Change The LAUSD

Public education is free; paid for by our property tax dollars. No one makes a profit from it. The board of education and the state superintendent of public education are chosen in free elections.

All of that is changing. Billionaires are pouring millions into local school board races to elect candidates who will serve their needs. Dot com millionaires with no knowledge of public education are running for statewide educational positions. 

These wealthy investors who would never allow their children to attend public or charter schools, who would never allow their children to attend schools using the Common Core, who would never allow their children to attend schools where everything including teachers’ evaluations depends on test scores, who would never allow their children to attend schools where the class sizes are large and there is minimal support personnel, are investing in charter and online schools and are working behind the scenes to get elected officials and district administrators to close public schools and send the students to for profit charters.

Rafe Esquith “wants to shut down teacher jail. Mostly he wanted to teach. That’s not going to happen anymore not at Hobart, not by L.A.Unified and he wants to never let this happen to any teacher again.”

-Mark Geragos

When it comes to Rafe Esquith, the LAUSD is in a no-win situation. Eventually, the public will be presented with the evidence that the District has dug up against the famed teacher and the court of public opinion will decide if he should have been removed from the classroom. If the public agrees that the District’s actions were correct, the LAUSD will need to explain why it took them 30 years to find that Esquith was unfit for the classroom. However, a finding that he was framed will expose another instance of bullying by the District and they will owe the current students of Hobart Elementary School an explanation for why they were deprived of the experience of being Hobart Shakespeareans. The 640,000 students of the LAUSD will also want to know why over $1 billion meant for their education is being jeopardized by this behavior.

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today. 

LAUSD is robbing your children of a well rounded education, a proper education, an education like they gave you before all the tests.

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today.

Test scores, tests scores: compare them, improve them, at what cost to the students? At what costs to their futures?

Teaching to the test. Then testing. The rhythm of education in LAUSD today.

The fun is gone. The creativity is gone. The education in LAUSD has become a business. No longer are the students the bottom line--tests scores are.

“It is clear to all present that which you have pointed out. I would sarcastically compare you to Sherlock Holmes, were I the type, but suffice it to say, sir, that you are a dullard.”

-Matt E.

In reporting on Racy Film Sets, KNBC found that the LAUSD is a “school system lacking oversight,” that obtaining information from the District requires “fighting for access to public records” and exceptions will be made to a policy prohibiting the disruption of “any school instructional program...in exchange for additional donations.” For readers of the Parental Engagement blog, these stories are not new. My campaign for LAUSD School Board was based on bringing accountability to the District. The Office of the General Counsel has blocked or stonewalled my attempts to gather information about the forced departure of David Binkle and Disruptive Parent Letters. Blogs about the California Charter Schools Association and Eli Broad have shown how they have been able to spread their resources, either through campaign spending or in restricted donations to the District, to take control of the LAUSD. KNBC: welcome to the party. Where have you been?

“Everything you know is wrong

Black is white, up is down and short is long”

-Weird Al Yankovic

When I was a student, 44 was definitely larger than ten; I am sure of it. I did not fail math until I reached Calculus Three in college and in all the classes before that, 44 was the larger number. However, according to the LAUSD, this is not longer the case.

The LAUSD’s Office of the General Counsel (OGC) freely admits that they “had ten days from receipt of [my] email to determine whether [my] request, in whole or in part, asked for disclosable public records.” According to my calculations, their e-mail on September 21, notifying me that “the records you have requested are exempt from disclosure” was provided 44 days after my initial request. Still, they maintain that “there was no delay in responding to [my] request.” Common Core has sure made math confusing! Perhaps I need to show my work in order for the law to be followed.

You say that is as stupid as widening the San Diego Freeway when they should have built a train transit system on it instead.

It seems that everything in LAUSD is for sale. 

School board candidates receive millions of dollars in campaign funds from out of state billionaires who have no vested interest in the school district.

Class sizes are being raised, so empty classrooms on many campuses are being given to for profit charter schools.

The reformers want LAUSD students (except for special needs ones) to move to those schools in which they and their peers have investments.

“Per GHCHS Board Policy, all students must participate fully in California CAASPP and Granada Testing in their 9th, 10th and 11th grade year to be eligible to participate in optional activities such as senior activities, school extracurricular activities and school athletics (GHCHS Parent-Student Handbook).”

-Granada Hills Charter High School

If you had your car stolen and then saw it being driven on the streets, your first call would probably be to the local police department. It would not be unreasonable for you to expect that these trained professionals would take care of the situation by confronting the driver and taking appropriate action. But what would you think if they instead told you that it was your responsibility to find out why the person was driving your car? This is essentially what the LAUSD’s Charter Schools Division (CSD) does in handling complaints.

“While working for two years as an accountant, Eli Broad saw his homebuilding clients making much more that he was, and he and Edythe’s cousin’s husband decided they, too, could build houses.”

-Broad Foundation

There are some who like to quietly give to charities, being careful not to draw too much attention to themselves. Eli Broad is not this type of person. In a dispute with MOCA, an organization where he had been named “Founding Chairman,” he told the trustees that he wanted his “name on the building...in big letters, which were to go on the front of the building.” He had to settle having the lobby named after him, at least until he built his very own museum. However, when he gives money, he does not just want public recognition; he wants control. Broad and his wife, Edythe, are self-described venture philanthropists who focus “their charitable giving in a new style of investing that was more akin to their business acumen.”

Why are we in Afghanistan anyway? 

To get our soldiers killed or injured or to have the soldiers return with PTSD, no jobs awaiting them, and limited federal government support.

Why did we invade and destroy Iraq?

To make billions for the defense industry which supports legislators with campaign contributions, and to make billions for the corporations rebuilding and the private defense firms guarding Iraq. And oil power.

Why is there a war on teachers?

To have every student in public schools enter for profit charter schools and to break the power of the teachers’ unions.

Money, lots of money:

“Watch a fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, ‘We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.’”

-Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina seems intent on proving the adage that “a lie told often enough becomes the truth.” During the September 16, Republican debate, she gave a detailed description of a scene from the “highly edited”  videos from the Center for Medical Progress, an organization that sounds like it could be lifted straight out of an Orwellian 1984. Problematically, “the exact scene, exactly as Ms. Fiorina describes it, is not on the videos.” Politifact rated the statement as “Mostly False,” saying that while “Fiorina makes it sound as if the footage shows what Planned Parenthood is alleged to have done...stock footage was added to the video to dramatize its content.” The anti-abortion group that produced the video admits that one of those images was “of a stillborn baby that was made to look like an aborted fetus.” At best, the actual quote cited is poorly paraphrased as the transcript states “this is a really good fetus. It looks like we can procure a lot from it. We’re going to procure a brain.”