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

The LAUSD’s 2020 Report Card. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the… | by Carl J. Petersen | Age of Awareness | Jan, 2021 | Medium

The LAUSD’s 2020 Report Card. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the… | by Carl J. Petersen | Age of Awareness | Jan, 2021 | Medium

The LAUSD’s 2020 Report Card

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the second-largest school district in the country. A look back at some of the major events…

“We’re in uncharted waters”- LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner

As the year began, it appeared that the dominating story within the LAUSD would be the school board elections. All four of the seats that would appear on the ballot were held by public school supporters, meaning that a clean sweep was needed for them to keep their narrow majority over the block supported by the charter school industry. The campaigns were complicated by the fact that these would be the first elections held under new rules that moved them from off years so that they would be on the same ballot as the presidential race.

Leading up to the March primary the charter school industry spent over $6.5 million trying to regain the majority that they lost with the resignation of convicted felon Ref Rodriguez. This included the mailing of anti-Semitic flyers against Board Member Scott Schmerelson in Board District 3. Even Schmerelson’s opponent, Marilyn Koziatek, described these mailings as “crude”, “inappropriate” and “unacceptable.” She never did reject the endorsement of the California Charter School Association (CCSA) Advocates, the organization that mailed them out.

When the votes were counted, all three incumbents had survived, along with the candidate supported by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), Patricia Castellanos, for the open seat in Board District 7. Jackie Goldberg and George McKenna won outright by winning a majority of the votes. Schmerelson and Castellanos earned less than half the vote and, therefore, faced Koziatek and Tanya Ortiz Franklin respectively in the November general election.

Later that same month, the LAUSD was turned upside down along with every other aspect of our public life as COVID-19 took hold. With 40 confirmed cases in Los Angeles County, the district shut down its campuses on March 16. The transition to distance learning got off to a shaky start, with significant technical issues and many students from low-income CONTINUE READING: The LAUSD’s 2020 Report Card. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the… | by Carl J. Petersen | Age of Awareness | Jan, 2021 | Medium

Two School Board Members Fail To Hold Failing Charter School Accountable | by Carl J. Petersen | Dec, 2020 | Medium

Two School Board Members Fail To Hold Failing Charter School Accountable | by Carl J. Petersen | Dec, 2020 | Medium

Two School Board Members Fail To Hold Failing Charter School Accountable

Nick Melvoin and Monica Garcia are the lone votes on the LAUSD School Board to approve Prepa Tec charter school for another five years.

“They’ve had five years to figure this out and they haven’t figured it out.” - LAUSD Board Member Jackie Goldberg

When the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) considers the renewal of charter schools, it is supposed to do it in a public hearing that includes comments from stakeholders for each item. At last week’s meeting, the district ignored this rule and instead heard an hour of general public comment with phone calls selected at the beginning of the meeting. Charter school supporters dominated this conversation with only one speaker out of the 20 allotted spots speaking in opposition to these publicly financed private schools. Even with this advantage, one charter school was allowed to have an additional supporter speak during its hearing.

While I had planned to speak at the meeting, my call was not one of the ones that were chosen. The following is the text of my prepared speech:

AB1505 was passed by the California legislature to bring more accountability to the charter school authorization process. According to the CEO of the Extera charter, the California Charter School Association’s strategy to circumvent this law was to overwhelm this board by having as many charter schools as possible apply for renewal at the same time. They hope that there is protection in a herd and you will not CONTINUE READING: Two School Board Members Fail To Hold Failing Charter School Accountable | by Carl J. Petersen | Dec, 2020 | Medium

CURMUDGUCATION: The 2020 Edubook Christmas List

CURMUDGUCATION: The 2020 Edubook Christmas List

The 2020 Edubook Christmas List

Time to go hunting for books for the people on your Christmas list, and I have some recommendations for you if there are people on your list who care about public education (and really, everybody should). 

Before we start shopping, let me also direct your attention to Bookshop.org, an online vendor set up to benefit local independent booksellers instead of, say, giving Jeff Mezos his next gazillion dollars. You can also use it to locate a local bookstore and then shop even more directly. 

Now, here's my handful or recommendations for this year.

Black Lives Matter In School

This book does not actually ship for another week, but based on the fact that it's edited by Jesse Hagopian and Denisha Jones, my copy is already on order. 

Know Your Price  

Andre Perry brings a really unique collection of hats to this work, from Brookings scholar to education journalist, and this work is an impressive distillation of it all. At some points, it's a powerful personal reflection on his own experience, and at others, a scholarly look at how Blacks in the US have had value systematically stripped from them in ways that have lasting financial and social consequences. This book is huge help in understanding the how of racism in not just abstract or social ways, but in concrete, practical financial ways. 

Schoolhouse Burning & The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door

Schoolhouse Burning by Derek Black and A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider are two entirely separate books, but they make a perfect pairing. It enhances both to read them back to back.

Black is a legal scholar whose book traces the importance of education in this country as reflected CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The 2020 Edubook Christmas List

Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles Charter School Games the System for More $$$

Parent advocate Carl J. Peterson writes here about a charter school in Los Angeles that figured out to game the system for more money and space.

He writes that “Citizens of the World” collects signatures of parents who are not likely to apply for the school and uses them as expressions of intent to enroll.

A Facebook post by Jirusha Lopez, the principal of COW’s Hollywood campus, provides some insight into how this charter chain scams the system. While the estimate of attendance is supposed to be based on students who have expressed a “meaningful interest” in the program, Lopez took to social media to ask parents to sign a Prop 39 form even if they had no plans to attend the charter school. In fact, she promised that completing the form would “not impact your family’s plans for what school you would like to attend or currently attend.”

While Lopez seems to think that the collection of these signatures is a “fun game schools get to play each year”, it is actually part of a legal process. By submitting names of students who never expressed any interest in attending the school, COW committed fraud against the students of the LAUSD. The district needs to take this action seriously and hold the charter chain responsible, to whatever the greatest extent possible might be. Additionally, all data provided by COW to the LAUSD CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog