Major victory over a corporate charter school chain and their trade association – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Major victory over a corporate charter school chain and their trade association – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Major victory over a corporate charter school chain and their trade association

Original post at Robert’s page on Medium.

On Tuesday, March 23, 2021, I got my second big win in court against a charter school corporation. It was also a major victory over their California Charter Schools Association (“CCSA”) trade association, which tried to use the case to carve out immunity to the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”). I represented @DotKohlhaas in the action.

Here was my tweet from the day prior, after skimming through the tentative:

My first win against a corporate charter school was a year ago as third chair in a suit to overturn a wrongful expulsion of a student of color. The Partnerships to Uplift Communities (“PUC”) charter chain (of convicted felon Ref Rodriguez fame) had violated the student’s due process rights. Violated isn’t a strong enough word for what they did. PUC unilaterally changed the charges at the appeals hearing and then branded the child as a terrorist in his permanent record. Under the tutelage of the brilliant partners at the law firm I was a part-timer at the time (I am currently transitioning to full time there), plus sage advice from @DrPrestonGreen, we built a strong case.

It was my argument that the charter corporation never proved specific intent — a crucial element to Ed. Code § 48900.7, as well as PUC’s glaring lack of notice afforded to the student, that saw the court overturn the wrongful expulsion and give the student their life back.

This latest case was a charter trying to hide all its dirty secrets by not complying with the CPRA. The scandal-ridden The Accelerated Schools CONTINUE READING: Major victory over a corporate charter school chain and their trade association – Los Angeles Education Examiner

A Toxic Mess in Cudahy. – Los Angeles Education Examiner

A Toxic Mess in Cudahy. – Los Angeles Education Examiner

A Toxic Mess in Cudahy

In November, I drove to South East LA to visit the site where a charter school purchased polluted land to build a new campus.  I made this trip after I had a conversation with Susie de Santiago, an activist protecting her neighborhood in Cudahy.   I wanted to see with my own eyes  twenty thousand square feet of heavy metal and arsenic laced dirt. After I drove around the sweet neighborhood, I was left with a question; why is it always okay for big money to generate toxic messes in non-white communities?

 In September I heard neighbors were concerned that a big monied charter school was moving at breakneck speed in Cudahy. While it was alarming to the community that KIPP, a large corporate charter, would damage the cohesiveness of their small neighborhood, more disturbing was the speed at which the operators were moving. Residents were concerned as to what was being lost with this speed. Was it transparency? Proper civic diligence? Environmental justice? Lack of understanding history?  The activists had real concerns.

Susie de Santiago

A fellow environmental and education activist introduced me to Susie. Over Zoom, we discussed the situation in Cudahy. I noted Susie exhibited CONTINUE READING: A Toxic Mess in Cudahy. – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Board Has Wall Street Wolves Guarding LAUSD Henhouse – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Board Has Wall Street Wolves Guarding LAUSD Henhouse – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Board Has Wall Street Wolves Guarding LAUSD Henhouse

It’s high time to be paying closer attention to the $14.7b (p. 31) of taxpayer’s money that Covid19 has left in essentially the sole charge of our LAUSD Superintendent, Austin Beutner.

On March 10, 2020 under Covid19, the LAUSD’s publicly elected school board signed over sweeping authority for fiscal and management decisions to Superintendent Beutner, a former investment banker who remarks that the “guiding principle in my career, … is to put myself in uncomfortable positions and take risks.”

The emergency powers relinquished the board’s fiduciary responsibility to stakeholders regarding oversight and regulation, policy and budget, with no sunset date attached. The breathtaking subrogation was to a Superintendent appointed by a former board, chaired at the time by a member charged with and subsequently convicted of felony campaign misconduct, indebted to a different, neoliberal and privatizing ideology of public education.

At next Tuesday’s LAUSD board meeting some more fallout from this power shift will become evident. To date a tremendous amount of emergency spending has been brought to the board as simply courtesy, for ratification rather than actual approval. And the circumstances of this spending is fraught; criticism – even questioning – is awkward at best, difficult in practice. Feeding the hungry during this health and economic emergency is crucial; keeping our community safe is vital. But what happens in the long CONTINUE READING: Board Has Wall Street Wolves Guarding LAUSD Henhouse – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Big money for pro-charter school board candidates, picks George Gascón for DA – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Big money for pro-charter school board candidates, picks George Gascón for DA – Los Angeles Education Examiner

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 CONTINUE READING: Big money for pro-charter school board candidates, picks George Gascón for DA – Los Angeles Education Examiner