Schools Matter: Reflecting on Green Dot’s Disastrous Locke Takeover

“Green Dot came and made it into more of a jail.” — Chris

My history of opposing the Green Dot Charter School Corporation back when I was an activist is well known. On Schools Matter alone there’s over a dozen pieces I wrote on them.

These days, as an educational rights attorney, I’ve successfully litigated against the corporate charter chain on a few occasions. Today I had a legal research assignment that involved looking up information on them and I came across this academic paper:

Taken Over: The Story of the Locke High School Takeover Through a Qualitative Study of Student Voice

by Loyola Marymount University’s Joshua Michael Beardall.

I only had a few minutes to skim through the paper, but it features some excellent feedback on how the students felt about the hostile take-over of a once public school by the corporate charter chain. Written through a Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) lens, the paper takes a student-centric view of what Green Dot did. It also exposes the intrinsic racism of Green Dot and its carceral, white supremacist campuses. Passage like this confirm what activists have said for years:

“The students also believed that the community and school did not interact and that the school was in opposition to the community surrounding it…”

I recommend people check the paper out.

Reflecting back on the hostile Locke takeover, a couple of things come to mind. First, the takeover was, and still is, a disaster. The Green Dot Corporation had to restructure Locke a number of times as their failed management and policies played out. Second, Green Dot, which boasted it would dramatically improve student scores on racist and classist standardized tests, actually set records for having so many schools at the very bottom — including four Locke HS branches in the bottom 25 SAT scores in 2015.

Ironically, the well-healed, white executives running Green Dot at the time of the take-over boasted that they would “turn the school around” and make it a “great school” in short order. Boastful Marco Petruzzi claimed they’d do it in three years. Braggart Steve Barr said they’d do it in one. Neither prediction by the two non-educators came true. Green Dot has run Locke for more than a decade now. Where’s all the compliant press parroting bromides of how Green Dot “cracked the code”?

Petruzzi was a hedge fund manager prior to running the corporate charter school behemoth Green Dot. His lack of background in pedagogy showed in everything he did. Today he’s a furniture salesman. Truth is, Petruzzi’s always been a furniture salesman. This passage by one of his vendors sums up the real essense of the “education reformer,” Marco Petruzzi.

“…Marco Petruzzi, is an ex-Bain partner who joined Dovetail in 2018 to increase sales and profitability and overhaul their physical and technology infrastructure. Marco appreciates working with analysts that can make short work of thorny Excel problems, as well as going beyond spreadsheets to assist in the technical complexities of an ERP database migration.”

KPCC did a piece on how the Green Dot Charter Corporation did not meet its promises with Locke. This passage is instructive:

“Yet for all these improvements, Green Dot has also found out just how difficult it is to act on its initial promises. Locke High School's graduation rate — at 55.9 percent — is one of the lowest of any comprehensive high school in L.A. Unified, charter or otherwise.”

Caught this during further search: ‘The Myth of Charter Schools’ Marco Petruzzi, reply by Diane Ravitch.

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First published at: Schools Matter

Schools Matter: Reflecting on Green Dot’s Disastrous Locke Takeover

Schools Matter: The schools Steve Barr made: Green Dot Charters post NINE of lowest fifty SAT scores

First published on Schools Matter on April 06, 2016

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"The lowest-performing, based on test scores, is the large Green Dot chain." — Los Angeles Times

Beleaguered Green Dot schools have dealt with charges of racism, embezzlement, poor performance, and even cheating. Green Dot Founder Steve Barr created a mythology about his corporate charters that persists even today. Barr photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Corporate profiteer Steve Barr is in the news again. Now he is mulling a run at Los Angeles Mayor. Barr calls himself an "educational innovator" despite having no background in either education or pedagogy. While his attempts to "turn around schools" have been epic failures in New Orleans and Los Angeles, his Green Dot Corporate Charter Chain is frequently held up as a measure of his so-called success. Except they're anything but successful.

