Hey, hey. Ho, ho. corporate schools have got to go. PLAS has been an abject disaster!

Hey, hey. Ho, ho. corporate schools have got to go. PLAS has been an abject disaster @partnershipla #PLAS #LAUSD #edu twitter.com/rdsathene/stat…

— Robert D. Skeels (@rdsathene) June 6, 2013

Hey, hey. Ho, ho. corporate schools have got to go. PLAS has been an abject disaster!

Protest to get Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) out of Santee Education Complex!

From the organizers:

PLEASE SHARE! Protest TODAY (Tuesday) at Santee High School at 3PM to get rid of Mayor Villaraigosa's "Partnership" for Los Angeles Schools! They are dishonest, corrupt and shady as hell! They have gotten rid of many teachers, Ethnic Studies classes and now they are trying to get rid of Dr. Rangel! Enough is enough! Let's get rid of these people already! Villaraigosa is leaving City Hall and his corrupt "Partnership" needs to leave Santee!

I've written about PLAS' shutting down Ethnic Studies here: Schools Matter: Mayor Villaraigosa and PLAS CEO Tuck bring Arizona style bigotry to Los Angeles

Protest to get Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) out of Santee Education Complex!

Recall Monica Garcia! Picket outside LA Chamber of Commerce

Recall Monica Garcia! Picket outside LA Chamber of Commerce

Protesting the Mónica García Privatization Celebration Event

On the morning of Friday July 13, 2012 wealthy charter corporation heads, billionaire funded 501c3 "non-profits," and well heeled business leaders celebrated a "Decade of Corporate Education Reforms" courtesy of LAUSD President Mónica Garcia.

Community members, students, educators, and social justice activists showed up on last minute notice to let Ms. García know that her tenure has been, and continues to be, unbearable to those suffering under her neoliberal regime of privatization and school closures. Several members of United Adult Students were on hand to remind everyone that García has stolen many students' futures have closed so many of our Early Education Center, Adult Education Schools, and SRLDP programs!

The Chamber of Commerce was the perfect place for the chief school privatizer—Mónica García to join her fellow one-percenters, profiteers, privatizers, and poverty pimps, since none of them are about education, they're all about business and revenues instead. Joan Sullivan, Marshall Tuck, Angelica Solis, Elise Buik, Veronica Melvin, and a host of other charter school bandits were on hand to salute Eli Broad and Philip Anschutz's avatar.

We're fighting back. http://www.recallmonicagarcia.com

Protesting the Mónica García Privatization Celebration Event

July 15 Recall Mónica García South Central, Trinity Park

This Sunday, July 15, 2012 from 9:00am — 1:00pm, South Central, Trinity Park, corner of Wall Street & 25th Street (3 blocks from Santee Educational Complex), 90011

Information: Vera Padilla marver69@hotmail.com or (323)236-0595

See the complete summer schedule

July 15 Recall Mónica García South Central, Trinity Park

Recall Mónica García June Press Conference

Students, Parents, and Community Activists provided an update on the recall campaign and other activities to save LAUSD SRLDP, Early Education Centers, Adult Education, and to prevent further privatization, reconstitution, and closures of our local neighborhood schools. http://recallmonicagarcia.com

Recall Mónica García June Press Conference

Schools Matter: PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck and Mayor Villaraigosa bring Arizona style bigotry to Los Angeles

First published on Schools Matter on July 05, 2012

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"We had an African American woman walk up to us and say 'why do you need Ethnic Studies?', and we looked at each other and said, 'that's exactly why we need Ethnic Studies!'" — Santee Students speaking at PLAS protest.

It would be a mistake to think the absolutely tragic stream of bigoted and racist legislation flowering in Arizona is confined to Arizona alone. Sadly, one of the most egregious perpetrators removing access to ethnic studies and heritage language programs in this country isn't Michael Hicks, Tom Horne, or John Huppenthal, but a privately managed organization called Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) founded by the vehemently anti-public education Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

PLAS' latest attack comes in the form of killing the only Ethnic Studies program at the culturally diverse South Los Angeles Santee High School. The announcement shook the community, given the program's popularity and importance in a community desperate to retain its identity and dignity. The following video was taken at a demonstration held in front of PLAS headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. The protest was held by community activists in order to save both the Ethnic Studies program and the program's leader — Social Justice Educator Ron Gochez.

