Head of LAUSD search says community wants pro-public education superintendent | 89.3 KPCC

Q&A: Inside the search for the next LAUSD superintendent | 89.3 KPCC:

 Head of LAUSD search says community wants pro-public education superintendent

The man who heads the hunt for the next Los Angeles Unified superintendent says the size of the 650,000-student school district and its high-profile search are adding to the challenge of finding a new leader. 

Hank Gmitro, president of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, sat down with KPCC to talk about his search firm's quest to find qualified candidates who can manage a school district seen as among the most difficult to run in the country. 

The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and space.

Q: How many superintendent searches have you conducted and how does L.A. Unified differ from those previous searches?

A: I’ve been involved with 40 over the last six to seven years. Our company has done over a thousand over the last 20-plus years.

This is similar in terms of engagement and the activities that have been planned to other large system searches with community forums and the sessions that are scheduled. But I will share that the scale of L.A. is different than any place, just due to its sheer size.

Q: How differently are you and your colleagues approaching the LAUSD superintendent search compared to the others?

A: The difference is the scale and the public nature of it. Everyone knows that L.A. Unified is looking for a new superintendent. So…the advertisement to potential candidates isn’t really the need as in some other places when you’re trying to get the word out that the position is open.

I’ve worked on several other large system searches of a couple hundred students and we have probably at least quadrupled our effort in the amount of time that we’re devoting to leadership profiling activities here and the number of sessions being offered.

Q: What’s prepared you for this job?

A: I was a superintendent, so I know the role. I wasn’t a superintendent in a really large system, it was a smaller suburban system. But I’ve done this kind of work for the last, almost 10 years. I did a few searches when I was a superintendent locally for the firm. One of the things that we try to do when we recruit associates is to have people who understand the process and the national perspective when it’s a national search, but also understand the local dynamics and the state dynamics. We try to have people on the team who understand California, understand Los Angeles as well as a couple of people on the team who understand our national process and outreach.

At this point in time, I have probably done six or seven searches of school districts of the hundred largest school districts across the country. I feel like I have some experience in knowing what those dynamics are in large systems and how do you reach out to massive audiences.

Q: Next month, when you start making calls to potential candidates, how do you go about telling them there’s a job opening here?

A: That’s yet to be determined, because part of that is based on the criteria that the board develops. So before you get too far into the recruitment effort, you really want to know what the community is looking for and what the board is looking for.

Some of the themes I’ve heard so far, across the board from students, parents, staff members, board members is [they want] somebody who really understands the educational system, has had some experience with education or at least significant leadership roles in the delivery of public service, human services. A common comment has been [they want] someone who really puts the needs of kids first.

Q: Are you going to talk to current superintendents and former superintendents?

A: That will certainly be one pool of candidates, but I’m also waiting to hear a little bit further as to whether there are other categories of people who should be approached. Some people have suggested internal candidates. At each of our sessions, we always ask for recommendations in terms of people we should approach. Some people have made some suggestions.

Some people have said, someone who really understands the Los Angeles area, the politics of the community, understands LAUSD in terms of the history of the organization, [and knows] some of the things we have been through in this community, some of the efforts we have tried, some of the challenges we have faced. Could an internal candidate do that or somebody who’s worked in the system at some point in time and maybe moved on to another position?

Q: Doesn’t that mean that there’s a short list of the heads of the largest school districts or the top administrators within LAUSD?

A: I don’t think there’s a short list, but there’s a possible list. If you’re looking at just superintendents who have had experience of 100,000 students or more, there’s only 26 districts in this country that are that size. So are you looking for someone Q&A: Inside the search for the next LAUSD superintendent | 89.3 KPCC:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time'

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time':

The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time'

Duncan and Casserly making the media rounds... Last night on the PBS News Hour, no matter what Gwen Ifill asked about the administration's supposed shift on testing. Duncan responded with his stock answers. Michael Casserly, Director-For-Life, it seems, of the Council of Great City Schools, came off like the ultimate bureaucrat. He sounds reluctant, but willing to go along with the charade. "It's complicated" he says. Let's have lots more departmental and cross-state discussions and meetings. He's been 40 years atop the organization that could be funded to facilitate just such meetings and conferences.

Casserly

Was it just me or did they both sound like they were defending rather than reassessing current testing policies? It seemed like they're already warning us against the impending perils of "too little testing."