Green Dot Corporate Charter Schools hold the dubious record of NINE of the lowest fifty average SAT scores in Los Angeles County for 2015. The billionaire backed charter chain, founded by corporate executive Barr and run by hedge fund manager Marco Petruzzi, group of SAT bottom dwellers leads all other charter chains in comprising 18% of the fifty worst. These schools were (lower numbers are worst performing):

• 4. Animo Locke Charter High School #1 (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1033
• 12. Animo Watts Charter High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1092
• 14. Animo Locke Charter High School #2 (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1104
• 16. Alain Leroy Locke High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1107
• 19. Animo Ralph Bunche High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1117
• 25. Animo Locke Technology High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1129
• 26. Animo Oscar De La Hoya Charter High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1129
• 34. Animo Jackie Robinson High (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1150
• 50. Animo South Los Angeles Charter (Los Angeles): SAT Composite 1180

The privately managed charter chain's marketing slogan is "…all students graduate prepared for college, leadership and life." These dismal SAT scores would seem to indicate otherwise. For context 1500 is considered the minimum threshold for college readiness, while 2052 was the composite average for Freshmen accepted into UCLA in 2013.

Barr has never been able to get his own house together at his lucrative charter chain. Why would we trust him meddling with our public schools?

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(Source: LATimes accessed 20160210)

Schools Matter: The schools Steve Barr made: Green Dot Charters post NINE of lowest fifty SAT scores

Open note to Bill Gaffney of Steve Barr and Bill Gates' Teacher Action Network

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

Open note to Bill Gaffney of Steve Barr and Bill Gates' Teacher Action Network

Dissident Voice: Lying to Mother Jones

The Compton experience and others across the country reflect parents' real frustrations with their schools. However, the four trigger choices don’t address much of what upsets parents most—lack of attention from teachers, canceled programs, old textbooks and learning materials, and poor, rundown facilities. In short, the trigger solution seeks changes in governance and organizational structure without addressing key problems ailing struggling schools. — UCLA IDEA


Pointing out Ben Austin's egregious lies is quickly becoming a full time job, since the mendacious man can't seem to open his mouth without uttering falsehoods. Here we catch him making a statement about his funders that completely contradicts the statements his funders make. That's the great things about corporate education reform, truth is always subservient to profits, and hired spokeslawyer Ben Austin never forgets that. See my latest short essay entitled Lying to Mother Jones for more.

Published 2011-09-24 on Dissident Voice, please read it there and share widely.

Dissident Voice: Lying to Mother Jones

Shirlee Smith: Parent Revolution? Not really

"The idea of the Parent Revolution is to say fuck you." — Ben Austin (Executive Director, Parent Revolution) [1]


Shirlee Smith's brilliant essay on the so-called Parent Revolution (née Los Angeles Parents Union) is factual, cogent, and strikes at the heart of the astroturf phonies' real agenda. She exposes Ben Austin, Pat DeTemple, Gabe Rose and their little band of privatization profiteers, and also lists some of their plutocratic funders.

Parent Revolution? Not really

Originally published at http://www.pasadenasun.com/news/opinion/tn-pas-0916-commentsmith,0,7623274.story yet now somehow mysteriously gone.

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NOTES
[1] http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/neontommy/2010/03/trigger-law-gives-parent-revol.html this one sided pro-privatization article quotes Austin as saying "The idea of the parent revolution is to say fuck you." While we already knew that was how Austin felt about our communities, poor people, and people of color, to hear it coming from the wealthy white charter profiteer's mouth was quite startling. This footnote was first published in Ben Austin's Biography.

Shirlee Smith: Parent Revolution? Not really

Schools Matter: Perfidious Petruzzi calls for accurate evaluations of Green Dot Charter Corporation?

"The lowest-performing, based on test scores, is the large Green Dot chain." — Los Angeles Times


I dismantle and debunk all of Green Dot Charter Corporation's lies in yesterday's Schools Matter essay entitled: Perfidious Petruzzi calls for accurate evaluations of Green Dot Charter Corporation? Not only do I remind everyone of Marco Petruzzi and Steve Barr's outlandish (and unfulfilled) promises, I use well documented facts to combat their claims that their so-called program of "Retention, Rigor, and Results" is anything more than smoke, mirrors, and snake oil.

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

Schools Matter: Perfidious Petruzzi calls for accurate evaluations of Green Dot Charter Corporation?