Civic Leaders Fund Their Own Interests in AD54’s Special Election – redqueeninla

Civic Leaders Fund Their Own Interests in AD54’s Special Election – redqueeninla

Civic Leaders Fund Their Own Interests in AD54’s Special Election

There’s a political newcomer in AD54 (extending across eastern West-LA to western South-LA) who has burst on the scene with startling presence. Gregarious and appealing, Isaac Bryan has a hard luck story that scans like the Parable of the Prodigal Son of modern society, ready to make up for former academic and behavioral lapses with his personal charisma and gilded fluency in issues of social justice.

But if Mr Bryan is society’s prodigal son, then who is conferring the proverbial inheritance? It is Los Angeles’ power-elite. They have anointed his candidacy, and bestowed, along with their blessing, sufficient money to backfill the void of Bryan’s limited political history with mountains of glossy mailers and a tsunami of communications via public airwaves. A political neophyte with neither experience nor a functional vision for crafting legislation, his fallback is a great series of endorsements that mostly just reflect the might of his economic base: the establishment itself.

Following is the mandated reporting of donations organized for the voter to follow this money-trail yourself.

The donor-framework that characterizes this campaign is present from its outset (figure 1). Donations in the first two days (netting 6% of the total to date) engaged many of LA’s modern City Engineers:  the machine-politicians the Ridley-Thomas’ (both), the school system’s venture-capitalist superintendent Beutner, philanthropy-sourced dollars from high-tech (Netflix) and the film industry CONTINUE READING: Civic Leaders Fund Their Own Interests in AD54’s Special Election – redqueeninla

Why Tax Billionaires Out of Existence | tultican

Why Tax Billionaires Out of Existence | tultican

Why Tax Billionaires Out of Existence

 

By Thomas Ultican 4/22/2021

Twenty years of studying education policy, politics and practices has been awakening. Seeing billionaires inflict their often misguided and unpopular beliefs on our nation’s public schools has made it clear how undemocratic and dangerous extreme wealth is. They have established voucher programs routinely sending taxpayer money to religious schools even though these programs have lost decisively whenever submitted to voters. In her book Slaying Goliath, Diane Ravitch labeled these 0.1% of Americans as disrupters. She asked and answered the question “what do disrupters want?” They want:

• Inexperienced teachers with little or no training from organizations like Teach For America.
• To replace teachers with machine teaching (“blended learning” – “personalized learning”).
• To move fast and break things including school systems, historic schools and communities.
• To eliminate local democratic control over schools.
• To eliminate teacher tenure and seniority rights.
• To eliminate teacher defined benefit pensions.
• To eliminate teachers unions.
• To evaluate teachers and schools with standardized test scores.
• To lower taxes and reduce spending on education.

Controlling the Political Process

In 2018, the Network for Public Education (NPE) produced a masterful report detailing how school board elections are being stolen from local residents. In the introduction to “Hijacked by Billionaires: How the Super Rich Buy Elections to Undermine Public Schools,” the authors state, “This report provides some insight into how the very wealthy insert themselves into local elections through direct contributions, Independent Expenditure Committees and even non-profit organizations.”

The Billionaires Cited in “Hijacked by Billionaires”

In my post-election analysis of three elections, “School Board Elections 2020:  CONTINUE READING: Why Tax Billionaires Out of Existence | tultican

Betsy DeVos’ hand-picked candidate for Wisconsin state school superintendent loses | Salon.com

Betsy DeVos’ hand-picked candidate for Wisconsin state school superintendent loses | Salon.com

Betsy DeVos’ hand-picked candidate for Wisconsin state school superintendent loses

The race became somewhat nationalized with the charter school industry fighting Underly, who was backed by unions

Jill Underly has officially been elected as the new Wisconsin state school superintendent, local news stations reported Tuesday evening.

"State superintendent candidate Deborah Kerr solicited clients and organized branding for her private consulting business through her public school district email address, including several times during work hours, prior to her retirement as Brown Deer School District superintendent last year," said the report.