Duncan actually claimed that he had been on this track all along and that the new line on testing was an affirmation of his own long-standing views.

He tells Ifill:

Well, I think we have embraced this idea for a while. What’s different now is we actually have data. And I have been talking about this, as Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: The flip side of testing madness. 'You will test only 2% of the time':

Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools

Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools:

Gates Undercover

Several months ago, while conducting some much overdue research into the back-story of Common Core, I stumbled across a document from the Gates Foundation that painted such a frighteningly clear picture of next-gen ed-reform that I actually wondered for a time if perhaps I was hallucinating.

I wasn’t, and within a very short time, it became unmistakably obvious that the Common Core Standards, our new Smarter Balanced test, and Maine’s one of a kind (but not for long if they have their way, so watch out!) proficiency-based diploma mandate were all linked like pieces of a puzzle to a corporate-driven agenda to transform our schools into “personalized” (digital!) learning environments. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, see here for more.)

Quite literally sick to my stomach, I emailed a union rep to ask if he knew anything about the paper I had found.

“It’s ghastly,” he replied, “but in Maine, it has been the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Great Schools Partnership that has been behind these policies.”

Okay.  So maybe I was mistaken. Nellie Mae sounded friendly enough. So did Great Schools. (Who doesn’t like great schools?)

Just to be sure, I went to the “Awarded Grants” section of the Gates Foundation website, and typed in the words “Nellie Mae.”

Then I typed in Great Schools Partnership.

And then I did this:

Then, I went to the Nellie Mae page, typed in the word “Maine,” and sure enough, there on their website was page after page of grants awarded to organizations in our state.

Now thoroughly alarmed, I emailed a state education official, asking what he knew about our proficiency-based mandate. Where had it come from and why?

“That was passed in 2012 to strengthen our high school diplomas. Who could argue with it?  Look, here are all the people who support it,” he wrote back, Gates Undercover | Save Maine Schools:

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times:

L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday is expected to consider appointing an outside committee to guide its search for the next superintendent of schools.

A group of civic leaders has pressed the school board repeatedly on the issue.

“I don’t know why you would not want some people around a table giving input,” said Elise Buik, chief executive of United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

L.A. Unified hopes to choose a new leader by the end of the year, when current Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who is 83, said he would like to step down. Cortines agreed to serve a year ago, when Supt. John Deasy resigned under pressure.

Buik has been among the most consistent voices urging the Board of Education to call on other leaders who could provide perspective and expertise in various areas.

If the district allows a hiring committee to screen for finalists, “my belief is that we’re going to make a better decision,” Buik said. “It will unify the community around a decision. And I think candidates will be encouraged to apply when they see the diversity of people involved in the decision.”

Buik said the hiring process itself could remain confidential — to ensure the best pool of applicants.

She and others, part of the Civic Alliance group, made similar arguments at an Aug. 19 lunch with school board president Steve Zimmer. Then, earlier this month, a separate but overlapping group of local organizations reiterated the request in a letter to the board.

Zimmer did not commit to the idea, but brought it before his colleagues in an earlier closed session, during which the board decided against an outside committee.

Several board members have noted in public that one of their fundamental duties as elected officials is to choose a superintendent -- and that they intend to handle the process themselves. Privately, some said they were concerned that an outside committee might try to co-opt the process, leaving board members unable to determine whom they most wanted.

Still, the board will discuss the matter once more in closed session this week, sources confirmed.

An executive search firm, meanwhile, already is accepting applications and recruiting candidates. And the same consulting team also is collecting public input through a series of community meetings that will conclude this week.

The United Way and other allied groups have not yet met with the consultants, Buik said.

District officials said they encourage all groups to submit input through the public process or in private meetings. The consultants expect to submit a report on community feedback by Nov. 10.

Other groups have different ideas on the search process. The teachers union, for example, has called for making the identity of the finalists public.

Board member Monica Ratliff supports that idea, even though some candidates might prefer to apply confidentially.

“It should not be a secret that one wants to try to help hundreds of thousands of students L.A. school board will consider appointing outside superintendent search committee - LA Times:

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post:

Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools

Last March, the Board of Education of the Woodridge Local Schools district in Ohio passed a resolution calling on policymakers to take steps to clean up its  scandal-ridden $1 billion charter school sector. Now it is seeking more than $5 million from the state — money that was sent over the last 15 years to charters instead of traditional public schools.

