Sara Roos

Protect The Tax-Payer’s Revolution

Here in L.A., we’ve just finished weighing in on two ballot questions regarding schools funding. Really engaged activists and politicians will argue the initiatives we voted on are unrelated, both the two just addressed and another coming up. But many of us see a set of connected dots in a three-part series: Measure EE [June 2019], Proposition 13 [2020], Schools And Communities First (SCF).

The three initiatives do share a common objective in funding schools, but their significance shifts according to the context in which each is evaluated.

One year ago during a cold and rainy January, UTLA’s teachers (and allied communities) went on strike for contract concessions above and beyond the typical matter of a paycheck. At issue were systemic questions of management and budget, District resources and their equitable distribution, and the very nature of public service in our modern democracy.

Time To Vote

SuperCaliforniaisticexpialiTuesday is here; it’s finally here. Please don’t embarrass your country or family and fail to turn out. It seems hard to imagine turnout hasn’t been heavy already given the widespread availability of Vote Centers open now for weeks. It seems that everyone has received a postage-paid absentee ballot whether you asked for one or not. Click here to locate your new Vote Center regardless of past performance – don’t let it predict today’s. Come 8 p.m. tonight and it’s all over.

Just how embarrassing has been our recent turnout for LAUSD board elections? Pretty appalling. Approximately one in ten registered voters has deigned to vote since 2013 when really big-time money first suffused the LAUSD board races. That is, almost all our fellow citizens have let a tiny proportion elect the few who control a budget the size of the City of LA’s, and the weekday environment of our next generation citizens.

This really is no way to run a democracy. An informed and engaged electorate is the fuel which powers the republic; without it we have, well, what we have. Please be sure to contribute your 0.02 to the proceedings today. There’s still time….

Voter turnout for LAUSD Board of Education elections, 2014-2019

Bloomfield Devotes $3.7m Education Dollars Toward Elections, Not Schools

It’s been a week since last peek at the LAUSD board election spending. The rate of spending has slowed down a bit since over $1m was anted up by Bill Bloomfield and the California Charter School Association (CCSA, a charter school lobbying and service organization) between Thursday and Friday of one week ago. But the absolute spending in LAUSD school board elections since just last Friday has increased by nearly two and a half million dollars.

Across all four board races the total reported to the City of LA Ethics Commission is $8.2m. With almost half as much spent on negative campaigning as positive campaigning. In LAUSD7 one candidate (Gutierrez) registers no independent expenditures actually supporting the candidate, with all expenditures on her behalf spent in opposition.

The only candidate explicitly endorsed by the charter lobby is running in LAUSD3, recipient of an onslaught of resources both positive and deceptively negative. Expenditures favoring charter school public relations specialist Koziatek over incumbent former principal Schmerelson, run at 4 to 1. And in LAUSD5 where the expenditure imbalance is half again as great – 6:1 – the extravagantly-favored challenger didn’t even present herself at the only scheduled debate in that district. The incumbent, veteran teacher Goldberg, was the only one to show up to the charter-industry-sponsored event.

oppsup-comparison-update-022820-IEC

Figure 1 above is an updated visual representation of the relative distribution of independent expenditures across all four board district races. Boxes are proportional in size to the total; negative spending is below the line. These data broken out by donor are reported as of February 28, 2020. The total relative distribution can be readily compared with February 21, 2020 and February 20, 2020.

Bloomberg’s Autocracy In Flower: What His Political Spending Tells Us About His Candidacy

With billionaires circling the wagons on the debate stage and encircling our sensibilities in local municipal school board elections, it is reasonable to consider how moguls-turned-politicians influence politics. Michael Bloomberg is no stranger to California education politics; how has he been donating toward control in our California elections?

The good news from a local-autonomy standpoint is… not much, not this time. Like the lobby association for charter schools, CCSA, charter ideologues seem to be allowing a charter candidate to fall out of the primaries, at least in the open District 7 seat. Currently, several candidates are seriously vying for the seat, and most of the big money backing charter school candidates is waiting to see whether Tanya Franklin or Mike Lansing emerges as the challenger to the union-backed Patricia Castellanos, or Oakland-schools charter maven-regulator Silke Bradford.

Michael Bloomberg has not contributed to any Independent Expenditure Committees (IECs), where the really big bankroll lies in this year’s school board races. He has instead contributed maximally ($1200) only to candidate Franklin.

