Winning the War for Science Education | Live Long and Prosper

Winning the War for Science Education | Live Long and Prosper

Winning the War for Science Education

With about a dozen Democrats running for president (and a few more still “undecided”), there’s no doubt that the race for the 2020 presidency has begun. What are their goals for public education? What are their goals for returning us to science-based policies? Before we look to the future, however, let’s take a quick look at the past…

THE CAMPAIGN: 2016

During the last presidential election campaign, the candidates rarely discussed science and education beyond, a few topics; The Republican candidates were in favor of school choice and didn’t “believe in” climate change; The Democratic candidates were in favor of expanded early childhood education, ending the student debt crisis, and gave lip service to “doing something” about climate change. Once the candidates were chosen, however, this discussion effectively stopped, and we were treated to a daily media deluge of insults and invective.

SCIENCE AND EDUCATION: NO CHANGE

Just like in 2016, the positions of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates on America’s public schools and climate change are vague, though supportive. The Republican incumbent, along with his party-mates, is continuing to call for school privatization and to take an anti-science position on nearly everything except the “space force.”

In his 2019 State of the Union Speech, the President was too concerned with investigations and with ignoring U.S. intelligence organizations to even mention climate change.

More Trump fantasyland as the world fries

Just as scientists are raising alarms about the disintegration of Antarctica’s massive ice shelves and ice sheets, Trump said nothing about global warming. Maybe that’s for the better: Whenever he addresses the issue, it is usually to mock those who care about the planet’s already well-documented, rapid environmental changes. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is dying before the world’s eyes, and the leader of the Earth’s most powerful nation has nothing helpful to say about modern society’s complicity in the catastrophes to come, let alone how to lower climate risks.

He did, however, discuss education — for all of about 10 seconds. He spoke a CONTINUE READING: Winning the War for Science Education | Live Long and Prosper

Denver Teachers Strike Over Base Pay | 89.3 KPCC #DCTAstrong #RedforEd #edcolo #coleg #copolitics #FairPayForTeachers

Denver Teachers Strike Over Base Pay | 89.3 KPCC

Denver Teachers Strike Over Base Pay

Denver schoolteachers are going on strike today. The strike comes after more than a year of negotiations between the teachers union and the school district, that have focused on how to calculate base pay. The city hasn't experienced a teacher strike in 25 years.

The strike will affect 71,000 students across 147 schools, Colorado Public Radio reports. Most Denver Public Schools will remain open, and the district has readied hundreds of additional substitute teachers. It's unclear how many of the district's more than 5,000 teachers will actually walk out.

It will cost about $400,000 a day to keep the schools running during the strike, Gov. Jared Polis said. That's about 1-2 percent of the budget for the school year if the strike lasts a week, the Colorado Sun reports.

"We will strike Monday for our students and for our profession, and perhaps then DPS will get the message and return to the bargaining table with a serious proposal aimed at solving the teacher turnover crisis in Denver," said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the AP reports.

The fundamental disagreement concerns how base pay is calculated. Twenty years ago, the district first piloted the "Professional Compensation System for Teachers," known by most as ProComp. According to the Denver Post, the system paid teachers CONTINUE READING: Denver Teachers Strike Over Base Pay | 89.3 KPCC

Betsy DeVos loves charter schools. But there’s little love lost in lots of places. What’s happening and why. - The Washington Post

Betsy DeVos loves charter schools. But there’s little love lost in lots of places. What’s happening and why. - The Washington Post

Betsy DeVos loves charter schools. But there’s little love lost in lots of places. What’s happening and why.

  

In the largest public school system in the country, New York City Chancellor Richard Carranza recently scolded charter school supporters for disparaging traditional public schools. The year before, he had struck a far friendlier tone.

In the second-largest public school district in the country, Los Angeles teachers ended a six-day strike in January with a key concession from pro-charter Superintendent Austin Beutner: a commitment to call for a statewide cap on new charters until their effect on district schools can be assessed.

In the third-largest school district in the country, Chicago teachers at several charter schools are on strike, the second time within a month it has happened in the city. The December strike there was the first in the charter sector, which is largely (and intentionally) non-unionized and pays most teachers far less than district schools.

