuthill of the American Center for School Choice. My response to Mr. Tuthill's insistance that his fringe right organization and colleagues differ with the John Birch Society on education policies.
Schools Matter: Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform's Gloria J. Romero's Parent Tricker days are numbered
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)
Matthew Di Carlo recently penned a thoughtful and somewhat nuanced piece on the vile so-called "parent trigger" legislation being pushed by the school privatization industry. In When Push Comes To Pull In The Parent Trigger Debate he suggests that support for or against anti-democratic triggers is often dependent on an individual's stance on charter schools to begin with.
Interestingly, he posits that if triggers were associated with authentic reforms like class size reduction as opposed to seizing property for the lucrative charter industry, that there might be less opposition to parent triggers and other shock doctrine style swindles. I for one think that's the point. Triggers were not devised as a way to improve or help public education. They have always been a way of increasing market share for the charter sector, union busting, and have been widely embraced by the fringe-right as a pathway to vouchers and other forms of plunder and poverty pimping.
Had trigger laws been a means for democratically engaging entire communities in the improvement of their schools, I would have become their biggest supporter. Instead, they are simply another way to stuff more money into the pockets of charter executives and their wealthy associates. Here are my comments posted to the Shanker Blog, which still apparently hasn't made it through the moderation process:
I'd agree that some perspective on corporate charter trigger laws is influenced by an individual's views on school privatization and the neoliberal project in general. However, that doesn't mean that the overarching problem with triggers is the fact that they are entirely anti-democratic to put the fate of a public resource into the hands of a minority of the community. More than that, the huge amounts of money and resources expended to sway parents to triggering their school into private hands has been seen repeatedly, with corporate charter advocacy groups like the so-called Parent Revolution with it's multi-million dollar budget from nefarious funders like the Walton Family Foundation.
We can learn much about the origins and motives of groups pushing the corporate charter "parent" trigger by where the majority of its support comes from—fringe right wing groups like The Heartland Institute and The American Legislative Exchange Council.
Parent Revolution can deny their ties to ALEC and other reactionaries all they want, but they can't hide the fact that they have had deep and long-standing partnerships with ALEC members, including fringe right-wing The Heartland Institute. In addition to constant collaboration with Heartland, Parent Revolution hosts forums with them. See the following flyer from one of their events and an article discussing it:
Gloria J. Romero, who along with former Governor Schwartzenegger's staff, and Parent Revolution's Ben Austin, drafted the parent trigger (more aptly, tricker), is also known to work hand and hand with the most extreme forces of reaction on education issues. She works closely with members of the Koret Foundation and The Hoover Institution. Shunned by her own party, she works with teabaggers and other right-wing politicians.
The evidence is damning, and their claims that they don't represent right-wing interests ring hollow. Bear in mind Parent Revolution was originally the Los Angeles Parents Union, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Green Dot Charter School Corporation. Parent Revolution's sole reason for existence is to build market share for the lucrative charter school sector. This is born out both by the comments of their funders, and by the privatization policies of their funders.
See this piece for a statement by Eli Broad on why he funds Parent Revolution:
See these documents to see the names right-wing plutocrats who fund Parent Revolution and the staggering amounts they contribute. Tops on the list, the privatization reactionaries at the Walton Family Foundation.
I was recently asked on facebook to explain how charters make money. This is important since the charter industry has recently been trying to convince the public that they're nothing more than a charitable exercise. Here's what I wrote back to them:
Here's just a taste, but it should be enough for you to answer such inquires.
Operators like Edison make profit directly, as do most EMOs, from the difference between "services rendered" and ADA money. CMOs don't make profit per se, but they pay their executives exorbitant (confer Petruzzi or Ponce to Deasy versus number of schools and students) salaries and make additional money from special relationships with vendors (look up companies like ExED and charter operator Judy Burton's very special relationship with them). Many charter executives set up these sweet vendor deals and then go on to work for the vendors. Another big money maker is charter financing and financial services by corporations like Charter School Capital, pushed by local CMO executive Ricardo Mireles.
The most lucrative part of the charter industry however, is real estate. How big is the charter-voucher school real estate bubble? Big enough to attract big names like Goldman Sachs, Andre Agassi, Citibank, and Richard Riordan to the lucrative land grab ventures. Big enough that Gloria Romero was rewarded with a cushy six-figure job as CEO at Democrats for Education Reform in California for her servile gift the privately managed charter industry called SB 592, which hands public school property over to privately managed charter corporations. New York based vultures, like Gideon Stein, are making a fortune in brokering charter real estate (and the raising of property values via gentrification of neighborhoods through those charters).
There's also all the lucrative "distance learning," "online charters," and "blended learning" cash cows. Bill Gates and Tom Vander Ark are never far from the picture when those money making scams are at hand. In fact, the vile Vander Ark was very recently on the all white (sans one) Board of Directors from LA's Promise that is now firing all of their hard working educators, so they can hire cheaper ones. Sure that has nothing to do with profits though.
Thoughts on Matthew Di Carlo's recent Shanker Blog piece on the 'parent tricker'
To David Welch, Eli Broad, Theodore J. Boutrous, Theane Evangelis Kapur, Theodore B. Olson, Enrique A. Monagas, and Joshua S. Lipshutz:
