Jose Lara was kind enough to give me permission to reprint his excellent take on the bi-partisan right wing school privatization agenda, and how it impacts communities of color and poverty.
Dear Social Justice Educators,
I recently ran across an article in Newsweek Magazine titled, How the GOP Sees It: What Republicans would do if given carte blanche to run the country.
As the title suggests, the article was all about what Republicans would be if they were in charge.
The most interesting part of this article was the section on education where Republican authors suggest that, "Since the 1980s, Republicans have led the debate on education. They have introduced some of the most successful reform ideas for improving failing schools: increasing competition and choice, raising standards and expectations, and relying on hard data to determine what works and what doesn't."
Moreover, it goes on further to suggest that, "Education may be the one significant policy domain where the Obama agenda is winning reasonable points from a lot of Republicans."
One of the major problems in our fight against Corporate Charter Schools, Merit Pay, and School Choice is that proponents wrap these moves in the language of civil rights with no real intentions of truly advancing the civil rights of the poor or people of color. Moreover, they use tactics usually used by progressives to further their movement, such as community organizing, rallies and direct action. A prime example of this is the Green Dot Charter School Corporation's funded group "Parent Revolution."
This has confused some progressives and caring educators into viewing these "right wing" reforms are actually progressive reforms. Unknowing parents also accept these reforms because they are unsatisfied with the current school system and they should be. The truth is that for many poor and people of color, the school system IS failing.
The challenge for social Justice Educators is to reframe the debate and suggest feasible alternatives to right wing reforms now championed by Democrats. Secondly we must unmask these so-called "reform" efforts being pushed by Democrats as advancement of free-market ideology that seeks to "WalMart-ize" our educational system. In other words, rally to the cause of the slogan "My child is more than a standardized test score!" Further more we must STOP supporting Democrats just because they likely to win or support some of our lesser important issues.
We can no longer pander to Democrats.
Lastly, as we expose the truth of these false "progressive reforms," we must not forget that we MUST provide true socially just alternatives and true reforms that work. Moreover it must be in a discourse that the community can understand. If Charter schools, Merit Pay, and Closing Down poor performing schools don't work what does?
Below is the text of the Newsweek Article referenced above.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233918/page/6
Warmly,
Jose Lara
Social Justice Educator
Santee Education Committee
Jose Lara - Republican Education Plan: Same as the Democratic one
After a procession of mind-numbing speeches chock full of dishonesty by wealthy CMO corporate charter executives including Marco Petruzzi, Ben Austin, and the CCSA'sJed Wallace, Jose Lara's brilliant speech in which he exhorts the corporate friendly LAUSD Board to respect our community's "fundamental right of self determination" was an exhilarating breath of honesty and integrity. Too bad Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc. wasn't listening.
The word “backlash” is actually being used about a so-called school reform maneuver so shortsighted and coldblooded that almost no one is speaking up in support of it — almost no one but President Obama.
Last month, all 93 members of the faculty, administration and support staff of Central Falls High school in Central Falls, R.I., were told that they’re fired as of the end of this school year.
“Mr. Obama said he supported the school board’s decision to dismiss the faculty and staff members. ‘Our kids get only one chance at an education and we need to get it right,’ he said.”
(Obama’s lightweight, resume-faking Secretary of Education praised the move too, but he’s not really worth devoting blogosphere bandwidth to.)
Despite the current climate in which blaming, bashing and demonizing teachers has become a comfortable and popular theme in all kinds of commentary, Obama’s remark actually seems to have provoked dismay and outrage. In the most current news article showing online as I write this, the Providence Journal uses the term “wildfire.”
“The wildfire of national debate over the mass firings at Central Falls High School spread further Tuesday, when the executive council of the AFL-CIO unanimously condemned the removal of all 93 teachers, support staff and administrators at the city’s only high school.
The executive council said its members were “appalled” that President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had endorsed the terminations in recent comments, and said the firings will not help the 800 students at the high school, which is one of the poorest and lowest-performing schools in Rhode Island.”
Well, I have a proposal. Those 93 teachers, support staff and administrators should get together, pull the necessary strings (which are in their reach right now while the story is hot), and request a meeting with the president — all 93 of them. If Obama could have a beer with Henry Louis Gates and that cop whose name I’ve now forgotten, surely he’s willing to spend a little time hearing the viewpoint of 93 people whom he has essentially attacked sight unseen. While it would be hospitable for him to invite them to the White House, it would be a lot classier for him to have a soothing spot of tea catered in at Central Falls High School. (And he desperately needs to show a little class right now; his supply is perilously low.) I’m sure the cafeteria has enough room to seat the Central Falls 93, Obama and his entourage.
Two years ago, it would have been impossible for me to imagine saying this, but I also propose that President Obama emulate something San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has been doing. I’m not normally Newsom’s biggest fan, with the exception of back in February 2004 when his then-revolutionary gay marriages were spreading joy through San Francisco.
But lately, my city's mayor has been doing something admirable after being challenged by Patricia Gray, the longtime rock-star principal of San Francisco’s Balboa High School. Newsom has been spending Saturdays calling the homes of students who are chronically truant from their San Francisco public schools. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross political insider column wrote about this in a Jan. 31 column (not available online.)
“It has been a real eye-opener,” Newsom told the Chronicle. “In just about every case,” Matier and Ross wrote, “the family is in crisis.” In other words, truancy isn’t all the fault of inept teachers and uncaring schools after all, Newsom is learning.