The race became somewhat nationalized with the charter school industry fighting Underly, who was backed by teachers' unions. Ultimately the normally unnoticed state-wide race brought in over $1 million in out-of-state money, TMJ4 reported.

Betsy DeVos’ hand-picked candidate for Wisconsin state school superintendent loses | Salon.com

Huge cash influx pouring into Kansas City school board races | The Kansas City Star

Huge cash influx pouring into Kansas City school board races | The Kansas City Star

‘Never seen this kind of money’: Big spending raises concern in KC school board races

A newly formed nonprofit has already pumped thousands of dollars into two contested races for the Kansas City Public Schools board, raising suspicions about the group and the candidates vying for seats in Tuesday’s election.

Blaque KC, short for Black Leaders Advancing Quality Urban Education, has spent $65,298 on political consultants, mailed advertisements, radio spots and newspaper ads, according to a report filed this week with the Missouri Ethics Commission. That eclipses the combined fundraising haul of about $42,400 reported by campaign committees for the four candidates — including the two candidates backed by Blaque — running for contested seats on the board.

The group isn’t saying where the money originated — leading to questions about Blaque KC’s motives. Some believe its ultimate goal is to disrupt the district’s center of power and usher in even more charter schools in Kansas City.

Blaque KC is backing Tanesha Ford, who is vying for the at-large seat of incumbent board chair Pattie Mansur, as well as Kandace Buckner, who is running against Bruce Beatty for an open seat representing Sub-district 5.

Blaque KC was formed last year by Cokethea Hill, who has worked for years in the nonprofit and educational space. She said the group’s aim is simple: to improve the academic performance of Black public school students who have long lagged behind their white peers. CONTINUE READING: Huge cash influx pouring into Kansas City school board races | The Kansas City Star

Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Schools are MAGA Targets

By Thomas Ultican – 3/15/2021

One of America’s wealthiest public school districts typifies the damage MAGA Republicans are doing to public schools. San Diego County’s San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) serves just over 13,000 students in five middle schools and five high schools. With former Republican congressional candidate Mike Allman’s narrow school board victory, a MAGA coalition has achieved a 3 to 2 majority.

This election result advances using school reopening as a political wedge issue. Normally nonpartisan school board elections have been turned into partisan political battle grounds.

May 25, 2020, the former President Tweeted,

“Schools in our country should be opened ASAP. Much very good information now available. @SteveHiltonx @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020”

In July, the former Secretary of Education declared,

“School leaders across the country need to be making plans’ to have students in the classroom. There will be exceptions to the rule, but the rule should be kids go back to school this fall. And where there are little flare-ups or hot spots, that can be dealt with school by school or a case-by-case basis. There’s ample opportunity to have kids in school.”

Carl Hulse’s Feb. 12, 2021 New York Times article ran under the banner, CONTINUE READING: Schools are MAGA Targets | tultican

Kelly Gonez’s First Opponent Announces His Candidacy | by Carl J. Petersen | Jan, 2021 | Medium

Kelly Gonez’s First Opponent Announces His Candidacy | by Carl J. Petersen | Jan, 2021 | Medium

Kelly Gonez’s First Opponent Announces His Candidacy

Public school teacher and parent Marvin Rodríguez will attempt to unseat the LAUSD School Board President in the 2022 Board District 6 election.

Representation on the school board should come from within the community whose members are directly affected by district schools.”

- Marvin Rodríguez 

In the election that just passed the charter school industry won one seat to take the majority on the LAUSD School Board. In order to keep control, these publicly funded private schools will have to win all of the three board seats that are before the voters next year. The seat for Board District 2 will be open as Monica Garcia will be prohibited from running due to term limits. After finding himself involved in a series of scandals, Nick Melvoin has yet to announce his intentions for the seat in Board District 4. Newly elected Board President Kelly Gonez in Board District 6 has filed to seek reelection. She will not run unopposed as public school teacher and parent Marvin Rodríguez has already filed the paperwork to run against her. CONTINUE READING: Kelly Gonez’s First Opponent Announces His Candidacy | by Carl J. Petersen | Jan, 2021 | Medium

Jeff Bryant: What Is Worse Than DeVos? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jeff Bryant: What Is Worse Than DeVos? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jeff Bryant: What Is Worse Than DeVos?