Superintendent Walter Davis of Woodridge Local Schools — who brought the March resolution to the board — says he doesn’t actually expect the state to hand over the money. But he said the board is requesting the money from the state to underscore the frustration that educators have over the millions of dollars the state keeps giving to charter schools, money that then isn’t available for traditional public schools. In Ohio, charter schools are called “community schools.”

“What we are dealing with in Ohio is a system of charter schools that are failing, and the state continues to transfer local public funding from traditional public schools to support them,” Davis said in an interview.”We aren’t expecting a check, but we are doing it to call attention to how, year-in and year-out, money is being taken away from us to support these schools that traditionally have much lower academic achievement rates than we do.”

From the 2010-11 school year to 2014-15, Ohio’s funding for traditional public schools dropped by $515 million, he said.

How troubled is the Ohio charter sector? A June 2015 story by the Akron Beacon Journal said it found that Ohio charter schools appeared to have misspent public money “nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.” It said 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.”

Some $6,890 is transferred from the school district for each student who attends a charter school, said Deanna Levenger, chief financial officer for the school district. But the state only provides about $680 per child in basic education funding, with the rest coming from local revenues. That means that local money is being used to fund charters around the state, she said. Furthermore, Davis noted, the state pays brick-and-mortar charter schools the same amount per student as online charters even though online schools don’t have the same cost structure.

A few weeks ago, after repeated attempts, the Ohio legislature finally passed legislation that attempts to clean up the charter sector by placing more mandates on charter operators. But Davis said the measure does nothing to change the funding problems.

Here’s the invoice, showing how much money has been sent from the Woodridge district to charter schools from 2000-2015.Ohio school district asks state to reimburse $5 million given to charter schools - The Washington Post:

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com:

'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting

NEWARK – Just three months after his appointment, it appears the welcome wagon for Superintendent of Schools Christopher Cerf has worn thin.

A meeting of the city's School Advisory Board was derailed after members of the Newark Student Union and other activists staged a protest of Cerf, new charter school expansion and subpar conditions in traditional schools.

Armed with a megaphone and a large banner reading "Full Local Control", the group of more than a dozen students marched to the front of the auditorium at University High School during a presentation on how the district plans to raise its scores on the annual state-administered QSAC evaluation.

Their chants of ""Save Our Schools" and "Whose City? Our City?" were met with a chorus of applause from much of the more than 200 people gathered at University High School, many of whom groaned and shouted angrily at Cerf and other administrators throughout the lengthy meeting.

The meeting marked the end of roughly three months of relative civility toward Cerf and a shift back toward the consistent animosity that characterized meetings under his predecessor, Cami Anderson – sparked largely by news that the KIPP network of charter schools plans to greatly expand its reach in Newark.

"We wanted to give him time to show to the community what kind of person he is, try to be diplomatic, but today I think the message our community is sending is the diplomacy is over," Jose Leonardo, the student union's president, said in an interview.

"Nothing's changed and we're tired of it. He's a kinder face, but it's the same mechanics, the same machine at work."

---

MORE: In interview, ex-Newark school chief laments 'well-orchestrated drama' around reforms

---

Cerf, who remained silent and in his seat throughout the demonstration even as board members left the school stage and attempted to restore order, has deep ties to charter schools and the education reform movement. He served as commissioner of the state Department of Education when it appointed Anderson, whose support for charter growth and other shakeups stoked widespread public anger leading to her exit from the district in late June.

While much of the anger toward Anderson was focused on her controversial "One Newark" universal enrollment system and the logistical issues that accompanied its rollout last year, the newest wave of protest comes amid anger over the proposed expansion of charters and poor conditions in traditional public schools.

Veronica Branch was among a number of parents, students and other residents to voice those concerns Tuesday night.

"Where do you think these kids are going to go to?" she said. "Everybody don't want charter. We still have substitutes at Hawthorne Avenue....everybody's tired of it."

Responding to a barrage of criticisms, Cerf submitted that public schools do face challenges that charters do not, which he attributed to regulations and other compliance problems imposed by a bloated bureaucracy. However, he cautioned that the answer to the inequity was not to draw lines in the proverbial sand.

"That lack of equality, that lack of equal opportunity, does not involve pitting one kind of school against the other. It involves righting the wrong of not allowing every child, as you say, a thorough and efficient education that allows them to move forward in life successfully," he said.