At an overflowing Town Hall meeting in San Francisco, called by public-school parents to address the current budget crisis, Newsom brought up his calls (and visits) to the homes of truants, and reiterated that point quite emphatically. The truants are almost always living in households battered by the worst life can dump on them, and it’s unrealistic to expect educators to magically cure it all, and to blame them for not working miracles.
Well, if Newsom — who I never would have thought could hold a candle to Obama in depth and thoughtfulness — can accept Patricia Gray’s challenge and gain such new understanding, where’s the president?
I hope to read about that meeting in the Central Falls High School cafeteria soon.
For more on the Central Falls firings, here’s a snippet of commentary by veteran Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss:
“…93 names were called for firing — 74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals, according to the Providence Journal. Not one was good enough to stay.
Some of the teachers at the city's only high school cried, but the committee held firm.
It's no wonder that Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded the move, saying the committee members were "showing courage and doing the right thing for kids."
Courage, indeed.
Now, all they have to do is find 93 excellent professionals to take their places. Recruiting the best educators should be easy, especially when you can offer them life in a very poor town and a job with no security.”
-- Guest blogger Caroline Grannan,
San Francisco public school parent and advocate
You'd think that the overarching goal of the California Charter Schools Association would be to contribute to the social fabric by providing a quality education to all the students its member schools serve, but instead it's all about market share.
To wit:
"Ultimately the Association gauges its success by tracking the growth in the number of children attending high-quality charter schools in California." — Rick Piercy (Board Chair CCSA 2009) [1]
This imperative of increasing market share — an imperative shared by all the billionaire backers [2] of charters, pressing through their proxies like Ben Austin — is ultimately aimed at union busting and bankrupting public school systems. AEI's Andy Smarick, Ben Austin and Marco Petruzzi's reactionary ideological muse, writes the following in a far right wing journal sponsored by the Hoover Institution and Fordham Institute.
"As chartering increases its market share in a city, the district will come under growing financial pressure. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. With a lopsided adult-to-student ratio, the district's per-pupil costs will skyrocket." [3]
This is of course, the exact methodology that Austin and his fellow CCSA operatives follow in Los Angeles — a right wing roadmap, so to speak. While they've been helped greatly by the policies of the current administration, particularly by Arne "Katrina Schadenfreude" Duncan, these machinations have been in place for many, many years. After charter schools have displaced and bankrupted public schools entirely, the employing class's long time dream of vouchers is in reach.
This dovetails with what celebrated educator and author Jonathan Kozol states is the real purpose behind the so called charter "movement:"
'In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word voucher has been successfully discredited by enlightened Americans who believe in the public sector. So they've resorted to two strategies. First, they no longer use the word "vouchers." They've adopted the seemingly benign phrase "school choice," but they are still voucher advocates.' — Jonathan Kozol [4]
So too, says the Walton Family watchdog site "WaltonInfluence.com" which discusses under the subheading The Walton's' Agenda: Vouchers and Charter Schools.
"Since the late 1990's, the Walton's have donated millions of dollars to various causes across the country "including the start-up funding that allowed the national private-school voucher movement to get off the ground more than a decade ago." [5]
Charged with growing corporate CMO charter market share, Ben Austin's Green Dot Public [sic] Schools subsidiary LAPU/Parent Revolution has allegedly just received a large grant from the voucher oriented Walton Foundation. For more examples of millions of ideologically charged dollars flowing into Green Dot corporation and LAPU/PR, see Sharon Higgens' latest expose on the nefarious relations between the charter-voucher camp and their billionaire bankrollers 'The "Parent Trigger" and its connections to the phoney LA Parents Union, Green Dot, Steve Barr, and Eli Broad' [6]
NOTES:
[1] http://ccsa.informz.net/ccsa/archives/archive_230166.html
More CCSA market share madness: "Since [Steve Poizner's] involvement in the charter school movement [sic] began, the number of charter schools in California has doubled." (http://www.stevepoizner.com/)"
[2] Eli Broad, William Gates II, The Walton Family, Reed Hastings, Donald Fisher, Michael Milkin, et al.
[3] http://educationnext.org/wave-of-the-future/ Notice too, the paragraph reveals the deliberate charter-voucher intention of not educating special education children. While the CCSA and charter-voucher proponents try to skirt this issue, their own ideological documents shamelessly contain their malevolent tenets and firm commitment NOT to educate every child.
[4] http://www.isreview.org/issues/45/Kozol.shtml
[5] http://www.waltoninfluence.com/influence/pages/the_walton_family_agenda
[6] http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2010/02/parent-trigger-and-its-connections-to.html
Special thanks to Sarah Knopp and Dr. Danny Weil for pointing me in the market share direction.
Here's an awesome video by Social Justice Educator and Activist Jose Lara of Los Angeles teachers holding a candle light vigil as they wait in line to get a number for the February 23, 2010 LAUSD school board meeting.
Privatization specialists Ben Austin (City Ethics Case # 2010-36), Shirley Ford, Gabe Rose and the other corporate charter-voucher cheerleaders clamored for a parent vote. Now they're vehemently trying to undermine and subvert those votes!
While Cortines is advocating giving away several public schools to private corporations despite overwhelming community support for the local school plans — including my neighborhood school Gratts — the "market share" mindset of the CCSA and the corporate CMO charter-voucher industry has them calling for even more schools! So much for school choice, huh?
I swung past Beaudry and took some photos this morning, but none of them were worth posting. I did see several Green Dot Public [sic] School employees, including Shirley Ford standing on the sidewalk by the news-vans.
