Judge postpones release of Kevin Johnson's attorney e-mails

Judge postpones release of Kevin Johnson's attorney e-mails:

Question of privilege raised at hearing over Sacramento mayor’s private e-mails

To understand the mood inside Judge Christopher Krueger’s courtroom at the Sacramento County Superior Courthouse on Wednesday, all one needed to do was bear witness to an exchange that took place during a brief recess — away from the eyes and ears of the attorneys, much of the press and the judge himself.

It was during this recess that Cosmo Garvin, a political reporter with the Sacramento News & Review newspaper, introduced himself to Benjamin Sosenko, the press secretary for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.

In that moment, if tension was tangible, you could cut it with a knife.

“I’d like to speak with the mayor’s office about — about anything, really,” Garvin said after an awkward handshake between the two.

Sosenko paused, mustered a nervous grin and with a hesitant cadence replied “Yeah, that — that seems unlikely anytime soon.”

“So you’re not going to talk with me ever?” Garvin asked.

“Ever? I didn’t say that,” Sosenko responded. “I never said that.”

The press secretary then turned to a nearby radio reporter and asked, “Did you have a question?”

That there is a strained relationship between the mayor’s office and journalists with the News & Review is hardly a surprise — the alternative newspaper has, after all, published a number of stories accusing Johnson of repeatedly blurring the lines between official city business and his personal interests.

But just how much the mayor has mixed his personal and political lives remains definitely unknown, and that is the source of the latest tension between the mayor and one faction of the local fourth estate.

On Wednesday, private attorneys hired by Johnson to represent him on a personal matter filed a legal challenge against the News and Review over a broad public records request that was submitted to the City of Sacramento earlier this year.

Benjamin Sosenko, the press secretary for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, speaks to reporters outside a courtroom on July 2, 2015. (Photo: Matthew Keys / The Desk)

That request, filed earlier in the year by Garvin himself, sought to obtain all e-mail records sent from the personal Google Mail accounts used by city officials — including Johnson — from the last two years.

In a sworn affidavit obtained by The Desk, Garvin says the city has produced around 300 e-mail records out of thousands that the city has identified as being potentially responsive to his request.

Also responsive are e-mail records containing communications between Johnson and a private law firm, Ballard Spahr, that purport to detail an Judge postpones release of Kevin Johnson's attorney e-mails:

A Second New York Math Teacher: Regents Exam Was “One of the Best” (??) | deutsch29

A Second New York Math Teacher: Regents Exam Was “One of the Best” (??) | deutsch29:

A Second New York Math Teacher: Regents Exam Was “One of the Best” (??)

On June 24, 2015, I posted an email that a New York State algebra teacher wrote to parents regarding the Regents algebra exam. In short, the teacher wrote that the exam “did a serious disservice to your child,” and he/she included several examples of test questions that he/she judged to be problematic.

On July 1, 2015, a reader who identified him-/herself as also being a New York State math teacher wrote a comment to the first teacher’s email on another blog where my post had been reblogged. The second teacher judged the exam to be fine and concluded that the problem was with the first teacher, not the test questions the first teacher highlighted. The second teacher concludes his/her comment with, “In summary, teachers who can’t teach should not be allowed to complain about Common Core.”

I forwarded the first teacher the comment written by the second teacher and asked the first teacher if he/she would like to respond.

The answer was yes.

In this post, I first reproduce the algebra teacher’s original email. Following that, I provide the second, dissenting teacher’s response. And, finally, I post the original teacher’s response to the second, dissenting teacher.

Also, those interested in viewing the Regents Algebra I exam are able to access the exam by clicking here.

Let’s get started.

Here is the first teacher’s original email, a communication to the parents of her/his algebra students:

Dear Algebra Parents, 

The results from this year’s Common Core Algebra exam are now available and have been posted on the high school gymnasium doors. They are listed by student ID number and have no names attached to them. The list includes all students who took the exam, whether they were middle school students or high school students.  

I’ve been teaching math for 13 years now. Every one of those years I have taught some version of Algebra, whether it was “Math A”, “Integrated Algebra”, “Common Core Algebra”, or whatever other form it has shown up in. After grading this exam, speaking to colleagues who teach math in other school districts, and reflecting upon the exam itself, I have come to the conclusion that this was the toughest Algebra exam I have ever seen.

