Change The LAUSD

“The secrecy has got to stop.”

- LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson

In a clear case of insubordination, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner has ignored a request for copies of contracts that the District had signed for four months. On at least one occasion, Beutner publicly promised to turn over these “confidential contracts” to Board Member Scott Schmerelson but did not do so until last week. “The consultants’ work was not disclosed”.

"Carl J. Petersen wonders if the LAUSD school board will hold failing charter schools accountable?"

Read the full article on Diane Ravitch's blog.

“Under her leadership, she has made important changes in her departments, which I expect will be sustained.”

- Debra Duardo, LACOE Superintendent

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) provides oversight over the 80 school districts within the county and can take control if it finds that any of these districts are in danger of becoming insolvent. Therefore, CFO Candi Clark caused a lot of alarm when she made a surprise appearance during public comment at a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board meeting last August. Her warning that the county was concerned about the District’s finances were seen as a vindication from an independent source that the LAUSD could not afford the union’s demands during the ongoing contract negotiations.

“What [Ilhan Omar] said is so deep-seated in her heart that her lame apology..was just not appropriate.”

- Donald Trump

On August 11, 2017, white-supremacists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia chanting “Sieg heil” and “Jews will not replace us.” The next day James Alex Fields Jr., “who a former teacher said was fascinated by Nazism and Hitler”, purposefully drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters to the “Unite the Right” rally, killing Heather Heyer in cold blood. Donald Trump responded by saying that there were “fine” people on both sides. There are no “fine” people in a crowd of people chanting Nazi slogans.

“It has been a great and very profitable partnership with David Pecker and the team at AMI over the last four years and we look forward to the next phase of growth.”

- Austin Beutner

At best, the National Enquirer, published by AMI, is mindless entertainment for people stuck waiting in line at their local supermarket. While stories about aliens and other ridiculous conspiracy theories are harmless, their coverage about celebrities crosses a darker line. Intruding into a person’s private life during times of adversity to sell copies of a tabloid is bad enough when the stories are real. Churning out works of fiction using a real person as the main character shows a lack of any moral center.

“Data doesn’t close opportunity gaps. People have to do that, so we now need people to take action.”

- Carrie Hahnel, EdTrust-West

It is easy to blame a public school for failing to successfully educate a child. Teachers and schools make easy scapegoats in a society that consistently fails at addressing generational poverty, fails to support children with disabilities, and fails at balancing the need to nurture children with the necessity of putting food on the table. In California, we defunded our schools with Proposition 13 and are still wondering why these same schools are not educating children to our expectations.

"Carl J. Petersen, a watchdog in Los Angeles, has untangled a web of cronyism surrounding Superintendent Austin Beutner."

Read the full article on Diane Ravitch's blog.

"And investigative ed blogger Carl Petersen connects more of the curious dots between Beutner, Sebastian and the bad seed lobbyist’s political potentate dad, L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas."

Read the full article on Capital & Main.

“This article first appeared on LASchoolReport.com, a nonprofit education news site covering Los Angeles schools and California policy and analyzing where the Golden State fits into the national conversation surrounding K-12 issues”

- Los Angeles Daily News

Three weeks after Candi Clark, Chief Financial Officer of the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), spoke at a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board meeting, the Los Angeles Daily News was still describing her appearance as “unannounced”.  However, the facts tell a different story. Documents obtained in a Public Records Act request by United Teachers Los Angeles show that the text of a speech was created on a District computer registered to Cheryl Simpson, an “LAUSD budget official” and shared with Clark. Her appearance was definitely not “unannounced” as it is clear that there was some coordination with officials at the LAUSD.

“Test Two may be more daunting — namely, explaining why [Austin Beutner] put a scandal-plagued and #MeToo-accused former State Assemblymember on the district payroll as a lobbyist.”

-Bill Raden, Capital & Main

Instead of meeting with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) in the days leading up to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) strike, Superintendent Austin Beutner and Board President Monica Garcia were in Sacramento in an effort to “drum up lawmaker opposition to the teachers strike.” They were accompanied on this trip by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (SRT), the son of “powerful L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas (MRT)”. While not publicly disclosed at the time, SRT was there as a paid lobbyist for the District.