A little love letter to all my haters from the profitable #edreform sector who mocked me about my education #LAUSD pic.twitter.com/wN88aVyXps
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) June 7, 2014Now can we talk about your funders Gates, Zuckerberg, and Dell being college dropouts, or is that just something neoliberal corporate education reformers tar working class people with?
First published May 5, 2014 on Cloaking Inequity
By Robert D. Skeels
"Most Americans say they support equal funding for public schools, but affluent and powerful citizens often oppose efforts to correct funding inequities. This opposition may reflect ignorance about funding differences, unthinking acceptance of traditional methods for funding education, and selfish desires to keep personal taxes low." — Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner
Shortly after my brief article on the recent United Way astroturf episode ran, my friend Anthony Cody reached out regarding how Professor Julian Vasquez-Heilig had done some work in the past on proposing a Community Based Accountability framework that seemingly informed California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)—at least in part. He asked me to send my thoughts on what that looked like on the ground in Los Angeles. He also sent me links to Vasquez-Heilig's posts Accountability: Are you ready for a new idea? and D.C. are you listening?: A New Local, Community-Based Approach for Accountability. I responded, and was then asked if it was okay to publish my commentary. I requested that I be given a chance to clean the comments up. I decided that rather than make revisions, I would instead annotate my original response.
First I want to say that I support the idea of a Community Based Accountability framework in principle. The micromanaging of everything from curricula all the way to assessments by both the Bush and Obama administrations has been astonishing, and has failed students in every regard. I believe that community based accountability could work in cities where genuine community and parent engagement is present. In Los Angeles we have a very different reality. I was reminded yesterday of the seemingly inexhaustible resources the neoliberal corporate education reformers have while covering an event contrived by the Walton Family Foundation funded Parent Revolution to push their candidates for Los Angeles Unified School Board and State Superintendent of Instruction. We have a local superintendent in John Deasy who is simultaneously a former Gates Foundation executive and a graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy. Deasy was essentially placed in power by Eli Broad—there was no hiring or veting process prior to his coronation. Broad and Gates also fund the United Way of Greater Los Angeles to the tune of millions of dollars, as they do with many of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC) in our city. Between their limitless finances, direct connection with the superintendent, financial ties with opportunistic politicians, and uncritical coverage in the corporate media, the NPIC are able to carry out advocating for the Broad/Gates/Walton agenda with negligible opposition.
Annotated original comments
In theory and principle, LCFF sounds like a great idea. In practice, there has been—and will be—no authentic community input as to how the funds are spent. Deasy made a mistake in the very beginning and had the district run an online poll for how the funds were to be spent. When he saw that adult education and early education topped the list, he pressed the reset button and brought in the Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC) to run the process. The NPIC don't do parent or community engagement, they do control.
When we first heard of LCFF many of us had trepidation. Governor Brown was counterposing it to categorical funding, which protected both some of our most vulnerable students (e.g. Special Needs Children and English Language Learners), and programs like Adult Education—which is vital to our impoverished and immigrant communities. We also saw that early drafts of LCFF were going to bolster funding to the lucrative charter school industry, which wasn't surprising given that Brown is in the charter school business himself. In 2012 we saw what happens to programs when they weren't protected by categorical funding. As soon as Adult Education had been temporarily removed from categorical funding, Deasy callously tried to close down the entire program.
As I noted in my original comments, the District (i.e. Deasy) polled the community for its priorities and didn't like the results. That process, and LCFF in general, is somewhat of a "pick your poison" setup from the beginning anyway. We are presented with a list of budget priorities that are falsely set in competition with each other. We shouldn't have to choose between whether we want more resources for English Language Learners English Language Learner versus arts programs, and so forth. LCFF allows Governor Brown and his fellow politicians off the hook for not fully funding education by letting them say that "the community chose" to eschew a school nurse in lieu of more test preparation computers, etc." Again, we shouldn't have to make choices between say counselors versus nurses, or nurses versus arts, and even that series of false dichotomies assumes that the community would be making those decision in the first place. Dr. Cynthia Liu's timely Local Control Funding Formula Accountability Councils — Did You Get the Memo? exposed how politics in Los Angeles works. Deasy's invitations to create Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP) were made exclusively for and through the NPIC. Their carefully staged "demonstration" in front of the district was coordinated between Deasy and the foundations he and the NPIC have in common.
I noticed that in the article on Professor Vasquez Heilig's site the person listed some of the NPIC
ACLU, Public Advocates, Children Now, Families in Schools, the Advancement Project, EdTrust-West, Children's Defense Fund, CADRE and Californians for Justice.
Here in Los Angeles the ACLU serves as one of the legal arms of the Broad managed NPICs. Of the others I can attest that Families in Schools, EdTrust-West, and Children's Defense Fund are some of the most anti-public education outfits around. Families in Schools was the biggest advocate for NCLB in Los Angeles, and if you notice, many of my pieces over the years have dealt with them and their long-time director, reactionary Maria Casillas.