This country is nearly 30 years into an experiment with charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately operated, sometimes by for-profit companies. Supporters first described charters as competitive vehicles to push traditional public schools to reform. Over time, that narrative changed and charters were wrapped into the zeitgeist of “choice” for families whose children wanted alternatives to troubled district schools.

Today, about 6 percent of America’s schoolchildren attend charter schools, with 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico having passed laws permitting them. Some states have only a few charters while some cities are saturated. In Los Angeles, 20 percent of children attend charters. In New York, it’s 10 percent. Charter backers say the movement is an important and sustainable feature of America’s education landscape and any problems it faces are expected growing pains.

Yet the movement, which has enjoyed Republican and Democratic support — including hundreds of millions of dollars from the Obama administration — seems to be at an inflection point as supporters and detractors recognize that charters are not the panacea backers had long suggested. CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos loves charter schools. But there’s little love lost in lots of places. What’s happening and why. - The Washington Post

Does TFA (Illegally) Take A Side On Recent Teacher Strikes? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Does TFA (Illegally) Take A Side On Recent Teacher Strikes? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Does TFA (Illegally) Take A Side On Recent Teacher Strikes?

When teachers in a school district decide to go on strike, Teach For America corps members who teach in public schools in that district have a decision to make.  This happened in the 2012 Chicago strike, the recent Los Angeles strike, and the upcoming Denver strike.

Teach For America says, and they have to as a non-profit, that they cannot take a position, one way or the other, on the strike.  They can neither encourage nor discourage their corps members from participating in these strikes, by law.

So it seems, then, to be a pretty easy decision for corps member.  Considering that they would be risking becoming pariahs in their own schools after the few days of the strike, it would not be worth it to cross the picket line.  But there is another caveat — Teach For America corps members are also part of something called AmeriCorps, which provides them additional money, I think $10,000 over the two years.  Now AmeriCorps has some additional rules and one of them says that you cannot participate in a strike when you are getting credit for AmeriCorps hours.

In 2012, during the Chicago teacher strike, Teach For America made it very clear that corps members who strike would not be penalized in their AmeriCorps grant because the number of hours that they teach is so far beyond what is required by AmeriCorps that they CONTINUE READING: Does TFA (Illegally) Take A Side On Recent Teacher Strikes? | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

You Don't Have To Lie (Hire More Black Teachers, Maybe) | The Jose Vilson

You Don't Have To Lie (Hire More Black Teachers, Maybe) | The Jose Vilson

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIE (HIRE MORE BLACK TEACHERS, MAYBE)

n Friday, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NYC with student activists Xoya David and Joshua Brown and writer-friend-luminary Nikole Hannah-Jones. When I got the invite from Brian Jones, I was in the midst of finishing one of my more triumphant performances in service of the profession. I was also shaking off the uncertainties of having a teacher improvement plan the prior school year. I’m holding the tensions of being a “national education leader” with the constant disappointment in my school district and negation of my professional decisions. Even a week before this event, I had no idea what I’d have to say. I struggle with systemic issues outwardly and battle with personal issues inwardly. But I was given the opportunity to tell New York City about itself in a week dedicated to liberation of the African diaspora in a space dedicated to that effort.

When someone asks me whether only Black teachers should teach Black children, I said, “It depends.” The person seemed to mock my response and ran out of the event. I didn’t lie.

The pros are plentiful. There’s more research showing the positive effects of Black teachers on all children, but especially Black children. Of course, white teachers (and others) may feel agitated by inference, but Black teachers are one antidote to the proliferation of white supremacy in our classrooms through pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. Having a teacher who wholeheartedly CONTINUE READING: You Don't Have To Lie (Hire More Black Teachers, Maybe) | The Jose Vilson

Jersey Jazzman: The Failure of State Control in Camden, NJ

Jersey Jazzman: The Failure of State Control in Camden, NJ
The Failure of State Control in Camden, NJ

In my last blog, I wrote about the NJ Auditor's report on Camden's "Renaissance" schools. These charter-district hybrids, run by three of the region's biggest charter operators -- Mastery, Uncommon, and KIPP -- were supposed to show definitively that charter schools could serve all of the children in a neighborhood. They weren't going to "skim the cream" any more; instead, they'd take every child, no matter their family background or educational need.