What Even One Day Bears: Charters Scrimmage For Majority Control Of The LAUSD Board

In reports downloaded from LA City Ethics Commission records posted between 2/20/20 and 2/21/20 – just 24 hours – the California Charter School Association (CCSA) lobby anted up nearly ¾ of a million more dollars in the LAUSD board District 3 race. Despite being one of the most visible forces in school board lobbying and elections, CCSA has endorsed in only one of four school board races this year.

In all, over one million new dollars was recorded, with more than 80% spent by partisans intent on reclaiming the majority board they lost when their candidate Ref Rodriguez plead guilty to felony money laundering and Jackie Goldberg was elected to his seat.

For comparison, in contrast with large contributions we reported previously, free market ideologue Bill Bloomfield contributed a modest $61,000 in the same time. Meanwhile CCSA spent nearly $500,000 dollars on their singular candidate Koziatek, and just shy of another one-third million smearing her opponent.

comparison-of-IE-donations-DL-0219-022120-to-all-Mar20-elections

Table 1 above compares independent expenditures reported in the past 24 hours (bottom), with those in the preceding five months (top) between 5/19/19 and 2/19/20.

An update of the chart published last week, 2/20/20, uses proportional squares to visually depict the pro and con independent expenditures in all LAUSD board elections.

oppsup-comparison-update-022220-IEC

Relative distribution reported 2/21/20 of all independent expenditures in all LAUSD board races, 5/19/19-2/21/20.

Charter School Advocates Spending Big in LAUSD Board Elections

The California Charter School Association (CCSA) is the largest and most visible pro-charter organization in Los Angeles’ political scene. CCSA has chosen to endorse just one candidate in LAUSD’s 2020 school board elections, but that doesn’t mean that pro-charter candidates aren’t receiving millions of dollars in support from independent expenditure committees (IEC’s) aligned with the charter school movement.

In LAUSD District 3, the singularly favored CCSA Candidate is Madeline Koziatek, a specialist in community outreach who works at a charter school. When CCSA selects a candidate the tendency in giving is of shock and awe. Amongst other activities, the CCSA is responsible for the attack on Scott Schmerelson that has been called everything from dishonest to anti-semitic.

However, pro-charter candidates not in District 3 are not being left without support. One local free marketeer is functioning as de facto surrogate donor for the group by privately funding prodigious IEs in support and opposition to all four LAUSD races. Bill Bloomfield is a major benefactor of education reform groups such as Parent Revolution, Educators For Excellence, Students Matter, and Great Public Schools LA. Together with his immediate family he has contributed $3.2m between 2013-2016 to CCSA.

¡Prop 13 Is Not About Property Tax! (But It Is About Funding Schools)

In 1978 Californians voted to limit their personal tax liability. The ballot initiative approved at that time was titled and summarized by the CA Secretary of State as “Proposition 13, Tax Limitations Initiative (1978)”. Click here for a terrific retrospective (or primer, depending on your age).

This is not the Proposition 13 on March 3, 2020’s primary ballot.

We are currently voting (yes, the vote has started already, and will be ongoing now through 3/3/20) on a ballot initiative to authorize $15b in bonds for school and educational facilities throughout California. This current state measure is also termed “Proposition 13”, but its official summary title is “School And College Facilities Bond (2020)”.

Prodigious Funding Drives Distorted Accusations in LAUSD3

Scurrilous flyers have been peppering LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson’s 3rd District. As former teacher, counselor and principal, the incumbent board member, Mr. Schmerelson, is challenged by Marilyn Koziatek, a community outreach spokesperson for a large charter school in that district, and by Elizabeth Bartels-Badger, a long-time political and community activist. The race has been quiet because Mr. Schmerelson is well-qualified as a current board member and former educator and unencumbered by overt scandal; a clear contrast with his opponents, neither of whom are educators though one is an administrator working in Education.

LAUSD3 includes the neighborhoods of {Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Encino, Granada Hills, Lake Balboa, Reseda, North Hills, North Hollywood, Northridge, Mission Hills, Porter Ranch, Studio City, Tarzana, Valley Glen, Van Nuys, Woodland Hills, West Hills, Winnetka}. Angelenos in these areas (or parts of some, see the map here) will choose between these two voting in the primary election of March 3, 2020.

Reproducing the flyer here would only serve its purpose of propagating fake news, but the stated provenance is significant as an: “Ad paid for by Families and Teachers United, sponsored by California Charter Schools Association Advocates. Committee major funding from Charter Public Schools PAC. Not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate.”

That is, the charter school advocate’s candidate Koziatek can (by design; all candidates may as well) maintain plausible deniability regarding the ad’s insinuations because her campaign did not design the ad. Sidestepping the candidate, another entity is responsible: a PAC called ‘Charter Public Schools’.