Probably my most extensive post on the Families in Schools NPIC was written in 2011. A perfect demonstration of the synergy between Deasy and the NPIC is found in Families in Schools' reactionary Maria Casillas, who has been hired by Deasy twice: first to lead astroturf parent "engagement," and again recently to fill the void left by the disgraced Jaime Aquino of the Pearson PLC iPad scandal fame. EdTrust-West is led by the unabashed teacher hating Arun Ramanathan, whose ideas of "equity" include channeling the late Howard Jarvis—the fringe-right author of Proposition 13—the root cause of all of California's education budget shortfalls. Children's Defense Fund is led by arch-reactionary Jonah Edelman, whose claim to infamy is his proud union busting tirade captured on film at an Aspen Institute event in which he detailed his work with hedge fund managers and large foundations to destroy the Chicago Public Schools system. Hence my real concerns when reading Debra Watkins' response to Vasquez-Heilig saying "I serve on a team comprised of groups." Those groups Watkins discusses do not represent local communities, rather they are the voice of the ruling class plutocrats who fund them through their foundations.
This recent piece on how Los Angeles NPIC control the entire narrative over LCFF funding, really doesn't begin to address how much power they have.
The truth is, there is no group with the funding that can provide any kind of counter narrative. Our local press talks about these groups like they are authentic community voices. The reality is that they are the voice of the foundations that fund them. Deasy has it made. All of his LCFF priorities are "coincidently" the same as the NPICs, and the editorial staff at all the local media. Point out the foundations that are the common thread in all of this, and you're immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist.
The ever eloquent Joanne Barkan provides the best response to the conspiracy theory accusations:
By definition conspiracies are secret and illegal. The ed-reform movement isn't a conspiracy. When people or organizations work together politically in a democracy, it's a coalition or movement. This is true even when—as is the case with the ed-reform movement—huge amounts of money are being spent by mega-foundations and private meetings take place.
I would further add to Barkin's statement that the correct term for ruling class consensus to openly privatize education in order to meet a range of their goals is policy, not conspiracy. The use of the NPIC to further our rulers' agenda's is nothing new either; the watershed book, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, is nearly a decade old, and the issues it discusses began at least a half-century before its publication. The truth about the plutocratic oligarchy we live under is now so conspicuous, that even the mainstream corporate media have began discussing it. In Los Angeles this isn't Watkins' "messy" "democracy", but instead a one sided corporate narrative in which community control is just a banal phrase.
There are no grassroots parent or community groups that can compete with the NPIC in terms of getting their voices heard on LCFF's LCAPs. Authentic groups like Coalition for Educational Justice comprise a few dozen members and have minuscule budgets. The only large organizations that traditionally speak for working class people—the labor movement—are missing in action, or worse. Unions like the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, and Service Employees International Union Local 99 are completely complicit in the school privatization project. They have worked closely with the NPIC to push for privately managed charters, discredited value added evaluations, and a host of other neoliberal corporate education reforms. Over the past decade they have consistently endorsed and supported the same school board candidates that have been financed by Eli Broad, Philip Anschutz, Rupert Murdoch, and Mike Bloomberg's Coalition for School Reform. Worse still, their leadership openly supports Deasy. The only union not under the sway of these groups is United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). UTLA has been entirely ineffective combatting neoliberalism due to bitter sectarian infighting—a situation that doesn't look like it will change any time soon.
If we had vibrant social movements, respect for special needs children, and English language learners, etc., LCFF might have been a good idea. Instead, we're seeing the funds being used according to foundation agendas, the same foundations that control the Department of Education in DC. At the end of the day LCFF will be used to further deprive those already marginalized students of their civil rights. It's not unlike when the South refused to desegregate and needed federal intervention.
Other than a handful of us that write on these issues, there is no organized dissent. Again, how do you compete with the United Way, its backers, and all the groups it funds?
All I can speak for is Los Angeles. Here the same entities that dictate national education policy hold sway over our entire school district. With categorical funding all but gone, our concerns that the safety net for programs crucial to our communities are more than legitimate. The agenda and priorities of the groups controlling the LCAP process are not those of working class people. We see those corporate priorities in Deasy's choice to line Pearson PLC's pockets with bond money that was supposed to repair our crumbling schools. In the absence of genuine struggle, there's little hope that the community will ever be heard.
First published April 26, 2014 on Schools Matter
"Another issue involves concerns that charter schools may be screening students by requiring parents to provide information related to special education eligibility and services on the lottery application. Over the past two years, a review of applications has found a considerable number of schools requiring such information despite efforts by the District to eradicate this through oversight of the application process." — LAUSD Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM) Modified Consent Decree
Roughly eighteen months ago I tweeted a passage from the above quoted OIM document. The lucrative Los Angeles charter industry systematically discriminates against special needs children in favor of bloated executive salaries, as evidenced most recently by Aspire Charter Corporation's dodging of its obligation to the most vulnerable students.
Not more than two minutes later I was attacked by one of Los Angeles' bullhorns for neoliberalism, reactionary Fernando Espuelas. I'll get to the exchange between Espuelas and myself momentarily, but think it's important to provide a little background on this privatization pusher. Espuelas is a venture-capitalist-turned-broadcaster who is currently a Henry Crown Fellow at the right-of-center Aspen Institute. Aspen's leadership includes genocide defender Madeleine Albright, billionaire Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt" cheerleader Sam Nunn, NSA surveillance zealot Dianne Feinstein, neoliberal columnist Nicholas Kristof, and host of other unsavory folk who would feel comfortable at a Hoover Institution luncheon.