More on this soon!
Relevant twitter updates
@JoseDelBarrio LA Teachers begin the day with morning Candle light vigil saying to school takeovers http://bit.ly/cr8JAF #UTLA #lausd
@avalonsensei Charters could have redeemed themselves by bidding for the neediest schools, but they didn't. So we will fight. #edreform #lausd @itsyolie
@rdsathene Charters, Inc. @gaberose + @parentrev at #LAUSD to convince @itsyolie led Board to ignore parent choice and community votes #edreform #UTLA
@rdsathene Austin, Ford, Rose & @parentrev clamored for parent vote. Now they're vehemently trying to undermine & subvert those votes. #edreform #LAUSD
@rdsathene Did right wing corporate charter charlatan Ben Austin just quote Malcom X. Can he be serious? http://bit.ly/9me8gs #edrefom #UTLA #LAUSD
@rdsathene Charter charlatan Ben Austin calls community & parent votes in PSC advisory "Soviet Style Elections" http://bit.ly/9me8gs #edrefom #LAUSD
@rdsathene Jose Lara absolutely rocked the #LAUSD board! "Self Determination!" "Don't Balkanize our school district!"#edrefom @JoseDelBarrio #UTLA
Not twitter, but Martin Terrones: "Charter Schools [at LAUSD] promote segregation" -- Margarite Lamotte, LAUSD Board Member and sole voice of reason in a sea of closeted biggots and opportunists.
Respect the community votes! No more charters in LAUSD!
"A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible to transformation." — Paulo Freire
2010 SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN! Education is a Basic Human Right!
The Association of Raza Educators, A.R.E., believes that education is a human right and that all people, regardless of citizenship status, should have the right to an education. As educators, we often see some of the most deserving students denied that right because they are ineligible for financial aid.
Through its fiscal sponsor, the Raza Education Fund, the Association of Raza Educators will provide undocumented students with an opportunity to realize their dreams of attending college. Each year A.R.E will award undocumented graduating seniors and continuing college students with a scholarship. The number of scholarships awarded each year will be determined by the amount raised and/or donated to the Raza Education Fund.
Scholarship recipients are selected based on their commitment to fighting for social justice. Students are required to turn in an application, and demonstrate how they are actively involved in their community. Scholarship recipients are expected to further the goals of A.R.E.
California Charter Schools Association Co-Founder and long time board member Steve Poizner is running for Governor. He spoke at the reactionary right wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday, February 19, 2010.
In a speech in which he proposes unconscionable further tax cuts for the über-wealthy and corporations in the midst of a recession, rails against public unions and brags about his plan to neuter labor once and for all, the most vile and venomous portion of Steve Poizner's speech at CPAC was reserved for undocumented peoples. In fact, his hateful rhetoric sounded exactly like speeches by Jim Gilchrist, founder of the vicious anti-immigrant group "The Minutemen." Here's the CCSA founder Steve Poizner tipping his hand (more appropriately his hood), at the event headlined by Glen Beck:
"And last, but not least — sometimes it's unpopular to talk about it on the campaign trail — I don't care. I'm going to be a truth teller. Last, but not least, we have to stop illegal immigration once and for all!
[ lengthy rabid applause from racist crowd ]
We're going to do two things; and I know there's some people who think it's just a Federal matter, but it's not. The Governor can do a lot about it. First thing I'm going to do is turn the magnets off. There's a lot of state programs that attract people to California illegally, and I'm going to turn those magnets off. And the second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to secure the border. If I have to send the National Guard to the border, that's what I'm gonna do." — Steve Poizner, Co-Founder California Charter School Association (CCSA) (http://solidprinciples.com/updates/poiznercpac2010.mp3)
Lest the CCSA try to deny Poizner's founding, influence, and leading position with the California Charter School Association, he was their co-founder and a board member as late as 2008:
From CCSA Co-Founder Steve Poizner's biography on his campaign site:
"Steve demonstrated his passion for local control of schools by co-founding EdVoice and the California Charter Schools Association - the state's leading charter school organization. Since his involvement in the charter school movement began, the number of charter schools in California has doubled." (http://www.stevepoizner.com/)
I wonder what Poizner's close friends and fellow charter charlatans Jed Wallace, Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, Judy Burton, Ben Austin, and all the other CCSA cheerleaders will have to say about this outrageous speech.
Updates: Mike Klonsky finds video footage of the vile racist and CCSA co-founder making his infamous speech: @mikeklonsky Poizner running for Gov. in Calif. gives racist anti-immigrant rant at CPAC. Founded Calif. Charter School Assoc. http://bit.ly/cZPYsq
The UCLA Civil Rights Project and North Carolina studies have already shown corporate charter schools herald the return of Jim Crow. However, CCSA co-founder Steve Poizner may have shown the charter-voucher supporters' true face a little earlier than their right wing billionaire backers might have liked. Anyone concerned with fighting racism and forwarding civil rights needs to join the struggle against the charter school industry.
Racist Anti-Immigrant Speech by California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and EdVoice Co-Founder Steve Poizner
It should go without saying that any organization with unelected, corporate, and unaccountable boards with access to public funds is a scandal waiting to happen. These reports' findings on charters with financial irregularities are quite telling, and support the contentions of public school advocates that charters are far less accountable than public schools. With the current administration using the Wall Street imposed financial crises to force school privatization (read charters) on the rest of us, we can expect more and more financial malfeasance, as corporate types and their 501c3 counterparts look to loot more from public coffers.
