This is much ado about nothing” – Attorney Mark Werksman According to the Felony Complaint against Refugio (Ref) Rodriguez, he and his cousin allegedly conspired in a scheme that hid the source of almost $25,000 in campaign donations from the public. While a lawyer involved in the case maintains that this is “a small amount […]
Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil: The Failures of LAUSD’S Charter School Division
State law provides that an authorizer is not liable for debts, obligations [or] liabilities so long as [they] provide appropriate oversight. We believe we are providing appropriate oversight.” [emphasis mine] – José Cole-Gutiérrez As the District slides towards bankruptcy due to declining enrollment, the LAUSD School Board is set to act on another round of […]
Standing Up For Our Public Schools
Charters are publicly funded but privately managed and, like most privately run businesses, the schools prefer to avoid transparency in their operations.” – Bobbi Murray / Capital and Main In the past five years, the LAUSD Board had denied nine charter renewals while renewing at least 162. The charter industry, therefore, considered the Board to […]
Fighting Off a Prop-39 Parasite
Financial records obtained by The Times show that, as Celerity’s CEO, [Vielka McFarlane] paid for many of these expenses with a credit card belonging to her charter schools, which receive the bulk of their funding from the state.” – Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2017 When LAUSD denied two Celerity charter renewals in October LAUSD […]
Employees of Charter Group Raided By FBI Among Funders of Mónica García’s Campaign
Federal agents raided the offices of a network of Los Angeles charter schools Wednesday as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of fraud and fiscal mismanagement.” – Los Angeles Times, 1/25/17 Exempting charters “from many of the regulations that govern traditional schools” was supposed to be a way to remove barriers to innovation. Unfortunately, […]
The Absurdity of Charter School Oversight in L.A.
This is about the fact that they want to kill our charters and nothing more.” -Magnolia CEO Caprice Young The sky is falling.” -Chicken Little As usual, the LAUSD Board spent a significant portion of their time at Tuesday’s meeting ignoring the needs of students enrolled in District schools so they could focus on charter […]
Following Monica’s Money
Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres” Tell me with whom you walk, and I’ll tell you who you are. – Mexican Proverb as quoted by Antonio Villaraigosa As headlined in the L.A. School Report, “L.A. Unified school board member Monica Garcia dominates fundraising in re-election bid”. She has raised “nearly 150 times […]
Education for Sale: LAUSD and Proposition 39
This is the final section of my paper: Education for Sale: LAUSD Throws the Fight in Its Competition with Charters. The previous section can be found at: Lack of Oversight The CCSA has also shown a willingness to use the courts to gain the upperhand in its competition with public schools. It has been […]