Aspen is certainly the correct venue for Espuelas' brand of politics, who has no qualms retweeting the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), supports the apartheid regime in the Near East, and consistently called for the overthrow of the democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez when the courageous anti-imperialist leader still lived. Espuelas served on the board of the reactionary Walton Family Foundation funded school privatization outfit "Parent Revolution" — which has close ties to both the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the fringe-right Heartland Institute.
Espuelas is best summed up by Bloomberg's Business Week which said of him: "he's all Wall Street."
Getting back to our narrative that started with my tweet condemning the greedy corporate charter sector. Espuelas, who apparently isn't much of a reader, launched into a fact-free diatribe against me. It was the usual slanderous tripe: I'm on some chimerical union payroll, I'm a "UTLA sock puppet", and so on. Ben Austin, Gloria Romero, Jed Wallace, Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and all the other profiteers in the charter industry have made these same claims, I suppose someday proof will be forthcoming? I kept trying to get Espuelas to commit to a stance on special education, but anti-labor tirades were all he seemed capable of. At one point I called him a dullard after calling out his slander saying I was paid to advocate public education. That's when he started mocking me for being forced to drop out of my last quarter at UCLA in the early Nineteen-Nineties because of dire economic circumstances. [1]
There is no requirement for members of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education to hold college degrees. While it is certainly desirable that board members be educated, Espuelas was using my situation as a red herring to avoid discussing substantive policy issues because even he, reactionary as they come, couldn't defend the indefensible special education policies of the infamous charter school industry. After a long exchange in which he continuously condescended to me, he said:
@rdsathene blah, blah, blah. maybe finish getting a diploma as an example to the students you aspire to lead-then you'd be a bit credible
— Fernando Espuelas (@EspuelasVox) October 29, 2012Despite Espuelas' offensive pleas I ran for the LAUSD School Board in 2013 against the billionaire funded corporate reform candidate, and finished second in a field of five with over 5,200 votes. A promise to my wife to return to UCLA if I lost the race was accompanied by finally being in a position with both the time and the money to return to school. Not only did I finish my three remaining required classes, I did so with some distinction, raising my GPA by two full points.
Effectively, I was able to take on Espuelas' challenge. The Official Verification Transcript pictured above states I was awarded a Bachelor of Arts on March 21, 2014 in Classical Civilization by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Am I "a bit credible" now? Oddly enough, for all his bluster, Espuelas' BA is from from a school that's not nearly as prestigious as the one I just graduated from. More importantly, why does Espuelas selectively demand university degrees from public school advocates, while not holding school privatization advocates to the same standard? If this statement is genuinely true:
@rdsathene yes I'm a total "elitist" - I think that people that aspire to run school systems should have a university diploma - crazy!
— Fernando Espuelas (@EspuelasVox) October 29, 2012then Espuelas should make the same demand of billionaire college drop outs Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell. After all, all three aspire to run not only local school systems, but use their ill gotten gains to control national education policy. Gates' [2] noxious meddling with our remaining public education system is unprecedented, as Professor Mark D. Naison recently wrote. Perhaps if these capricious billionaires followed Espuelas's advice, just like I did, they would become educated enough to halt both their viciously destructive funding agendas, and their neoliberal policy advocacy.
Mr. Espuelas I met your challenge to obtain a degree, now will you take up my challenge to you? First, you should demand Gates, Zuckerberg, Dell, and all their fellow privatizers obtain degrees before aspiring to run education. Anything else is a double standard that exposes you as a fraud, phony, and fake — someone unworthy to discuss education policy. Second, I repeatedly asked you this very important question on October 28, 2012, and I believe the world should know your answer to it:
@EspuelasVox Getting back to your original attack. Do you agree that schools taking public funds should be obligated to educate every child.
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) October 29, 2012Naturally my own answer to that simple question is yes.
[1] That story deserves full treatment in the future, but would distract from our discussion here.
[2] Susan DuFresne and I had fun responding to Professor Ravitch's #ThingsInCommonWithBillGates tweet by addressing the degree issue.
Mr. Gaffney:
Last time we spoke you were very angry that I had exposed your ties with Bill Gates and Steve Barr's privatization organization. That's understandable, since no public school teacher would want to be associated with wealthy individuals bent on privatizing education. You abruptly left our conversation with the following statement:
Bill Gaffney: Please become a real teacher and then we can talk. Sorry you lost the campaign for school board.
I wanted to respond, but was very busy with both my course-load at UCLA, and my full time job. Now is my chance to return your pleasantries.
Sorry you lost the campaign for UTLA President, and I'll become a "real teacher" so we can talk just as soon as Bill Gates and Steve Barr do.
Your attempts to silence those that speak truth to power are hypocritical at best when your exhortation to become a "full time classroom teacher" would also have to apply equally to all of the politicians, corporate education reformers, and nonprofit industrial complex operatives meddling in education if it was to have any weight.
Moreover, for all your mocking of my school board run, at least I garnered a double digit percentage of votes. In fact, I managed to triple your vote percentage without the backing of one of the world's wealthiest billionaires. Put another way, you were the candidate for the 1% and your colleagues voted accordingly.
I would like extend to you my sincere wish that you sit down with the social justice crowd and listen to the case against school privatization. I'd be willing to make the case to you if you were willing to listen. I'm clear that you're not the enemy, the people you work for are. At the end of the day Steve Barr's involvement with education has netted him millions of dollars, while my involvement with public education has earned me the thanks of my community.
