“[C]harter schools with privately appointed boards do not represent the public but make decisions about how public funds are spent…” — NAACP Wendy Carrillo is an enemy of public education. Carrillo is a contributing “network member” of the right-wing Education Post, an anti-public education and pro-privatization outfit funded by the Walton Family Foundation and other […]
Drinking A Charter School’s Kool-Aid
As key partners of our school community, I wanted you to be aware of a pending new story and offer an explanation of the situation. A reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News has approached El Camino Real Charter High School (ECRCHS) on multiple occasions. His focus: a request made by LAUSD last October to […]
Trading Student Safety for Independence?
At the Los Angeles Unified School District, our goals are…School safety” -LAUSD As a father of two daughters who require special education services, I know from personal experience that the LAUSD has a less than stellar track record of working with parents to meet the needs of our students. A parent should not have to […]
Edison Schools: Proof That Grifters Can Be Defeated, Part II
By Caroline Grannan, parent activist Part II The fun of getting interviewed by a hostile though icily courteous New York Times reporter. This is a follow-up to my earlier post marking the 15th anniversary of the Edison Schools controversy in San Francisco, which launched me as a mommy volunteer critic of so-called education “reform” until […]
Edison Schools: Proof That Grifters Can Be Defeated, Part I
By Caroline Grannan, parent activist Part I It’s been 15 years this month since the Edison Schools sh*tstorm hit San Francisco and I got deeply involved as a mommy volunteer advocate, and stayed that way for a long time. Edison Schools Inc. was a for-profit company that sold itself to school districts as a manager […]
LAUSD School Board Member-Elect Ref Rodriguez’s Financial Disclosures (And Possible Conflicts of Interest)
The voters of Los Angeles Unified School District 5 have made a big mistake in electing Ref Rodriguez to the school board this past May. Questions remain about his financial ties to various organizations he holds leadership positions in that would represent a conflict of interest if, as a LAUSD school board member, he were […]
Was Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez self-dealing and running front groups?
By Robert D Skeels Currently under investigation by a number of authorities, including the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Office of Inspector General and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Charter industry mogul Refugio “Ref” Rodriguez’s innumerable front groups are hard to keep track of. The following articles should help contextualize the situation, […]
LA Progressive: Ref Rodriguez—What the PUC Is Going on Here?
By Robert D Skeels “The L.A. County district attorney’s office indicated Monday that it expected another, separate probe to be conducted by L.A. Unified’s inspector general.” — LA Times Ref Rodriguez: What the PUC Is Going on Here? In the LA Progressive piece What the PUC Is Going on Here? Hans Johnson and Hector Huezo of […]
How is CCSA’s Ref Rodriguez hiding his billionaire and ideologue contributors?
“In the long run, charter schools are being strategically used to pave the way for vouchers. The voucher advocates, who are very powerful and funded by right-wing foundations and families, recognize that the word voucher has been successfully discredited by enlightened Americans who believe in the public sector. So they’ve resorted to two strategies. First, […]
PROFITS! Why Ref Rodriguez and his CCSA covet the LAUSD Board Seat
“The education industry represents, in our opinion, the final frontier of a number of sectors once under public control… represents the largest market opportunity… the K-12 market is the Big Enchilada.” — Montgomery Securities prospectus quoted in Jonathan Kozol’s The Big Enchilada Most of the time the charter school industry’s corporate leadership is able to […]