At least we know that it isn't just Barr, Wallace, Petruzzi, Burton, Ressler, and Austin with fast-and-loose accounting.
Two amazing reports on malfeasance in Minnesota charter schools
In LA teachers take on the charters Sarah Knopp and Rebecca Sun, members of United Teachers Los Angeles, report on the fight to stop the privatization of LA's public schools. Andy Libson, a science teacher at Mission High School, and member of United Educators of San Francisco and the Educators for a Democratic Union reform caucus, has some questions for Superintendent Carlos Garcia in Join us in resisting the cuts.
The latest issue of Regeneración features extensive coverage on "The Attacks on Public Education." "Regeneración is a publication of the Association of Raza Educators Press. Its Editorial Board consists of A.R.E. members. The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent the views of the Association of Raza Educators. Regeneración is published quarterly, three times per year."
Howard Blume explores the possibility of a parcel tax to help with the budget crunch in L.A. Unified to seek $100 parcel tax hike. In it Wall Street huckster cum public dole recipient CMO CEO Marco Petruzzi has the audacity to discuss "seniority and tenure." It's funny to hear the same people who defend bonuses for Goldman Sachs discuss so called "merit pay" schemes for real working class people like teachers. Given the incredibly low API's of most of his corporate Green Dot schools, and their inability to serve all SWD students, maybe the very wealthy Petruzzi should consider revamping a system rewarding longevity over merit starting with his own massive six digit salary.
Of course, Petruzzi's unqualified comments pale in comparison to everyone's favorite corporate welfare CCSA/CMO leech — Jed Wallace. Here's the comments I typed in response to his extreme right wing nonsense:
Given the astronomical sums of money the CCSA/CMO parasites like Jed Wallace are sucking out of the public trough, it's somewhat surprising that he'd even care to comment on this story. Make not mistake though. When the insatiably greedy Jed Wallace says the CCSA and his band of well heeled Corporate CMO CEOs would "oppose a tax with no benefit for them," he's telling the truth. In the elitist world of Jed Wallace and the charter plutocrats, they believe every tax dollar we pay should go directly into their pockets. Petruzzi, Wallace, Barr, Burton, and all the barons of the lucrative charter charade are laughing at us all the way to the bank!
Are Charter Schools Civil Rights Failures? (Yes! -rds) "A recent study by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California-Los Angeles says that charter schools are a civil rights failure, citing increasingly segregated enrollment as one of many issues. On the other hand, many experts say that charter schools are a success for students and the community at large. The study titled "Choice without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards." Host Michel Martin discusses the study’s findings with Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project who oversaw the research."
How do you spell conflict of interest? I spell it Scholastic Inc. The suppliers of pre-packaged "banking pedagogy," and favorites of Capitalism lovin' Corporate CMO Charters like Green Dot Public [sic] Schools [1] counts none other than Supt. Cortines on their payroll. Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for actually standing up to this kind of mendacity and malfeasance in Cortines' Scholastic entanglement, it's about time! Now if they would just take on Matt Hill and the other monsters of privatization.
NOTES:
[1] Try reading Scholastic Inc.'s homage to Steve Barr and his corporate empire someday. Be sure to have a receptacle for vomit at the ready.
"[S]ome charters are known to discourage less academically inclined students from enrolling." — Los Angeles Times
Don't know if anyone caught the evil empress of privatization's comments in the Los Angeles Times that the voting process she inflicted on our communities was "disgusting," but that was the first round of Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc.'s vicious invective against those who chose public schools over her corporate CMO charter allies.
Ralph Nader once described George W. Bush as "a corporation in the disguise of a human being." The same can be said of LAUSD VP Yolie Flores Aguilar, except for the disguise part. Her assault on our communities on behalf of her billionaire bankrollers and corporate CMO charter companions is probably the most remarkable part of the neoliberal assault on public education. In her amateurish op-ed in the Los Angeles Daily News entitled "Challenge to status quo good for LAUSD students" [1] Flores Aguilar displays her amazing propensity for arrogance and dishonesty that have become her trademarks. Here's the comments I made in response to her drivel.
It's despicable that an elected official can be as obtuse towards their constituents as VP Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc. has been.
None of the public school supporters have ever said:
"that their special needs children or English learners will not be served"
What we have said is that they will be under-served. Let's take Ms. Flores Aguilar's country club buddies and fellow elitists from Green Dot Corporation as a key example. Green Dot's exclusionary schools have an average of 7.4% Special Education students compared to 11.3% for District schools. The frightening part is that their corporate CMO is actually far better in terms of their Special Ed and SWD percentages than most of the other corporate CMOs bidding to take over and privatize public institutions.
I welcome all readers to familiarize themselves with the Modified Consent Decree exposing corporate CMO charter-voucher school discrimination and exclusivity. Very telling is the statement that children with disabilities are "significantly underrepresented" at CMO run charter schools. The executive summary of the report (http://bit.ly/4GfFm9), and the data tables from the report (http://bit.ly/dho8Ee). Charter school operators are concerned special education programs for children cut into the massive salaries for their executives. Until these corporate run schools are obligated legally, ethically, and morally to educate every child they shouldn't get a penny of our taxes or the buildings we paid for! As social justice activists, public school advocates, and progressives, we implore charter schools and other outsiders to stop putting EXECUTIVES and CEOs before children!