Best of luck in your future endeavors
Robert D. Skeels
| 2014 UTLA Election Information Center | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Vote% |
| Bill Gaffney | 323 | 4.55 |
| Los Angeles Unified School District 2, 2013 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Vote% |
| Robert D. Skeels | 5,244 | 15.2 |
Conversation With Bill Gaffney by Robert D. Skeels
Why corporations want our public schools
(from YES!). pic.twitter.com/szW5Q3vBcx
— Stephen Krashen (@skrashen) February 23, 2014
Infographic: Why Corporations Want Our Public Schools
What to look forward to when I graduate #UCLA this spring? @TedRall via @skrashen #LAUSD #edreform #vergara pic.twitter.com/tbBfB8ciYC
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) February 7, 2014Marshall Tuck: despised by community, but always welcome at the Chamber of Commerce. #LAUSD http://t.co/qwt2MvH4PF pic.twitter.com/q9M6FxZcK8Show right-wing business-banker Marshall Tuck and his billionaire backers that Californians want a professional educator, not a venture capitalist, as our State Superintendent of Instruction — support Tom Torlakson!
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) November 14, 2013
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| Tom Torlakson |
First published on @TCFKSM on June 19, 2013
"The resolution by board member Steve Zimmer requires the district to independently verify the signatures and how they're gathered by Parent Revolution, the group that helps to organize parents in efforts to take over schools. The district will also increase the amount and types of information available, such as an analysis of five years of school data and the types of reforms attempted in the past." — Barbara Jones, Daily News
The poverty pimps and privatization pushers at the plutocrat funded Parent Revolution are a little bit rattled right now. After their corporate drive by at Los Angeles' Weigand Elementary resulted in 21 of 22 teachers departing in solidarity with their outstanding principal who was targeted by gunman Austin, the local press and others took notice and were critical. Even the Nonprofit Quarterly took issue with Parent Revolution's unsavory tactics. Professor Diane Ravitch's cogent critiques of Parent Revolution have been so effective, that Ben Austin attacked her on Huffington Post, and now they've created a blog to "debunk" the esteemed education historian's factual dismantling of their astroturf organization.
Important evidence supporting Mr. Zimmer's resolution
As the Honorable Members of the Board of Education consider Mr. Zimmer's "Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation" resolution to request provisions for transparency, information, and equity in the Parent Empowerment Act (aka Parent Trigger), it may help to understand why those glaring issues weren't addressed in the first place.
Parent Revolution's Ben Austin was a paid advocate for the lucrative charter school industry before, during, and after the entire process of crafting the regulations for the so-called Parent Trigger. While the two former time periods were unethical, the latter time period was illegal, and Austin received an official letter of censorship from the California State Board of Education (SBE) for breaking California law by lobbying for and tampering with the regulations. That letter is attached and can be also read here: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/07/parent-trigger-co-author-austin-knew-he.html
It tells Parent Revolution's Austin "...please immediately discontinue any paid advocacy to the State Board of Education including advocacy on the Parent Empowerment regulations.
Unfortunately, the letter was too little, too late. All of the anti-democratic provisions in the trigger regulations like the faculty gag rule, rules against holding open informational meetings at schools, no rules providing equity for all stakeholders -- including parents that don't sign the petition, and every other rule crafted to provide Austin's billionaire funded organization with every advantage had already been codified by Austin before he was censured. The milquetoast slap on the wrist didn't reverse or mitigate the abject damage the law has allowed Austin and his group to wreak on our communities.
Why should our Board of Education vote in favor of this resolution and be doing everything it can overturn the trigger? When laws are immoral and serve to perpetuate classism, racism, and other oppressions, we have a moral duty to resist, defy, and even break them. Doesn't matter if it's the Parent Trigger, the Fugitive Slave Law, or the 1870s Enforcement Act. Every era has deplorable laws that exist to serve those on top and to undermine the conditions of working people, the Parent Trigger is just one in a long line of unconscionable crimes against the most vulnerable.
I urge you all to vote yes on the Comprehensive Information for Parent Initiated School Transformation resolution.
Advocating public education and social justice
Robert D. Skeels
PS: Several former Parent Revolution staffers have remarked on Deputy Director Gabe Rose's hygiene issues. Today's tweet from the LAUSD Board Room by Hillel Aron of the right-wing LA School Report really drove home how unsettling this is.
.@parentrev's gabe rose is here and he is wearing flip flops!
— LA School Report (@LASchoolReport) June 18, 2013
First published on @TCFKSM on June 15, 2013
What troubles me is what you are doing with the millions you raise. You use it to sow dissension, to set parents against parents, parents against teachers, parents against principals. I don’t see this as productive or helpful. Schools function best when there is collaboration among teachers, parents, administrators, and students. Schools have a better chance of success for the children when they have a strong community and culture of respect. — Professor Diane Ravitch
Quick background. The Walton Foundation funded Parent Revolution operatives were handing out flyers to everyone, including me, before the UTLA Chapter Chair meeting on June 2, 2013. The flyer contained their typical boilerplate bombast, and also featured an invitation to a "Meet and Greet" on June 12, 2013. The flyer is archived here.
