The big news continues to be the record breaking spending going on in this year’s school district races. Everyone from the local press, to the national press, to the education-focused press, to UTLA to Bernie Sanders was talking about the amount of money being spent by pro-charter school candidates to upend the current pro-public school majority on the LAUSD School Board. In just the past weeks (and echoing abominable messaging of previous campaigns), the attack mailers against candidates Jackie Goldberg and Scott Schmerelson have been called anti-semitic, untrue and Trump-Like.
At least one ad has been disavowed by its creators, the California Charter School Alliance, targeting Scott Schmerelson.
Sara Roos wrote more on spending over the weekend here at EdEx if you missed it. And hey! The article got a shout-out from UTLA.
Speaking of elections, last week we endorsed California Proposition 13 because of the impact it would have on improving the buildings in which our students learn. As we’ve been studying it further, and more analysis has come out, we’re less enthusiastic for 13, although would still recommend a vote for it. Sara Roos opines:
Short answer: Very Very Firmly hold your nose while voting YES.
IMHO this is a quite obnoxious Developer give-away that in return we do get improvements in public education with. Your taxes will not go up, no matter what folks listening to Jarvis may have misunderstood them to be insinuating. Jarvis is not actually saying that, but folks are misunderstanding the weasel words of those gurus so 🤷♀️.
Your Taxes Will Not Increase with this proposition. But Developers' earnings will. Your kids' public school facilities will improve. And lots of union construction will be more prevalent. It will all sunset in 6 years. If you want to join an effort to slow our precipitous decline in our standard of living, vote YES.
Another election happened last week, as UTLA elected a new President, Cecily Myart-Cruz. Myart Cruz is a veteran public school teacher who the Times describes as active in the activist wing of the UTLA for years. Cruz, the current vice-president, is swapping positions with Alex Caputo-Pearl who led the union during last year’s teacher strike.
Parents with Shirley Avenue Elementary School in Reseda are asking for your support to fight a charter co-location on their campus. You can join them by signing a petition at Change.Org.
CCSA thanks CTA and UTLA for pushing Prop 13!
$500,000,000 million goes to charters to spend on ‘facilities’ read low interest loans to charters to buy high-priced California real estate. SWEET! They can spend it wherever they want and convert facilities to another use whenever they want!
Charters have access to the rest of the money, too. All they have to do is finance 40% -45% and the state will lend them the rest. KA-CHING!
People who live inside and not on the street will pay this bond money off and it will be on the property tax bills. This includes renters.
$500m is 3.3% of $15m. As mentioned, this is a compromise bill in several directions with several special interests being bought off — CCSA is one of them. Big Developers is another. Unions is another. And the beneficiaries of this political horse trading is our kids. I still believe “yes” is the right vote, therefore — with hand _firmly_ gripping the schnoz. YMMV. See the legislative analyst’s report here for a clear layout of the winners: https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=13&year=2020
UTLA has rid the district of more than 5,000 veteran teachers over the last ten or so years. This will not change under Ms Myart-Cruz especially since Caputo-Pearl will be pulling the strings. UTLA is not a union, unions protect members.
With whom do I have to compromise in order to get half a billion in state guaranteed bond money to spend on real estate?
Hens compromising with the fox is never a good idea.