Guest op-ed by Ellen Lubic, educator and longtime Los Angeles resident. She is founder of Joining Forces for Education.
We Must Stop This!
Join me and other Los Angeles residents, Tuesday, October 29, 2013, at 9 AM at 333 South Beaudry St. in downtown LA — and I would hope to see hundreds of parents, teachers, and others in line.
It is not only disheartening, but it is downright alarming when our Mayor joins forces with elite and powerful law firms, with PR firms, with major businesses who profit off us all, with the billionaires who are fighting to take over public schools and public education for investment opportunities, in order to retain a mediocre Superintendent of Schools, John Deasy, who has made so many egregious mistakes even beyond the Billion Dollar iPad fiasco. Anyone with a track record such as Deasy’s would never have lasted this long in the private sector.
After a recent huge vote of 91% NO CONFIDENCE by LAUSD teachers it is only reasonable to think the Board of Education, whom We the People elected, would represent the outrage and direction of the greater community which elected them, to NOT SIGN another contract to keep this man on and to give him even more time to run the District into the ground, into bankruptcy, as he is doing. His salary, and all the budget line items he suggests and approves, are paid for by the People, not by Broad, nor Gates, nor any of the self-appointed billionaire movers and shakers who are attempting to destroy LAUSD and turn it into LA Charter District.
Garcetti was not elected to run the public schools, but he is now following in the footsteps of his predecessor Villaraigosa who brought in billionaire donations to our local elections to try to get their Charter supporter candidates placed in what they then saw as a position of power and support for their boy, Deasy. That would have been the coup they needed and they would have backed a strong Board.
But since that failed them and Ratliff and Zimmer beat the big money choices, now they and their PR experts spin the tale to excoriate the School Board for being too nosy about what Deasy is doing or not doing. They even set a smoke screen of old portended misdeeds by a Board member to redirect public attention away from Deasy’s failures in judgment and administration.
Which way is it Eli, Eric, et al? If your members such as Garcia and Galatzan run things then you support the School Board, but now that there are five teachers on the Board, and they question the potential fraud and possible sweetheart deals, and the terrible lack of concrete long term planning leading to such huge waste of taxpayer money, all of a sudden it is the fault of the Board.
This is utter nonsense and we should all see through it.
We the public do not want you to usurp our ballot box decisions and turn them to your own end…to the profit making Parent Revolution scams, to the imbedded Charters for vast profit all paid for by the public, using TFA kids to try to teach with no real training, to the outrageously over priced iPads. None of it pulls the wool over our eyes.
It is certainly not the role of big business to be bullying the community and to take over the legal will of the people with yet another ‘bait and switch’ operation. Deasy resigns says the LA TImes…rejoicing starts. Ah no, he says he is only thinking about it…and then in steps the Mayor and the red-faced Times, and Broad with his lawyers and PR firm and rich buddies in business, and beg Deasy to stay as they all slap our hands, and castigate the Board for not kissing Deasy’s feet.
We have all been “pranked” in the current youth vernacular. It is disgusting and shameful to have them all collude in this orgy of political theater orchestrated to confuse us, whom they see as the little people, the hapless people, who need their leadership as they are picking our pockets.
This opportunistic behavior with the over-bearing mendacity, manipulation, and attempt to control the peasants, you and me, should bring out everyone on Tuesday morning to the School Board meeting where Deasy’s contract signing, or not, is to be discussed.
It happens at 9 AM at 333 So.Beaudry St. in downtown LA and I would hope to see hundreds of parents, teachers, and others in line. And this time, the Police should not let in the VIPs to fill the room before We the People can get in and get our slips to speak our minds for the 3 minutes allotted to us. I am nonplussed when standing in line for hours, to have 30 or 40 people appear at the door, cutting in front of the rest of us. The word on the street is that this is going to happen with Deasy/Garcetti minions filling the room with Deasy supporters so the real people cannot get heard.
I am sick and tired of our voices being silenced. See you all Tuesday at 9 AM.
Ellen Lubic, the Angry Educator