I arrived just before 17:00 and tweeted a photo of the place while waiting for everyone. I was in a fairly somber mood, having been at the vet in the morning before work putting down one of our terminally ill cats. Perhaps my grieving kept me from getting in trouble, although I'm sure just my presence made the privatizers uncomfortable.
Waiting for close ally @EducateLAnow to see how much of a farce this @parentrev invite to @UTLAnow is. #LAUSD pic.twitter.com/bhovFdKAr7
— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) June 13, 2013
I met the illustrious UTLA South Area Chair Ingrid Villeda and two Weigand ES teachers in a parking lot behind the arranged location. We walked in solidarity. When we arrived several Parent Revolution (henceforth pRev—the name the pro-public school Adelento parents like Lori Yuan call them) were waiting outside the Golden Gopher. The pRev privatizers sent TFA alumna Christina Sánchez, Patrick DeTemple, Anne Lee, Rafael Serrano, and a few other staffers I didn't know. Before we were done Gabe Rose joined the meeting.
We waited with them for the venue to open and everyone made nervous small talk and introductions. Another Weigand teacher and spouse showed up as we were waiting. After a while it became obvious that the Gopher was going to stay closed, and the owner came and told us they had a private party. Our side was wondering why an organization with tens of millions of dollars at its disposal hadn't reserved or even called the place they set for the meeting. Ingrid tweeted our situation.
@LASchoolReport for the record I came 2 talk about school reform and the Golden Gopher is closed? What happened Ben Austin?
— Ingrid Villeda (@EducateLAnow) June 13, 2013
The pRev folks suggested a place several blocks away, and with some misgiving, we went with them to a place called Los Angeles Brewing Company. When we arrived, the pRev folks were smart enough to stagger seating so that we ended up engaged in separate conversations. I ended up speaking with Patrick DeTemple. I was already pretty familiar with his party line, which hadn't changed since his long post defending pRev when Ben Austin was immortalized on the famous Crooks and Liars website. His commentary there is worth reading since it contains some of their stock language and ideology borrowed from the extreme right including gems like "intolerable levels of incompetence are permitted" by teachers unions. He told me verbally that basic protections like seniority somehow allowed for such things as well. Like all reform parrot-speak, it's not rooted in reality and wilts under scrutiny.
For those of you who have never seen the Austin segment on Crooks and Liars, it's a must-see and is the perfect example of how he cynically manipulates parents of color for his charter industry agenda. Shemika Murphy must have felt so empowered when she couldn't answer that softball question which wealthy white lawyer Austin stepped in with his evasive answer on her "behalf."
Whenever I factually cornered DeTemple, he'd essentially change the subject or say things like "we're working on that." That included things like how is 53 people voting on the disposition of a public resource in Adelento, a city of 32,000 democratic? Or how does creating the chaos of 21 of 22 teachers leaving a school benefit students or empower parents? His answer to that was interesting, he said "our intel didn't indicate that would happen." For a guy whose resume includes so much UFW and other union related organizing, you'd think he would have heard of the concept of solidarity. DeTemple isn't as much of true believer as many in the corporate education reform project, but he's the epitome of mixed consciousness politically. He's easily the smartest person they have in their organization, but he still melted when asked direct questions for the obvious reason, they can't provide honest answers since those answers would expose their agenda for what it truly is.
I caught a little bit of Ingrid's conversation with Sánchez. The best part of which was when Ingrid pointed out to Sánchez that when she abandoned teaching, she abandoned the children she now claims to be helping. Of course, that's a point of pride for TFA anyway, right? I couldn't hear the Weigand ES conversations from where I was sitting, but Ingrid said she did, so maybe she can provide us with any interesting tidbits. I'll ask her to comment here with any additional thoughts. I welcome the pRev staffers that were at the meeting to comment here as well. Ingrid and I left about a half hour after all the Weigand teachers left.
I sort of knew the entire thing would go the way it did. They get paid very well to advocate what they advocate, and weren't there to listen to community or teacher voices. The teachers and myself don't get paid at all to advocate alongside our communities, and that's part of the point isn't it? On the other hand it was important that we showed up since they would have been able to take the high ground and say they made overtures that went unanswered. It also probably did them some good to talk to real classroom teachers, something they almost never do.
Moving forward UTLA needs to start organizing alongside community organizations at every school site in order to begin building an infrastructure to combat future trigger attempts. Parents Across America has made it clear that they want to see multiple local chapters in Los Angeles, and we should be helping them build. Educated parents tend to run pRev petitioners out of town, but we need to reach people with the truth in the open before they are deceived secretly. LAUSD Board Member Steve Zimmer's resolution will help in this regard, but organizing to end the corporate drive by trigger law will take more than that.
The saddest thing I heard on Wednesday was that none of the new teachers headed for Weigand have any experience. While I wish all of them the best of luck (even the TFA missionaries among them), we all know how first year teachers fare. We confronted the pRev about this, saying how did that empower anyone? Ingrid's tweet from Thursday sums this up.
News Flash! This just in. 17 BRAND NEW teachers (some just interns, others TFA) at Weigand ES after Parent Revolution blasts the school...
