An Open Letter to Los Angeles Parents, Students & Teachers – THE LAUSD COMPANY LINE: SMOKE, MIRRORS & LIES
BY CELES KING IV, VICE CHAIRMAN, CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY OF CALIFORNIA, LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND | WWW.CORE-CA.ORG
June 15th, 2011 – In 2009 the Los Angeles Unified School District, rolled out a major reform and reclamation program to create quality high performing schools. It was called the Public School Choice Act. , authored by Board Member Yolie Flores. The Act itself was passed by the Board in August of 2009. Since that time we have heard the mantra of parent involvement in every phase of the process as an integral part of addressing the real needs of students and community.
From the beginning I was opposed to the Act for it was blatantly clear its real design was to exclude rather than include the community of Parents and local organizations. Its structure was such that it was impossible for small non education community organization to build capacity to effectively and efficiently operate a public school. In fact the design could clearly be seen to favor specific groups previously mentioned during the development of language for the Act. However, provisions were made for Parent voting. Now we are told those Parents were paid to vote and buses were provided to transport those paid parents. That brings us to where we are today in 2011 with the process in its third round of school distribution. I say distribution maybe it would be better to say allocation of Public Schools to a select group of private (non profit) organizations.
Remembering that this whole movement came about for the community to have a voice and actively participate in the education of their