Corporate Masters of PEPAC

Oh, my but it's difficult to find out information on this district level parent committee at LAUSD. Never mind that it's a parent AND corporate (really, there is virtually no difference between not-for-profit and profit corporations) though it passes as LAUSD's only district-level parent committee. There are four corporations on the board: the Los Angeles Urban Leage (laul.org), Alliance for a Better Community (afabc.org), another I cannot remember, and Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamérica (Council of Mexican American Federations loosely) at (cofem.org).

The president of the COFEM board of directors is Mario Cardenas (Sinaloa). He seems like a good enough guy. He's into real estate development and is general director of Plaza Mexico - a Mexican-style mall in Lynwood.

The United Way released a report on Public School Choice on March 15, 2012. COFEM was a United Way partner working to "capture the collective voice of parents, students and community members who are committed to providing our children with the quality public school education they deserve." These days "community members" is code for corporations (not- and/or for- profit) though minions at LAUSD still insist it means people living within a school boundary who do not have children in an LAUSD school.

Other United Way partners include Alliance for a Better Community (PEPAC) and PIQE (Parent Institute for Quality Eduacation). PIQU pitched at our local school. If we'd approved their program we'd only have had to give them $15,000 for their services. The woman who pitched it happened to be on our school's advisory committee and was trying to get a job with them. She's gone now. We declined their offer.

Families in Schools is another United Way partner and a personal favorite of Mayor Villaraigosa. Maria Casillas was the founding president and CEO of Families in Schools and now works for LAUSD as the head of Chief of School, Family & Parent/Community Services. She's responsible for dissolving the previous District Advisory Committee (DAC) and replacing it with PEPAC (Parents as Equal Partners Advisory Committee).

Recently I finagled my way into a meeting between an LAUSD school and a team of UCLA grad students working for PEPAC monitor Stuart Biegel (UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies). One of the grad students asked if the administrator thought the school was living up to the values of Parents as Equal Partners. The administrator asked, "Equal to whom, and partners with whom?" The grad student looked down at his paperwork and said, "We get that question a lot. We've looked and looked and asked and asked and have never received a satisfactory answer." The question was dropped.

The California Foundation and the California Endowment are funding the monitoring. Beatriz Solis, from California Endowment was on the PEPAC Taskforce. Antonia Hernandez, President, CA Community Foundation was also on the Taskforce and served as the chairman. In a letter that serves as a foreward to the Taskforce's Final Report, Hernandez writes (with translation):

• LAUSD should seek clear explanations and waivers from the State and Federal Department of Education to leverage resources; (abscond with funds)
  
• LAUSD should work with their labor partners to ensure that meaningful parent engagement is involved in the evaluations of staff members and ultimate responsibility for parent engagement lies with the school site principal and should be part of their performance review; (pit parents against teachers and administration)
  
• LAUSD should restructure all advisory committees and establish clear criteria and term limits for parents to sit on any advisory committee; (don't let parents have power)
• Advisory committee meetings should be streamlined and focused on implementation and support of the Task Force recommendations; (don't let parents think for themselves or give parents enough time to do their job)
  
• LAUSD should reallocate and use all parent engagement funds at the school site level, more effective (sic) and efficiently in order to support the task force recommendations, improve student achievement, and consolidate all parent engagement activities under one unit. (don't let parents spend money allocated to them)
  

It's doubtful that two such invested individuals could ensure independent monitoring.

As always, more later...