— Ingrid Villeda (@EducateLAnow) June 13, 2013
The damage Austin and his coterie caused Weigand will take years to mitigate, and even then it will never be completely ameliorated. Ingrid posted a great comment on that bastion of right-wing thought run by reactionary Jamie Alter-Lynton also known as the LA School Report. It bears reproduction here:
More mind blowing is how Parent Revolution can claim to be about community involvement but not have open meetings, announce agendas, discuss with stakeholders, and announce campaigns. Parents being hand picked, and asked to meet an organizer at a nearby fast food place is not community engagement. And how empowering is it, to not properly address the poverty afflicting these kids and families. How empowering is it for parents NOT to read academic plans...or be acquainted with data, academic focus, etc. One of the central parents staying "I never read the plan" makes a huge statement. This isn't about making things better for kids but adult agendas instead. The principal is no good and she lacks vision but her plan (one she wrote with many teachers) gets the okay...something doesn't make sense.
First published on @TCFKSM on June 8, 2013
These myths falsely portrayed desegregation's failures as the product of autonomous individual choice. Meanwhile, these myths obscured inequalities in desegregation. A new, but parallel, kind of mythmaking about choice is underway in today's charter school efforts. — Ansley T. Erickson
Parent Revolution's executive director, wealthy white Beverly Hills lawyer Ben Austin, has made himself out to be a "victim" of the esteemed Professor Diane Ravitch's stern words for him and his organization's vile operations at Weigand Elementary School in Los Angeles. In a bombastic Huffington Post diatribe attacking Dr. Ravitch and accusing her of being immature and bullying, he then launches into a sob story of white privilege that borders on the bizarre even for egotistical ed-reformers.
You see, Ben Austin—in his words, can tell us about Hell. Austin's hell consisted of attending an exclusive private school in the upscale area of Venice Beach California. He constantly worried that the wealthier kids might be better off than him. His unfortunate private school hell wound up only getting him into "second rate" schools like UC Berkeley and Georgetown Law School. A hellish, but lucrative political career working for neoliberal triangulators that eliminated welfare for millions of poor then followed. Now, after all those bad breaks, misfortune, and hardscrabble living, Austin is redeeming and sacrificing himself by making a mere quarter million a year privatizing and disrupting public schools. Cry us a river!
Professor Ravitch responded with grace and dignity, and her cogent dismantling of everything Austin stands for is nothing short of breathtaking. Her piece is My Reply to Ben Austin’s Open Letter to Me.
Of course, nearly all the comments under Austin's idiotic post supported of Professor Ravitch. There were a few exceptions, and I immediately recognized those of a bwsmith (Bruce William Smith), a longtime corporate education reform cheerleader and sycophant to any billionaire looking to privatize education. He was one of the ringleaders in the handover of Alain Leroy Locke High School to the Green Dot Charter Corporation, which didn't work out too well. Smith insinuates that the corporate reformers actually debate those who see education as something other than an opportunity for profit.
I replied to Smith, but those commentes haven't been approved. My Huffington Post censor rate is around 50% despite having over 300 "fans" there. I've addressed that situation before: On Huffington Post censorship and Parent Revolution puff pieces. Here are my edited comments:
Mr. Smith, your inability to tell the truth is matched only by your unseemly groveling to powerful rich white people. I've followed Austin's trajectory in the corporate reform project ever since he first was hired by Barr and Petruzzi as a consultant for Green Dot for a staggering amount of money. I watched him arrange illegal, closed meetings with the Mayor during city working hours to push charters and PSC. Those incidents were so scandalous, even the charter friendly Daily News published my Op Ed exposing it: http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_13185224 As a corporate ed-reformer, Austin's salary has almost tripled from when he was a lawyer.
I watched when Ryan Smith ran Barr's Los Angeles Parent Union (née Small Schools Alliance) into the ground and Petruzzi brought in his crony Austin to take his place. Austin, seeing the astonishing amounts of money being dumped into school privatization, changed the name of LAPU to Parent Revolution (all this is on their 990 forms) and never looked backed. Next he illegally booted Steve Barr of their board. When he worked with ALEC, Bob Huff, Schwarzenegger's staff, Heartland Institute, and Gloria Romero to craft the disgustingly racist trigger law, we all knew he was going to inflict a lot of damage on poor communities of color. Austin illegally lobbied the SBE after he was thrown off, and was later censored for his actions. He later was dropped by the California State Bar for failing to take required ethics courses.
At every turn, Ben Austin has been dishonest, opportunistic, greedy, self-serving, and vicious. Professor Ravitch's calling him and his unconscionable actions "loathsome" doesn't begin to address how depraved, despicable, and deplorable Austin is. Who knows which circle of hell is reserved for him, it's the hell he's creating for impoverished communities and children of color that I'm concerned with.
Now how about a little disclosure Mr. Bruce William Smith, tell everyone how you are trying to open a privately managed charter school, and how you'll ingratiate yourself to anyone who might make your lucrative dream come true.
Watch this fun video exposing idiocy of Parent Revolution and Parent Trigger Laws youtu.be/DaVpO30qfZE via @youtube
— Julie Woestehoff (@pureparents) June 4, 2013
Since Llury Garcia is a self-appointed expert on literacy, language arts, & principals, can we expect her to apply for Cobian's job? #LAUSD
— PESJA Los Angeles (@PESJA_LA) June 3, 2013
This week, parents voted to accept Cobian's turnaround plan as the next step forward. Although a Parent Revolution statement quoted [Llury] Garcia as saying that parents "spent several months carefully reviewing" the plan, she told The Times last week that she had never read it and disagreed with key elements, such as its focus on reading and writing.—LA Times (emphasis mine)
And Walton Foundation backed Ben Austin of Parent Revolution wonders why the top education expert in the country calls him "loathsome?"