Many protestors and speakers also expressed anger over the Central Planning Board's decision last week to approve a new K-12 NorthStar Academy charter school on a former Star-Ledger property. The building would not constitute expansion for the chain of schools run by New York-based Uncommon Schools, but rather move students from its many of 11 existing facilities in Newark into asix-story building at the corner of Court Street and Washington Street.

Other charter school networks are also pursuing expansion or new construction in the city. BRICK Academy is awaiting word on an application to officially certify its operations at the former Avon Avenue and Peshine Avenue schools into charters, and Great Oaks Charter School has scheduled a Wednesday ribbon-'The diplomacy is over': Protesters blast Cerf, derail Newark meeting | NJ.com:

Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News

Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News:

Obama's Empty Testing Talk

The president's pledge to reduce school tests is meaningless.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama received high praise from parents and teachers foracknowledging that testing is taking too much time away from teaching, learning and fostering creativity in schools, and recommending that standardized tests take no more than 2 percent of total school instructional time. Frankly, this is arrant nonsense. Here's why.

RELATED

What's Wrong With Obama's Testing Proposal?

From time to time, I'm asked to give a talk about education. If I look at how I spend my time over the course of a year, giving presentations and speeches is a very small part of my job – less than 2 percent. However, if my effectiveness were to be judged on the audience response to those handful of talks I give each year, I'd spend a lot more time writing and practicing speeches. I'd fret endlessly over my PowerPoint slides and leave-behinds. I'd sprinkle in more jokes to be entertaining; I'd probably say whatever I thought would get audiences to like me more, rather than challenging my listeners. I'd definitely spend a lot more on suits and dry cleaning than I do now.

But most critically, I'd spend far less time on all the other things I do – writing, reading, teaching and learning, visiting schools to stay current – that might make any talk I give worth listening to in the first place. In short, if this minor part of my job, however useful, were to become the alpha and omega of how my effectiveness is measured, it would quickly change nearly everything else about my work. And not necessarily for the better.

It's the same with testing. First of all, reports that Obama "plans to limit standardized testing to no more than 2% of class time," are simply wrong. The federal government has virtually no say about how much time schools spend testing. The vast majority of tests that our children take are driven by states and school districts, as well individual schools and teachers, not by Washington. The best the president can do is use the bully pulpit to encourage less testing and even then there's reason to be skeptical.

The amount of time kids spend on testing is not the issue. It's what the tests are used for that matters. Like my speech example, when you use standardized tests to make high-stakes judgments about schools and teachers, they are no longer a mere diagnostic. The testing tail wags the schooling dog.

"I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, thereby demonstrating that the administration doesn't understand or thinks it can elide the effect of testing on schools. If there are stakes attached to those tests for schools or teachers, then there will be little or no change in current classroom practice.

RELATED

Education Department Recommends Less Testing

To be clear, I am not anti-testing. Far from it. The data from tests are the life-blood that courses through the arteries of much that matters to me in education and efforts to improve it. Test data have created the demand for school choice and charter schools. They supply the proof point demonstrating how poorly we've historically served low-income children of color. The field of education simply cannot advance without testing, which provides one of the few empirical bits of data we have to give insight into the effectiveness of changes in any number of school-based inputs, from curriculum and teacher preparation to education technology and standards.

But one would have to be cynical or naive not to understand that the moment you use tests, which are designed to measure student performance, to trigger various corrective actions and interventions effecting teachers and schools, you are fundamentally shifting tests from providing evidence of student performance to something closer to the very purpose of schooling. This is precisely what has been occurring in our schools for the last decade or more. When parents complain, rightfully so, about over-testing, what they are almost certainly responding to is not the tests themselves, which take up a vanishingly small amount of class time, but the effects of test-and-prep culture, which has fundamentally changed the experience of schooling for our children, and not always for the better.

The Obama talk on testing seeks to curry favor with parents and teachers (and their unions) while doing nearly nothing to change the fundamental role of testing and its effect on schooling. It's all well and good to "encourage" states, districts and schools to limit testing, but as long as test-driven accountability measures, which are driven substantially by federal law, are used not to provide Obama's School Testing Talk Is Meaningless - US News:

No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn't : NPR Ed : NPR

No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn't : NPR Ed : NPR:

No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn't

Cross your fingers.

Congress is trying to do something it was supposed to do back in 2007: agree on a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It's not controversial to say the law is in desperate need of an update.