Of course, Ms. Flores Aguilar, Inc. is intimately familiar with these documents and all the other statistical data proving how CMO corporate charters do everything in their power to avoid educating every child. She's also aware of how the CCSA and the individual charters have fought every attempt to change their discriminatory practices -- to the point that they're trying to get reactionary State Senator Romero to change the law and make it legal for them to discriminate. The fact that VP Yolie Flores Aguilar knows all this, but then goes on to say anyone discussing it is dealing in "fear tactics" speaks volumes to her character.
I think we'd be challenged to find anyone more disingenuous, dishonest, and beholden to corporate interests than LAUSD Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar. Her disrespect towards parents, students, teachers, and taxpayers goes beyond the pale.
One last thing. Telling the truth is not a fear tactic. We in the social justice community understand Ms. Flores Aguilar is frustrated that many parents and community members have seen through her attempt to increase CMO market share, and in turn the massive salaries of the insatiably greedy CMO executives. We understand that she doesn't want people reading documentation of the major shortcomings of the various CMO corporate charter schools. In the end however, we will speak truth to power. Her "shock doctrine" tactics are unconscionable, and her high handed attacks on our communities on behalf of her corporate handlers will not be forgotten.
"You know, I'm amused. I can't tell you how many foreign leaders who are heads of center-right governments say to me, I don't understand why people would call you socialist, in my country, you'd be considered a conservative." -- President Barack H. Obama (CNN's State of the Union 2009-09-20)
Despite all of Ben Austin's constant lies and accusations that hard working public school teachers are child molesters, [1][2] are a "special interest," [3] and aren't accountable to parents and communities, [4] those same parents and communities voted overwhelmingly for school plans drawn up by teachers and parents.
As soon as the corporate CMO cavalcade realized they weren't able to buy off the population despite busing in outsiders into neighborhoods to vote for corporate charters, the CMO/CCSA spokesworms started with their usual campaign of fear and lies. The same slime that smear teachers began complaining they weren't able to steal the community votes: "Educated Guess: Cheating has made PSC voting process has been turned into 'farce,' Cortines should 'shred the ballots'" [5]. Generalisimo Pinoche would have been proud of a statement like that.
Remember Austin claims to speak for all the parents in Los Angeles, despite the fact that he has no school age children himself, and despite the fact that his little astro-turf Green Dot spin-off has no significant grass roots base. Let's be generous to the highly paid LAPU/PR employees and say that they have 4,000 parent members. In a city of 9,862,049, they represent less than half of a one hundredth percent of the population (0.04%), an infinitesimally small figure, and certainly not a groundswell of parents even by Austin's standards of hyperbole and Ayn Rand fantasies. What's more, with no board for parents to drive LAPU/PR policy, little to no parent fundraising, and the fact that Green Dot counts parent participation in their LAPU/PR front group as part of their "community service" requirement, claims that LAPU/PR is anything but a vehicle for the Billionaire/DLC/DFER agenda are specious at best.
This wouldn't first time Austin has lied or made outrageously false accusations.
Recall in his recent LA Times Op-Ed [6], where Austin was immune to the usual Op-Ed fact checking. He blatantly lies when he says "50% of kids in L.A. public schools aren't graduating." The Los Angeles Times has recently printed the truth about this outrageously erroneous statistic.
Another example of Austin's inability to tell the truth is when he attacked me over my groundbreaking expose of LAPU/PR's nefarious "organizing" methods on the affluent side of Los Angeles. [7] Unable to refute any of the factual information in the piece, Austin used his considerable rhetorical skills to draw attention away from the truth by trying, unsuccessfully, to discredit me. Let's look at some of the things he accuses me of:
...opponents of reform who tend to communicate in the language of personal invective and childlike imaginations...
opponents of reform have said some surrealistic, bizarre and mean things
Really Mr. Austin? I have a "childlike imagination," and have written "surrealistic, bizarre" things about your Walton, Broad, Gates Foundation funded astro-turf group? I suppose I'd understand your sentiments if I was the only one who ever made the accusation...
"There are people who think, 'The school is too black, the school is too Mexican,' and all of a sudden you see a lot of ugly things about people," Ritter Simon said. "Prejudice still exists. For a lot of people, that's a very uncomfortable zone."
Of Emerson, Bollinger said, "We heard horrible things -- that there were gangs, there was bullying, that it wasn't a safe place and the scores were so bad you couldn't get a good education.
The issue raises tough questions about race and class that many find difficult to face, parents said.
Puts things in perspective, doesn't it? Bear in mind this is the very right leaning jewishjournal.com that just printed a fact free fluff piece on how great Ben Austin is, and how he single handedly created LAPU/PR (obviously the journalist never read the infamous "Annenberg Document." which unequivocally proves LAPU's existence years before Mr. Austin jumped on that cash cow).
While I found Austin's comments about me laughable, it's still good to know that I was dead on in my article. Suddenly the surreal and bizarre are mainstream, and my alleged childlike imagination was actually the factual writings of a community activist unafraid to speak truth to the power of wealthy elite like Austin. While I could have easily written a polemic that went through point by point discrediting Austin's attack on me, I feel the Healing the World, One School at a Time piece proves my point sufficiently and vindicates me entirely. If Austin and his ilk want to avoid accusations of unsavory organizing tactics in the future, maybe they should stop their unsavory organizing tactics.
