The Crocodiles Are Circling…
Written by redqueeninla in LAUSD
This past week saw the death of sitting LAUSD board member Marguerite LaMotte. She was an icon of her predominantly black, South-Central district of nearly 2/3 of a million people. She was partisan and plain-spoken and politically astute. She was explicit about her unease with charter school proliferation in the district generally, and the “Reform” policies championing these interests, as led here in LA by superintendent John Deasy, in particular.
Ms LaMotte was the sole dissenter of the board’s recent decision to renew superintendent Deasy’s contract. And she couldn’t have been clearer in her disgust for the politics of disruption as inflicted by Ben Austin, Parent Revolution, the parent trigger, the Parent Union, Steve Barr, Green Dot and even the much-bally-hooed LA Fund. The “churn” of neoliberal reform hurts first and foremost, “her” babies, belying any vestige whatsoever of real concern for “the children” so regularly referenced by this crocodilian force.
To replace Ms LaMotte would mean explicitly selecting a representative similarly skeptical of the forces of Education Privatization as led by John Deasy’s band of privateers.
It is not, therefore, in the least bit surprising to learn that precisely those forces against which she stood so stalwartly, are arraying waves of assault upon our district, attacking from every conceivable angle in order to usurp her iconic role.
Some district parents were invited to a private event at which a prominent member of this circle shared “information” about replacing Ms LaMotte. Ironically, any replacement acceptable to this clique would be utterly