First published on @TCFKSM on June 2, 2013
"The 'parent trigger' by definition is a hostile act. It creates division and conflict. It sets parents against parents. It sets parents against teachers. It sets parents against administrators. It is a "trigger" and triggers kill." — Professor Diane Ravitch
Parent Revolution, the well funded neoliberal operatives in charge of achieving reactionary Andy Smarick's dream of replacing public schools with a privatized system, has been experiencing a little blow back from their recent corporate drive by. In addition to the news of protests against the Weigand trigger pull and another Tea Party group joining forces with Parent Revolution, there has been some interesting criticisms from expected, and unexpected venues.
Even the biggest privatization cheerleaders—the Los Angeles Times—have recently expressed concerns with the anti-democratic trigger process in their The 'parent trigger' trap. Refreshingly, they've even been covering the grassroots resistance to Walton Foundation's Parent Pinkertons. An example is Teresa Watanabe's Watts teachers urge public notice for parent trigger campaigns
A surprising source of criticism of both Austin and the so-called Parent Revolution is that bastion of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex (NPIC), the Nonprofit Quarterly (NPQ). In a surprisingly well reasoned piece excoriating the process, the author makes a profound and powerful statement.Something doesn't add up. Cobian hardly seems like the ogre or incompetent that Austin describes. But Cobian is the first administrator ousted from the Los Angeles public schools under the trigger law. It feels like Parent Revolution was flexing its muscle and putting teachers and administrators on notice. The result seems certain to demoralize teachers far beyond the Weigand Avenue Elementary campus. A button on the webpage of Parent Revolution is, "we <3 our teachers." The Weigand Avenue Elementary School teachers clearly don't feel "<3'ed".
I'm sitting in an emergency UTLA meeting called in response to these hostile take-overs as I'm writting this. While listening to a dozen Weigand parents and teachers speaking effusively about their principal, NPQ's statement that "Cobian hardly seems like the ogre or incompetent that Austin describes" rings all too true. Hearing various educators from school sites current threatened by Wasserman Foundation funded Parent Revolution school terrorists is heartbreaking and reminds me why I've opposed these poverty pimps for so many years.
4LAKids' Scott Folsom sometimes takes somewhat conservative positions on education issues. However, on Parent Trigger he has always been right on the mark. Here is his take on the Weigand situation published in his weekly email digest.
In the San Fernando Valley at Arleta High School (one of the new ones) the principal is retiring in glory having done everything right and having produced the desired results. At Weigand Avenue Elementary School in Watts a principal is booted out, apparently having done nothing wrong save losing a petition-drive popularity contest – courtesy of the Parent Trigger ["Watts teachers urge public notice for parent trigger campaigns"] – with the Board of Ed and Superintendent hiding behind “Our hands are tied, The Law’s the Law!”. As Parent Revolutionary-in-Chief Ben Austin wrote the Parent Trigger Law. As an appointed member of the State Board of Education Ben Austin promoted the Parent Trigger Law – and lobbied for it in the legislature. Now back at P-Rev Ben Austin applies the law…or maybe IS the law! Austin likes to say that the Parent Trigger Law empowers parents – but in reality it empowers Ben Austin – who has been intimately involved in every application of it – welcoming himself to LAUSD as our liberator.
Professor Diane Ravitch has been covering the Weigand tragedy from the get go. Articles like "Parent Trigger" Sets Parents Against Parents in Los Angeles really gets to the heart of the matter. Sherman Dorn's "Parent trigger" as a pale shadow of community involvement is also recommended reading.
I want to close with an expanded version Caroline Grannan's tweet over the weekend. "Parent Revolution - a history of attacking teachers. Ben Austin's awkward made-up story about teachers torturing kids - appalling." The lie laden story she's referring too is the interview Austin did with the arch-reactionaries at ChoiceMedia.TV Austin's mendacious fabrication is disgusting in that he would stoop to such a level, but it's also racist in that he's referring to teachers of color at Compton's McKinley ES. Austin's outrageous lie was carried over to a scene in Philip Anschutz, Bill Gates, and Rupert Murdoch's "Won't Back Down" film. H/T to Jack for reminding everyone of this horrible false narrative.
"This further substantiates our claim that by not openly demanding wealth redistribution, reparations, or justice for exploited workers, white social justice non-profits function as brokers for the wealthy." — Tiffany Lethabo King and Ewuare Osyande (The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, 82)
Great footage by LArepresents of the community protesting the astroturf perpetuators of the latest corporate drive by in Los Angeles. Parents, community members, and educators held a press conference decrying flaws in the Parent "Tricker" Law, and the deceptive, divisive, and duplicitous tactics used by ALEC and Heartland Institute's closest ally, Parent Revolution. Astroturfers tried to encroach, and were sent scurrying back to their crevices. From the video's introduction:
Parents, teachers and concerned community members at Weigand Elementary say "NO!" to outside billionaire-funded group "Parent Revolution" that has been accused of lying to and misleading K-12 parents in Los Angeles and other cities in California. For more info: Parent Trigger - False Promises, Divided Communities and Disrupted Young Lives
David Phelps (the privileged white male in the white button down shirt) is quite the tough guy getting in the faces of female community members protesting his Walton Foundation funded charter market share expansion group. Please, please, please let David Phelps, Gabe Rose, the diminutive Ben Austin, or any of the other cowardly corporate trigger goons try that intimidation nonsense with me at one of these events in the future.