Well, it turns out the Renaissance promise was just a lot of hot air: according to the Auditor, fewer than half of neighborhood students are enrolled in their neighborhood renaissance school. Thanks to Camden's "universal enrollment" system, the Renaissance schools appear to be doing a completely different job than the public district schools.

How could this happen? Why didn't the Camden City Public Schools administration pick up on this problem? How could they have missed this? Weren't they paying attention?

As it so happens, the Auditor, Steven Eells, has been busy: not only did he and his staff examine the Renaissance schools -- they looked at the district as a whole. And what they found isn't very encouraging (all emphases below are mine):

The lack of continuity within and oversight of the district’s business office functions has resulted in a lack of control and accountability of the district’s finances. The lack of stability in administrative positions inhibited the development of long-term goals and the ability to establish and enforce internal CONTINUE READING: 

Cory Booker’s School Choice Legacy Could Be His 2020 Undoing. | deutsch29

Cory Booker’s School Choice Legacy Could Be His 2020 Undoing. | deutsch29

Former Newark, New Jersey, mayor and current New Jersey senator, Cory Booker, is running for president in 2020.

Booker is a Democrat who will find it difficult to separate himself from Republicans when it comes to school choice. And a major, sustained push it was.

For example, it is unlikely that Newark has forgotten Booker’s school choice efforts, including accepting $100M from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2010 (an effort that also involved then-NJ Republican gov, Chris Christie), to advance school choice– a decision that Newark parents learned by watching Booker announce it on Oprah. From a 2015 NPR interview with author, Dale Russakoff, on the Booker-Zuckerberg-Christie blindside:

[NPR host, Terry] GROSS: So right from the start, there’s a problem. Booker and Zuckerberg announce this gift of a hundred million dollars to reform the Newark schools. They announce it on “Oprah.”

RUSSAKOFF: Yes.

GROSS: Which is great, but they hadn’t told the community yet. So parents and teachers learn about this big reform movement that’s about to hit them from Oprah’s show. How did that play in the community?

RUSSAKOFF: Well, it played disastrously in the community because, immediately, nobody understood why do we have to turn on “Oprah” at 4 o’clock to find out what’s going on in our own city? And if you want to save the schools for the benefit of our children, why weren’t we told? And, by the way, there’s a very large consensus on the ground in Newark at this time that the schools really need change, that the schools are failing in unacceptable ways. And so there wasn’t really, you know, a roadmap for how to do that, but there were a lot of people, including some very skilled, experienced teachers, who deeply understood the needs of the children in Newark who would have been eager to be part of that conversation. And not only were they insulted that they were left out, there was an agenda that was crafted that didn’t have the benefit of their really important insights into what was needed in Newark.

As Chalkbeat notes in February 2019, Booker’s most notable legacy as Newark’s mayor may well be his promoting charter schools.

Then there’s Booker’s established connection to Republican right, school choice CONTINUE READING: Cory Booker’s School Choice Legacy Could Be His 2020 Undoing. | deutsch29

Charter schools and the damage to real public schools | Arkansas Blog

Charter schools and the damage to real public schools | Arkansas Blog

Charter schools and the damage to real public schools

Charter schools have become a growing political issue nationally (if not so much in Arkansas) as advocates of democraticaly run conventional public school districts come to understand the  peril. For reading, an essay on how charter schools are "pushing public schools to the breaking point."

In Little Rock there's ready evidence of some familiar points in the article: First, the transfer of students to charters with loss of state financial support; the loss of voter support for the eroding public school district in tax elections, and the concentration of less-advantaged students in the public school district. Efficiency is an issue, too. Little Rock, already overbuilt in some neighborhoods, has been losing still more students in those neighborhoods to charters that have taken over old buildings (purchased by the Walton Family Foundation for lease to private operators.