Jeff Bryant writes that while we were all celebrating the pending departure of Betsy DeVos, the usual suspects were buying control of local school board elections. We are all aware of her efforts to direct federal funding to private schools and charter schools. But, he warns, we should pay attention to the “threat to democratically governed schools that preceded DeVos and will continue when she is long gone.”

In midsized metropolitan areas like Indianapolis and Stockton, California, parents, teachers, and public school advocates warn of huge sums of money coming from outside their communities to influence local politics and bankroll school board candidates who support school privatization. In phone conversations, emails, and texts, they point to a national agenda, backed by deep-pocketed organizations and individuals who intend to disrupt local school governance in order to impose forms of schools that operate like private contractors rather than public agencies—an agenda not dissimilar from that of DeVos.

In the 2020 school board election in Indianapolis, local CONTINUE READING: Jeff Bryant: What Is Worse Than DeVos? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland School Board Election: Money Can’t Buy Everything | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland School Board Election: Money Can’t Buy Everything | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland School Board Election: Money Can’t Buy Everything

Ken Rice was an elected member of the Oakland Unified School District from 1997-2000. That was before the billionaire disrupters decided to take control of Oakland and turn it into their own petri dish for “reform” (i.e., privatization). Rice wrote the following description of the recent school board election, in which grassroots organizations stood together and beat the candidates of the out-of-district/out-of-state billionaires. He is a member of Educators for Democratic Schools (EDS), an Oakland-based organization composed primarily of retired public school teachers, administrators and school board members. When Ken Rice ran for school board, his race cost $12,000. Due to the intrusion of big money, grassroots groups are always outspent and usually overwhelmed. But Rice explains here how Oakland parents and educators fought back and won.

He writes:

Apparently Money Isn’t Always Everything–$300,000 Beats $900,000 In The Oakland School Board Elections!

“In nearly 20 years of privatization push into Oakland, this CONTINUE READING: Oakland School Board Election: Money Can’t Buy Everything | Diane Ravitch's blog

CAPITAL & MAIN: Why did the Schools and Communities First initiative lose when other progressive measures passed in California?

Proposition 15 Goes Down Swinging |

Proposition 15 Goes Down Swinging

Why did the Schools and Communities First initiative lose when other progressive measures passed in California?

The 2020 presidential election outcome was a nail-biter, but in California there was another drawn-out, high-stakes contest. On November 10, with more than 90% of the vote tabulated, the contest was called against Proposition 15, which was losing by 3.6 percentage points after a months-long campaign and a week-long ballot count.

The Schools and Communities First initiative, Prop. 15, was launched by a coalition of community organizations, the Service Employees International Union’s California State Council and the California Teachers Association to create more resources for schools and local amenities by changing the commercial and industrial properties tax structure. (Disclosure: The two unions are financial supporters of this website.)

“The anti-15 people did as the pro-13 people did—they hit the right buttons. Tax increases, housing supply—all of that resonates with the California electorate.”

— Sherry Bebitch Jeffe

Prop. 15 would have reset the assessment of California corporate property tax rates that were established by 1978’s landmark Proposition 13, assessing them at present market value. Today most annual corporate property bills are based on rates that have gone un-reassessed for decades. With Prop. 15, Disney Studios’ million-plus-square-foot lot in Burbank would no longer be assessed at $5 and change per foot while some local businesses pay around $200 for the same space.

The California Legislative Analyst estimated that the Prop. 15 reform measure could have raised between $6.5 billion and $11.5 billion a year for local governments and schools. Why then, with a $56-million-plus campaign war chest, did it lose—especially when other progressive measures passed?

“The anti-15 people did as the pro-13 people did—they hit the right buttons,” says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of CONTINUE READING: Proposition 15 Goes Down Swinging |

School Board Elections 2020: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly | tultican

School Board Elections 2020: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly | tultican

School Board Elections 2020: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

By Thomas Ultican 11/12/2020

Los Angeles, Oakland and Indianapolis are routinely targeted by pro-public school privatization billionaires. Local school board races that a decade ago required less than $10,000 in order to mount a credible campaign now require ten times that amount. Billionaires again spent lavishly to take control of school boards in these three cities.

The Good

For two decades Oakland has been California’s petri dish for school privatization. Eli Broad has placed four superintendents in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Mayor Jerry Brown between terms in the Governor mansion helped establish the first charter schools in Oakland. Reed Hastings and “Doowop” Don Shalvey created one of the first ever charter management organizations (Aspire Charter Schools) in Oakland. The billionaire funded and pro-school privatization organizations New Schools Venture Fund, Educate78 and GO Public education are all headquartered in Oakland.

The general election on November 3 had four odd numbered director positions on the ballot. The Oakland school board has seven seats. In an attempt to place school privatization friendly directors on the board, three out of town billionaires poured $625,000 into the Power2Families independent expenditure committee.

The former New York Mayor and Presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg, also sent $300,000 to the GO Public School’s independent expenditure CONTINUE READING: School Board Elections 2020: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly | tultican

Is School Privatization on the Los Angeles DA Ballot? - LA Progressive

Is School Privatization on the Los Angeles DA Ballot? - LA Progressive

Is School Privatization on the Los Angeles DA Ballot?

Big money for pro-charter school board candidates, picks George Gascón for DA

Los Angeles’ school district used to have sleepy school board races. But those low budget, pedestrian races – like that for LA County’s District Attorney – are bygones. Between the SCOTUS Citizens United ruling codifying limitless lobbying and independent campaign support, and the ascendency of “school choice” as a stalking horse for privatization of the public sector within the education arena, LAUSD’s school boardroom has become a surrogate battlefield for neoliberalism, public-private partnerships and the leveraging of public goods for private gain.

So, too, it would seem might the race for LAC’s District Attorney (LAC-DA) signal a new incursion on privatization in criminal justice.

And given such a grand ideological tussle, it is little wonder that formerly obscure school board elections of local and narrow interest should have become worth astonishing amounts of money to a select few with special interest in (eg, profit, systemic change, ROI extracted from) the political insurgency. Such an influx could concern underlying motivations surrounding next Tuesday’s LAC-DA race.

An explosion of this trend was marked in 2013, when the mayor of New York City 3000 miles away, saw fit to drop one million dollars over the metaphorical backyard fences and literal mailboxes of west LA in order to influence a school board race so very, very far away, and seemingly removed, from him. But in retrospect it is clear that the Education sector provides a goldrush of opportunity for privateers. And the shock and awe of unprecedented outside spending bears witness to the large stakes in play.

When a parallel insurgence of resources from away infuses the formerly esoteric and narrow LA County’s District Attorney race questions of parallel opportunism arise.

Reed Hastings and the Bros from away

Indeed some of the same high-rollers in the world of ed reform are anteing up for candidate George Gascón’s campaign and independent expenditure committees (see table 1 below). In particular note that the largest – and earliest – of Gascón’s contributors, Reed Hastings, matches as largest contributor to the recently hyperactive “Charter Public Schools PAC”, just one of the charter industry’s dozens of PACs intended to influence, and recently deployed in the current LAUSD board member races (detailed here). What about the experience of ed reform might be reflected today in the world of criminal justice reform?

Today our public school system in the age of “school choice” is bifurcated into parallel and CONTINUE READING: Is School Privatization on the Los Angeles DA Ballot? - LA Progressive

Lori Jablonski: The OP Ed the SacBee Refused to Print

 The OP Ed the SacBee Refused to Print

From Lori Jablonski

The Sacramento Bee consistently begs for support for local journalism and claims to be a forum for important issues that concern our region. Yet its editors have refused to print a timely and insightful opinion piece from CK McClatchy's Lori Jablonski.