Right Winger Ben Austin's Campaign Contributors for his LAUSD Run, courtesy of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. This is a list of ideologically charged individuals who contributed to Green Dot's head school privatization and hostile take over expert's aborted LAUSD school board run for District 4. Some will argue that things would be worse had he succeeded in getting elected. Given the reactionary performance of Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc., it's hard to say that's the case. Maybe we can thank all these Gen. Pinoche/Ben Austin fans by having a "thank a fascist day," where we contact these right wingers on the list and thank them for contributing towards the destruction of public education. Bear in mind, these campaign contributions were supposedly returned to the plutocrats that made them. I've included a copy of the document below the notes here for people who don't want to follow the link.
NOTES:
[1] LAPU's Ben Austin Creating Hysteria Again
[2] Is Green Dot's Ben Austin projecting when he discusses pedophiles?
[3] The irony of a guy, who works for billionaires, and himself grosses more than five times that average pay of the hard working women and men who teach in our communities to call teachers a "special interest" isn't lost on astute readers. Here's one of the many times the pathological liar from Franklin Canyon accused our working class brothers and sisters of being "special interests" http://ourla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=847&Itemid=3235
[4] Because KIPP and Green Dot are so accountable? KIPP hucksters managed to steal a fat six figure sum, while Barr pilfered a cool $51K. Remember, the so called "charter movement" is funded and spearheaded by right wing billionaires and supported by a cheerleading squad of hedge fund managers like white supremacist Whitney "we need a lot more well-off, well-educated white folks" Tilson, so its no wonder these folks have Goldman Sachs style morals that have an upside down notion of accountability. For examples of Austin and Rose discussing accountability, just scan their astro-turf blog amid all the charter school endorsements where they keep saying the "teacher" (really teacher parent) plans have no provisions for accountability. While laughable and false on its face, reactionary tools like Rick Salen, Bill Grundfest, and Jaemin Yi seem to buy into this false line of reasoning.
[5] http://twitter.com/parentrev/status/8733781576
[6] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-austin16-2009dec16,0,3809285.story
[7] Code Words and Green Dot's Pandering to Westside Racism
[8] So I Guess We Touched a Nerve http://www.parentrevolution.org/index.php/blog/entry/so_i_guess_we_touched_a_nerve/
Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA (Feb 11 2010) talks about new Study, titled "Charter Schools' Political Success is a Civil Rights Failure" http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu
"[S]ome charters are known to discourage less academically inclined students from enrolling." — Los Angeles Times
The corporate CMO charters and their billionaire backers have spent millions of dollars trying to degrade our communities and teachers. While the entire process inflicted on us by Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc. is anti-democratic and biased towards those with the most financial backing, the next few days will allow communities a modicum of input. The facts are, corporate CMO charters, and charters in general, under-serve SWD, Special Needs and Special Education children, and English Language Learners. These are not fear tactics, as the wealthy charter backers keep claiming — they are well documented facts. Since they can't refute these facts, they just keep carrying on and on about unions are trying to scare people. The unions aren't trying to scare anyone, except the charter operators who are scared when the truth shines on their discriminatory practices.
I'm not in a union, and am not paid by a union, but unlike those pushing privatization, I read. I read things like the recent documents from the Modified Consent Decree exposing corporate CMO charter-voucher school discrimination and exclusivity. Very telling is the statement that children with disabilities are "significantly underrepresented" at CMO run charter schools. The executive summary of the report, and the data tables from the report. Charter school operators are concerned special education programs for children cut into the massive salaries for their executives. Until these corporate run schools are obligated legally, ethically, and morally to educate every child they shouldn't get a penny of our taxes or the buildings we paid for! As social justice activists, public school advocates, and progressives, we implore charter schools and other outsiders to stop putting EXECUTIVES and CEOs before children!
Before voting on any plans, look at the percentage of Special Ed, SWD, and ELL students Camino Nuevo, Celerity, Alliance, Green Dot, and other charter schools serve in comparison to Public Schools. The difference is staggering! These organizations should be ashamed of themselves, especially Green Dot, which gets millions upon million in extra funding from billionaires and millionaires like Broad, Gates, the Waltons, Fisher, and Hastings, but despite all that extra funding that public schools will never get, Green Dot's exclusionary schools have an average of 7.4% Special Education students compared to 11.3% for District schools! Shame on you Green Dot. You want to claim the mantle of how education should look? Educate every child! It's that simple.
Those are facts, not scare tactics. I defy any CMO corporate charter supporter to refute them with documented evidence to the contrary! These outsiders have no ties to our communities!
Everyone should visit UTLA's School Choice Parent/Teacher Advisory Voting Guide (Feb. 2nd & 6th) To learn the details on the process and which teacher/parent plans should they should vote for. Remember the teacher/parent plans include educating every child! As a community member in proximity of Gratts ES, I'll be voting for the community plan written by teachers and parents instead of outsiders backed by big money.
Community School Choice: Teacher and Parent Plans. NO to greedy corporate CMO charters!
Save the Dates February 9 and March 4, 2010 Save Public Education
This roundup has been a long time coming. Family illness, writing deadlines, and other commitments/obligations have kept me from keeping up with the blog the way I should. With the incredible onslaught by the corporate charter industry against our communities, it seems as if we social justice advocates are loosing ground every day.
Before beginning, I want to express my condolences to UTLA's Julie Washington and her family for the tragic loss they just suffered. Anyone wanting to contribute to the Educational Fund to help with Ivison Washington's daughters' college fund, please let me know and I will provide you with the appropriate contact information.