Welcome To (And From) The Los Angeles Education Examiner

Welcome to the Los Angeles Education Examiner, your new source for news on public education in Los Angeles! We will address questions surrounding education in the vast LA region hoping to raise public consciousness about how things-educational matter to everyone here, day to day. We will host stories from other writers, do a weekly news roundup (this week’s was published yesterday) and produce our own original works around LAUSD, our teachers and our schools.

As it happens more public monies and control is exerted by the seven board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) from its downtown Los Angeles “Beaudry” headquarters than from across the 110/Harbor Freeway in LA’s City Hall. Join us for considerations ranging from what you need to know about simply “going to school” today, to analysis of why it all matters on a local and statewide level, whether you are student, parent or taxpayer.

The largest school district in California is the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), but the entirety of Los Angeles County (LAC) enrolls nearly two-and-a-half times as many students as attend LAUSD. There are 88 school districts within LAC, ranging in size from one school of 196 pupils (in 2018/19) to the giant LAUSD with over a thousand schools and well over a half-million students. Its largest (Granada Hills Charter High) school alone enrolls nearly 4700 pupils. See figure 1 below to trace LAUSD’s overall enrollment in graded and “traditional” schools (see below for definitions) since 1981. This and all figures can be enlarged by clicking the hyperlinked header or caption.

Enrollment has declined steadily since 2003/04 with a high of 747K students. Current enrollment of approximately 600K approaches that of three decades past.

Figure 1: LAUSD long-term enrollment in and traditional school types from 1981-2019

Many “fingertip facts” about LAUSD can be found here, including a list of municipalities adjacent to Los Angeles that are governed by LAUSD whether in whole or in part. Many different school “types” are listed but the full array is complicated and multidimensional. It is important to understand the extent of the system which includes our own singular, local school.

The most common distinction between school types is simply on the basis of student’s age or grade. Modern schools are differentiated as elementary (ES), middle (MS), and high schools (HS). Within LAUSD some campuses also operate as “Span” schools including a configuration of grades spanning {ES and MS}, {MS and HS} or some combination of all three levels.

In contrast to these “traditional” school types, LAUSD operates a set of “Options” schools according to State of California Education Code (state law pertaining to Education) as “Alternative Schools and Programs of Choice”. These ‘alternative’ schools differ on the basis of curriculum or environmental circumstances affecting students. The terminology is confounding because in 2009 a “Public School Choice” initiative (PSC) was adopted by the LAUSD school board (BOE) addressing school autonomy and management (see below). Thus there are two kinds of school ‘choices’ – ‘functional’ tied to the special needs of students and reflecting different curricula (“alternative”); and ‘operational’ tied to governance and reflecting administrative and managerial differences.

Schools Reach Beyond The Classroom

On the eve of launching LA’s new Education Examiner, I attended a Los Angeles Public Library “ALOUD” discussion stimulated by the new book of America’s leading populist, progressive Education theorist Diane Ravitch: Slaying Goliath. UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl very capably nailed out the corners of a conversational tapestry warped by the current reality of today’s educational landscape on the ground, in our schools, as felt by kids and teachers in every classroom; a tapestry woven by the weft of administrative realities, political pressures and evolving ideology.

It’s not enough to understand what we experience in the classroom as our kids learn and grow. That’s a snapshot in time of their experience; the system of which they are an integral part is informed by more, a political landscape of economics, rhetoric, law, power, governance – local, regional and federal. It is fundamental to our responsibility as citizens of a republic, to trace and follow construction of this integrated fabric: the weave of daily experience shot through with politics and policy.

That’s why we all need to contribute as informed, voting participants in this system, indeed to any of them. As families and community members orbiting the school system, we are blanketed in daily struggles of homework, interactions, socializing, communicating, growing, sharing, creating, following instruction. But aside from all that, we are all mandated with a concurrent – separate – responsibility: we must engage as voters to elect members of the Board of Education because they are in charge of the policy and politics that steer the hand of our public schools.

In March while the world fixates on Super Tuesday’s presidential candidates, there will be four important elections in LA Unified’s (LAUSD) northwest Valley, southern, south-central and northeastern sections of LA. The LA Education Examiner will bring you news of these races, which collectively will determine the majority policy of LAUSD’s Board of Education. Conducted in even- and odd- district numbers every four years as a group, this year’s elections in districts LAUSD1, LAUSD3, LAUSD5 and LAUSD7 involve more than half (over one million) of registered voters eligible to vote in LAUSD. You can register here up to two-weeks-plus-one-day before the March 3, 2020, election day. Click here to find your new Vote Center.