Change The LAUSD

“Leadership means Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage.”

- Richard N. Ojeda

If leaders are born out of a crisis, then once again the Trump presidency has been stillborn. Even though bombs were still in circulation and the perpetrator was still on the loose, Tweets from the President of the United States revolved around an unsubstantiated complaint that Twitter was limiting the number of his followers and the fact that the news was covering assassination attempts against his political foes instead of “talking politics”. Even worse, he fed right-wing conspiracy theorists by framing the word “bomb” in quotes, contradicting his FBI Director who directly stated that they were “not hoax devices”. Leaders put the common good above their own. Donald Trump is a narcissist who cannot stand a storyline that does not advance his own interests.

“A budget should reflect the values and priorities of our nation and its people.”

- Mary Landrieu

In California State Superintendent of Education candidate Marshall Tuck’s TV advertisement, he points out that California is 44th in achieving education results. What he leaves unsaid is that this performance parallels our state’s lack of funding for our students. As noted by Dr. Rocio Rivas, “California ranks 43rd in per-pupil spending with an investment of less than $11,000 per student, which is below the national average of approximately $12,526. In addition, California is ranked 48th in class size.” As a comparison, in the 2014-15 school year, New York state spent $20,744 per student.

“Tony Thurmond has spent his entire career fighting for children and is the only candidate with experience in public education, including service as a school board member. Public education is under constant attack from Betsy DeVos and others who seek to divert education funding to private entities. I have personally endorsed Thurmond because he is the fighter our children need to ensure that public education survives,” stated Carl Petersen, Education Lead for The Resistance Northridge Indivisible.

Read the entire press release here.

“Recently, I was presented with an amazing opportunity in the private sector to work with some of the most brilliant and well-respected leaders in their industry. While I didn’t seek this out – sometimes tremendous opportunities find you”

- LA City Councilman Mitch Englander

Republican Mitch Englander spent $404,421.93 during his last re-election campaign in 2015. He was running unopposed.

The very next year, Englander ran for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. While the voters denied him the opportunity to move on, it was clear that he felt no obligation to complete the five-year term on the City Council that he had been elected to serve.

Last week, the councilman announced that he would be leaving his office at the end of the year. Like a cheating husband making excuses to his wife, he told his constituents that “he didn’t seek this out [but] sometimes tremendous opportunities find you“. Englander will become the executive vice president of government affairs for the Oak View Group, a company that “spent more than $52,000 this year to try to influence the council and the parks department on issues related to the Greek” Theatre in Griffith Park.

“I am proud to be a Democrat and I wish Bernie were, too.”

- Hillary Clinton

Coming out of the 2016 presidential elections it looked like the Republican party was hopelessly fractured. Trump had steamrolled past primary opponents favored by the establishment turning party orthodoxy on its head. After a failed last-minute attempt to block his ascension at the convention, the party faithful fell into line and prepared themselves for a certain loss; they would regroup in 2020 and take on Clinton for her reelection.

But then Trump beat the odds and won. The Never Trumpers fell away along with long-standing planks in the Republican platform. The party that used to believe in free trade sat by while Trump instituted ill-conceived tariffs and started trade wars. While they once responded to complaints of abuse by police officers with the retort of “blue-lives matter”, no defense was forthcoming for career FBI agents subjected to Trump’s unsubstantiated charges against them. Former deficit hawks who used to insist on “pay for” for any social program gladly voted for a tax bill that primarily benefited corporations and the 1% while ballooning the deficit and increasing income inequality.

“Rodriguez’s misdeeds…made a mockery of the laws governing elections.”

- LA Times Editorial Board

By the time the last vote was counted in the 2015 LAUSD School Board election, it was the most expensive school board race in the history of the country. The impending cost to run for the Board District 5 seat was clear from the beginning when challenger Andrew Thomas loaned his campaign $51,000 during the filing period ending September 30, 2014.  In order to show that he was competitive, charter industry candidate Ref Rodriguez knew that he had to prove that he was also capable of filling his campaign coffers. He ended 2014 showing that he had raised $50,001. The choices that he made in reaching this achievement would eventually lead to him pleading guilty to felony charges and resigning his Board seat in disgrace.

“A perfect example of what is wrong with the California law regarding charter authorizing.”

- Scott Schmerelson

The average school in the United States has 507 students. Through the 2018-2019 school year, Granada Hills Charter High School is authorized for an enrollment capacity of 5,500 students.  This is more than the total number of students in 86% of all school districts nationwide. Included in the charter renewal petition submitted to the LAUSD this summer, the school sought to grow even larger by adding TK through 8th grades and 1,425 more students. Before the Board voted on this proposal, I made my public comment detailing the problems that already exist at the school along with new issues that were raised by the proposed expansion:

“Renate Alumnius”

- Brett Kavanaugh

Like a child who had gotten caught with his hands in the cookie jar, SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh looked into the eyes of United States Senators and the American people and said he did not do it. However, no amount of tears or righteous indignation will change the fact that placing “Renate Alumnius” on his yearbook page was not an act of “affection”, he was not old enough to legally drink at the time he allegedly tried to rape Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, or that he regularly attended parties like the one described by Ford.

Not a day goes by where a charter school controversy or scandal is not exposed in California or the rest of the nation. The frequent media coverage of charter school misconduct exposes how the increasing privatization of our public education system has turned our current educational landscape into a laughable charade at the expense of our children’s education and their overall well-being. New and growing research is mounting regarding the consequences of not having strong oversight, transparency, and accountability over charter schools, which includes increased corruption and educational dishonesty.

Read the article by Dr. Rocio Rivas on K-12 News Networks The Wire.

“It is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear -- piece by painful piece”

- Brett Kavanaugh

Much like Dr. Christine Ford, Monica Lewinsky’s life was turned upside down by the glare of someone else's spotlight. While Brett Kavanaugh asserted that engaging in sexual relations with Bill Clinton turned “her life into a shambles”, from Lewinsky's point of view it was his boss, Kenneth Starr, “who turned [her] 24-year-old life into a living hell”. As tribal politics raged, it was not the sex acts, but Clinton’s use of her as “a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position” that provided his contribution to her enduring victimization.