We also lost social justice educator and activist Howard Zinn. I will write about that in a separate post soon. But I figured this quote needs constant repetition, especially in the current dystopian "world according to Eli" education atmosphere we're struggling against. "I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it." — Howard Zinn
First off, right wing reactionary DFER/DLC corporate elitist filth Arne Duncan was recently interviewed. Mocking the deaths, destruction, diaspora of people of color, gentrification, and widespread misery Hurricane Katrina caused, Duncan had this unconscionable thing to say about schools in relation to Katrina: "best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans." That such a monster is Secretary of Education goes way beyond the pale — Duncan is a throwback to Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Diane Ravitch's take is a little less critical of the well heeled Harvard businessman than I am, but even her measured response captures the inappropriateness of Duncan's schadenfreude.
The Educational Justice blog introduces California majority rule initiative. If we had laws that served the people of California instead of corporations, put people before profits, and actually funded education the way the ideologically bankrupt billionaires bankroll their corporate charter school projects, then we wouldn't need to try to save public education from insatiably greedy CMO executives like Judy Burton, Steve Barr, Jed Wallace and Ben Austin. If we had a majority rule budget process, we'd be able to spend money on the important things, and keep those funds out of the hands of those who deserve it the least. You can bet your bottom dollar Ben Austin will campaign against this and anything else that threatens the privileged status of he and his fellow plutocrats.
People might want to start planning for an afternoon with Diane Ravitch in April. From the UCLA SMP site "She will be speaking about her soon-to-be-released book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She will also engage in a conversation with Professor Mike Rose, and take questions from the audience."
Following in master thief Steve Barr's footsteps, is KIPP = Knowledge Is Perpetrator Program. Jim Horn's KIPP Joins Charter School Corruption Nationwide with Six Figure Embezzlement Scheme gives a short introduction to a mainstream media piece looking at what has become commonplace now that corporations, entrepreneurs, and right wing zealots take over what used to be public institutions — malfeasance! More CMO Charter Charlatans caught pilfering public and kid's money! Couple accused of embezzling from Chandler charter school, and here's one Ben Austin constantly accuses public school teachers of as part of his ongoing fear tactics and union bashing, but it's a charter school teacher engaging in inappropriate behavior. We know in Jason Song and Ben Austin's world, only public school teachers are very bad people™ (especially those scary unionized ones). Too bad none of the politicians pushing school privatization down our throats can speak to the high level of embezzlement and other scandals associated with charter schools. Maybe Randite and social injustice filmmaker Jaemin Yi can find a way to put a creative spin on all these CMO corporate charter embezzling schemes. He seems to have a knack for making ugly lies pretty.
Don't Forget South Central (DFSC) asks if Villaraigosa privatization allies on LAUSD board like Yolie Flores Aguilar, Inc. will be denied tenure over the missing $200 million dollar scandal. The wise @avalonsensei also pointed out "21 charter schools applied for district campuses, with only one charter operator applying for an existing, failing school."
"The lowest-performing, based on test scores, is the large Green Dot chain." — Los Angeles Times
Caroline Grannan's brilliant 14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution's definition article points out that neoliberal darling Ben Austin's capricious standards for failings schools, when applied to his employer's schools, leaves only one of them considered "passing." Lacking a way to refute facts, several right wingers attacked Caroline Grannan over her article. I had this to say:
The reason these "rumors" persist is that so many parents from Garfield High School (GHS) have made the charges. I've personally had a score and a half of parents from Garfield tell me they were offered money, gift certificates, or other compensation. However, when I asked them for proof they were unable to produce anything worthwhile other than t-shirts. I been informed by an even larger number of parents that Green Dot/LAPU/Parent Revolution's Mary Najara, would go to their churches after the Misa, approach monolingual Spanish speakers with English petitions and tell them to sign it if they wanted their children to go to college. Ironically, after all of Green Dot's mendacity and shady manipulations, they abandoned Garfield High School in the end to chase after a shiny new building paid for by hardworking taxpayers.
While Ben Austin's reactionary sycophants take misguided shots at Caroline over these rumors, we need to ask why they are so persistent. Given Green Dot's other organizing incidents, like those documented here, and the ongoing conflict of interest with Ben Austin's two jobs (City Ethics Case # 2010-36), could it be there's more than meets the eye? Let's follow the money. What's more likely; that a self-serving Beverly Hills [1] lawyer, whose ongoing employment, bonuses, and future are tied to increasing Green Dot Corporation's market share might bend or break rules, or dozens and dozens of parents and students are liars? I'd wager the former and not the later.
Given the abject performance of most of Green Dot's campuses, if Austin was genuine, he'd have his blue shirts petitioning parents at the Animos. I guarantee that'll never happen. The cavalcade of corporate CMO charter executives are only interested in parent involvement up to the privatization conversion. Then parents learn they aren't welcome to the secret board meetings held by unelected boards packed with plutocrats. So much for parent power, choice and accountability or really caring about kids. If Green Dot spent as much time fixing their own failing schools as they did on hostile takeovers, they might actually help children.
[1] More accurately an exclusive gated community in the most coveted part of Beverly Hills — Franklin Canyon. We all know about how Beverly Hills loves parent choice (read Jim Crow), they choose to throw out all children who don't live in Beverly Hills. But the wealthy west-side isn't about segregation at all — rIght Bill Grundfest?
