Race baiting by our government and corporate masters

Last week I received a copy of an inter-office memo from LAUSD superintendent John Deasy about the bleak 2012-2013 school budget. Deasy is taking up to 30% off the top of each schools compensatory education funds due to "budgetary constraints" and a "financial shortfall." 

FIRST, let me tell you that government is ALL about making the truth hard to find - especially when it comes to education. Let me translate the paragraph above into English - the boss of Los Angeles schools is stealing 30% of your tax dollars to give to his friends.

Deasy lists three initiatives he wants to fund: the Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) Voluntary Agreement, Teaching and Learning Initiative and implementation of the Common Core State Standards and Assessments. 

Today I want to look at the first initiative - the Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) Voluntary Agreement.

There IS a horrible discrepancy between the educational performance of poor and rich students. Some of the worst performance affects English Learners (mostly immigrants) and African-American students. Studies have shown that the cause of lowered performance is poverty. And yes, poverty is intertwined with racism.

Let's take a moment to look at the players, before we look at what they've done.

This picture is included in the LAUSD press release regarding the Voluntary Agreement to improve education opportunities for English Learners and African American students. The three men are (left to right) Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. One person is missing and that Russlynn Ali,  Assistant Secretary, Office of Civil Rights, US Department of Education.

How do the lives of the lives of Deasy, Ali and Villaraigosa intersect?

John Deasy, the Superintendent of LAUSD is a graduate of the (Eli) Broad Superintendents Academy and once served as deputy director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Russlynn Ali used to work for LAUSD - she was Chief of staff to the president of the LASUD Board of Education and on the Curriculum and Instruction Committee. She also served as Assistant director of policy and research at the Broad Foundation.

Eli Broad supported Antonio Villaraigosa running for mayor and must have creamed his pants when Villaraigosa tried to take over the schools. The mayor failed, but his consolation prize was  "partnership" schools which he manages to an extent. Broad, disappointed in Villaraigosa, described him a few years back as "a mayor that talks a good game but isn't really interested in taking over the schools." Partners of Partnership for LA Schools include Eli and Edythe Broad and Bill and Melinda Gates among a slew of others.

In March of 2010 the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights launched an investigation "that focused on the educational opportunities of LAUSD's English Learners and comparability of resources for African-American students."'

How likely is it that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and John Deasy did not know this was in the works? Now that a year has passed and the investigation is resolved, I've had a chance to see the results of the "voluntary agreement."

Deasy is reducing Title III money for English Learners by 50 percent. He claims the money is needed to "to fund the Office of Civil Rights ('OCR') Voluntary Agreement."

This is how it works: to improve educational opportunities for LAUSD's English Learners LAUSD is cutting Title III funds to English Learners by 50%.

That makes me think the entire thing was a set up from the start. Launch a "civil rights" case involving some of the poorest people - even better yet - immigrants who don't speak English and can't understand what you're doing. Throw in African-Americans. That way any protest against the "civil rights" case will make you look racist. Then "resolve" the case by bleeding dry the very programs designed to help underperforming students and give the money to your friends who own and run testing corporations and specious educational schemes.

This redistribution of wealth (taxpayer money) from the public school system to the private sector will insure that public schools will continue to fail the district's most vulnerable students. These failing public schools will be infiltrated by privitized charter schools and eventually replaced. If things keep going as they are public schools will soon be a thing of the past. The same billionaires who drove our economy into the ground (Eli Broad is a main shareholder of AIG, the company bailed out by the US taxpayer) will be doing the same to our schools.

Looking at the big picture now I can't see how it could have been any other way. The "voluntary agreement" was a cynical justification to rob our children of an education and the taxpayers of their money and their rights.

Shame on Russlynn Ali, Mayor Villaraigosa and double shame on Superintendent and thief John Deasy.

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Cornell Study

Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows 

Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success 

 

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...