The ESEA is hugely important, not just to our nation's schools but the social fabric. It pours billions of federal dollars each year into classrooms that serve low-income students. When President Lyndon Johnson first signed it in 1965, he declared the law "a major new commitment of the federal government to quality and equality in the schooling that we offer our young people."

The ESEA is supposed to be updated every few years but hasn't been rewritten since 2001, when another Texan, President George W. Bush, famously renamed it No Child Left Behind. Bush took Johnson's original vision, to help states level the playing field for students living and learning in poverty, and added teeth.

"We're gonna spend more money, more resources," Bush said at the time, "but they'll be directed at methods that work. Not feel-good methods. Not sound-good methods. But methods that actually work."

Those methods included a sweeping new federal system of testing and accountability — as strict as it was controversial. The message to states was clear: We don't trust you to do the right thing by your most disadvantaged students. Schools that fail to educate all kids should be fixed or closed.

With its emphasis — obsession, critics would say — on standardized testing, the law became unpopular among many teachers and parents and technically expired in 2007. But it's on the books until it's replaced.

Now, the challenge for lawmakers is figuring out what — if any — of Bush's tough-love methods worked. This week, NPR is trying to do the same.

Bush's tough-love approach was motivated by the sense that states weren't doing enough to fix their low-performing schools. NCLB created a new role for the federal government: Tough Guy. Right now, the House and Senate don't agree on much, but they do agree that the Tough Guy routine didn't work.

The recent bills crafted by both chambers — and that must now be reconciled — leave it to the states to decide what to do about struggling schools. That includes how to fix them and whether or when to close them.

But at least one researcher thinks the law, like the classic Tough Guy, is a little misunderstood. And that parts of the law did work.

"NCLB is usually regarded as a sledge hammer, but it's actually fairly complex and fairly nuanced," says Tom Ahn, who teaches at the University of Kentucky.

Ahn has a Ph.D. in economics and writes papers with titles like, "Distributional Impacts of a Local Living Wage Increase." In short, he's an unlikely guy to have written one of the go-to studies on NCLB. But he did. And it's an eye-opener.

A few years ago, Ahn and his colleague, Jacob Vigdor, wondered: In spite of the controversy, did No Child Left Behind do some good? Did it improve low-performing schools? For answers, they studied the schools of North Carolina, though what they found can be applied just about anywhere.

How It Worked

Under NCLB, schools were judged on something called Adequate Yearly Progress. The goal was to get every child to grade-level in reading and math by 2014. It was an No Child Left Behind: What Worked, What Didn't : NPR Ed : NPR:

Too many tests? Obama's plan treats the symptoms, not the cause. - LA Times

Too many tests? Obama's plan treats the symptoms, not the cause. - LA Times:

Too many tests? Obama's plan treats the symptoms, not the cause.

e backlash against education reform as practiced by the Obama administration has been fierce and persistent, and not just from teachers. Parents have mounted their own protests by opting their children out of the annual tests that the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to give. The two bills in Congress to reauthorize the law would return more authority over schools to the states.

President Obama appeared to join the backlash himself over the weekend, saying that students are taking too many standardized tests, and ones of poor quality to boot. He promised to help states figure out how to reduce testing, and to push Congress for legislation barring teachers from spending more than 2% of their class time on tests.

Does this mean the president finally realizes that tests have been given too much power over public education? Don't bet on it.

Obama hasn't voiced support for scaling back federal testing mandates, eliminating harsh measures against schools with low test scores or rolling back the Department of Education's requirement that states link teacher evaluations to test scores if they want waivers from No Child Left Behind's performance standards. California's refusal to give in to the evaluation mandate has kept it from receiving a waiver.

It's quite possible that students take too many tests. But the president's statement ignores why. By and large, the extra tests are used to measure whether students are on track to score well on the big, federally mandated test in the spring that evaluates their schools' performance, the one with serious consequences. Even more important are the much larger amounts of time devoted to rehearsing students for the spring test.

Setting an arbitrary cap on test-taking time — the president's 2% isn't based on a strong body of evidence any more than the teacher evaluation policy was — is unlikely to reduce the time spent on test prep significantly. As long as schools with low test scores can be taken over by charter schools or lose half their staff under No Child Left Behind, and as long as teachers fear losing their jobs if their students' scores haven't measured up, classrooms will be focused more on tests and less on a rounded education.