14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution's definition
We need to end the privatization and "restructuring" of our schools. — Leonard J. Martin
Leonard J. Martin is a progressive candidate trying to get on the ballot for Superintendent of Public Instruction to run against bought off corporate lackeys like Sen. Gloria Romero whose extreme right wing privatization agenda would have made even Generalissimo Augusto Pinoche blush. Social justice activists, public education advocates, and progressives should check out Mr. Martin's site and his refreshing respect for students, parents, AND teachers. Mr. Martin has staked out progressive positions on the following platform points:
School Financing
Privatization and Restructuring
Health and Safety
Standardized Testing and Bilingual Education
Politicians Taking Over Schools
Military Recruitment in Schools
Commercialization and Fundraising
Yearly Conference
Leonard J. Martin for Superintendent of Public Instruction
"We have our cake, and are eating it too." — Eli Broad (Predatory Pseudo-Philanthropist & Charter School Backer)
Reading the Association of Raza Educators' open letter to Peoples College of Law and observing how even formerly progressive institutions will support immigrant rights in word, but not in deed. A.R.E. was right to call out P.C.L. on this incident of discrimination against the undocumented.
Notice too, the corporate friendly opportunists Monica Garcia of LAUSD, Yolie Flores-Aguilar of LAUSD, Veronica Melvin of Alliance for a Better Community, Maria Casillas of Families in Schools, Jarad Sanchez of Alliance for a Better Community, Mary Najara of Green Dot Public [sic] Schools/LAPU/Parent Revolution, and Gabe Rose of Green Dot Public [sic] Schools/LAPU/Parent Revolution—who crowed about civil rights and immigration when it fit their corporate privatization and union bashing agenda—are now nowhere to be found when actual incidents of civil rights abuses occur. Didn't LAUSD President Garcia make an impassioned speech about civil rights on November 11, 2009? Where is she now? I guess Steve Barr, Antony Ressler and Marco Petruzzi didn't call her up and tell her how they wanted this handled. I wonder why? Maybe the 501c3 crowd can make up another phony flyer and blame it on UTLA again.
Since Garcia, Flores-Aguilar, Melvin, Casillas, Sanchez, Najara, and Rose only care about the issue of immigrant rights as it pertains to continuing the flow of money from their reactionary right wing benefactors like the Broad Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Walton Foundation, and Gates Foundations into their non-profit cash cows; it's no wonder there hasn't been a peep out of the very same people who had the nerve to stand in front of UTLA and slander the hard working women and men who teach children in our communities. Maybe one of you can write to me and explain what it's like to place profit before principles.
Hope all the lunches, donations, and benefactors you've garnered through your association with the well heeled Corporate CMO Charter Voucher Establishment have been worth your dignity.
A.R.E. OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLES COLLEGE OF LAW RE: DISCRIMINATORY ADMISSIONS POLICIES REGARDING UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS
January 8, 2010
Dear Peoples College of Law,
The Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) applauds your efforts to "bring legal resources to under-represented communities and train legal advocates to secure progressive social change and justice in society." [1] Furthermore, we are pleased to hear that progressive attorneys and advocates for the disenfranchised have come from your ranks. We embrace your stated goals of recruiting progressive law students who "have demonstrated a commitment to progressive social change."
However, we have received notice that an otherwise qualified student is currently denied admission to your school by virtue her immigration status. The Association of Raza Educators implores you to open your admissions to all students, regardless of immigration status, and pro-actively recruit working class, raza students who demonstrate not only progressive politics but a true commitment and record of advocacy for the rights of the disenfranchised.
There are an estimated 65,000 undocumented students that graduate from U.S. high schools each year, the bulk of whom have lived in the country for more than five years and are of Latino/a descent. Federal funds are denied to them, as are the majority of private scholarships. Yet a select few of these students, assisted by AB540 in California, have navigated through higher education, are now graduating, and seek to further their studies as social workers, teachers, attorneys, doctors, etc. Moreover, in your current admissions application, these immigrant students, despite being fully qualified and aligned with PCL's progressive mission, are denied admissions to PCL. Despite official PCL statements such as, "At the present time we are only able to take permanent residents, green cards or social security numbers," [2] or "All students at PCL as well as every other law school in California must register with the California Bar as a law student and this requires the student to have a legal right to be in the US," [3] undocumented students are, however, permitted to attend other accredited and unaccredited law schools and are doing so in increasing numbers. [4]
After repeated attempts by A.R.E. members and others to bring this issue to the PCL Board, the Association of Raza Educators now demands that this student, and others who may have been denied admissions to PCL, be formally notified that admissions to the Peoples College of Law is open to all students regardless of their immigrant status. Further, given the unsubstantiated statements by PCL Board members regarding why they cannot admit undocumented students, we are requesting that a letter of apology be written immediately to this student. Finally, we strongly suggest that PCL Board members and admissions staff receive cultural sensitivity training in working with undocumented students. We have every reason to believe that the way the situation is being handled, and the way PCL representatives have interacted with this student, discount the psychological terrorism that undocumented immigrants repeatedly encounter with school administrators and officials who many times do not understand their situation nor are looking out for their interests.
Sincerely,
The Association of Raza Educators, Los Angeles Chapter
Jose Lara was kind enough to give me permission to reprint his excellent take on the bi-partisan right wing school privatization agenda, and how it impacts communities of color and poverty.
This roundup has been a long time coming. Family illness, writing deadlines, and other commitments/obligations have kept me from keeping up with the blog the way I should. With the incredible onslaught by the corporate charter industry against our communities, it seems as if we social justice advocates are loosing ground every day.
Leonard J. Martin