With that in mind, please know that all 31 middle school students who took the exam received a passing score. No matter what grade your son or 

A Second New York Math Teacher: Regents Exam Was “One of the Best” (??) | deutsch29:

More On Money And Influence

Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: More On Money And Influence:

More On Money And Influence

I started with this and that led to this (yes, that said billion). Now, on to other money besides Gates'. Poking around the 990's for the Walton Family Foundation and Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is really interesting. Fascinating list of organizations. Of course, it turned up yet more money donated to some signers of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights' press release which slammed the opt out movement and letter to Congress urging the re-authorization of ESEA with its annual testing requirements and 1% cap on alternative assessments intact.

Needless to say, I have a huge problem with these civil and disability rights groups blithely condemning entire swaths of students to failure, especially when excellent alternatives are available. Why do they do it? Well, for starters, there's the money...

First, from the May 5th press release:

	Walton	Broad
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights	----	----
The American Association of University Women (AAUW)	----	----
Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)	----	----
Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA)	----	----
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund	----	----
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)	----	----
NAACP	----	----
National Council of La Raza (NCLR)	$2,419,330	----
National Disability Rights Network (NDRN)	----	----
National Urban League	$40,000	----
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)	----	----
TASH	----	----
Total	$2,459,330	----

And, from the April 13th letter:

	Walton	Broad
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights	----	----
Alliance for Excellent Education	----	----
American Association of University Women (AAUW)	----	----
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee	----	----
Association of University Centers on Disabilities	----	----
Children’s Defense Fund	----	$4,000
Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA)	----	----
Democrats for Education Reform	----	----
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund	----	----
Easter Seals	----	----
Education Law Center – Pennsylvania	----	----
Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN)	----	$5,000
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law	----	----
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)	----	----
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund	----	----
NAACP	----	----
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.	----	----
National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities	----	-

read more at Education Lessons From A Sparkly District: More On Money And Influence:

Not How Smart Are You But, How Are You Smart? | WagTheDog

Not How Smart Are You But, How Are You Smart? | WagTheDog:

Not How Smart Are You But, How Are You Smart?

“Kids make their mark in life by doing what they can do, not what they can’t… School is important, but life is more important. Being happy is using your skills productively, no matter what they are.” ~ Howard Gardner 

“These great thinkers [Gardner, Armstrong ] have proposed a much healthier question regarding intellect, not how smart are you but, How are you smart?…The ways in which you are smart are a part of the seed within you and hold the key to your further growth.” ~ Jim Cathcart

Learning is about discovering your purpose and passion in life. Schools should provide diverse pathways and opportunities for students to explore and unleash their specialized skills and abilities…not standardize them.

It is far more important that students are free to learn in school and well educated, than subjecting them to continuous testing to determine if they have been educated well.

Testing and training students to sort and compare how well they meet common standards does not prepare them for the social and emotional challenges of uncommon careers.

“The second concern is justifying the Common Core on the highly dubious notion that college and career skills are the same. On its face, the idea is absurd. After all, do chefs, policemen, welders, hotel managers, professional baseball players and health technicians all require college skills for their careers? 

Do college students all require learning occupational skills in a wide array of careers? In making the “same skills” claim, proponents are really saying that college skills are Not How Smart Are You But, How Are You Smart? | WagTheDog:

Largely run by for-profit corporations, Ohio’s charter schools misspend tax dollars—and lawmakers are letting it continue | The Progressive Pulse

Largely run by for-profit corporations, Ohio’s charter schools misspend tax dollars—and lawmakers are letting it continue | The Progressive Pulse:

Largely run by for-profit corporations, Ohio’s charter schools misspend tax dollars—and lawmakers are letting it continue

Ohio’s charter schools—many of which are run by for-profit education management corporations—are notorious for misspending tax dollars and producing poor academic results. Lawmakers there had a chance to do something about it this summer by passing legislation that would strengthen charter school oversight—but that legislation ultimately failed.

From The Washington Post:

What happened? The bill — which, again, had the votes to pass — was tabled because, apparently, some lawmakers still want to make changes. The bill is supposed to come up again in September, but who really knows, given tepid efforts in the past to improve schools. Even if a bill passes later, implementation will be significantly delayed.

You’d think that the lousy state of Ohio’s charter system would have set a fire under everyone with even half a fingerprint on it. How bad is it? A June story in the Akron Beacon Journal started this way:

No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.

The newspaper had reviewed 4,263 audits released last year by the state and concluded that charter schools in the state appear to have misspent public money “nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.” It says that “since 2001, state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the worst in the nation.”

So what does the state of Ohio’s charter schools have to do with North Carolina?

It’s worth taking a closer look because, according to the Akron Beacon Journal, “only Michigan and Texas have a greater portion of charter schools [than Ohio] operated by private, for-profit companies, which are not compelled to disclose how they spend public money.