“It’s really not a matter of whether it’s ‘state’ money or ‘locally raised’ money that’s being transferred,” writes Rutgers University professor Bruce Baker in an email. “It’s about the fact that kids are shifting to charters, and money for district schools is declining at a pace whereby the district cannot possibly immediately, efficiently CONTINUE READING: Charter schools and the damage to real public schools | Arkansas Blog

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Lie: The Trump/DeVos Doctrine of Redefinition | Eclectablog

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Lie: The Trump/DeVos Doctrine of Redefinition | Eclectablog
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Lie: The Trump/DeVos Doctrine of Redefinition

Trump and his Republican enablers, like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, are beginning to realize that they have approximately zero chance of ever winning another election–if held and run fairly–on the issues, so they are scrambling frantically to redefine these issues in a clumsy and desperate effort to confuse and distract voters.

Here are just 2 examples; one from national security, and the other from education policy:

1. “Border Security”

No one is against secure borders; not Republicans, not Democrats, not Independents…no one. But almost no one thinks a physical wall, fence, or structure will do anything to stem the flow of illegal drugs, or victims of human trafficking, or undocumented immigrants seeking asylum. So what has Trump done? He’s tried to “redefine” his wall as an essential part of “border security,” which it is not. A far better solution, endorsed by virtually everyone who is actually familiar with the situation at the border, is a combination of more border guards, drones, and hi-tech monitoring. But Trump persists in characterizing Democrats opposed to his wall as being in favor of “open borders” (they are not), crime (ridiculous), and mass invasions of rapists, drug dealers, and other criminals across our Southern border (immigrants commit crimes in the US at lower rates than American citizens).

This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to recast “border security” as an existential threat to “homeland security,” when the truth is that immigration at the Southern border is near its all-time low. Put simply, there is no “national emergency” at the border, no one is against “border security,” and there is no need for a wall. This issue, if defined honestly and clearly, is a loser for Trump, and he knows it. So he’s just decided to lie about it, and pretend it’s something it’s not.

https://markarmstrongillustration.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/forkroadschools.jpg

2. “Charter Schools and School Choice”

In a fascinating turn of events, the public has begun to realize that the “charter school experiment” has been a colossal failure, and support for traditional public schools is on the rise again. This has been a source of real concern for Trump and his Secretary of Education, Michigan’s Betsy DeVos, who sense that their window to implement their $20 billion private and religious school federal voucher initiative is now slamming shut.

It’s also become something of a political “third rail” for a handful of potential Democratic presidential contenders such as Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker, who have been longtime supporters of charter schools and school choice, and now see that their shared ideology on these issues with Trump and DeVos is a serious political liability.

(Indeed, Booker and DeVos have been associates for a long time, and allies on the issue of school choice. Booker and DeVos served together on the Board of Directors of pro school choice think tank Alliance for School Choice (AFC), and Booker has been invited by Dick DeVos to speak at the group’s conferences. Sen. Booker has also been complimentary of the initiatives the American CONTINUE READING: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Lie: The Trump/DeVos Doctrine of Redefinition | Eclectablog

Thank You To Everyone Who Made BLM@School A National Success! – Black Lives Matter At School

Thank You To Everyone Who Made BLM@School A National Success! – Black Lives Matter At School

Thank You To Everyone Who Made BLM@School A National Success!

Dear Black Lives Matter at School Family,

On behalf of the Black Lives Matter at School Coalition we are writing to thank everyone for a powerful week of action from coast to coast. Because of the bravery and tenacity of many thousands of educators, students, parents, activists, and organizers, BLM@School week was bigger and more impactful than ever before. 

It is truly stunning to visit #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool on Twitter and see all the photos and stories of communities around the country reclaiming their schools, affirming Black students’ lives, and challenging anti-Black racism.  We were especially moved by the intersectional approach to fighting racism that so many schools engaged in with lesson plans to teach about, queer, transgender, female, and immigrant, Black people. 

At the same time, during our week of action a girl at a Pennsylvania High School was grabbed by the hair and slammed on the lunch table by a police officer.  This incident, the many recent like it, and the on going inequities in the public schools are bitter reminders of work left to do.  It is our hope that the BLM at School week of action can serve to jump start activism and pedagogy to transform the school system and dismantle institutional racism—but we know that this work can’t be confined to week if it is going to be successful.  We must use the week to launch on going initiatives for ethnic studies, restorative justice, hiring more Black educators and counselors, to get police out of the schools, and more. 

