Insiders Versus Charters at LAUSD
Strings were pulled, and Ramon Cortines was stopped by his own Board of Education
He says Villaraigosa and his staff also contacted him about their desire to take over Griffith-Joyner Elementary, and Zimmer decided that the Partnership should get the school so it could act as a "feeder," by sending its graduating grade-school students into nearbyMarkham Middle School, which the Partnership already controls.
"The unions were not happy with that, either," Zimmer adds.
Flores says that Villaraigosa, in a general conversation a few weeks ago, asked her to read his Partnership's proposal and to give it a shot. But she says she couldn't vote to transfer the Griffith-Joyner school to the mayor's nonprofit Partnership because she was backing Cortines down the line.
Describing the board's abandonment of Cortines, Flores says that adult political allegiances took precedent over charter-driven reforms aimed at helping children who are not getting the education they deserve.
"Folks on the board committed to a reform effort — and then lost sight of that," she says. "I was disappointed, I thought we lost credibility. I thought we took two steps back."
Galatzan describes what happened as inevitable: "I saw it more as the politics that goes on at the School Board, both the big-picture UTLA versus charters, and individual personalities and particular schools. That's elective politics."
But the criticism is not likely to die down, now that LAUSD has gained a reputation as one of the nation's biggest districts that still resists small steps toward reform. President Obama's education team decided on March 4 not to give any of its $4.35 billion in "Race to the Top" funds to California, where LAUSD educates one in every 10 children. Critics say California is seen in Washington, D.C., as too unwilling to change.
Steve Barr, founder and chairman emeritus of Green Dot Public Schools, called the board's decisions to shut out his group and other experienced charters "pathetic" and a "pure, adult power play."
Says Barr: "I don't know who gives 40,000 [students] to A.J. Duffy" — the UTLA chief.
