Pushback in Los Angeles

The exposure of the secret plan by billionaire Eli Broad’s Foundation to expand charters so that half of Los Angeles students would attend them, drew outrage and national attention. It also energized a pushback movement that continues to grow.

Karen Wolfe and Carl Petersen,  parent activists and bloggers, regularly report on the problems with charter schools in the area. Wolfe provides updates through her psconnectnow blog and Petersen regularly blogs for K-12 News.  Petersen’s recent series on the financial scandals at El Camino High School asked hard questions about the lack of oversight provided by the Los Angeles School Board. Petersen is running for a seat on the board in part to ensure greater oversight of charters.

For the evening session, we parents were only allowed one public comment for the entire meeting even though there were nine agenda items. Carl focused on details of El Camino and the harassment he has been subjected to since blogging about them. There was a collective, audible cringe from El Camino supporters when he approached the podium.

"Carl Petersen, a candidate running for the LAUSD Board of Education, argued during public comments Friday that the investigative report 'should be open to the public' since public funds are being used.

He also argued that the Oracle report should not have been discussed in closed session Friday since it wasn’t specifically listed on the agenda."

"Carl J. Petersen is a candidate in next year’s Los Angeles Unified School District 2 board election. He became a public education activist while fighting for his two daughters who are on the autism spectrum. Petersen had this to say about the influence of CCSA in Los Angeles:

The California Charter School Association and their allies poured nearly $2.3 million into last year’s LAUSD election, helping to make them the nation’s most expensive school board election. Given this influence, is it any surprise that the LAUSD Charter School Division, which is responsible for overseeing the largest charter system in the country, is headed by a former staff member of the CCSA or that the district has only revoked one charter in the past three years?"

Los Angeles Unified’s troubled iPad project and former superintendent are framing discussions in the March 3 school board primary.

Among three contested seats, two-term incumbent Tamar Galatzan faces five challengers quick to point out her past support for former Superintendent John Deasy in their bids for the District 3 seat that represents parts of the western and southern San Fernando Valley.

One of Galatzan’s most outspoken opponents, Carl Petersen, highlights Galatzan’s support for what once was a $1.3 billion effort to put iPads in the hands of every student as well as for Deasy, who abruptly resigned in October.

“She’s lost touch with the people she represents; you just have to go to one of the board meetings,” said Petersen, an LAUSD parent who heads logistics for a Glendale-based manufacturing company.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI are probing iPad contracting procedures for criminal wrongdoing in the process that tapped Apple to supply devices and Pearson, an educational company, to create content.

Petersen questions the use of bond dollars, which voters approved as a means to improve schools, to buy the devices. He would prefer the money be spent on school computer labs.

Read the full story at http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20150223/deasy-ipads-key-issues-in-lausd-school-board-campaigns

As the city's March 3 primary election draws near, Los Angeles Unified school board candidates are blasting incumbents for the controversial iPad program.

Opponents sharply criticized the $1.3 billion bond-funded program at a debate Tuesday in West San Fernando Valley, where District 3 school board member Tamar Galatzan was elected in 2007.

"Galatzan said the district is going in the right direction," declared candidate Carl Petersen, a parent and businessman. "I don’t know how anyone can look at the events of the past year and come to that conclusion."

Read the full story at http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2015/02/20/17931/ipad-controversy-looms-large-in-lausd-district-3-b/

[Galatzan's] challengers, meanwhile, push hard on her support of the iPads — an effort that Deasy called a civil rights imperative.

Carl J. Petersen faulted the use of school construction bonds to buy the devices. The parent of five also prefers well-stocked computer labs to the purchase for each student of what he called a "glorified toy."

Read the full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lausd-election-20150220-story.html#page=1

Another candidate for District 3 is Carl Petersen, who clearly understands that Galatazan "doesn't pay attention to her constituency, " but rather has no problem getting lost in her iPad during public comments at the board meetings- clearly, her mind is already made up and she's just going through the motions. 

Petersen got into this because of a personal interest in special needs students who the district continues to either ignore or underserve. In Petersen's systematic approach to this issue, he has shown a rational approach that can easily be translated into other areas where the district and more specifically the LAUSD Board have consistently missed the boat. 

Whether it's viable alternatives to college careers or "classes structured for STEM, but not interest, Petersen clearly understands that the district's top/down model has no place for individual needs in a system where there is never an "independent justification" for what the board does and why.

Read the full story at http://www.citywatchla.com/8box-left/8441-if-failed-teachers-are-fired-why-are-failed-lausd-incumbents-re-elected

JAZLEY FAITH

JOURNALISM.

In my e-mail, I also ask Petersen if he will have time for a phone-interview. He responds back within 8 minutes with his phone number and an invitation to call him, although he has a meeting at 11. I respond to him that I am in class until 10:50 and ask for another time, and he assures me that he will e-mail me after his meeting. I can’t help but notice that he signs his e-mails simply with his first name as “Carl”, despite my formal address to him as “Mr. Petersen.”

I seem to be checking my phone more often as I casually open Google to begin researching this friendly and prompt Mr. Carl Petersen.

Read the full story at http://jazzleyfaithjournalism.tumblr.com/post/111154529102/from-the-lens-of-a-journalist-tamar-galatzan-v