The footage of the protesters sending Ben Austin's neoliberal austerity crew packing is just as entertaining, as is its following caption.
Parents, teachers and community members send a clear message to outsiders of billionaire backed astroturf group "Parent Revolution." Outnumbered and apparently understanding that they are not welcome at Weigand Elementary, the ParentRev outsiders leave, as their organizer is left alone standing with his clipboard and a smirk on his face.
Considering the unlimited resources the billionaire boys club has devoted to anti-public education outfits like Parent Revolution, we're up against a formidable foe. That said, ordinary working class families, community members, and educators can, and must, run these corporate proxies off our streets and away from our schools!
EVENT POSTPONED
Note from the organizers
The rally for Tuesday has been cancelled. Haddon parents did not think this would be such a good idea at this time. With it being so close to the end of the school year and all the activities happening right now. Sorry. We will organize to fight beginning of the school year.
Our community our decision: Rally in the Valley by Robert D. Skeels
Guest Speakers: Parents from Adelanto Desert Trails Elementary. Principal & Teachers from Weigand Elementary. Parents from Haddon Avenue Elementary.
Hosted by Valley Parents Association "Advocates for Safer, College and Career ready schools for our children"
First published on @TCFKSM on May 29, 2013
Alexander Russo's vicious attack on LAUSD's Weigand Elementary School teachers should be noted by everyone. In a piece where he gleefully sides with AEI's Hess' smear on the distinguished Professor Ravitch, he also decides to take aim at the hardworking women and men teaching at the school recently shot up by Ben Austin's latest corporate drive by. Here's an excerpt of Russo's bile laden commentary.
Given how they're being treated in the Times and by Ravitch (and by the teachers who appear to be more loyal to the principal than to the kids), the Weigand parents may be well be wishing that they'd opted for...
A clear response to these vicious accusations should be in order. The Parent Trigger is one of the most reprehensible tools in the neoliberal privatization and austerity toolkit. For the corporate education reformers to make this about the teachers instead of Austin's poverty pimping NPIC is outrageous. Russo's piece also mentions a UTLA meeting about the trigger. Sad UTLA didn't invite me, considering my years of investigating and covering both the trigger and those associated with it.
I have no problem with reactionaries Jamie Alter Lynton and Alexander Russo pushing The John Birch Society agenda on their @LASchoolReport blog—just don't call it journalism! Somehow the The LA Press Club has nominated them for two awards. Apparently Rupert Murdoch style [1] right-wing propaganda doesn't just pass for news these days, it's now the norm.
I've written about Russo before, in case anyone needs a refresher course on the neoliberal enthusiast.
Fortunately families, educators, and community members have a message for Alexander Russo and his allies at ALEC, Parent Revolution, and The Heartland Institute:
South LA parents and teachers have a message for law makers in Sacramento regarding parent trigger law. Tomorrow at Weigand ES @4pm.
— Ingrid Villeda (@EducateLAnow) May 30, 2013
It's time for all Parent Trigger legislation to go the way of its other fellow, racist legal constructs like Jim Crow and miscegenation laws.
_____
NOTES
[1] Both Rupert Murdoch and self-proclaimed "Citizen Activist" Jamie Alter Lynton were big donors to the Los Angeles corporate education reform Super PAC Coalition for School Reform (CSR). The CSR extremists spent millions to defeat Monica Ratliff, Steve Zimmer, and myself in the recent LAUSD Board of Education elections. They were only successful in defeating me.
Update: Just as I finished writing the above I was sent this press release on behalf of the Weigand Community. Please distribute it far and wide!
LAUSD Parents and Teachers will speak out against tactics used to trick parents into singing a petition to pull the Parent Trigger at Weigand EL and other schools where Parent Revolution is currently collecting signatures. Parents and Teachers are left without a voice or say in changes to made to school sites and parents who do not sign the petition do not get to vote on the type of change that will occur at their school site once the petition is turned in. Parents who were tricked into signing petitions were not allowed to later withdraw their signatures with the organization or the school district.
Parents and Teachers decry, Parent Revolution, the group soliciting signatures at school sites, for misrepresenting themselves to parents and giving false information in order to collect signatures. Every Parent “Tricker” petition gathering drive in LAUSD has originated from the well funded Parent Revolution organization and has not come from the parents or teachers from the school itself.
Our Central Message is:
Press Conference and Rally
Thursday, May 30, 2013
4:00 pm
Weigand Elementary School
10401 Weigand Ave
Los Angeles CA 90002
Teachers, Parents and Community Leaders will be available for interviews in Spanish and English.
For More Information Contact:
Ingrid Villeda: ivilleda@yahoo.com
Jose Lara: josexlara@yahoo.com
YouTube Introduction What's really happening in education politics? Would you believe it's a battle between greedy school teachers and corporate CEOs who want what's best for the children? Well, not so much. Charter schools backed by these so-called "education reformers" aren't necessarily better than standard public education - it's actually been proven that they aren't. Charter schools do however make sense as a business strategy, allowing corporations to make big money off school children. How does this strategy work? David Sirota explains.