Yet there can be no doubt that this movement has begun.  The Black Lives Matter at School week of action reached more than 30 cities; we engaged tens of thousands of students in lessons about the 13 principles of the Black Lives Matter Global Network; we held rallies at local school board meetings and city halls around the four national demands; and we organized forums, youth talent showcases, and speak outs to educate the community and empower young people in the movement.

Below is a round up of some of the many national and local news stories of the Black Lives Matter at School movement from cities around the country.

Thank you for your dedication to Black education for liberation!

Sincerely,

Black Lives Matter at School

Thank You To Everyone Who Made BLM@School A National Success! – Black Lives Matter At School

School shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire, our database shows

School shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire, our database shows

School shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire, our database shows

Two years before he lined his schoolmates up against a classroom wall and executed them one by one, the student, who would become the gunman, tried to show his English teacher something important.

He had quietly slid up his sleeves to reveal the cut marks running down his arms. The teacher panicked. A novice educator at the time, she had never been coached or trained in what to do in these situations, what to say or how to help. So she passed the student off to another teacher, who then filed a form with the principal’s office. She felt fairly certain nothing else came of it.

“He was asking for help,” the teacher said in reflecting on the encounter during a recent interview. “If I’d had some training to help him, a five-step sheet to follow, say this, say that, maybe I could have made a difference?”

The story is one of dozens that we have collected over the past two years in our effort toward studying the life histories of mass shooters. It typifies what we believe is one of the biggest challenges that schools face when it comes to averting school shootings – and that is recognizing and acting upon warning signs that school shooters almost always give well before they open fire.

We are both criminologists who study aggression and violence. One of us focuses on mental illness among offenders. The other has an extensive background in group violence.

Together, we have built a database of the 160 mass public shootings that have taken place in the United States since 1966 for a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. For mass public shootings, we use the common definition of an event in which four or more victims are killed with a gun in a public place.

Protective measures fall short

The goal of our project is to use data to look for patterns in the lives of mass shooters. The purpose is to develop a better understanding of mass shooters and why they did what they CONTINUE READING:School shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire, our database shows

Don't Act Like You "Care" About School Reform, But Ignore the Life and Death Issues Black People in America Face - Philly's 7th Ward

Don't Act Like You "Care" About School Reform, But Ignore the Life and Death Issues Black People in America Face - Philly's 7th Ward

DON’T ACT LIKE YOU “CARE” ABOUT SCHOOL REFORM, BUT IGNORE THE LIFE AND DEATH ISSUES BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA FACE

In recent months, notable people within school reform circles have locked horns over a trifling question: Does the inclusion of social justice activists, people derided as “warriors,” in education reform threaten the bipartisan peace by introducing unrelated issues into the mix?

Are we marginalizing white conservative school reformers by making them confront the life and death issues people of color and other marginalized populations face every day as Americans?

I’ve been asked repeatedly, “Do we really need to include those other issues if our goal is to improve education?”

My response has been, “other issues?”

As if any of us live compartmentalized lives where our hearts, minds, and bodies are only impacted by one institution at a time.

As if we aren’t the sum total of a maddening portfolio of experiences—many of them negative—across institutions that reaffirm the Dred Scott ruling saying Black people have had “no rights which the White man was bound to respect.”

That portfolio of experience comes with compounding interest over the life span of a Black person, and it pays dividends in frustration, anger, and resistance.

If you are without this portfolio of experience you might be inclined to first deny, invalidate, belittle, reframe, obfuscate, and sequester Black pain so you can remain comfortably dispassionate, and plausibly ignorant to the factors CONTINUE READING: Don't Act Like You "Care" About School Reform, But Ignore the Life and Death Issues Black People in America Face - Philly's 7th Ward

Opt-Out Review – Educate Louisiana

Opt-Out Review – Educate Louisiana

Opt-Out Review

Every year around this time, I start to get an onslaught of questions from teachers and parents about state administered standardized tests and whether, or not, students are required to take them. I can only touch on the subject, here. If you want to delve deeper, just use the search feature on this site and search for “Opt Out.”

ACCOUNTABILITY

First, it helps to understand why the tests are administered. Nearly two decades ago, the federal government implemented accountability for public schools. The forces behind it were both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats wanted accountability for the poor performance of students living in poverty, students of color, and students who were non-English learners. Republicans saw education as the largest expense in state budgets and wanted results that justified the spending. It is important to understand that accountability describes what school system are required to do. It is in no way a mandate on students, or parents. Over the years, it has become nothing more than a tool for corporate interests to eliminate teacher tenure, bust teacher unions, and replace public schools with charter schools that have non-unionized teachers and run their schools like a business instead of a public entity that serves the good of every student. So what does all this mean to us?

Many years ago, when I was an elementary student, it was the practice to measure student performance using norm-referenced tests (NRT), and the results were reported in percentiles. To determine level of performance, test results are normed against a random sample to determine the bell curve. Percentile is a statistical norm that essentially means a 50th percentile CONTINUE READING: Opt-Out Review – Educate Louisiana

Rahm Emanuel’s Non-Apology Apology for Being a School Privatization Cheerleader | gadflyonthewallblog

Rahm Emanuel’s Non-Apology Apology for Being a School Privatization Cheerleader | gadflyonthewallblog

Rahm Emanuel’s Non-Apology Apology for Being a School Privatization Cheerleader

Rahm Emanuel’s recent op-ed in The Atlantic may be one of the dumbest things I have ever read.

The title “I Used to Preach the Gospel of Education Reform. Then I Became the Mayor” seems to imply Emanuel has finally seen the light.

The outgoing Chicago Mayor USED TO subscribe to the radical right view that public schools should be privatized, student success should be defined almost entirely by standardized testing, teachers should be stripped of union protections and autonomy and poor black and brown people have no right to elect their own school directors.

But far from divorcing any of this Reagan-Bush-Trump-Clinton-Obama crap, he renews his vows to it.

This isn’t an apologia. It’s rebranding.

Emanuel had been White House Chief of Staff at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first term. He’s a former U.S. Representative, and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Yet he’s persona non grata.

Now that the extremely unpopular chief executive has decided not to seek re-election, he’s trying to secure his legacy – to make sure the history books don’t remember him as the Democrat In Name Only (DINO) mayor who closed an unprecedented number of schools serving mostly minority students while catering to the will of rich investors. He doesn’t want to be remembered as the lord on a hill CONTINUE READING: Rahm Emanuel’s Non-Apology Apology for Being a School Privatization Cheerleader | gadflyonthewallblog

Who’s Giving In LAUSD5 – redqueeninla

Who’s Giving In LAUSD5 – redqueeninla

Who’s Giving In LAUSD5

There’s a school board race on; VBM ballots are out and LAUSD’s Board District 5 votes at the polls March 5, 2019. 

This time the “out-of-state billionaires” are “sitting this one out”. And it’s true, there are no outsized, multi-million dollar Independent Expenditure Committees (IEC) overflowing with money from privatizers and the California Charter School Association (CCSA), bankrolling negative, deceitful, messaging-campaigns.

But there are very clear lines to be drawn in the sand by scrutinizing the pattern of giving in this race. The seat vacated by the disgraced Charter School operator, Ref Rodriguez, constitutes a swing vote on today’s school board. At stake is no less than the balance of power between representatives of the Charter School industry (e.g., CCSA, PUC, Alliance, PLAS, Magnolia, Green Dot, KIPP, etc, etc, etc.) {Garcia, Gonez and Melvoin}, and the board’s former-Superintendents {McKenna and Schmerelson, joined variously by Vladovic who has taken considerable money from the CCSA but likes to keep everyone jumping}.

In the void left by CCSA is a different kind of indebtedness.  Political Patronageis a different if not new form of paymaster that three of the candidates are drafting.

Tables 1 and 2 show the distribution of donations reported to the CoLA Ethics Commission prior to 2/8/19 among 9 of the 10 qualified candidates running for LAUSD BD5 (Rivas has apparently reported no donations). Donations have been roughly categorized according to each donor’s character or affinity, e.g. as a charter school teacher or administrator; or, say, as a political consultant or Developer. These are not exhaustive categories and were assigned quickly without deep scrutiny or cross-checking; accuracy is not assured. Individual’s categorization may be requested via email for interest or the purpose of crowd-sourced corrections. “Other” means none-of-the-above, and includes, for CONTINUE READING: Who’s Giving In LAUSD5 – redqueeninla