Change The LAUSD

My name is Bilbo Billionaire and my family through three generations has continued to double our fortunes every year. No one in my family, no one in my peer group, and no one on my Board of Directors, and no one in any of their families has ever attended public schools. We have been at the top private schools all the way.

I am investing in charter schools and online schools because both are real moneymakers. I have spent millions on local school board and statewide elections on candidates who advocate charter school education. I am strongly opposed to advocates of public school education.

(The following is fictional)

Amelia Bedalia Elementary in LAUSD is the future of education, so we follow the party line and it is reported in Pravda, I mean the LA School Report.

We teach solely to the test.

Language Arts and Mathematics are the only subjects taught. 

Physical Education is one day a month for 20 minutes.

Recess has been eliminated. Lunch is 15 minutes and only for eating. Bathroom breaks are strongly discouraged.

Are they trying to provide a proper education for the students or are they trying to see who has the most power and influence?

Are trying to see which Los Angeles millionaires and billionaires can get their candidates elected to the LAUSD school board and who can get their chosen person selected as Superintendent?

Are they trying to get all senior teachers to retire early to save lifetime benefits by finding a reason to put them into teacher jails?

Are they trying to make sure that fewer students past the worthless tests so that more parents put their kids into charter schools that are for profit with the billionaires and millionaires as the investors in the schools?

Are they trying to make the teachers feel so poorly and be paid so poorly that they quit and leave the field of education?

Are they trying to force Breakfast In the Classroom so that their sponsors sell surplus food, the kids get fat on the high calorie, breakfasts, the teachers have to clean up and can have a bug infestations in their classrooms, and more educational time is lost?

“Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she is ‘sorry’ for using a private email server, going further than ever before to express remorse for the controversy that has rocked her campaign.”

-CNN

Ironically, I decided to support President Obama in 2008 based on the assumption that Hillary Clinton was such a magnet for controversy that if she were to become President she would become so bogged down in defending herself that little would get done. I clearly remembered that Bill Clinton’s Presidency was a string of manufactured scandals that resulted in an actual impeachment and, with the exception of a certain encounter just outside the Oval Office, his wife was often included in the scandal du jour. If Democrats were going to regain the Presidency, it was best to do so with a candidate who represented a fresh start and who was free of  scandals.

“At Granada Hills Charter High School, we are always looking to give our parents tools to advance their children’s education. That is why we are proud to partner with the California Charter Schools Association. CCSA is here to educate, engage, and empower parents of charter school students to stay informed on issues that affect their school and all charter schools in California. To help get that relationship started, we will be sharing our school directory with CCSA, so you can hear directly from them.”

-Granada Hills Charter High School (GHCHS)

The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) likes to argue that “charters [sic] schools are public schools." While it is true that these schools do receive public tax dollars, there is little else that qualifies them as a public entity. By their own accord they are “free from most rules and regulations governing conventional public schools,” even when that “red tape” was designed to protect students. While their website promises that “if a charter school cannot perform up to the established standards, it will be closed,” the LAUSD, Los Angeles County Office of Education and the office of California State Superintendent of Public Instruction have all displayed an unwillingness to hold these schools accountable to the laws governing public schools. Worst of all, charters have not proven to be any more successful at providing children with the education that they need. Despite their ability to cherry pick the easiest to educate students, recently released test scores showed that independent charters within the LAUSD were “below the state average” and “almost even with [the District’s] traditional [schools] and affiliated charters.”

“As required under California Government Code section 6253, the District will make a determination within 10 days as to whether or not a request is seeking records that are publicly disclosable and, if so, to provide the estimated date that the records will be made available."

-LAUSD, August 4, 2015

While running for a seat on the School Board I had the opportunity to give voice to the victims of bullying by the LAUSD. I listened to the stories of those in Teacher’s Jail and repeatedly heard about the abuses of power within the District. Every time I wrote an article a voice in the back of my head reminded me that this could be the time that a teacher was actually at fault, but that never happened. In retrospect, that makes sense; clear cut cases of wrongdoing do not require an extended stay of paid leave while the district conducts an “investigation.”

They are controlling, do whatever they want to, and never apologize -- that is the LAUSD.

It doesn’t matter who the Superintendent is, who the Board of Education members are or who the top district administrators are.

The LAUSD does what it wants to and never apologies:

LAUSD elementary students are completing the wasteful, monotonous DIBELS today.

Each teacher in Kindergarten through fifth grade has to sit in front of a computer with each student one at a time, while the student reads to the teacher. 

The teacher must hear the same passage over and over again. The tests take 7-8 minutes per student for fourth and fifth grade. Thirty or more students are in the fourth and fifth grade classes.

The rest of the class must work independently while the teacher concentrates on the test. Kindergarteners and first graders have to work independently, which is not easy for them.

Our tax dollars pay for lobbyists in the LAUSD Office of Government Relations with offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento. 

While class sizes are way too high!

The district uses high priced outside law firms while the Office of the General Counsel has a Facilities Legal Services Team consisting of 41 lawyers.

While "LAUSD has 2,600 requests for air conditioning repairs."

LAUSD has a Communications and Media Relations department with eight staff members and that does not include clerical personnel. 

While schools are filthy!

“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

It had been years since my sister and I had been back to the neighborhood where we grew up, but last month we had the chance. In New York for a family reunion, we took an afternoon to roam Rockland County for a trip back in time. We already knew that our childhood home had been bulldozed long ago along with the Nanuet Mall where we had spent many weekends as teenagers. Therefore, these would be visits to addresses rather than childhood shrines. However, the schools we attended are still standing and held the possibility of giving us physical connections to our youth. As we pulled up to Elmwood Elementary School, eagerness quickly turned to shock. My sister turned to my mother and asked, “How could you have sent us to such a shithole?”