In North Carolina, lawmakers lifted the cap back in 2011 on the 100-charter school limit—and since then, more and more private, for-profit education management companies have been making their way into the state, some of which have sought to hide how they spend tax dollars.

This spring, the batch of 18 charter applications hoping to open up shop in 2016 faced an unusual amount of scrutiny and many of the applications were moved forward by reviewers with considerable reservations.

Notably, the majority of those charter school applications that made it to the final round of consideration this year were backed by national for-profit education management organizations (EMOs), rather than being run only by small, independent and locally-based nonprofit boards—unlike in years past when the opposite was the case.

Legislation moving through North Carolina’s General Assembly now that would make changes to how charter schools are regulated would make some improvements, such as forcing local charter boards to adopt anti-nepotism policies and be in financial compliance if they want to expand a grade level.

But the Senate bill (456) would also siphon tax dollars that are typically designated for traditional public

- See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2015/07/02/largely-run-by-for-profit-corporations-ohios-charter-schools-misspend-tax-dollars-and-lawmakers-are-letting-it-continue/#sthash.Onp7E9mo.dpuf

Kevin Johnson Sues Sacramento, Hides Behind Group That Hates Him

Kevin Johnson Sues Sacramento, Hides Behind Group That Hates Him:

Kevin Johnson Sues Sacramento, Hides Behind Group That Hates Him

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is suing his own city and a local reporter to prevent the release of his emails. But officials of a mayoral group that the former NBA star and controversy magnet claims to be representing in his lawsuit say they’re not on his side.

“We want nothing to do with Kevin Johnson,” says Vanessa Williams, executive director of the National Conference of Black Mayors, an Atlanta-based organization that Johnson listed as a co-plaintiff in his suit. “He’s not even a member. He tried to ruin this organization. I dare Kevin Johnson to find one person with this organization who supports him. Just one! Everybody with this organization hates Kevin Johnson. Nobody gave him permission to sue for us.”

Johnson filed his odd suit after Cosmo Garvin, a reporter with the weekly Sacramento News & Review, filed a request for emails the mayor and his staff sent using private Gmail accounts while doing city business. The Sacramento Bee had made a similar records request earlier this year. Johnson has long faced accusations that he forces staffers on the public payroll to do work not related to their employment, and has them use private accounts while doing his personal bidding.

How Kevin Johnson Used Public Money To His Own Personal Ends

Kevin Johnson has ambitions of becoming something much more than just mayor of his hometown of…Read more

Among the communications the city attorney was prepared to release were emails between Johnson and lawyers from Ballard Spahr, a firm Johnson used during his brief and debacle-filled reign as NCBM president. Johnson’s suit, however, argues that an exemption in the public-records laws for communications between an attorney and client should prevent their release.

According to the complaint, the Sacramento Bee altered its request merely because Johnson’s attorneys asked the paper to, while Garvin “stubbornly refused” to acquiesce. So, the SacBeewasn’t sued, and Garvin was. An interview request to editor Joyce Terhaar was referred to managing editor Scott Lebar. Lebar declined to answer questions about the Johnson situation, but in an article posted last night the paper denied modifying its records request to appease Johnson. 

The News & Review’s Garvin, far and away the most aggressive reporter in town when it comes to covering the mayor, admits being surprised to find out that the major daily was not a fellow defendant.

“I figured I’d have some cover since I knew the Bee had made the same request,” says Garvin. “It was kind of scary to learn that they dropped out and I was on my own.”

Williams and other NCBM board members were also surprised the group was listed as a plaintiff in Johnson’s lawsuit, given how contentious the mayor’s relationship with them has been. Johnson was elected president of NCBM in 2013 under disputed circumstances. The group’s general counsel voided Johnson’s election just two weeks into his presidency, and Johnson sued to have his presidency restored. He and NCBM officials have been suing eachKevin Johnson Sues Sacramento, Hides Behind Group That Hates Him: 

Lawsuit Claims L.A. Unified Plans to Illegally Divert $2 Billion Intended to Serve High Need Students | Public Advocates Inc.

