MiSiS: The [John Deasy] Gift That Keeps On Giving

From the July 20, 2015 issue of Update

Just when we thought there could possibly be a light at the end of the dark and winding MiSiS road, the LAUSD community now faces another hurdle—faulty transcripts. Superintendent Cortines confirmed that there have been reporting issues with graduation requirements for students in the Class of 2015 resulting in potential errors on as many as 7,500 transcripts. For some reason, several transcripts show that students had met graduation requirements when they didn't and vice versa for other students. In other cases, summer school grades just disappeared from the system, affecting credits earned and matriculation to the next grade level. While it was announced that these most recent problems have been resolved, those in the field claim there are still inaccuracies. Several additional steps for school site and local district office staff have been put in place, most of them entailing checks and balances to ensure the accuracy of the information in MiSiS.

The issue with transcripts is not new. The same problems were occurring last October as seniors were preparing their college admissions applications. The District at that time hired retired educators to come in and verify by hand that the transcripts were correct and students were asked to compare their new transcripts with their old report cards. Several more millions of dollars were allocated to fix the problem then, so it is unsettling to see that the same thing is reoccurring now.

Superintendent Cortines had hoped that the system would be operating correctly by now, but recently admitted that it may take all of 2015-16 to get it fully functional. Last week, the MiSiS log of unresolved problems still exceeded 350. School staff members report that as soon as one problem is resolved another pops up. And now as we are less than a month away from the start of the new school year, administrators, counselors and teachers are holding their breaths that students will have accurate class schedules, that attendance reporting will be correct and enrollment counts can be taken.

MiSiS: The [John Deasy] Gift That Keeps On Giving

K12NN Wire: John Deasy’s MiSiS cRiSiS shocks LAUSD’s conscience

First published on K12NN Wire on August 17, 2014

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"I was interested in the fact that the scandal over Deasy's PhD hit the headlines at the same time he was hired by Gates. His financial connections with Robert Felner date back to his Santa Monica days" — Susan Ohanian

Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) Superintendent John Deasy's job was to insure that the My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS) would be ready for roll out when the school year began. But instead of doing his job, he was "busy" testifying on behalf of right-wing millionaire David F. Welch against his own school district and stabbing the education professionals he is supposed to collaborate with in the back with his outrageous lies on the witness stand. That is, of course, when he wasn't pushing his failed Pearson, PLC Common Core iPad plan, and using District 3 Board Member Tamar Galatzan as a proxy to attack reasonable taxpayer oversight in the person of Stuart Magruder.

What was Deasy supposed to be doing instead of testifying for reactionary millionaire David Welch? Did you guess overseeing MiSiS? #LAUSD

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) August 16, 2014

Let no one say that Deasy isn't earning every penny of his $.36-Million salary when attending lavish buffets with the likes of United Way of Greater Los Angeles' Elise Buik and the board members of Welch's Students Matter. Any man with a limousine driver is far too important to do his actual work, even if not doing it means throwing the entire district into chaos. Surprisingly, the Deasy sycophants in the corporate media like the Daily News are chronicling his latest epic failure: LAUSD in crisis over its new MiSiS computer system. Maybe he'll get some praise for his MiSiS mishandling on his fellow LA Fund board member Jamie Alter-Lynton's blog, but in the reality based world such Fox-News-like spin is of little value.

John Deasy tried to blame Mark Berndt coverup on Dr. McKenna, Pearson iPad flap on Dr. Aquino, who will he blame his MiSiS cRiSiS on? #LAUSD

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) August 16, 2014

It's more than likely that in his accustomed fashion Deasy will try to blame his latest boondoggle on others. After all, this is the same Superintendent who deceitfully (along with opportunist Mark Ridley Thomas and erstwhile Board candidate Alex Johnson) tried to blame Beaudry's Mark Berndt coverup on Dr. George McKenna, despite the hard fact of those events happening long before McKenna was on the scene. This is the same Superintendent who pinned the Pearson iPad flap on Dr. Jaime Aquino, and then cried crocodile tears when his subordinate ended up resigning in disgrace. So who will Deasy blame his MiSiS cRiSiS on? Perhaps that's why Deasy's second staunchest supporter on the board, Tamar Galatzan, was quick to try and abdicate any responsibility for holding John Deasy accountable. One of her opponents in the upcoming election for the LAUSD District 3 seat astutely pointed out that if it isn't in Galatzan's job to hold the man she championed to be hired accountable, then whose is it?

However, when discussing MiSiS we need to squarely put the blame where it belongs — on Deasy. The Greeks have an idiom about how the "fish rots from the head." Instead of testifying for forces sworn to destroy public education, Deasy should have been earning his staggering salary by doing his job! The MiSiS cRiSiS is Deasy's Disaster.

K12NN Wire: John Deasy’s MiSiS cRiSiS shocks LAUSD’s conscience