At the same time, the Bee continues to print anti-teacher, anti-union attacks from its ethically-challenged "opinion" writer Marcos Breton that are riddled with factual errors.

Here is Lori's piece that was submitted to the Bee, but their editor board, which now includes Marcos Breton, refused to print.

SCUSD isn’t going broke–it’s broken. We know how to fix it.

By Lori Jablonski

Recently, the Bee reported that community leaders called on Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) officials and the teachers’ union “to work together in creating a distance-learning plan and preventing the cash-strapped district from going insolvent.” It hasn’t happened and this is why.

Quite simply, SCUSD isn’t “going broke” but it is broken.

Since August 2018, Superintendent Jorge Aguilar and Board President Jessie Ryan have repeatedly and falsely claimed that SCUSD is on the brink of a state takeover. In May 2020, district leaders claimed it would end the year with a $5.9 million deficit.

But six weeks later, after the 2019-20 finances were tallied, SCUSD reported a $23 million surplus and a reserve fund of $93 million—nine times higher than the minimum required by the state. It was the biggest reserve fund in SCUSD history.

District leaders are projecting for 20-21 that SCUSCD will face a deficit of $26.4 million. Meanwhile, they are parking $101.3 million of their $640-million budget in “books and supplies.” SCUSD spent a fraction, $11 million, on the same budget line in 19-20. This “creative accounting,” which has been going on for years, deceives the community and deprives students of much needed services.

SCUSD has failed to properly report its finances for the past eight years and committed numerous jaw-dropping accounting errors. In the spring of 2019, for example, district administrators failed to count the enrollment at five schools, which amounted to an $8-million-per-year mistake. Based on this accounting error, the school board laid off 400 staff, including 175 teachers. 

Michael Fine, a top finance official in state education, has said that he has “no confidence” in the district’s financial data. At the same time the school board presented a troubled financial picture to the public, it rewarded the superintendent with pay increases resulting in a salary nearly double the governor’s pay.

This past spring, the pandemic-related distance-learning rollout was a disaster. Many students had trouble connecting and faced a prolonged shortage of Chromebooks. When teachers offered to provide assistance to students and families, the school board responded by having the superintendent send a “cease and desist” letter threatening to sue any educator who provided technical advice to students and parents.

Faced with a return to distance learning this fall, more than 200 educators--on their own time, with input from 1,000 other teachers—developed a comprehensive distance-learning plan.

In contrast, SCUSD assigned two administrators with no distance-learning instructional experience to come up with their own directives. SCUSD demanded more standardized testing and more screen time than any of the surrounding districts, which would have been especially counter-productive, even harmful, for the youngest learners. The administration appeared to be more concerned about how its program looked on paper than how it worked in practice, a trend criticized by Carl Pinkston of the Black Parallel School Board as quoted by the Bee: “The district has not been honest and truthful with the public and itself about its historical failure to provide quality education for all kids.”

Fortunately, state law prohibits a district from imposing its will without teacher input. While some matters could be agreed upon, such as the Google learning platform and total instructional time, teachers strongly opposed the SCUSD’s one-size-fits-all approach. Using their professional judgment, they have continued to teach to the needs of each class and student.

Distance learning won’t last forever. The Sacramento City Teachers Association and district officials have begun discussing when and how to return safely to school. But if SCUSD continues to ignore the input of thousands of educators about what our students need, both academically and in terms of health and safety, negotiations about a return to the classroom will be as difficult as earlier negotiations.

Who can trust district leaders who repeatedly deceive the public, manipulate district finances, and disregard the input of educators? We can fix this -- the place to start is with the upcoming election for school board members.

Lori Jablonski teaches government at CK McClatchy High School. She has taught in SCUSD for 20 years.

Sacramento City Teachers Association |916.452.4591 | scta@saccityta.com| www.sacteachers.org

SCUSD CHANGE the BOARD 2020 | Facebook

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