Lawsuit Claims L.A. Unified Plans to Illegally Divert $2 Billion Intended to Serve High Need Students | Public Advocates Inc.:

Lawsuit Claims L.A. Unified Plans to Illegally Divert $2 Billion

Intended to Serve High Need Students

(Los Angeles) –The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is violating state law by refusing to use state education funds specifically targeted to help low-income students, English language learners and foster youth to increase or improve services for those students, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles and LAUSD parent Reyna Frias.
The suit, filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, asserts that the district has used improper accounting practices that subvert both the letter and spirit of the 2013 education finance reform law known as Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).  If the district proceeds with its current plan, high need students stand to lose more than $2 billion in funding over the next decade.
“LAUSD is breaking its promise to provide my children and millions of other students in the future, with the services they need and the law says they should receive,” said Ms. Frias, whose children qualify for the funds targeted by LCFF.
The plaintiffs are represented by Public Advocates Inc., the ACLU of California and Covington & Burling LLP.
“Community Coalition has spent decades working to transform the social and economic conditions in South Los Angeles,” said Alberto Retana, President and CEO of the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles, a plaintiff in the lawsuit.  “We want to ensure that our students aren’t short-changed by LAUSD’s budget process. We see too many students in our public schools struggling because they don’t receive the services they need to thrive academically.”
The law directs school districts to use state funds under LCFF to "increase or improve" services for the targeted students. Each district calculates what it will spend partly on what it has spent in the past on such services. The lawsuit alleges that by counting prior spending for "special education" — which the district is already required to provide — as spending on services for low-income students, English language learners and foster youth, LAUSD has in effect reduced its specific legal obligation to those very students by over $400 million in 2014-15 and 2015-16 combined. Over time, if allowed to continue the practice, LAUSD will short-change these students by over $2 billion by 2021, and $450 million additionally every year after that.
"If every district uses its new LCFF funds to pay for things it's already legally required to do like LAUSD, the promise of California's new funding law will evaporate overnight," said John Affeldt, managing attorney with Public Advocates. "LCFF requires that LAUSD use these hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver new and better services to targeted students.”
If the lawsuit prevails, special education students would still receive the same level of services they are now but LAUSD would be required to invest more money to develop new or improved services for high need students targeted under LCFF, who make up 84 percent of the district's student population.
“LCFF presents an historic opportunity to close opportunity gaps by directing additional resources to help California’s neediest students and aligning budget decisions more closely with student needs,” said Victor Leung, staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
Public Advocates and the ACLU SoCal have spent the past year trying to resolve the issue with LAUSD and the L.A. County Office of Education, which is responsible for approving the LAUSD budget and spending plan, but with no success.
“We recognize that districts face financial pressures to prioritize their spending,” said Laura Muschamp of Covington & Burling. “Nevertheless, it’s not up to LAUSD to rewrite the law, but rather to follow it.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Ms. Frias and the Community Coalition of South Los Angeles by John T. Affeldt and Angelica Jongco of Public Advocates  Inc., David B. Sapp and Victor Leung of ACLU Foundation of Southern California , and Laura E. Muschamp, Michael K. Plimack and Thomas Garten of Covington & Burling LLP.
For a copy of the complaint, Community Coalition of South Los Angeles and Reyna Frias v. LAUSD, et al, click here
Further Resources:For a Primer on the LAUSD LCFF Spending Case, click here For a Local Control Funding Formula timeline, click hereFor a Graphic: Yearly Impact of LAUSD’s Error at Full Implementation click here

Lawsuit Claims L.A. Unified Plans to Illegally Divert $2 Billion Intended to Serve High Need Students | Public Advocates Inc.:

KJ and The Art of Deal Making in Sacramento

KJ and The Art of Deal Making in Sacramento
After his wife's successful book RHEE THE ART OF THE DEAL KJ has tried his hand at writing.

K.J. sues SN&R over controversial emails http://bit.ly/1JxLt4B

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Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson seeks to block release of e-mails http://bit.ly/1CNWwBN

Mayor Kevin Johnson deleted text messages about arena deal http://bit.ly/1Nx8o1n

Scandal-Ridden Mayor Hosts Ben Carson in Sacramento http://bit.ly/1CNWFVQ

CORPORATE DREAM TEAM: PT Sac Mayor Kevin Johnson Praises...Ben Carson? http://bit.ly/1R6hm64

Kevin Johnson Promotes His Brand By Releasing Personal Logo http://bit.ly/1Mwrcww

How Mayor Kevin Johnson continues using public resources for his private gain http://bit.ly/1CNWj1y

Sacramento BEE MIA? Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s election as president of NCBM affirmed by judge http://bit.ly/1J63nho

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Michelle Rhee's Companion Book

Rhee-lated $tory: Michelle Rhee answers Ravitch in New Book

al$o $ee Rhee-lated $tory: Excerpts from "Rhee The Art of the Deal" a new $tory about Corporate Education Reform and the Woman that make$ it Happen!

Books by Other 1% 'ers