Standardized tests still have a useful place. They provide an objective measurement of how well students are mastering math and language skills, point out achievement gaps and give useful feedback on which lessons haven't been adequately absorbed. They also signal that certain schools are in dire need of outside intervention.

If Obama is sincere about easing the testing frenzy, he should drop the teacher evaluation mandate and support intensive help, rather than punishment, for struggling schools. His existing proposal would treat the symptoms more than the cause.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion andFacebookToo many tests? Obama's plan treats the symptoms, not the cause. - LA Times:

Charter School Chain Accused of Union Busting - Courthouse News Service

Courthouse News Service:

Charter School Chain Accused of Union Busting

 LOS ANGELES (CN) - A chain of public charter schools is using its charter status to harass and threaten teachers for trying to unionize, California's Public Employment Relations Board claims in court.
     The PERB sued Alliance College-Ready Public Charter Schools and its 27 Los Angeles area campuses in Superior Court on Friday.
     United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents thousands of public schoolteachers in collective bargaining, is named as real party in interest.
     An Alliance spokeswoman called it a "dishonest, malicious and desperate" attempt by the teachers union to "intimidate" Alliance leaders.
     It's the latest of dozens of lawsuits over the years to accuse charter schools of using their status as a smokescreen to spend tax dollars without following state and federal laws on public schools.
     "The core of the injunctive complaint is the allegation that the charter schools are engaging in a campaign of anti-union activity," the PERB's General Counsel J. Felix De La Torre told Courthouse News.
     The status quo injunction is intended to "end this pattern of conduct" so the PERB can investigate four charges already before it and determine if state law has been violated, De La Torres said.
     About 70 teachers emailed Alliance's board of directors in March, announcing their intent to unionize with United Teachers and asking Alliance to meet and discuss "a fair and neutral process to organize," the complaint states, citing one of the open letters.
     In response, Alliance sent a 4-page letter "that was critical of UTLA, collective bargaining, and unionization and urged employees not to sign authorization cards," the complaint states.
     Shortly afterward, the board says, principal Lori Rhodes kicked a union representative off an Alliance campus for discussing unionization with teacher Michelle Buckowski. Rhodes then harassed Buckowski, telling her that supporting the union "was an uneducated position," and that Buckowski should "focus on her upcoming formal performance evaluation."
     Neither Rhodes nor Buckowski are named as parties to the complaint.
     Alliance banned several other union reps from its campuses for after-school meetings with teachers, claiming they had no right to enter private property. It harassed teachers it caught handing out "union-related flyers" and ordered them to stop it, according to the complaint.
     Frustrated, United Teachers in April filed two unfair practice charges with the board that accused Alliance of anti-union bias, the complaint states.
     But Alliance continued harassing teachers and union reps by, among other things, spying on meetings between teachers and union organizers; forcing teacher Albert Chu to resign after he discussed unionization with other teachers; blocking emails sent from the union to teachers' work addresses; sending a letter to parents claiming that the union did not have its students' or teachers best interests "at heart;" and posting an online petition opposing organization on its website and demanding that teachers sign it, according to the complaint.
     Alliance runs 27 charter schools for 12,000 students in and around Los Angeles, and more than 84 percent of its money comes from local, state and federal taxes, according to the company's 2014 Annual Report .
     In that report, Alliance reported $320 million in assets, $181 million of it in property.
     Of its $116 million in "Revenue and Support," 71.1 percent ($89.5 million) was "state and local," 13.6 percent ($15.8 million) was "federal," 6.8 percent ($7.8 million) came from private donations, and 2.5 percent ($2.9 million) was designated "other," in the annual report.
     Of its $99.6 million in expenses, 73.9 percent ($73.1 million) went to instruction, 12.6 percent ($12.5 million) to operations and administration, 12.9 percent ($12.8 million) to facilities and interest, and 0.6 percent ($562,664) to fund raising, according to the annual report.
     It is precisely this receipt and spending of tax dollars that should make Alliance and all public charter schools subject to nondiscrimination laws and other state and federal education laws, charter school critics say.
     The PERB filed unfair labor practice complaints against Alliance in late June and scheduled an informal settlement conference for August, "but the parties did not resolve their differences" at the meeting, the complaint states.
     A formal hearing before Administrative Law Judge Morizawa was set for early November, but Alliance kept harassing pro-union teachers and banning organizers from its campuses, prompting the union to file two additional charges, according to the complaint.
     After general counsel De La Torre completed his investigation of the union's complaints in mid-October, he granted its request to seek injunctive relief against Alliance and all of its schools in court, the complaint states.
     "Defendants' alleged chilling conduct in the midst of UTLA's organizing efforts has long been understood as likely to cause an irreparable injury to union representation, because UTLA's position may deteriorate to the point that effective organization and representation is no longer possible, as time passes the benefits of unionization are lost, the spark to organize is extinguished, and the deprivation to employees of representation is immeasurable. Permitting an alleged unfair labor practice to reach fruition and thereby render meaningless PERB's [the board's] remedial authority constitutes irreparable harm," the complaint states.
     Catherine Suitor, chief development and communications officer for Alliance, told Courthouse News in an email that Alliance is "disappointed ... but not completely surprised" at the lawsuit, "given the make-up of the PERB board, the majority of whom are former labor leaders, including several from the California Teachers Association."
     Suitor said Alliance has respected its teachers' right to unionize from the get-go and has allowed teachers to hand out information and freely discuss unionization on and off campus.
     She said Alliance has included its staff in the discussion so everyone can share their opinions and experiences and have access to the facts, "not just opinions from UTLA, an organization that for years has been opposed to charter schools and Alliance in particular."
     "Alliance has been guided by expert legal counsel throughout the campaign and has acted with integrity and transparency. UTLA's attempts to denounce and intimidate Alliance leadership with attacks on our character are dishonest, malicious and desperate," Suitor wrote.
     "The Alliance community is proud of our teachers, and we share their commitment to providing a high-quality education for all students. We remain steadfast in our commitment to always put the needs of students first and foremost. Alliance College-Ready Public Schools expresses our disappointment at the continued divisive and disruptive attacks by UTLA against our schools and teachers."
     The PERB seeks an injunction ordering Alliance to allow union organizers to meet with teachers on its campuses, to stop retaliating against teachers who express interest in unionizing, and to reinstate teacher Chu with full back pay, bonuses and reimbursementCourthouse News Service:

