Capistrano Unified – Corruption Galore
There is a path to follow in this series regarding the mess here in South Orange County and the Capistrano Unified School Districts Board of Trustees. The big picture needed to be outlined in one diary, to show how this board was working against the teachers and the bargaining process. It was merely a snapshot, the picture is bigger and it has been going on for years.The second piece of the puzzle has to do with Education Alliance, a Political Action Committee in Tustin, CA and a number of other political entities hell bent on dismantling public education (And opposing other important political issues such as health care reform and climate change legislation) so that they can privatize and funnel money into charter schools.
The argument of the Charter school people is that Capistrano Unified isn’t working, even though it isranked as 137th in the State out of 870 school districts and it’s the highest ranked school if you consider it’s size by number of students. Capo also has an amazing graduation rate with over 95% of their students graduating high school with the State average at 79%.
The district is working, the teachers are the reason why our schools are competitive and the students are high achievers as well as passionately involved parents. Pacific Research Institute would like you to think otherwise, that communities like Capo are dysfunctional. PRI has been touting their documentary, Not as Good as You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School which attempts to paint this as an issue of public education, which it is not. It’s an issue of corrupt and ineffective board of trustees. And they were corrupt, it’s why so many parents wanted them gone, so beginning in 2006, recall candidates started to replace the corrupt board and replace it with new slate of