At the heart of the decision is a vindictive reprisal against Social Justice Educator Ron Gochez by Mayor Villaraigosa. Gochez drew Villaraigosa's ire by running for Los Angeles City Council District 9, and — as a principled social justice activist — by being a constant thorn in the Mayor's side. Gochez has been one of the activists instrumental in the Southern California Immigration Coalition and National Lawyer Guild's stand against the Mayor and his cronies seizing and selling the automobiles of undocumented peoples. We've even held demonstrations in front of the Mayor's lavish mansion. Here's an announcement of one such protest:

To protest the continued confiscation of undocumented people's cars. The police continue to use minor violations as a pretext to pull over undocumented drivers and take away their vehicles. Police have repeatedly targeted immigrant communities to establish patrols in areas that are designed not to deter traffic violations but provide a pretext for stopping suspected unlicensed drivers, including in front of schools as parents drop off their children. These stops are tantamount to racial profiling as they repeatedly target immigrants who in many instances have committed no crime.

Ultimately Mayor Villaraigosa's political payback effects not just Gochez, but his students, Santee High School, and the South Los Angeles community as a whole.

The initial decision was surreptitiously announced by one of Villaraigosa's education henchman, ex-Green Dot Schools Corporation flunky Marshall Tuck. Tuck has been PLAS' CEO since the privately managed organization began. Eliminating the only Ethnic Studies program at Santee High School is tantamount to cultural sterilization. Such politically motivated attacks are both racist and ethnocentric. PLAS' Marshal Tuck, Doc Ervin, Angela Bass, Joan Sullivan, and Ricardo Ruiz have a long history of these types of attacks on our communities.

The decision to rob Santee's impoverished students of color of their chance to learn about their culture and history follows on the heels of PLAS killing heritage language programs at two of their other schools. Four years ago they banned the Dual Language Program and the Academic English Mastery Program at Ritter Elementary School, and two years ago they banned the teaching of core subjects in Spanish at Roosevelt High School as they had had as a response to the activism of the famous East Los Angeles Blowouts in 1968.

I asked United Teachers of Los Angeles' Director of Bilingual Education, Cheryl Ortega, for full details on program elimination:

This is the first I've heard of eliminating ethnic studies at Santee, but it makes me think a lot about Tuck and PLAS banning the Dual Language Program and the Academic English Mastery Program at Ritter 4 years ago. Tuck and his people, Doc Ervin, Angela Bass and Ricardo Ruiz worked very hard to pit the Latino and the African-American communities against each other at Ritter instead of promoting unity. It was shameful.

Two years ago Marina Salas, chair of the Bilingual Ed Committee, and I visited Roosevelt HIgh, a PLAS school, at the request of the CC and the ESL teachers. They were outraged that they were no longer permitted to teach core subjects in Spanish as they had done for a generation. If an English Learner takes a math course, for instance, in Spanish, the student will receive credit for the A-G. The same student could take the math class in English and receive the same A-G credit if he/she passes the course which is unlikely because of the language challenge. So the EL student is put in a general math class which, although, is just a rigorous from a language perspective, is a lower level math class which does not generate A-G credit. So dozens of kids, many newcomers, perfectly competent to take algebra or chemistry cannot get graduation credit for those classes. PLAS has denied thousands of EL students access to core curriculum because of their limited English skills. The year before that, PLAS eliminated the Dual Language Program and the AEMP program at Ritter ES in Watts in spite of parent protests. The people that the mayor has running PLAS, Marshall Tuck, Doc Ervin, and formerly Angela Bass, are, at best, completely insensitive, and, at worst, purposely undermining the chances of student success in minority communities. I always felt that the mayor had distanced himself from the actual running of PLAS, leaving it in the hands of these people.

I would opt for they are "purposely undermining the chances of student success in minority communities." The elimination of the only Ethnic Studies program at the culturally diverse Santee is further proof of the cultural genocide that PLAS inflicts on the most needy children in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Fighting this type of sophisticated racism is just as important as the struggle against the outright ignorant racism of Michael Hicks, Tom Horne, or John Huppenthal. PLAS is part and parcel Villaraigosa and his wealthy cadre of school privatizers' pet project. For a Latino Mayor, who is on record for rightfully criticizing Arizona for it's nativist bigotry, to allow the same thing to go on in his own schools is the height of hypocrisy.

Stop cultural genocide! Contact the following and demand that PLAS retain the Ethnic Studies program at Santee High School and that social justice educator Ron Gochez be restored to his position.

Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa
Mayor of Los Angeles
200 N. Main St. Rm 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 978-0600
mayor@lacity.org

Joan Sullivan
Deputy Mayor on Education
Office of the Mayor
200 N. Main St. Rm 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 978-0662
Joan.sullivan@lacity.org

Marshall Tuck
Cheif Executive Officer
Partnership for Los Angeles Schools
1541 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 201-2000
marshall.tuck@partnershipla.org
sergio.flores@partnershipla.org
Patrick.Sinclair@partnershipla.org

Schools Matter: PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck and Mayor Villaraigosa bring Arizona style bigotry to Los Angeles

Important Recall Mónica García Updates

Recall Mónica García Dowtown Signature Drive
Join us this Saturday
June 16, 2012 at 9:30AM
Abram Friedman Occupational Center (AFOC)
1646 South Olive Street Los Angeles, CA 90015

JOIN US FOR A PRESS CONFERENCE
Recall Mónica García
Students, Parents, and Community Activists to provide an update on the recall campaign and other activities to save LAUSD SRLDP, Early Education Centers, Adult Education, and to prevent further privatization, reconstitution, and closures of our local neigboorhood schools.
Monday at 12:30
June 18, 2012
LAUSD Headquarters (Boardroom Side)
333 S. Beaudry Ave. , Los Angeles, 90017

ÚNETE A NOSOTROS PARA UNA CONFERENCIA DE PRENSA
Destitución de Mónica García
Los estudiantes, padres y activistas de la comunidad proporcionaran información actualizada sobre la campaña de destitución y otras actividades para salvar el LAUSD SRLDP, Centros de Educación Temprana, Educación de Adultos, y para evitar una mayor privatización, la reconstitución y el cierre de nuestras escuelas.
Lunes a las 12:30
18 de junio 2012
LAUSD Headquarters (Boardroom Side)
333 S. Beaudry Ave. , Los Angeles, 90017

Support The Recall for Mónica García Committee FPPC ID: 1347024 info@RecallMonicaGarcia.com
(213) 344-5764

Important Recall Mónica García Updates

¡No La Quieren Mónica García!

"When she needed us, to get to the position she's in, we were there for her. Now that we need her, she isn't helping us. We don't want Monica Garcia to keep her position...She is affecting the needs of our communities, our children and our families." — Enoe Terra (Parent and Adult Student)

Learn More and Get Involved

http://RecallMonicaGarcia.com

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¡No La Quieren Mónica García!

EchoParkPatch: Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again?

"[Camino Nuevo Charter Academy Corporation]'s board is UNELECTED by the public and composed exclusively of investment management executives, high powered lawyers, and other wealthy business types. Not one of them is an actual educator, and none of them have been teachers or principals in a K-12 setting. Furthermore, not one of them lives in Echo Park or Historic Filipinotown." — Robert D. Skeels


Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again? is my report back from the final meeting held by Camino Nuevo Charter Corporation at Union Avenue School reveals very serious resume padding for Shannon Leonard, CNCA's new Principal of CRES #14. Most importantly we photographed a slide featuring Shannon Leonard's "credentials." The last line mentioning he was a "Professor at LMU's School of Education" is wholly untrue as per officials at Loyola Marymount University's School of Education. Turns out that claim was an out and out lie. If CNCA Corporation can't be honest about things like that, what can they be honest about?

Published on EchoParkPatch, please read it there and share widely.

EchoParkPatch: Camino Nuevo Corporation: A Little Less Than Honest Again?

Mayor Villaraigosa's "Stars (M)Aligned" Education [sic] Speech

My longtime compañero the incomparable activist José del Barrio asked me to share and post to the blog. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlines plans for ramping up education 'reform' in Los Angeles Unified School District during his "State of the City" address. He refers to new superintendent John Deasy as LAPD's "Bill Bratton with a ruler." Location: Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles. Student drummers play at the start of the video. Date: April 13, 2011

My take: the Mendacious Mayor (aka Mayor Failure) Villaraigosa is speaking to "his" constituents in this speech: Eli Broad, Philip Anshutz, Judy Burton, Marco Petruzzi, Ana Ponce, Ricardo Mireles, Jed Wallace, Vielka McFarlane, and all the other corporate charter luminaries. Mayor Failure even gives a big shout out to the foppish millionaire of Benedict Canyon, when he gushes about Ben Austin's corporate charter trigger.



[click here if you can't view this video]

Mayor Villaraigosa's "Stars (M)Aligned" Education [sic] Speech