California NAACP takes stand on limiting role of School Resource Officers #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh | Cloaking Inequity

California NAACP takes stand on limiting role of School Resource Officers #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh | Cloaking Inequity:

California NAACP takes stand on limiting role of School Resource Officers #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh

MSNBC reported,

A cell phone video shot inside a South Carolina high school Monday appeared to show a police officer body-slamming a female student and dragging her across a classroom.

The confrontation, at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, has drawn intense criticism on social media, from the school district’s Black Parents Association — the student is African-American — and the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, which called the deputy’s actions “egregious.”

“There is no justification whatsoever for treating a child like this,” the ACLU said in a statement.

In a news conference, a spokesman for the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, Curtis Wilson, identified the officer in the video as Ben Fields.

The sheriff, Leon Lott, was out of town, Wilson said, but had watched the video and was “disturbed.”

The department and its internal affairs division wereCalifornia NAACP takes stand on limiting role of School Resource Officers #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh | Cloaking Inequity:

Fragile Truce Shows Signs of Crumbling During Newark School Board Meeting - NJ Spotlight

Fragile Truce Shows Signs of Crumbling During Newark School Board Meeting - NJ Spotlight:

FRAGILE TRUCE SHOWS SIGNS OF CRUMBLING DURING NEWARK SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

Charter-school advocates clash with teachers’ union leader, students disrupt gathering and chant ‘Cerf must go’

Protesting students disrupt yesterday's meeting of the Newark school board.

It’s not like he had a wide berth to begin with, but the relative calm that greeted Chris Cerf’s arrival as the new superintendent of Newark schools is pretty much over.

At the local school board’s monthly public meeting last night, the rancor of the Cami Anderson era was back, with the Newark Teachers Union stepping up its presence and many of the usual activists on hand.

At one point early in the meeting held at University High School, a dozen members of the outspoken student group who once took over former superintendent Anderson’s office disrupted the meeting by setting up in front of the stage with a banner reading “Full Local Control.”

“Cerf must go, Cerf must go,” a few chanted.

The superintendent, the state’s former education commissioner, remained largely stoic throughout. Unlike his predecessor, he has vowed to stay at the public meetings and face the consequences.

He did issue a statement later in the evening, saying it was “unfortunate that a few people chose to speak outside the confines of the public comment structure, interfering with our ability to share information and to learn more about how we Fragile Truce Shows Signs of Crumbling During Newark School Board Meeting - NJ Spotlight: